Creativity is a complex construct that is conceptualized and measured in multiple ways. This study examined the relationship between creativity and personality taking this into account. It was hypothesized that applying different conceptions and measures would cause variation in the creativity-personality relationship. The participants (N = 224) were undergraduate students completed six creativity measures, a personality inventory, and a demographic questionnaire. Personality predicted more creative production (R2 = .277) than creative potential (R2 = .176) and more self-reported creativity (R2 = .348) than that which was externally-rated (R2 = .149). Personality predicted creativity beyond demographic and intellect variables, but the effects varied based on the creativity measure. Openness was most consistently and strongly related to creativity. Other personality factors demonstrated suppression effects in multiple models. Overall, the results suggest that despite relatively small effects of personality on creativity, it can help strengthen prediction in creativity models. Implications for educational settings and future research are discussed.


The future of technology lies in the diverse characteristics and capabilities of autonomous machines and devices and their application in many technical challenge. Rapid technology development, market globalization and availability of affordable electronics and controllers, have recently resulted in increased scientific and technical interest in drones as autonomous solutions for professional, as well as, amateur applications. On the other hand, researchers have been improving how manmade machines move through air by attempting to replicate animals motion by mimicking their aerial abilities.
 In this paper, we propose a development of a bio-inspired modular drone concept motivated by the bats agility, wingspan and wings folding into various shapes. The drone can be tailored for different applications, from sea port mapping, surveying, tank inspection and port traffic control to pollution monitoring and detection of illegal activities. The aerial performances of the drone allow it to be able to conduct windmills monitoring by connecting to their local monitoring units and send alerts to officials in real-time. This small bat-inspired drone is proposed to have an ability of performing flights with precisely defined trajectories. The accent will be put on the interchangeable wings, analysis of their dynamic attributes and transformation possibilities as a crucial segment of the overall drone performance. The design and fabrication process and the flight characteristics of the various wing configurations of the drone are discussed in details. Limitations of the drone, proposed solutions for further development and recommendations are also presented.


Background Clinical trials of PI monotherapy indicate that most participants maintain viral suppression and emergent protease resistance is rare. However, outcomes among patients receiving PI monotherapy for clinical reasons, such as toxicity or adherence issues, are less well studied. Methods An observational study of patients attending an HIV treatment centre in London, UK, who had received PI monotherapy between 2004 and 2013, was conducted using prospectively collected clinical data and genotypic resistance reports. Survival analysis techniques were used to examine the times to virological failure and treatment discontinuation. Results Ninety-five patients had PI monotherapy treatment for a median duration of 126 weeks. Virological failure occurred during 64% of episodes and 8% of patients developed emergent protease mutations. We estimate failure occurs in half of episodes within 2 years following initiation. Where PI monotherapy was continued following virological failure, 68% of patients achieved viral re-suppression. Despite a high incidence of virological failure, many patients continued PI monotherapy and 79% of episodes were ongoing at the end of the study. The type of PI used, the presence of baseline protease mutations and the plasma HIV RNA at initiation did not have a significant impact on treatment outcomes. Conclusions There was a higher incidence of virological failure and emerging resistance in our UK clinical setting than described in PI monotherapy clinical trials and other European observational studies. Despite this, many patients continued PI monotherapy and regained viral suppression, indicating this strategy remains a viable option in certain individuals following careful clinical evaluation.


Activation of nucleoside analogues is dependent on kinases and 5′-nucleotidases and the balance between the activity of these enzymes. The purpose of this study was to analyze deoxycytidine kinase, deoxyguanosine kinase, and 4 different 5′-nucleotidases during cell cycle progression in MOLT-4 cells. The activity of both kinases was cell cycle dependent and increased during proliferation while the activity of cytosolic 5′-nucleotidase I decreased. We could show that the kinase activity was higher than the total nucleotidase activity, which was unchanged or decreased during cell cycle progression. These data may be important in designing modern combination therapy with nucleoside analogues.


A system has been developed for expression of surface protein (SP) of the virus of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) in E. coli. For this purpose, cloning and substitution of a fragment of SP gene of HTLV-III virus under control of PL-promoter of phage lambda was carried out using pre-modified plasmid vector pPL-lambda. In the constructed plasmid pL2 1950 paranucleotides, the PvuII fragment of HTLV-III virus DNA is built-in in such a way that the frames of transcription of phage lambda protein N and SP of HTLV-III virus correspond to each other. As a result, plasmid pL2 codes for synthesis of a hybrid polypeptide consisting of phage lambda protein N (59 aminoacid residues--a. r.) and SP of HTLV-III (569 a. r.). The presence of the hybrid polypeptide in lysates of E. coli strains (K-12 delta H1 delta trp/pL2, M 5219/pL2, N 4830/pL2) was determined by solid-phase enzyme-immunoassay.


Graph prediction methods that work closely with the structure of the data, e.g., graph generation, commonly ignore the content of its nodes. On the other hand, the solutions that consider the node's information, e.g., classification, ignore the structure of the whole. And some methods exist in between, e.g., link prediction, but predict the structure piece-wise instead of considering the graph as a whole. We hypothesize that by jointly predicting the structure of the graph and its nodes' features, we can improve both tasks. We propose the Graph Learning Network (GLN), a simple yet effective process to learn node embeddings and structure prediction functions. Our model uses graph convolutions to propose expected node features, and predict the best structure based on them. We repeat these steps sequentially to enhance the prediction and the embeddings. In contrast to existing generation methods that rely only on the structure of the data, we use the feature on the nodes to predict better relations, similar to what link prediction methods do. However, we propose an holistic approach to process the whole graph for our predictions. Our experiments show that our method predicts consistent structures across a set of problems, while creating meaningful node embeddings.


Abstra ct:Cardiac valvular pathologies are often caused by rheumatic fever in young adults, atherosclerosis in elderly patients, or by congenital malformation of the heart in children, in effect affecting almost all population ages. Almost 300,000 heart valve operations are performed worldwide annually. Tissue valve prostheses have certain advantages over mechanical valves such as biocompatibility, more physiological hemodynamics, and no need for life-long systemic anticoagulation . However, the major disadvantage of biological valves is related to their durability. Nevertheless, during the Iast decade, the number of patients undergoing biological, rather than mecbanical, valve replacement has increased from half to more than three-quarters for biological implants. Continuous improvement in valve fabrication includes development of new models and shapes, novel methods of tissue treatment, and preservation and implantation techniques. These efforts are focused not only on tbe improvement of morbidity and mortality oftbe patients but also on tbe improvement of tbeir quality of life. Heart valve tissue engineering aims to provide durable, "autologous" valve prostheses . These valves demonstrate adaptive growth, which may avoid the need of repeated operations in growing patients.


The objective of this study is to show the effects that costs, reliability, and constraints have on each other in power plant outage scheduling. A unique and powerful optimizing method is used to study data from a medium-sized utility. Four optimization studies were made. It was found that different optimization criteria give different best maintenance schedules. The optimal reliability and production cost values are coupled to operating constraints and may be improved by relaxing some constraints. The potential savings must be evaluated against the inconvenience and costs of relaxing these operating constraints. Use of an optimum maintenance schedule and judicious relaxation of constraints can lead to production cost reduction on the order of 0.3%. Integer programming can solve real-life maintenance-scheduling problems in reasonable computer time. >


TiO2 nanoparticles/melamine Tri sulfonic acid (MTSA) supported on silica gel as an efficient catalytic system for simple, one pot, solvent-free and environmentally benign process for synthesis of dihydropyrimidines via Biginelli reaction at 110 °C is described. It was found that the catalyst is reusable and exhibited remarkable activity. The catalyst can be easily separated and reused several times without appreciable loss of activity. The availability and recoverability of the catalytic system with easy operation and work up make this catalytic system attractive for organic synthesis.


In the middle ages, Franciscan monks from Western Europe and Nestorian monks from Syria traveled to the Far East to spread the gospel and to establish their churches in the region. Although they shared similar goals, Franciscans and Nestorians employed different methods of persuasion, so the results and legacy of their missionary work differed considerably. The Nestorians were remarkably successful in the Far East, as proven by the gravestones in the Mongolian steppes; in their home countries, ironically, they were increasingly marginalized. In contrast, the Franciscans and other European travelers to the Far East did not achieve similar missionary success and scarcely left a mark on the region after the mid-fourteenth century. The travelogues and letters they composed for their audiences at home, however, had a great impact, both on late-medieval European ambitions to open up the world and on the return of the Catholic mission in seventeenth-century China. In summary, the Nestorians' legacy was stone monuments in the East and the Franciscans left inspiring texts in the West. A comparison of the respective practices of Christian missionary activity in the Far East may further recognition of how medieval cross-cultural travel affected both the regions of origin and the regions of destination in various ways. Therefore, even though the Christian presence in the Far East vanished in the late middle ages, it had lasting consequences for the societies from whence the missionaries came. It not only broadened the West's knowledge of the Far East but also influenced the renewal of Christian missions in the region from the seventeenth century onwards.


In recent years, compression of encrypted image has attracted significantly towards research interest. This paper proposes an approach to compression of encrypted image based on wavelet and random permutation. Original image is first encrypted using random permutation then compressed using wavelet. The primary focus of this work is on the practical design of a pair of image encryption and compression schemes. The process of compressing the encrypted images is nearly same as compressing unencrypted image. The receiver does decryption and enhancement process. Decryption process is same as encryption process but for enhancement we have used median filter. Thus this paper focuses on achieving better security and improved transmission rate.


