What we consciously see in our everyday life is not an exact copy of the information that our eyes receive from the external world. Our brain actively elaborates and transforms the light that impinges onto the two dimensional surface of our retinas to create complex three dimensional scenes full of colorful objects of different shapes and sizes, motion and depth.
Our visual perception is not a passive reception of information: our brain actively decodes and separates the retinal information into relevant and significant objects and compares this information with previous memories.
One remarkable example is the ability of the visual system to decode the information that arrives from the eyes into recognizable visual objects and scenes. We are able to recognize objects even under conditions of low illumination or low contrast, when these objects are partially occluded, presented among other objects or when they are defined by textures, for example. In addition to this process of recognition, the visual system generates the conscious sensations of those objects and scenes.
Even though we need our eyes to see the world these are not enough by themselves to generate visual perception. The light impinging on our retinas needs further elaboration in higher areas of the brain to generate perception. Several situations in which vision is separated from perception can demonstrate this. For example, we can imagine some object with our eyes closed in our "mind's eye" or we can generate images in our dreams that are completely independent of external stimulation. Experimentally, it is possible to manipulate visual perception while keeping visual stimulation to the eyes constant. Examples of this are the changes in perception that occur with multi-stable phenomena (i.e, as with the Necker cube) or when subjects are presented with dissimilar images to each eye, a condition called binocular rivalry.
Without a functioning visual brain we are not able to properly see. Lesions to the visual cortex produce a wide variety of visual deficits ranging from blindness to achromatopsia (the impossibility of perceiving color), akinetopsia (the impossibility of perceiving motion) and/or visual agnosias (the difficulty in recognizing objects through vision). Also, extensive neuroimaging experiments have shown that visual information causes the activation of wide areas of the brain and the role of many of these areas has been studied in the last two decades.
However, currently the neuroscientific study of perception can only be addressed with limited
resources. We cannot measure the activity of the 10 billion neurons that constitute our brain.
Neither can scientists manipulate the human brain by disrupting, modifying or altering
the activity of neuronal circuits. The current imaging methods for studying the brain can
only provide incomplete information at different spatial levels of analysis and with different
temporal resolutions. Thus, the conclusions that neuroscientists we can extract from these
data are only partial attempts to reach to a better understanding of the functioning of the
brain.
Despite these limitations, few neuroscientists would disagree today with the fact that
visual perception has a basis on distributed neuronal circuits in the brain. In the same line
of thought, it is agreed that there must be circuits of neurons that code for the conscious
perception of those objects.
Consciousness has always been considered as one of the major mysteries of life. The
study of the origins of sensations and "feelings" from the operations of our brain is for many
scientists one of the final challenges for the biological sciences (Koch, 2003). The mystery
of consciousness is considered to be at the same level of the mystery of the creation of the
universe and the mystery of the origin of life out of inanimate matter.
The topic of this thesis is the study of visual consciousness. Considering its complexity,
we do not intend to provide a final answer to the explanation of consciousness. Instead,
this thesis will focus on the study of vision and it will describe some properties of conscious
vision as opposed to unconscious vision. We will explore the fate of unseen vision: the
information that reaches the retina but that does not generate any conscious sensation. We
will analyze the processing and limits of unseen visual stimuli and we will compare them
with conscious processing of the same objects. In doing this we expect to shed light into
some of the properties of conscious and unconscious visual perception and on the role that
visual awareness might have had in evolution.


This survey assessed the alcohol and other drug (AOD) use habits and risk factors of health profession students at a midwestern university health science center. The authors administered a 75-item survey to 1,707 students in selected classrooms: 984 students responded for a return rate of 57.6%. In 1990, they found, alcohol use among the health profession students in the past year was comparable to that of undergraduate college students nationally (86%), although significantly fewer health profession students drank heavily (27% had five or more drinks in the past 2 weeks, compared with 41% of college students). The percentage of health profession students who reported using tobacco or illicit drugs was lower than the percentage of undergraduate students who used these substances. At the time of the study, 16% of the respondents may have had a potential current alcohol problem and 3.5% a potential drug problem. Pharmacy students most often reported negative consequences from their AOD use. Peer pressure influenced the drinking decisions of 55% of the respondents; students in dentistry and pharmacy experienced the least support from peers for their decisions to abstain from drinking. Family histories of alcohol problems were reported by 38% of the respondents, and family histories of drug use by 14.8%. Male health profession students, when compared with the female professional students, drank more and experienced more consequences of their drinking or drug use and were also more influenced by peers.


