Problem. Until 1983 there was no statistical model for projecting church growth among white English-speaking Seventh-day Adventist churches in the United States. The purpose of this study was to identify a forecasting model based on the variables that were gathered from pastor and local church reports. Thegeneral hypothesis was that a significant predictive relationship existed between some combination of report variable/factors and the rate of church growth or decline. This hypothesis was subdivided into four specific hypotheses. Method. One hundred forty-five churches were randomly selected from the white English-speaking churches in the United States. The financial, membership, pastor, and Sabbath School reports were collected from the local conference archives for the three-year period, 1976-1978. The report data was categorized into sixty-two independent and four dependent variables. The independent variables were factor analyzed. Four prediction models were identified by stepwise multiple regression analysis using the factors as predictors. Results. The data analysis was based on returns from 133 churches--a 92 percent return rate. Eleven factors were extracted from the data. The multiple R achieved for the four prediction models ranged from .344 to .529. Three of the prediction models obtained a significance level of .01 and one a level of .05. Thus all four of the hypotheses of this study were supported. Conclusions. (1) Baptismal Growth is associated with a combination of the following factors: Evangelism, Pastor Tenure, Ingathering, Religious Education--Outreach, Proclamation, Discretionary Giving, and Conference Projects. (2) Dropping members from the church is associated with a combination of the following factors: Religious Education--Outreach, Proclamation, Pastor Tenure, Discretionary Giving, Obligatory Stewardship, and Sabbath School Evangelism. (3)The primary factor for predicting actual growth is Obligatory Stewardship. (4) Actual growth is also associated with a combination of five other factors: Evangelism, Pastor Tenure, Sabbath School Evangelism, Institutional Church, and Ingathering. (5) Kingdom growth is associated with a combination of four factors: Pastor Tenure, Evangelism, Proclamation, and Ingathering. In summary, the 1976-1978 Adventist reporting system is useful for predicting the four indices of church growth. However, the overarching conclusion of this study is that some important variables/factors related to church growth are absent.


Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm has emerged as a promising novel paradigm to achieve better coverage and higher capacity for future wireless network by exploiting the more favorable line-of-sight (LoS) propagation. To reap the potential gains of UAV swarm, the remote control signal sent by ground control unit (GCU) is essential, whereas the control signal quality are susceptible in practice due to the effect of the adjacent channel interference (ACI) and the external interference (EI) from radiation sources distributed across the region. To tackle these challenges, this paper considers priority-aware resource coordination in a multi-UAV communication system, where multiple UAVs are controlled by a GCU to perform certain tasks with a pre-defined trajectory. Specifically, we maximize the minimum signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) among all the UAVs by jointly optimizing channel assignment and power allocation strategy under stringent resource availability constraints. According to the intensity of ACI, we consider the corresponding problem in two scenarios, i.e., Null-ACI and ACI systems. By virtue of the particular problem structure in Null-ACI case, we first recast the formulation into an equivalent yet more tractable form and obtain the global optimal solution via Hungarian algorithm. For general ACI systems, we develop an efficient iterative algorithm for its solution based on the alternating optimization methods. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithms can significantly enhance the minimum SINR among all the UAVs and adapt the allocation of communication resources to diverse mission priority.


Nowadays, there has been a growing interest in reverse logistics in both theory and practice due to legislations, economic and ecological benefits, and social responsibilities. If enterprises incorporating reverse logistics activities to its structure want to realize the required level of customer service and comply with related obligations at the lowest total cost, analyzing the actualized reverse logistics activities and correct determination and reduction of costs of these activities are essential for them. Traditional accounting methods are inadequate for accurate assignment of overhead costs. In this paper, an actual application of Activity Based Costing (ABC) to reverse logistics activities is presented in order to help managers to improve their understanding of costs that arises from reverse logistics activities. An illustrative case study in the end-of-life vehicle (ELV) recovery industry in Turkey is presented to demonstrate the steps of how ABC is applied to reverse logistics systems. The results enable to efficient management of reverse logistics activities and their costs in an ELV recovery chain and exhibit which reverse logistics activities performed by a dismantler cause the highest cost and can be improved. In the case study, products (ELVs) are evaluated as inputs and the obtained materials from reverse logistics activities are evaluated as outputs of the system by force of the nature of reverse logistics. Results show that while most cost of the company (52.7%) was related with the output of B Group of components/parts (sent to shredders); the minimum cost (12.3%) was realized for the output of A Group components/parts (sent to recyclers). The remaining 35% of the costs belong to the C Group of outputs (sent to secondary markets).


Summer and autumn in Israel are highly arid with not enough plants in bloom offering nectar and pollen to support the local apiary. This leads to decline in colony health and honey production. To increase food sources for honeybees, we initiated a project to clone elite Eucalyptus trees exhibiting constant and rich blooming from late summer to early winter. We induced adventitious roots from cuttings of two mature Eucalyptus trees of which nectar production and honeybees' attraction was measured: Eucalyptus brachyphylla and Eucalyptus x trabutii. During the rooting process, a high frequency of cylindrical callus formation instead of roots was obtained. To shed light on the inner anatomy of the callus chunks, we compared their cell organization and cell-wall composition to those of roots. Whereas in the root, cells were organized in circumferential symmetry, no symmetry was found in the callus. Instead, a more chaotic accumulation of meristematic-like cells with sporadic clusters of tracheary elements laid in different directions were observed. The outer cell layer of the callus often included swollen cells with thin cell walls. Most callus cells stained more strongly for cellulose and lignin than cells in the root meristem. In addition, specific antibodies to methylesterified and de-methylesterified pectin showed differential staining of callus vs. root cells indicating cell wall differences. Strikingly, roots were seen to differentiate from the chaotic cell organization of the callus, albeit at low rates. Further investigation of the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying callus formation, are required.


This paper discusses algorithms to find the optimal threshold and also investigates the impact of threshold quantization on the scheduling outage performance of the opportunistic splitting scheduling algorithm. Since this algorithm aims at finding the user with the highest channel quality within the minimal number of mini-slots by adjusting the threshold every mini-slot, optimizing the threshold is of paramount importance. Hence, in this paper we first discuss how to compute the optimal threshold along with two tight approximations for the optimal threshold. Closed-form expressions are provided for those approximations for simple calculations. Then, we consider linear quantization of the threshold to take the limited number of bits for signaling messages in practical systems into consideration. Due to the limited granularity for the quantized threshold value, an irreducible scheduling outage floor is observed. The numerical results show that the two approximations offer lower scheduling outage probability floors compared to the conventional algorithm when the threshold is quantized.


Extraordinary optical transmission (EOT) is a term that refers to electromagnetic resonances through sets of subwavelength apertures in either a flat or a corrugated metal film, providing a larger transmission of electromagnetic fields than would be expected from the small aperture size. Since its discovery in 1998, EOT has been a very active research field, leading both to the discovery of new ways of enhancing optical transmission and to its application to sensing, color filters, metamaterials, lenses, optical trapping, enhancement of nonlinear effects, among others. This paper reviews the different mechanisms that lead to EOT, paying special attention to the new research areas and applications that have appeared in the last few years.


The potentiometric and impedance characteristics of a large number of pH sensitive, piperazine-based aminated PVC membranes are summarized. The main goal of the work was to predict the differences between "good" and "bad" responsive potentiometric pH membranes with very similar overall nitrogen contents. The only conclusion gained previously from other methods was that the N content should be between 0.5 and 0.8% for Nernstian response. The detailed analysis of the data show that a given N content of the basic material is a necessary but not a sufficient requirement with respect of the quality of potentiometric response. Conditions for appropriate pH response of the membrane are formulated in terms of surface and bulk impedance characteristics. The ideal pH response of an optimized aminated PVC membrane, which corresponds to a minimum surface impedance, is presented. The primary importance of surface amines relative to bulk amines (the conformation and distribution of active sites) is proven in a simple experiment.


Summary form only given. During the last few years, a radical restructuring of optical networks supporting e-Science projects is beginning to occur around the world. U.S. universities are beginning to acquire access to private, high bandwidth light pipes (termed "lambdas") through the National LambdaRail and the Global Lambda Integrated Facility, providing direct access to global data repositories, scientific instruments, and computational resources from Linux clusters in individual user laboratories. These dedicated connections have a number of significant advantages over shared Internet connections, including high bandwidth (10Gbps+), controlled performance (no jitter), lower cost per unit bandwidth, and security. These lambdas enable the grid program to be completed, in that they add the network elements to the compute and storage elements which can be discovered, reserved, and integrated by the grid middleware to form global LambdaGrids. The author describe how service oriented architecture LambdaGrids enable new capabilities in medical imaging, earth sciences, interactive ocean observatories, and marine microbial metagenomics


In the design of flexible pipes, predict the anchoring behavior on end fittings is always challenging. In this sense, Prysmian Surflex has developed a finite element model, which should help the end fitting design as well the prediction of the structural behavior and the acceptable maximum loads. The current model considers that the contact between armor-resin is purely cohesive and has been suitable for the design of end fittings [1] and [2]. But tests and new studies [3] and [4] indicate that only cohesive assumption would not be the best approach. Experimental data from prototype tests also show that the current model would not predict acceptable results for loads higher than those used in previous projects.This document will describe a study developed considering the friction and thermal contraction, instead of the cohesive phenomenon in the anchoring behavior analysis. Small scale tests were conducted in order to understand the anchoring relation between the resin and the wire used in the tensile armor. For this purpose, a special test device was developed to simulate an enclosure system. A parametric study was also performed to identify the cooling temperatures, coefficients of friction and contact properties parameters taken from small scale tests. The finite element model considers the thermal effects during exothermic curing.Using the new parameters obtained, a second model was developed. This model consists of only one real shaped bended wire inside an end fitting cavity. To validate the model, samples were tested on laboratory according anchoring design. The results of this round of tests were studied and corroborate the argument that use friction and thermal effects is better than use only the cohesive condition.Copyright © 2015 by ASME


In this paper, a simple filter topology that can be used to implement first-order MOS-only allpass filter is proposed. The proposed MOS-only allpass filter offers inherently very accurate magnitude and phase characteristics at very high frequencies. However, MOS-only active filter suffers from an inherent low frequency limitation. In order to address this issue, the modification technique allowing the derivation of MOS-only filter which allow extension of the operating frequency towards lower frequency region is proposed. Detailed simulations results of the filter modified according to the proposed technique are also provided in order to verify the usefulness of the theoretical approach.


