Formative eAssessment can be very helpful in providing high quality higher education assignments. When a university is encouraging the uptake of formative eAssessment internally it is useful to have case studies from academic schools detailing how academics enthusiastic about formative eAssessment have used it in their modules with the assistance of support staff. It is particularly helpful if these case studies document: a) the cooperative-design process through which the eAssessment solution has been created by the teaching and support staff; b) the implementation of the resulting eAssessment solution; and c) an evaluation of the effectiveness of the solution. However there is a shortage of such real-world case studies. This paper helps fill this gap in the literature by describing the case of a Spanish Language module at the University of Southampton and a British Sign Language module at Bournemouth and Poole College. We describe the generic formative eAssessment solution resulting from the case studies which can be positioned at the cutting edge of formative eAssessment practice. This uses both open source and commercial eAssessment software; provides support for QTI, accessibility and mobile eAssessment; and provides reporting and web 2.0 tools to give the teaching staff feedback on the eAssessment. Our evaluation with undergraduate student volunteers from the modules has resulted in positive feedback.


Abstract: This essay reviews diverse strands of empirical and theoretical work in different urban studies areas (urban planning, urban ethnography, urban geography, and STS) reflecting on the manifold ways in which the smart city project is being "opened up" for scrutiny through experimental projects developing digitally-mediated sensing practices of either a specific or broad kind: i.e., producing both devices formally devised for sensing specific parameters, and sensing devices –emerging from less specific digital technology arrangements– used to share experiences, show solutions or politicize different urban issues. In doing this, we seek to understand, from an STS standpoint, the different ways in which a broad range of works are analysing the development, intervention, maintenance, and opposition of these ideas. In the first section we focus on understanding the definitions, features and clashes that several of these corporate projects (mostly municipal in nature) have come across, deploying smart devices, such as sensors to produce an "algorithmic city". In the second section we expand the meanings of "smartness," focusing on grassroots appropriations of broader digital arrangements and politicizations of open source infrastructures to display other forms of urban sensitivities, contributing to the cosmopoliticization of the "smart city" project. Keywords: Smart city; cosmopolitics; sensors; experiment; sensitivities.


ACL2 is the latest inception of the Boyer-Moore theorem prover, the 2005 recipient of the ACM software system award. In the hands of an expert, it feels like a finely tuned race car, and it has been used to prove some of the most complex theorems ever proved about commercially designed systems. Unfortunately, ACL2 has a steep learning curve, and novices tend have a very different experience: they crash and burn. As part of a project to make ACL2 and formal reasoning accessible to the masses, we have developed ACL2s, the ACL2 sedan. ACL2s streamlines the learning process with features not previously available for ACL2. Our goal is to develop a tool that is " self-teaching," i.e., it should be possible for an undergraduate to sit down and play with it and learn how to program in ACL2 and how to reason about the programs she writes. The latest version of ACL2s is a significant step in that direction.


Two Shiga-like toxin-producing organisms were isolated from the feces of an infant with hemolytic-uremic syndrome by PCR followed by colony blot hybridization. One strain was identified as Escherichia coli OR:H9, while the other was identified as Enterobacter cloacae. Both isolates were highly cytotoxic for Vero cells, and Southern hybridization analysis of chromosomal DNA indicated that both contained a single slt-II-related gene and that these genes were located on similarly sized restriction fragments. Nucleotide sequence analysis indicated that the toxin encoded by the E. cloacae slt-II-related gene was very similar to Shiga-like toxin II variants from E. coli, differing from the most closely related toxin by 3 residues in the A subunit.


Enhancing access to education and knowledge is a long-held principle enshrined in education policy. Access to education offers leverage for educational attainment and achievement, at the individual and social levels. In policy, the term equates with concepts of inclusion, social justice and equity. Over the last decades, as education policy has responded to global social, cultural and economic reforms, concepts such as access have also undergone revision. This article revisits the relationship between access, education and knowledge-making, in order to clarify the meaning of access in current education policies by re-evaluating how access is constructed in policy and how the concept associates with other aspects of education. The research examines the concept of access in order to improve the efficacy of policy, opening the way for more systematic and transparent policy analysis and policy making centred on defining and delineating conceptual meanings such as access, as a basis for more targeted policy. Using evidence-based policy research, the article proposes a research process model based on the hierarchy of abstraction, to show that education policy requires systematic examination of key concepts as a fundamental step towards more clearly defined policy postulates that recognise and deal with contextual complexity of education policy. Defining and delineating the meaning of concepts such as access can help in the way that education policy contributes to guiding innovative knowledge construction.


Accurate group movie recommendation systems are a need in society today. We find that people tend to watch movies in groups rather than by themselves. However, the groups of people that tend to watch movies together are very diverse. In the existing methods, the characteristics of individual users are simply aggregated to obtain the group's attributes and most of the time useful data is not utilized. This can be improved upon by ensuring the utilization of all the data that we are presented with from the scenario. The method proposed in this paper is termed integrated as we weighed in the individual traits of each user in the group when predicting the group's rating for a movie. We used the concept of Hesitant Fuzzy Sets (HFS) in order to keep track of the characteristics of each of the users individually. The method we proposed in this paper employs Matrix Factorisation (MF) based Collaborative Filtering (CF) along with hesitant fuzzy sets. The way we performed MF based CF for a group is that we found the factors first and then formed the groups. The ratings were then predicted for these groups. The groups we have considered are of three sizes - 3 users, 5 users, and 10 users.


We show how Democrats and Republicans converged to support similar policies on a major educational issue: teacher effectiveness. Our study demonstrates the importance of idea brokers — actors that bridge structural gaps between members of different parties and promote shared policy ideas. Our study is based on analysis of testimony from 197 congressional hearings from 2000 to 2014. We use Discourse Network Analysis to examine network ties based on shared policy preferences expressed in hearings, which can be used to create networks linking policy actors and stated policy preferences. We use this network data to examine changes in the education policy subsystem during a policy window between the Bush administration and the Obama administration. We identify idea brokers based on network attributes, including: 1) actors that contributed to the policy debate, and 2) actors that bridged structural gaps between Democrats and Republicans. We then estimate QAP regression models to examine whether ties to idea brokers are associated with future policy preferences among political actors.


Introduction Sphincter of Oddi (SO) dysfunction (SOD) is a functional disorder that can cause severe morbidity. SO manometry (SOM) measures SO pressure (SOP) and is the definitive test for SOD.1 SOD can be treated with sphincterotomy.1 ERCP in patients with SOD increases risk of complications.2 3 Sphincterotomy can cause long-term complications.4 As such patient selection and pre-procedure counselling is paramount.5 SOM is not widely available (in UK) and commercial SOM equipment is expensive. Methods We retrospectively evaluated the first 18 months of a new SOM service. Patients were referred from Northern region clinicians. After careful selection those with type II SOD were offered SOM. An in-house manometric system was developed using a water-perfused system constructed from existing invasive BP measuring equipment and a standard SOM catheter. Before use it was evaluated and produced reliable and valid pressure measurements comparable with commercial systems. Results Between 1/2008 and 7/2009, 29 patients (25F:4M) underwent SOM (36 procedures), following MRCP in 26, endoscopic ultrasound in 24 and SO Botox injection in 11. SO hypertension (SOH) was diagnosed in 16 and 18 patients underwent sphincterotomy (16-SOH, 1-choledocholithiasis, 1-dilated CBD at MRCP). There were five episodes of pancreatitis (14%) and one episode of cholangitis (after 36 SOM procedures). Discharge was within 24 h of the procedure in 21 patients, within 1 week in 9 and after 1 week in 6, in 4 of whom the pain was felt to be functional, (range 0–36 days, mean 4, median 1). One patient needed HDU care and one NJ feeding. In 13 of the 36 procedures a prophylactic pancreatic duct (PD) stent was placed. Of 16/29 patients who were contactable by phone for long-term follow-up (average 280 days, SD 142 days), 9 (82%) out of 11 who had sphincterotomy described a sustained symptomatic improvement. Only 2 (40%) out of 5 with no sphincterotomy reported an improvement. Conclusion Over half (56%) of patients having SOM had SOD indicating appropriate patient selection. The pancreatitis rate for SOM was 10 times that of all other ERCP in our unit but in keeping with published series.2 3 The in-house equipment was effective and allowed the service to be delivered without commercial costs. Sphincterotomy provided long-term benefit to over 80% of patients. The service will be further developed in light of these findings, with earlier discharge of patients with functional post-procedure pain and an increase in PD stent placement rate.


The association among Anastrepha species, braconid parasitoids and host fruits in southern Bahia is recorded. Doryctobracon areolatus (Szepligeti) was associated with A. serpentina (Wied.) in Pouteria caimito, A. bahiensis Lima in Helicostylis tomentosa, A. sororcula Zucchi in Eugenia uniflora, and A. obliqua (Macquart) in Spondias purpurea. Anatrepha obliqua was unique in fruits of Averrhoa carambola, but associated with D. areolatus, Asobara anastrephae (Muesebeck) and Utetes anastrephae (Viereck). In Achras sapota, A. serpentina was associated with A. anastrephae and D. areolatus, while in Psidium guajava, A. fraterculus (Wied.) and A. sororcula were associated with D. areolatus and U. anastrephae.


s for Presentations Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000. SAND2015-3604R


INTRODUCTION
Energy is always in demand. And methods for generating energy without the use of fossile
fuels is more needed than ever. Therefore we want to make an alternative energy
generating method. Our idea is based on Piezoelectric materials. Piezoelectric materials
generates a voltage when exposed for an external stress.
Through a 3 week special course we want to perform experiments and finally design
fabricate a plate made of piezoelectric polymer PVDF. The concept is then, that the plate
should be placed where many people walks. People would then step on the plate, which
applies a stress in the implemented piezoelectric polymers and a voltage is generated. It is
possible to harvest this generated energy.
THEORY
We are going to combine theory learned in the courses: Micro-1 and Fabrication of microand
nanostructures. Besides this we are going to use theory from articels found on the
subject.
Method
The polymer we wish to use is PVDF in its electric active beta-phase. PVDF in alpha phase
is possible to buy from a danish company called LINATEX. We are going to convert the
alpha-phase PVDF to beta-phase through a method called polling, which consist of heating
the material and then applying an electric field. When the beta-phae is obtained we are
going to attach electrodes to the polymer. A circiut should then be established for harvesting
the generated energy. And finally the device should be coated in a form of packaging, which
prevent damages but will allow the stress in the piezoelectric polymer.
Results
The project will be carried out in the 3-week course period in June 2014 and no results is
therefore yet obtained.
CONCLUSION
We will throughout a special course in the 3-week course period in June 2014 make a
energy harvesting device. The device contains piezoelectric polymers, which generate a
voltage when bended.


