A thick wedge of immature siliciclastics characterizes the basal part of the basin-fill succession in the eastern part of the Neoproterozoic Chattisgarh Basin. It comprises a mosaic of mass-flow–deposited conglomerate and pebbly sandstone, coarse-grained sandy braided stream deposits, wave-lag pebble sheets, high-energy, wave-dominated foreshore and upper shoreface facies, and wave- and tide-dominated lower shoreface facies. The succession is characterized by strong lateral and vertical facies variation. The facies associations and stacking pattern point to the development of an alluvial-fan to fan-delta complex, with outbuilding of delta lobes onto a high-energy shallow-marine shelf via a high-gradient, narrow delta plain. The delta-front deposits of coarse-grained sand interfinger and grade into prodelta mud in the seaward direction. The dominance of coarse-grained sandy detritus with a high content of fresh feldspar grains points to mechanical weathering of granites and gneisses of the cratonic basement and a semiarid climate. The sediment caliber and the climate exerted a major control on the facies and on processes of sediment transfer from the fan to the shelf. A critical balance between progradation, aggradation, and retrogradation controlled the evolution of delta successions within an overall transgressive regime related to the extension of a cratonic rift basin. Repeated fault-controlled uplift of the source, followed by subsidence and transgression, generated multiple fining-upward cycles and a retreating fan-delta system. The marked variations in thickness of the delta succession and the stacking pattern in different measured profiles reflect the overriding tectonic controls on delta evolution. The accumulated fault displacement in active sectors created higher accommodation and thicker delta sequences. Intermittent uplift of fault blocks exposed fresh bedrock to mechanical weathering, generated a large amount of detritus, and resulted in forced regressions, repeatedly disrupting the fining-upward pattern. The controls of source rock lithology or climate were of secondary importance to tectonic effects. Retreating fan deltas are rarely reported and may be a stratigraphic response of marine-connected rift basins at the early stage of extension. The delta stratigraphy is analogous to the submarine fan stratigraphy. In the case where basin shales act as hydrocarbon sources, the fan deltas are potential hydrocarbon reservoirs. The coarse-grained lobes can be excellent reservoirs, with the enclosing prodelta muds acting as seals to vertical migration of hydrocarbon. The coarse-grained deposits of the delta plain and proximal delta front, occurring as laterally coalesced, large sand bodies blanketed by transgressive prodelta mud, might also form good reservoirs.


Background: One of the main causes of mortality and morbidity of oral cancer is lack of awareness about risk factors and symptoms. This study aimed to assess the level of awareness and knowledge of risk factors of patients regarding oral cancer. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study of 103 patients seen at the oral diagnosis unit of the Federal Medical Centre, Owo was done. An interviewer administered questionnaire was used to collect data on Oral Cancer (OC). Data was analysed with SPSS version 21.0. Descriptive statistics were done. Associations were explored with Chi square test. Predictors of good knowledge were determined using binary logistic regression. Results: The mean age of respondent was 35 years ± 13.4 Standard Deviation. In all. 27(26.2%) were below 25 years. Males were 29(28.2%). Current smokers were 13(13.8%). Those who had ever heard about OC were 55(53.4%). Dental clinic was the source where most people heard about OC 18(32%) followed by television 16(29.09%). Only 29(52.7%) had good knowledge of OC. Among patients with tertiary level of education 27(81.8%) had good knowledge of the risk factors for OC compared to 2(16.7%) of those who do not have tertiary level of education, p<0.001. Good knowledge was found in 28 (75.7%) of those who do not currently smoke cigarette compared to 1(14.3%) of those who smoke, p=0.004. The odds of having good knowledge among those with tertiary level of education was about 13 times (C I: 2.03-84.81) than those who had below tertiary education, p=0.007. Conclusion: Awareness regarding oral cancer and knowledge of its risk factors and symptoms is low. Dentists have important roles to play in increasing awareness and knowledge about OC.


Conditional Variational Auto Encoders (VAE) are gathering significant attention as an Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) tool. The codes in the latent space provide a theoretically sound way to produce counterfactuals, i.e. alterations resulting from an intervention on a targeted semantic feature. To be applied on real images more complex models are needed, such as Hierarchical CVAE. This comes with a challenge as the naive conditioning is no longer effective. In this paper we show how relaxing the effect of the posterior leads to successful counterfactuals and we introduce VAEX1 an Hierarchical VAE designed for this approach that can visually audit a classifier in applications.


Duplicate endocervical swabs were collected for detection of Chlamydia trachomatis by PCR (Roche Diagnostics). One swab was swirled in Specimen Transport Medium (Roche) for PCR testing and discarded. A saline aliquot from the other specimen, sent as a dry swab to the laboratory, was Papanicolaou stained to determine specimen adequacy, and the remainder was PCR tested. Significantly more (24%) PCR-positive results (118 versus 95; P < 0.001) were obtained with the dry specimens than with the swirled specimens when first tested. In addition, PCR-positive results were obtained with 107 (10.6%) of 1,007 microscopically adequate specimens but with only 3 (0.9%) of 341 inadequate specimens (P < 0.001).


We consider a backward stochastic differential equation with jumps (BSDEJ) which is driven by a Brownian motion and a Poisson random measure. We present two candidate-approximations to this BSDEJ and we prove that the solution of each candidateapproximation converges to the solution of the original BSDEJ in a space which we specify. We use this result to investigate in further detail the consequences of the choice of the model to (partial) hedging in incomplete markets in finance. As an application, we consider models in which the small variations in the price dynamics are modeled with a Poisson random measure with infinite activity and models in which these small variations are modeled with a Brownian motion. Using the convergence results on BSDEJs, we show that quadratic hedging strategies are robust towards the choice of the model and we derive an estimation of the model risk.


Rigorous safety demonstration through safety analysis is strongly mandated for safety-critical systems. Nuclear plant protection systems often use techniques such as FTA, FMEA and HAZOP. Safety experts perform them manually, and quality of the analysis totally depends on the ability and experience of the experts. If we restrict the application domain of safety analysis into specific critical failures, we could automate a large part of the analysis and also improve its quality too. This paper proposes a domain-specific safety analysis technique, NuFTA, for nuclear plant protection systems. NuFTA mechanically constructs a software fault tree of nuclear reactor protection systems specified with NuSCR requirement formal specification language. The root failures of the fault tree constructed through NuFTA are restricted into 'shutdown' events of nuclear reactors, which is the most important event in the domain. Within the domain specific restrictions, NuFTA can construct software fault trees mechanically and aid safety experts' analyses efficiently.


Motion event construal gives insight into the nature of the linguistic and conceptual representations underlying
 the encoding of events. Studies show that event descriptions differ cross-linguistically due to, amongst other factors, the
 absence or presence of grammatical aspect. While speakers of aspect languages generally focus on the process, speakers of
 non-aspect languages tend to perceive the event holistically and focus on endpoints. This investigation examines visual
 endpoint salience as a further factor that shapes event encoding. Thus, in this model, grammatical aspect is seen as
 a part of a more complex system of factors that determine event construal. The analyses, which cover German speakers, English
 speakers, and German-speaking learners of English, involve linguistic production data and results from memory performance tests.
 The findings show that the focus on endpoints increases for salient stimuli. While German speakers and learners of English show a
 tendency to focus on endpoints, a clear preference for focusing on the process can be observed in English speakers. Verbalizing
 endpoints correlates with the ability to remember them in a memorization task. The implications of these outcomes are discussed in
 the context of two factors which shape event encoding: grammatical aspect and endpoint salience.


The worst and longest depressions have tended to occur after periods of prolonged, and reasonably stable, prosperity. This results in part from agents rationally updating their expectations during good times and hence becoming more optimistic about future economic prospects. Investors then increase their leverage and shift their portfolios towards projects that would previously have been considered too risky. So, when a downturn does eventually occur, the financial crisis, and the extent of default, become more severe. Whereas a general appreciation of this syndrome dates back to Minsky [1992, Jerome Levy Economics Institute, WP 74] and even beyond, to Irving Fisher [1933, Econometrica 1, 337-357], we model it formally. In addition, endogenous default introduces a pecuniary externality, since investors do not factor in the impact of their decision to take risk and default on the borrowing cost. We explore the relative advantages of alternative regulations in reducing financial fragility, and suggest a novel criterion for improvement of aggregate welfare.


Field effect transistors (FETs) based on networks of randomly oriented Si nanowires (Si nanonets or Si NNs) were biomodified using Thrombin Binding Aptamer (TBA–15) probe with the final objective to sense thrombin by electrical detection. In this work, the impact of the biomodification on the electrical properties of the Si NN–FETs was studied. First, the results that were obtained for the optimization of the (3-Glycidyloxypropyl)trimethoxysilane (GOPS)-based biofunctionalization process by using UV radiation are reported. The biofunctionalized devices were analyzed by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), proving that TBA–15 probes were properly grafted on the surface of the devices, and by means of epifluorescence microscopy it was possible to demonstrate that the UV-assisted GOPS-based functionalization notably improves the homogeneity of the surface DNA distribution. Later, the electrical characteristics of 80 devices were analyzed before and after the biofunctionalization process, indicating that the results are highly dependent on the experimental protocol. We found that the TBA–15 hybridization capacity with its complementary strand is time dependent and that the transfer characteristics of the Si NN–FETs obtained after the TBA–15 probe grafting are also time dependent. These results help to elucidate and define the experimental precautions that must be taken into account to fabricate reproducible devices.