The demand for higher clock speed and higher level of integration, and, at the same time, smaller die size for high-performance electronic packages has accompanied by a drastic increase in package power consumption and dissipation. Large transient thermal gradients are thus experienced upon each power-on. Unlike thermal cycling test which is usually performed to evaluate the fatigue life of solder joints, rapid thermal transient is of major concern for overall package reliability. This rapid transient at short-time scale suggests that dynamic thermal-mechanical phenomenon in packages needs to be fully understood and the associated failure mechanisms identified for improved microelectronic reliability. In this study, how rapid thermal transients affect the generation, spectral characteristics, and interference of the induced stress waves propagating in high-density packaging configurations undergoing power cycling are investigated. The short-time effects facilitated by dispersive waves in current packaging configurations are studied and the possible mechanisms behind mechanical failures including solder cracking and delamination are discussed. Knowledge base thus established enables a set of guidelines to be proposed for developing new types of polymeric underfill material. Materials hence formulated would have optimal characteristics in response to the short-time effect to effectively discourage transient wave phenomena and thus improve the overall package reliability. The presented investigation provides a better understanding of the underlying physics governing the response of a high-performance package subject to rapid thermal-mechanical transients, which could potentially be the foundation for the formulation of new molecularly designed packaging materials and the associated manufacturing processes.Copyright © 2002 by ASME


The measurement of phase resolved partial discharge requires a gigantic memory capacity to store all the waves of the PD test results. This limitation eventually hinders the testing. It is necessary to optimize on the aspect of memory storage capability to reduce the storage requirements. In light of foregoing, the partial discharge data retrieval techniques with sampling rate methods were used to detect the peak of partial discharge as well as the PD constituent representatives. The optimization process was performed by using integration of oscilloscope and LabVIEW software. The partial discharge data recording can be easily confined to the points of the partial discharge occurrence only. As results, the storage points were reduced by taking wave magnitude associated with PD, thereby resulting in more representative data. Therefore, this optimized method was able to reduce the file size of the test results up to 99 percent of PD original size thereby decreasing the usage of hard disk storage.


In recent years the issue of animal welfare in intensive livestock production systems has been subjected to increasing attention from media, politicians and the wider public. This increasing rejection of concerning meat production by western society has placed food manufactures along the meat supply chain in a difficult situation characterized by conflicting demands. On the one hand, the farming and food industries operate economically in a field where cost degression and growth are required in order to remain internationally competitive. Accordingly, in the past the focus of farms and firms has been primarily on the exploitation of economies of scale, whereas to a certain extent aspects of animal welfare have been neglected. On the other hand, consumer awareness of food products is constantly changing, and there has been a continuous trend towards the purchase and consumption of foods that have been produced in a more animal friendly way. But there is a paucity of clearly understandable information on animal welfare standards that would enable consumers to select products of animal origin on the basis of a conscious purchase decision. Besides an increase in legislative regulation, improved animal welfare standards are most frequently achieved through the establishment of so-called animal welfare labels to meet the expectations of society and to allow consumers to make informed purchasing decisions. However, so far, there has been no informed assessment of the various approaches to improve animal welfare. It is, therefore, the aim of this paper to provide an assessment of selected European animal welfare labels for poultry on the basis of a developed set of criteria and thereby to contribute to better informing consumers and to further improve existing approaches. The criteria-based evaluation shows, that there are significant differences between the labels investigated regarding the improvement of animal welfare standards. The results obtained are consequently of far-reaching importance for both consumers and enterprises that are considering entering the market segment for animal welfare products.


Real-time interactive slicing is a tool of choice for exploring 3D anatomic data sets such as the Visible Human. We offer real-time slicing on the Web by partitioning the application between a Java applet (the client) and the Web server. Two approaches for partitioning the work between the client and the server are presented and compared. In the first approach, we transfer complete compressed slices from the server to the client. In the second approach, we successively build a local cache on the client by transferring small subvolumes of increasing resolution from the server to the client. The client is responsible for extracting the displayed slices from the local data cache. The Web-based Real-time Visible Human navigator can be accessed at our Visible Human Web site at http://visiblehuman.epfl.ch. A high-bandwidth network connection is recommended. The web server offering real-time interactive slicing together with anatomic structure labeling opens new perspectives for teaching anatomy to paramedical and medical professions.


Elevated concentrations of dlmethylsulf~de (DMS) sometimes occur In sea water dunng phytoplankton blooms. To determine the factors controlling the concentration of DMS in sea water, the development and fate of a bloom dominated by Phaeocystis sp. was studied in relation to the production and fate of DMS and its precursor P-dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) in a pelagic mesocosm expenment. The part of this study described here focused on the role of sedimentation of algae as a loss factor for DMSP and as a trigger mechanism for DMS production A hypothesis tested was that high DMS concentrations occur after a mass release of DMSP from algae due to mass sedimentat~on followed by cell lysis on the mesocosm floor. This was studied by monitoring Phaeocystis cell numbers, chlorophyll a, particulate DMSP, dissolved DMSP and DMS In the water column, and by daily measurements of the sedimentation of Phaeocystis cells. We evaluated a technique for measuring DMSP indirectly as acrylate by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). This method seemed to be hampered by DMSP-lyase activity of Phaeocystis sp during sample processing, but gave good results when Phaeocy~t i s~as not dominant. Sedinlentation rates of Phaeocystis sp. were found to be high and constantly related to the standing stock in the water column. The average sinking velocity of Phaeocystis cells was 1.4 m d-' At the decline of the bloom, sedimentation accounted for approximately 50% of the observed loss of Phaeocystis biomass, which indicates that cell lysis may have been important as well at this time The decline of the bloom did not result in an elevated DMS concentration. However, a significant peak in DMS was observed at the end of the exponential growth phase of the Phaeocystis bloom It was concluded that the decline of a Phaeocystis bloom does not lead to an elevated DMS concentration in the water column. The continuously high sedimentation of living Phaeocystis cells suggests that, in these mesocosms, lysis after sedimentation was an important mechanism for release of DMSP from cells and, hence, production of DMS. Nevertheless, this mechanism in itself can not explain the strong fluctuations in the DMS concentration observed in this experiment


Numerous resource allocating and releasing will cause fragmentation which will seriously affect the I/O performance of file systems. One method to solve this problem is file defragmentation. This paper focuses on fragmentation detection, the key part of the file defragmentation. We estimate file fragmentation situation through file's layout, and then analyze the detailed effects of the situation on performance measurement. Then we quantize this by the file's "fragmentation degree" through theoretical and experimental analyses. Finally we use it to estimate the file's fragmentation and decide whether the file needs to be defragmented.


OF THESIS FINITE ELEMENT MODELING OF AN INFLATABLE WING Inflatable wings provide an innovative solution to unmanned aerial vehicles requiring small packed volumes, such as those used for military reconnaissance or extra-planetary exploration. There is desire to implement warping actuation forces to change the shape of the wing during flight to allow for greater control of the aircraft. In order to quickly and effectively analyze the effects of wing warping strategies on an inflatable wing, a finite element model is desired. Development of a finite element model which includes woven fabric material properties, internal pressure loading, and external wing loading is presented. Testing was performed to determine material properties of the woven fabric, and to determine wing response to static loadings. The modeling process was validated through comparison of simplified inflatable cylinder models to experimental test data. Wing model response was compared to experimental response, and modeling changes including varying material property models and mesh density studies are presented, along with qualitative wing warping simulations. Finally, experimental and finite element modal analyses were conducted, and comparisons of natural frequencies and mode shapes are presented.


Ten years after the popular uprising that became a brutal war, Syrian and Syrian-Palestinian authors are engaged in the struggle to craft a historical consciousness that can acknowledge and mourn for their recent revolutionary past without reifying it. As they write in and of material, political, and social ruin, their works echo collective traumas in regional memory: the Palestinian nakba, the rise of Syria's Assad regime, Lebanon's civil war, the 2003 occupation of Iraq, and more. The ruin appears cruelly recursive, yet it is arrested in the corpus of works discussed in this article: poetry by Firas Sulaiman and Osama Esber; prose by Yassin al-Haj Saleh, Samer Yazbek, and Ra'id Wahsh; and documentary film by the Abounaddara Collective. Drawing on Arabic poetic modernism and regional politics, I argue that ruin imagery—ranging from war's rubble to ancient artefacts—carries distinctive structures of temporal anticipation in Syrian literary and cultural memory. The writers and filmmakers discussed deploy formal and thematic means of stasis and repetition, displacement and accumulation, to summon these temporal structures—only to refuse, interrupt, and reroute them. I argue that such poetic engineerings of the images of ruin assert the singularity of the Syrian present within broader collective memories of ruin. As such, they raise a historicizing challenge to the current academic dominance of reading ruin imagery, notably from the Middle East, through an imperial lens.