Although Germanists are indebted to the writer and dilettante historian Beda Weber for initiating research into Oswald von Wolkenstein, Weber's biography of Oswald (1850), more a historical novel than a work of scholarship, has impeded the task of establishing a true picture of the poet's life and personality by creating what Karl Kurt Klein has called the 'myth of Oswald'. This thesis sets out to contribute to the reappraisal of Weber's populary accepted image of Oswald, paying particular attention to his life and political career in Tyrol and his service of the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund. Chapter I, after giving a brief survey of Oswald research to date, outlines Weber's picture of the poet as an idealist devoted to chivalry, Minne and service of the Empire. Oswald's life and personality are considered in the next two chapters, which correspond to the two principal sources of information. Chapter II investigates the documentary evidence (including some hitherto unpublished material) of Oswald's life at home and his political activities. Chapter III attempts a reassessment of the poems which reflect his involvement in, and attitude towards, political events. A shift of emphasis is observed from the lighthearted tone of the songs composed during his travels in Sigismund's service to the more serious mood of those inspired by experiences in his conflict with the Prince of Tyrol. These poems confirm the impression gained from historical documents that Oswald's main preoccupation was not with imperial politics, but with local affairs which affected him personally and materially. This third chapter also offers a reinterpretation of those poems in which Oswald refers to his love affair with his neighbour Sabina Jager, who eventually became an ally of his enemies in Tyrol. All the poems dealt with in Chapter III are submitted to stylistic and linguistic analysis. The conclusion (Chapter IV) lists the amendments to Oswald's biography which the thesis has proposed, outlines his personality as it has emerged from the discussion of documents and poetry, and attempts a brief assessment of him as a man and a poet.


A better understanding of the multi-temporal variation in evapotranspiration (ET) at different crop growth stages is the key for determining a reasonable irrigation schedule. In this study, a new device known as 'Water Transformation Dynamical Processes Experimental Device' (WTDPED) was used to monitor ET for maize under controlled environmental and groundwater conditions, and the multi-temporal variations of ET considering the combined impact of environmental factors (air temperature (AT), relative humidity (RH)) and groundwater in homogeneous and layered soils were focused on. During the whole growing period, the ET peaked at 14:00–15:00 on a daily basis. The variation in daily ET followed a bell curve during the entire growing period. The 5-day ET reached its maximum during the 12th leaf and maturity stage. The correlation coefficient between ET and AT reached its maximum value of 0.70 during planting and the third leaf stage. The negative correlation coefficient between RH and ET reached its maximum during the 12th leaf and tasseling-silking stage. Groundwater recharge was positively correlated to ET and the daily contribution was up to 10.07%. The silt sandy loam–loam layered soil was favorable for water and nutrient uptake during the entire growing period of maize.


Through this study, the authors make a capital a critical analysis about the national conjuncture within the field of health, and settle a relationship with the problems experienced by the municipality of Londrina. They analyse the responsibility of Federal Government and their various sectors, regarding the insufficiency of financial resources to be used in the area, and by the bad management of these resources. The structure health services in Londrina is described in detail, emphasizing the importance of this town as the regional center for the whole of northern Paraná. Emphasis is given to the excess os patients, at the moment, mainly in relation to general hospitals, because of lack of availability of beds. At the end of the study, considerations about the legislation of SUS (Sistema único de Saúde) are made and several suggestions are presented, aiming at regularizing the situation in the Municipality of Londrina.


The present research aims to more fully explore the issues of performance differences in higher education assessment, particularly in the context of a common measure taken to address them. The rationale for the study is that, while performance differences in written examinations are relatively well researched, few studies have examined the efficacy of anonymous marking in reducing these performance differences, particularly in modern student populations. By examining a large archive (N = 30674) of assessment data spanning a twelve-year period, the relationship between assessment marks and factors such as ethnic group, gender and socio-environmental background was investigated. In particular, analysis focused on the impact that the implementation of anonymous marking for assessment of written examinations and coursework has had on the magnitude of mean score differences between demographic groups of students. While group differences were found to be pervasive in higher education assessment, these differences were observed to be relatively small in practical terms. Further, it appears that the introduction of anonymous marking has had a negligible effect in reducing them. The implications of these results are discussed, focusing on two issues, firstly a defence of examinations as a fair and legitimate form of assessment in Higher Education, and, secondly, a call for the re-examination of the efficacy of anonymous marking in reducing group performance differences.


Process mining has proven to be a valuable approach that provides new and objective insights into processes within organizations. Based on sets of wellstructured data, the underlying 'actual' processes can be extracted and process models can be constructed automatically, i.e., the process model can be 'mined'. Successful process mining depends on the availability of wellstructured and suitable data. This paper investigates the potential of software configuration management (SCM) and SCMtools for software process mining. In a validation section, data collected by a SCM tool in practice are used to apply process-mining techniques on a particular software process, i.e., a Change Control Board (CCB) process in a large industrial company. Application of process mining techniques revealed that although people tend to believe that formally specified and well-documented processes are followed, the 'actual' process in practice is different. Control-flow discovery revealed that in the CCB process in most of the cases, i.e., 70%, an important CCB task 'Analysis' was skipped. Keywords-software configuration management; process mining; validation


Constructing an accurate geological model of the reservoir is a preliminary to make any reliable prediction of a reservoir's performance. Afterward, one needs to simulate the flow to predict the reservoir's dynamic behaviour. This process usually is associated with high computational costs. Therefore, alternative methods such as the percolation approach for rapid estimation of reservoir efficiency are quite desirable. This study tries to address the Well Testing (WT) interpretation of heterogeneous reservoirs, constructed from two extreme permeabilities, 0 and K. In particular, we simulated a drawdown test on typical site percolation mediums, occupied to fraction "p" at a constant rate Q/h, to compute the well-known pressure derivative (dP/dlnt). This derivative provides us with "apparent" permeability values, a significant property to move forward with flow prediction. It is good to mention that the hypothetical wellbore locates in the middle of the reservoir with assumed conditions. Commercial software utilized to perform flow simulations and well test analysis. Next, the pressure recorded against time at different realizations and values of p. With that information provided, the permeability of the medium is obtained. Finally, the permeability change of this reservoir is compared to the permeability alteration of a homogeneous one and following that, its dependency on the model parameters has been analysed. The result shows a power-law relation between average permeability (considering all realizations) and the occupancy probability "p". This conclusion helps to improve the analysis of well testing for heterogeneous reservoirs with percolation structures.


Background: In several studies have reported that complications of pregnancy could be indicated by inadequate nutrition during pregnancy. In this regard, some of the pregnant women are limited-time engagement with health professionals, lack resources and education of nutrition, and consume unhealthy food. Often found that pregnant women and family are difficult to estimate nutrient intake in line with dietary targets and guidelines and nutrient reference value.TheNutritionalInformation System (SISFORNUTRIMIL) is an application which helps the pregnant women to estimate nutrient intake and record their food intake.
Objectives: The study aims to determine the maternal eating behaviour and pregnancy outcomes measurements.
Methods: This study involved two phases. Phase one: Conducting a literature search required engaging in an extensive and systematic search strategy to be able to identify articles related to this study. Step two: this study will randomized control trial (RCT) and allocate participants 1:1 to the SISFORNUTRIMIL application user and non-user application. The Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women of reproductive age (MDD-W) indicators and Adult Behaviour Eating Questionnaire (ABEQ) will be used to identify maternal eating behaviour. In additional, maternal weight gain, blood sample test, and birth weight examination used to measure pregnancy experience and pregnancy outcome.
Discussion: Nutrition intervention during pregnancy is an important strategy to improve health pregnancy in reduced the healthcare and health promotion issue. The SISFORNUTRIMIL application for individual preferences for nutrition intervention and optimal pregnancy outcomes, suggesting a need for food intake guidelines that facilitate pregnant women involvement in eating properly. Furthermore, this research as a proper foundation to contribute to decreasing the morbidity and mortality rate.