Overlay text brings important semantic clues in video content analysis such as video information retrieval and summarization, since the content of the scene or the editor's intention can be well represented by using inserted text. Most of the previous approaches to extracting overlay text from videos are based on low-level features, such as edge, color, and texture information. However, existing methods experience difficulties in handling texts with various contrasts or inserted in a complex background. In this paper, we propose a novel framework to detect and extract the overlay text from the video scene. Based on our observation that there exist transient colors between inserted text and its adjacent background, a transition map is first generated. Then candidate regions are extracted by a reshaping method and the overlay text regions are determined based on the occurrence of overlay text in each candidate. The detected overlay text regions are localized accurately using the projection of overlay text pixels in the transition map and the text extraction is finally conducted. The proposed method is robust to different character size, position, contrast, and color. It is also language independent. Overlay text region update between frames is also employed to reduce the processing time. Experiments are performed on diverse videos to confirm the efficiency of the proposed method.


ABSTRACT "Data science" is a useful catchword for methods and concepts original to the field of statistics, but typically being applied to large, multivariate, observational records. Such datasets call for techniques not often part of an introduction to statistics: modeling, consideration of covariates, sophisticated visualization, and causal reasoning. This article re-imagines introductory statistics as an introduction to data science and proposes a sequence of 10 blocks that together compose a suitable course for extracting information from contemporary data. Recent extensions to the mosaic packages for R together with tools from the "tidyverse" provide a concise and readable notation for wrangling, visualization, model-building, and model interpretation: the fundamental computational tasks of data science.


Despite the many advantages of containerization for goods transportation, the management of empty containers is a major disadvantage, driving costly repositioning operations. We investigate the potential for consignees to manage an inventory of empty containers at their location so as to enable direct reuse of these containers by consignors located in the surroundings. One difficulty is that the detention fees imposed by shipping companies under merchant haulage are nonlinear. Moreover, cleaning and related activities might be necessary if the consignee keeps some empties. These difficulties incentivize consignees to immediately return containers to the sea terminal. Contrary to this practice, we show that managing containers via time-based threshold policies can save costs. Without cleaning costs, we prove that a timebased policy with a timeout return time is optimal. We next develop a policy improvement approach to include the cleaning costs in the analysis. This results in a two-thresholds time based policy where the two time thresholds control the admission into and rejection out of the inventory. We next analyze the impact of this proactive management on the level of direct container reuse. This practice enables a high level of direct reuse. It also reduces container repositioning costs. Yet, the incentive to implement our policy varies a lot from one setting to another. In particular, low cleaning costs or high repositioning costs lead to significant costs improvement when implementing our policy. Finally, we further explore if the incentive could be made stronger by modifying the structure and/or purpose of the detention costs.


HO describes sexuality as a central aspect of being human throughout life, yet there are so many sexual dysfunction between men and women. Prevalence of female sexual dysfunction ranges from 25-63% and in postmenopausal women it is well over 80%. These conditions are frequently underdiagnosed and undertreated. Women find it difficult to talk about it. Many women are unaware that symptoms progress without treatment, and that safe and effective treatment are available. Platelet rich plasma entered the field of gynecology after 2011 when dr. Adrian Gaspar released a study where he combined PRP and CO2 laser and got an important improvement of vaginal mucosa histology and a decrease of discomfort during sex. Since then PRP is used for many gynecological indications. I started using PRP in gynecology in 2012 and the same year I begin to perform O shot where PRP is injected in clitoral tissue and urethrovaginal septum in order to improve sexual function in women. Since 2015 I use a special medical device Cellular Matrix for most gynecological indications and I find it as a safe and very effective treatment.


In this paper, the microstructure and microhardness of Ti-6.5Al-3.5Mo-1.5Zr-0.3Si titanium alloy with and without laser shock peening (LSP) were examined and compared. The titanium alloy samples were treated with different layers, at the same power density. X-ray diffraction (XRD), Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) and microhardness techniques were used to analyse microstructure and mechanical. X-ray diffraction analysis shows that there was not any phase transformation and no new crystalline phases have been formed. TEM studies demonstrate that both α and β phase can been refined in the surface layer with LSP. The microhardness measurements with LSP demonstrate that Hardness of crystallization surface is high up to 418MPa, which is more than the sample without LSP, the shock wave improved the microhardness for about 8%, and the affected depth is about 400 microns from the surface.


This paper describes a local update scheme for the algorithm of Sugiyama and Misue (IEEE Trans. on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics 21 (1991) 876–892) for drawing views of compound graphs. A view is an abstract representation of a compound graph; it is generated by contracting subgraphs into meta nodes. Starting with an initial view, the underlying compound graph is explored by repeatedly expanding or contracting meta nodes. The novelty is a totally local update scheme of the algorithm of Sugiyama and Misue. It is more efficient than redrawing the graph entirely, because the expensive steps of the algorithm, e. g., level assignment or crossing minimization, are restricted to the modified part of the compound graph. Also, the locality of the updates preserves the user's mental map: nodes not affected by the expand or contract operation keep their levels and their relative order; expanded edges take the same course as the corresponding contracted edge.


The economic consequences of livestock epidemics have been long studied for purposes of estimating the costs of preventive and curative veterinary measures. In this paper, we show that this catastrophic risk may have wide market consequences, and that the risk management systems are quite limited to compensate long term impacts in the European context of growing trade. Through a detailed literature review, we present the main developments of the economic research aiming at highlighting the economic consequences of animal epidemics such as Foot and Mouth Disease. We acknowledge that a very few studies have focused on the economic dynamics and on the long-run effects occurring after an epidemic disease outbreak. We discuss the relevance of a dynamic approach to reveal that the de-structuring of livestock markets affects the production dynamics as well as the whole agricultural sector. Financial implications and market constraints remain poorly studied in the livestock epidemics literature. We emphasize the growing interest of a dynamic Computable General Equilibrium approach to reveal the overall effects of epidemic outbreaks on the whole economy. This innovative research raises important challenges for the assessment and implementation of risk management policies.


In reviewing the history of portions of international studies I reflect on how we might best advance knowledge. I dwell on two issues: questions of method and the urgency of refocusing our efforts on leaders and domestic affairs as the centerpiece for understanding the world of international relations. I argue that scientific progress is best made by combining three methodological approaches in our research: formal, mathematical logic to ensure internal consistency in arguments about complex and contingent relations among variables; case studies and archival research to evaluate verisimilitude between theory and action; and statistical analysis to establish the generality of the hypothesized relations among variables. Often such methodologically diverse and progressive research will best be accomplished by encouraging collaboration rather than by perpetuating the current norm of penalizing co-authorship especially among junior scholars. I offer concrete examples of advances in knowledge achieved through the employment of mathematical reasoning and statistical analysis as many have cast doubts about the substantive contributions of these particular approaches. My perspective is, of course, personal and may not be shared by many others. I set out my thoughts, therefore, with the hope that they will stimulate constructive debate and dialogue and that they will serve to integrate diverse approaches to international affairs.


In various studies outside the Netherlands, it has been shown that a substantial number of patients suffer some kind of damage during their treatment in a hospital. The incidence of these so-called adverse events varies between 2.9% and 16.6%; of these, estimates between more than a quarter and up to half are considered to have been avoidable. Preventable adverse events can offer a starting point for interventions to increase patient safety. Therefore, a study has been initiated in Dutch hospitals investigating the nature and extent of adverse events and their causes. Important goals of the study are to reach a consensus on basic concepts and to improve the research methodology.


Woodrow Wilson and World War I: A Burden Too Great to Bear. By Richard Striner. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. 290 pp. Richard Striner considers Woodrow Wilson the worst wartime president ever to straddle a pot. Striner has previously written on Lincoln, whom he praised for combining moral idealism with strategic cunning (see, e.g., Lincoln and Race [Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2012]). Wilson, in his view, never understood the threat that a German victory in World War I would pose to national security. He neglected to prepare seriously for mobilization. And he failed to grasp how he could leverage American participation to achieve his diplomatic objectives. In seven hard-hitting chapters, each focused chronologically on one of the wartime or postwar years, Striner flays Wilson's "miserable judgment," managerial incompetence, "naive suppositions," disdain for Congress, unsystematic work habits, as well as such character flaws as petulance and grandiosity. Even Wilson's rhetoric leaves the author cold. He echoes H. L. Mencken's description of its "ideational hollowness, its ludicrous strutting and bombast, its heavy dependence upon greasy and meaningless words, its frequent descents into mere sound and fury" (pp. 240-41). Striner bases his interpretation on a close reading of the inclusive 69-volume Papers of Woodrow Wilson (A. S. Link, ed., The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 1856-1924, vols. 1-69 [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966-94]). He does not engage Wilson's numerous hagiographers, except for John Milton Cooper, Jr., whom he uses as a foil (Woodrow Wilson: A Biography [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009]). Scholars who revere Wilson as the model for American missionary idealism and humanitarian interventionism in our own day will find Striner's formulations heavyhanded and ungenerous. Still, the author has marshaled some arresting evidence that previous analysts preferred to overlook out of respect for the president's noble motives. Where others have portrayed Wilson as a resourceful defender of neutral rights through 1917, Striner depicts him as prey to confused emotions and as reactive rather than strategic in approaching substantive issues. Moved by Christian piety and a conviction that he alone represented the silent mass of mankind, Wilson not only advocated peace without victory, but also felt that "white civilization" depended on preserving neutrality (p. 98). He pursued wholly unrealistic efforts at mediation and in December 1916 almost embroiled the country with England until Secretary of State Robert Lansing toned down his proposed note. Colonel Edward M. House and Lansing figure in this narrative as sensible men who kept Wilson's mania within bounds, quite opposite to Cooper's description of Lansing's "dastardly act of duplicity" (p. …


ABSTRACT Speckle noise in synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) images severely hinders remote sensing applications; therefore, the appropriate removal of speckle noise is crucial. This paper elaborates on the multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural-network model for SAR image despeckling by using a time series of SAR images. Unlike other filtering methods that use only a single radar intensity image to derive their parameters and filter that single image, this method can be trained using archived images over an area of interest to self-learn the intensity characteristics of image patches and then adaptively determine the weights and thresholds by using a neural network for image despeckling. Several hidden layers are designed for feedforward network training, and back-propagation stochastic gradient descent is adopted to reduce the error between the target output and neural-network output. The parameters in the network are automatically updated in the training process. The greatest advantage of MLP is that once the despeckling parameters are determined, they can be used to process not only new images in the same area but also images in completely different locations. Tests with images from TerraSAR-X in selected areas indicated that MLP shows satisfactory performance with respect to noise reduction and edge preservation. The overall image quality obtained using MLP was markedly higher than that obtained using numerous other filters. In comparison with other recently developed filters, this method yields a slightly higher image quality, and it demonstrates the powerful capabilities of computer learning using SAR images, which indicate the promising prospect of applying MLP to SAR image despeckling.