A gradient in the density of hyperpolarization-activated cyclic-nucleotide gated (HCN) channels is necessary for the emergence of several functional maps within hippocampal pyramidal neurons. Here, we systematically analyzed the impact of dendritic atrophy on nine such functional maps, related to input resistance and local/transfer impedance properties, using conductance-based models of hippocampal pyramidal neurons. We introduced progressive dendritic atrophy in a CA1 pyramidal neuron reconstruction through a pruning algorithm, measured all functional maps in each pruned reconstruction, and arrived at functional forms for the dependence of underlying measurements on dendritic length. We found that, across frequencies, atrophied neurons responded with higher efficiency to incoming inputs, and the transfer of signals across the dendritic tree was more effective in an atrophied reconstruction. Importantly, despite the presence of identical HCN-channel density gradients, spatial gradients in input resistance, local/transfer resonance frequencies and impedance profiles were significantly constricted in reconstructions with dendritic atrophy, where these physiological measurements across dendritic locations converged to similar values. These results revealed that, in atrophied dendritic structures, the presence of an ion channel density gradient alone was insufficient to sustain homologous functional maps along the same neuronal topograph. We assessed the biophysical basis for these conclusions and found that this atrophy-induced constriction of functional maps was mediated by an enhanced spatial spread of the influence of an HCN-channel cluster in atrophied trees. These results demonstrated that the influence fields of ion channel conductances need to be localized for channel gradients to express themselves as homologous functional maps, suggesting that ion channel gradients are necessary but not sufficient for the emergence of functional maps within single neurons.


The need to increase poultry production in southern Africa to meet the increasing protein requirement of the growing population is becoming a great concern. The quality of poultry meat and eggs produced in terms of taste, texture, flavour and leanness are of importance to consumers. Crossbreeding indigenous with exotic strains of chickens is one of the main factors that can improve food and nutrition security in southern Africa. In this article, ways in which the quality and quantity of poultry meat and eggs can be improved for sustainable food and nutrition security in southern Africa, with emphasis on crossbreeding as a prospective food security (protein) stability technique are discussed. This article is based on critical analysis of the literature and discusses and evaluates various crossbreeding methods of chickens that have been carried out in African countries. Comparative studies on the implementation, failures and successes of crossbreeding of chickens in African countries, such as Egypt, Botswana, Malawi and South Africa among others are reviewed. Crossbreeding, combined with selection, information dissemination, improved management and technology, is recommended for the geometric increase in poultry meat and egg production in southern Africa to improve food and nutrition security.


This book answers an important and unanswered question: How consumption – a horrible disease - came to be the glamorous and artistic romantic malady. It argues that literary works (cultural media) are not secondary in our perceptions of disease, but are among the primary determinants of physical experience. In order to explain the apparent disparity between literary myth and bodily reality, it examines literature and medicine from the Renaissance to the late Victorian period, and covers a wide range of authors and characters, major and minor, British and American (Shakespeare, Sterne, Mary Tighe, Keats, Amelia Opie; Clarissa, Little Eva). Lawlor shows that consumption's symptoms made it a suitable disease for the Christian Good Death and a disease of love. These two discourses of consumption and the rise of sensibility and nerve medicine arrived at the moment of Romantic consumption and developed into the more Evangelical version of consumption in the Victorian era. The book was supported by AHRC research leave (matched-funding). Lawlor's PhD student's thesis, 'Gender and Disease in eighteenth-century literature' (Grant) relates to this research. Lawlor's new project on fashionable diseases emerged from the questions posed by the book.


Author(s): Wilkens, Christopher A. | Advisor(s): Papadimitriou, Christos H | Abstract: There is a growing research tradition in the interface between Economics and Computer Science: Economic insights and questions about incentives inform the design of systems, while concepts from the theory of computation help illuminate classical Economics problems. This dissertation presents results in both directions of the intellectual exchange.Originally designed by industry engineers, the sponsored search auction has raised many interesting questions and spurred much research in auction design. For example, early auctions were based on a first-price payment model and proved to be highly unstable --- this dissertation explores how improvements in the bidding language could restore stability. We also show that a first-price auction offers substantially better performance guarantees when a single advertiser may benefit from multiple ads. Another interesting problem arises because sponsored search auctions must operate with limited information about a user's behavior --- we show how sampling can maintain incentive compatibility even when the auctioneer incorrectly predicts the user's behavior.Computational tools also offer novel ways to understand the limits of complex economic systems. For example, a fundamental observation in this intellectual exchange is that people cannot be expected to solve computationally intractable problems. We show that this insight engenders a new form of stability we call complexity equilibria: when production has economies of scale, markets may be stable because finding a good deviation is computationally intractable. We also use techniques from communication complexity to show that equilibrium prices, even when they exist, may need to encode an impractical amount of information to guarantee that a market clears.


Guillain–Barre´ syndrome (GBS) is an immune-mediated peripheral neuropathy. The goal of this research was the identification of biomarkers associated with recovery from GBS. In this study, we compared the transcriptome of PBMCs from a GBS patient and her healthy twin to discover possible correlates of disease progression and recovery. The study was then extended using GBS and spinal cord injury unrelated patients with similar medications and healthy individuals. The early growth response gene-2 (EGR2) was upregulated in GBS patients during disease recovery. The results provided evidence for the implication of EGR2 in GBS and suggested a role for EGR2 in the regulation of IL-17, IL-22, IL-28A, and TNF- b cytokines in GBS patients. These results identified biomarkers associated with GBS recovery and suggested that EGR2 overexpression has a pivotal role in the downregulation of cytokines implicated in the pathophysiology of this acute neuropathy. The Journal of Immunology , 2016, 196: 000–000.


The management of technology and engineering projects within an organizational context continues to fall short on a number of levels, especially when considering that projects and programs undertaken across different industries do not always achieve the required project outputs satisfactorily. Moreover, there is also an apparent disconnect between technical activities and project management processes as well as difficulties caused by inadequate project planning. In order to address these issues, engineering systems thinking has been found to contribute to a number of favourable project management features. Consequently, this chapter will identify approaches for improving the project management process through exploring the application of systems engineering and systems thinking to the management of projects. This will be undertaken through an extensive literature review of supporting material and conceptual analysis of how systems engineering and systems thinking can be applied to project planning. Through building on this analysis and from work in the literature, a new model for project management has been developed that is based on four systems-based levers, which are: multidisciplinary and holistic; requirements-driven; project interdependencies; and systems techniques. The utility and flexibility of this innovative management framework has been explored through an initial application to a case study involving a technology project on the development of composite materials for aerospace applications. This case study revealed that there are a range of systems methodologies that can be deployed in order to improve the project planning process and ultimately contribute to project success.


Vocal communication is the main mechanism to exchange information in many groups of animals, and anurans represent an impressive example of complex acoustic communication signals. To date several calls with different and partly multiple meanings have been described for numerous species. Anuran calls were found to be species-specific, providing important taxonomic information, and advertisement calls are frequently used for systematic assignments. The closely related poison dart frogs Epipedobates anthonyi and Epipedobates tricolor inhabit geographically disjunct areas in Ecuador and Peru. Both species are very similar in appearance and have frequently been confused. Consequently, multiple scientific publications on E. tricolor refer to E. anthonyi instead and vice versa. This is also true for the descriptions of the species' advertisement call. So far, no comparative study on the species' calls exists. Here we analyze and compare the calls of E. anthonyi and E. tricolor. We found the advertisement calls of both species to be very similar in general but to differ in pulse frequency and interval. Thus, they can be distinguished with certainty. However, a comparison of characteristic call patterns between populations revealed intraspecific variation to be higher than interspecific variation, which questions the usefulness of calls for species delimitation of frogs for the genus Epipedobates.


DNA, due to its double-helical structure, is subject to changes in topology due to the nature of transcription and replication. To overcome this, cells have processes and enzymes that ameliorate these changes. One such group of enzymes are the DNA topoisomerases, which are responsible for the maintenance of DNA topology. Despite this important role, these enzymes participate in illegitimate recombination (IR), which is genetic recombination between regions of DNA that share little or no homology. This can result in chromosomal rearrangements and is often a consequence of DNA-damaging agents. A consequence of topoisomerase-induced IR is thought to be therapy-related acute myeloid leukaemia (tAML). Analogously, there is evidence that exposure to sublethal concentrations of ciprofloxacin, a topoisomerase inhibitor, can cause resistance to non-quinolone antibiotics. This may work by a similar mechanism as that proposed for t-AML. This project centres around the examination of DNA gyrase-mediated IR focussing on the proposed subunit-exchange model. Using Blue-Native PAGE, I set up an assay to examine subunit exchange in topoisomerases. I have also characterised previously identified gyrase hyper-recombination mutations, known to increase the frequency of IR. Furthermore, I have investigated quinolone-induced antibiotic resistance and what the mechanism is. Here, I show that DNA gyrase can undergo subunit exchange, and that this seems to occur within higherorder oligomers of the enzyme, which have not been investigated before. Biochemical characterisation of the hyper-recombination mutations shows that they impair DNA gyrase activity which, in vivo, may have downstream consequences that may lead to IR. Using an in vivo assay where E. coli is treated with subinhibitory levels of quinolones, I have seen resistance to other non-quinolone antibiotics. This is not seen when other antibiotics, including other topoisomerase inhibitors, are tested. Whole genome sequencing has revealed point mutations that explain the resistances seen, however other larger chromosomal modifications have been observed as well.