BIOSYNTHESIS AND ASSEMBLY OF THE VI ANTIGEN CAPSULE PRODUCED BY SALMONELLA ENTERICA SEROVAR TYPHI Sean Daniel Liston Advisor: University of Guelph, 2018 Dr. Chris Whitfield Capsules are bacterial cell-surface structures composed of hydrated capsular polysaccharides (CPS). The human pathogen Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi produces the 'Vi antigen' CPS, which contributes to virulence. This CPS is a component of some current vaccines. Vi antigen is delivered to the cell surface by an ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter. CPS ABC transporters participate in heteroligomeric protein complexes, that are proposed to form enclosed translocation conduits to the cell surface. This Thesis describes the identification of Vi antigen biosynthesis genetic loci in the Burkholderiales that are paradoxically distinguished from the S. Typhi by encoding a predicted pectate lyase I named VexL. Biochemical analyses of a representative VexL from Achromobacter denitrificans demonstrated that it is a Vi antigen-specific endo-lyase enzyme. A 1.2-Å crystal structure of the VexL-Vi antigen complex revealed determinants of specificity and features which distinguish common secreted catabolic pectate lyases from VexL, which participates in cell-surface assembly. When introduced into S. Typhi, VexL localized to the periplasm and degraded nascent Vi antigen. In contrast, a cytosolic derivative had no effect unless Vi antigen export was disrupted. This provides the first evidence that CPS assembled using ABC transporters are periplasm-exposed during translocation. Vi antigen-producers lack enzymes to build a terminal glycolipid residue that is conserved in all other ABC transporter-dependent CPS assembly systems. VexL was used to depolymerize Vi antigen to facilitate isolation of intact Vi antigen chain termini. Mass spectrometry revealed Vi antigen oligosaccharides with a reducing terminal N-acetylhexosamine residue decorated with two β-hydroxyacyl chains. The VexE protein, which is uniquely encoded by Vi antigen biosynthesis loci, shares similarity with acyltransferases from lipid A biosynthesis. A ΔvexE mutant of S. Typhi produced Vi antigen with altered physical properties; its export was impaired, the glycan was not attached at the cell surface, and the glycolipid was not identified. Biochemical assays demonstrate that VexE is a UDP-N-acetylglucosamine C6 β-hydroxyacyltransferase that prefers 14-carbon acyl chains. The structure of the terminal glycolipid dictates a unique assembly mechanism and has potential implications in pathogenesis, immunology, and vaccine production. This thesis provides novel insight into mechanisms for CPS production conserved in diverse and clinically-relevant bacteria


We calculate 3-loop master integrals for heavy quark correlators and the 3-loop QCD corrections to the $\rho$-parameter. They obey non-factorizing differential equations of second order with more than three singularities, which cannot be factorized in Mellin-$N$ space either. The solution of the homogeneous equations is possible in terms of convergent close integer power series as $_2F_1$ Gau\ss{} hypergeometric functions at rational argument. In some cases, integrals of this type can be mapped to complete elliptic integrals at rational argument. This class of functions appears to be the next one arising in the calculation of more complicated Feynman integrals following the harmonic polylogarithms, generalized polylogarithms, cyclotomic harmonic polylogarithms, square-root valued iterated integrals, and combinations thereof, which appear in simpler cases. The inhomogeneous solution of the corresponding differential equations can be given in terms of iterative integrals, where the new innermost letter itself is not an iterative integral. A new class of iterative integrals is introduced containing letters in which (multiple) definite integrals appear as factors. For the elliptic case, we also derive the solution in terms of integrals over modular functions and also modular forms, using $q$-product and series representations implied by Jacobi's $\vartheta_i$ functions and Dedekind's $\eta$-function. The corresponding representations can be traced back to polynomials out of Lambert--Eisenstein series, having representations also as elliptic polylogarithms, a $q$-factorial $1/\eta^k(\tau)$, logarithms and polylogarithms of $q$ and their $q$-integrals. Due to the specific form of the physical variable $x(q)$ for different processes, different representations do usually appear. Numerical results are also presented.


Dependencies among system components are crucial to locating root errors in a distributed system. In this paper, we propose an approach to mine intercomponent dependencies from unstructured logs. The technique requires neither additional system instrumentation nor any application specific knowledge. In the approach, we first parse each log message into its log key and parameters. Then, we find dependent log key pairs belong to different components by leveraging co-occurrence analysis and parameter correspondence. After that, we use Bayesian decision theory to estimate the dependency direction of each dependent log key pair. We further apply time delay consistency to remove false positive detections. Case studies on Hadoop show that the technique successfully identifies the dependencies among the distributed system components.


Thlirdly, properly regulated pension, according to lengtlh of service; fixed, not at the option of the guardians. It is a well-known fact that maniy old and infirm practitioners are afraid to resign. I have been told this by three old medical mien witlhin the last ten days. A pension at present depernds OIn (1) religion. (2) polities, (:3) the number of friends the doctor lhas oIn the Board. Ilis age, lhealth, and services reindered are, in a word, ignored. Fourthlv, enitr-ance to the Poor-law service should be only by competitive exanmination, conlducted in Dublin by a board of examiners. Fiftlhly, all districts slhoul(d be remodelled, the present arrangement being most inconvenient to botlh patient and doctor. As poin'ted out by I)r. Fenwviek Carre, there is no limit to the lhour at wvlhich tickets in cases of ordinary illness maybe presented. This is a real and a very serious grievance, felt daily by every dispensary officer. There should be a rule that any ticket presented later thian 10.30 A.M. (labour, accidents, aind eases of su(lden illness excepted) may be held over till the following dlay at the option of tlhe medical officer. Nowthat the, Britislh Medical Association, Mr. Ernest Hart, and the Irislh Medical Association are hard at work in our interests, it only remnains for us to be up anid doing, to unite and fighlt shouloder to slhoul(ler, aiid, as in every other undertakin-' leaded hv the above-named powerful support, tlle result will be " victory. '-I am, etc.,


Formation and remodeling of extracellular matrix (ECM) structures is critical for epithelial development and organ morphogenesis. The apical ECM of epithelial tissues provides a scaffold for cell movements, contributes to intercellular signaling and acts as a protective barrier against pathogens and environmental factors in both, vertebrates and invertebrates. The type II transmembrane serine protease matriptase and the serine protease prostasin are key factors in a proteolytic cascade that regulates epithelial ECM differentiation during development in vertebrates. While apical ECM formation and remodeling was shown to be essential for Drosophila melanogaster organogenesis, mechanisms and pathways that regulate apical ECM dynamics largely remain elusive.
Here, I identify the D. melanogaster proteases Notopleural (Np) and Tracheal- prostasin (Tpr) as functional homologs of vertebrate matriptase and prostasin, respectively. Np mediates morphogenesis and remodeling of apical ECM during embryonic tracheal system development and is essential for maintenance of the transepithelial barrier function. Together with the protease Lumens interrupted (Lint), Np and Tpr mediate degradation of the zona pellucida domain (ZPD) protein Dumpy, which forms elastic fibers in the tracheal apical ECM via the conserved ZPD polymerization module. In addition, Np, Lint and Tpr regulate the formation of the mature tracheal apical ECM cuticle. Furthermore, I demonstrate that Tpr zymogen activation is mediated by Np while zymogen activation of Np occurs in an autocatalytic manner, suggesting Np as an initiator of a proteolytic cascade in the tracheal system. Functional homology of Np and matriptase is based on a conserved substrate specificity, since both proteases cleave Tpr at its zymogen activation site, cleave the D. melanogaster ZPD protein Pio within its ZPD, and mediate cleavage of the human ZPD containing TGF-β receptor type III. The data therefore indicate that cleavage of ZPD proteins by the matriptase-prostasin proteolytic cascade is an evolutionary conserved mechanism.


Many collective systems exist in nature far from equilibrium, ranging from cellular sheets up to flocks of birds. These systems reflect a form of active matter, whereby individual material components have internal energy. Under specific parameter regimes, these active systems undergo phase transitions whereby small fluctuations of single components can lead to global changes to the rheology of the system. Simulations and methods from statistical physics are typically used to understand and predict these phase transitions for real-world observations. In this work, we demonstrate that simulation-based inference can be used to robustly infer active matter parameters from system observations. Moreover, we demonstrate that a small number (from one to three) snapshots of the system can be used for parameter inference and that this graph-informed approach outperforms typical metrics such as the average velocity or mean square displacement of the system. Our work highlights that high-level system information is contained within the relational structure of a collective system and that this can be exploited to better couple models to data.


Using panel data, we estimate technology gaps for four distinct sheep-producing regions in Eastern Australia (Northern New South Wales, Central and South-Eastern New South Wales, South-Western New South Wales and South-West Victoria) that reflect spatial environmental and technological differences in wool production. A deterministic stochastic metafrontier production function model is estimated that envelops the stochastic frontiers of the four regions. This metafrontier approach enables us to estimate the environment-technology gap ratio that reflects these spatial differences in the environment and variations in production technologies in the wool enterprise for benchmarked farmers in each region. As a result, a more accurate estimation is possible of changes in total factor productivity on farms in the different regions. The major findings are that environment-technology gaps do exist between regions but they are relatively small. Greater variation is apparent within regions. Variation in technical efficiency seems to depend on the harshness of the production environment and whether consultancy advice is regularly received by the benchmarking group.


Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has spread worldwide and caused widespread devastation. In the absence of definitive therapy, symptomatic management remains the standard of care. Repurposing of many existing drugs including several anti-viral drugs is being attempted to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. However, most of them have failed to show significant benefit in clinical trials. An attractive approach may be to target host proteases involved in SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis. The priming of the spike (S) protein of the virus by proteolytic cleavage by the trans-membrane serine protease-2 (TMPRSS2) is necessary for fusion of the virus to the host cell after it binds to its receptor angiotensin converting enzyme-2 (ACE2). There are other proteases with varying spatiotemporal locations that may be important for viral entry and subsequent replication inside the cells, and these include trypsin, furin and cathepsins. In this report, we discuss the tentative therapeutic role of inhibitors of TMPRSS2, cathepsin, trypsin, furin, plasmin, factor X and elastase in infection caused by SARS-CoV-2. Both available evidence as well as hypotheses are discussed, with emphasis on drugs which are approved for other indications such as bromhexine, ammonium chloride, nafamostat, camostat, tranexamic acid, epsilon amino-caproic acid, chloroquine, ulinastatin, aprotinin and anticoagulant drugs. Simultaneously, novel compounds being tested and problems with using these agents are also discussed.