Exercise-associated hyponatremia (EAH) is a potentially fatal fluid imbalance largely resulting from sustained fluid intake beyond the capacity for fluid excretion during endurance exercise. Common symptoms include vomiting, confusion, altered mental status, and seizures; however, these symptoms can also be seen with hypernatremic encephalopathy, making measurement of plasma sodium concentration imperative when athletes present with these symptoms. Recent evidence supports the inappropriate secretion of the antidiuretic hormone, arginine vasopressin (AVP), as the primary pathophysiological mechanism underlying the development of dilutional EAH. It appears that AVP is stimulated normally during prolonged endurance running by non-osmotic factors such as an exercise-induced plasma volume decrease; therefore, any excess fluid intake will likely be retained, and sodium will likely be excreted. The capacity for a small concentrated bolus of a hypertonic saline solution to rapidly reverse cerebral edema and remove any decreased plasma volume stimulus to AVP secretion is the most efficacious treatment for acute EAH encephalopathy to date. The prompt administration of an intravenous (IV) bolus of hypertonic saline in the field or hospital setting can be lifesaving once EAH is documented. Conversely, oral sodium supplementation will not prevent the development of EAH encephalopathy if exuberant fluid intake combined with non-osmotic secretion of AVP occurs during prolonged physical activity. As a result, the seemingly paradoxical use of sodium supplementation as the most effective practical management therapy (IV bolus) and ineffective preventive strategy can be reconciled through a more complete understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying EAH.


Because of appearance variations, training samples of the tracked targets collected by the online tracker are required for updating the tracking model. However, this often leads to tracking drift problem because of potentially corrupted samples: 1) contaminated/outlier samples resulting from large variations (e.g. occlusion, illumination), and 2) misaligned samples caused by tracking inaccuracy. Therefore, in order to reduce the tracking drift while maintaining the adaptability of a visual tracker, how to alleviate these two issues via an effective model learning (updating) strategy is a key problem to be solved. To address these issues, this paper proposes a novel and optimal model learning (updating) scheme which aims to simultaneously eliminate the negative effects from these two issues mentioned above in a unified robust feature template learning framework. Particularly, the proposed feature template learning framework is capable of: 1) adaptively learning uncontaminated feature templates by separating out contaminated samples, and 2) resolving label ambiguities caused by misaligned samples via a probabilistic multiple instance learning (MIL) model. Experiments on challenging video sequences show that the proposed tracker performs favourably against several state-of-the-art trackers.


An open fracture is defined as a fracture which associates a continuity solution that communicates with the fracture site or its hematoma. They are associated with great morbidity and motor dysfunction. Lower limb open leg fractures are more severe than upper limb fractures due to tissue damage and increased frequency of associated brain lesion. The femur is usually affected in the context of high energy trauma and hence it tends to occur in polytraumatized patients.

As these fractures present high severity, the treatment must be multidisciplinary with plastic surgery, orthopedics and vascular surgery since different tissues are involved in the trauma. The orientation of the patient and the different priorities to take non-therapeutic treatment over the last few years has developed. The transaction should be done in the centers of the diagnosis of vascular reconstruction, schematic stabilization, debridement and reconstruction of the soft tissue and bone.

The aim of this article is to review the criticism regarding the treatment of open fractures of the lower limb with respect to global assessment, vascular evaluation, debridement, antibiotic therapy, compartment syndrome, skeletal stabilization and reconstruction of soft tissues and bone.


In this paper we present a method for allowing arbitrary objects to interact physically in an augmented reality (AR) environment. A Microsoft Kinect is used to track objects in 6 degrees of freedom, enabling realistic interaction between them and virtual content in an tabletop AR context. We propose a point cloud based method for achieving such interaction. An adaptive per-pixel depth threshold is used to extract foreground objects, which are grouped using connected-component analysis. Objects are tracked with a variant of the Iterative Closest Point algorithm, which uses randomised projective correspondences. Our algorithm tracks objects moving at typical tabletop speeds with median drifts of 8.5% (rotational) and 4.8% (translational). The point cloud representation of foreground objects is improved as additional views of the object are visible to the Kinect. Physics-based AR interaction is achieved by fitting a collection of spheres to the point cloud model and passing them to the Bullet physics engine as a physics proxy of the object. Our method is demonstrated in an AR application where the user can interact with a virtual tennis ball, illustrating our proposed method's potential for physics-based AR interaction.