Response surface methodology was applied to improve the polyphenol extraction process of rosemary, oregano, sage, and thyme. Aqueous ethanol (EtOH 50%) rendered the highest polyphenol extraction yield for all tested samples. Based on their total phenolic contents, rosemary, oregano, and thyme were selected for evaluation of their scavenging activities towards DPPH radical and ABTS radical cation and application in an oil model system. All extracts decreased the production of primary oxidation compounds  during Schaall oven test storage. The induction period, as evaluated by the Rancimat test, was also reduced. There was an agreement between both oil model system assays, and rosemary extract showed the highest antioxidant capacity, followed by thyme and oregano. A centroid simplex design was used to evaluate the synergistic effect among the samples. Rosemary was able to play a synergistic effect when combined with thyme and oregano, or when used in binary mixtures.


A total of 2840 patients with pulmonary tuberculosis and bronchial asthma were studied. Antigens are shown to induce a systemic vascular response with elevated systolic pressure in the pulmonary artery, peripheral venous spasms. There is activation of the sympathoadrenal system and desensitization of beta-adrenoreceptors with lower levels of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (CAMP). There is a direct correlation between the CAMP levels and the cardiac output, between those and the pulmonary systolic pressure (PSP). This determines hyperkinetic hemodynamics in tuberculosis with the volume- and pressure-loaded heart. Paresis of pulmonary circulation, as well as hypokinetic hemodynamics occur as a result of an allergic immunological reaction in severe fibrocavernous processes in the area of tuberculosis. There is a direct correlation between the circulating immune complexes and CAMP. In bronchial asthma microcirculation is impaired due to antigenic exposures and elevated intrathoracic pressure. Pulmonary capillary reduction in restrictive processes results in higher levels of CAMP and right-to-left shunt, leading to hypoxemia. In obstructive pulmonary diseases, hypoxemia is caused by hypoventilation and impaired ventilation-perfusion ratios.


Using data from Current Population Survey Tobacco Use Supplements spanning 1992–2002, this study shows that smokers who plan to quit smoking are more supportive of regulations than are other smokers. Failed quitters who plan to try again are more supportive of restrictions than are smokers planning to quit for the first time. These findings indicate that many smokers support regulatory restrictions to reduce their costs of quitting by exploiting the discipline offered by regulatory control. From 1992 to 2002, support for smoking restrictions in public areas rose dramatically among both nonsmokers and smokers.


To the Editor.— A letter to the editor in the December 1978 issue of The Lancet initiated a discussion of the usefulness of cimetidine therapy in patients with psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis. 1 Regarding the efficacy of this therapeutic approach, a number of rather contradictory results were published, describing both beneficial and neutral effects on skin and/or joint lesions. 2-5 Our observation of a single patient with psoriatic arthritis in whom the eruptions disappeared while he was receiving cimetidine therapy prompted us to study ten additional patients with this disease. Short-term cimetidine therapy (14 to 28 days) was started at a dosage of 1 g/day, with a reduction to 600 mg/day after two weeks. Eight of the patients suffering from both psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis were at the same time being treated with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. In two psoriasis patients without arthritis, all oral as well as topical treatment was


Background Case reports and case control studies have suggested an association between chiropractic neck manipulation and cervical artery dissection (CAD), but a causal relationship has not been established. We evaluated the evidence related to this topic by performing a systematic review and meta-analysis of published data on chiropractic manipulation and CAD. Methods Search terms were entered into standard search engines in a systematic fashion. The articles were reviewed by study authors, graded independently for class of evidence, and combined in a meta-analysis. The total body of evidence was evaluated according to GRADE criteria. Results Our search yielded 253 articles. We identified two class II and four class III studies. There were no discrepancies among article ratings (i.e., kappa=1). The meta-analysis revealed a small association between chiropractic care and dissection (OR 1.74, 95% CI 1.26-2.41). The quality of the body of evidence according to GRADE criteria was "very low." Conclusions The quality of the published literature on the relationship between chiropractic manipulation and CAD is very low. Our analysis shows a small association between chiropractic neck manipulation and cervical artery dissection. This relationship may be explained by the high risk of bias and confounding in the available studies, and in particular by the known association of neck pain with CAD and with chiropractic manipulation. There is no convincing evidence to support a causal link between chiropractic manipulation and CAD. Belief in a causal link may have significant negative consequences such as numerous episodes of litigation.


Online fashion sales present a challenging use case for personalized recommendation: Stores offer a huge variety of items in multiple sizes. Small stocks, high return rates, seasonality, and changing trends cause continuous turnover of articles for sale on all time scales. Customers tend to shop rarely, but often buy multiple items at once. We report on backtest experiments with sales data of 100k frequent shoppers at Zalando, Europe's leading online fashion platform. To model changing customer and store environments, our recommendation method employs a pair of neural networks: To overcome the cold start problem, a feedforward network generates article embeddings in "fashion space," which serve as input to a recurrent neural network that predicts a style vector in this space for each client, based on their past purchase sequence. We compare our results with a static collaborative filtering approach, and a popularity ranking baseline.


A novel group of moderately halophilic, obligately chemolithoautotrophic, sulfur-oxidizing Gammaproteobacteria was found in sediments of various inland hypersaline lakes and a solar saltern. These bacteria were enriched and isolated with thiosulfate as electron donor and nitrate as electron acceptor at 2 M NaCl. Ten isolates (HLD strains) were long non-motile rods. They grew anaerobically as complete denitrifiers, and aerobically under micro-oxic conditions. Sulfate was the final product of thiosulfate and sulfide oxidation, and nitrite and N(2)O were intermediates of nitrate reduction to N(2). The HLD strains grew optimally at pH 7.3-7.8, and at NaCl concentrations of 1.5-2.0 M. On the basis of phenotypic and genetic analysis, the moderately halophilic, thiodenitrifying isolates are proposed to be assigned to a new genus and species, Thiohalomonas denitrificans gen. nov., sp. nov. The type strain is HLD 2(T) (=DSM 15841(T)=UNIQEM U222(T) ). A single strain, HRhD 3sp(T), with vibrio-shaped cells, was obtained from a co-culture capable of complete denitrification of nitrate in the presence of either thiocyanate or thiosulfate as electron donor. It grew anaerobically with thiosulfate, reducing nitrate to nitrite, or under micro-oxic conditions at 1.0-2.5 M NaCl with an optimum at 1.0 M. Strain HRhD 3sp(T) was genetically related to the HLD strains at the level of a separate species and is described as Thiohalomonas nitratireducens sp. nov. The type strain is HRhD 3sp(T) (=DSM 16925(T)=UNIQEM U248(T)).


Objectives To assess whether medication beliefs differ between women who use or not use medication for their somatic chronic diseases during pregnancy and whether this association varies across diseases. Design Cross-sectional web-based survey. Setting Multinational study in Europe. Participants Pregnant women or women with children less than 1 year old from European countries and with asthma, allergy, cardiovascular, rheumatic diseases, diabetes, epilepsy and/or inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). Primary and secondary outcome measure Differences in scores of the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ). Results In total, 1219 women were included (ranging from 736 for allergy to 49 for IBD). Women using medication for their chronic disease (n=770; 63%) had higher scores on the BMQ subscales necessity (16.6 vs 12.1, p<0.001) and benefits (16.2 vs 15.4, p<0.001), and lower values on the subscales overuse (12.5 vs 13.1; p=0.005) and harm (9.8 vs 10.7, p<0.001) than women not using medication. No significant differences were shown for the concerns subscale (12.5 vs 12.3, p=0.484). Beliefs varied somewhat across diseases but in general more positive beliefs among women using medication were shown. Epilepsy was the disease where less differences were observed between women using and not using medication. Conclusion Women's beliefs were associated with medication use during pregnancy with only small differences across the diseases. Knowing pregnant women's beliefs could help identify women who are reluctant to use medication and could guide counselling to support making well-informed treatment decisions.


Multicast routing in all optical WDM networks where the light splitting capacity of some optical switches is limited is an important problem. The computation problem of the minimum cost multicast routes under optical constraints is NP-difficult. To solve the optimal multicast routing problem under physical constraints, we propose a new routing structure called 'light-hierarchy''. In a light-hierarchy, the multicast route can traverse the same optical switch several times using the same wavelength. This new routing structure may improve both the cost of the optical structures and the throughput on WDM multicast networks.