Gough's Cavern is an extensive and much-branching subterranean waterway, which opens at the base of the cliffs on the south side of a picturesque gorge in the Carboniferous Limestone of the Mendips,near the village of Cheddar. For many years the proprietor,Mr. R. C. Gough, has worked the cavern, clearing out without much method the accumulation of ages, in order to make a comfortable and easy access for visitors to the principal chambers; and quite recently the grandeur of the vaulting and the beautiful stalactites in the more inaccessible parts have been revealed by the introduction of the electric light. In carrying out these necessary improvements, beds of stalagmite and cave-earth, blocks of limestone, pebbles and sand have been removed from the entrance and passages ; and the bones and teeth of extinct and existing animals, with human relics (prehistoric and historic) have been brought to light, and are now to be found crowded together in a small museum near the entrance. The objects prove that the caves were the alternate resort of extinct animals and man. The cases contain jawbones and teeth of the cave-hyaena, cave-bear, cave-lion, woolly rhinoceros, boar, horse, deer, Irish elk, etc., which have at various times been taken out of the cave-earth during the excavations ; but they were never found in large numbers, while flint-flakes, knives, scrapers, borers, and chips were plentiful, and bone and horn-borers, needles, and pins were some-times met with. From the takus at the base of the cliffs, which rose high


The data of 93 patients (age 11.4 ± 9.4 years, range 8 months ‐ 56 years) who underwent pulmonary balloon valvuloplasty (PBV) for valvular pulmonic stenosis (PS) in our institution are reviewed. The patients were classified into three groups: Group I (34 patients) had a right ventricular (RV) to aortic systolic pressure ratio of < 1, Group II (39 patients) had suprasystemic RV systolic pressures, and Group III (20 patients) included patients with elevated mean right atrial (RA) pressures irrespective of the RV systolic pressures. The percentage drop in immediate postdilatation peak systolic gradients (PSG) and the follow‐up PSG were similar in the three groups and were not influenced by any predilatation patient characteristics. A balloon‐annulus ratio < 1 predicted a poorer follow‐up outcome. Nine patients, eight of Group III and one of Group II, experienced difficult procedures requiring sequential use of progressively larger balloon catheters. Eleven patients, six of Group II and five of Group III, experienced procedure‐related events (hypotension, bradycardia/asystole, hypoxia, apnea, tachyarrhythmias, and seizures) and one patient (Group II) died. Although changes in immediate and follow‐up gradients after PBV are not influenced by the severity of PS, difficult procedures and procedure‐related events are particularly common in patients with severe PS and elevated RA pressures. A cautious and planned approach is therefore indicated in these patients.


This study was based on a key question: "Are the developing countries putting adequate effort into entrepreneurship education to develop and grow their economies to become developed countries?" Since it is believed that entrepreneurship education is not fully harnessed in Africa, it is imperative to promote entrepreneurship education (EE) in order to enhance economic growth. This could be achieved by educating young people about the principle of entrepreneurship at an early stage and this will promote enterprise creation, job creation and poverty alleviation. Many developed countries acknowledge that enterprises contribute significantly toward the economy of a country. Entrepreneurial development is therefore seen as a potential resource that contributes toward development. According to various entrepreneurship education models discussed in this study, the challenge of entrepreneurship is to create awareness of self-employment and encourage people to develop interest to engage in entrepreneurial activities. Institutions should therefore be created to develop people in the field of entrepreneurship to foster entrepreneurial activities. EE should be presented at primary, secondary and tertiary institutions to encourage more participation at a much earlier stage. This study assessed the impact of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial attitude within secondary schools in Windhoek, Namibia and sought to identify the impact of the Junior Achiever Namibia programme (JA NAM) on young learners, who attended the programme 2005 2010. The study also assessed whether entrepreneurial attitudes were developed and opportunities identified, and whether innovation, enterprise and employment opportunities were created by learners who attended the programme. The study employed both a qualitative and quantitative methodology in the form of a questionnaire to evaluate students' opinions about the JA NAM programme after attending the programme.


This paper examines the channels through which offshoring affects employment in a representative sample of German establishments, using a difference-in-differences matching approach. Offshoring establishments are identified by an increase in the share of foreign to total inputs. We find that an average offshoring establishment has higher employment, higher productivity, and higher domestic and foreign market share than if it did not engage in offshoring. Furthermore, its production depth remains unchanged indicating that offshoring predominantly operates through a substitution of domestic for foreign suppliers, rather than through a reduction of home production. This result enables us to isolate a positive productivity effect from offshoring on employment. However, employment in an establishment decreases - relative to its counterfactual - when it simultaneously engages in offshoring and restructuring of the home plant. Therefore, we are also able to isolate a negative downsizing effect of offshoring on employment.


In this paper, the experimental measurement and theoretical calculation of compressibility of La-Ba-Cu-O superconductor are presented, and its Bridgman's equation of stale is establised by using the experimental data.


[1] Mineral dust plays an important role in ocean biogeochemistry as a source of Fe which in some regions is a limiting micronutrient. Ocean models often use the output of dust transport models to estimate dust-Fe deposition. However, models have not been adequately tested, because of the dearth of long-term dust deposition measurements. Here we present the results of a 3 year deposition study in a nine-station network in Florida which is impacted by African dust every year, and we compare these measurements with estimates from global dust models. Wet deposition (WD) and bulk deposition (BD) rates of soil-related elements (Al, Fe, and Mn) were highly correlated and remarkably uniform across the state; they exhibited an extremely strong summer maximum that closely matched concurrently measured dust concentrations in Miami. The average dust WD across the network was about 150 μg cm−2 yr−1, and the BD rate was 200 μg cm−2 yr−1. Dry deposition (DD), defined as the difference between BD and WD, was a minor component, about 20–30% of the total. In a comparison with nine dust models in the Aerosol Comparisons between Observations and Models project (AeroCom) database, models correctly characterized the seasonal cycle of deposition but most substantially underestimated summer deposition. The ratios of WD to DD in the models varied greatly, ranging from about 1:1 to 30:1 in contrast to the Florida Atmospheric Mercury Study station ratio, which was about 3:1 to 4:1. These results show a clear need for more dust deposition measurements in regions dominated by oceanic air masses and for a better understanding of the treatment of deposition processes in models.


Abstract. In many climate impact studies hydrological models are forced with meteorological data without an attempt to assess the quality of these data. The objective of this study was to compare downscaled ERA15 (ECMWF-reanalysis data) precipitation and temperature with observed precipitation and temperature and apply a bias correction to these forcing variables. Precipitation is corrected by fitting it to the mean and coefficient of variation (CV) of the observations. Temperature is corrected by fitting it to the mean and standard deviation of the observations. It appears that the uncorrected ERA15 is too warm and too wet for most of the Rhine basin. The bias correction leads to satisfactory results, precipitation and temperature differences decreased significantly, although there are a few years for which the correction of precipitation is less satisfying. Corrections were largest during summer for both precipitation and temperature. For precipitation alone large corrections were applied during September and October as well. Besides the statistics the correction method was intended to correct for, it is also found to improve the correlations for the fraction of wet days and lag-1 autocorrelations between ERA15 and the observations. For the validation period temperature is corrected very well, but for precipitation the RMSE of the daily difference between modeled and observed precipitation has increased for the corrected situation. When taking random years for calibration, and the remaining years for validation, the spread in the mean bias error (MBE) becomes larger for the corrected precipitation during validation, but the overal average MBE has decreased.


Professionals express divergent views about whether adults at risk are best served by safeguarding work being incorporated into social workers' casework or being undertaken by specialist workers within local area or centralised teams. This paper draws on findings from the final two phases of a three-phase study which aimed to identify a typology of different models of organising adult safeguarding and compare the advantages and disadvantages of these. We used mixed-methods to investigate four different models of organising adult safeguarding which we termed: A) Dispersed-Generic, B) Dispersed-Specialist, C) Partly-Centralised-Specialist and D) Fully-Centralised-Specialist. In each model, we analysed staff interviews (n = 38), staff survey responses (n = 206), feedback interviews (with care home managers, solicitors and Independent Mental Capacity Advocates) (n = 28), Abuse of Vulnerable Adults (AVA) Returns, Adult Social Care User Survey Returns (ASCS) and service costs. This paper focuses on qualitative data from staff and feedback interviews and the staff survey. Our findings focus on safeguarding as a specialism, safeguarding practice (including multi-agency working, prioritisation, tensions, handover, staff confidence and deskilling) and managing safeguarding. Local authority (LA) participants described and commented on the advantages and disadvantages of their organisational model. Feedback interviews offered different perspectives on safeguarding services and implications of different models.


The matrix phase of fiber-reinforced polymer-matrix composites typically exhibits nonlinear viscoelastic/viscoplastic behavior with damage evolution. For the structural safety evaluation, these polymer characteristics should be appropriately modeled to predict crack initiation on the fiber-diameter scale accurately. In this study, the matrix modeling effect on multiscale prediction of nonlinear response and crack initiation was investigated using a multiscale approach that consists of two finite-element analysis on different length scale. On the macroscopic scale, laminate-scale finiteelement analysis assuming to be a homogeneous orthotropic lamina was conducted to obtain strain histories at failure-expected points. On the microscopic scale, periodic unit-cell (PUC) analysis considering heterogeneous material structure was performed to predict crack initiation in the matrix phase of composite laminates, based on strain histories obtained from a macroscopic laminate analysis. Two constitutive models and four sets of failure criteria were applied to the matrix phase of the unit cell for PUC analysis, and compared with each other to evaluate important factors in multiscale prediction of polymer-matrix composites.