The aim of this study was to amplify the ancient DNA from a collection of 63
Romano-British neonatal skeletons, in order to determine their sex. The DNA testing
strategy has been designed to overcome the issues associated with ancient DNA
investigations, including degraded template DNA, inhibition of PCR, and modern
contaminants.
Ancient DNA has been extracted using a silica based method using the GENECLEAN
Kit for Ancient DNA. Three different PCR-Cleanup kits were investigated to
determine their effectiveness in the removal of PCR inhibitors. The PowerClean kit
(MoBio Laboratories) proved the most effective, and was used throughout.
Two different sets of primers were used to provide amplicons from the Amelogenin
gene. The Amel-A and Amel-C primers used by Arnay-de-la-Rosa (2007) proved to be
ineffective, with multiple problems with non-specific binding and lack of
amplification of the target region. However, the amelogenin primers from the
AmpFISTR Identifiler kit proved more effective and were chosen for use in testing the
ancient material.
Modern DNA is used through the study to compare to the ancient material, in order
to allow for pre-testing of the techniques and optimisation of the PCR without the
loss of precious material. Modern DNA was also artificially degraded in order to
determine whether the PCR technique can amplify fractured DNA. In this
experimentation, the Identifiler primer PCR successfully amplified modern DNA that
had been degraded for 15 minutes in an ultrasonic bath, to a length of
approximately 100-500bp in size.
Measurements of the skeletons have also been taken in order to determine the
exact age of the neonates at time of death, to identify potential patterns in the
deaths of the individuals, and to identify a potential link between the age of the
individual at time of death and the probability of survival of the DNA within their
remains. Of the remains, 72% of the individuals were of an age of at least 38 prenatal
weeks, indicating a full term child considered as an infant death. 8% of individuals
provided an age range above 24 weeks, and were potentially stillbirths rather than
infant deaths, while 20% of the remains showed sufficient damage to prevent
complete age ranges that utilise both the length and width of the skeletal material
from being calculated and therefore may have been miscarriages of younger
foetuses or the fragmented remains of older infant remains.
Following the DNA analysis of the remains, three of the individuals provided
amplicons of the target region and therefore their sex could be determined. All three
of these individuals provided an XY male genotype. All other remains tested gave
negative results. Many of the results showed severe problems with PCR inhibition
even after the use of the PowerClean PCR Cleanup kit. Therefore, the conclusions
that can be drawn are limited. The potential for contamination to be the cause of
these three results is discussed, but the low sample size of positive results makes it
difficult to determine the source of the amplified DNA. Further work is suggested,
including more rigorous inhibitor removal methods and qPCR to provide a larger
sample size of positive neonatal DNA results, allowing for the validity of the results
to be assessed more thoroughly.
Inhibition and DNA degradation have proved to be the largest challenges faced in
this research, which is consistent with other research that utilises ancient DNA.
Further analysis of soil samples from the excavation and of the remains themselves
is suggested, to determine the type and quantity of inhibitory substances present.
Biochemical assessment to determine the level of preservation of the microstructure
of the bone, and the use of cloning and sequencing to identify DNA damage and rule
out contaminants is suggested.


The influence of vacancy defect on the doping of silicon nanowires is systematically studied by the first-principles calculations. The atomic structures and electronic properties of vacancies and vacancy–boron(vacancy–phosphor) complexes in H-passivated silicon nanowire with a diameter of 2.3 nm are explored. The results of geometry optimization indicate that a central vacancy can exist stably, while the vacancy at the edge of the nanowire undergoes a local surface reconstruction, which results in the extradition of the vacancy out of the nanowire. Total-energy calculations indicate that the central vacancy tends to form a vacancy–dopant defect pair. Further analysis shows that n-type doping efficiency is strongly inhibited by the unintentional vacancy defect. In contrast, the vacancy defect has little effect on p-type doping.Our results suggest that the vacancy defect should be avoided during the growth and the fabrication of devices.


Lanthanum-modified lead zirconate titanate and lead zirconate titanate epitaxial films with (100) and (111) orientations were grown respectively on (100) and (111) niobium, lending conductivity to strontium titanate through chemical solution deposition. This study investigated changes in the ordinary and extraordinary refractive index no and ne induced in these films by an electric field using the prism-coupling method. In the (100) epitaxial PZT 30/70 film, anisotropic electro-optic effects arise from the Pockels effect. The isotropic electro-optic effect, which is no = ne , was achieved on (100) epitaxial PLZT 8/65/35 and PZT 70/30 films.