The extreme operational environmental conditions and aging conditions of subsea structures pose a risk to their structural integrity and is critical to their safety. Nondestructive testing is essential to identify defects developing within the structure, allowing repair in a timely manner to mitigate against failures that cause damage to the environment and pose a hazard to human operators. However, to be cost effective, inspections must be carried out without taking the risers out of service. This poses significant safety risks if undertaken manually. This paper presents the development of an automated inspection system for flexible risers that are used to connect wellheads on the seafloor to the offshore production and storage facility. Due to the complex structure of risers, radiography is considered as the best technique to inspect multiple layers of the risers. However, radiography inspection, in turn, requires a robotic system for in-situ inspection with higher payload capacity, precise movement of source and detector which is able to withstand an extreme operational environment. The deployment of a radiography inspection system has been achieved by developing a customized subsea robotic system called RiserSure that can provide precise scanning motion of a gamma ray source and digital detector moving in alignment. The prototype has been tested on a flexible riser during shallow water sea trials with the system placed around a riser by a remotely operated vehicle. The results from the trials show that the internal inner and outer tensile armor layer and defects in the riser can be successfully imaged in real operational conditions.


Inner shelf sediments off Gangolli, west coast of India, are mostly silty clays and clayey silts. Clay minerals present in order of decreasing abundance are montmorillonite, kaolinite-chlorite, illite and gibbsite. The relative abundance of kaolinite-chlorite and illite decreases seaward, whereas montmorillonite increases. Clay minerals do not show a distinct association with trace elements; this may be attributed to desorption mechanisms in the marine environment. Organic matter supports the formation of montmorillonite. The presence of calcium also favours the formation ofmontmorillonite but not that of kaolinite-chlorite and illite.


Relationships between mineralogical and soil solution composition of nonfragipan and fragipan horizons were investigated in Fragiudalfs derived from loess and loess over sandstone parent materials in western Kentucky. Smectite and albite quantities were generally higher in fragipan horizons. Increased smectite quantities in fragipans are considered products of illuviation or neoformation while albite is residual. Compositions of soil solutions extracted from moist samples near field capacity indicated undersaturation with respect to amorphous SiO₂ in nonfragipan horizons and a near saturation or super-saturation in fragipan horizons. High solution-Si levels were accompanied by increased soluble Na and exchangeable Mg in all but one fragipan horizon. The solution data support the hypothesis of an amorphous SiO₂ phase acting as the binding agent between particles in fragipans, with the possible involvement of Na and Mg in the cementation process. Smectite and kaolinite were the stable minerals controlling Si levels in solutions of nonfragipan horizons.


Background: Chronic osteomyelitis is a dreaded sequel to acute haematogenous osteomyelitis. It is also more frequent following open fracture and orthopedic surgeries. Principle in treatment of chronic osteomyelitis based on removal of devitalized tissue and filling up of dead space. Systemic antibiotic therapy may not provide minimum inhibitory concentration for prolong period. Antibiotic laden bone cement can be used in adjunct to usual treatment of debridement and systemic antibiotic therapy for local antibiotic delivery and filling dead space temporarily. Material and Method: 32 cases of chronic osteomyelitis (7 haematogenous and 25 exogenous following trauma or surgery) were included in our study which included 21 male and 9 female, age ranging from 18 to 55 year. Pre-operative culture from sinus tract, ESR, and CRP were done. All patient were treated with debridement and removal of implant if present, followed by filling the dead space by antibiotic laden bone cement beads or antibiotic laden bone cement coated nail. Control of infection was assessed by laboratory parameter. Antibiotic cement was removed at an average of 10.62 weeks. All patients were followed up for at least 2 years. Result: Infection was controlled in 28 patients out of 32 patients at the time of cement removal, secondary procedure was done in all patients of infected non union in the form of bone grafting and definite fixation except 3 patients where antibiotic cement coated nails are retained till union as there was callus formation at the end of three month. Conclusion: Antibiotic laden cement is an effective method in local control of infection in chronic osteomyelitis without any systemic side effect.


In recent years research in the planning community has moved increasingly towards application of planners to realistic problems involving both time and many types of resources. For example, interest in planning demonstrated by the space research community has inspired work in observation scheduling, planetary rover exploration and spacecraft control domains. Other temporal and resource-intensive domains including logistics planning, plant control and manufacturing have also helped to focus the community on the modelling and reasoning issues that must be confronted to make planning technology meet the challenges of application.

The International Planning Competitions have acted as an important motivating force behind the progress that has been made in planning since 1998. The third competition (held in 2002) set the planning community the challenge of handling time and numeric resources. This necessitated the development of a modelling language capable of expressing temporal and numeric properties of planning domains. In this paper we describe the language, PDDL2.1, that was used in the competition. We describe the syntax of the language, its formal semantics and the validation of concurrent plans. We observe that PDDL2.1 has considerable modelling power -- exceeding the capabilities of current planning technology -- and presents a number of important challenges to the research community.


In this work, we propose a combined multi-core architecture with the capability for instruction set extension (ISE). We show that while both multi-core and ISE exploit parallelism, they do so differently. For this reason multiple cores and ISE could be combined to obtain greater performance improvement than the sum of the two alone. To evaluate this, we implement a dual core microprocessor on a FPGA using an extensible soft-core, eMIPS and mapped the Floyd-Warshall all points shortest path algorithm to this system. Overall, the combined technique yielded performance 3.25x faster and 1.73x faster than parallel or ISE techniques alone.


ackground: We evaluated a new marker of heart transplant rejection, the breath methylated alkane contour (BMAC). Rejection is accompanied by oxidative stress that degrades membrane polyunsaturated fatty acids, evolving alkanes and methylalkanes, which are excreted in the breath as volatile organic compounds (VOCs). ethods: Breath VOC samples (n 1,061) were collected from 539 heart transplant recipients before scheduled endomyocardial biopsy. Breath VOCs were analyzed by gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy, and BMAC was derived from the abundance of C4–C20 alkanes and monomethylalkanes. The "gold standard" of rejection was the concordant set of International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) grades in biopsies read by 2 reviewers. esults: Concordant biopsies were: Grade 0, 645 of 1,061 (60.8%); 1A, 197 (18.6%); 1B, 84 (7.9%); 2, 93 (8.8%); and 3A, 42 (4.0%). A combination of 9 VOCs in the BMAC identified Grade 3 rejection (sensitivity 78.6%, specificity 62.4%, cross-validated sensitivity 59.5%, cross-validated specificity 58.8%, positive predictive value 5.6%, negative predictive value 97.2%). Site pathologists identified the same cases with sensitivity of 42.4%, specificity 97.0%, positive predictive value 45.2% and negative predictive value 96.7%. onclusions: A breath test for markers of oxidative stress was more sensitive and less specific for Grade 3 heart transplant rejection than a biopsy reading by a site pathologist, but the negative predictive values of the 2 tests were similar. A screening breath test could potentially identify transplant recipients at low risk of Grade 3 rejection and reduce the number of endomyocardial biopsies. J Heart Lung Transplant 2004;23:701–8.


The UML language is a large set of notations and rules to describe different aspects of a system. It provides a set of diagrams to view the system from different angles: use case diagrams, class diagrams, statecharts diagrams, and deployment diagrams are some of them. In this report we are interested in the statecharts diagrams that describe dynamic behaviours. We give a formal semantics for a large subset of these statecharts, in particular we focus on the action language semantics. Our subset and semantics are very close to the one supported by the tool Rhapsody.


The aim of this study is to investigate how perceptions of job insecurity and fairness associate with individual well-being (job satisfaction, general health) and organizational attitudes (organizational commitment, turnover intention), under the condition that the psychological contract as perceived by the employee includes a promise on job security, or not. More specifically, we suggest that (H1) job insecurity is negatively related to individual well-being and organizational attitudes when job security is expected as part of the psychological contract, (H2) job insecurity is negatively related to fairness perceptions when job security is expected as part of the psychological contract, (H3) fairness associates positively with individual well-being and organizational attitudes, and (H4) the association between job insecurity, individual well-being and organizational outcomes is mediated by fairness under the condition that job security is expected as part of the psychological contract. Results based on a sample of Belgian employees (N = 559) support our hypotheses for organizational outcomes. For individual well-being, the mediation framework was not conditional upon a perceived promise of job security as part of the psychological contract. We conclude that employees' perceptions of job insecurity and fairness are important factors for employees' well-being and their attitudes towards the employer. More importantly, these perceptions can in part be shaped by organizational agents such as managers and supervisors. Additionally, the active utilization of the psychological contract in management strategies seems to have favourable results for the fostering of pro-organizational attitudes among employees.