Stanford Lehmberg, a noted authority on the Tudor period, examines the impact of the Reformation on the cathedrals of England and Wales. Based largely on manuscript materials from the cathedral archives themselves, this book is the first attempt to draw together information for all twenty-nine of the cathedrals that existed in the Tudor period. The author scrutinizes the major changes that took place during this era in the institutional structure, personnel, endowments, liturgy, and music of the cathedral and shows how the cathedrals, unlike the monasteries that were dissolved by Henry VIII, succeeded in adapting successfully to the Reformation. Forty-two illustrations depict sixteenth-century changes in cathedral buildings.Narrative chapters trace the changes that occurred during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, "Bloody" Mary, and Elizabeth I. Analytical sections are devoted to cathedral finance and cathedral music. The changing lives of cathedral musicians are described in some detail, and even greater attention is paid to the cathedral clergy, whose living conditions changed markedly when they were allowed to marry. Using a variety of sources, including such physical remains as tombs and monuments, the concluding chapter discusses the role of cathedrals in English society.Originally published in 1989.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


Accurate and robust recognition and prediction of traffic situation plays an important role in autonomous driving, which is a prerequisite for risk assessment and effective decision making. Although there exist a lot of works dealing with modeling driver behavior of a single object, it remains a challenge to make predictions for multiple highly interactive agents that react to each other simultaneously. In this work, we propose a generic probabilistic hierarchical recognition and prediction framework which employs a two-layer Hidden Markov Model (TLHMM) to obtain the distribution of potential situations and a learning-based dynamic scene evolution model to sample a group of future trajectories. Instead of predicting motions of a single entity, we propose to get the joint distribution by modeling multiple interactive agents as a whole system. Moreover, due to the decoupling property of the layered structure, our model is suitable for knowledge transfer from simulation to real world applications as well as among different traffic scenarios, which can reduce the computational efforts of training and the demand for a large data amount. A case study of highway ramp merging scenario is demonstrated to verify the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed framework.


Recent developments in mobile communication and small computing devices have had a tremendous impact on our societies. They have brought the dream of ubiquitous computing and communication closer to reality. In the near future the communication and computing devices will enable mass-market scale ubiquitous services and applications. The main challenge will be software that fulfils the needs of personalized, ambient-aware services and applications usable anywhere, anytime. A key enabler for this vision is personal networking supporting the communication in different kinds of environments: in personal domain, in ad-hoc communities, in digital home, in networks without any infrastructure as well as in networks with operator-based infrastructures.


Composition of corporate boards shows very low presence of women at nearly all developed countries, although women represent more than half university graduates and more than half labour force in this part of the world. Also, several studies show better financial results of companies that have women actively present on boards. The paper presents situation at key world markets, with special focus on Romania and Bulgaria within the European perspective. The paper demonstrates that the number of women on boards has declining trend in Romania and Bulgaria. Consequently, the paper suggests implementation of provisions to reverse the trend and to reach proposed quota by European Commission of 40% of women on corporate boards.


Mus caroli blastocysts transferred to pseudopregnant Mus musculus implant but die about midgestation. Death of the M caroli embryos is associated with infiltration of the fetoplacental units by M musculus lymphocytes, including functional cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL). To determine if specific maternal antifetal immune responses are responsible for the initiation of M caroli failure, survival of M caroli embryos transferred to M musculus with severe combined immune deficiency disease (SCID) was studied. C.B.-17 scid mice, homozygous for the scid gene, are reported to be unresponsive to T cell or B cell mitogens and to alloantigens. We have evaluated responses of C.B.-17 scid mice to M caroli xenoantigens in vivo and in vitro. C.B.-17 scid fail to reject M caroli skin grafts, and their spleen cells do not proliferate when mixed with M caroli splenocytes in a 1-way mixed leukocyte culture. Further, neither primary nor secondary challenge of C.B.-17 scid footpads with M caroli splenocytes elicits a delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) response. These results suggest that C.B.-17 scid mice are unable to recognize or respond specifically to M caroli xenoantigens. M caroli embryos transferred to C.B.-17 scid mice implant but fail to survive while cotransferred M musculus embryos are normal. Histologic examination of resorbing embryos revealed granulocytes, macrophages, large granular lymphocytes, but very few small lymphocytes at the implantation sites. Thus, it appears that specific maternal antifetal immune responses are not responsible for initiation of M caroli embryo failure in the M musculus uterus. These studies also indicate that efficient resorption of embryos does not require the function of T cells or B cells.


The paper presents the modelling, simulation and analysis of the transient behaviour of a 340 MW pump-turbine in case of emergency shutdown in generation mode with particular attention to the possible draft tube water column separation. First, the model of a pumped storage power plant with simplified layout is setup with the EPFL software SIMSEN. This model includes a penstock feeding one 340 MW pump-turbine with the related rotating inertia and a tailrace tunnel. The model of the tailrace tunnel allows for water column separation simulation. Thus, the related SIMSEN model is introduced and validations are briefly presented. Then, the influence of the tailrace tunnel length and diameter on the minimum pressure in the draft tube is investigated through a parametric study first without water column separation model. Finally, the simulation results of the transient behaviour of the pump-turbine with downstream water column separation are presented for different degree of severity triggered by the submergence and the tailrace tunnel dimensions taken as parameters.


The considerable growth in demands for wireless services have led to spectrum scarcity challenge. Cognitive radio came into practice to deal with the scarcity problem by granting cognitive users access to the licensed spectrum. However, this solution requires efficient power allocation strategies to guarantee QoS for cognitive system, reduce power consumption, and protect primary users from the cognitive users' interference impact. In this paper, we investigate the energy efficient power allocation problem for cognitive radio networks in underlay mode. We propose a novel approximated online Q-learning scheme for power allocation in which cognitive users learn with conjecture feature to select the most appropriate power level. The power allocation problem is formulated as an optimization problem with the goal to maximize energy efficiency under QoS and interference constraints. The scheme is evaluated using software defined radio testbed and simulations. The evaluation results demonstrate the scheme capability to guarantee SINR for both primary and cognitive systems and mitigate interference with minimum power consumption in comparison with other schemes.


Implicitly parallel programming systems must solve the joint problems of dependence analysis and coherence to ensure apparently-sequential semantics for applications run on distributed memory machines. Solving these problems in the presence of data-dependent control flow and arbitrary aliasing is a challenge that most existing systems eschew by compromising the expressivity of their programming models and/or the performance of their implementations. We demonstrate a general class of solutions to these problems via a reduction to the visibility problem from computer graphics.


Interdigitated back contact and emitter wrap-through solar cells were fabricated using a diffusion barrier to achieve selective phosphorus diffusion for the patterning of the base and the emitter regions on the cell rear. The addition of boron to the diffusion barrier for emitter formation in the underlying n-type base and for the formation of a back surface field in the case of a p-type base was further examined. Boron was successfully incorporated into the n-type Si for the creation of rear p/sup +/ emitters in an interdigitated back contact cell. An order of magnitude improvement in the surface recombination velocity to 10/sup 3/ cm/s could be achieved with a p/sup +/ surface field applied to the base of p-type wafers. Incorporating this technology, best multi-crystalline emitter wrap-through cell performance could be gained with a 1k-2k /spl Omega///spl square/ surface field; however, the characteristics were rapidly dominated by increased saturation current as the surface field layer concentration was increased.


Music source separation is the task of extracting an estimate of one or more isolated sources or instruments (for example, drums or vocals) from musical audio. The task of music demixing or unmixing considers the case where the musical audio is separated into an estimate of all of its constituent sources that can be summed back to the original mixture. The Music Demixing Challenge was created to inspire new demixing research. Open-Unmix (UMX), and the improved variant CrossNet-Open-Unmix (X-UMX), were included in the challenge as the baselines. Both models use the Short-Time Fourier Transform (STFT) as the representation of music signals. The time-frequency uncertainty principle states that the STFT of a signal cannot have maximal resolution in both time and frequency. The tradeoff in time-frequency resolution can significantly affect music demixing results. Our proposed adaptation of UMX replaced the STFT with the sliCQT, a time-frequency transform with varying time-frequency resolution. Unfortunately, our model xumx-sliCQ achieved lower demixing scores than UMX.


Plasma membranes from Streptomyces albus had 5.2 mol of sulfhydryl groups and 6 mol of disulfide bridges/50 kg protein whereas Escherichia coli membranes had 3.4 mol sulfhydryl groups and 4 mol disulfide bridges/50 kg protein. About 66% of the sulfhydryl groups of S. albus membranes and 22% of those of E. coli membranes were readily accessible to titration with 5,5′-dithiobis(2-dinitrobenzoic acid). o-[(3 Hydroxymercuri-2-methoxypropyl)-carbamyl]-phenoxyacetic acid (mersalyc acid). and p-chloromercuribenzoate were effective in solubilizing membrane proteins from the two bacteria. Other sulfhydryl group reagents, such as N-ethylmaleimide, iodoacetamide and iodoacetic acid, were less effective. Dithiothreitol affected the dodecylsulphate gel electrophoresis patterns of S. albus membranes and soluble fractions. This effect resulted from the reduction of pre-existing disulfide intramolecular bridges and some interchain disulfide formed during solubilization and/or storage. Dithiothreitol also affected the dodecylsulphate gel electrophoresis patterns of E. coli membranes and their soluble fractions. These results suggest that sulfhydryl groups and disulfide bridges play a role in the structural organization of these prokaryotic membranes.


Fibroblast growth factor 1 (FGF1) has been shown to reverse hyperglycemia in diabetic rodent models through peripheral and central administration routes. Previous studies demonstrated that insulin is required for central and peripheral FGF1 metabolic improvements; however, it is unknown if FGF1 targets insulin secretion at the islet level. Here we show for the first time that FGF1 increases islet insulin secretion in diabetic mouse models. FGF1 was administered via a single intracerebroventricular or multiple subcutaneous injections to leptin receptor-deficient (db/db), diet-induced obese, and control mice; pancreatic islets were isolated 7 days later for analysis of insulin secretion. Central and peripheral FGF1 significantly lowered blood glucose in vivo and increased ex vivo islet insulin secretion from diabetic, but not control, mice. FGF1 injections to the cisterna magna mimicked intracerebroventricular outcomes, pointing to a novel therapeutic potential. Central effects of FGF1 appeared dependent on reductions in food intake, whereas peripheral FGF1 had acute actions on islet function prior to significant changes in food intake or blood glucose. Additionally, peripheral, but not central, FGF1 increased islet β-cell density, suggesting that peripheral FGF1 may induce long-term changes in islet structure and function that are not present with central treatment.