Purpose: We describe the clinical and pathological outcomes of intraoperative frozen sections performed on the posterolateral prostate margins during nerve sparing radical prostatectomy. Materials and Methods: We developed a technique of bilateral nerve sparing, inking the posterolateral prostate margins and obtaining frozen sections. When tumor was seen on frozen section, the fascia and neurovascular bundle were widely excised before completing the vesicourethral anastomosis. We reviewed 142 radical retropubic prostatectomies performed by a single surgeon between 1992 and 1997. Patients were divided into group 1-nerve sparing procedure using our technique (48 patients), 2-planned unilateral nerve sparing without frozen sections (46) and 3-planned bilateral nerve sparing without frozen sections (48). Potency was measured implicitly by physician assessment and explicitly with the UCLA Prostate Cancer Index. Group comparisons were made for positive margins, biochemical recurrence and potency. Mean followup was 24.5, 43.8 and 39.4 months for groups 1, 2 and 3, respectively. Results: Of the 48 group 1 patients 9 (18%) had adenocarcinoma in the frozen section specimen, prompting wide excision of the bundles. None of these patients had biochemical recurrence during a mean followup of 20.5 months. Both bundles were spared in the remaining 39 patients (82%). There was no difference in survival or time to biochemical recurrence between groups 1 and 2. Potency was significantly different between groups 1 and 2 (36 versus 13% P = 0.001), even after age adjustment (p = 0.05). In contrast, potency did not differ between groups 1 and 3 (38 versus 40%). Preoperative stage, grade and prostate specific antigen level were similar among the 3 groups. Conclusions: We found a significant difference in potency rates adjusted for age between patients with and without frozen sections. Our results indicate that this technique can enhance the ability of the surgeon to monitor the nerve sparing procedure without compromising cancer control.


The Behavior Language is a rule-based real-time parallel robot programming language originally based on ideas from [Brooks 86], [Connell 89], and [Maes 89]. It compiles into a modified and extended version of the subsumption architecture [Brooks 86] and thus has backends for a number of processors including the Motorola 68000 and 68HC11, the Hitachi 6301, and Common Lisp. Behaviors are groups of rules which are activatable by a number of different schemes. There are no shared data structures across behaviors, but instead all communication is by explicit message passing. All rules are assumed to run in parallel and asynchronously. It includes the earlier notions of inhibition and suppression, along with a number of mechanisms for spreading of activation.


The Education Authority to the Test of the Democratization of School Life School is an educational institution designed to socialize future citizens that are Students, to adapt them to the Society to which they belong. But we cannot adapt without forcing. This means that all education, including School, needs authority that compels. As all authority is similar to constraint, the question we need to ask ourselves is how to educate in school in a democratic society? In other words, how can school combine constraint with the school's goal of making learners free? The democratic educational authority in school is the only one that can enable future citizens to live in a democratic society.


A return rate distribution for returnable transport items (RTI) is estimated from radio frequency identification (RFID) data. The technique is dependent on estimating a probability density function for backward fill-to-fill cycle times for the returnable containers. The cycle time distribution yields an estimate of a time period where most containers will return to the manufacturer. To obtain return rate observations, the number of returns in a production lot is observed by tracking the fill and return of uniquely tagged containers over this time period, adjusting for containers with long cycle times. The process also gives an estimate of the percentage of RTI tagged in the population or fleet of containers. The effects of estimation errors due to a partial RFID-tagging of the fleet are examined, and satisfactory results can be obtained when not all containers are tagged. The use of the cycle time and return rate distributions for creating a forecast of container returns is illustrated, and implementation of cycle time and return rate as indicators of supply chain performance is discussed.


Hereditary developmental orthopaedic diseases pose a serious threat to the quality of life of dogs. The pain as well as the detrimental effect on mobility that can accompany these disorders have a major impact on the dogs as well as their owners. The studies described in this thesis aim to give more insight into the incidence of the most relevant of these diseases, as well as a better understanding of how they develop. This knowledge is crucial in order to devise and maintain effective screening and breeding programs. Between 2002 and 2010 more than 35,000 Dutch purebred dogs were officially screened for hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia or both. The frequency of hip dysplasia was 15%, and 9% for elbow dysplasia, with substantial differences between breeds. Breeds that were screened most often were the Labrador retriever, Golden Retriever, Bernese Mountain dog and Newfoundland. In these four breeds heritabilities, genetic and residual correlations, and sex predispositions were calculated for these two traits. The breeding progress made using the current selection methods was slight to moderate for hip and elbow dysplasia. Multiple primary diseases are included in the term elbow dysplasia, with fragmented coronoid process being the most frequent form. The phenotypic and genetic correlations between signs of osteoarthritis in certain locations in the elbow joint were calculated and the best radiographic indicator for these traits was determined. Between 1990 and 2007, 3834 Dutch Flat-Coated Retrievers were screened for patellar luxation, 24% of which were affected. A clear sex predisposition was observed with 30% of females affected and only 17% of males. The heritability was 0.17 in this population, indicating that environmental effects have a large impact on the development of this disorder. Breeding progress was initially high, with a reduction of incidence form 28% to 18%, but has stagnated in later years. For both hip dysplasia and patellar luxation, a genome wide association study was performed. For hip dysplasia 48 affected Labrador Retrievers were compared to 30 healthy ones, which resulted in significant association on chromosome 8, and suggestive association on chromosomes 1, 5, 15, 20, 25 and 32. Exons in these regions were sequenced and identified several candidate genes which might influence the development of hip dysplasia in this breed. These candidate genes, LAMA2, LRR1 and COL6A3, are involved in differentiation of chondrocytes and extracellular matrix integrity of basement membrane and cartilage. For patellar luxation, 45 affected Flat-Coated Retrievers and 40 healthy ones were compared. Significant association was found on chromosome 7, as well as suggestive association on chromosomes 3, 31 and 36. Exons in these regions were sequenced in 15 cases and a pool of controls. More than 7,000 variations were found, 124 of which were genotyped in a cohort of 95 Flat-Coated Retrievers. Nine SNPs, in eight genes, were associated with patellar luxation.