I. Preamble 1. One of the most joyful moments for a football club and its fans is the signing of a new player for the club. The new player is meant to give to the club the vitality and strength it needs, so as to be competitive in the new season. The signature is usually widely broadcasted in the local media and based on the pictures offered to the public, the relationship between the player and the club is supposed to last forever. The reality, however, sometimes develops in a completely different way than the expectations of the parties and the agreements concluded between the clubs and the players are not performed in a proper way. Often the misunderstandings and failure to conform to the contractually agreed terms lead the parties to the breach or even the early termination of such agreements. 2. In the same way, regrettably, it has become fashionable that clubs and players use minor infringements of their agreements as a ground for an exit of the employment relationship and subsequent claims for compensations of alleged damages. However, some termination of contract could have been avoided had the parties clearly comprehended their contractual capabilities prior to committing any of such actions. But since football is first of all passion and emotion, now and again rational thinking and balanced handling are neglected in a crisis situation between a player and club, with usually devastating effects for all parties involved. 3. The public opinion, in particular the own fans, play an important role in the handling and decision making process of a club but also of a player, creating pressure and expectation on them. But what appears to be reasonable from the point of view of an average person or fan cannot be often appreciated in the same manner in the light of applicable legal frame of State law or sports body regulations and reserves often surprises when the relevant decision is notified to the parties concerned. 4. Fact is that employment related disputes are increasing (both in number and in the value of the dispute), which is on one side explicable with the complete globalization of football (more and more players are ready to leave their home countries and go to play abroad, even to the most unusual football destination) and on the other side with the increase of revenue generated by the leagues and clubs which is based primarily on television and commercial rights. 5. The reasons for the disputes have always a simple common denominator: remuneration! For a player it is either a default in payment on the side of the club or a better financial offer coming from a third club. For a club it is the default in paying the salary of a player on time, which can be based either on a provisional cash flow problem or on the intention to part from the player since he has become uninteresting from a sporting perspective. The parties then use their tailor-made strategies so as to be released from their respective engagements. 6. Whenever an employment related dispute between a club and player occurs, the aggrieved party seeks recourse to the competent State or sports courts. In the event of a dispute which has an international dimension the parties have a tendency to start legal procedure before the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber ("DRC") (1) with the possibility to appeal the decision of this body to the Court of Arbitration to Sport ("the CAS"). The main reason for this choice is the fact of having an independent international body investigating and deciding on the matter with the possibility to have the decision taken respected and enforced through disciplinary measures in case of non-compliance. 7. The first question to which these sports courts have to give an answer while analyzing a dispute who is right and who had therefore just cause, i.e. a valid reason for the termination of an agreement? 8. As far as the definition of the term "just cause" is concerned, the legislator (both at State and sports law level) has always preferred not to give a comprehensive definition but has left its assessment to the circumstances of the case, trusting in the correct evaluation of the judges. …


One of the fundamental innovations in the field of mechatronics is the direct material integration of mechanical and electronic functions using Molded Interconnect Devices (MID technology). Unlike conventional circuit boards, they are not limited to two dimensions but offer the possibility to arbitrarily lay printed circuit traces on the surfaces of the 3D carrier, traditional 2D routing function in EDA cannot be directly applied in MID design. In this paper, two new 3D automatic routing methods are introduced. One method is based on a grid graph and extends Hadlock's minimum detour algorithm; the other is gridless and combines the A*-algorithm and an extension of Hightower's algorithm. The related 3D routing functions, which are not supported by conventional MCAD und ECAD systems, are integrated in the design system MIDCAD. With these 3D routing functions, MIDCAD enables a more effective product design based on the MID technology.


In this study computer control hydraulic geotechnical digital system (GDS) triaxial equipment used for the evaluation of shear strength behavior of the barind (expansive) soil in tensile stress path test. The testing program intense on the study of normally consolidated drained triaxial extension tests on sample size 50 mm diameter and 100 mm high compacted barind (expansive) soil. Testing was carried out at consolidation pressures ranging between 100-500 kPa. The unload-reloading tests were done at confining pressure 200 kPa for the determination of unload-reload model constants. The non-linear elastic model parameters for the compacted expansive soil were determined from these tests. An attempt is made to verify the model parameters by comparing numerical predictions with the experimental test results. Numerical analysis using hyperbolic model parameters indicated good agreement with the experimental results.


Human eosinophil peroxidase (EPO) was isolated from granules from granulocytes of a patient with hypereosinophilia. The granules were extracted by means of 0.2 M NaAc, pH 4.0. The purification steps included gel filtration chromatography on Sephadex G-75 superfine and ion-exchange chromatography on CM-Sephadex G-50. The purified protein showed one band on agarose-electrophoresis, a high peroxidase activity, and a 415-nm/280 nm ratio of 1.15. After reduction, EPO showed two bands on SDS-PAGE of m.w. 52,000 and 15,000, respectively. On gel filtration, the unreduced protein had a m.w. of approximately 77,000. Amino acid analyses showed a high content of arginine and aspartic acid. Monospecific antibodies to EPO were prepared in rabbits, and a specific radioimmunoassay was developed. There was an almost linear correlation between the content of EPO measured by the radioimmunoassay and the number of eosinophils in a mixed cell extract from reference material, indicating the eosinophil origin of EPO. The content of EPO was estimated to be 15.0 micrograms/10(6) eosinophils.


High health care service cost for employees have been documented in many institutions. The purpose of the study was to assess university staff in selected health related fitness variables and their physical activity levels. A total of 237 staff members volunteered to take part in the study. International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) short questionnaire was used to acquire physical activity information from all participants. A fitness protocol was used to record data on their health related variables; Resting heart rate (RHR), body fat percentage (%BF), blood pressure (BP) (as assessed using bioelectric impedance and an automated BP machine), and body mass index (BMI). The values rated against norms and the World Health Organization recommendations. Results showed that only 40.08% were physically active (moderate to vigorous) either inside or outside the university. 26.16% of the staff members were active in recreation activities inside the university and 28.27% were active in recreation activities outside the university. Only 41.4% recorded average or better RHR, 10.13% normal %BF, 59.07% normal to average systolic BP, 42.62% normal to average diastolic BP, and 36.3% normal BMI status. There was significant correlations between most of the variables and (p <. 05). The study concluded that majority of staff members in the institution are not physically active enough and that they are below the recommended health and fitness status. The study recommended aggressive campaign to educate the staff members on dangers of sedentary lifestyles, and the institutions to embrace prevention-based health policies to prioritize provision of fitness facilities and health promotion programs. Further studies should be done to focus on other health related variables, and cost effective benefits of staff health and fitness programs.


Amongst snake bite deaths in Australia there are a number which could be considered as avoidable. Prompt and adequate administration of the appropriate antivenene, when indicated, combined with a more intensive surveillance of snake bite victims, would decrease the number of fatalities.


With the development of information and communications technology, classic way to learn suffer rapid and profound transformations. The current role of the teacher, that of intermediate knowledge, it loses much of striking. Training is oriented towards the learner, allowing them to choose content and tools appropriate to their interests needs and levels of ability. eLearning is a program that aims to increase the quality and efficiency of computer aided education, by providing theoretical support, by spreading good practice and experimentation in eLearning. Also by promoting best solutions, systems and services for eLearning Moodle Platform includes materials, announcements, information on the use of new information and communication technologies in education. . Moodle -eLearning platform was realized in order to create an efficient and easy-to satisfactory user needs and expectations about education online. Another advantage of the Platform is that based on data protection for all users, even if they are merely participating in the program learning, teachers or other users taking part in this process. The importance of Platform is the one in which students can evaluate their progress. This study aims at identifying efficiency in terms of Moodle Platform service, teachers and students as users, completing the work of teachers to improve the learning of students. I will also analyze the possibility of Moodle Platform to be both an open source, used by students and teachers, as well as the activities they perform and they have success to improve learning activity. Information was provided by students and teachers from Technical Faculties of the University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest, who use Moodle, to complement the teaching process. Based on the results obtained, they were compiling statistics, which werw interpreted, and suggesting recommendations on using Moodle in educational improvement learning instructive process by students.


Nonlinear ultrasonic guided waves have superior sensitivity of the early fatigue damage. This paper investigates the analysis of the second harmonics of Lamb waves in a free boundary aluminum plate, and the internal resonance conditions between the Lamb wave primary modes and the second harmonics. The Murnaghan's model is implemented in a finite element (FE) analysis to describe the hyperelastic constitutive relation for nonlinear acoustic modeling. The second harmonics of s0 mode are actuated by a 60kHz Hanning-windowed tone burst. A guided wave signal processing platform is developed for tomographic imaging. The different stages of fatigue are reflected by the changes of third-order elastic constants (TOECs) in Murnaghan's model. The reconstructed damage locations match well with the actual ones cross different degrees and depths of fatigue.


The objective of this study is to determine the effect of relevant variables related to strategic sources of financial resources—in our case, suppliers' trade credit and use of financial institutions—over performance among Spanish construction firms. To test the proposed hypotheses, we employ panel-data techniques on a large dataset that includes information for 3590 Spanish small (1723), medium-sized (1616) and large (251) construction businesses during 2004-2011. The results of the longitudinal analysis reveal that trade credit granted by suppliers constitute a relevant source of liquidity and financial resources that positively impacts economic performance. During the period of economic downturn that affected Spain after 2008, those construction firms that benefited from longer average payment periods from their suppliers reported superior performance levels. Additionally, we find that bank diversification is conducive to performance but only during the crisis period: performance is significantly higher in businesses that work with a greater number of financial institutions.


Apoptosis is responsible for the loss of thyrocytes in autoimmune thyroiditis. Recent investigations into the pathogenesis of apoptosis have revealed that the important roles of suicide molecules expression on both thyrocytes and cytotoxic T-lymphocytes. To study the mechanism of thyrocyte loss in various forms of thyroiditis, we evaluated in situ expression patterns of CD40, Fas, and Fas-L on thyrocytes and infiltrating inflammatory cells by immunohistochemical staining of thyroid samples obtained from 49 patients (Graves' disease, n=10: Hashimoto's thyroiditis, n=14; nonspecific lymphocytic thyroiditis, n=11; subacute granulomatous thyroiditis, n=11; normal, n=3). The role of cytotoxic T-lymphocytes was also evaluated by analyzing the expression of granzyme B along with their phenotypic characteristics. CD40 was not expressed on thyrocytes of normal controls while they showed a diffuse expression of Fas and a scattered focal expression of Fas-L. The plump thyrocytes proximal to the inflammatory infiltrates showed more intense expressions of these three molecules in various forms of thyroiditis and a close correlation was found between CD40 and Fas-L expression on thyrocytes. Unlike Fas, which was expressed on infiltrating lymphocytes in all groups, Fas-L was not expressed on infiltrating lymphocytes, except those in subacute granulomatous thyroiditis. Granzyme B expressing activated cytotoxic T-lymphocytes occupied a negligible proportion of CD8+ T-lymphocytes in various forms of thyroiditis, and no difference was found in terms of their proportions according to the type of thyroiditis. These results show the acquisition of CD40, Fas and Fas-L molecules on thyrocytes proximal to inflammatory cell aggregates and the negligible expression of granzyme B and Fas-L on the infiltrating lymphocytes, and suggest that Fas and Fas-L mediated apoptosis of thyrocytes (fratricide) may be more important than T cell-mediated cytotoxicity in various forms of thyroiditis.