Sample size justification is an important consideration when planning a clinical trial, not only for the main trial but also for any preliminary pilot trial. When the outcome is a continuous variable, the sample size calculation requires an accurate estimate of the standard deviation of the outcome measure. A pilot trial can be used to get an estimate of the standard deviation, which could then be used to anticipate what may be observed in the main trial. However, an important consideration is that pilot trials often estimate the standard deviation parameter imprecisely. This paper looks at how we can choose an external pilot trial sample size in order to minimise the sample size of the overall clinical trial programme, that is, the pilot and the main trial together. We produce a method of calculating the optimal solution to the required pilot trial sample size when the standardised effect size for the main trial is known. However, as it may not be possible to know the standardised effect size to be used prior to the pilot trial, approximate rules are also presented. For a main trial designed with 90% power and two-sided 5% significance, we recommend pilot trial sample sizes per treatment arm of 75, 25, 15 and 10 for standardised effect sizes that are extra small (!0.1), small (0.2), medium (0.5) or large (0.8), respectively.


Behavior is highly resistant to change in situations with large and frequent reinforcers but weak contingencies relating reinforcers to behavior. This empirical result may help us to understand why patterns of behavior are so difficult to change in the affluent society of the USA, despite the likelihood that their continuation will destroy the environment on which we depend. The argument is illustrated by fossil fuel consumption, especially by driving cars for personal transportation, where many costs are deferred or hidden but reinforcers are immediate and are experienced in a situation of general affluence. The behavioral momentum metaphor accounts for the resistance to change of driving, and of social policies that subsidize driving. Using wind power as an example, the metaphor suggests why local action on behalf of the future may be successful and how support for future-oriented projects may be gained.


The purpose of the study was to develop a higher order thinking (HOT) teaching model for science among basic education students. The development of the model was aimed at overcoming basic students' needs in terms of developing their higher cognitive skills in science education. The study adopted the Design and Development Research Approach. Based on the approach, the study was conducted in three phases namely, needs analysis, design and development and evaluation phase.
In order to identify the needs to develop the model, two instruments were used in phase1. First, a Higher Order Thinking Level Test (HOTLT) was developed based on the Bloom's taxonomy of the cognitive domain and consisted of 25 multiple choice questions. The test was distributed to a randomly chosen sample comprising 418 7th grade students in the Iraqi-Kurdistan region. Second, a Strategy Use Survey Questionnaire (SUSQ) was developed to investigate the strategies used by 7th grade science teachers in science. The questionnaire consisted of 31 questions with a 5-point Likert scale and distributed among 212 7th grade science teachers in the Iraqi-Kurdistan region. Data for this phase were analyzed using descriptive statistics via the SPSS program. Phase 2 adopted the Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM) to develop the model via a panel of 20 experts. The model was developed based on the experts' responses to a seven-Likert linguistic scale survey questionnaire. The threshold value (d) was calculated to determine the experts' consensus for all questionnaire items, while the alpha-cut value > 0.5 was used to select the elements. The ranking process was used to identify the priority of elements for implementation in science class. Phase 3 adopted the partial least square (PLS-SEM) approach to evaluate the model. The evaluation was carried out via 318 science teachers. A two-stage process was employed whereby the measurement model was evaluated followed by an evaluation of the structural model.
ii
The overall findings for phase 1 revealed that majority of the 7th grade students were at a lower level of thinking skills (LOT). The findings also indicated that a variety of HOT teaching strategies were lacking among science teachers and that low processing strategies, such as focusing on students' memorizing of basic concepts were dominant among them. Thus, the findings necessitated the study to develop the model. Findings from phase 2 using FDM resulted in the development of the model that consisted of 5 main stages and 24 sub-stages as the activities that engage basic education students in using their higher cognitive skills in science. Finally, through running factor analysis and PLS evaluation, the findings from phase 3 showed that the HOT teaching model consisted of overall 5 stages and 17 sub-stages that have a positive significance influence on students' HOT (


Due to the inherently fine temporal resolution of UWB, arriving multi-path components can be sharply timed at a receiver to provide accurate time of arrival estimates. This characteristic makes UWB ideal for high precision radiolocation applications. This paper focuses on feature UWB technology that makes it attractive for location precise. A time-of-arrival (TOA) based ranging scheme using UWB radio link is proposed. The problem of ToA estimation in multipath channels and sources of estimation error are discussed. Simulation results based on channel measurement data in indoor environment are presented. Results show that the accuracy enhancement depends on two principal factors: the strength of multipath components thetasrho and the variance of non-line-of-sight (NLOS) delays (thetasdelta). For network synchronization, initial acquisition scheme for UWB multipath environments are investigated.


Meningiomas are, in general, slowly growing benign tumors attached to the dura mater and composed of neoplastic meningothelial (arachnoidal) cells. They have a wide range of histopathological appearances and are classified, according to the aggressiveness of their growth and the risk of recurrence, as WHO grade I (benign) meningiomas, WHO grade II (atypical) meningiomas and WHO grade III anaplastic (malignant) meningiomas. As invasion of normal tissue may occur in all grades, independent biological markers are needed to identify the more aggressive and recurrent meningiomas. The lysosomal cysteine proteinases, cathepsins B and L, have been associated with tumor invasiveness and the aim of this study was therefore to evaluate them, together with their endogenous inhibitors stefin B and cystatin C, as potential markers for the aggressiveness of meningiomas. The expression of cathepsins B and L and their inhibitors stefin B and cystatin C in 21 benign (grade I) and 9 atypical (grade II) meningiomas has been compared by immunohistochemical staining, QRTPCR and Northern blot analysis. The protein levels of cathepsins B (p=0.050) and L (p=0.019) were found to be significantly higher in atypical than in benign meningiomas. In contrast, their mRNA levels did not differ, indicating that the synthesis of cathepsins was accelerated at the translational level. Protein and mRNA levels of stefin B (p= 0.007), but not cystatin C, were significantly lower in atypical compared with benign meningiomas. The expression of cathepsins and inhibitors was not different between central and peripheral meningioma tissue or between histological subtypes of meningiomas, with the exception of cathepsin L, the level of which was significantly lower in transitional meningiomas. We conclude that higher protein levels of cathepsins B and L and lower mRNA levels of stefin B are potential diagnostic markers for invasive and aggressive behavior of meningiomas. The diagnostic and prognostic value for relapse of meningioma needs to be confirmed in a larger population of patients. (Int J Biol Markers 2005; 20: 50-9)


This paper uses data from the Central Highlands of Ethiopia to assess the productivity and production risk impacts of crop diversification. Using count index as a measure of crop biodiversity, results show that increasing crop biodiversity contributes positively to farm level productivity. In addition, the findings suggest that the level of production risk significantly responds to the level of diversity, with the effect highly conditional on the skewness. The major contribution of the paper is that, unlike previous similar studies that tended to focus on intra-crop diversity, it incorporates the mutual interdependencies across crops within a farm by focusing on inter-crop diversity. Hence the study adds to the growing empirical literature, particularly in Africa, that tests empirical relationships between productivity, risk and crop diversity. An important policy implication for a diversity rich country such as Ethiopia is that agro-biodiversity can be used to improve agricultural productivity while promoting in situ conservation.


The novel virus severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused a pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Across the globe, a subset of patients who sustain an acute SARS-CoV-2 infection are developing a wide range of persistent symptoms that do not resolve over the course of many months. These patients are being given the diagnosis Long COVID or Post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC). It is likely that individual patients with a PASC diagnosis have different underlying biological factors driving their symptoms, none of which are mutually exclusive. This paper details mechanisms by which RNA viruses beyond just SARS-CoV-2 have be connected to long-term health consequences. It also reviews literature on acute COVID-19 and other virus-initiated chronic syndromes such as post-Ebola syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) to discuss different scenarios for PASC symptom development. Potential contributors to PASC symptoms include consequences from acute SARS-CoV-2 injury to one or multiple organs, persistent reservoirs of SARS-CoV-2 in certain tissues, re-activation of neurotrophic pathogens such as herpesviruses under conditions of COVID-19 immune dysregulation, SARS-CoV-2 interactions with host microbiome/virome communities, clotting/coagulation issues, dysfunctional brainstem/vagus nerve signaling, ongoing activity of primed immune cells, and autoimmunity due to molecular mimicry between pathogen and host proteins. The individualized nature of PASC symptoms suggests that different therapeutic approaches may be required to best manage care for specific patients with the diagnosis.


High-quality GaAs films with fine surfaces and GaAs/Ge interfaces on Ge have been achieved via molecular beam epitaxy. The influence of low temperature annealing and low temperature epitaxy on the quality of the film when GaAs is grown on a (100) 6° offcut towards [111] Ge substrate are investigated by analyzing and comparing the GaAs films that are fabricated via three different processes. A low temperature annealing process after high temperature annealing and a low temperature epitaxy process after the initial GaAs growth play a vital role in improving the quality of GaAs film on a Ge substrate.


To the Editor .—I read with interest the article by Williams et al regarding pulmonary resections in children (Archives112:481-483, 1977). I noted that one of their infants had the Swyer-James syndrome and that in the discussion following the article, Dr Williams commented that this syndrome is "the situation of a unilateral hyperlucent lung syndrome in association with congenital absence of the pulmonary artery." In fact, congenital absence of the pulmonary artery is one of the differential diagnoses in the unilateral hyperlucent lung syndrome in children but is not the underlying basis for this particular syndrome. This syndrome was initially described by Swyer and James 1 who documented the case history of a 6-year-old boy with recurrent lower respiratory tract infection and a hypovascular lung. Other synonyms applied to this disorder include Macleod's syndrome, unilateral emphysema, unilateral lung transradiency, and unilateral hyperlucent lung. This syndrome usually has its origins in


Since devolution many museums in Scotland have attempted to represent national identity in plural and inclusive terms – emphasising regional and historical differences within the nation and highlighting the contribution of so-called "New Scots" to Scottish society. However, it remains to be seen whether attempts to deconstruct homogenous discourses of nationhood at the level of the state or institution are capable of radically altering individual understandings of national identity and belonging. Further empirical research is therefore needed into the way in which heritage is produced and negotiated in everyday social environments beyond the museum in order to understand what – if any – impact museums may have on challenging prejudice and producing inclusive definitions of national identity. Drawing on Mason's (2013) "cosmopolitan museology" and Rounds' (2006) theory of "identity work" in museums, this paper analyses the narratives of young people aged between 13 and 18 years old from six schools in Glasgow, Edinburgh, the Scottish Borders and the Western Isles. It argues that when negotiating national identity and cultural diversity, individuals adopt narrative strategies in order to accommodate new information without necessarily changing their own definitions of national heritage or attitudes towards minority groups. The implications of this finding for both museum practice in Scotland and the wider European context are considered.