The emerging technologies have expanded a new dimension of self – 'technoself' driven by socio-technical innovations and taken an important step forward in pervasive learning. Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) research has increasingly focused on emergent technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) for augmented learning, mobile learning, and game-based learning in order to improve self-motivation and self-engagement of the learners in enriched multimodal learning environments. These researches take advantage of technological innovations in hardware and software across different platforms and devices including tablets, phoneblets and even game consoles and their increasing popularity for pervasive learning with the significant development of personalization processes which place the student at the center of the learning process. In particular, augmented reality (AR) research has matured to a level to facilitate augmented learning, which is defined as an on-demand learning technique where the learning environment adapts to the needs and inputs from learners. In this paper we firstly study the role of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) which is one of the most influential theories applied in TEL on how learners come to accept and use a new technology. Then we present the design methodology of the technoself approach for pervasive learning and introduce technoself enhanced learning as a novel pedagogical model to improve student engagement by shaping personal learning focus and setting. Furthermore we describe the design and development of an AR-based interactive digital interpretation system for augmented learning and discuss key features. By incorporating mobiles, game simulation, voice recognition, and multimodal interaction through Augmented Reality, the learning contents can be geared toward learner's needs and learners can stimulate discovery and gain greater understanding. The system demonstrates that Augmented Reality can provide rich contextual learning environment and contents tailored for individuals. Augment learning via AR can bridge this gap between the theoretical learning and practical learning, and focus on how the real and virtual can be combined together to fulfill different learning objectives, requirements, and even environments. Finally, we validate and evaluate the AR-based technoself enhanced learning approach to enhancing the student motivation and engagement in the learning process through experimental learning practices. It shows that Augmented Reality is well aligned with constructive learning strategies, as learners can control their own learning and manipulate objects that are not real in augmented environment to derive and acquire understanding and knowledge in a broad diversity of learning practices including constructive activities and analytical activities.


Developing interfaces to enable casual, non-expert users to query complex structured data has been the subject of much research over the past forty years. Since such interfaces allow users to freely query data without understanding its schema, knowing how to refer to objects, or mastering the appropriate formal query language, we call them as schema-free query interfaces. Schema-free query interface systems address a fundamental problem in NLP, Database and AI - to bridge the user conceptual world and the machine representation. However, schema-free query interface systems are challenged by three hard problems. First, we still lack a practical interface. Natural Language Interface (NLI) is easy for users but hard for machines. NLP techniques of today are still not reliable to parse out the relational structure from natural language questions. Keyword query interface, on the other hand, has limited expressiveness and ambiguity inherited from the natural language terms used as keywords. Second, people have many different ways to express or model the same meaning, which can result in the vocabulary and structure mismatches between the user's query and the machine's representation. This is often referred to as the semantic heterogeneity problem. Today we still heavily rely on ad hoc and labor-intensive approaches to deal with the semantic heterogeneity problem. Third, theWeb has seen increasing amounts of open domain semantic data with heterogeneous or unknown schemas, which daunts traditional NLI systems that require a well-defined schema. Some modern systems gave up the approach of translating the user query into a formal query at the schema level and chose to directly search into the entity network (ABox) for the matchings of the user query. This approach, however, is computational expensive and tends to have an ad hoc nature. In this thesis, we develop a novel approach to address the three hard problems. We introduce a new schema-free query interface that we call SFQ interface, in which the user explicitly specifies the relational structure of the query as a graphical 'skeleton' and annotates it with freely chosen words, phrases and entity names. By using SFQ interface, we work around the unreliable step of extracting complete relations from natural language queries. We describe a framework for interpreting these SFQ queries over open domain semantic data that automatically translates them to formal queries. First, we learn a schema statistically from the entity network. The schema itself is also represented as a network, which we call the schema network. Our mapping algorithms run on the schema network rather than the entity network, thus making it much more scalable. We define the probability of 'observing' a path on the schema network. Following it, we create two statistical association models that will be used to carry out disambiguation. Novel mapping algorithms are developed that exploit semantic similarity measures and assoication measures to address the structure and vocabulary mismatch problems. Our approach is fully computation-based, not requiring lexicons, mapping rules, domain-specific syntatic or semantic parsers, thesaurus or any hard-coded semantics. We evaluate our approach on two large datasets, DBLP+ and DBpedia. DBLP+ is a dataset we developed by augmenting the DBLP dataset with data from CiteSeerX and ArnetMiner. We created 220 SFQ queries on the DBLP+ dataset. On the other hand, we asked three human subjects who are not familiar with DBpedia to translate 33 natural language questions, coming from 2011 QALD workshop, into 99 SFQ queries on the DBpedia dataset. We carried out cross-validation on the 220 DBLP+ queries and cross-domain validation on the 99 DBpedia queries in which the parameters tuned for the DBLP+ queries are applied to the DBpedia queries. The evaluation results on the two datasets show that our system has very good efficacy and efficiency.