In this book, Jan J. Boersema reconstructs the ecological and cultural history of Easter Island and critiques the hitherto accepted theory of the collapse of its civilization. The collapse theory, advanced most recently by Jared Diamond and Clive Ponting, is based on the documented overexploitation of natural resources, particularly woodlands, on which Easter Island culture depended. Deforestation is said to have led to erosion, followed by hunger, conflict, and economic and cultural collapse. Drawing on scientific data and historical sources, including the shipping journals of the Dutch merchant who was the first European to visit the island in 1722, Boersema shows that deforestation did not in fact jeopardize food production and lead to starvation and violence. On the basis of historical and scientific evidence, Boersema demonstrates how Easter Island society responded to cultural and environmental change as it evolved and managed to survive.


The Flory-type scaling approach proposed by Hentschel and Family [Phys. Rev. Lett. 66 (1991) 1982] is generalized to the analysis of the growth equation with a generalized conservation law, which contains the Kardar–Parisi–Zhang, Sun–Guo–Grant, and molecular-beam epitaxy growth equations as special cases and allows for a unified investigation of growth equations. The scaling exponents obtained here can be in agreement well with the corresponding results derived by the dynamic renormalization group theory and the previous scaling analyses.


The Sorrows of Satan was one of the first modern bestsellers and was influential in establishing some of the major trends in twentieth-century bestselling fiction. The setting is London, 1895, and the Devil is on the loose. He is searching for someone morally strong enough to resist temptation, but there seems little chance he will succeed. Britain is all but totally corrupt. The aristocracy is financially and spiritually bankrupt; church leaders no longer believe in God; Victorian idealism has been banished from literature and life; and sexual morality is being undermined by the pernicious doctrines of the "New Woman." Everything and everyone is up for sale, and it takes a special kind of moral courage to resist the Devil's seductions.


The author surveys algorithmic results obtained using low-distortion embeddings of metric spaces into (mostly) normed spaces. He shows that low-distortion embeddings provide a powerful and versatile toolkit for solving algorithmic problems. Their fundamental nature makes them applicable in a variety of diverse settings, while their relation to rich mathematical fields (e.g., functional analysis) ensures availability of tools for their construction.


BACKGROUND AND AIMS
Weight loss and reduced fat-free mass are prevalent amongst patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, the causes of this weight loss are not clear. The aims of this study are to investigate the factors affecting body weight and dietary intake in a group of outpatients with COPD, and to investigate any differences between adequately nourished and malnourished patients.

METHODS
In 103 stable outpatients, nutritional status was assessed using Body Mass Index (BMI) and upper arm anthropometry. Lung function, smoking status, exercise tolerance, dietary intake, dietary problems and health-related quality of life were assessed. Patients were classed as either adequately nourished or malnourished.

RESULTS
Twenty-three per cent of subjects were classed as malnourished. The malnourished subjects had lower lung function measurements, suffered more dietary problems and had lower nutritional intake compared with the adequately nourished subjects. They also had poorer fatigue scores. In linear regression analysis, the factors that had the most effect on BMI were a low transfer factor, presence of early satiety, and being a current smoker.

CONCLUSION
Important differences were found between adequately nourished and malnourished subjects. These differences move us closer to understanding how best to screen and treat this group of patients.


It has become a widely-recognized fact that entrepreneurs and information technology have become the backbone of the world economy. The increasing penetration of IT in society and in most of industries/businesses, as well as the joining forces of entrepreneurship and innovation in the economy, reinforce the need for a leading and authoritative research handbook to disseminate leading edge findings about entrepreneurship and innovation in the context of IT from an international perspective. "Information Technology Entrepreneurship and Innovation" presents current studies on the nature, process and practice of entrepreneurship and innovation in the development, implementation, and application of information technology worldwide, as well as providing academics, entrepreneurs, managers, and practitioners with up-to-date, comprehensive, and rigorous research-based articles on the formation and implementation of effective strategies and business plans.


Abstract 2-Methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine (MPC) is methacrylate bearing a phosphorylcholine group in the side chain. The phosphorylcholine group generates several unique properties arising from its zwitterionic structure, consisting of a phosphate anion and a trimethylammonium cation. Despite these charged groups, the total electrical charge of the species is zero because of the formation of an inner salt. The polymerization of MPC proceeds both conventional and living radical polymerizations. And, using these method, the corresponding polymer can be obtained efficiently. The product, poly(MPC), is soluble in aqueous media, even if the ionic strength of the solution is high, such as in the presence of 5.0 mol/L NaCl. The polymer does not show any surface active properties, even when the polymer concentration is greater than 1.0 g/dL. Hydration of poly(MPC) mainly occurs by hydrophobic hydration of the three methyl groups in the trimethylammonium group. Thus, this hydration induces an increase in a clathrate cage structure of surrounding water molecules, i.e. an ice-like water state is formed. Because of this unique hydration, poly(MPC) cannot make strong interactions with proteins and cells. Some biomedical applications have used poly(MPC) as a protein and solid-surface modification agents.


Comparative 16S rRNA sequencing was used to infer the phylogenetic relationships among selected species of mycobacteria and related organisms. The phylogeny inferred reflects the traditional classification, with major branches of the phylogenetic tree in general correspondence to the four Runyon groups and with numerical classification analyses. All the mycobacterial species compared, with the exception of M. chitae, are closely related (average similarity values greater than 95%). The slow growers form a coherent line of descent, distinct from the rapid growers, within which the overt pathogens are clustered. The distant relationship between M. chitae and the remaining mycobacteria suggests that this organism is incorrectly classified with the mycobacteria. M. paratuberculosis 18 was indistinguishable from M. avium-M. intracellulare-M. scrofulaceum serovar 1 by this analysis.


We consider data-aided channel estimation for multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems when iterative parallel interference cancellation (PIC) is performed for signal detection. We compare some data-aided channel estimation methods based on expectation maximization (EM) algorithm or on hard estimated transmit symbols. In particular, we propose a modified EM-based approach and show that when few iterations are to be performed, it provides considerable performance improvement.


The superior aesthetic outcomes of nipple-sparing mastectomies (NSM) explain their increased use and rising popularity. Fortunately, cancer recurrences involving the nipple-areolar complex (NAC) have been reassuringly low in the range of 1%. Technical considerations and challenges of this procedure are centered on nipple ischemia and necrosis. Patient selection, reconstructive strategies and incision placement have lowered ischemic complications. In this context, rates of full NAC necrosis are 3% or less. The emergence of noninvasive tissue angiography provides surgeons with a practical tool to assess real-time breast skin and NAC perfusion. Herein, we review our classification system of NAC perfusion patterns defined as V1 (from subjacent breast), V2 (surrounding skin), and V3 (combination of V1 + V2). Additionally, we describe the benefits of a first stage operation to devascularize the NAC as a means of improving blood flow to the NAC in preparation for NSM, helping extend the use of NSM to more women. Intraoperative evaluation of skin perfusion allows surgeons to detect ischemia and modify the operative approach to optimize outcomes.


Managing the large volumes of data produced by emerging scientific and engineering simulations running on leadership-class resources has become a critical challenge. The data has to be extracted off the computing nodes and transported to consumer nodes so that it can be processed, analyzed, visualized, archived, etc. Several recent research efforts have addressed data-related challenges at different levels. One attractive approach is to offload expensive I/O operations to a smaller set of dedicated computing nodes known as a staging area. However, even using this approach, the data still has to be moved from the staging area to consumer nodes for processing, which continues to be a bottleneck. In this paper, we investigate an alternate approach, namely moving the data-processing code to the staging area rather than moving the data. Specifically, we present the Active Spaces framework, which provides (1) programming support for defining the data-processing routines to be downloaded to the staging area, and (2) run-time mechanisms for transporting binary codes associated with these routines to the staging area, executing the routines on the nodes of the staging area, and returning the results. We also present an experimental performance evaluation of Active Spaces using applications running on the Cray XT5 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Finally, we use a coupled fusion application workflow to explore the trade-offs between transporting data and transporting the code required for data processing during coupling, and we characterize the sweet spots for each option.