The study tried to estimate the profit efficiency and the relevant indices determining efficiency levels for egg-laying industry in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria utilizing Cobb-Douglas production function based on stochastic profit frontier. Sixty poultry farms were randomly selected across the six agricultural zones of the state. Primary data were collected with the aid of a structured questionnaire. Empirical results revealed the mean economic efficiency of 65.00% implying the need for increased resource use efficiency The results further showed that variable inputs such as price of feeds, price of drugs and medication were statistically significant (p<0.05) thus indicating that profit decreased with increase in input prices while fixed inputs such as capital inputs and farm size were statistically significant and had the right sign a-priori indicating that profit increased with increase in the level of its utilization. The maximum economic efficiency level attained by an individual farmer was 88.00% indicating that there was room for improvement. The study therefore suggests that policy that would enhance extension services, encourage membership in cooperative farming and enhanced good and adequate utilization of improved livestock inputs should be put in place.


Through-the-wall imaging and urban sensing is an emerging area of research and development. The incorporation of the effects of signal propagation through wall material in producing an indoor image is important for reliable through-the-wall mission operations. We have previously analyzed wall effects, such as refraction and change in propagation speed, and designed a wideband beamformer for 2D imaging using line arrays. In this letter, we extend the analysis to 3D imaging via delay-and-sum beamforming in the presence of a single uniform wall. The third dimension provides valuable information on target heights that can be used for enhancing target discrimination/identification. Supporting simulation results are provided.


Aims: The study aims to evaluate the blood level changes of basic Fibroblast Growth Factor (bFGF) during pulp cell homing procedure of teeth with incomplete apices in dogs, and to evaluate the root canal disinfection recommendation of American Association of Endodontist protocol used in pulp revascularization procedure. Materials and Methods: Twelve local breed dogs randomly selected form different areas of Mosul City. The study was included four stages, the bFGF levels in the blood samples were measured by canine bFGF ELISA kit, stage I control (Induce infection),stage II (Disinfection),stage III (Treatment),and stage IV (3 month follow up).In stage II there are two microbial samples have taken from the root canals before and after AAE disinfection protocol ,and also after final irrigation in stage III by the aid of paper point These microbial samples were diluted and spread on blood agar and after 24hr the colony forming unit per milliliter was calculated CFU/ml to evaluate the effectiveness of AAE disinfection protocol. Results: The aid of ANOVA for Repeated Measure Statistical Test, the levels of bFGF in all stages were statistically analyzed. The result show significance at 5% level of significant P-value=0.04. The microbial counting result showed a highly significant difference at 1% P-value=0.000. These three samples have been statistically analyzed by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Conclusion: There is a difference in the levels of bFGF in the blood between the stages during pulp cell homing, also AAE protocol for disinfection is an effective method to disinfect the open apex root canal system.


Quantitative ChIP-seq methods are essential for accurately characterizing and comparing genome-wide DNA-protein interactions across samples. Procedures that enable such quantitative comparisons involve addition of spike-in chromatin or recombinant nucleosome material, or a multiplexed process using barcoding of chromatin fragments. ChIP-seq analysis workflows typically require a number of computational steps involving multiple tools in order to reach interpretable results, and quantitative analyses require additional steps that ensure scaling of the processed output according to the quantitative measurements. Crucially, the different quantitative approaches have unique analysis requirements reflecting the disparate experimental workflows, hence no universal analysis pipeline exists for quantitative ChIP-seq. Here, we developed minute, a user-friendly computational workflow to easily process multiplexed ChIP data that handles the specific needs of quantitative ChIP. minute enables transformation of raw, multiplexed FASTQ files into a set of normalized, scaled bigWig files that can serve as a basis for a quantitative, comparative downstream analysis. minute is implemented in Python and Snakemake and paired with a Conda environment, to facilitate usability and reproducibility in different platforms. Source code of minute is available on GitHub: https://github.com/NBISweden/minute


The magnetization-induced second harmonic generation (MSHG) in the sputtered and epitaxial-grown Co thin films was studied. The magnetic contrast of the MSHG intensity could be clearly distinguished for the cobalt films prepared by both the methods, but the signal measured in air for sputtered films was not smoother than that for the in-situ measurement of epitaxial films. Compared with the magneto-optical Kerr effect, the MSHG shows some new behaviour indicating that more information could be obtained if these two methods are combined. The MSHG reveals a giant nonlinear Kerr rotation in orders of magnitude larger than its linear one.


In this study, anonymous chemical screening of psychoactive substances (codeine and tramadol) was carried out on urine collected from some students in two Nigerian Universities, coded UN1 and UN2 for a Federal a State University, respectively. Chloroform was used as the extractant and sodium borate was used to adjust the pH of the urine samples to 9. Thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and UV-Visible spectrophotometer was used as the primary separation and quantification methods, respectively. The concentrations of codeine in the urine samples collected from UN1 sick bay ranged from 2.822 ppm to 44.756 ppm, while that of UN2 ranges from 0.289 ppm to 4.434 ppm. The respective concentrations of tramadol for the institutions are within the range of 0.015 ppm to 34.833 ppm and 0.181 ppm to 37.030 ppm. There was a statistical difference (p<0.05) in the use of codeine and tramadol among students attending the selected clinics. It was suggested that the University students be subjected to continuous routine screening and counseling.


An oral sustained-release system of ethmozine (E-HBS) was developed. The in vitro release characteristics of E-HBS were shown primarily to be of the first order of kinetics (Kr = 0.2436 h-1). The gamma-scintiphotographic study showed that E-HBS remained in the human stomach for more than 6 hours after ingestion, much longer than the conventional tablet (1-1.5 h). The plasma concentration-time curve of E-HBS exhibited typical sustained-release characteristics. The percentage of drug released in vitro vs the percentage of drug release in vivo of E-HBS indicated excellent linearity.


Gastric cancer is associated with chronic inflammation and Helicobacter pylori infection. Th17 cells are CD4+ T cells associated with infections and inflammation; but their role and mechanism of induction during carcinogenesis is not understood. Gastric myofibroblasts/fibroblasts (GMF) are abundant class II MHC expressing cells that act as novel antigen presenting cells. Here we have demonstrated the accumulation of Th17 in H. pylori-infected human tissues and in the gastric tumor microenvironment. GMF isolated from human gastric cancer and H. pylori infected tissues co-cultured with CD4+ T cells induced substantially higher levels of Th17 than GMF from normal tissues in an IL-6, TGF-β, and IL-21 dependent manner. Th17 required interaction with class II MHC on GMF for activation and proliferation. These studies suggest that Th17 are induced during both H. pylori infection and gastric cancer in the inflammatory milieu of gastric stroma and may be an important link between inflammation and carcinogenesis.


Docetaxel (form A), a stoichiometric hydrate containing three water molecules per molecule of drug substance (Taxotere®), is thermodynamically stable under ambient conditions of pressure, temperature and relative humidity. In order to gain a better understanding of docetaxel system at the atomic scale a structural study was performed. Due to strong anisotropy of crystals (thin plates), the crystal structure of docetaxel (29 degrees of freedom) was solved and refined using high resolution XRPD data applying an ab initio direct space method. In parallel, an in-depth crystal growth study was carried out until single crystals suitable for XRSCD structural resolution were obtained: surprisingly, a new polymorph of docetaxel, called form B, was isolated.


Renewable energy based distributed generation plays an important role in electricity production. Electricity is consumed at the same time as it is generated. In this paper, a hybrid AC-DC Micro-grid is considered in islanding mode with solar energy; energy storage is proposed for integration of a pulse load. A synchronous generator is used to connect to the AC side. The AC and DC sides are linked through a bidirectional AC-DC inverter in order to control the power flow between AC and DC sides of the system. When a pulsed load is connected or disconnected on the AC side, the AC side voltage and frequency are maintained within limits by the support of energy storage on DC. Simulation results show that the proposed micro-grid with control algorithms has maintained a balanced current and voltage profile thereby improving the system reliability and stability.


AIMS
Paravalvular aortic regurgitation (AR) is common after transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI). This study aimed to assess the prosthesis/aortic annulus discongruence by three-dimensional (3D) transoesophageal (TOE) planimetry of aortic annulus and its impact on the occurrence of significant AR after TAVI.

METHODS AND RESULTS
We included 33 patients who underwent TAVI with a balloon expandable device for severe aortic stenosis. To appraise the prosthesis/annulus discongruence, we defined a 'mismatch index' expressed as: annulus area - prosthesis area. The aortic annulus area was planimetered with 3D TOE, and approximated by circular area formula (π r(2)) using annulus diameter obtained by two-dimensional (2D) TOE. After TAVI, 13 patients (39.3%) developed significant AR (≥2/4). The occurrence of significant AR was associated to the 3D planimetered annulus area (P = 0.04), and the 'mismatch index' obtained through 3D planimetered annulus area (P = 0.03), but not to 'mismatch index' derived of 2D annulus diameter. In multivariate analysis, 'mismatch index' for 3D planimetered annulus area was the only independent predictor of significant AR (odds ratio: 10.614; 95% CI: 1.044-17.21; P = 0.04). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for the 'mismatch index' by the 3D planimetered annulus area was 0.76 (95% CI: 0.54-0.92), whereas for 'mismatch index' obtained by the 2D circular area was 0.36 (95% CI: 0.17-0.55). Using the 3D planimetered annulus area as the reference parameter to decide the prosthetic size, the choice would have been different in 21 patients (63%).