Naylor's particular concern is with the nature and extent of the medical profession's opposition at both the provincial and federal levels. He details various developments in medical politics and policies, including the dispute over state health insurance plans in British Columbia during the depression, the national health insurance program drafted by the King government, the doctors' strike in Saskatchewan, and the development and eventual governmental rejections of prepayment plans sponsored by organized medicine. The author concludes that physicians regarded medical insurance schemes over which they had little administrative control, or where coverage was not limited to the indigent or to those earning below a modest wage, as threats to professional incomes and autonomy. His analysis of the evolution of the professional perspectives, policies, and pressure group activities suggests that physicians are as likely to act in their own economic and social interest as any other group, and that they oppose legislation that would threaten these interests while supporting laws that strengthen them. Since the Medical Care Act became law, Ottawa has moved to strengthen health care plans in the provinces, and once again the medical profession has resisted. The final chapter in Naylor's book puts these current conflicts in historical perspective by linking them to their political precedents.


Third-order optical nonlinearities of silicon 2,3-naphthalocyanine bis(trihexylsilyloxide) (SiNc) were measured by femtosecond degenerate four-wave mixing technique under resonant conditions. The time dependence of the signals indicates that the electronic response dominates the mechanism. The electronic molecular hyperpolarizability ?e of SiNc was determined to be as high as 2?10?28 esu, which is the largest value reported so far to our knowledge. The electronic third-order susceptibility for a pure SiNc film has been measured to be 4?10?7?esu. The large nonlinear susceptibility was discussed in terms of J-type molecular arrangement.


Why does corporate governance--front page news with the collapse of Enron, WorldCom, and Parmalat--vary so dramatically around the world? This book explains how politics shapes corporate governance--how managers, shareholders, and workers jockey for advantage in setting the rules by which companies are run, and for whom they are run. It combines a clear theoretical model on this political interaction, with statistical evidence from thirty-nine countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America and detailed narratives of country cases. This book differs sharply from most treatments by explaining differences in minority shareholder protections and ownership concentration among countries in terms of the interaction of economic preferences and political institutions. It explores in particular the crucial role of pension plans and financial intermediaries in shaping political preferences for different rules of corporate governance. The countries examined sort into two distinct groups: diffuse shareholding by external investors who pick a board that monitors the managers, and concentrated blockholding by insiders who monitor managers directly. Examining the political coalitions that form among or across management, owners, and workers, the authors find that certain coalitions encourage policies that promote diffuse shareholding, while other coalitions yield blockholding-oriented policies. Political institutions influence the probability of one coalition defeating another.


Abstract. The use of statistical models to study the impact of weather on crop yield has not ceased to increase. Unfortunately, this type of application is characterized by datasets with a very limited number of samples (typically one sample per year). In general, statistical inference uses three datasets: the training dataset to optimize the model parameters, the validation dataset to select the best model, and the testing dataset to evaluate the model generalization ability. Splitting the overall database into three datasets is often impossible in crop yield modelling due to the limited number of samples. The leave-one-out cross-validation method, or simply leave one out (LOO), is often used to assess model performance or to select among competing models when the sample size is small. However, the model choice is typically made using only the testing dataset, which can be misleading by favouring unnecessarily complex models. The nested cross-validation approach was introduced in machine learning to avoid this problem by truly utilizing three datasets even with limited databases.
In this study, we propose one particular implementation of the nested cross-validation, called the nested leave-two-out cross-validation method or simply the leave two out (LTO), to choose the best model with an optimal model selection (using the validation dataset) and estimate the true model quality (using the testing dataset). Two applications are considered: robusta coffee in Cu M'gar (Dak Lak, Vietnam) and grain maize over 96 French departments. In both cases, LOO is misleading by choosing models that are too complex; LTO indicates that simpler models actually perform better when a reliable generalization test is considered. The simple models obtained using the LTO approach have improved yield anomaly forecasting skills in both study crops. This LTO approach can also be used in seasonal forecasting applications. We suggest that the LTO method should become a standard procedure for statistical crop modelling.