Preterm birth is associated with the majority of all death and chronic disability related to pregnancy, birth and the neonatal period. The costs to families and to the health care system are enormous. Current approaches to prevent or arrest preterm labour have been unsuccessful. This failure is largely based on our poor understanding of the regulation of the timing and maintenance of parturition. Oxytocin (OT) is the most potent known uterine stimulant. It is produced in the hypothalamus and secreted into the maternal bloodstream. However, OT also is produced within the uterine decidua in late gestation and the concentrations increase around the time of labour onset. The receptor for OT (OTR) is a G-protein coupled receptor linked through G alpha(q/11) to phospholipase C (PLC). Activation of PLC causes increased inositol trisphosphate (IP3) and diacyl glycerol (DAG). IP3 activates specific receptors in the sarcoplasmic reticulum to release Ca2+ into the cytosol. This may induce further influx of Ca2+ from the extracellular space and the increased Ca2+, after binding to calmodulin, activates myosin light chain kinase to phosphorylate myosin light chains (MLC) and cause contraction of the myocyte. DAG activates protein kinase C (PKC), several isoforms of which have been implicated in uterine contraction, but the substrates for this enzyme in the uterine myocyte are essentially unknown. Oxytocin may also cause "Ca2+-sensitization," a process whereby there is a greater contractile force generated from a given increase in cytosolic Ca2+, although the contribution of this process to myometrial contraction remains an area of debate. This phenomenon occurs mainly due to inhibition of myosin light chain phosphatase (MLCP), the enzyme that reverses the phosphorylation of MLC. There are several important potential mediators of this MLCP-inhibitory pathway in the myometrium, including the small monomeric G-protein RhoA, its downstream kinase Rho-associated kinase (ROK). and the 17-kDa PKC-potentiated inhibitor of protein phosphatase 1c (CPI-17). The roles in the myometrium of other recently identified MLCP interacting molecules also requires further investigation. These Ca2+-sensitization pathways could be important in the mechanisms underlying pre-term or term labour. An increased understanding of the complexities of the multitude of regulatory mechanisms for uterine contractility may lead to new pharmacologic agents for the prevention or reversal of uterine contractions. This, in turn, is necessary to facilitate the development of novel and effective strategies to reduce the incidence of preterm birth.


Background and objective: Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is responsible for a wide range of diseases and increased number of the strains that acquired resistance to antibiotics. The emergence of Vancomycin resistance of S. aureus has been a significant impact on human health. The distribution of Vancomycin minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentrations (MBC) in S. aureus isolates, and compared antibiotic susceptibility to non-glycopeptideantibiotics in different Vancomycin MIC value groupswere assessed in this study. Methods: S. aureuswere isolated by standard method and subjected to MIC tested by broth microdilution method for Vancomycin and eight non-glycopeptideantibiotics, alsoVancomycin MBCs were determined. Results: Approximately 56% of S. aureus with a 0.5 µg/ml Vancomycin MIC were accounted, whereas 1.77% of S. aureushadan 8 µg/ml Vancomycin MIC. In other hand, most S. aureus had 1 and 2 µg/ml Vancomycin MBC. Conclusion: About half of the S. aureus isolates had 0.5 µg/ml of Vancomycin MIC. Relationship between Vancomycin MIC and resistance to non-glycopeptideantibiotics were observed, with increased Vancomycin MIC, the resistance to others antibiotics also elevated, and vice versa.


A highly efficient photovoltaic (PV) system requires a maximum power point tracker to extract peak power from PV modules. The conventional variable step-size incremental conductance (INC) maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technique has two main drawbacks. First, it uses a pre-set scaling factor, which requires manual tuning under different irradiance levels. Second, it adapts the slope of the PV characteristics curve to vary the step-size, which means any small changes in PV module voltage will significantly increase the overall step-size. Subsequently, it deviates the operating point away from the actual reference. In this paper, a new modified variable step-size INC algorithm is proposed to address the aforementioned problems. The proposed algorithm consists of two parts, namely autonomous scaling factor and slope angle variation algorithm. The autonomous scaling factor continuously adjusts the step-size without using a pre-set constant to control the trade-off between convergence speed and tracking precision. The slope angle variation algorithm mitigates the impact of PV voltage change, especially during variable irradiance conditions to improve the MPPT efficiency. The theoretical investigations of the new technique are carried out while its practicability is confirmed by simulation and experimental results.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the association between adolescent hospitalization for suicide attempts and the subsequent risk of eating disorder hospitalization.

METHOD
This was a cohort study of 162,398 adolescent girls in Quebec, Canada, including 7741 with suicide attempts before 20 years of age, matched to 154,657 adolescents with no attempt between 1989 and 2019. The main exposure measure was suicide attempt hospitalization. The main outcome measure was hospitalization for an eating disorder up to 31 years later, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and other eating disorders. We used adjusted Cox regression models to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the association between adolescent suicide attempts and eating disorder hospitalization.

RESULTS
Adolescent girls admitted for a suicide attempt had 5.55 times the risk of eating disorder hospitalization over time (95% CI 3.74-8.23), compared with matched controls. Suicide attempt was associated with anorexia nervosa (HR 3.57, 95% CI 1.78-7.17) and bulimia nervosa and other eating disorders (HR 8.55, 95% CI 5.48-13.32). Associations were pronounced in girls with repeated suicide attempts. Girls who attempted suicide through self-poisoning had an elevated risk of anorexia nervosa, whereas girls who used violent methods such as cutting or piercing had a greater risk of bulimia nervosa and other eating disorders. Suicide attempt was strongly associated with eating disorder hospitalization in the year following the attempt, but associations persisted throughout follow-up.

DISCUSSION
Suicide attempt admission is associated with the long-term risk of eating disorder hospitalization in adolescent girls.

PUBLIC SIGNIFICANCE
This study of adolescent girls suggests that suicide attempt admission is associated with the long-term risk of hospitalization for eating disorders. The risk is greatest in the year after the attempt, but persists over time. Adolescents who present with a suicide attempt may benefit from screening for eating disorders and long-term follow-up to help prevent the exacerbation or development of eating disorders.


Reservoir models are built using disparate datasets each of which may be prone to experimental and interpretational errors and therefore a resulting reservoir model is generally associated with uncertainties. One of the primary sources of uncertainties lies in the structure (or reservoir architecture) estimation from seismic data. Geostatistics can be used to integrate seismic data with well data for the purpose of structural uncertainty estimation. In this paper we present a case study from the Gulf of Mexico, where structural uncertainty associated with a seismic horizon is modeled using Markov-Bayes stochastic simulation. For this simulation, seismic data is used as "soft" or secondary data while well log derived marker depths are used as hard data. Simulation results show uncertainty distributions with smaller variance in the vicinity of the wells. However, in regions away from the wells, the interpreter-picked horizon appears to fall outside the error bounds predicted by our stochastic algorithm. Lack of well control, existence of faults, improper choice of seismic processing parameters (error in time migrated images) and interpreters' bias are some of the plausible causes of this disparity.


Tethering peptides and proteins to abiotic surfaces has the potential to create biomolecule-functionalized surfaces with useful properties. Commonly used methods of immobilization lack control over the orientation in which biological molecules are covalently or physically bound to the surface, leading to sub-optimal materials. Here we use an engineered beta-galactosidase that can be chemically immobilized on a surface with a well-defined orientation through unique surface-accessible cysteine residues. A combined study using sum frequency generation (SFG) vibrational spectroscopy and coarse grained molecular dynamics (MD) simulations was performed to determine the effects of enzyme immobilization site and abiotic surface chemistry on enzyme surface orientation, surface coverage, and catalytic activity. Two beta-galactosidase variants that were immobilized through cysteine introduced at positions 227 and 308 were studied. In both cases, when the abiotic surface was made more hydrophilic, the enzyme surface coverage decreased, but the activity increased. MD simulations indicated that this is due to the weakened interactions between the immobilized enzyme and the more hydrophilic surface. These studies provide improved understanding of how enzyme-surface interactions can be optimized to maximize the catalytic activity of surface tethered enzymes.

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In this work, numerical simulations of an elastically mounted cylinder, arranged in side by side configuration with a stationary cylinder, subjected to vortex-induced vibration (VIV) are conducted. We use OpenFOAM to perform flow simulations and the dynamic mesh method in OpenFOAM to adapt the body fitted mesh. The elastically mounted cylinder has only one DOF (it is allowed to move only transverse to the incoming flow) and the VIV phenomena is investigated in a two dimensional laminar flow regime with fixed Reynolds number at 150. Both cylinders have the same diameter D, and the center to center distance between the two cylinders is varied from 2D up to 4D. For the elastically mounted cylinder, a low reduced mass is considered and the structural damping coefficient is assigned to be zero, which produces high amplitude oscillations. For each arrangement, the reduced velocity is varied systematically in a wide range to examine its influence on the dynamic responses of both the elastically mounted cylinder and the wake behind it. The characteristic parameters, such as the Strouhal number of vortex shedding, the drag and lift forces acting on the cylinders and the maximum amplitude of vibration, are computed to characterize the effect on the VIV produced by the stationary cylinder proximity. Flow patterns were studied in an attempt to characterize the wake response based upon the associated instantaneous vorticity fields.