CONCLUSION
Three-dimensional TOE planimetry of aortic annulus improves the assessment of prosthesis/annulus discongruence and predicts the appearance of significant AR after TAVI.


Adolescents with different types of motor handicapping have desires, needs, and feelings, and have the right to express them in the best possible and acceptable way. Sexual education provided to young people with these handicaps is generally more limited than that offered to their normal peers. These adolescents are inadvertently excluded, and some may find difficult to establish a steady couple relationship. Health-care professionals should bear in mind the needs and worries of their handicapped patients and include the topic of sexuality in their visits from the start insisting on the fact that it is a normal activity in the context of a variety of associated problems.


Ever-increasing complexity of large-scale applications and continuous increases in sizes of the data they process make the problem of maximizing performance of such applications a very challenging task. In particular, many challenging applications from the domains of astrophysics, medicine, biology, computational chemistry, and materials science are extremely data intensive. Such applications typically use a disk system to store and later retrieve their large data sets, and consequently, their disk performance is a critical concern. Unfortunately, while disk density has significantly improved over the last couple of decades, disk access latencies have not. As a result, I/O is increasingly becoming a bottleneck for data-intensive applications, and has to be addressed at the software level if we want to extract the maximum performance from modern computer architectures.

This paper presents a compiler-directed code restructuring scheme for improving the I/O performance of data-intensive scientific applications. The proposed approach improves I/O performance by reducing the number of disk accesses through a new concept called disk reuse maximization. In this context, disk reuse refers to reusing the data in a given set of disks as much as possible before moving to other disks. Our compiler-based approach restructures application code, with the help of a polyhedral tool, such that disk reuse is maximized to the extent allowed by intrinsic data dependencies in the application code. The proposed optimization can be applied to each loop nest individually or to the entire application code. The experiments show that the average I/O improvements brought by the loop nest based version of our approach are 9.0% and 2.7%, over the original application codes and the codes optimized using conventional schemes, respectively. Further, the average improvements obtained when our approach is applied to the entire application code are 15.0% and 13.5%, over the original application codes and the codes optimized using conventional schemes, respectively. This paper also discusses how careful file layout selection helps to improve our performance gains, and how our proposed approach can be extended to work with parallel applications.


The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effects of fibre source on intestinal mucosal barrier function in weaning piglets. A total of 125 piglets were randomly allotted on the basis of their body weight and litters to one of five experimental diets, i.e. a control diet without fibre source (CT), and diets in which expanded maize was replaced by 10 % maize fibre (MF), 10 % soyabean fibre (SF), 10 % wheat bran fibre (WBF) or 10 % pea fibre (PF). The diets and water were fed ad libitum for 30 d. Piglets on the WBF and PF diets had lower diarrhoea incidence compared with the MF- and SF-fed animals. A higher ratio of villous height:crypt depth in the ileum of WBF-fed piglets and higher colonic goblet cells in WBF- and PF-fed piglets were observed compared with CT-, MF- and SF-fed piglets. In the intestinal digesta, feeding WBF and PF resulted in increased Lactobacillus counts in the ileum and Bifidobacterium counts in the colon. Lower Escherichia coli counts occurred in the ileum and colon of WBF-fed piglets than in SF-fed piglets. Tight junction protein (zonula occludens 1; ZO-1) and Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) gene mRNA levels were up-regulated in the ileum and colon of pigs fed WBF; however, feeding MF and SF raised IL-1α and TNF-α mRNA levels. Furthermore, higher diamine oxidase activities, transforming growth factor-α, trefoil factor family and MHC-II concentration occurred when feeding WBF and PF. In conclusion, the various fibre sources had different effects on the ileal and colonic barrier function. Clearly, WBF and PF improved the intestinal barrier function, probably mediated by changes in microbiota composition and concomitant changes in TLR2 gene expression.


— The COVID 19 pandemic and the Back to Nature trend raise public awareness on the importance of eating natural foods, particularly organic vegetables, for a healthy lifestyle. The purpose of this study is to look at the impact of marketing mix and customer decisions on organic vegetable purchases. The study took place at Lai Lai Fresh, Superindo Tlogomas, Hypertmart Malang Town Square, and Giant Supermarket Dinoyo, all of which are modern markets in Malang City. Eighty (80) people were sampled utilizing the Non-Probability Sampling approach, specifically Accidental Sampling. The research relied on original data gathered from direct interviews with organic vegetable buyers. Consumer views of the 7Ps, namely products, promotions, people, process, prices, places, and physical evidence, are included in the research data. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was based on Partial Least Squares (PLS) vdata analysis. The findings revealed that the four marketing mix elements (product, promotion, people, and process) had a high significant impact on organic vegetable purchasing decisions in Malang City. Product, promotion, people, and process all have positive coefficients, indicating that these four variables influenced the decision to buy organic vegetables. The three variables of price, location, and physical evidence, on the other hand, had no effect. Because the price difference is insignificant, it can be assumed that consumers continue to purchase organic vegetables despite rising prices. This demonstrates that organic vegetable consumers value eating organic vegetables.


A simple mathematical model for the transient flow of aqueous humor in the canal of Schlemm is developed to investigate the acceleration effects of a sudden elevation in the intraocular pressure on the flow characteristics of the aqueous humor in the canal. The model treats a canal segment as a tube of elliptic cross-section. Exact analytical solution to the model is obtained using separation of variables method. The effects of some important model parameters on the maximum and minimum shear stresses exerted on the Schlemm's canal epithelial cells (wall) by flowing aqueous humor are investigated for the steady-state flow.


Due to dwindling natural resources and continually increasing energy demands, renewable energy may be the solution to the world's future energy needs. The oceans represent a large reservoir of energy and marine derived renewable energy may in turn represent a significant source of global electricity. In particular, the marine renewables reviewed in this study are ocean thermal energy conversion and wave energy. Unlike more mainstream renewables, little research has been undertaken to determine the capabilities of these technologies. However, the authors believe that these technologies have the potential to contribute significantly to the global energy market. Global potential maps for each technology were constructed using analysis of data sets provided by the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (Columbia University) and a Geographic Information System. These show the best viability of OTEC to be concentrated around the Equator, where the vertical ocean temperature gradients are at least 20°C/km, and that the most suitable areas for wave power are concentrated between the latitudes of roughly 40 to 60° N and S, where surface wind speeds average at least 8 m/s. Given these areas, gross potential outputs were calculated to be 605 TW for OTEC and 3368 TW for wave power, 1% of which is still greater than the global electricity demand (13.2 PWh, or 1.51 TW of power, in 2000 (EIA, 2007)). These results are promising, but they do not reflect technological, sociological and economical limitations. The environmental impacts of these technologies may range from local effects on ecosystems and biodiversity to long-term global climate and oceanic implications. Compared to modern non-renewable energy sources, these technologies have no significant greenhouse gas emissions. Given the globally significant potential outputs and limited environmental impacts of OTEC and wave energy, it is clear that marine renewable energy technologies are viable as future sources of electricity.


Objective: Schizophrenia has been linked with deficits in the ability to form complex representations about oneself and others. Less clear is whether these deficits are stable over time, and whether they are related to symptoms. Method: We assessed metacognition capacity, affect recognition, executive function, and symptoms at baseline and 6 months later for 49 adults with schizophrenia. Results: Paired t tests revealed assessments of metacognition and affect recognition were stable across measurements points. Metacognition was related to concurrent assessments of positive, negative and disorganized symptoms. Multiple regressions revealed metacognition was related to prospective assessments of negative symptoms after controlling for baseline negative symptoms and executive function. Conclusions: Metacognitive deficits are a stable feature of schizophrenia related with negative symptoms. C � 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Clin. Psychol. 68:1303‐1312, 2012.


Hyperprolactinaemia may affect sexual and reproductive functioning. However, recent studies suggest that increased prolactin levels may also have negative effects on cognition. We aimed to study whether the reduction in prolactin levels by cabergoline in patients with hyperprolactinaemia is followed by an improvement in cognitive tasks. We studied seven patients with hyperprolactinaemia caused by a prolactinoma that had an indication to start treatment with cabergoline. All patients were assessed twice (baseline and 6–12 months after cabergoline treatment) with a cognitive battery. Plasma prolactin levels were determined. We found a significant improvement in the speed of processing, working memory, visual learning and reasoning and problem-solving domains after cabergoline treatment. Improvements in speed of processing and reasoning and problem solving were greater in patients with baseline prolactin levels above the median. In summary, a reduction in prolactin levels by cabergoline in patients with hyperprolactinaemia is followed by an improvement in cognitive abilities. This finding suggests that prolactin may be involved in cognitive processes, although cabergoline could also have procognitive effects that are independent of prolactin changes. Further clinical trials are needed to confirm the potential cognitive-enhancement properties of cabergoline in patients with chronic hyperprolactinaemia.


Of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa multidrug efflux systems, MexAB-OprM is expressed in wild-type cells, while MexCD-OprJ is not, and MexEF-OprN shows variable, strain-specific expression. In defined mutant strains, MexCD-OprJ expression increased with decreases in MexAB-OprM and was generally inversely related to MexAB-OprM expression. In so-called wild-type strains expressing MexEF-OprN, MexAB-OprM hyperexpression correlated with a decline in MexEF-OprN expression, while loss of MexAB-OprM was associated with increased expression of MexEF-OprN, also indicative of an inverse correlation between MexAB-OprM and MexEF-OprN expression. Still, the increases in MexCD-OprJ and MexEF-OprN failed to compensate for the loss of MexAB-OprM with respect to antibiotic resistance. Nonetheless, these data suggest that the overall complement of these MDR efflux systems is monitored and that alterations in the level of one efflux system may effect compensatory changes in the levels of the others.


