Semantic web is becoming more and more popular these days, and it's an opportune moment to look at the field's current state and future opportunities. However, most researchers focus on only one single service recommend from semantic web inference. In some situations, the Multi-Services which are combined many complex services from various service providers are better than single service. The designed Multi-Services Semantic Search System (MS), which provides the cooperation web-based platform for all related mobile users and service providers, could strengthen the ability of Multi-Services suggestion. In this research, MS chooses the adaptable airflight as a case study. MS is a five-components system composed of the Mobile Users (MUs), UDDI Registries (UDDIRs), Service Providers (SPs), Semantic Web Services Server (SWSS), and Database Server (DS). Using SOA, OWL-S to build semantic web environment to inference user's requirements and search various web services which are published in UDDI through the communication networks include internet and 3G/GPRS/GSM mobile networks. In this airline case, we propose the Adaptive Airflights Inference Module (AAIM) combined QoS-Based Services Selected Method (QBSSM) using Ant Colony System (ACS) to reference the adaptable airflights to MUs.


Objective: NAFLD/NASH patients with AF (bridging fibrosis/F3 and compensated cirrhosis/F4) have an increased risk of liver disease progression leading to higher costs, which may be compounded by presence of DM. The study evaluated the impact of DM on HRU and associated healthcare costs among NAFLD/NASH-AF patients in the U.S. Methods: Adult NAFLD/NASH-AF patients with available lab results were identified from 2008-2016 Optum Research claims database, to calculate their Fibrosis-4 (FIB-4) score. Using the FIB-4 score, patients were categorized as F3 or F4 (first date of FIB-4 cut-off score marked the index date), and then stratified by DM (ICD codes). Mean annual HRU/costs were obtained via per patient per month values (2016 USD). Results: Among 91,122 NAFLD/NASH patients with FIB-4 scores, 2,482 (2.7%) had F3, among which 36% had DM, and 939 (1.0%) had F4, among which 35% had DM. The mean annual costs of F3 and F4 patients with DM were 12-53% higher than non-DM (Figure) before and after the development of AF. Conclusions: NAFLD/NASH-AF patients with DM had higher mean annual HRU-associated costs compared to those without DM - primarily driven by ambulatory and pharmacy costs. Management options are needed to improve clinical care and optimize healthcare costs among NAFLD/NASH-AF patients with DM. Disclosure S. Gordon: Consultant; Self; Gilead Sciences, Inc., Intercept Pharmaceuticals, Inc. N. Kachru: Employee; Self; Gilead Sciences, Inc. Stock/Shareholder; Self; Gilead Sciences, Inc. A. Ozbay: Employee; Self; Gilead Sciences, Inc. Stock/Shareholder; Self; Gilead Sciences, Inc. R. Wong: Advisory Panel; Self; Gilead Sciences, Inc. Consultant; Self; Gilead Sciences, Inc. Research Support; Self; Gilead Sciences, Inc. Speaker9s Bureau; Self; Gilead Sciences, Inc.


The increasing use of plastics and their non-biodegradability have raised environmental awareness and hence the need for the development of environmently friendly degradable materials. One of the ways to reach this goal is via the modification of polymer with starch, cellulose, protein and other water-soluble materials. This can also be achieved by protein hydrolysate (HP) which is a biopolymer isolated from the chrome-tanned solid leather waste of the tanning industry by enzymatic hydrolysis. An investigation on the modification of metallocene-based linear-low-density polyethylene (mLLDPE) with HP is reported. It is interesting to note that HP easily blends with mLLDPE but like other biopolymers it also reduces the original mechanical properties of the mLLDPE. Modification of the latter with 10% HP does not have much effect on the physical, mechanical and rheological behaviour. About 35% biodegradation is observed when the polymer is modified with 20 % HP and about 50% biodegradation is found in the case of polymer modified with 40% HP by Aspergillus oryzae (F-172) under controlled laboratory conditions, at a temperature of 25°C and after a period of 21 days incubation in malt extract media. Although polymer films with 40% HP have shown better performance in biodegradation, the mechanical strength properties, however, are rather poor in this case. The optimum polymer film composition for modification of mLLDPE is 20% HP, which retains both an acceptable range of mechanical strength properties and biodegradability behaviour. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


In recent years, the importance of online monitoring short-term voltage stability has been considerably increased. Unstable cases due to response of fast dynamic loads such as induction motors to the serious disturbances can be avoided by online monitoring of voltage transients and activating fast and appropriate controls to encounter deep and prolonged voltage drop. In this paper, a set of indices based on the phasor measurement unit (PMU) measurements are introduced and compared for short-term voltage stability. To increase efficiency of the indices, a special algorithm for each index is proposed by using the investigation of the results of applying them to six disturbances' scenarios simulated on the IEEE 39 bus system. The disturbance scenarios are representative of different cases of stable, unstable, and deep and prolonged voltage drop associated with short-term voltage transients. The performance of these indices are studied in terms of the time and accuracy required for determining the short-term voltage stability/instability cases. It is shown that the proposed method has better performance in comparison with other techniques that can be applied to power systems in reality.


: The study bases on qualitative and quantitative data analysis. It highlights students' perceptions regarding the use of devices as learning instruments. Based on data collected during two focus groups there were identified the most important aspects related to the use of e-resources during all educational process (teaching, learning, assessment) as well as main advantages and disadvantages associate to their use as perceived by the respondents. The importance of these variables was assessed using a survey of 217 respondents that are University students. All variables measured student's perception on a 5-point Likert scale. Owning a device, learning efficiency (using video and audio recordings), freedom to choose the moment and place for learning activity, the costs and quality of the internet connection were considered independent variables. The dependent variable was student's scholar performance assessed through their grades. Preliminary analysis revealed significant differences in behaviour among students with different scholarly performance. Therefore, to ensure significant comparison, the analysis was made based on three categories of students: those with grades lower than 7, those with school results very close (up to one point) below bursary threshold and those with bursary (merit). The analysis revealed some interesting conclusions. Most students own a device, and the habit of exploiting it (the efficiency of its usage) has a significant impact upon its owner's school results. Away from students with low marks, those with grades above 7 perceive that learning associated with the usage of a device is more efficient because it enables them to choose the moment and place of learning. Regarding the costs associated with device-based learning, bursary students perceived it to be more important compared with non-bursary students. All students revealed common perceptions regarding the quality of Internet connectivity, regardless of their grades. The results of this study are useful on two perspectives: scientific (due to discussion on the efficiency of learning instruments) and practical (through the provision of support for teachers and university managers for identifying of the most adequate methods of teaching-learning-assessment that best respond to the needs and particularities of various groups of students).


The bipolar LiAUFeS, battery is being developed to achieve the high performance and long cycle life needed for electric vehicle application. The molten-salt (400 to 440°C operation) electrolyte composition for this battery has evolved to support these objectives. An earlier change to LiC1-LiBr-KBr electrolyte is responsible for significantly increased cycle life (up to 1000 cycles). Recent electrolyte modification has significantly improved cell performance; approximately 50% increased power, with increased high rate capacity utilizztion. Resultsare based on power-demanding EV driving profile test at 600 Wkg. The effects of adding small amounts (1-5 mol%) of LiF and LiI to LiC1-LiBr-KBr electrolyte are discussed. By cyclic voltammetry, the modified electrolytes exhibit improved FeS, electrochemistry. Electrolyte conductivity is little changed, but high current density (200 mA/cm2) performance impxwed by approximately 50%. A specific feature of the LiI addition is an enhanced cell overcharge tolerance rate from 2.5 to 5 mA/cm2. The rate of overcharge tolerance is related to electrolyte properties and negative electrode lithium activity. As a result, the charge balancing of a bipolar battery configuration with molten-salt electrolyte is improved to accept greater cell-tocell deviations.


This article examines Indigenous video games that critique mainstream environmental politics at the level of mechanics. An analysis of video games' influences on ecological values requires looking beyond the representational to the mechanical relationships between player and software. As a cultural–computational medium, video games are embedded with ethics of interaction that inflect this representational dimension by requiring that players generate the text as participant. With the recent visibility of Indigenous rights movements, developers have embedded Indigenous cultural protocols in the mechanical interactions (or technical protocols) of gameplay. In the context of critique, their integration produces "critical protocols," configurations of gamic action that encourage players to evaluate their treatment of real-world environments. Critical protocols emerge between the technical and cultural, where scripts for interaction in algorithmic spaces intervene in affirmative game design and work as an analog beyond the game. Indigenous developers call for new ways of computing and critiquing settler digitality through play. These games aim toward representational as well as computational sovereignty.


As part of a research programme targeting novel molecules as potential anti-inflammatory agents we synthesised methyl 3-hydroxythieno[2,3-b]pyridine-2-carboxylate based on the reported anti-inflammatory activity of the structurally related molecule 3-isopropoxy-5-methoxy-N-(1H-1,2,3,4-tetraazol-5-yl)-1-benzothiophene-2-carboxamide [1,2].[...]


This document describes the RTP payload format for the Mixed
Excitation Linear Prediction Enhanced (MELPe) speech coder algorithm
developed by Atlanta Signal Processing (ASPI), Texas Instruments (TI),
SignalCom (now Microsoft) and Thales Communications with noise
preprocessor contributions from AT&T under contract with NSA/DOD as
international NATO Standard STANAG 4591. All three different speech
encoding rates and sample frames sizes are included. Comfort noise
procedures and packet loss concealment are detailed. Also, within the
document there are included necessary details for the use of MELP with
SDP.