The aim of the present study was to compare the liver function of cows with retained placenta (n = 21) with that of control post-partum cows (n = 12). Liver biopsies of the cows with retained placenta showed that the mean percentage of fat in the liver parenchyma was 32.5%. The serum glucose, albumin, cholesterol, triglyceride, high density lipoprotein (HDL), low density lipoprotein (LDL), total calcium and inorganic phosphorus levels of cows with retained placenta were significantly lower than those of control cows whereas the aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and gamma glutamyltransferase (GGT) serum concentrations of cows with retained placenta were greater than those of control cows. In conclusion, this study indicated that retained placenta might be associated with fatty liver.


Some organizations in the U.S. recommend mammography screening at 1- to 2-year intervals for those aged 40 to 49 and annually from the age of 50. In Canada and Europe, screening mammography is not recommended for women aged 40 to 49, and mammography every 2 to 3 years for women aged 50 to 69. The screening studies in Europe show no evidence of effectiveness of mammography screening in women aged 40 to 49 in the first 8 to 10 years after initiation of screening. Although at 12 years the recent Swedish overview analysis shows a 13% reduction, this is nonsignificant and the confidence intervals are wide. In the National Breast Screening Study (NBSS) in Canada, annual two-view mammography and physical examinations by carefully trained health professionals were given. In women aged 40 to 49 the ratio of proportions of deaths was 1.36 (95% CI 0.84, 2.21). For women aged 50 to 59, the NBSS evaluated the contribution of mammography over and above physical examination. In spite of detecting many more cancers, mammography did not result in a reduction in breast cancer mortality at 7 years (OR 0.97; 95% CI 0.62, 1.52). Although these results suggest the benefit from screening may be less than assumed, for women over 50, biennial screening to age 74 is probably appropriate in population programs, although careful monitoring will be necessary to ensure that the anticipated effect is achieved.


Horizontal jet grouting (HJG) is employed in urban tunneling in order to reduce surface settlements and, hence, to avoid damage of infrastructure and surface buildings. The widespread use of HJG raises the question of its efficiency. In order to answer this question, sophisticated thermochemomechanical material models for jet-grouted soil mass and shotcrete are employed in the context of plane-strain finite element analyses. For these analyses, the process of ground improvement, the excavation of the tunnel, and the installation of the shotcrete lining are considered. The obtained results provide first insight into the load-carrying behavior of the compound structure consisting of the jet-grouted soil mass, the shotcrete lining, and the surrounding soil. The influence of the different creep characteristics in jet-grouted soil mass and shotcrete, resulting in a redistribution of loading, is highlighted. Moreover, the reduction of plastic loading of the soil in consequence of HJG, which is described by means of a multisurface viscoplasticity model, is illustrated. Based on the obtained numerical results, application of HJG results in a reduction of the surface settlement by more than 50% in comparison to a tunnel which is only supported by a shotcrete lining.


A new era in fundamental physics began when pulsars were discovered in 1967. Soon it became clear that pulsars were useful tools for a wide variety of physical and astrophysical problems. Further applications became possible with the discovery of the first binary pulsar in 1974 and the discovery of millisecond pulsars in 1982. Ever since pulsars have been used as precise cosmic clocks, taking us beyond the weak-field limit of the solar-system in the study of theories of gravity. Their contribution is crucial as no test can be considered to be complete without probing the strong-field realm of gravitational physics by finding and timing pulsars. This is particularly highlighted by the discovery of the first double pulsar system in 2003. In this review, I will explain some of the most important applications of millisecond pulsar clocks in the study of gravity and fundamental constants.


In this paper we present two novel floating-gate multiple-valued (MV) to binary converters for use in multiple-valued (MV) digital CMOS design. The first radix-R to binary converter converts an MV signal directly to a binary representation while the second converter converts a radix R/2 MV signal stepwise through a radix R/2 MV signal. Simulated data of both binary to radix 8 and radix 8 to binary converters are provided.


In today's globalised world environmental factors are going to play a major role in not so distant a future, in the social and economic development of countries, especially the underdeveloped ones. We cannot comprehend the magnitude of these changes right now especially in Pakistan, where environmental degradation is already having a major impact,  be it through changing climate patterns, or increased number of natural calamities. Conference of Parties (COP21) was a United Nation (UN) Conference on Climate Change in Paris, held between November-December 2015, to put these environmental changes into perspective and find solutions for them. The major outcome of this conference was the Paris Agreement. In September 2015, during the 70th United Nation General Assembly (UNGA) meeting, which was a precursor to the COP21 Conference, the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was approved. Pakistan is one of the countries, already suffering from the effects of climate change and water insecurity issues, falls into the category of water stressed states. As one of the signatories of the Paris Agreement, it gives a great opportunity to Pakistan to seek help from the international community to deal better with its environmental issues. As Pakistan is an agrarian economy, any drastic changes in the environment will have an adverse impact on its national economy. This paper will evaluate the vulnerability of Pakistan to the phenomenon of climate change, and the deleterious impact it can have on the per capita income, water security, and food-energy nexus of the people of Pakistan; and will suggest as to how the policy makers of the country can place it on the path towards green economy, as envisioned by the government's Vision 2025 plan.


Purpose
Universities, when collaborating with industry, are generally assumed to be the motors for innovation. Inspired by a case on a university's collaboration with small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in a regional strategic network (RSN), this paper aims to put forth how the university makes important contributions through transferring knowledge on innovation processes that is a teaching role, rather than sees itself as the party producing innovations. This paper describes and discusses the university's teaching role and its consequences in university-industry collaborations for innovation.

Design/methodology/approach
Empirically, the paper departs from a mid-Swedish RSN where nine SMEs started to work with a university. Interviews with representatives of the nine SMEs participating in the innovation project, along with university and RSN representatives, comprise the main data source. The paper analyzes the university's teaching role and the consequences of it.

Findings
Findings point at how the SMEs developed structured innovation processes, improved their market intelligence and increased their efficiency in providing new solutions. The university facilitated knowledge, while the SMEs responded through creating knowledge both on how to innovate and in terms of innovations.

Originality/value
The teaching role, which would mean that the university stays with one of its core functions, indicates a need to rethink university-industry collaboration related to expectations and role division. Moving from producing innovations to facilitating knowledge on how to innovate, would, for universities, mean that they minimize those conflicts emerging from their various roles and indicate that the production of innovation is placed at those devoted to run and grow businesses.


Homalomena aromatica (spreng) Scott (Araceae) is naturally localized in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Tripura. The plant is used by local people in various inflammatory conditions and gastric disorders, jaundice, diarrhoea etc. The preset study was undertaken to evaluate the antiulcer properties of the ethanolic extract of the root of Homalomena aromatica using HCl-Ethanol, cold restraint stress and indomethacin induced ulcer models in Wistar rat. Various biochemical and antioxidant enzymes in gastric mucosa, liver and serum were analyzed along with histological study. The extract showed ulcero protective activity in all the models at the highest dose i.e. 200 mg/ kg. The levels of various biochemical enzymatic and ulcer parameters were normalized after the treatment regime. HPTLC data showed the presence of gallic acid and quercetin amongst other constituents. The extract showed potential ulcero protective property in animal models of ulcer.


Valenza, MC, Torres-Sánchez, I, Cabrera-Martos, I, ValenzaDemet, G, and Cano-Cappellacci, M. Acute effects of contractrelax stretching vs. TENS in young subjects with anterior knee pain: A randomized controlled trial. J Strength Cond Res 30(8): 2271–2278, 2016—The aim of this study was to examine the immediate effects on pressure point tenderness, range of motion (ROM), and vertical jump (VJ) of contract-relax stretching vs. transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) therapy in individuals with anterior knee pain (AKP). Eighty-four subjects with AKP were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 different intervention groups: a contract-relax stretching group (n = 28), a TENS intervention group (n = 28), and a control group (n = 28). The participants included in the sample were both sex (37.5% men vs. 62.5% women) at a mean age of 21 years, with mean values of height and weight of 169 cm and 64 kg, respectively. The main outcome measures were knee ROM, pressure pain threshold (PPT), and VJ. The participants were assessed at baseline and immediately after treatment. In the case of VJ, at baseline, immediately after the intervention, at 3 and at 6 minutes posttreatment. The data analysis showed that PPT scores of participants in the stretching and TENS group significantly increased from pretest to posttest (p # 0.05). A significant increase preto posttreatment in ROM (p, 0.001) was also observed in both treatment groups. In VJ measures, TENS and stretching groups showed significant differences between preintervention and all postintervention values (p # 0.05), whereas no significant differences were found in the control group. In conclusion, the results show significant preto-post-treatment effects in PPT, ROM, and VJ from both contract-relax stretching and TENS in young subjects with AKP.