Ramanujan's first letter to Hardy states an asymptotic formula for the coefficient of $x^n$ in the expansion of $(\sum_{m=-\infty}^{\infty}(-1)^mx^{m^2})^{-1}$ which can be regarded as the genesis of the circle method. In this paper, we try to give some indication of the possible intuition of Ramanujan in his discovery of the circle method. We discuss briefly the Goldbach, Waring and partition problems. At the end of the paper, there is a brief discussion on Ramanujan's $\tau$ function


Potential, pH, and their gradients are important parameters in determining the electrochemical reactivity of metals in crevices. Although an IR voltage alone can be responsible for the activation of crevice corrosion thatoccurs immediately, changes in pH may be necessary for crevice corrosion to occur in the delayed form of crevice corrosion. In cases where acidification forms an active peak in the polarization curve, pH. corrosion products, and electrode potential, E, inside the crevice play synergistic roles in determining the onset of crevice corrosion. This synergistic relationship is explored by measuring gradients in acidity, pH(x), and electrode potential, E(x), within crevices during the induction period preceding crevice corrosion of iron in 0.2 M Na 2 SO 4 + 0.025 M K 2 CrO 4 of pH 9.1. Crevice corrosion was found to initiate when the IR voltage caused the E(x) to have a value within the active peak of the polarization curve of the crevice electrolyte. The active peak formed due to acidification of the crevice electrolyte.


ABSTRACT Twenty-one limbs of bovine cadavers (42 digits) were exposed to interdigital cassetteless imaging plate using computed radiography. The radiographic findings included exostosis, a rough planta surface, osteolysis of the apex of the distal phalanx and widening of the laminar zone between the distal phalanx and the hoof wall. All these findings were confirmed by computed tomography. The hindlimbs (19 digits) showed more changes than the forelimbs (10 digits), particularly in the lateral distal phalanx. The cassetteless computed radiography technique is expected to be an easily applicable method for the distal phalanx rather than a conventional cassette-plate and/or the film-screen cassetteless methods.


This study was focused particularly on assessing the effectiveness of group lending and its impact on profitability at Oromiya Credit and Saving Share Company of Jimma Zone. To achieve this objective, the researcher used primary and secondary data. The researcher used questionnaires, interviews and relevant documents to gather primary and secondary data from the data sources and collects the questionnaires from 252 borrowers and interviewed 4 branch manager of OCSSCO from the population. Descriptive statistics with the help of Pie charts, graphs, table, Percentages were used in analyzing the collected data. In addition to this econometric model by employing SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Scientists) version -J 6 windows software were used to analysis. With the help of logit model the researcher found that educational level, business type, land size, other source of credit social ties, number of the group, screening the group before the formation, internal rule and conduct, credit officer visit the group, distance and family size were positive and statistically significant at J%, 5% and J0% significance level. While the age of the group member, gender of the group member, visiting each other and training are positive and insignificant. The study recommended that the OCSSCO of Jimma zone should give attention on distance between the group members, the period of training, educational level of the borrower, experience and credit officer visit/pressure to make the group lending effective and to have impacts on profitability.


* Dr. Mirza Nomman Ahmed and Dr. Ira Pawlowski are research assistants at the ZEU and coordinators of the postgraduate programmes "Climate Change Network for Central Asia (CliNCA)" and "Land use, ecosystem services and human welfare in Central Asia (LUCA)". This conference has been organized in the framework of both these projects.In respect thereof, particular thanks goes to the German Department of Foreign Affairs and DAAD for facilitating CliNCA) and the VolkswagenStiftung for funding LUCA.


OBJECTIVE
The goal of this study was to estimate an algorithm to convert responses to the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy - General (FACT-G) to time trade-off (TTO) utilities based on utilities for current health elicited from cancer patients.

METHODS
Data for 1433 cancer patients were randomly separated into construction and validation samples. Four FACT-G questions were selected for inclusion based on correlation with Eastern Clinical Oncology Group - Performance Status (ECOG-PS) scores and TTO utilities. Item response theory was used to collapse response categories. Ordinary least squares regression with the constant constrained to one was used to estimate the algorithm.

RESULTS
The algorithm estimated mean utility for the full validation sample within three points of observed mean utility (0.805 vs. 0.832, P < 0.01). Mean utilities were well predicted (mean absolute difference < 0.03, P > 0.05) for most subgroups defined by ECOG-PS and Short Form-36 physical functioning scores, and responses to the FACT-G overall quality of life item. Nevertheless, the algorithm systematically overpredicted utilities for poorer health states.

CONCLUSIONS
A FACT-G-based algorithm of cancer patient utilities was developed that estimates group mean utility scores with accuracy comparable to other indirect preference-based measures of health-related quality of life. Patient-based preferences for health outcomes of cancer treatment may be useful in multiple situations, such as managing resources within cancer centers and in understanding health states preferences among cancer experienced patients before and after treatment.


Objectives Concern has been raised that the occurrence of cancer may be increased in neighbourhoods around a former manufactured gas plant in Champaign, Illinois, USA. Thus, we compared historical rates of cancer in this area to comparison communities as well as with nationally standardised rates. Design Retrospective population-based community cancer assessment during 1990–2010. Setting Champaign County, Illinois, USA, and zip codes encompassing the location of the former manufactured gas plant to counties that were similar demographically. Participants Residents of the counties and zip codes studied between 1990 and 2010. Main outcome measures The relative risk (RR) and 95% CI were used to compare cancer incidence and mortality in the areas near the gas compression site to the comparison counties. Standardised incidence ratios (SIRs) were calculated to compare rates in the areas near the gas compression site to expected rates based on overall US cancer rates. Results Total cancer mortality (RR=0.91, 95% CI 0.88 to 0.94) and incidence (RR=0.95, 95% CI 0.94 to 0.97) were reduced significantly in Champaign County versus the comparison counties. Similarly, a reduced rate of total cancer was observed in analyses by zip code (proximal to the former gas plant) when compared with either similar counties (RR=0.89, 95% CI 0.86 to 0.93) or national standardised rates of cancer (SIR=0.88, 95% CI 0.85 to 0.91). Conclusions This historical cancer assessment did not find an increased risk of total cancer or specific cancer types in communities near a former manufactured gas plant site.


The complexity and the bizarre nature of Psychobilly as a music genre and as a music collectivity make it very convenient for reconsidering several views in relation to subcultures, neo-tribes and scenes. More specifically, the case of Greek Psychobilly can categorically present how subcultural trends can be disseminated across gender, social classes and national borders. This study aims to trace historically the scene of Psychobilly in Athens based on typical ethnographic research and analytic autoethnography. The research question is: Which are the necessary elements that can determine the existence of a local music scene? Supported by semi-structured interviews, the study examines how individuals related to the Psychobilly subculture comprehend what constitutes the Greek Psychobilly scene. Although it can be questionable whether there ever was a Psychobilly scene in Athens, there were always small circles in existence into which people drifted and stayed for quite a while, constituting the pure core of the Greek Psychobilly subculture.


Abstract. Rapid mapping techniques based on UAV photogrammetry and portable systems are increasingly helping cultural heritage sites' digitization, in case of large contexts or complex accessibility. At the same time, a wider range of more consolidated image- and range-based approaches could be useful, but challenging to be applied depending on materials, accessibility, or light conditions. However, the fundamental issue of integrating and optimizing the large amount of metric data of different origins in 3D accurate models remains open. An integrated system is needed to support the work of expert conservator and restorers, as well as archaeological investigation, on onsite work and, mainly, on remote activity. This paper aims to present the metric survey project carried out in the Fort component of the World Heritage property Qal'at al-Bahrain – the Ancient Harbour and Capital of Dilmun. The Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities (BACA) started the initiative towards the conservation of the historic forts of the Kingdom of Bahrain. This requires a tailored approach to the uniqueness and outstanding significance of the sites. The digital products are baseline data and support the future conservation decisions. The validation of the integrated approach adopted for the survey of the Qal'at al-Bahrain will be presented and discussed in this paper. The validation aims for the integrated pipelines are targeted focusing on the aspects connected to the repeatability and the applicability of the methodological approach in the other sites with the same context and features, and this may also lead to further future reflections related to the sustainability of the survey.


We have focused in this paper on the impact of the growth rate and of the grading rate on the structural properties of Si0.8Ge0.2 virtual substrates grown at 900°C in a commercial reduced pressure chemical vapour deposition reactor. Adopting a grading rate of 4% Ge / $m together with a growth rate around 140 nm min.-1 yields very high quality Si0.8Ge0.2 virtual substrates. Their macroscopic degree of strain relaxation is indeed very close to 100%, their surface root mean square roughness is around 2.3 nm and most importantly their field threading dislocation density is of the order of 6x104 cm-2 only, with almost no pile-ups.


We investigate the ongoing seismicity in the Raton Basin and find that the deep injection of wastewater from the coal-bed methane field is responsible for inducing the majority of the seismicity since 2001. Many lines of evidence indicate that this earthquake sequence was induced by wastewater injection. First, there was a marked increase in seismicity shortly after major fluid injection began in the Raton Basin in 1999. From 1972 through July 2001, there was one M ≥ 4 earthquake in the Raton Basin, whereas 12 occurred between August 2001 and 2013. The statistical likelihood that such a rate change would occur if earthquakes behaved randomly in time is 3.0%. Moreover, this rate change is limited to the area of industrial activity. Earthquake rates remain low in the surrounding area. Second, the vast majority of the seismicity is within 5 km of active disposal wells and is shallow, ranging between 2 and 8 km depth. The two most carefully studied earthquake sequences in 2001 and 2011 have earthquakes within 2 km of high-volume, high-injection-rate wells. Third, injection wells in the area are commonly very high volume and high rate. Two wells adjacent to the August 2011 M 5.3 earthquake injected about 4.9 million cubic meters of wastewater before the earthquake, more than seven times the amount injected at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal well that caused damaging earthquakes near Denver, Colo- rado, in the 1960s. The August 2011 M 5.3 event is the second-largest earthquake to date for which there is clear evidence that the earthquake sequence was induced by fluid injection.