Without adequate nutrition, children cannot develop to their full physical and mental potentials. The nutritional status and the cognitive performance of 500 school children aged 5-12 years from urban and rural areas of Enugu State, Nigeria were evaluated. Anthropometric measurements of heights and weights were obtained using standardized procedures. The Raven's Standardized Progressive Matrices Sets A-E was used to measure cognitive performance. The relationship between these indices with the cognitive performance was evaluated using chi-square analysis. The study revealed that 27.7% of the children were stunted, 29.9% were underweight and 25.5% wasted. Rural children (32.6%) were significantly (P <=0.021) more stunted than those in the urban (22.9%). Stunting was significantly higher among 10-12 year olds in both urban (P <0.001) and rural (P <=0.001) areas. Wasting was significantly (P <0.001) more among the urban (32.9%) than rural (18.1%) school children. Children 5-9 years were more wasted in both localities. However, this was only significant (P <0.001) for children in the rural area. Underweight was found to be higher among the 10-12 year olds in both localities but this was only significant (P <0.005) for the rural area. The cognitive performances of the children were poor as 45% performed below average, while 24.7% were intellectually defective. Urban children performed significantly (P <0.001) better than their rural counterparts. Children 5-9 years performed significantly (P<0.001) better than the older ones in both localities. Significant association (P <0.005) were found between stunting, family income, mother's education, household size and cognitive performance for the rural children.This study corroborates other reports pointing to the high compelling link between nutritional status and cognitive performance in children.


BACKGROUND
Laparoscopic adrenalectomy is the gold standard procedure for most adrenal masses. However, long-term data regarding this procedure are limited. We report our institution's experience with laparoscopic adrenalectomy, determine if this procedure results in durable weight loss and resolves hypertension, diabetes mellitus, or hyperlipidemia, and identify predictors of pathology in nonfunctioning tumors.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
We retrospectively reviewed laparoscopic adrenalectomies performed for adrenal masses between May 2000 and September 2010 by nine surgeons at a single institution. Data gathered included demographics, body mass index (BMI), preoperative and postoperative imaging and biochemical testing results, length of stay, complications, pathology, medications, and resolution of hypertension, diabetes, or hyperlipidemia.

RESULTS
We removed 96 adrenal glands in 95 patients. Their average age was 55.6 years. The average length of stay was 1.8 days. Average BMI was 32.9 kg/m(2) preoperatively and 31.9 kg/m(2) postoperatively (P=.46). We experienced no conversions to open procedure and no perioperative mortality. Minor complications occurred at a rate of 1.2%. Indications for adrenalectomy were nonfunctioning tumor (n=35), pheochromocytoma (n=18), aldosteronoma (n=17), subclinical Cushing's syndrome (n=15), Cushing's syndrome (n=9), and sex hormone-secreting tumor (n=1). Hypertension improved or resolved in 63% of patients with Cushing's syndrome, 56% with aldosteronoma, and 47% with pheochromocytoma. When adrenalectomy was performed for nonfunctioning tumors, neoplasia was identified in 22.9% of patients. The most predictive factors for neoplasia were previous history of cancer and abnormal appearance on computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, or positron emission tomography scan.

CONCLUSIONS
Laparoscopic adrenalectomy is a safe procedure with a low complication rate and short hospital stay. Hypertension improves in the majority of patients with Cushing's syndrome and aldosteronoma and just under the majority of those with pheochromocytoma. In our study, abnormal radiologic appearance was a better predictor of neoplasia than size.


Abstract The Unified Theory of PAH Carcinogenicity accommodates the activities of methylated and non-methylated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and states that substitution of methyl groups on meso-methyl substituted PAHs with hydroxy, acetoxy, chloride, bromide or sulfuric acid ester groups imparts potent cancer producing properties. It incorporates specific predictions from past researchers on the mechanism of carcinogenesis by methyl-substituted hydrocarbons, including (1) requirement for metabolism to an ArCH2X type structure where X is a good leaving group and (2) biological substitution of a meso-methyl group at the most reactive center in non-methylated hydrocarbons. The Theory incorporates strong inferences of Fieser: (1) The mechanism of carcinogenesis involves a specific metabolic substitution of a hydrocarbon at its most reactive center and (2) Metabolic elimination of a carcinogen is a detoxifying process competitive with that of carcinogenesis and occurring by a different mechanism. According to this outlook, chemical or biochemical substitution of a methyl group at the reactive meso-position of non-methylated hydrocarbons is the first step in the mechanism of carcinogenesis for most, if not all, PAHs and the most potent metabolites of PAHs are to be found among the meso methyl-substituted hydrocarbons. Some PAHs and their known or potential metabolites and closely related compounds have been tested in rats for production of sarcomas at the site of subcutaneous injection and the results strongly support the specific predictions of the Unified Theory.


Abstract Due to the ageing population and the rising prevalence of chronic diseases, it is expected that the demand on informal caregivers will increase. Many informal caregivers experience burden, which can have negative consequences for their own health and that of the care recipient. To prevent caregiver burden, it is important to investigate factors associated with this burden. We aimed to identify factors associated with caregiver burden in adult informal caregivers. Among a sample of adult informal caregivers (n = 1,100) of the Dutch region of Zaanstreek‐Waterland, perceived caregiver burden, demographic factors, caregiving situation, health‐related factors and socio‐financial factors were measured as part of the national Health Survey in 2016. Using univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis, for which a backward selection method was applied, associations with caregiver burden were studied. In the multivariate model, time spent providing informal care was significantly associated with perceived caregiver burden, with an odds ratio (OR) [95% confidence interval] of 7.52 [3.93–14.39] for those spending >16 hr compared to 1–2 hr on informal care. Also providing care to their child(ren) (OR: 2.55 [1.51–4.31]), poor perceived health (OR: 1.80 [1.20–2.68]) and loneliness of the caregiver (OR: 2.05 [1.41–2.99]) were significantly associated with caregiver burden. To possibly prevent and reduce informal caregiver burden, factors associated with such burden should be intervened on. As such, special attention should be paid to caregivers who provide many hours of care or provide care to their child(ren), as well as those who have a poor perceived health themselves and/or experience feelings of loneliness.