Cathepsin L is a cysteine protease whose overexpression in human melanoma cells increases their tumorigenicity and switches their phenotype from non-metastatic to highly metastatic. Regulation of the transcription of the gene encoding human cathepsin L has not been yet studied and only preliminary data exist on the promoter regulation of the gene encoding rodent cathepsin L. In the present study we identified molecular elements involved in the transcriptional regulation of human cathepsin L in melanoma cells. The sequence of the 5'-flanking region of the gene encoding human cathepsin L was determined up to 3263 bp upstream of the translation start site. The major transcription intiation site was located. Three mRNA splice variants, differing in their 5' untranslated ends, were identified. Regulatory regions crucial for cathepsin L promoter activity were characterized between -1489 and -1646 bp. In this region, two GC boxes (-1590/-1595 and -1545/-1550) and a CCAAT motif (-1571/-1575) were involved in specific DNA-protein interactions. An electrophoretic mobility-shift assay demonstrated that Sp1 and Sp3 transcription factors bound to these GC boxes, and only the transcription factor nuclear factor Y (NF-Y) bound to the CCAAT motif. Mutagenesis studies demonstrated that these binding sites contributed at least 85% of cathepsin L promoter activity. Thus structural and functional analysis demonstrated that binding sites for NF-Y, Sp1 and Sp3 are essential for transcription of the gene encoding human cathepsin L in melanoma cells.


ABSTRACT The purpose was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Insomnia Catastrophizing Scale (ICS) including factorial validity and internal consistency as well as discriminative and convergent validity. Associations with sleep parameters and daytime impairment are also examined. Drawn from a randomly selected sample of the general population, 1615 participants completed a survey on insomnia-related nighttime and daytime symptoms, health outcomes and psychological processes, including the ICS. A one-factor solution was supported for both the nighttime catastrophizing (11 items) and daytime catastrophizing (6 items) subscales. Both subscales displayed high internal consistencies (α > 0.90) and accounted for 59.1–70.1% of the variance. The insomnia disorder group had significantly higher scores than participants without insomnia on the two subscales and on the individual items. Cutoffs were established for both subscales with acceptable sensitivity and specificity. Both subscales displayed adequate convergent validity with measures indexing worry, cognitive pre-sleep arousal and anxiety. The two subscales were also significantly associated with nighttime and daytime insomnia symptoms. The ICS is a reliable and valid scale for the assessment of insomnia-related catastrophizing. Future research is needed to examine the test-retest reliability and treatment sensitivity of the ICS.


Dissolution of hyperpolarized species in liquids of interest for NMR is often hampered by the presence of bubbles that degrade the field homogeneity. Here a device composed of a bubble pump and a miniaturized NMR cell both fitted inside the narrow bore of an NMR magnet is built by 3D printing. (129)Xe NMR experiments performed with hyperpolarized xenon reveal high and homogeneous dissolution of the gas in water.


In a rolling contact, the tribological properties in terms of friction, wear, and fatigue are significantly influenced by the surface roughness. Due to solid contact of the surfaces in the contact area, the roughness and thus also the tribological properties change during the service life of the contact. The initial load leads to major changes of the tribological properties figured out by Brecher et al. (2019, "Influence of the Metalworking Fluid on the Micropitting Wear of Gears," Wear, 61(434–435), p. 202996). Prediction of the initial changes in topography in the contact area is necessary for specific optimization of rolling contacts. Especially for dry rolling–sliding contact, the roughness of the surfaces is crucial for the lifetime, which is part of the investigations within the DFG priority program 2074 (357505886). In this work, an elastic-plastic contact algorithm for calculating plastic deformation for dry contact of rough surfaces with large contact area and high resolution is presented. Due to the nonlinearity behavior associated with plastic deformation, the plastic contact algorithm is based on an iterative approach. An optimized meshing strategy is implemented to calculate the elastic pressure distribution on the surface. Corresponding to the two-dimensional pressure distribution, the three-dimensional stress distribution allows the consideration of residual stresses and interactions of the microscopic peaks of the rough surface. Furthermore, the three-dimensional plastic strain distribution allows the application of an analytical approach to represent the plastic deformation of the surface. Finally, the solution of a plastic contact calculation with an exemplary topography measured on a real rough surface is presented.


In the novel stoichiometric iron-based material RbEuFe$_{4}$As$_{4}$ superconductivity coexists with a peculiar long-range magnetic order of Eu 4f states. Using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we reveal a complex three dimensional electronic structure and compare it with density functional theory calculations. Multiple superconducting gaps were measured on various sheets of the Fermi surface. High resolution resonant photoemission spectroscopy reveals magnetic order of the Eu 4f states deep into the superconducting phase. Both the absolute values and the anisotropy of the superconducting gaps are remarkably similar to the sibling compound without Eu, indicating that Eu magnetism does not affect the pairing of electrons. A complete decoupling between Fe- and Eu-derived states was established from their evolution with temperature, thus unambiguously demonstrating that superconducting and a long range magnetic orders exist independently from each other. The established electronic structure of RbEuFe$_{4}$As$_{4}$ opens opportunities for the future studies of the highly unorthodox electron pairing and phase competition in this family of iron-based superconductors with doping.


The immune system is a very complex and dynamic cellular system, and its intricacies are considered akin to those of human society. Disturbance of homeostasis of the immune system results in various types of diseases; therefore, the homeostatic mechanism of the immune system has long been a subject of great interest in biology, and a lot of information has been accumulated at the cellular and the molecular levels. However, the sociological aspects of the immune system remain too abstract to address because of its high complexity, which mainly originates from a large number and variety of cell–cell interactions. As long‐range interactions mediated by cytokines play a key role in the homeostasis of the immune system, cytokine secretion analyses, ranging from analyses of the micro level of individual cells to the macro level of a bulk of cell ensembles, provide us with a solid basis of a sociological viewpoint of the immune system. In this review, as the first step toward a comprehensive understanding of immune cell sociology, cytokine secretion of immune cells is surveyed with a special emphasis on the single‐cell level, which has been overlooked but should serve as a basis of immune cell sociology. Now that it has become evident that large cell‐to‐cell variations in cytokine secretion exist at the single‐cell level, we face a tricky yet interesting question: How is homeostasis maintained when the system is composed of intrinsically noisy agents? In this context, we discuss how the heterogeneity of cytokine secretion at the single‐cell level affects our view of immune cell sociology. While the apparent inconsistency between homeostasis and cell‐to‐cell heterogeneity is difficult to address by a conventional reductive approach, comparison and integration of single‐cell data with macroscopic data will offer us a new direction for the comprehensive understanding of immune cell sociology. © 2012 IUBMB Life, 65(1):28–34, 2013


Even though plants represent an essential part of our lives offering exploitational, supporting and cultural services, we know very little about the biology of the rarest and most threatened plant species, and even less about their conservation status. Rapid changes in the environment and climate, today more pronounced than ever, affect their fitness and distribution causing rapid species declines, sometimes even before they had been discovered. Despite the high goals set by conservationists to protect native plants from further degradation and extinction, the initiatives for the conservation of threatened species in Europe are scattered and have not yielded the desired results. The main aim of this Action is to improve plant conservation in Europe through the establishment of a network of scientists and other stakeholders who deal with different aspects of plant conservation, from plant taxonomy, ecology, conservation genetics, conservation physiology and reproductive biology to protected area's managers, not forgetting social scientists, who are crucial when dealing with the general public.


We report the synthesis and the characterization of a trinuclear nickel complex. Solid state and solution studies using X-ray diffraction, NMR and UV-vis spectroscopy highlight the square planar geometries around the metal centers and an all-sulfur coordination sphere. It exhibits significant electrocatalytic activity for hydrogen evolution in DMF using Et3NHCl as the proton source. DFT studies suggest that sulfur atoms act as proton relay, as proposed in [NiFe] hydrogenases.


A hypothesis is proposed for five visual fear signaling pathways in humans, based on an analysis of anatomical connectivity from primate studies and human functional connectvity and tractography from brain imaging studies. Earlier work has identified possible subcortical and cortical fear pathways known as the "low road" and "high road," which arrive at the amygdala independently. In addition to a subcortical pathway, we propose four cortical signaling pathways in humans along the visual ventral stream. All four of these traverse through the LGN to the visual cortex (VC) and branching off at the inferior temporal area, with one projection directly to the amygdala; another traversing the orbitofrontal cortex; and two others passing through the parietal and then prefrontal cortex, one excitatory pathway via the ventral-medial area and one regulatory pathway via the ventral-lateral area. These pathways have progressively longer propagation latencies and may have progressively evolved with brain development to take advantage of higher-level processing. Using the anatomical path lengths and latency estimates for each of these five pathways, predictions are made for the relative processing times at selective ROIs and arrival at the amygdala, based on the presentation of a fear-relevant visual stimulus. Partial verification of the temporal dynamics of this hypothesis might be accomplished using experimental MEG analysis. Possible experimental protocols are suggested.


STUDY OBJECTIVES
Melatonin is often prescribed to patients with sleep disorders who are known to have elevated suicide risks. Yet, melatonin's association to suicidal behavior remains to be examined. We investigated whether individuals prescribed melatonin had higher rates of suicide and suicide attempts when compared to individuals who were not prescribed this drug, including both those with and without known mental disorders.