The article is devoted to ideological issues in the Turkish party system in the context of the electoral process. The authors analyze the internal content and principles of ideological platforms of the leading parties in Turkey. The formal analysis of party programs allowed to determine the value of the ideology for the functioning of the parties. Besides, analysis of the results of opinion polls conducted by the Turkish public opinion research centers revealed the functionality of ideology in the context of election campaigns. The object of the study was the ideologies of 4 major political parties of Turkey, which entered National Parliament after elections in November 2015. These are conservative Justice and Development Party, the center-left Republican People's Party, the National Movement Party, the Democratic Party of peoples. Analysis of party programs and other official documents showed that all four parties clearly define their ideological identity and political position. However, despite the clarity of such ideological identification, analysis of the last two election campaigns in Turkey revealed a trend among major parties to refuse from the traditional ideological rhetoric and to practice populist methods of voters attracting. The paper discloses the contents of the political stratification of Turkish society, depending on the ideological preferences of representatives of various social groups. Causative factors of ideological discourse rise are considered in the context of inter-party competition of leading political forces of the Turkish Republic. A comparative analysis shows that the Republican People's Party and the Nationalist Movement Party are both doctrinal with distinct ideological postulates that have a national base. In contrast, the Justice and Development Party, as well as the People's Democratic Party are more pragmatic and charismatic at the same time.


An investigation of inconsistent Hannover results in the International Collaborative Study (ICS) led to the conclusion that the main reason was contamination of the acetylene used as counting gas with recent and/or fossil carbon by the lithium used for its preparation. Despite the high level of purity of the lithium guaranteed by the producer and storage under argon in cans, different charges were partly covered with contemporary lithium carbonate and fossil oil sometimes was used to preserve the metal. Thorough cleaning of the surface of the lithium rods decreased the contamination but did not remove it entirely, which is evidenced in the wider scatter of the counting rates of various background gases than that of radiocarbon-free tank acetylene. As a result of the high risk of contamination with fossil and/or recent carbon from the acetylene counting gas, the high price of lithium, and the time-consuming preparation, the Hannover 14C Laboratory will use carbon dioxide instead of acetylene as counting gas in the future.


POLAK PAVEL, POLAKOVA ZUZANA, ŽITŇANSKÝ JAN, DOSTAL PETR, KOLLAROVA KATARINA. 2016. Improving the Machining Process by Analysing the Relationship Between Cutting Force and Temperature in Drilling of Engineering Steels. Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, 64(3): 855–861. This paper describes the experiment of measuring the temperature and cutting force during the drilling of short holes without using cutting lubricants, at constant cutting speed, and at increasing shi . Measurement was performed on steel samples of grade 11 523. During drilling, temperature was monitored by a thermocouple, using the method of two foreign metals. Cutting force was measured by a strain-gauge sensor. The experiment provides a quick orientation in the given issue and points out to the optimisation of cutting conditions. Based on results, it can be stated that the range of temperatures and the size of cutting forces depends on technological conditions, cutting parameters, and mechanical and physical properties of tool and workpiece's material.


Building on the literature on systemic risk and financial contagion, the paper introduces estimated network linkages into an early-warning model to predict bank distress among European banks. We use multivariate extreme value theory to estimate equity-based tail-dependence networks, whose links proxy for the markets' view of bank interconnectedness in case of elevated financial stress. The paper finds that early warning models including estimated tail dependencies consistently outperform bank-specific benchmark models without networks. The results are robust to variation in model specification and also hold in relation to simpler benchmarks of contagion. Generally, this paper gives direct support for measures of interconnectedness in early-warning models, and moves toward a unified representation of cyclical and cross-sectional dimensions of systemic risk.


"New" glucose production has been measured in 54 infants and children for the first time by continuous three-to-four-hour infusion of the safe, nonradioactive tracer 6,6-dideuterogiucose. The use of combined gas chromatography-mass spectrometry with monitoring of selected ions allowed deuterium enrichment in blood glucose to be measured on microliter samples with an error of less than 2 per cent. In the young child, glucose production increased in a slightly curvilinear manner from 1 kg. to 25 kg. body weight, when it reached 140 mg. per minute, almost the adult value of 173 mg. per minute (2.28 ± 0.23 mg./kg. ·min., mean ± S.E.). Normalized for weight, glucose production in premature infants was 5.46 ± 0.31 mg./kg. ·min., in term neonates averaged 6.07 ± 0.46 mg./kg. · min., in children below the age of six years was 7.1 ± 0.27 mg./kg.· min., and in late childhood averaged 5.4 ± 0.28 mg./ kg.· min. Relative to estimated brain weight, however, glucose production was essentially linear from the 1-kg. premature infant to the 80-kg. adult. These data, the first measurements of "new" glucose production in childhood, suggest that brain size may be a principal determinant of those factors that regulate hepatic glucose output throughout life.


Caseinolytic proteases are large oligomeric assemblies responsible for maintaining protein homeostasis in bacteria and in so doing influence a wide range of biological processes. The functional assembly involves three chaperones together with the oligomeric caseinolytic protease catalytic subunit P (ClpP). This protease represents a potential target for therapeutic intervention in pathogenic bacteria. Here, we detail an efficient protocol for production of recombinant ClpP from Francisella tularensis, and the structural characterization of three crystal forms which grow under similar conditions. One crystal form reveals a compressed state of the ClpP tetradecamer and two forms an open state. A comparison of the two types of structure infers that differences at the enzyme active site result from a conformational change involving a highly localized disorder‐order transition of a β‐strand α‐helix combination. This transition occurs at a subunit‐subunit interface. Our study may now underpin future efforts in a structure‐based approach to target ClpP for inhibitor or activator development. Proteins 2016; 85:188–194. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


Glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase exists in two different forms in various human tissue preparations. One of them is exhibited, after starch-gel electrophoresis, by a rapidly migrating or ;fast' band and the other by a ;slow' band. The proportion of the total activity in each of the two forms is characteristic of the type of tissue. A particulate fraction, obtained after centrifugation of homogenates, inhibits the enzyme activity and tends to convert the slow band into a fast one. The conversion is reversible. The fast band can also be converted into the slow one by addition of NAD(+) or ADP, or by dialysis against saturated sodium chloride solution. Conversions occur with the purified enzyme as well as with crude homogenates. The relevance of these findings to previous investigations and to glycolytic control mechanisms are discussed.


The Regression Conditional Tail Moment (RCTM) is the risk measure defined as the moment of order b ≥ 0 of a loss distribution above the upper α-quantile where α ∈ (0, 1) and when a covariate information is available. The purpose of this work is first to establish the asymptotic properties of the RCTM in case of extreme losses, i.e when α → 0 is no longer fixed, under general extreme-value conditions on their distribution tail. In particular, no assumption is made on the sign of the associated extreme-value index. Second, the asymptotic normality of a kernel estimator of the RCTM is established, which allows to derive similar results for estimators of related risk measures such as the Regression Conditional Tail Expec-tation/Variance/Skewness. When the distribution tail is upper bounded, an application to frontier estimation is also proposed. The results are illustrated both on simulated data and on a real dataset in the field of nuclear reactors reliability.


This paper discusses findings from a one-year ethnographic study of young people attending Entry to Employment (E2E) programmes in the north of England. The paper locates E2E within the broader context of provision for low-achieving young people and of UK government policy on reducing the proportion of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET). Although discourses associated with NEET young people often present them in negative terms, the paper shows that this type of conceptualisation is inadequate to understand the lives of young people on the margins of education and employment. The 'risk factor' discourse commonly used in NEET policy recognises neither the positive characteristics of these young people nor the broader social and economic factors that constrain their lives and post-16 'choices'. Although programmes such as E2E can help young people to improve their confidence, basic skills and personal effectiveness, it needs to be recognised that employability is linked to factors other than individual abilities and dispositions. In adverse economic conditions, the programme is therefore unlikely to offer participants a labour market advantage, even in relatively low-skill, low-pay areas of work.


Vertebral compression fracture (VCF) is a common and debilitating problem that occurs in patients with osteoporosis and osteolytic tumors. Standard conservative management with narcotic analgesics, bracing, and immobilization is often ineffective, and major reconstructive surgery is poorly tolerated by this frail patient population. The limitations of conventional treatments stimulated the development of minimally invasive, percutaneous vertebral augmentation techniques, including vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty, which have become established as safe and effective treatments for VCF. This report reviews the current status of vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty in the management of acute VCF.


This paper presents a novel framework for social group activity recognition. As an expanded task of group activity recognition, social group activity recognition requires recognizing multiple sub-group activities and identifying group members. Most existing methods tackle both tasks by refining region features and then summarizing them into activity features. Such heuristic feature design renders the effectiveness of features susceptible to incomplete person localization and disregards the importance of scene contexts. Furthermore, region features are sub-optimal to identify group members because the features may be dominated by those of people in the regions and have different semantics. To overcome these drawbacks, we propose to leverage attention modules in transformers to generate effective social group features. Our method is designed in such a way that the attention modules identify and then aggregate features relevant to social group activities, generating an effective feature for each social group. Group member information is embedded into the features and thus accessed by feed-forward networks. The outputs of feed-forward networks represent groups so concisely that group members can be identified with simple Hungarian matching between groups and individuals. Experimental results show that our method outperforms state-of-the-art methods on the Volleyball and Collective Activity datasets.