Globally, one person dies every six seconds as a result of tobacco use. This makes tobacco use the cause of every one out of 10 deaths in adults and the single largest and leading cause of preventable death in the world. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of smoking among staff of Universiti Putra Malaysia. For the purpose of this study an analytical cross sectional study
design was used and a standardized, pre-tested, while a validated well-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. The prevalence of smoking was found to be 10.0% (26.5% among males and 0.5% among females). In addition, significant associations were found between smoking and gender, religion, marital status, highest educational level, occupation, and family income (p < 0.05). In particular, gender and educational level were significant predictors of smoking. In conclusion, the prevalence of
smoking among university staff was shown to be considerably lower than that stated for the national level. However, the University could aim at achieving zero prevalence in the years to come.


1.1 The Queen Victoria Hospital The Queen Victoria Hospital (QVH) provides Burns and Plastic Surgery services, on a hub and spoke model, to the South East of England (4.5 million population), with a catchment area extending into the Southern aspect of greater London. Geographically the region is 50 by 70 miles; the transport links are primarily organised towards London, rather than East Grinstead where the QVH is situated, halfway between London and the coast. For some patients, travelling to the QVH can be time consuming and expensive. The QVH receives about 400 acute trauma and burns referrals per month; our own audits demonstrate an increasing demand for trauma services each year. Hand injuries account for the majority of referrals to our service and the London and South East geographical region is under considerable capacity strain with 17% of hand surgery units being closed to referrals at any one time (Skillman et al. 2003).


Eutrophication, oil spills, and invasive species. Indicators and human benefits from ecosystem services of the Baltic Sea. These were the token of discussion at the "Nordic Workshop on Economic Analysis of the State of the Baltic Sea, NorWEBS" in Helsinki on 19-20 November 2009, arranged by MTT Agrifood Research Finland. A joint researcher team of economists and marine experts assembled at the workshop to discuss the three main threats to the ecology of the Baltic Sea and find respective indicators of the state of Baltic Sea to be used in economic valuation. Economic valuation of the ecosystem services is required for a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis on protective measures. Based on the presentations and discussions held in the NorWEBS-workshop we propose a framework for deriving the combined benefits from the Baltic Sea ecosystem services.


This paper considers the optimal control of polytopic, discrete-time linear parameter varying (LPV) systems with a guaranteed l2 to l∞ gain. Additionally, to guarantee robust stability of the closed-loop system under parameter variations, H∞ performance criterion is also considered as well. Controllers with a guaranteed l2 to l∞ gain and a guaranteed H∞ performance (l2 to l2 gain) are a special family of mixed H2/H∞ controllers. Normally, H2 controllers are obtained by considering a quadratic cost function that balances the output performance with the control input needed to achieve that performance. However, to obtain an optimal controller with a guaranteed l2 to l∞ gain (closely related to the physical performance constraint), the cost function used in the H2 control synthesis minimizes the control input subject to maximal singular-value performance constraints on the output. This problem can be efficiently solved by a convex optimization with linear matrix inequality (LMI) constraints. The main contribution of this paper is the characterization of the control synthesis LMIs used to obtain an LPV controller with a guaranteed l2 to l∞ gain and H∞ performance. A numerical example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the convex optimization.


Fueled power systems using secondary energy storage are analyzed. A generic model of such systems is suggested, and an optimal power management strategy that maximizes efficiency is derived analytically. The model and optimal management solution emphasizes the constraint imposed by finite storage capacity. The optimal generated energy is established independently of the system's capacity, and load, and general characteristics of it are derived and proved. The analytic solution provides an intuitive comprehension into the optimal power management, without needing numeric simulations.


Abstract The politics of meritocracy at the Indian Institutes of Technology illuminates the social life of caste in contemporary India. I argue that the IIT graduate's status depends on the transformation of privilege into merit, or the conversion of caste capital into modern capital. Analysis of this process calls for a relational approach to merit. My ethnographic research on the southeastern state of Tamilnadu, and on IIT Madras located in the state capital of Chennai, illuminates claims to merit, not simply as the transformation of capital but also as responses to subaltern assertion. Analyzing meritocracy in relation to subaltern politics allows us to see the contextual specificity of such claims: at one moment, they are articulated through the disavowal of caste, at another, through caste affiliation. This marking and unmarking of caste suggests a rethinking of meritocracy, typically assumed to be a modernist ideal that disclaims social embeddedness and disdains the particularisms of caste and race. I show instead that claims to collective belonging and to merit are eminently commensurable, and become more so when subaltern assertion forces privilege into the foreground. Rather than the progressive erasure of ascribed identities in favor of putatively universal ones, we are witnessing the re-articulation of caste as an explicit basis for merit and the generation of newly consolidated forms of upper-casteness.