In South Africa, mobile gaming revenue has eclipsed the revenue of both traditional console and computer video games. It has also become an important marketing medium for marketers wishing to promote their brands. However, there is a lack of knowledge surrounding how mobile games have grown so rapidly worldwide, including in South Africa, and why consumers are adopting them at such high rates. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of flow, subjective norms and attitude on Generation Y students' behavioural intention to adopt mobile games in South Africa. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from a convenience sample of 502 students registered at the campuses of three higher education institutions. The captured data were analysed using descriptive measures, correlation analysis and structural equation modelling. The findings suggest that flow, subjective norms and attitude have a significant positive influence on Generation Y students' intention to play mobile games.


The paper focuses reports of homeless children about their experience of living in shelters. It's a part of one research of which purpose was to allow the street children themselves, on Sao Paulo city, to express their representation about their life's trajectory. The data, gathered by individual interviews, were organise according to the method of the Analysis of Contents and principles of the theory of the Social Representation. The categories detached from the speech transcript, were grouped into meaningful experiences for the children, among which "the shelters". The analyse of this category showed clearly that the lack of a personal and affectionate attendance in the shelters contributes to the children choosing to stay in the streets.


Despite the growing interest among researchers, satellite-based prediction of soil salinity remains highly uncertain. The improvements in prediction accuracy reported in previous studies are usually limited to a single area. We performed a meta-analysis of regional satellite-based soil salinity predictions combined with in situ soil sampling and machine learning. Based on R² and root-mean-square error (RMSE) collected, we evaluated the effects of various features on the model accuracy and established a Bayesian network to evaluate the joint causal effect of multifeatures. Most significant differences were found in soil sampling schemes and characteristics of the study area, including the mean and variability (averaged R² of 0.75 for soil sample sets with lower salinity variation and 0.62 for others) of the salinity, climate type (R² of 0.64 in arid areas and 0.74 in others), soil texture (R² of 0.66 in sandy areas and 0.57 in others), and the interval between sampling date and satellite data acquisition date (R² of 0.53 under the condition of over 15 days and 0.65 in others). Generally, using different satellite data has limited effects on model performance among which Sentinel-2 performed better (R² = 0.72) than Landsat (R² = 0.66). The sampling of subsamples for each sample should focus on their subpixel-scale spatial heterogeneity across satellite data rather than the number of subsamples. It is also necessary to select appropriate vegetation and salinity indices for different satellite data under different vegetation conditions. Among algorithms, random forests (R² = 0.70) and support vector machines (R² = 0.71) performed best.


Background This paper explores and assesses a dynamic annual arts partnership organised by the hospice and the Royal Academy over the past three years. The Royal Academy is an independent institution led by eminent artists and architects that promotes the creation and appreciation of the visual arts through exhibitions of international importance, education and debate. The St. Christopher's Group promotes and provides skilled, compassionate, high quality palliative care and has a vision of the place and therapeutic purpose of the arts both in end of life care and as part of health promotion. Patients visit a major art exhibition and work with artists to create their own art as part of a joint project. Aims To give patients special access to major Academy exhibitions and to provide workshops to create their own art, individually and collaboratively; exhibiting work at the Royal Academy and the hospice; promoting healthier attitudes and organising public discussion of issues raised by project and exhibition; to explore the place of the arts and a major national arts institution within the end of life journey of hospice patients and their families. Results Patients were motivated to complete the artwork and visit the Academy. Working in the atmosphere of a major exhibition and seeing their art exhibited was very affirming. They developed new respect for their work, felt enriched, created positive memories. A major end of project event at the Academy provides a forum for wider debate with eminent artists, dying patients and the general public. For patients: increased confidence, motivation, self-discovery, achievement, affirmation, celebration. Conclusions It's difficult to develop a project over time with patients who are managing complex medical issues and fluctuating levels of illness. Travel and mobility concerns challenge careful planning. Such projects depend on multi-professional collaboration. Many art institutions hold similar visions of inclusivity, education, debate. Such projects are eminently transferable.


The purpose of the present study was to update and evaluate technical characteristics of the Basic Technology Competencies for Educators Inventory . Undergraduate and post-baccalaureate teacher education majors provided data for analysis. The principal component analysis supported the theoretical structure of the 10 components hypothesized in the design. The before and after instruction study supported the predicted change that would be expected after instruction in basic technology, with large effect sizes. The internal consistency reliability coefficients indicated a high level of homogeneity within components and across all items on the BTCEI-R scores, which will result in consistent scores. The results of this study support the use of the BTCEI-R for measuring educators' technology competencies.


Simulating an advancing fire front may be achieved within a Lagrangian or Eulerian framework. In the former, independently moving markers are connected to form a fire front, whereas in the latter, values representing the moving front are calculated at points within a fixed grid. Despite a mathematical equivalence between the two methods, it is not clear that both will produce the same results when implemented numerically. Here, we describe simulations of fire spread created using a level set Eulerian approach (as implemented in the wildland–urban interface fire dynamics simulator, WFDS) and a marker method (as implemented in FARSITE). Simulations of surface fire spread, in two different fuels and over domains of increasing topographical complexity, are compared to evaluate the difference in outcomes between the two models. The differences between the results of the two models are minor, especially compared with the uncertainties inherent in the modelling of fire spread.


inhalation technique is not fully addressed, despite the FDA recommendation that the technique should be trained using an Inspirease, a spacer device. The problem of a consistent inhaler technique when patients use MDIs has been extensively reported9"' and hence could affect the reproducibility of any method related to lung deposition in asthmatics, despite extensive training of the technique. Furthermore, this variability of salbutamol deposition would be enhanced by the pathophysiology of a patient's respiratory tract."2 Variability of the bioassay will also be introduced by the training effect of the inhalation technique with respect to steroid therapy, hyperresponsiveness due to previous bronchoprovocation, and the length of salbutamol washout periods. Furthermore, the protocol is very demanding on the asthmatic subjects and our projection is that the drop out rate will be high which, together with the strict inclusion criteria, may introduce bias. Nevertheless, to answer the criticism in the two letters, we are planning clinical studies to compare our urinary excretion method with a bronchoprovocation test and the influence of inhaler technique will be studied first. In vivo deposition studies using a radiolabel'3 have indicated that the bronchodilator response seems to depend on the total amount delivered to the lungs.""'6 A recently reported abstract, using labelled salbutamol aerosols, has shown differences in regional lung deposition related to the technique and, when total lung deposition was high, there was a corresponding increase in the amount delivered to the different regions of the lungs.'7 This is why we will evaluate the influence of inhaler technique in our bronchoprovocation studies. An ongoing study in our laboratories is showing a linear relationship between one, two, three, four, and five (n= 12 subjects) inhaled salbutamol doses from an MDI and the amount renally excreted. This suggests that an increase in dose delivered to the lungs produces a simultaneous increase in the renal elimination of salbutamol. Finally, Drs Watson and Lewis state that a significant number of patients claim that they find generic salbutamol inhalers to be less effective than the original branded products. This information should be reported to the regulatory authorities. All inhaled products contain patient information leaflets describing the inhaler technique which should be used, and examination of these reveals different instructions. It may be the confusion created by these differences which causes patients to complain. If the pharmaceutical industry cannot agree on the standardisation of the information on how to use an MDI, then perhaps the British Thoracic Society should provide these guidelines. Any argument that different techniques are recommended because of the MDI formulations, characteristics, etc is not substantiated in the literature.


The call stack of a program execution can be a very good information source for intrusion detection. There is no prior work on dynamically extracting information from the call stack and effectively using it to detect exploits. In this paper we propose a new method to do anomaly detection using call stack information. The basic idea is to extract return addresses from the call stack, and generate an abstract execution path between two program execution points. Experiments show that our method can detect some attacks that cannot be detected by other approaches, while its convergence and false positive performance is comparable to or better than the other approaches. We compare our method with other approaches by analyzing their underlying principles and thus achieve a better characterization of their performance, in particular on what and why attacks will be missed by the various approaches.


The apple is one of the most important fruit species in the world. Turkey has a diverse and ancient apple germplasm that have played a major role in the domestication of the Malus genus. However, so far locally grown Anatolian apple germplasm has largely been uncharacterized. In this study, 171 local apple (M. domestica Borkh.) accessions originated from eco‐geographically diverse regions of Anatolia were studied using 16 SSR (simple sequence repeat) loci, which generated 254 alleles. Of the SSR markers used, the CH04g10 locus showed the highest allele diversity. Relatively high genetic similarities were found between some accessions. The factorial correspondence analysis did not clearly separate different all apple accession groups, suggesting that Anatolian apple accessions are highly intermixed. However, most apple accessions were grouped according to their collection sites in structure analyses. In addition, reflecting the richness of the Anatolian apple germplasm, low numbers of synonymous, and identical accessions were identified among the germplasm. Finally, using the publically available SSR data generated in other studies, we investigated genetic relationships between Anatolian accession groups and European apple accession groups. Our results reported here provide a useful base for future studies aimed at investigating the genetic diversity of wild and cultivated apples from Anatolia and the surrounding regions.