The severe plastic deformation (SPD) of metallic materials has become attractive in recent years. Accumulative roll bonding (ARB) is a SPD process that can impose deformation to a sheet metal, as it develops fine grains of typically submicrometer or even the nanometer level in polycrystalline materials. The purpose of the present study is investigation of microstructural evolution and micro hardness behavior of the commercial purity Aluminium (AA1050) severely deformed by the ARB process. The microstructural evolution during 13 cycles of ARB process was investigated. With increasing ARB cycles the grains size reduced in nanometer range. Furthermore, Micro-Vickers hardness measurement was carried out throughout thickness of the ARB processed sheets.


In the above paper [see ibid., vol. 45, no. 7, p.769-80, 1998] the authors state that the concept of a so-called "bulk-driven" circuit is, in their opinion, original. However, this concept, called a "body-driven" circuit, was presented over ten years ago at the ECCTD'87 in Paris, France, and has been published in the proceedings of that conference. In 1991, another paper concerning this concept was published, in which the authors have cited our paper and have used the "body-driven" concept in the practical realization of a software-programmable CMOS telephone circuit.


Material derivatives for electromagnetic fields are presented. They are applied to determine the Maxwell stress tensor associated with different models of ferromagnetic materials. The accent is placed on the theoretical implications of the simplifying assumptions done in the different material models, with a thermodynamically consistent finite-element implementation of electromagnetic forces in scope.


Though she has never held an elected office in any major nursing organization, Eleanor Lambertsen has served as nursing's representative on hospital boards, and to the AHA and the AMA. And as one of the chief architects of team nursing, she has always fought to make improving patient care the paramount objective of any health care institution.


With two whole infertile eggs and two incomplete infertile eggs (having shell membrane and shell) of Chinese Alligator (Alligator sinensis) from the artificial condition and the field in Anhui Province,the authors studied the concentration of four heavy metal elements (Cu,Zn,Cd and Pb) in the different parts (albumen,yolk,shell membrane and shell) with Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS).Our results showed that these four elements concentration was quite different in the different parts of the same egg.The concentration of these four elements from high to low is Zn,Cu,Pb,Cd in the albumen,yolk and shell membrane of the infertile egg.However the sequence is Zn,Pb,Cu,Cd in the shell of the infertile egg.The concentration of Zn (the highest is 63.29 mg/kg) is higher than the other three elements in the same egg.The concentration of Cu (the highest is 20.03 mg/kg) is higher in the shell membrane than the others parts of the same egg.The concentration of Pb (the highest is 26.8 mg/kg) is higher in the shell than the other parts of the same egg.The concentration of Cd (the minimum is 0.024 mg/kg) is much lower than the other three elements in the albumen,yolk and shell membrane of the same egg.In addition,our results also showed that the concentration of these four elements tended higher in the infertile egg from the artificial condition than that from the field.The results should be considered by Chinese Alligator Breeding Center.


Purpose: TomoTherapy Hi'¢Art systems may exhibit rotational dose fluctuation and dose drift during treatment delivery. A dose servo system has been developed by Accuray, Inc. to monitor and control the dose output on TomoTherapy Hi'‐Art systems. The Dose Control System (DCS) provides continuous control of the linear accelerator output through a closed loop control system to maintain a constant dose output. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the clinical performance of the DCS and to quantify the stability of the dose output after the installation of DCS on our Hi'¢Art unit. Methods: Daily ion chamber measurements in a solid water phantom for static and IMRT deliveries were compared for a time period of two months before and after the DCS installation. Weekly beam measurements using onboard MVCT detector and ion chamber data acquired by field service engineers were also analyzed. Dose stability and intra‐procedure dose drift were assessed from data before and after the DCS installation. Results: Both the range and standard deviations of daily static and IMRT ion chambermeasurements improved with the DCS. The standard deviation of the daily IMRT measurements improved from 0.96% to 0.5%. The dose drift also improved significantly with the DCS. The intra‐dose dose drift during a 200 second rotating procedure decreased from an average of 1.02% to 0.02% based on on‐board ion chamber data. The data show that the dose output is much more stable overall and more consistent from day to day. Conclusions: Based on dosimetric QA endpoints, the DCS has shown a marked improvement in machine dose stability and intra‐procedure dose drift when compared to data from before DCS was installed. MD Anderson Cancer Center Orlando holds a research grant from Accuray, Inc.


The (&mgr;-oxo)diiron(III) complexes of N,N'-bis(2-methyl-2-mercaptopropane)-1,5-diazacyclooctane (H(2)bme-daco) and N,N'-bis(mercaptoethyl)-1,5-diazacyclooctane (H(2)bme-daco) ligands present uncommon examples of well-characterized (&mgr;-oxo)diiron(III) species in the presence of sulfur donors. Whereas the reaction of molecular oxygen with a solution of diiron(II) complex, [(bme-daco)Fe](2), affords slow formation of the &mgr;-oxo species, the presence of O(2) in the reaction of free ligand with the iron source, Fe(acac)(3), gave good yields in shorter time. With the less sterically encumbered derivative, [(bme-daco)Fe](2), the only successful route to [(bme-daco)Fe](2)O required single O-atom sources such as 4-chloropyridine N-oxide to be present during the preparation of the complex; attempted use of molecular O(2) either during the synthesis or following isolation of the iron(II) dimer [(bme-daco)Fe](2 )resulted in decomposition. That is, both the reactant [(bme-daco)Fe](2) and the product [(bme-daco)Fe](2)O are unstable toward O(2). The molecular structures of [(bme-daco)Fe](2), [(bme-daco)Fe](2)O, and [(bme-daco)Fe](2)O were determined by X-ray crystallography. The topological description of the Fe(II) dimers is that of edge-bridged square pyramids, with the Fe(II) displaced from the N(2)S(2) planes of each ligand on average by 0.59 Å and engaged in a planar Fe(2)S(2) core. For the (&mgr;-oxo)diiron(III) compounds, the square pyramids are O-vertex bridged, and the Fe(III) dome effect is 0.65 and 0.62 Å for [(bme-daco)Fe](2)O and [(bme-daco)Fe](2)O, respectively. Further characterization by ESI mass spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetry, and EPR spectroscopy (of the one-electron reduced [(bme-daco)Fe](2)O is presented. There was no indication of the ligand-based oxygen capture producing S-oxygenates which are prevalent in nickel derivatives of bme-daco and bme-daco.


Neoclassical economical theory uses aspects of perfect functioning of markets as part of its basic assumptions and introduces imperfections as analysis proceeds forward. Many types of heterodox economics insist on dealing with imperfect competition but project backwards to a previous perfect state. In Capitalism, Anwar Shaikh demonstrates that most of the central propositions of economic analysis can be derived without any reference to hyperrationality, optimization, perfect competition, perfect information, representative agents or so-called rational expectations. These include the laws of demand and supply, the determination of wage and profit rates, technological change, relative prices, interest rates, bond and equity prices, exchange rates, terms and balance of trade, growth, unemployment, inflation, and long booms culminating in recurrent general crises. In every case, Shaikh's theory is applied to modern empirical patterns and contrasted with neoclassical, Keynesian, and Post Keynesian approaches to the same issues. The object of analysis is the economics of capitalism, and economic thought on the subject is addressed in that light. This is how the classical economists, as well as Keynes and Kalecki, approached the issue. Anyone interested in capitalism and economics in general can gain a wealth of knowledge from this ground-breaking text. Available in OSO:


This systematic review aimed to determine whether the risk of extrapyramidal side effects (EPS) differed between antipsychotic drugs used in first episode psychosis (FEP). We identified 11 RCTs comparing two or more antipsychotics in FEP and reporting on EPS. All trials assessed one or more second generation antipsychotics (SGAs), one assessed chlorpromazine, one zuclopenthixol and seven trials assessed haloperidol. Assessment and reporting of EPS varied. Compared with one or more SGA comparators, haloperidol was associated with significantly higher rates/severity of parkinsonism (seven trials) and akathisia (six trials) and greater use of anticholinergics (five trials) and beta-blockers (two trials). Two trials with low-dose haloperidol (≤ 4 mg) showed significantly worse EPS outcomes versus a SGA. Two of four long-term haloperidol trials (≥ 1 year) found a higher dyskinesia-risk with haloperidol versus olanzapine and risperidone respectively; the remaining two trials found no difference (various SGA comparators). There was an EPS advantage for clozapine versus chlorpromazine (one trial) and risperidone versus zuclopenthixol (one trial). There was little evidence of EPS-differences between SGAs, possibly reflecting use of low doses. We conclude that SGAs offer an EPS advantage over FGAs in FEP though the evidence largely relates to comparisons with haloperidol. Standardized assessment and reporting of EPS would assist future research.


Methods: Transvaginal ultrasound to assess pregnancy location, viability and embryonic CRL was performed in a prospective cohort study of women attending an EPU at 5–11 weeks, regardless of indication. Only women with intrauterine, viable singleton pregnancies who had conceived spontaneously and had a certain last menstrual period (LMP) and regular menstrual cycle (26–30 days) were included. Z-score (number of SDs from mean expected CRL) between observed and expected CRL for gestation was calculated. Deviation between viable and failed pregnancies by 11–14 weeks was calculated. Results: Some 217 viable pregnancies met the inclusion criteria; 181(83%) remained viable at 11–14 weeks, while 36 (17%) miscarried. In pregnancies that subsequently miscarried the CRL was significantly smaller (Z-score −2.53, SD 1.89) than in those remaining viable (Z-score −0.80, SD 2.21; P < 0.0001). At initial scan all pregnancies that subsequently miscarried had a CRL below the expected mean for gestation, while in 61% (22/36) the CRL was two SDs below expected for gestational age. Conclusions: In pregnancies that subsequently ended in miscarriage CRL was significantly smaller than in those remaining viable. Early first-trimester growth restriction may predict subsequent intrauterine death and re-dating women with a certain LMP may not always be appropriate in the early first trimester where a discrepancy exists between expected and measured CRL.