METHODS
A cohort design was applied to longitudinal, register data on all persons aged 10+ years in Denmark during 2007-2016. Based on data from the National Prescription Register, periods of being in treatment with melatonin were defined using information on number of tablets and daily defined dose. We calculated IRR for suicide and suicide attempts, as identified in register records, comparing those in treatment with melatonin to those not in treatment.

RESULTS
Among 5,798,923 individuals, 10,577 (0.2%) were treated with melatonin (mean treatment length 50 days) during the study period. Of those, 22 died by suicide and 134 had at least one suicide attempt. People in treatment with melatonin had a 4-fold higher rate of suicide (IRR: 4.8; 95% CI, 3.0-7.5) and a 5-fold higher rate of suicide attempt (IRR: 5.9; 95% CI,4.4-8.0) than those not in treatment and when adjusting for sex and age-group.

CONCLUSIONS
Treatment with melatonin was associated with suicide and suicide attempt. While there are several possible explanations, attention to suicide risk is particularly warranted for people with mental comorbidity who are in treatment with melatonin.


The biological nature of agricultural production processes induce a higher degree of uncertainty surrounding the economic performance of farm enterprises. This has contributed to the development and acceptance of forms of public intervention aimed at reducing income variability that have no parallel in other sectors of the economy. In particular, subsidized crop insurance are a widely used tool. The impact of these programs on the decisions of production generates effects on input use, land use and thus, indirectly, environmental outcomes. The importance of this issue has grown in parallel with the growth in importance of the collective role of agriculture sector that has addressed the recent guidelines adopted by many developed countries. To examine the effects of public risk management programs on optimal nitrogen fertilizer use and land allocation to crops, this study carried out an empirical analysis by developing a mathematical programming model of a representative wheat-tomato farm in Apulia southern region of Italy. The model endogenizes nitrogen fertilizer rates and land allocation, as well as the insurance coverage levels, participation in insurance programs and the Environmental Payment (EP). This study utilized direct expected utility maximizing non-linear programming in combination with a simulation approach. Results show that with current crop insurance programs, the optimal nitrogen fertilizer rate slightly increases and the optimal acreage substantially increases for tomato whereas decrease for wheat. Assuming that the environmental negative effects of crop insurance are positively related to nitrogen fertilizer use, this type of public intervention implies negative environmental effects.


Today's world needs highly efficient systems that can fulfill the growing demand for energy. One of the promising solutions is the fuel cell. Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is considered by many developed countries as an alternative solution of energy in near future. A lot of efforts have been made during last decade to make it commercial by reducing its cost and increasing its durability. Different materials, designs and fabrication technologies have been developed and tested to make it more cost effective and stable. This article is focused on the advancements made in the field of high temperature SOFC. High temperature SOFC does not need any precious catalyst for its operation, unlike in other types of fuel cell. Different conventional and innovative materials have been discussed along with properties and effects on the performance of SOFC's components (electrolyte anode, cathode, interconnect and sealing materials). Advancements made in the field of cell and stack design are also explored along with hurdles coming in their fabrication and performance. This article also gives an overview of methods required for the fabrication of different components of SOFC. The flexibility of SOFC in terms fuel has also been discussed. Performance of the SOFC with varying combination of electrolyte, anode, cathode and fuel is also described in this article.


From Few to Many is the first comprehensive look at Colombia's 1993 health system reforms. It describes the implementation of universal health insurance, including a subsidized system for the poor, and examines the impact of this and other reforms during a time when Colombia experienced crushing recession and internal conflict that displaced half a million people. Prior to the reforms, a quarter of the Colombian population had health insurance. Subsidies failed to reach the poor, who were vulnerable to catastrophic financial consequences of illness. Yet by 2008, 85 percent of the population benefited from health insurance. From Few to Many describes the challenges and benefits of implementing social health reforms in a developing country, exploring health care financing, institutional reform, the effects of political will on health care, and more. The reforms have provided important lessons not only for continued reform in Colombia, but also for other nations facing similar challenges.


The actor-dimension of the Activitiy-Resource-Actor (ARA)-model has not gained the same attention among Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) scholars as the resource and activity dimensions. However, the issue of what an actor actually is, in the sense of its interactive constitution, is important from an industrial marketing and purchasing perspective that emphasizes the interactive character of the business landscape. This is adressed in this paper. As a concequence of their interactive constitution, actors come in many forms and they are never pre-determined but rather continuously forged out of interactions. In this paper, the Activity-Resource-Actor-model is used to illustrate how actors are forged by interaction and to explore interaction-patterns around an actor of an unusual shape: A city. The purpose is to explore the small world of a city as a business actor and to illustrate the multi-level and variable character of actors. The paper concludes with a definition of what is termed interactive actors.


PURPOSE To compare the bond strength to dentin of the single-step enamel-dentin adhesive Etch & Prime 3.0 (EP3) to that of two-step systems Clearfil Liner Bond 2 (CL2), which includes a self etching primer and Gluma One Bond (GL1), a one-bottle bonding agent, intended for use with the total etch technique. MATERIALS AND METHODS Shear bond strength after a 24-hour water storage was determined for 10 specimens each bonded with the three adhesives. Maximum, gap widths were recorded microscopically after a 10-minute water storage along the margins of resin-based composite restorations bonded with each adhesive in cylindrical dentin cavities (3.5 mm wide and 1.5 mm deep). Marginal micro-morphology of the specimens bonded with EP3 was observed with the SEM. RESULTS EP3 had an enamel bond strength similar to that of the other materials, but its bond strength to dentin was approximately only 50% of the bond strength of the two other adhesives. Similarly, the marginal performance of resin restorations bonded with EP3 in cylindrical dentin cavities was poor (average maximum gap width 5 microns) irrespective of the curing conditions tested with EP3. CL2 showed significantly smaller gaps (2 microns) along the cavity margin than EP3, whereas in the GL1 group in 7 of the 10 restorations inspected perfect gap-free margins were observed. An SEM investigation of different steps throughout the EP3 application and processing gave evidence that the product apparently conditions and wets enamel and dentin quite effectively, and that an approximately 0.5 micron thick hybrid layer is formed as a coupling zone between dentin (intertubular and peritubular) and restorative resin.


Abstract : Most real world domains differ from the micro-worlds traditionally used in A.I. in that they have an incomplete factual database which changes over time. Understanding in these domains can be thought of as the generation of plausible inferences which are able to use the facts available, and respond to changes in them. A traditional rule interpreter such as Planner can be extended to construct plausible inferences in these domains by A) allowing assumptions to be made in applying rules, resulting in simplifications of rules which can be used in an incomplete database; B) monitoring the antecedents and consequents of a rule so that inferences can be maintained over a changing database. The resulting chains of inference can provide a dynamic description of an event. This allows general reasoning processes to be used to understand in domains for which large numbers of Schema-like templates have been proposed as the best model. (Author)


Modelling and Systems Parameter Estimation for Dynamic Systems presents a detailed examination of the estimation techniques and modeling problems. The theory is furnished with several illustrations and computer programs to promote better understanding of system modeling and parameter estimation. The material is presented in a way that makes for easy reading and enables the user to implement and execute the programs himself to gain first hand experience of the estimation process.


Functional FOXA1 targeting is mostly unique to each of the four human cancer cell lines HepG2, LNCaP, MCF7, and T47D. A transcription factor functions differentially and/or identically in multiple cell types. However, the mechanism for cell-specific regulation of a transcription factor remains to be elucidated. We address how a single transcription factor, forkhead box protein A1 (FOXA1), forms cell-specific genomic signatures and differentially regulates gene expression in four human cancer cell lines (HepG2, LNCaP, MCF7, and T47D). FOXA1 is a pioneer transcription factor in organogenesis and cancer progression. Genomewide mapping of FOXA1 by chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing annotates that target genes associated with FOXA1 binding are mostly common to these cancer cells. However, most of the functional FOXA1 target genes are specific to each cancer cell type. Further investigations using CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology indicate that cell-specific FOXA1 regulation is attributable to unique FOXA1 binding, genetic variations, and/or potential epigenetic regulation. Thus, FOXA1 controls the specificity of cancer cell types. We raise a "flower-blooming" hypothesis for cell-specific transcriptional regulation based on these observations.


The Argentine piquetero movement of the 1990s, in which unemployed workers blockaded the roads to protest the neoliberal order, has been described as the emergence of a "visibility" that achieved political centrality. Visibility is a technology of power. The neoliberal order depends on the visual metaphor of "exclusion" or "obscurity" for the maintenance and reproduction of relations of domination. The subjects of this exclusion become living beings when they begin to struggle for visibility, exposing the relations of exploitation that characterize neoliberal capitalism. Such a struggle was launched by the piqueteros, and their blockades put an end to the darkness imposed upon them. In response, neoliberalism was forced to invent new ways of guaranteeing the reproduction of the social order, among them extortion (through the provision of temporary assistance) and repression (through the criminalization of protest), but the piqueteros' efforts weakened the efficacy of these instruments of power. The subseq...


A closed-loop system that offers real-time assessment and manipulation of a user's affective and cognitive states is very useful in developing adaptive environments which respond in a rational and strategic fashion to real-time changes in user affect, cognition, and motivation. The goal is to progress the user from suboptimal cognitive and affective states toward an optimal state that enhances user performance. In order to achieve this, there is need for assessment of both 1) the optimal affective/cognitive state and 2) the observed user state. This paper presents approaches for assessing these two states. Arousal, an important dimension of affect, is focused upon because of its close relation to a user's cognitive performance, as indicated by the Yerkes-Dodson Law. Herein, we make use of a Virtual Reality Stroop Task (VRST) from the Virtual Reality Cognitive Performance Assessment Test (VRCPAT) to identify the optimal arousal level that can serve as the affective/cognitive state goal. Three stimuli presentations (with distinct arousal levels) in the VRST are selected. We demonstrate that when reaction time is used as the performance measure, one of the three stimuli presentations can elicit the optimal level of arousal for most subjects. Further, results suggest that high classification rates can be achieved when a support vector machine is used to classify the psychophysiological responses (skin conductance level, respiration, ECG, and EEG) in these three stimuli presentations into three arousal levels. This research reflects progress toward the implementation of a closed-loop affective computing system.