This paper investigates the efficiency relationships between inputs and outputs of urban micro-farms in two of Cape Town's townships: Nyanga and Khayelitsha. The inputs in this study were land, labour, seeds and seedlings, compost and farmer experience. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was applied to 33 producers supplying a social enterprise box scheme, thereby generating individual efficiency measures relative to best practice. The DEA results revealed an average level of overall, technical and scale efficiency of 72.4%, 79.7% and 90.6% respectively. Overall efficiency was negatively correlated with land holdings and the use of compost and seedlings. This is supported by the finding that the nine best-practice farms were characterised by a smaller scale of production, indicating that efficiency losses are experienced as greater quantities of inputs are used. In terms of area differences, Nyanga farms exhibit significantly higher technical efficiency, whereas farms in Khayelitsha are more scale efficient. Standardised input and output data show both the expenditure on compost and seed to be profitable, but we failed to show that mulching or operator experience increases profitability. Fully efficient farms are R2,600 per plot more profitable than inefficient farms while farms that need a windbreak earn R700 less per plot per season than more sheltered operations. These results are the first of their kind for South Africa and lay the foundation for more effective extension to the sector.


Traditional synchronous distributed training is performed inside a cluster since it requires high bandwidth and low latency network (e.g. 25Gb Ethernet or Infiniband). However, in many application scenarios, training data are often distributed across many geographic locations, where physical distance is long and latency is high. Traditional synchronous distributed training cannot scale well under such limited network conditions. In this work, we aim to scale distributed learning under high-latency network. To achieve this, we propose Delayed and Temporally Sparse (DTS) update that enables synchronous training to tolerate extreme network conditions without compromising accuracy. We benchmark our algorithms on servers deployed across three continents in the world: London (Europe), Tokyo (Asia), Oregon (North America) and Ohio (North America). Under such challenging settings, DTS achieves 90× speedup over traditional methods without loss of accuracy on ImageNet.


Dependency trees used in syntactic parsing often include a root node representing a dummy word prefixed or suffixed to the sentence, a device that is generally considered a mere technical convenience and is tacitly assumed to have no impact on empirical results. We demonstrate that this assumption is false and that the accuracy of data-driven dependency parsers can in fact be sensitive to the existence and placement of the dummy root node. In particular, we show that a greedy, left-to-right, arc-eager transition-based parser consistently performs worse when the dummy root node is placed at the beginning of the sentence (following the current convention in data-driven dependency parsing) than when it is placed at the end or omitted completely. Control experiments with an arc-standard transition-based parser and an arc-factored graphbased parser reveal no consistent preferences but nevertheless exhibit considerable variation in results depending on root placement. We conclude that the treatment of dummy root nodes in data-driven dependency parsing is an underestimated source of variation in experiments andmay also be a parameter worth tuning for some parsers.


While conventional Recommender Systems perform well in automatically generating personalized suggestions, it is often difficult for users to understand why certain items are recommended and which parts of the item space are covered by the recommendations. Also, the available means to influence the process of generating results are usually very limited. To alleviate these problems, we suggest a 3D map-based visualization of the entire item space in which we position and present sample items along with recommendations. The map is produced by mapping latent factors obtained from Collaborative Filtering data onto a 2D surface through Multidimensional Scaling. Then, areas that contain items relevant with respect to the current user's preferences are shown as elevations on the map, areas of low interest as valleys. In addition to the presentation of his or her preferences, the user may interactively manipulate the underlying profile by raising or lowering parts of the landscape, also at cold-start. Each change may lead to an immediate update of the recommendations. Using a demonstrator, we conducted a user study that, among others, yielded promising results regarding the usefulness of our approach.


We describe novel chemical gas sensor arrays based on polymer-carbon black composites. Four different polymers, poly(4-vinyl phenol), poly(ethylene oxide), polycapraclactone (PCL) and polyethylene-co-vinylacetate (PEVA), are employed as the sensing materials which are fixed on the array of interdigitated microelectrode pairs. The resistance changes of the sensors to four organic gases (acetone, ethanol, toluene and methanol) at 500 ppm concentration have been examined. By principal component analysis of the responses of the microsensors, it is clear that four kinds of the same concentration of the different gases can easily be discriminated. Furthermore, when some gases, such as ethanol and acetone, are detected using the sensing membranes of poly(4-vinyl phenol) and poly(ethylene oxide), the relationship between the resistance changes and gas concentration in the range from 300 ppm to 1500 ppm can be approximated to a straight line.


The wide use of the World Wide Web has accentuated the problems that are inherent in the existing design. Such problems include difficulties in locating information, extensive waste in network bandwidth, lack for authoring support tools, etc. In this paper we will present a representational model and framework for hypertext networks in general and the WWW in particular. The aim of this framework it to alleviate the above mentioned problems and produce a new version of the WWW that is more usable and intuitive, without sacrificing the flexibility and openness of the current design. In : "Object Applications", ed. Dennis T sichritzis, University of Geneva, Centre Universitaire d'Informatique, Aug. 1996. 37 A Framework for the Organisation and Dynamic Reconfiguration of the World Wide Web


Abstract. Despite a large volume of research over a number of years, our understandings of the key precursors that control tropospheric ozone production and the impacts of heterogeneous processes remain incomplete. In this study, we analyze measurements of ozone and its precursors made at rural/suburban sites downwind of four large Chinese cities – Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Lanzhou. At each site the same measurement techniques were utilized and a photochemical box model based on the Master Chemical Mechanism (v3.2) was applied, to minimize uncertainties in comparison of the results due to differences in methodology. All four cities suffered from severe ozone pollution. At the rural site of Beijing, export of the well-processed urban plumes contributed to the extremely high ozone levels (up to an hourly value of 286 ppbv), while the pollution observed at the suburban sites of Shanghai, Guangzhou and Lanzhou was characterized by intense in-situ ozone production. The major anthropogenic hydrocarbons were alkenes and aromatics in Beijing and Shanghai, aromatics in Guangzhou, and alkenes in Lanzhou. The ozone production was found to be in a VOCs-limited regime in both Shanghai and Guangzhou, and a mixed regime in Lanzhou. In Shanghai, the ozone formation was most sensitive to aromatics and alkenes, while in Guangzhou aromatics were the predominant ozone precursors. In Lanzhou, either controlling NOx or reducing emissions of olefins from the petrochemical industry would mitigate the local ozone production. The potential impacts of several heterogeneous processes on the ozone formation were assessed. The hydrolysis of dinitrogen pentoxide (N2O5), uptake of the hydroperoxyl radical (HO2) on particles, and surface reactions of NO2 forming nitrous acid (HONO) present considerable sources of uncertainty in the current studies of ozone chemistry. Further efforts are urgently required to better understand these processes and refine atmospheric models.


Over the past decade, the prevention and control of
seasonal and pandemic influenza has grown to be one of the largest
and most visible public health policies. This dissertation
considers contemporary influenza policy as a case study in what I
call medical politics, in which a disease that for most people is
rather unremarkable has become the focus of intense (and costly)
public health campaigns based on a shaky scientific basis. The
dissertation seeks to explain how this could happen. The first two
chapters show how influenza and its pandemics are marketed through
an appeal to numerous scientific claims. Drawing on governmental
marketing materials, statements by officials, and policy documents,
I try to let officials speak for themselves and, as much as
possible, refrain from analysis. Chapter 3 tells the story of the
2009 novel influenza H1N1 outbreak, showing how official
understandings about influenza were called into question by an
outbreak far milder than experts had predicted, and discusses
investigations which highlighted the role of industry in shaping
influenza policy. Chapter 4 analyzes official scientific claims
regarding influenza, and argues that degree to which influenza is a
serious public health problem is actually unclear. Furthermore,
influenza vaccine effectiveness has been vastly overstated,
predictive models of pandemic influenza are demonstrably flawed,
and officials conflate true influenza with influenza-like illness
(ILl), an often overlooked but critical distinction which allows
officials to mislead the public into holding false assumptions
about the potential benefits of influenza vaccine. Chapter 5
highlights the centrality of "virus-centric thinking" and the ethic
of "saving lives" in public health practice as important factors
that help explain how such a situation can exist and persist in
light of the evidence. Chapter 6 addresses the policy implications
of the dissertation's findings.


As new alternative energy industries are created and old ones are revised, markets constantly try to interpret and adjust to those changes. The purpose of this study is to shed some light on the inner dynamics of the select outside price-shocks versus sector-specific energy companies. This study analyzes the inner dynamics (both short and long-term) of sub-sector energy company portfolios such as petroleum, coal, natural gas, solar, nuclear, wind, and biofuel with respect to each other as well as other asset markets commonly used in literature. In light of outside shocks, we find that some alternative energy companies behave like fossil-fuel companies, while others don't. Interestingly petroleum companies give no significant short-term response to oil-price or exchange-rate shocks. Also, there is a significant relationship between gold price shocks and most energy sub-sectors in the long-run. The same relationship was not observed in the short-run.


Wireless power transmission (WPT) by two short helical dipoles arrayed orthogonally is presented. For the electric resonance coupling WPT system, the short dipoles need for a matching circuit due to cancel its large capacitance at the operating frequency. In the proposed method, the loss is reduced by using the helical structure instead of matching circuit. Its power transmission characteristics are shown in experiments. The measured results are agreed with the calculated results of a pair of dipoles with a matching circuit. In the orthogonal arrangement, the WPT is possible in the wide range expect for the angle θ = 0 between the antennas. At θ = π/4, the coupling coefficient becomes the maximum, and the WPT is enabled for the longest distance.


Compressive systems in foreland domains are characterised by fold and thrust belts linked to the presence of one or several ductile layers in depth acting as a decollement level. The main parameters controlling the structural evolution are: the presence of a decollement level, the amount and rate of shortening, and the amount of synkinematic sedimentation. The effect of these parameters has only been studied on a thrust belt scale. Furthermore, only the effect of synkinematic sedimentation on a simple system with one decollement level has been studied at the scale of a single structure. The aim of this study was to use analogue modelling to test the effect of shortening rate, velocity and the localization of sedimentation on a single system characterised by the presence of two prekinematic decollement levels. The main results showed variations in the structural vergence, folding geometry (symmetric or asymmetric), the evolution of the deformation (horizontal propagation versus vertical uplift), and the decoupling of the lower and upper brittle structures in relation with the main parameters (shortening rate and mass transfer). The results of the experiments were then compared to natural examples from the sub-Andean thrust belt.