Children with sensorineural hearing loss may (re)gain hearing with a cochlear implant—a device that transforms sounds into electric pulses and bypasses the dysfunctioning inner ear by stimulating the auditory nerve directly with an electrode array. Many implanted children master the acquisition of spoken language successfully, yet we still have little knowledge of the actual input they receive with the implant and specifically which language sensitive cues they hear. This would be important however, both for understanding the flexibility of the auditory system when presented with stimuli after a (life-) long phase of deprivation and for planning therapeutic intervention. In rhythmic languages the general stress pattern conveys important information about word boundaries. Infant language acquisition relies on such cues and can be severely hampered when this information is missing, as seen for dyslexic children and children with specific language impairment. Here we ask whether children with a cochlear implant perceive differences in stress patterns during their language acquisition phase and if they do, whether it is present directly following implant stimulation or if and how much time is needed for the auditory system to adapt to the new sensory modality. We performed a longitudinal ERP study, testing in bimonthly intervals the stress pattern perception of 17 young hearing impaired children (age range: 9–50 months; mean: 22 months) during their first 6 months of implant use. An additional session before the implantation served as control baseline. During a session they passively listened to an oddball paradigm featuring the disyllable "baba," which was stressed either on the first or second syllable (trochaic vs. iambic stress pattern). A group of age-matched normal hearing children participated as controls. Our results show, that within the first 6 months of implant use the implanted children develop a negative mismatch response for iambic but not for trochaic deviants, thus showing the same result as the normal hearing controls. Even congenitally deaf children show the same developing pattern. We therefore conclude (a) that young implanted children have early access to stress pattern information and (b) that they develop ERP responses similar to those of normal hearing children.


Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L) R. Br.) is an important staple food crop in the arid and semi-arid tropics of India and Africa. Considering the widespread micronutrient malnutrition arising from the deficiencies of iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn), ICRISAT, supported by HarvestPlus Challenge Program of the CGIAR, and in partnerships with the public and private sector in India, has undertaken to help develop pearl millet cultivars with high levels of these micronutrients. Large variability for Fe and Zn content has been observed in commercial cultivars, improved breeding lines, improved populations and hybrid parents. Cost-effective and rapid screening techniques have been standardized to enhance the breeding efficiency. Both Fe and Zn contents have been found to be largely under additive genetic control with no significant heterosis over better-parent, which would require breeding both parents for high Fe and Zn contents. Fe and Zn contents are highly significantly and positively correlated (often r >0.70), indicating that simultaneous genetic improvement of both micronutrients will be highly effective. The association of these two micronutrients with grain size has been found either non-significant or positive, indicating that Fe and Zn content can be improved without compromising on grain size. Association of Fe an Zn content with grain yield has generally been found negative, but mostly low and not always significant, indicating that high grain yield can be combined with high levels of Fe and Zn content through selection in large segregating populations. A biofortified high-Fe variety ICTP 8203 Fe 10-2 developed from selection within a popular variety ICTP 8203 (also released as PCB 138 in Punjab in 1990) has been released in Maharashtra. A high-Fe experimental hybrid ICMH 1201 has also been developed and is under production by a seed company for commercialization. Breeding lines and hybrid parents with higher levels of Fe and Zn contents are being developed to diversify cultivar base with high-yielding hybrids having high levels of these micronutrients.


With power conversion efficiencies now exceeding 25%, hybrid perovskite solar cells require deeper understanding of defects and processing to further approach the Shockley‐Queisser limit. One approach for processing enhancement and defect reduction involves additive engineering—, e.g., addition of MASCN (MA = methylammonium) and excess PbI2 have been shown to modify film grain structure and improve performance. However, the underlying impact of these additives on transport and recombination properties remains to be fully elucidated. In this study, a newly developed carrier‐resolved photo‐Hall (CRPH) characterization technique is used that gives access to both majority and minority carrier properties within the same sample and over a wide range of illumination conditions. CRPH measurements on n‐type MAPbI3 films reveal an order of magnitude increase in carrier recombination lifetime and electron density for 5% excess PbI2 added to the precursor solution, with little change noted in electron and hole mobility values. Grain size variation (120–2100 nm) and MASCN addition induce no significant change in carrier‐related parameters considered, highlighting the benign nature of the grain boundaries and that excess PbI2 must predominantly passivate bulk defects rather than defects situated at grain boundaries. This study offers a unique picture of additive impact on MAPbI3 optoelectronic properties as elucidated by the new CRPH approach.


Recent field experiments demonstrated the possibility of using the sterile male method for the control of Anopheles albimanus Wiedemann, the most important vector of human malaria in Central America. Until now there was no practical method for excluding females from the releases of sterile males. A genetic method was developed for the preferential elimination of females during any of the four life stages. This genetic sexing system utilizes propoxur (o-isopropoxyphenyl methyl-carbamate) susceptibility as a recessive conditional lethal a T(Y:2R) translocation, and an In(2R)inversion. The propoxur resistance allele (dominant) was linked to the Y chromosome via a radiation-induced translocation, and genetic recombination was suppressed by inversions. In one of the strains produced, 99.7 percent of the females are eliminated when treated with propoxur, without male loss.


This thesis examines older (60-75 years) African Caribbean migrant women"s experiences of health and the extent to which these connect with identity across the life-course. It draws on their accounts to consider how gender, migrant and ethnic identity are produced and constructed in later life.

The thesis considers the religious experiences of older African Caribbean women and how these influence health and well-being. The relationship between past and present homeland experiences, traditions and homeland produce such as food and medicine, is further examined. The aim here is to identify how the maintenance of ethnic and cultural identities influences their perceptions of health, western healthcare and medical practices.

The key theories examined relate to identity construction and how identity categories are inter-dependant, constantly changing and made up of boundaries that are not totally fixed. In addition to this, the formation of religious identity is examined to see the extent to which religion and its practices are contained within certain parameters and constraints which can structure the nature of both self-representation and subjectivity. The gendered nature of knowledge is also examined to ascertain how knowledge influences individual power and how power can influence the connections between the body, surveillance and health.

A qualitative and in depth interpretative analysis guided by feminist epistemological and ontological thought is used. A methodological aim was to deconstruct the universal categories of women"s experiences, in order to enable insight into the different types of regulation that define the individual experiences of older migrant African Caribbean women living in the UK. A second aim within the research process was to explore how the researcher"s biography influences and is influenced by the biographies of the research participants.

The key findings suggest past experiences have impacted on the health and well-being of African Caribbean women in later life. For instance, life-course inequalities had a direct impact on their health and life-fulfilment as they grew older.

The experiences of older African Caribbean women link to the construction of both their ethnic and cultural identity, and these identities are constructed in such a way as to maintain the self and identity boundaries.

Religion and its practices are of immense importance to older African Caribbean women. It is through such activities that many were able to cope with hardship and the effects of multiple oppressions. These have influenced how older African Caribbean women perceive and maintain their health and well-being.

In understanding the lives of older African Caribbean women, it is important to consider the ways in which cultural, migratory and social experiences shape their experiences of health and well-being in later life; in order to acknowledge diversity through the recognition and acceptance of difference.


Clustering with constraints is an important and developing area. However, most work is confined to conjunctions of simple together and apart constraints which limit their usability. In this paper, we propose a new formulation of constrained clustering that is able to incorporate not only existing types of constraints but also more complex logical combinations beyond conjunctions. We first show how any statement in conjunctive normal form (CNF) can be represented as a linear inequality. Since existing clustering formulations such as spectral clustering cannot easily incorporate these linear inequalities, we propose a quadratic programming (QP) clustering formulation to accommodate them. This new formulation allows us to have much more complex guidance in clustering. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in two applications on text and personal information management. We also compare our algorithm against existing constrained spectral clustering algorithm to show its efficiency in computational time.


As conventional lead solders are being replaced by Pb-free solders in electronic devices, the reliability of solder joints in integrated circuits (ICs) has become a high concern. Due to the miniaturization of ICs and consequently solder joints, the current density through the solder interconnects has increased causing electrical damage known as electromigration. Electromigration, atomic and mass migration due to high electron currents, is one of the most urgent reliability issues delaying the implementation of Pb-free solder materials in electronic devices. The research on Pb-free solders has mainly focused on the qualitative understanding of failure by electromigration. There has been little progress however, on the quantitative analysis of electromigration because of the lack of available material parameters, such as the effective charge, (z*), the driving force for electromigration. The research herein uses idealized interconnects to measure the z* of electromigration of Cu in Sn-3.0Ag-0.5Cu (SAC305) alloy under different experimental conditions. Planar SAC 305 interconnects were sandwiched between two Cu pads and subject to uniaxial current. The crystallographic orientation of Sn in these samples were characterized with electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and wavelength dispersive spectroscopy (WDS) before and after electromigration testing. Results indicate that samples with the c-axis aligned perpendicular to current flow, polycrystalline, and those with a diffusion barrier on the cathode side all inhibit the growth of intermetallic compounds (IMC). The effective charge values of Cu in SAC 305 under the different conditions tested were quantified for the first time and included in this dissertation. The following research is expected to help verify and improve the electromigration model and identify the desirable conditions to inhibit damage by electromigration in Pb-free solder joints.