Significance. Unobtrusive vital signs monitoring is of major importance for various medical areas such as detection and treatment of sleep disorders, monitoring neonates and burned victims, home health care and smart home applications and wearables among others. Such applications call for monitoring methods in which the patient's natural state is less interfered with. An ideal device would be non-invasive, minimally restrictive, robust enough to compensate movements of the patients, and would operate without relying on the patient's full cooperation. Objective. This paper focuses on the design and development of an unobtrusive vital signs monitoring system particularly suited for long-term monitoring placed under the mattresses. Approach. The system is based on the magnetic induction sensing method, designed to infer presence on the bed, breathing and cardiac activity, and consists of two coils for excitation and detection. The new detection coil is based on a concentric planar gradiometer for canceling the primary field. The signal acquisition system has been designed using simple electronics to avoid ending up with a complex and expensive system. The experimental results were compared with reference signals coming from other known sensors with different technical bases for benchmarking and identifying the advantages and/or drawbacks of the new system regarding other techniques. The designed system was also studied in regards to safety standards and limitations for the exposure to the magnetic fields. Main results. Experimental results confirm the suitability and safety of the sensor for long-term cardiac and respiratory monitoring. The system is able to detect respiration and cardiac activity as well as the presence on the bed and changes in position.


The first novelty of this paper is that we show global identification of the private values distribution in a sealed-bid third-price auction model using a fully nonparametric methodology. The second novelty of the paper comes from the study of the identification and estimation of the model using a quantile approach. We consider an i.i.d. private values environment with risk-averse bidders. In the first place, we consider the case where the risk-aversion parameter is known. We show that the speed of convergence in process of our nonparametric estimator produces at the root-n parametric rate, and we explain the intuition behind this apparently surprising result. Next, we consider that the risk-aversion parameter is unknown, and we locally identify it using exogenous variation in the number of participants. We extend our procedure to the case where we observe only the bids corresponding to the transaction prices, and we generalize the model so as to account for the presence of exogenous variables. The methodological toolbox used to analyse identification of the third-price auction model can be employed in the study of other games of incomplete information. Our results are interesting, also from a policy perspective, as some authors recommend the use of the third-price auction format for certain Internet auctions. Moreover, we contribute to the econometric literature on auctions using a quantile approach.


Quantum tomography is an essential experimental tool for testing any quantum technology implementations. Transverse spatial quantum states of light play a key role in many experiments in the field of quantum information as well as in free-space optical communications. In this letter we propose and experimentally demonstrate the tomography of spatial quantum states with a deformable mirror. It may be used to significantly outperform the conventional method with a spatial light modulator (SLM) in terms of speed and efficiency, at the same time providing polarization insensitive operation.


The isoleucine epimerization reaction has been used to date tooth enamel from dwarf elephants collected from the Sicilian caves of Spinagallo and Puntali. Elephant teeth from the Isernia la Pineta deposit in central Italy, dated at ∼700 ka by potassium-argon (K-Ar) and paleomagnetics, were used for calibration of the isoleucine epimerization rate. The ages determined for the dwarf elephants found at the Spinagallo Cave are considerably older than the more robust dwarf species found at the Puntali Cave. These dates suggest that more than one invasion of continental elephants have taken place on Sicily. The subsequent isolation of the continental species has apparently produced varying stages of dwarfism.


Abstract
We argue that the United States has experienced a decline of economic, political, and military power since the 1970s, and that this decline can be attributed in part to the fragmentation of the American corporate elite. In the mid-twentieth century, this elite – constrained by a highly legitimate state, a relatively powerful labor movement, and an active financial community – adopted a moderate and pragmatic strategy for dealing with the political issues of the day. The "enlightened self-interest" of corporate leaders contributed to a strong economy with a relatively low level of inequality and an expanding middle class. This arrangement broke down in the 1970s, however, as increasing foreign competition and two energy crises led to spiraling inflation and lower profits. In response, the corporate elite waged an aggressive (and ultimately successful) assault on government regulation and organized labor. This success had the paradoxical effect of undermining the elite's own sources of cohesion, however. Having won the war against government and labor, the group no longer needed to be organized. The marginalization of the commercial banks and the acquisition wave of the 1980s exacerbated the fragmentation of the corporate elite. No longer able to act collectively by the 1990s, the corporate elite was now incapable of addressing issues of business and societal-wide concern. Although increasingly able to gain individual favors from the state, the elite's collective weakness has contributed to the political gridlock and social decay that plague American society in the twenty-first century.


VP26 is the smallest capsid protein of herpes simplex virus type 1 and is encoded by the UL35 open reading frame. It resides on the outer capsid surface, interacting with VP5 in a one to one stoichiometry in the hexons that comprise capsids. A null mutation in the gene encoding VP26 was generated and transferred into the KOS genome. Recombinant viruses were isolated on Vero cells, which indicated that the absence of VP26 was not required for growth of the virus in cell culture. This was confirmed by the characterization of the VP26 null mutant, designated K delta 26Z. The yield of virus from K delta 26Z-infected Vero cells was decreased only twofold relative to wild-type-infected cells, as judged by the burst size. All three types of capsids (A, B, and C) were observed after sedimentation analysis of K delta 26Z-infected cell extracts. These capsids were similar in composition to wild-type capsids except for the absence of VP26. The mouse ocular model was used to determine if VP26 played a major role in vivo. The yield of the mutant virus relative to wild-type virus was decreased twofold in the eye; however, the mutant virus yields were decreased 30- to 100-fold in the trigeminal ganglia. Reactivation of the mutant virus as determined by cocultivation assays was also reduced. To determine the effect of VP26 on capsid translocation, the VP26 null mutation was transferred into a virus specifiying a thymidine kinase mutation that by itself is transported to the trigeminal ganglia but whose DNA is not replicated in the ganglia. Using quantitative PCR assays the number of viral genomes detected in the ganglia was similar in the presence or the absence of VP26. Therefore, VP26 does not appear to aid in the translocation of the virus capsid from the mouse eye to the trigeminal ganglia but is important for infectious virus production in the ganglia.


Because standards and regulations respond to a society's demand for specific public goods, we expect them to be shaped by preferences, endowments, technologies - the fundamental determinants of this demand. There is no a priori reason why standards should be equal in different societies. This paper studies the interaction between standards and international trade. It shows that although standards can be used to manipulate trade flows, there is no logical connection between standards harmonization and gains from trade. Moreover, standards themselves will be modified by the opening of trade and under reasonable assumptions harmonization will be one of the outcomes of free trade. The empirical evidence suggests that industry groups are assuming an increasing role in shaping government regulations. In this perspective, standards need not be automatically identified with national policies, and the possibility of international alliances of industry groups must be considered. The result of market integration is then international harmonization together with increased differentiation across industries.


Introduction Dementia is leading cause of death in the UK and shares many common risk factors with coronary artery disease. The relationship between cognition and major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) in older patients presenting with non ST elevation Acute Coronary syndrome (NSTEACS) is not known. Aim To investigate the association of cognitive impairment with 30 day MACE (mortality, hospital readmission with ACS, unplanned revascularisation, stroke and major bleeding events) in older patients presenting with NSTEACS in the ICON1 study. Method Over a period of 34 months 277 patients 75 years of age, admitted for invasive management of NSTEACS, were enrolled into a multicentre prospective observational study. Cognitive assessment was performed by Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) test, where a cut-off of 26 is used to determine cognitive impairment. Frailty was assessed using the Fried criteria, where a score of 0 is robust, 1 or 2 is pre-frail and 3 is frail. Results 251 patients had a MoCA score calculated at presentation (mean±Standard deviation [SD]=25.1±3.3), nearly half of the patients (n=122, 48.6%) had cognitive impairment. The mean age was 81.2±4.0 years (mean± Standard Deviation [SD]). Patients with cognitive impairment were older compared to normal cognition group (82.2±3.9 vs. 80.2±3.9 years, p<0.001), and were frail (36.1% vs. 18.6%, p=0.002). Overall 19 (7.6%) patients reached MACE outcome, the rate of composite adverse outcomes were 6.6% vs. 8.5% (p=0.555) respectively. No patient died at 30 day in the selected cohort and no one had ST elevation myocardial infarction. There was no difference in the occurrence of non ST elevation myocardial infarction (0.8% vs. 0.8%), unstable angina (0.8% vs. 2.3%, p=0.808), unplanned revascularisation (1.6% vs. 1.6%, p=1.0), stroke/Transient Ischaemic Attack (0% vs. 0.8%, p=1.0), and major bleeding (4.1% vs. 3.9%, p=1.0), and readmission with ACS rate (1.6% vs. 3.1%, p=0.684) between the impaired and normal cognition groups respectively. Conclusion Cognitive impairment is common in patients over 75 years of age with NSTEACS managed invasively. Those with significant impairment are older and frail. Short-term 30 day MACE outcomes are not different between cognition groups in this selected cohort of patients.