When we cut a multiplicative proof-net of linear logic in two parts we get two modules with a certain border. We call pretype of a module the set of partitions over its border induced by Danos-Regnier switchings. The type of a module is then defined as the double orthogonal of its pretype. This is an optimal notion describing the behaviour of a module: two modules behave in the same way precisely if they have the same type. In this paper we define a procedure which allows to characterize (and calculate) the type of a module only exploiting its intrinsic geometrical properties and without any explicit mention to the notion of orthogonality. This procedure is simply based on elementary graph rewriting steps, corresponding to the associativity, commutativity and weak-distributivity of the multiplicative connectives of linear logic.


Objective To investigate how nurses perceive tasks and responsibilities in promoting physical activity during hospitalization of older patients and which factors are of influence. Design Observational cohort study Setting and participants One hundred and eight nurse students, nurses and nurse supervisors employed by an academic Dutch teaching hospital participated in a questionnaire survey and 51 nurses took part in a subsequent in-depth interview. Measures Data were collected on tasks and responsibilities in physical activity promotion and their influencing factors as perceived by nurses. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data from the questionnaire survey and a deductive approach with directed content analysis was used for the data from the interviews. Results Nurses perceived to have a dominant role in physical activity promotion of older patients during hospitalization. Ninety percent of the nurses stated to be responsible for physical activity promotion and 32 percent stated to be satisfied with the actual level of physical activity of their patients. Influencing factors were low patient motivation, high workload causing priority shifts of tasks and the role of physicians. Conclusion Although their perceived dominant role in physical activity promotion, nurses identified a number of barriers interfering with actual level of physical activity. Improvement strategies should involve physicians, patients and carers.


Since the discovery of Eluma caelatum (Miers, 1877) in the Netherlands close to the Belgium boarder in the mid 1990's, various attempts have been made to find this isopod species in Belgium. However, these attempts have been unsuccessful until a joint excursion of Belgian and Dutch isopod researchers searched for this enigmatic species once more in autumn 2016. They discovered the first Belgian specimens of E. caelatum at the nature reserve "Zwin" near Knokke in West-Vlaanderen. One month later, another population was found near Sint-Laureins in Oost-Vlaanderen, also close to the Dutch border. Possibly E. caelatum colonised Belgium from the Netherlands since there are no connections with southern populations in France. In Belgium and The Netherlands the species is bound to coastal areas with a synantropic character, like levees of dikes and ditches while it is more of a forest species in southern Europe. Therefore, it is unclear if the species is an accidental import from the south or if the species is native at the edge of its distribution range.


Abstract. The Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) is carried on the CALIPSO satellite and has acquired global aerosol profiles since June 2006. CALIPSO is flown in formation with the Aqua satellite as part of the A-train satellite constellation, so that a large number of coincident aerosol observations are available from CALIOP and the MODIS-Aqua instrument. This study compares column aerosol optical depth at 0.532 μm derived from CALIOP aerosol profiles with MODIS-Aqua 0.55 μm aerosol optical depth over the period June 2006 through August 2008. The study is based on the CALIOP Version 2 Aerosol Layer Product and MODIS Collection 5. While CALIOP is first and foremost a profiling instrument, this comparison of column aerosol optical depth provides insight into quality of CALIOP aerosol data. It is found that daytime aerosol optical depth from the CALIOP Version 2 product has only a small global mean bias relative to MODIS Collection 5. Regional biases, of both signs, are larger and biases are seen to vary somewhat with season. Good agreement between the two sensors in ocean regions with low cloudiness suggests that the selection of lidar ratios used in the CALIOP aerosol retrieval is sufficient to provide a regional mean AOD consistent with that retrieved from MODIS. Although differences over land are observed to be larger than over ocean, the bias between CALIOP and MODIS AOD on a regional-seasonal basis is found to be roughly within the envelope of the MODIS expected uncertainty over land and ocean. This work forms a basis for further comparisons using the recently released CALIOP Version 3 data.


Computer based classification methodology is presented in the paper for defects being developed in the Al alloys as the car engine elements are made from them produced with the vacuum casting method. Identification of defects was carried out using data acquired from digital images obtained using the X-ray defect detection methods. The developed methodology as well as the related X-ray image analysis and quality control neural networks based software were carried out to solve this problem.


Despite the recent progress of generative adversarial networks (GANs) at synthesizing photo-realistic images, producing complex urban scenes remains a challenging problem. Previous works break down scene generation into two consecutive phases: unconditional semantic layout synthesis and image synthesis conditioned on layouts. In this work, we propose to condition layout generation as well for higher semantic control: given a vector of class proportions, we generate layouts with matching composition. To this end, we introduce a conditional framework with novel architecture designs and learning objectives, which effectively accommodates class proportions to guide the scene generation process. The proposed architecture also allows partial layout editing with interesting applications. Thanks to the semantic control, we can produce layouts close to the real distribution, helping enhance the whole scene generation process. On different metrics and urban scene benchmarks, our models outperform existing baselines. Moreover, we demonstrate the merit of our approach for data augmentation: semantic segmenters trained on real layout-image pairs along with additional ones generated by our approach outperform models only trained on real pairs.


We present an overview of the probabilistic data association (PDA) technique and its application for different target tracking scenarios, in particular for low observable (LO) (low SNR) targets. A summary of the PDA technique is presented. The use of the PDA technique for tracking low observable targets with passive sonar measurements is presented. This "target motion analysis" is an application of the PDA technique, in conjunction with the maximum likelihood (ML) approach, for target motion parameter estimation via a batch procedure. The use of the PDA technique for tracking highly maneuvering targets combined radar resource management is described. This illustrates the application of the PDA technique for recursive state estimation using the interacting multiple model (IMM) estimator with probabilistic data association filter (PDAF) (IMMPDAF). Then we present a flexible (expanding and contracting) sliding-window parameter estimator using the PDA approach for tracking the state of a maneuvering target using measurements from an electro-optical (EO) sensor. This, while still a batch procedure, has the flexibility of varying the batches depending on the estimation results in order to make the estimation robust to target maneuvers as well as target appearance or disappearance.


AIM: To determine the morbidity and mortality associated with emergency laparotomy for a clinically acute abdomen in patients aged ≥ 80 years. METHODS: In this retrospective audit, octogenarians undergoing emergency laparotomy between 1st January 2005 and 1 st January 2010 were identified using the Galaxy Theatre System. Patients undergoing abdominal surgery through groin crease incisions or Lanz or Gridiron incisions were excluded. Also simple appendectomies were excluded. All patients were aged 80 years or more at the time of their surgery. Data were obtained using casenote review with a standardised proforma to determine patient age, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) grade, indications for surgery, early (within 30 d) and late (after 30 d) complications, mortality and length of stay. Data were inserted into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and analysed. RESULTS: One hundred patients were identified from the database (Galaxy) as having undergone emergency laparotomy. Of those, 55 underwent the procedure for intestinal procedures and 37 for secondary peritonitis.There was a 2:1 female predominance; average age 85 and ASA grade 3. Bowel resection was required in 51 out of the 100 patients and 22 (43%) died. Other procedures included appendicectomy, adhesiolysis, repair of AAA graft leak and colostomies for the pathological process resulting in an acute abdomen. Twelve of 100 patients (12%) suffered intra-operative complications, including splenic and bowel-serosal tears. Seventy patients (70%) had postoperative complications including myocardial infarction, wound infection, haematoma and sepsis. Overall mortality was 45/100 patients (45%). The major causes of death were sepsis (19/45 patients, 42%), underlying cancer (13/45 patients, 29%); with others including bowel obstruction (2/45 patients, 4%), myocardial and intestinal ischaemia and dementia. CONCLUSION: Emergency laparotomy in octogenarians carries a significant morbidity and mortality. In particular, surgery requiring bowel resection has higher


Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic inflammatory skin disease that is characterized by inflammation, abnormal angiogenesis and elevated Th2 polarization. Tannic acid (TA) and quercetin are well known polypenolic compounds, have documented anti-inflammatory effect. However, little is known about the effects of TA and quercetin on atopic dermatitis and related mechanisms. The present study investigated whether TA and quercetin had a therapeutic effect on atopic dermatitis. In vitro, we found that TA and quercetins reduced pro-angiogenic factor and Th2-inducing cytokine in human keratinocytes. The inhibitory effect was higher in the combined application of the two agents than in the application of one agent alone. To investigate the effect of combined application with TA and quercetin in vivo, an AD-induced Nc/Nga mouse model was used. The group receiving TA and quercetin showed disease improvement with down-regulation of serum IgE, TARC production and angiogenesis level compare to non-treated group. Taken together, these data demonstrate that TA and quercetin have a therapeutic effect on AD by suppressing angiogenesis, Th2 polarization.


The authors presented a case of perforation of the left side of pharynx by fishbone, treated successfully in spite of wrong primary diagnosis and treatment. The fishbone quickly penetrated the pharynx wall and evoked inflammatory process similar to thyroid gland tumor (size 50 x 70 mm). It was the cause of the wrong first diagnosis of thyroid gland tumor. Because of the diagnosis the patient was qualified to surgical intervention - the removal of thyroid tumor. However, the patient suspected the relationship between the tumor and choking with a foreign body. The patient was diagnosed again in another hospital where the proper diagnosis was made. The removal of fishbone from the left subclavian region was performed after 41 days from the day of choking.


PURPOSE
To evaluate the life quality of patients with infectious and non-infectious uveitis evaluated at the uveitis service of the Hospital Universitário Clementino Fraga Filho-UFRJ, using the NEI-VFQ-25 questionnaire in order to clarify the importance of uveitis diagnosis and treatment as well as its consequences to visual and social functions of the patients.