Farmers' organizations are inclusive of the poor and are charged with the purpose of becoming a market outlet for smallholder farmers in Guinea. Improving farmers' income earning capability and agricultural productivity has been an important strategy of Guinea's agriculture development policy. However, despite their growing importance, empirical studies on how farmers' organizations have impacted their members' income are limited in Guinea. This paper investigates the determinants and effects on farm income of group membership, using the sample of 90 smallholder potato producers in Middle Guinea. A probit model was used as a selection equation to identify factors that influence group membership decision by smallholder potato farmers. The results revealed that the age of the potato farmers, land ownership, extension service, credit access and off-farm income are positively associated with group membership while gender and education level of the farmer negatively influenced their decision to join farmer groups. Results of the second stage outcome equation found positive farm income effects of group membership. Furthermore, results revealed that farm income is predominantly determined by labor used, the size of the cultivated potato area, share of potato sold and potato market price. Since farmers are resource-poor and that farmer organizations are constrained by various institutional, technical and investment constraints despite their potential, it is recommended that favorable polices should be geared toward smallholder agriculture in Guinea in order to ensure the success of farmer organizations. Our results show that farmer groups can be an important institution for the transformation of smallholder farming, increase productivity and incomes thereby reducing poverty. Agricultural policies in Guinea should therefore focus more on the intensification of agriculture and farmers' organizations and increase the market orientation of the smallholder farm sector.


A number of investigators have performed in vitro measurements of cancellous bone to determine how various ultrasonic parameters depend on bone density and trabecular orientation. To facilitate handling and storage of bone specimens, the marrow is often removed prior to ultrasonic measurements. However, the assumption that marrow does not affect ultrasonic measurements at high frequencies (>1 MHz) has not been tested. The goal of this study is to determine the effect of marrow on the ultrasonic properties of bovine cancellous bone at frequencies greater than 1 MHz. Twelve specimens of cancellous bone were obtained from the proximal end of four bovine tibia. Ultrasonic measurements consisting of normalized broadband ultrasonic attenuation (nBUA), speed of sound (SOS) and apparent integrated backscatter (AIB) were measured in each specimen using 2.25 MHz (centre frequency) broadband ultrasonic pulses. These measurements were performed before and after marrow removal either along the superoinferior (SI) or mediolateral (ML) direction. SOS and nBUA showed no significant difference (p > 0.05) for either direction of propagation after marrow removal. AIB showed no significant difference in the SI direction. For the ML direction, a small but statistically significant difference (p = 0.044) was observed after marrow removal.


Background: Dermatology is the science of the skin. In India, dermatology came into picture in the twentieth century. Today's dermatology practiced in India is the modern approach developed and established in western countries based on western medical theory, knowledge, experience, and results from study. Growth of dermatology field in India has progressed since two to three decades. This paper assesses the contributions made by India in the dermatology field by analyzing the total number of publications in top dermatological journals. Materials and Methods: SCImago Journal Rank indicator (2019) was used to search for top dermatology journals and publication metrics was recorded from respective journal websites. Simple statistics tools were used to determine the number of publications during this 20-year period. Results: From 1999 to 2019, there were 547 publications from India, in the top dermatologic journals. It was noted that, original research article contributes maximum number of documents (136). Journal of Dermatology had a maximum number of publications with 174 when compared to other journals. Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh' had a maximum number of publication (150). Conclusion: The last 20 years have seen a massive increase in the field of dermatology. Today, dermatology is a well-developed field in India. From 1999 to 2019, there is an increase in the trend of publications along with the collaborative publications in the top dermatologic journals. This show the encouraging trend in terms of publications from India in past 20 years.


This paper describes a Markov-chain-based approach to modelling multi-modal transportation networks. An advantage of the model is the ability to accommodate complex dynamics and handle huge amounts of data. The transition matrix of the Markov chain is built and the model is validated using the data extracted from a traffic simulator. A realistic test-case using multi-modal data from the city of London is given to further support the ability of the proposed methodology to handle big quantities of data. Then, we use the Markov chain as a control tool to improve the overall efficiency of a transportation network, and some practical examples are described to illustrate the potentials of the approach.


A novel Gram-negative, mesophilic, slightly halophilic, catalase- and oxidase-positive, obligately aerobic bacterium, designated strain YIM-C238(T), was isolated from a sediment sample from a salt lake in the Qaidam Basin, north-west China. Cells were non-sporulating, non-motile, straight to slightly curved rods. Coccoid bodies and filaments of varying length developed in older cultures. Growth occurred with 0.5-6 % (w/v) NaCl [optimum, 2-3 % (w/v) NaCl], at pH 6.0-10.0 (optimum, pH 7.0-8.0) and at 10-40 degrees C (optimum, 25-30 degrees C). The major cellular fatty acids were anteiso-C(15 : 0), 3-OH iso-C(16 : 0) and anteiso-C(15 : 1)omega10c, and menaquinone 6 was the sole respiratory quinone. Non-diffusible carotenoid pigments were produced. Flexirubin pigments were absent. The genomic DNA G+C content was 35.8 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain YIM-C238(T) should be assigned to the genus Psychroflexus. The sequence similarities between the isolate and the type strains of members of the genus Psychroflexus were in the range 95.5-97.0 %. The combination of phylogenetic analysis, DNA-DNA hybridization data, phenotypic characteristics and chemotaxonomic differences supported the view that strain YIM-C238(T) represents a novel species of the genus Psychroflexus, for which the name Psychroflexus sediminis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is YIM-C238(T) (=CCTCC AA 207030(T)=KCTC 22166(T)).


Traditionally, self-administered questionnaires and measurement of cortisol have been widely used in the evaluation of psychological stress. Nevertheless, these approaches are rather time consuming, need full individuals' cooperation and raise a stigma issue. As bioenergy field of the human body has been claimed as an important parameter of mental health, this study attempted to validate the Resonant Field Imaging (RFI) frequency counter in measuring psychological stress levels via the measurement of bioenergy frequency. A cross-sectional randomized study was therefore conducted on 141 healthcare workers in Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Sungai Buloh Campus. The bioenergy frequency of subjects was measured at the frontal area using RFI frequency counter, followed by the measurement of salivary cortisol levels and the evaluation of psychological stress, anxiety and depression symptoms via General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12), Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). The prevalence of psychological stress determined by GHQ-12, K10 and HADS scores were found to be 38.3%, 48.2%, 47.5% and 20.6%, respectively. Both bioenergy frequencies and salivary cortisol were revealed to be significantly different among gender and educational levels (p<0.05). Psychological stress measured via GHQ-12, K10 and HADS was significantly associated with factors such as gender, age, educational levels and marital status (p<0.05). Further analysis revealed that the main risk factors for stress were being a female, single and working in the clinical field. A significant difference in bioenergy frequencies was also found between the groups of stressed and non-stressed subjects (p<0.05). There were weak correlations reported between bioenergy frequency and K10 and HADS-Anxiety subscale. The RFI frequency counter has moderate sensitivity and specificity with moderate Positive Predictive Value (PPV) and Negative Predictive Value (NPV). In conclusion, the RFI frequency counter could serve as a potential screening tool in detecting individual with stress.


Semantic technologies could facilitate realizing features like interoperability and reasoning for Internet of Things (IoT). However, the dynamic and heterogeneous nature of IoT data, constrained resources, and real-time requirements set challenges for applying these technologies. In this paper, we study approaches for delivering semantic data from IoT nodes to distributed reasoning engines and reasoning over such data. We perform experiments to evaluate the scalability of these approaches and also study how reasoning is affected by different data aggregation strategies.


The discovery of microbialites in small coastal ponds of western Sardinia provides new evidence for understanding the microbial-related lithification phenomenon. The distribution of microbialites is specified, as well as their main characteristics. The succession of various layers corresponding to microbial mats with varying compositions also indicates significant environmental variations in ponds that can suffer a complete seasonal desiccation. The diatomaceous assemblage associated with microbialite support interesting data on the involved microorganism's consortium and the micritic mineralization within EPS (Exopolymeric substances) products. The Sardinian microbialites are considered as specific, given their occurrence under very special to extreme environmental conditions and should be integrated into a broader environmental classification of microbialites.


Each of three patients with thyroid medullary carcinoma (TMC) presents the tumor as a family feature. Most of them have other associated endocrinous neoplasias. Through the study of baseline plasmatic calcitonin and after stimulus with calcium and pentagastrin, patients with silent TMC can be detected. We present the results of the study of a family including 70 members and with hereditary TMC, between 1988 and 1992. Six new cases of TMC were diagnosed starting from the case index. Their average age was 31.7 years. Five of them underwent surgery. None of them had other associated endocrinous neoplasias, which is extremely rare. In addition, we present data on the postoperative follow-up of the patients, two of which had high calcitonin and CEA levels.