The Bonahaven Formation of northern Islay, Scotland, despite having undergone high-pressure greenschist facies metamorphism, contains many relics of its diagenetic history. Early diagenetic dolomite textures, calcite and clay mineral cements are well preserved locally. Burial diagenetic compactional and pressure solution features are recognizable together with quartz and feldspar overgrowths and variable styles of replacement by and recrystallization of dolomite, calcite, pyrite, quartz and albite. The imprint of deformation and metamorphism is variable, probably as a result of differences in the degree of pressure solution and the CO2, content of pore fluid. Typically, some solution-transfer phenomena occur, accompanied by growth of cleavage-defining phengite and sporadic phlogopite. Locally, abundant phlogopite or biotite is present in lithologies with fully developed metamorphic textures. Dolomite shows good preservation of pre-metamorphic textures and minor element zonation, but calcite does not. Metamorphic re-equilibration was insufficient to allow the derivation of maximum temperatures by calcite–dolomite geo-thermometry.


Achieving market approval of a new peptide therapeutic requires phase-appropriate demonstration of product safety, efficacy and quality across all stages of development, including raw materials, drug substance and drug product manufacture, product distribution and shelf-life. Of particular importance is the definition of a drug product formulation that meets requirements as defined by the Quality Target Product Profile (QTPP) and mitigates peptide-specific Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls (CMC) liabilities. Peptide drug product formulations can range widely in complexity, but often require the inclusion of excipients that are selected to perform a number of functions, such as buffering pH, preserving sterility, mitigating chemical and/or physical instabilities of the peptide active substance or controlling the rate of peptide drug release upon administration in people. The choice of excipient(s) and composition(s) can impact multiple drug product attributes, which necessitates appropriate formulation characterization and data-driven decision-making regarding excipient use throughout development and ultimately in the final drug product. This chapter briefly surveys categories of excipients employed in therapeutic peptide formulation development, highlights guidance and regulations related to the selection and evaluation of such excipients and discusses the assessment and justification of excipient use in formulations, from discovery through development, with a focus on peptide-specific challenges in parenteral formulations.


for gestational age. The correlation coefficient (CC) between the two techniques and between each techniques and mid-trimester findings was calculated using non-parametric analysis (Spearman rho). Results: Out of 81 women that were recruited, first trimester Doppler was achievable for both arteries in 81 (100%) with technique 1 and in 66 (82%) for technique 2 (P < 0.01). Correlation analyses were performed using the women with available data for both techniques. The correlation for mean PI between the two techniques was only moderate (CC: 0.67). Moreover, first trimester PI correlates better with mid-trimester PI using technique 1 (CC: 0.77) than technique 2 (CC: 0.55). Inter-observer reproducibility (n = 34) was also better with technique 1 than with technique 2 (CC: 0.86 vs. 0.71). Conclusions: First-trimester uterine artery Doppler performed at the level of internal cervical os from its ascending branch is more easily obtained than when it is performed at the level of the apparent crossover with external iliac vessels. Moreover, its PI correlates better with the mid-trimester PI than the second technique.


Absorption cooling cycles are environmental and can use solar or waste heat for cooling with very small electric power. This work presents exergy analysis of a double effect parallel flow and single effect absorption cooling systems for comparison. A computer program is developed for the thermodynamic properties of lithium bromide-water solutions by the author in FORTRAN codes for the exergy analysis. The double effect parallel flow absorption systems have better advantages than the single effect absorption system. The coefficient performance (COP) and the exergetic coefficient performance (ECOP) of the double effect parallel flow absorption systems are higher than the single cycles. For the double effect cycle COP and ECOP are found as 1.195 and 0.28, and for the single effect cycle COP and ECOP are found as 0.68 and 0.23, respectively. For each component the exergy loss and exergy destruction is calculated. Most of the irreversibilities are found in the evaporator and in the absorber which about 74 % for the double effect, and 72 % for the single effect of the total irreversibility. It is concluded that the performance of the evaporator and the absorber is crucial for the two cycles. Improving and better design of these two components will directly improve and affect positively the working conditions and the performance of the cycles.


As the world's population continues to grow, the importance of energy efficiency is getting increasingly dire. The amount of fossil fuels and and kilowatts a household expends has to be reduced. One way to accomplish this is by using green energy in the form of solar panels, and to educate the owners to utilize the energy in a smart way. Such a user will need tools in order to learn how much the house and its appliances are spending, how to save energy, and shift the timing of the expenditure according to availability. This project will introduce an ICT concept, which aims to inform the users of their behaviour, give tips on how they can improve it, and gradually persuade the users to change their behaviour into a more efficient one. The concept has adopted different behaviour change methods and theories, such as feedback, gamification, and social norm. This study follows the design science research methodology and results in a working prototype of the behaviour change technology. This prototype is evaluated through an expert evaluation in the form of a semi-structured interview session. The findings of the evaluation suggest that the prototype is a solid foundation in regards to creating a successful persuasive ICT. However, the findings suggests that the user should be able to choose what information is presented. This is in order to keep the information understandable concerning difficult terminology and measurements. The information given should also provide suggestive feedback to the users, so they can utilize the feedback from the system and learn how to be more efficient. The participants of the evaluation presented creative ideas ideas for improvement in regard to these findings. These have been documented and should be considered during further development of the prototype. Although findings from this study show that the foundation has been made, further research is required in order to determine the level of relevance of the ICT and if it is of a successful persuasive design. Keywords— Persuasive Design, Persuasive ICT, Motivation Change ICT, Gamification, Behaviour Change ICT, Energy Efficiency.


Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) have gained considerable interest in the last decade from both industry and academia. Such systems have proven particularly complex and provide considerable challenges to master their design and ensure their functionalities. In this paper, we intend to tackle some of these challenges related to the security and the resilience of CPS at the design level. We initiate a CPS modeling approach to specify such systems structure and behaviors, analyze their inherent properties and to overcome threats in terms of security and correctness. In this initiative, we consider a CPS as a network of entities that communicate through physical and logical channels, and which purpose is to achieve a set of tasks expressed as an ordered tree. Our modeling approach proposes a combination of the Coq theorem prover and the Maude rewriting system to ensure the soundness and correctness of CPS design. The introduced solution is illustrated through an automobile manufacturing case study.


Diamond materials feature a wide range of outstanding chemical and physical properties, which have interested scientists over the years. The oldest applications of diamond are certainly related to its mechanical properties, in particular its hardness, which has facilitated its use for cutting and polishing, and in drilling tools. The chemical resilience of diamond associated with its interesting semiconducting properties has also been exploited for the development of radiation detectors. In this chapter we focus on chemical or biochemical sensing applications. Here, the extreme properties of diamond, being chemical, electrochemical, optical, acoustic, and so forth, have more recently prompted excitement for the development of innovative sensors. The various forms of diamond, from particles at the nanoscale to bulk single crystals, exhibit real potential to enhance both the sensing performance of the devices and their robustness, as well as their reliability in field-operating conditions. A wide range of diamond-based chemical sensors have been reported in the form of solid state semiconductor sensors, field effect transistors, electrodes, etc. both in the gas phase and in the liquid phase. Such sensors have found various applications in environmental monitoring, security and medical diagnostics. Two types of transducer technologies, namely acoustic wave devices and cantilevers, are particularly interesting because they offer the possibility of high sensitivity detection of a wide range of analytes at a potentially low cost with a high level of miniaturisation. This chapter gives an insight into how these technologies may benefit from the exceptional assets of diamond materials through a few examples, ranging from DNA detection to artificial olfaction.


Background and purpose: Aggressive behavior is one of the most common disorders in children that leads to consultation referral. The aim of this study was to predict aggression in children according to mental health and dimensions of violence against mothers. Materials and methods: The research population included 250 mothers of preschool children who were selected by multistage sampling in Dezful, Iran. Data was collected by General Health Questioner, Violence toward Women Inventory, and Child Behavior Checklist. Results: The results showed a significant negative correlation between mothers' general health and children aggression (r= -0.517). But significant positive correlation was found between children aggression and mental, physical, sexual, and economic violence (0.647, 0.618, 0.360, and 0.344, respectively) against mothers (P= 0.001). Maternal mental health, and sexual and mental violence against mothers could predict aggression in children. Conclusion: To control aggression in children, great attention should be paid to other systems such as family and the relationships within a family.


Brugada syndrome is an inherited arrhythmogenic disease, characterised by a coved-type ST segment elevation in right precordial leads and an increased risk of sudden cardiac death due to ventricular arrhythmia. Electrocardiographic patterns of the disease is divided into three as: a) type I, characterized by a coved-type ST-segment elevation ≥ 2 mm in more than one right precordial lead (V1-V3), followed by negative T wave; b) type II, characterized by ST-segment elevation ≥ 2 mm in right precordial leads followed by positive or biphasic T waves, resulting in a saddleback configuration; and c) type III, defined as any of the 2 previous types if ST-segment elevation is ≤ 1 mm. Although genetic basis of the disease is described (mutations in SCN5A, a cardiac sodium channel gene, transmitted in an autosomal dominant pattern), there is a lack of information about its relationship with triggering factors, particularly toxins. Even though the literature knowledge mainly depends on case reports, in this review, our aim was to investigate the relationship between BrS and toxins, and create awareness on clinicians about this fatal entity.