Understand the di erence between race and ethnicity • De ne a majority group (dominant group) • De ne a minority group (subordinate group) While many students rst entering a sociology classroom are accustomed to con ating the terms race, ethnicity, and minority group, these three terms have distinct meanings for sociologists. The idea of race refers to super cial physical di erences that a particular society considers signi cant, while ethnicity is a term that describes shared culture. And minority groups describe groups that are subordinate, or lacking power in society regardless of skin color or country of origin. For example, in modern U.S. history, the elderly might be considered a minority group due to a diminished status resulting from popular prejudice and discrimination against them. The World Health Organization's research on elderly maltreatment shows that 10 percent of nursing home sta admit to physically abusing an elderly person in the past year, and 40 percent admit to psychological abuse (2011). As a minority group, the elderly are also subject to economic, social, and workplace discrimination. 1 What Is Race? Historically, the concept of race has changed across cultures and eras, eventually becoming less connected with ancestral and familial ties, and more concerned with super cial physical characteristics. In the past, theorists have posited categories of race based on various geographic regions, ethnicities, skin colors, and more. Their labels for racial groups have connoted regions (Mongolia and the Caucus Mountains, for instance) or denoted skin tones (black, white, yellow, and red, for example). However, this typology of race developed during early racial science has fallen into disuse, and the social construction of race is a far more common way of understanding racial categories. According to this school of thought, race is not biologically identi able. When considering skin color, for example, the social construction of race perspective recognizes that the relative darkness or fairness of skin is an evolutionary adaptation to the available sunlight in di erent regions of the world. Contemporary conceptions of race, therefore, which tend to be based on socioeconomic assumptions, illuminate how far removed modern race understanding is from biological qualities. In modern society, some people who consider themselves white actually have more melanin (a pigment that determines skin color) in their skin than other people who identify as black. Consider the case of the actress Rashida Jones. She is the daughter of a black man (Quincy Jones) but she does not play a black woman in her television or lm roles. In some countries, such as Brazil, class is more important than skin color in determining racial categorization. People with high levels of melanin in their skin may consider themselves "white" if they enjoy a middle-class lifestyle. On the *Version 1.3: Jul 29, 2013 1:19 pm -0500 "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://cnx.org/content/m42857/1.3/ OpenStax-CNX module: m42857 2 other hand, someone with low levels of melanin in their skin might be assigned the identity of "black" if they have little education or money. The social construction of race is also re ected in the way that names for racial categories change with changing times. It's worth noting that race, in this sense, is also a system of labeling that provides a source of identity; speci c labels fall in and out of favor during di erent social eras. For example, the category negroid, popular in the 19th century, evolved into the term negro by the 1960s, and then this term fell from use and was replaced with African American. This latter term was intended to celebrate the multiple identities that a black person might hold, but the word choice is a poor one: it lumps together a large variety of ethnic groups under an umbrella term while excluding others who could accurately be described by the label but who do not meet the spirit of the term. For example, actress Charlize Theron is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed African American. She was born in South Africa and later became a U.S. citizen. Is her identity that of an African American as most of us understand the term? 2 What Is Ethnicity? Ethnicity is a term that describes shared culture the practices, values, and beliefs of a group. This might include shared language, religion, and traditions, among other commonalities. Like race, the term ethnicity is di cult to describe and its meaning has changed over time. And like race, individuals may be identi ed or self-identify to ethnicities in complex, even contradictory, ways. For example, ethnic groups such as Irish, Italian American, Russian, Jewish, and Serbian might all be groups whose members are predominantly included in the racial category white. Conversely, the ethnic group British includes citizens from a multiplicity of racial backgrounds: black, white, Asian, and more, plus a variety of race combinations. These examples illustrate the complexity and overlap of these identifying terms. Ethnicity, like race, continues to be an identi cation method that individuals and institutions use today whether through the census, a rmative action initiatives, non-discrimination laws, or simply in personal day-to-day relations. 3 What Are Minority Groups? Sociologist Louis Wirth (1945) de ned a minority group as any group of people who, because of their physical or cultural characteristics, are singled out from the others in the society in which they live for di erential and unequal treatment, and who therefore regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination. The term minority connotes discrimination, and in its sociological use, the term subordinate can be used interchangeably with the term minority, while the term dominant is often substituted for the group that's in the majority. These de nitions correlate to the concept that the dominant group is that which holds the most power in a given society, while subordinate groups are those who lack power compared to the dominant group. Note that being a numerical minority is not a characteristic of being a minority group; sometimes larger groups can be considered minority groups due to their lack of power. It is the lack of power that is the predominant characteristic of a minority, or subordinate group. For example, consider Apartheid in South Africa, in which a numerical majority (the black inhabitants of the country) were exploited and oppressed by the white minority. According to Charles Wagley and Marvin Harris (1958), a minority group is distinguished by ve characteristics: (1) unequal treatment and less power over their lives, (2) distinguishing physical or cultural traits like skin color or language, (3) involuntary membership in the group, (4) awareness of subordination, and (5) high rate of in-group marriage. Additional examples of minority groups might include the LBGT community, religious practitioners whose faith is not widely practiced where they live, and people with disabilities. Scapegoat theory, developed initially from Dollard's (1939) Frustration-Aggression theory, suggests that the dominant group will displace their unfocused aggression onto a subordinate group. History has shown us many examples of the scapegoating of a subordinate group. An example from the last century is the way that Adolf Hitler was able to use the Jewish people as scapegoats for Germany's social and economic problems. In the United States, recent immigrants have frequently been the scapegoat for the nation's or http://cnx.org/content/m42857/1.3/ OpenStax-CNX module: m42857 3 an individual's woes. Many states have enacted laws to disenfranchise immigrants; these laws are popular because they let the dominant group scapegoat a subordinate group. http://cnx.org/content/m42857/1.3/ OpenStax-CNX module: m42857 4 4 Multiple Identities Figure 1: Golfer Tiger Woods has Chinese, Thai, African American, Native American, and Dutch heritage. Individuals with multiple ethnic backgrounds are becoming more common. (Photo courtesy of familymwr/ ickr) http://cnx.org/content/m42857/1.3/ OpenStax-CNX module: m42857 5 Prior to the 20th century, racial intermarriage (referred to as miscegenation) was extremely rare, and in many places, illegal. While the sexual subordination of slaves did result in children of mixed race, these children were usually considered black, and therefore, property. There was no question of multiple racial identities with the possible exception of the Creole. Creole society developed in the port city of New Orleans, where a mixed-race culture grew from French and African inhabitants. Unlike in other parts of the country, Creoles of color had greater social, economic, and educational opportunities than most African Americans. Increasingly during the modern era, the removal of miscegenation laws and a trend toward equal rights and legal protection against racism have steadily reduced the social stigma attached to racial exogamy (exogamy refers to marriage outside of one's core social unit). It is now common for the children of racially mixed parents to acknowledge and celebrate their various ethnic identities. Golfer Tiger Woods, for instance, has Chinese, Thai, African American, Native American, and Dutch heritage; he jokingly refers to his ethnicity as Cablinasian, a term he coined to combine several of his ethnic backgrounds. While this is the trend, it is not yet evident in all aspects of our society. For example, the U.S. Census only recently added additional categories for people to identify themselves, such as non-white Hispanic. A growing number of people chose multiple races to describe themselves on the 2010 Census, paving the way for the 2020 Census to provide yet more choices. 5 Summary Race is fundamentally a social construct. Ethnicity is a term that describes shared culture and national origin. Minority groups are de ned by their lack of power. 6 Section Quiz Exerc


Cellular proliferation determines the events leading to the initiation and development of inflammation, immune activation, cancer, atherogenesis, and other disorders associated with aberrant cell proliferation. Cyclin inhibitor p21 plays a unique role in limiting cell cycle progression. However, its effectiveness can only be demonstrated with direct in vitro and in vivo delivery to control aberrant proliferation. We demonstrate that using a protein-transducing domain p21 protein a) localizes within the nuclear compartments of cells, b) interacts with transcription factors, NF-κB, and NFATs (NFATc and NFATp), and c) inhibits lymphocyte proliferation and expression of proinflammatory cytokines. This study using lymphocyte proliferation as a model suggests that the recombinant p21 protein can directly be delivered as a therapeutic protein to provide a novel, viable, and powerful strategy to limit proliferation, inflammation, alloimmune activation, cancer, and vascular proliferative disorders such as atherosclerosis.


The International Satisfiability Modulo Theories Competition is an annual competition between Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT) solvers. The 2018 edition of the competition was part of the FLoC Olympic Games, which comprised 14 competitions in various areas of computational logic. We report on the design and selected results of the SMT Competition during the last FLoC Olympiad, from 2015 to 2018. These competitions set several new records regarding the number of participants, number of benchmarks used, and amount of computation performed.


The influence of supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) and solvent extraction of oils from cloudberry, bilberry, and black currant seeds on the yield, chemical properties, and recovery of antioxidant compounds was investigated. SFE was performed for 1 h at 350 bar and at 50°C and 80°C. Fatty acids, vitamin E, carotenoids, and free radical-scavenging activity (DPPH) were assayed. SFE at 80°C resulted in higher oil yields for cloudberry and black currant seeds. The oils were rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) (66.8%–75.9% w/w), with high percentages of linoleic and α-linolenic acids. The black currant seed extracts had the highest concentrations of vitamin E (range, 113.0–241.8 mg/100 g oil) and carotenoids (range, 11.5–32.3 mg/100 g oil) and the highest antioxidant activity. The cloudberry seed oils also had high antioxidant content and activity. These findings indicate the potential of SFE for the recovery of PUFA and antioxidant compounds in berry by-products.


ABSTRACT Organic hydroperoxide resistance in bacteria is achieved primarily through reducing oxidized membrane lipids. The soil-inhabiting aerobic bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor contains three paralogous genes for organic hydroperoxide resistance: ohrA, ohrB, and ohrC. The ohrA gene is transcribed divergently from ohrR, which encodes a putative regulator of MarR family. Both the ohrA and ohrR genes were induced highly by various organic hydroperoxides. The ohrA gene was induced through removal of repression by OhrR, whereas the ohrR gene was induced through activation by OhrR. Reduced OhrR bound to the ohrA-ohrR intergenic region, which contains a central (primary) and two adjacent (secondary) inverted-repeat motifs that overlap with promoter elements. Organic peroxide decreased the binding affinity of OhrR for the primary site, with a concomitant decrease in cooperative binding to the adjacent secondary sites. The single cysteine C28 in OhrR was involved in sensing oxidants, as determined by substitution mutagenesis. The C28S mutant of OhrR bound to the intergenic region without any change in binding affinity in response to organic peroxides. These results lead us to propose a model for the dual action of OhrR as a repressor and an activator in S. coelicolor. Under reduced conditions, OhrR binds cooperatively to the intergenic region, repressing transcription from both genes. Upon oxidation, the binding affinity of OhrR decreases, with a concomitant loss of cooperative binding, which allows RNA polymerase to bind to both the ohrA and ohrR promoters. The loosely bound oxidized OhrR can further activate transcription from the ohrR promoter.


Our spectroscopic observations were spread across 5 nights in October and November 2004 for Cl 0412, 7 nights in December 2005 and February 2005 for MS 1008, 5 nights between May and July 2005 for MS 2137. For photometric data, we use both VLT/FORS2 and HST/ACS images. We obtained imaging of the MS 1008, MS 2137 and Cl 0412 samples in the ACS/F606W filter while we exploited existing imaging of MS 0451 in the ACS/F814W filter from the ST-ECF HST archive. Ground based images were taken in the B, V, R and I filters for the whole sample. The FORS2 filters B, V and I are close approximations to the Johnson-Cousins photometric system while the R filter is a special filter for FORS2 that is similar to the Cousins R . (5 data files).


In this article, I address an issue that emerged during my ethnographic fieldwork in Brazil in 2018, which received little attention during the Zika virus outbreak that took place in the country during 2015–17. My fieldwork revealed that, interestingly, despite the epidemic and its associated risk of birth defects, some couples who were attending a fertility clinic (most of whom came from a middle- or upper-class background, with access to private health care) chose to take the risk of a pregnancy instead of delaying their plans. I argue that this case study of assisted reproductive technology (ART) is a 'grey zone' whose investigation aids understanding of how the Zika epidemic was managed in Brazil. By looking at the potentiality of pregnancies and prospective babies for (infertile) couples, we can analyse how fertility clinics influenced the ability of couples to engage in ART during the epidemic and explore which kinds of reproductive services were offered to patients during this time. More broadly, this case study permits the examination of how the specific case of ART sheds light on the issue of risk/reward in wider reproductive decision-making during the epidemic. In many ways, I conclude, one can say that the Zika virus epidemic came to challenge both the timing of reproduction and the choice to become pregnant.