Cyclophilins exert both intracellular and extracellular activities related to immune responses and inflammation, which have been implicated in pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Pan-inhibition of cyclophilins has both pro- and antiatherosclerotic properties, but specific contributions of extracellular and intracellular cyclophilins to these effects have not been characterized. Here, using selective inhibitor of extracellular cyclophilins, we investigated the role of these molecules in atherosclerosis. Apolipoprotein E–null mice fed a high-fat diet received intraperitoneal injections every second day of either vehicle or two analogs of cyclosporine A (CsA): [Melle]4-CsA (NIM811), a nonimmunosupressive cell-permeable inhibitor of both intracellular and extracellular cyclophilins; and [(4R)-4-[(6-carboxy-1H-benzo[d]imidazol-2-yl)-methyl]-4-methyl-l-threonine]1-CsA (MM284), cell-impermeable analog only inhibiting extracellular cyclophilins. Development of atherosclerosis and composition of plaques in aorta and innominate artery were studied. Both analogs increased abundance and cross-sectional size of the atherosclerotic plaques in aorta but did not affect development of atherosclerosis in innominate artery. Neither compound affected abundance of macrophages and amount of vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 or nitrotyrosine in the plaques of both arteries. Both compounds reduced the amount of collagen in innominate artery without affecting abundance of collagen in aortic sinus. MM284, but not NIM811, significantly reduced plasma concentration of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα); neither compound affected plasma concentrations of interleukin (IL)-6, IL-10 or monocyte chemoattractant protein-1. Ratio between different populations of immune cells in blood or isolated from lymph nodes and spleen as well as plasma lipoprotein profile were unaffected by both compounds. In conclusion, selective inhibition of extracellular cyclophilins reduced TNFα levels in plasma but increased atherosclerosis.


The influences of longitudinal gradient on the large longitudinal slope rigid base composite road of cross river(sea) tunnel are concerned recently. Then the relationships between sheering stresses versus slope angle, load, pavement depth, interlayer touch condition and modulus are discussed separately by a three dimensional FEM model. Calculation and analysis showed: gradient had great influence on the surface tangent load and little influence on design deflection, the base and surface.The maximum tension and sheer on surface were increased with the gradient. On general, the gradient and surface tangent load should be considered in structure analysis for the large longitudinal slope road.


In Reply. —Dr Kottow has misdirected the emphasis of my clinical study on iris neovascular tufts from the observable pupillary lesions to a nonspecific angiogram finding he calls "tuft-like" dye leakage. He fails to relate this peripupillary leakage to iris tufts. While I defer to Dr Kottow's expertise on the incidence of iris "circumscribed leakage spots" in diverse ophthalmic conditions, I do not believe that glomerular microcapillary outgrowths (tufts) occur in these same conditions. Tufts are specific to certain patient groups. The neovascular coils I have described always cause both an early and late persistent focal smokestack extravasation of dye that is profuse. In eyes with tufts, the skip zones on the pupillary border between tufts either do not leak or they fluoresce diffuse Minor iris leakage may occur in some normal persons. However, the study quoted by Dr Kottow never found profuse fluorescein leakage in healthy eyes. Although some


Solar Irrigation Pumps (SIPs) are used to pump (ground and surface) water to irrigate farm lands. In a country with a historical mismatch of energy supply and demand, and almost 120 million families dependent on earnings from agriculture (Prachi Salve, 2014), SIPs offer great prospects. Unlike electric and diesel pumps – dominating the market till today – SIPs have almost zero marginal costs. This leads to extra crop production at negligible costs and also generation of electricity when not being used for pumping. Due to almost zero emissions, it simultaneously addresses the issue of climate change hence bringing prosperity to the population at all levels.SIPs are a new phenomenon in India and due to the comparatively1 high capital costs, SIPs require subsidies to make them affordable for a farmer. Support in the form of subsidies has been given to around 15,000 farms in the whole country. By introducing solar pumps on a subsidy scheme in 2009-2010, Rajasthan has become the pioneer state of India. Since then numerous solar pumps have been deployed and farmers have gained experience with their usage. These farmers appear to be happy with the functioning of the pumps; 95% of the farmers, who gained enough knowledge to answer the question, say that the pump works better than their diesel or electric pump. A surprising finding is that the project cost per pump is getting higher while the pumps are getting cheaper. This means that the government is using more money to run the project. To find the reasons for the rising project costs and to find a way to decrease them, further research is needed. If the project cost could be decreased more pumps could be supplied with the same amount of subsidy.It was also found that the SIPs were not successful in replacing the electric and diesel pumps. The diesel and electric pumps had more horse power (hp) so were able to pump more water resulting in irrigation of more land in the same amount of time. Farmers expressed they could fully switch to SIPs when more powerful pumps were supplied.Because the present SIPs are off grid systems, it is not possible to sell the excess electricity that is not needed for pumping water. Because there are no marginal costs, there is no incentive for switching off the machines either. The consequence is excessive pumping of water leading to groundwater depletion. An important improvement would be to connect these pumps to the electricity grid. The possibility to earn some money with delivering energy would probably be a good reason to stop needless pumping.The subsidy program that was in place in Rajasthan had an 86% capital subsidy (the farmer had to pay only 14% of the price of SIP). With the available money only 10,000 pumps per year could be supplied (Dr. Dinesh Kumar Goyal, 2013). When the subsidy per pump is decreased more pumps could be deployed and it was shown that even with a lower subsidy getting a SIP will still be attractive.One of the points of improvement for a quick roll out of SIPs might be found in the way these pumps are financed. Pumps have a high capital cost and are currently financed by 70-90% capital subsidies of the government. The amount of total subsidy is limited and so with a high percentage of subsidy a small amount of pumps are deployed by this subsidy. These subsidies could be dramatically reduced when a loan/lease product would be put in place. Without a bank loan farmers are unable to pay the major part of the capital cost of the pump. Offering a bank loan is a win-win situation for the farmers and the people of India, represented by the government. With these pumps farmers are able to sell electricity to the grid and earn extra income or they can sell water to other farmers for a price below the price of current diesel pumping. With this income they could pay off the loan in 7 years and earn a reasonable income. The people of India will not only benefit by having to pay less for subsidies, they will also benefit from less greenhouse gas emissions as solar has almost zero emissions compared to mainly coal based electricity pumps and diesel pumps.SIPs supplying electricity can have a big effect on grid stability. Hence, in chapter 6 the question of grid stability was raised. Under what conditions can the Indian grid deal with a large amount of electricity injected from SIPs. India currently has 70% of the electricity produced from coal power plants while 3% comes from Nuclear power plants (Trading Economics, 2011a). These sources have a response time of several hours which is not quick enough to respond to fluctuations in the demand of energy by for example households, or a change in production by other sources, for example solar. The present sources should be partly replaced by quick response sources like the renewable sources and gas turbines. Currently 6% of the installed capacity is a gas power plant (Central Electricity Authority, 2015) but this percentage should be increased. Also other solutions should be implemented, such as developing storage of energy and more interconnections between grids of states and other countries.Since the idea is that SIPs would not use electricity from the grid anymore unlike electric pumps, 25% of electricity currently used from the grid by agriculture will be less. The current electric pumps only get electricity for certain hours a day and are used to balance the grid, only at times of low electricity use of other users, farmers will get electricity. When the electric pumps are replaced by SIPs that do not use electricity from the grid the balancing function that the electric pumps currently fulfil will no longer be present. Having no experience with SIPs connected to the grid so far, it will be difficult for the state load dispatch centres, which manage the grid, to schedule the expected load. Hence, pilots should be set up to find out how these pumps are used throughout the day so that in the future these loads can be predicted. In Gujarat the solar installed capacity could easily be a fivefold without having to invest in extra capacity of quick responsive sources, since enough installed capacity of gas turbines is already in place but currently not used. Extra investment would be needed in the grid in order to be able to transmit so much electricity over the grid from the (distributed) solar plants.Solar irrigation pumps, when implemented correctly, can not only lead to much cheaper irrigation for farmers but also less groundwater depletion and a source of extra income. Solar pumps can lead the way to more prosperity for the Indian people, but new guidelines and plans have to be made by the government to realise this potential. Without policy changes as described in this thesis SIPs benefit a small number of lucky farmers at the expense of the larger whole (wasting public money and groundwater).


Gender in flowering plants is governed by a complex interplay of genetic and environmental factors. The perennial aquatic herb Sagittaria latiftlia displays remark- able variation within and among populations in gender expression, from monoecious pop- ulations composed of plants with differing numbers of female and male flowers to com- pletely dioecious populations with separate female and male plants. Here we examine the role of environmental factors in modifying gender expression in these two sexual systems by investigating the relation between ramet size and flower number in three sex phenotypes (hermaphrodite, female, and male). In particular, we assess the extent to which hermaph- roditic plants have the option of altering the number of female and male flowers to accom- modate their specific environmental circumstances. We sampled 12 populations from diverse wetland habitats in southern Ontario, Canada, estimated their phenotypic gender, and ex- amined the relations between ramet size and a range of vegetative and floral traits. On average, plants from dioecious and monoecious populations did not differ in leaf length, a correlate of ramet size. However, in monoecious populations with significant numbers of both male and hermaphroditic ramets, hermaphrodites were larger and produced more flowers than males. This contrasting pattern was also observed when plants were grown under glasshouse conditions. In monoecious populations, variation in ramet size did not affect the production of male flowers, whereas female flower production varied positively with plant size. These relations enabled statistical prediction of the dependence of gender on plant size and the frequency distribution of gender within monoecious populations. These relations also imply that the male phenotype can be determined environmentally, whereas the female phenotype cannot. The size dependence of floral sex ratios in mon- oecious populations provides novel insights into the likely evolutionary pathway by which dioecy has evolved from monoecy in Sagittaria.