METHODS
Prospective study of 30 patients with uveitis, who were divided into two groups according to the etiology, infectious and non-infectious, with the NEI-VFQ-25 form that evaluates the life quality regarding general and visual health which was applied twice to each patient.

RESULTS
The main cause of infectious uveitis was toxoplasmosis, and of the non-infectious was Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada syndrome. Concerning quality of life, general health is better in the infectious uveitis group, but ocular health is regular in both groups. Although visual deficit does not cause great disturbances and social restrictions, both groups show important emotional alteration, but in the non-infectious group this alteration causes a higher dependence level regarding daily activities.

CONCLUSION
The greater social dependence as well as that regarding performance of daily activities in the uveitis group of non-infectious cause is explained by the chronic and relapsing mode of these affections, which turns life quality lower if compared to the other group.


print the Palatine collection as a whole with the relatively few epigrams which appear only in the Planudean collection as an appendix. Another interesting point which Professor Hutton makes is that the Greek or descriptive type of epigram was popular in the sixteenth century but was supplanted by the pointed or satirical type in the seventeenth, but that the descriptive type returned to favour in the middle of the eighteenth century. The first section of the book deals with French writers in Latin who translated or imitated the Anthology, of whom the most prolific were Henri Estienne, author of Thesaurus and member of the famous family of scholarprinters, who published a collection of 260 epigrams translated by himself and others, and J. J. Scaliger who produced a selection of Latin versions in 1615. In the list of Latin writers in the Netherlands who made use of the Anthology are Erasmus (who included a number of versions in his Adagia, adding more in each of the later editions), Daniel Heinsius and Hugo Grotius. By far the largest section of the book is devoted to French writers of France; it contains many of the most famous names in French literature. Amongst others Francois I rendered A.P. vii, 542, about the Thracian boy who met his death in the River Hebrus; curiously enough a Latin epigram on the same theme is attributed to the Emperor Germanicus. Other famous names in this section are Amyot, Rabelais, du Bellay, Ronsard, Manage, Le Sage, La Fontaine, Madame Dacier, Boileau, Voltaire and Chenier. One specimen, a version by Amyot of the well-known A.P. vii, 249, must suffice:


Models can fail in unpredictable ways during deployment due to task ambiguity, when multiple behaviors are consistent with the provided training data. An example is an object classifier trained on red squares and blue circles: when encountering blue squares, the intended behavior is undefined. We investigate whether pretrained models are better active learners, capable of disambiguating between the possible tasks a user may be trying to specify. Intriguingly, we find that better active learning is an emergent property of the pretraining process: pretrained models require up to 5 times fewer labels when using uncertainty-based active learning, while non-pretrained models see no or even negative benefit. We find these gains come from an ability to select examples with attributes that disambiguate the intended behavior, such as rare product categories or atypical backgrounds. These attributes are far more linearly separable in pretrained model's representation spaces vs non-pretrained models, suggesting a possible mechanism for this behavior.


A randomized double-blind cross-over study was conducted to determine the inhibitory effects of acetylsalicylic acid (ASA), ticlopidine (TP) and cilostazol (OPC-13013; in the following briefly called CS), a new antithrombotic agent on platelet functions ex vivo. Nine patients with cerebral thrombosis were enrolled in this study. Patients were given each of the three drugs for one week in a complete cross-over design according to a randomization schedule, followed by a wash-out period with a placebo for one week. It was found that CS and TP significantly inhibited platelet aggregation induced by ADP. Collagen- and arachidonic acid-induced platelet aggregation was all inhibited by CS, TP and ASA. Duncan's multiple range test to compare the anti-platelet effects of the three drugs revealed that: CS greater than ASA and TP greater than ASA in inhibiting ADP-induced platelet aggregation and CS greater than TP and ASA greater than TP in inhibiting arachidonic acid-induced platelet aggregation. These results may suggest that CS is superior to ASA and TP in inhibiting platelet aggregation ex vivo.


The 150th anniversary of the death of Albert Oppel (1831–65) provided the opportunity to celebrate this outstanding stratigrapher with a Thematic Issue dedicated to the importance of fossils for dating and correlating of sedimentary rocks. In this issue, we analyse Oppel's significant contribution to modern chronostratigraphy, before exploring the Phanerozoic through all its major fossil groups, to verify if fossils are still able to make a significant contribution to chronostratigraphy. The extraordinary merit of Oppel's work has been the demonstration that fossils can be used to sub-divide sedimentary sequences into zones, which in turn might be organized in higher chronostratigraphical units. The zone for Oppel is characterized by the distinctive fossil content, and his view strongly influenced the development of the standard chronostratigraphical scale for about one century, until the introduction, in the 1950s, of the log-based range chart as the common practice to study the fossil record of sedimentary successions. This approach forced the stratigraphers to shift the focus from the fossil content of the zones to their boundaries. This new view allowed for the introduction of new kind of zones with precisely defined boundaries based on bioevents and to the decline of the Oppel Zone. This turning point in the history of chronostratigraphy was fuelled by the International Commission on Stratigraphy programme of definition of the units of the International Chronostratigraphic Chart based on the boundary stratotype and point (GSSP) concept, which started in 1973.


Today's software systems often have poor reliability. In addition to losses of billions, software defects are responsible for a number of serious injuries and deaths in transportation accidents, medical treatments, and defense operations. The situation is getting worse with concurrency and distributed computing becoming integral parts of many real-world software systems. The non-determinism in concurrent and distributed systems and the unreliability of the hardware environment in which they operate can result in defects that are hard to find and understand.
In this thesis, we have developed tools and techniques to augment testing to enable it to quickly find and reproduce important bugs in concurrent and distributed systems. Our techniques are based on the following two key ideas: (i) use program analysis to increase coverage by predicting bugs that could have occurred in "nearby" program executions, and (ii) provide programming abstractions to enable testers to easily express their insights to guide testing towards those executions that are more likely to exhibit bugs or help achieve testing objectives without having any knowledge about the underlying testing process. The tools that we have built have found many serious bugs in large real-world software systems (e.g. Jigsaw web server, JDK, JGroups, and Hadoop File System).
In the first part of the thesis, we describe how we can predict and confirm bugs in the executions of concurrent systems that did not show up during testing but that could have shown up had the program under consideration executed under different thread schedules. This improves the coverage of testing, and helps find corner-case bugs that are unlikely to be discovered during traditional testing. We have built predictive testing tools to find different classes of serious bugs like deadlocks, hangs, and typestate errors in concurrent systems.
In the second part of the thesis, we investigate how we can improve the efficiency of testing of distributed cloud systems by letting testers guide testing towards the executions that are interesting to them. For example, a tester might want to test those executions that are more likely to be erroneous or that are more likely to help her achieve her testing objectives. We have built tools and frameworks that enable testers to easily express their knowledge and intuition to guide testing without having any knowledge about the underlying testing process. We have investigated programmable testing tools in the context of testing of large-scale distributed systems.


Type II deiodinase (D2) is important in the regulation of local thyroid hormone bioactivity in certain tissues. D2 in skeletal muscle may also play a role in serum triiodothyronine (T(3)) production. In this study, we identified a polymorphism in the 5'-UTR of the D2 gene (D2-ORFa-Gly3Asp). We investigated the association of D2-ORFa-Gly3Asp, and of the previously identified D2-Thr92Ala polymorphism, with serum iodothyronine levels. D2-ORFa-Gly3Asp was identified by sequencing the 5'-UTR of 15 randomly selected individuals. Genotypes for D2-ORFa-Gly3Asp were determined in 156 healthy blood donors (age 46.3 +/- 12.2 yr) and 349 ambulant elderly men (age 77.7 +/- 3.5 yr) and related to serum iodothyronine and TSH levels. D2-ORFa-Asp(3) had an allele frequency of 33.9% in blood bank donors and was associated with serum thyroxine (T(4); Gly/Gly vs. Gly/Asp vs. Asp/Asp = 7.06 +/- 0.14 vs. 6.74 +/- 0.15 vs. 6.29 +/- 0.27 microg/dl, P = 0.01), free T(4) (1.22 +/- 0.02 vs. 1.16 +/- 0.02 vs. 1.06 +/- 0.04 ng/dl, P = 0.001), reverse T(3) (P = 0.01), and T(3)/T(4) ratio (P = 0.002) in a dose-dependent manner, but not with serum T(3) (P = 0.59). In elderly men, D2-ORFa-Asp(3) had a similar frequency but was not associated with serum iodothyronine levels. This new polymorphism in the 5'-UTR of D2 is associated with iodothyronine levels in blood donors but not in elderly men. We hypothesize that this might be explained by the decline in skeletal muscle size during aging, resulting in a relative decrease in the contribution of D2 to serum T(3) production.


BACKGROUND
OSHA predicted the original chemical Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) would cumulatively reduce the lost workday acute injury/illness rate for exposure events by 20% over 20 years and reduce exposure to chemical carcinogens.

METHODS
JoinPoint trend software identified changes in the rate of change of BLS rates for days away from work for acute injuries/illnesses during 1992-2009 for manufacturing and nonmanufacturing industries for both chemical, noxious or allergenic injury exposure events and All other exposure events. The annual percent change in the rates was used to adjust observed numbers of cases to estimate their association with the standard. A case-control study of EPA's Toxic Release Inventory 1988-2009 data compared carcinogen and non-carcinogens' releases.

RESULTS
The study estimates that the HCS was associated with a reduction in the number of acute injuries/illnesses due to chemical injury exposure events over the background rate in the range 107,569-459,395 (Hudson method/modified BIC model) depending on whether the HCS is treated as a marginal or sole factor in the decrease. Carcinogen releases have declined at a substantially faster rate than control non-carcinogens.

DISCUSSION
The previous HCS standard was associated with significant reductions in chemical event acute injuries/illnesses and chemical carcinogen exposures.