Interstitial free high strength steels (IFHS) are widely used in the automobile sector due to their high strength and excellent formability. However, these properties of IFHS steels are very much dependent on the processing parameters, like hot rolling, cold rolling and annealing. The composition and processing parameters influence the chemistry and morphology of the precipitates formed in these steels, which in turn control the texture and thus the deep-drawability. This review will briefly summarize the findings of the ongoing research in this area. An attempt will also be made to elucidate the correlation of precipitation behavior and texture formation (and thus formability) in these steels.


This paper analyses the development trends of intelligent instrument interfaces by applying full liquid crystal display technology. A novel reference dimension is introduced to consider related design work. In the perspective of design issues: how can we accurately analyse the requirements of drivers with various proficiency for different information, and how can instrument interfaces intelligently adapt to all kinds of drivers? This paper summarises the key points of the design work based on changing interface analysis in new automobile instruments and provides an analytical approach to targeting driving information: the index weight analysis method. A set of scientific methods to judge the degree of information requirements from various drivers in different scenarios is proposed. Therefore, it can improve the current situation that designers mainly rely on personal experience and subjective judgment when they design automobile instrument interfaces, which lacks scientific and objective judgment basis.


Oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention is currently indicated for use in adults in the United States and may soon be indicated for minor adolescents. However, implementation of PrEP use among minors may present unique barriers. We conducted 15 individual, semi-structured interviews among US clinicians caring for HIV-infected and at-risk youth. The theory-driven interview guide assessed demographics, perceived role of oral PrEP in HIV prevention among adolescents, perceived barriers to and facilitating factors for use of PrEP in adolescents, and clinician-reported likelihood of prescribing PrEP. Transcripts were analyzed using framework analysis. Overall, clinicians viewed PrEP as a time-limited intervention that is one part of a comprehensive approach to HIV prevention among adolescents. Perceived barriers to prescribing to minors included concerns about: confidentiality, legality of minors consenting to PrEP without parental involvement, ability of minors to understand the risks/benefits of PrEP, the possible impact of PrEP on bone accrual, off-label use of PrEP medication in minors, and the high costs associated with PrEP use. Clinician-reported facilitating factors for prescribing PrEP to youth included educating communities and other clinicians about PrEP, ensuring adequate financial resources and infrastructure for delivering PrEP, developing formal guidance on effective behavioral interventions that should be delivered with PrEP, and gaining personal experience with prescribing PrEP. Clinicians indicated greater comfort with prescribing PrEP to adults versus minors. For PrEP to become more widely available to youth at risk for HIV infection, barriers that are unique to PrEP use in minors must be addressed.


Homeobox DNA polymorphisms (restriction fragment length polymorphisms, RFLPs) were first found in 13 individuals, and then in 121 subterranean mole rats of the Spalax ehrenbergi superspecies in Israel. Spalacidae are adapted morphologically to life underground apparently since Oligocene times, 30 million years ago. The superspecies S. ehrenbergi comprises four chromosomal species (2n = 52, 54, 58, and 60) displaying active speciation and dynamic adaptive radiation into four climatic regimes. A Hox-1.1 and -1.5 polymorphism was found with EcoRI, where three of four individuals of the species 2n = 60 were lacking the diagnostic locus-specific band present in all other nine individuals tested in the first stage. Next we found monomorphism in 121 animals in Hox-2.1 digested with five six-base recognition endonucleases (EcoRI, HindIII, BstEII, KpnI, BamHI, and one four-base enzyme, TaqI). However, we found in the same 121 animals from 13 populations of the four species in Hox-3.1 species-specific TaqI polymorphism in two populations of 2n = 54, and HindIII polymorphism in five populations, three of 2n = 54 and two of 2n = 58. The homeobox polymorphisms found display significant correlations with the burrow microclimates of mole rats. Furthermore, they are significantly correlated primarily with diverse morphological variables, and secondarily with protein (allozyme) and DNA polymorphisms, but very little with physiological and behavioral variables. We suggest that in subterranean mole rats, the variation in microclimatic factors, particularly in more unpredictable xeric regions, may maintain genetic polymorphisms by diversifying selection in the developmental control homeobox genes Hox-1.1, -1.5, and Hox-3.1, affecting regulatory morphogenetic processes in evolution. By contrast, the Hox-2.1 monomorphism suggests strong purifying selection for conservation across the superspecies over long periods of evolutionary times. © 1992 Wiley-Liss, Inc.


To the Editor: In the past 30 years, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been the leading cause of nosocomial infections throughout the world. Healthcare-associated MRSA (HA-MRSA) isolates are resistant to multiple antimicrobial drugs. This resistance severely hampers treatment options. During the past decade, MRSA isolates have also emerged as major pathogens in the community, first in the United States and later worldwide. Community-associated MRSA (CA-MRSA) isolates are usually more susceptible to antimicrobial drugs but are more virulent than HA-MRSA isolates. Among various determinants involved in the pathogenesis of CA-MRSA infections, special attention has been focused on the Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL), which has a strong epidemiologic link with CA-MRSA clones (1).

It has been suggested that CA-MRSA might move to healthcare settings, blurring the line between HA- and CA-MRSA (2). Nevertheless, CA-MRSA isolates are increasingly being reported as pathogens in the general population in persons with no risk factors for HA-MRSA acquisition. These pathogens are generally associated with skin and soft tissue infections, but also with more severe infections such as necrotizing pneumonia or septicemia. CA-MRSA strains usually harbor a staphylococcal cassette chromosome (SCC) mec (type IV or V) that is smaller than the type I–III SCCmec elements commonly found in HA-MRSA strains. To date, 5 major CA-MRSA clonal lineages from diverse genetic backgrounds have been recognized by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and multilocus sequence typing; certain clones predominate in specific areas of the world (1).

The most common lineages in the United States are sequence type (ST) 1 (USA400) and ST8 (USA300), which usually carry type IV SCCmec and PVL-encoding genes. Over the past few years, ST8 (USA300) has become predominant in the United States (3), also emerging as a major cause of nosocomial infections (4). In Europe, data are more limited, but the situation appears to be more varied: the predominant CA-MRSA clonal lineage is ST80 (5), although single cases or small clusters caused by ST8 (USA300) have increasingly been reported (6–8). In contrast, the ST1 (USA400) clone is still rare in Europe (9,10). We describe the importation of ST1 (USA400) into Italy and its isolation in the country. The organism was isolated from an Italian woman with a skin infection that she contracted in the United States.

In late November 2007, a 36-year-old Italian woman was seen at Pordenone Hospital (northeastern Italy) for spider-bite–like skin lesions on the face, characterized by rapid evolution to furuncles and small abscesses. The infection had started ≈1 month earlier in California, where she had spent several months on business (wine import-export), and where she had been treated empirically with amoxicillin/clavulanate for 10 days (1 g, 3×/day), with no clinical improvement.

Culture of the pus from the abscesses yielded an MRSA isolate that was resistant to oxacillin and susceptible to all non-β-lactam antimicrobial drugs tested by Vitek 2 AST-P536 card (bioMerieux, Marcy l'Etoile, France). Such a particular susceptibility pattern and the community origin of the infection prompted molecular investigation and typing by established methods, which confirmed the isolate to be CA-MRSA and identified it as belonging to the USA400 clone (ST1, type IVa SCCmec, presence of PVL genes, agr type III, spa type t128). Notably, t128 is the spa type found in MW2, the highly virulent prototype strain of USA400. Treatment with oral levofloxacin for 7 days (500 mg, 1×/day) led to complete resolution of the infection. After more than a year, the patient has experienced no recurrences.

All 3 previously reported cases of CA-MRSA infection in Italy were caused by type IV SCCmec, PVL-positive strains, none of which, however, belonged to the ST80 clonal lineage that predominates in Europe (7). The first case (in 2005) was a necrotizing pneumonia caused by an ST30 isolate; the 2 other cases (2006) were severe invasive sepsis and a neck abscess, both caused by ST8 (USA300) isolates. The case we note here documents the importation of a US pathogen into a country in Europe, from an area where the pathogen is widespread and has been highly virulent since the late 1990s, to an area where its penetration in the past has been poor.


The WTO Framework Agreement that negotiators accepted in July 2004, and built upon at the 2005 Hong Kong Ministerial meeting provides a guide to the commitments a Doha Development Agenda agreement may contain. These commitments will relate to direct and indirect export subsidies, domestic support and market access. Commitments in each of these areas will have implications for Canadian agriculture. This article explores these implications for supply management, the Canadian Wheat Board and domestic support programs.


This paper presents a progressive understanding of the shifting power relations that are constructed in the telling of a courtship and marriage narrative by an Australian-Italian couple who have been married for well over thirty years. The focus on relations of power is pursued through attention to aspects of the sequenced talk to show how the couple work together to tell the interviewer a newsworthy story that is "old news" to each other. The use of two analytical frames derived from different combinations of narrative analysis (NA), conversational analysis (CA) and critical discourse analysis (CDA) facilitates two readings of the same data. The two frames provide different means of showing how the story tellers negotiate and happily survive specific threats to produce a congenially delivered story in the end. The use of first, a "bottom-up" approach to the data followed by a "top-down" approach enables power relations first at the local level between husband and wife to be inserted later into a wider ideological and discursive context. Overall the paper shows how the application of multiple perspectives to narrative analysis can deepen our understanding of storytelling practices. (Narrative analysis, Conversation analysis, Critical discourse analysis)


Consumption of the epidermis (COE), defined as thinning of the epidermis with attenuation of basal and suprabasal layers and loss of rete ridges adjacent to collections of melanocytes, is a recently coined term encompassing changes of the epidermal architecture associated with melanoma. To evaluate this feature as an additional diagnostic criterion for melanoma, we examined COE in 453 melanocytic lesions, including 213 invasive melanomas from a population-based series and 240 suspicious pigmented lesions from a clinic-based series, excluding halo and Spitz nevi. In the population-based series, COE was identified in 92/213 (43%) invasive melanomas and became progressively more frequent with increasing Breslow depth (P < 0.0001) and Clark level (P = 0.0002). COE was more frequent when mitotic figures (P < 0.0001), ulceration (P = 0.005), or vertical growth phase (P = 0.009) were present, but it was not significantly associated with age, gender, site, regression, or tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. In the clinic-based series of pigmented lesions, COE was present in 2/25 (8%) in situ melanomas, 1/29 (3%) lesions classified as melanoma in situ/high-grade dysplastic nevi, and 1/40 (2.5%) high-grade dysplastic nevi. COE was not identified in 146 low-grade dysplastic, congenital, or common nevi. In the combined datasets, 94/96 (98%) lesions exhibiting COE were classified as melanoma. This study demonstrates that COE is frequently present in invasive melanomas, is associated with more aggressive histopathologic features (including increased Breslow depth and ulceration) and may be a useful supplementary diagnostic criterion for melanoma. Furthermore, the process leading to COE may be the first step in a progression to ulceration.


Minority rights protection is widely discussed in relation to diversity management stability within a state. Yet the case of Russian-speaking minorities in the post-Soviet Baltic States has been a challenging example to analyse because of the sensitivity of language issues. This article discusses Baltic States' language policies that impact the Russian-speaking minority's language rights, argued here to be the focal point for minority identity formation inclusion into society. While international law continues to be mostly silent regarding minority language rights, kin-states, in this case Russia, direct their interest towards its supposed kin-nationals abroad, which leads to rising levels of concerns for Baltic States' governments because this interest has led to conflict in other post-Soviet states. This article argues that the situation in the Baltic States is unique, recommends amending domestic language policies to achieve effective minority integration, inclusion, accommodation, generating stable democratic rule.


Abstract Based on the quasi-steady-state approximation, a closed form solution for the total time evolution of the reactant concentrations in the basic enzyme−substrate reaction is reported for the first time. Such a solution is given in terms of the omega function , which satisfies the transcendental equation W ( x )exp( W ( x ))= x ], and enables the generation of the corresponding time derivatives thus fully characterizing the system. The agreement with results obtained from both the inner (fast region) and outer (slow region) solutions of singular perturbation procedures is very good, but an advantage of the present formalism is the analytic representation of the transition where the perturbation methods are shown to be inaccurate.


For the past three years, the Program in Mathematics and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, has, in coordination with its colloquium series, held a Columbus Day Symposium. Each year, the all day event has been focused on a particular theme in mathematics education, and has brought in various speakers and leaders in the field to share their work and insights. This has included a presentation of an award to a scholar who has made significant contributions to the field. This year, Dr. Geoffrey Howson received this award. Throughout his career, Dr. Howson has written, edited, and contributed to many important books and papers on mathematics, education and mathematics education. Among other things, he has also served as President of the Mathematical Association of Great Britain, and Secretary-General of ICMI. The theme for the symposium this past year was the teaching of the mathematically gifted, and Dr. Howson has also made contributions in this area. The following is an edited version of the remarks he gave at the Columbus Day Symposium.


Relationships between greenhouse gas emissions, yields, and soil properties are not well known. Utilizing two datasets from long-term cropping systems in Illinois, USA, our we aim to address these knowledge gaps. The objective of this study was to explore the relationships between the physical and chemical properties and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of soil, and cash crop yields over a four-year time-period and following 15 years of treatment implementation in Illinois, USA. The experimental layout was a split-plot arrangement involving rotation and tillage treatments in a randomized complete block design with four replications. The studied crop rotations were continuous corn [Zea mays L.] (CCC), corn-soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] (CS), continuous soybean (SSS), and corn-soybean-wheat [Triticum aestivum L.] (CSW), with each phase being present for every year. The tillage options were chisel tillage (T) and no-tillage (NT). We used an array of multivariate approaches to analyze both of our datasets that included 31 soil properties, GHG emissions (N2O, CO2, and CH4) and cash crop yields. The results from our analyses indicate that N2O emissions are associated with a low soil pH, an increased Al concentration, the presence of soil nitrate throughout the growing season, an increase in plant available water (PAW) and an increased soil C concentration. Likewise, soil CO2 respiration was correlated with low pH, elevated Al concentrations, low Ca, increased PAW, higher levels of microbial biomass carbon (MBC), and lower water aggregate stability (WAS). Emissions of CH4 were associated with increased levels of MBC. Lastly, the yield index (YdI) was correlated with lower levels of soil Ca and available P and lower values of WAS. The association between high YdI and lower WAS can be attributed to tillage, as tillage lowers WAS, but increases yields in highly productive cropping systems in the Midwest.


This thesis proposes a deep learning approach to bone segmentation in abdominal CT scans. Segmentation is a common initial step in medical images analysis, often fundamental for computer-aided detection and diagnosis systems. The extraction of bones in CT scans is a challenging task, which if done manually by experts requires a time consuming process and that has not today a broadly recognized automatic solution. The method presented is based on a convolutional neural network, inspired by the U-Net and trained end-to-end, that performs a semantic segmentation of the data. The training dataset is made up of 21 abdominal CT scans, each one containing between 403 and 994 2D transversal images. Those images are in full resolution, 512x512 voxels, and each voxel is classified by the network into one of the following classes: background, femoral bones, hips, sacrum, sternum, spine and ribs. The output is therefore a bone mask where the bones are recognized and divided into six different classes. In the testing dataset, labeled by experts, the best model achieves a Dice coefficient as average of all bone classes of 0.93. This work demonstrates, to the best of my knowledge for the first time, the feasibility of automatic bone segmentation and classification for CT scans using a convolutional neural network.


The characteristics of the output and input couplers for a dielectric-slab waveguide grounded by a corrugated-conducting surface are investigated for the transverse electric mode, taking into account the small gain or loss in the dielectric. A pair of canonical equations valid for a distributed coupler with a guided wave, an incident wave and a radiated wave are derived, and all the coupling coefficients are expressed in terms of the physical parameters of the coupler. The coupling coefficients are shown to satisfy four general properties which lead to the principle of power conservation and reciprocity. The analyses of the couplers, based on the solution of the canonical equations subject to the appropriate terminal conditions, lead to the determination of the various design parameters such as the output coupling efficiency, and the optimum incident angle and grating length for the maximum input coupling efficiency. The effects of the gain or loss in the dielectric on the abovementioned parameters and on the amplitude profile of the radiated wave are investigated. The coupler with the grating on the conducting surface is compared with the coupler having the grating on the film-cover interface.


In the paper the thermo-mechanical phenomena which occur in thermal shocked thermolabile porous ceramic material were described. Such materials are applied in foundry industry for mould making and they are characterized the low thermal stability losing its strength above 400°C. In [3] the usefulness of Hot Distortion Plus® to estimate the thermo-physical parameters (apparent thermal conductivity, heat capacity) was discussed. These parameters are necessary in data base of simulation codes which permit to simulate the phenomena in casting-mould system. The aim of these tests is to predict the mould material phenomena influence on castings quality. Parameters applied in these thermo-mechanical models (Young's modulus, Poisson's ratio, Yield stress) and their variations with temperature are not really known for thermal unstable mould material. There is no adapted method in literature and description of such total investigations of both parameters groups: thermo-physical and thermo-mechanical. The author's method called Hot Distortion Plus® consists in acquisition of temperature curves of heated sample of material and correlation with curves of their dilatation. Following the simulation using inverse solution method to reproduce the measured parameters with experiment was applied. The tests were carried out for the new quartz sand bonded by resin (approx. 1%). The specimens (dimensions 114 × 25 × 6mm) from binder-sand mixture were made using special core-box.


This paper provides some useful information on insulation temperature in order to take full advantage of transformer loading capabilities during emergency conditions without jeopardizing the reliability of the unit. Particular focus is given to the impact of a winding temperature indicator (WTI) on power transformer reliability. The WTI is a critical device on a transformer because it not only controls the transformer cooling, but it also provides the transformer with thermal protection.


The paper briefly reviews the achievements and problems in Translation Studies (TS) and the practical tasks TS face at present: teaching translation on a much larger scale, educating teachers of translation, and teaching translation students to think and translate professionally and creatively. To deal with these tasks, the paper proposes a new cognitive model of translation as a professional and creative activity and its practical application. The model integrates two of the most prominent contemporary conceptions: Nikolay Ovchinnikov's new cognitive theory of mind and Igor Mel'cuk and Jury Apresjan's "Meaning ⇔ Text" model (of linguistic competence). The main idea of the paper is that translation is a creative linguistic activity and thus its professional acquisition needs professional and up-to-date (meta) linguistic knowledge. Special attention is paid to TS terminology, its organization and application, since the main practical burden of modern TS is to provide a teacher of translation with basic and...


Resistive relative humidity (RH) sensors were fabricated by nano composites of nylon-6 and titanium dioxide nanopowders. The results indicated that these sensors can be fabricated as a reliable, low cost and fast response instruments. Different percentages of nylon-6 and TiO2 were studied and average diameters of the resultant nanofibers were found the 80 to 120 nm. The nano composite of nylon-6/TiO2 nanofibers was electrospun on the interdigital gold electrode on the glass substrate. It was found that the impedance of the mat ranged from 107 Ω to 102 Ω while the relative humidity was increased from 11% RH and 97.3% at room temperature. Transition electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to study the morphology of the nano composite.


The imprinted H19 gene produces a non-coding RNA of unknown function. Mice lacking H19 show an overgrowth phenotype, due to a cis effect of the H19 locus on the adjacent Igf2 gene. To explore the function of the RNA itself, we produced transgenic mice overexpressing H19. We observed postnatal growth reduction in two independent transgenic lines and detected a decrease of Igf2 expression in embryos. An extensive analysis of several other genes from the newly described imprinted gene network (IGN) was performed in both loss- and gain-of-function animals. We found that H19 deletion leads to the upregulation of several genes of the IGN. This overexpression is restored to the wild-type level by transgenic expression of H19. We therefore propose that the H19 gene participates as a trans regulator in the fine-tuning of this IGN in the mouse embryo. This is the first in vivo evidence of a functional role for the H19 RNA. Our results also bring further experimental evidence for the existence of the IGN and open new perspectives in the comprehension of the role of genomic imprinting in embryonic growth and in human imprinting pathologies.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how older people who are almost entirely housebound use a view from their window to make sense of the world and stay connected to the outside space that they cannot physically inhabit.

Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews with 42 individuals were carried out who were living at home, were relatively immobile and had an interesting view outside they liked from one or more of their windows.

Findings
The findings suggest that immobile older people enjoy watching a motion-full, changing, world going on outside of their own mobility and interact and create meaning and sense, relating themselves to the outside world.

Practical implications
Findings suggest that those working in health and social care must realise the importance of older people observing the outdoors and create situations where that is enabled and maintained through improving vantage points and potentially using technology.

Originality/value
This study builds and updates work by Rowles (1981) showing that preference for views from the window involves the immediate surveillance zone but also further afield. The view can be rural or urban but should include a human element from which older people can interact through storytelling. The view often contains different flows, between mundane and mystery and intrigue, and between expected and random.


A musical derivation of the traditional polka-and waltz-like corrido, the narcocorrido is often dismissed and simplistically read as an archaic and ultraviolent form of the "classic" Mexican ballad, updated only in its replacement of revolutionary heroes with the glorified exploits of contemporary cross-border drug traffickers. While increased attention has been given to the genre from both scholarly and popular authors in the past decade, most notably Mark Cameron Edberg, Hermann Herlinghaus, Sam Quiñones, Stephen Tatum, and Elijah Wald, this essay will reveal how this iteration of the contemporary corrido not only operates as a narrative form of geopolitical intervention, reflection, and critique, but one that serves to illuminate the tragically perverse, historical paradoxes that have produced this musical form within the context of both the referential past and the present of its making. Specifically using Jean Baudrillard's notion of simulations and simulacra as a framework, this essay seeks to deconstruct the narco performance, revealing how any grounding in a rational reality has long since been replaced by a world of spectacle and empty signifiers.


ADP plays an integral role in the process of hemostasis by signaling through two platelet G-protein-coupled receptors, P2Y1 and P2Y12. The recent use of antagonists against these two receptors has contributed a substantial body of data characterizing the ADP signaling pathways in human platelets. Specifically, the results have indicated that although P2Y1 receptors are involved in the initiation of platelet aggregation, P2Y12 receptor activation appears to account for the bulk of the ADP-mediated effects. Based on this consideration, emphasis has been placed on the development of a new class of P2Y12 antagonists (separate from clopidogrel and ticlopidine) as an approach to the treatment of thromboembolic disorders. The present work examined the molecular mechanisms by which two of these widely used adenosine-based P2Y12 antagonists (2-methylthioadenosine 5′-monophosphate triethylammonium salt (2MeSAMP) and ARC69931MX), inhibit human platelet activation. It was found that both of these compounds raise platelet cAMP to levels that substantially inhibit platelet aggregation. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that this elevation of cAMP did not require Gi signaling or functional P2Y12 receptors but was mediated through activation of a separate G protein-coupled pathway, presumably involving Gs. However, additional experiments revealed that neither 2MeSAMP nor ARC69931MX (cangrelor) increased cAMP through activation of A2a, IP, DP, or EP2 receptors, which are known to couple to Gs. Collectively, these findings indicate that 2MeSAMP and ARC69931MX interact with an unidentified platelet G protein-coupled receptor that stimulates cAMP-mediated inhibition of platelet function. This inhibition is in addition to that derived from antagonism of P2Y12 receptors.


We present the redundant kinematics and workspace centering control of AssistOn-Gait, an overground gait and balance trainer designed to deliver pelvis-hip exercises to correct compensatory movements arising from abnormal gait patterns. AssistOn-Gait consists of an impedance controlled pelvis-hip exoskeleton module, supported by a motion controlled holonomic mobile platform. The exoskeleton module possesses 7 active degrees of freedom to independently control the rotation of the each hip in the sagittal plane along with the pelvic tilt, pelvic rotation and the horizontal, vertical and lateral displacements of the pelvis. The holonomic mobile base can track the movements of patients on flat surfaces, allowing patients to walk naturally, start/stop motion, vary their speed, sidestep to maintain balance and turn to change their walking direction. The kinematics of AssistOn-Gait is redundant, as the exoskeleton module spans all the degrees of freedom covered by the mobile platform. The device features dual layer actuation, since the exoskeleton module is designed for force control with good transparency, while the mobile base is designed for motion control to carry the weight of the patient and the exoskeleton. The kinematically redundant dual layer actuation enables the mobile base of the system to be controlled using workspace centering control strategy without the need for any additional sensors, since the patient movements are readily measured by the exoskeleton module. The workspace centering controller ensures that the workspace limits of the exoskeleton module are not reached, decoupling the dynamics of the mobile base from the exoskeleton dynamics. Consequently, AssistOn-Gait possesses virtually unlimited workspace, while featuring the same output impedance and force rendering performance as its exoskeleton module


Most of us think that valedictorians can write their own ticket. By reaching the top of their class they have proven their merit, so their next logical step should be to attend the nation's very best universities. Yet in "Top Student, Top School?", Alexandria Walton Radford reveals that many valedictorians do not enroll in prestigious institutions. Employing an original five-state study that surveyed nine hundred public high school valedictorians, she sets out to determine when and why valedictorians end up at less selective schools, showing that social class makes all the difference. Radford traces valedictorians' paths to college and presents damning evidence that high schools do not provide sufficient guidance on crucial factors affecting college selection, such as reputation, financial aid, and even the application process itself. Left in a bewildering environment of seemingly similar options, many students depend on their parents for assistance - and this allows social class to rear its head and have a profound impact on where students attend. Simply put, parents from less affluent backgrounds are far less informed about differences in colleges' quality, the college application process, and financial aid options, which significantly limits their child's chances of attending a competitive school, even when their child has already managed to become valedictorian. "Top Student, Top School?" pinpoints an overlooked yet critical juncture in the education process, one that stands as a barrier to class mobility. By focusing solely on valedictorians, it shows that students' paths diverge by social class even when they are similarly well-prepared academically, and this divergence is traceable to specific failures by society, failures that we can and should address.


Nucleic acid amplification tests that are coupled with a digital readout enable the absolute quantification of single molecules, even at ultralow concentrations. Digital methods are robust, versatile and compatible with many amplification chemistries including isothermal amplification, making them particularly invaluable to assays that require sensitive detection, such as the quantification of viral load in occult infections or detection of sparse amounts of DNA from forensic samples. A number of microfluidic platforms are being developed for carrying out digital amplification. However, the mechanistic investigation and optimization of digital assays has been limited by the lack of real-time kinetic information about which factors affect the digital efficiency and analytical sensitivity of a reaction. Commercially available instruments that are capable of tracking digital reactions in real-time are restricted to only a small number of device types and sample-preparation strategies. Thus, most researchers who wish to develop, study, or optimize digital assays rely on the rate of the amplification reaction when performed in a bulk experiment, which is now recognized as an unreliable predictor of digital efficiency. To expand our ability to study how digital reactions proceed in real-time and enable us to optimize both the digital efficiency and analytical sensitivity of digital assays, we built a custom large-format digital real-time amplification instrument that can accommodate a wide variety of devices, amplification chemistries and sample-handling conditions. Herein, we validate this instrument, we provide detailed schematics that will enable others to build their own custom instruments, and we include a complete custom software suite to collect and analyze the data retrieved from the instrument. We believe assay optimizations enabled by this instrument will improve the current limits of nucleic acid detection and quantification, improving our fundamental understanding of single-molecule reactions and providing advancements in practical applications such as medical diagnostics, forensics and environmental sampling.


TiO2 nanoparticles with excellent photocatalytic and degradation property were prepared in the solvothermal method. They were characterized by the means of the transmission electron microscopy (TEM), the X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), the thermogravimetric analysis and differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA), the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and nitrogen adsorption. The photocatalytic and degradation property for the methyl orange aqueous solution was researched. The results showed that as-prepared TiO2 nanoparticles were spherical crystals, and the particle size was about 10 nm. They had integrated crystal form, high crystallinity and thermal stability. The adsorption-desorption isotherms of TiO2 particles corresponded to the typical type IV isotherm, which is a clear N2 hysteresis loops of type H4 in the desorption branch. The average pore size was 3.572 nm, the specific surface areas was 203.245 m2/g. Moreover, the obtained TiO2 particles had perfect photocatalytic and degradation property for the methyl orange aqueous solution. When reacted for 150 min, the degradation rate of the methyl orange aqueous solution was at the peak, up to 99.1%.