The thesis studies the Fates. In the thesis, the Fates imply mythical beings which determine human destiny, especially the day of their death. The first part of the thesis deals with their depiction in Greek, Roman, Norse mythology and (focusing mainly on) different Slavic belief. The Fates are known under many names in various mythologies and beliefs (different terms associated with their name are written in the thesis same as they were found in the original text, with or without capitalization while the author of the thesis uses the terms suđenice and rođenice without capitalizing them.) yet their main features remain the same. Motifs such as spindle, the act of spinning and scissors are often associated with their presence in different literature genres. The thesis deals with the question of their supernatural heritage – are they beings with supernatural abilities or supernatural beings and which category (fairy, witch) do they belong to. Motifs associated with them do not carry the same importance in oral lore as they do in myths and fairy tales. This is because fantastic elements in these genres do not require further (rational or any other) explanation. Therefore, in fairy tales we find that the Fates do not have such strong and clearly shaped (nor defined) identities – fairy tales need not stress whether the Fates are natural beings (old women), supernatural beings (fairies) or beings with supernatural abilities because this is not important for the genre itself; the motifs themselves are more important. The second part deals with the Fates in oral literary genres, analyzing how they are depicted in fairy tales and legends (folk lore) and by comparing them with similar beings. The Fates are more often referred to by their name in legends than in fairy tales because the supernatural is the foundation for estrangement in legends which is emphasized through their naming; if the act of naming is absent from the legend the reason for this is that the supernatural is seen as dangerous and any act of naming is the same as invocation – naming them would mean calling upon them. Therefore, we find different apotropeic agents and initiation processes used in legends (and folk lore) – such as setting the table for the Fates' arrival the third night. The Fates are usually not seen visiting the child but they are often heard by a natural protagonist while deciding on the child's fate – this motif is typical for demonological/ mythic legends, therefore, we may infer that the Fates are supernatural beings. While some researchers consider them fairy beings (in legends they are often named fairies), other believe they are witches – The Fates are neither, though they share characteristics with both of them. Researchers, however, agree that they are beings (creatures) similar to men. They are most commonly depicted as three women visiting a newly born child between the first and the third night (of his/her birth) to determine the child's fate. In fairy tales, the first two Fates usually present the child with presents (material or other) while the third's judgment (in fairy tales and legends alike) is almost without exception ominous. The custom of setting the table for the Fates' arrival has somewhat been forgotten, although record of this can still be found in legends and fairy tales. In legends, the child is usually a boy while in fairy tales the child is more often a girl. In fairy tales, the Fates are rarely named and are often described only as old women; their function is that of a helper. This subject matter was chosen because of their low representation in the works dealing with supernatural beings and beings with supernatural abilities of Croatian traditional beliefs. These are mainly dedicated to the study or collecting and recording of data about witches, fairies, werewolves, more, orko, macic, krsnik and others, while the authors tend to have very little to say about the Fates (in comparison with the entities mentioned above). The thesis attempts to show their narrative fertility and determine their representation in living oral tradition based on records and previously collected (known) data. For an actual display of their narrative productivity, a field research is necessary. The third part examines other sources (other than fairy tales, traditions and myth) that give us information that is important for a more complete view and understanding of the Fates and beliefs related to them. The collected distributive data confirms the assumption that the belief in the Fates could be found in Slavic tradition, as well as other nations, in the last century. Their narrative productivity today is much lower in comparison to that of the previous century since researchers have shown more interest in fantastic beings with narrative productivity of higher degree. New research has yet to determine whether the belief in the Fates has been transferred to the next generation. I hope that this work will come as an incentive for new field research in determining their narrative productivity.


Abstract. Iceberg-hosted sediments and atmospheric dust transport potentially bioavailable iron to the Arctic and Southern oceans as ferrihydrite. Ferrihydrite is nanoparticulate and more soluble, as well as potentially more bioavailable, than other iron (oxyhydr)oxide minerals (lepidocrocite, goethite, and hematite). A suite of more than 50 iceberg-hosted sediments contain a mean content of 0.076 wt % Fe as ferrihydrite, which produces iceberg-hosted Fe fluxes ranging from 0.7 to 5.5 and 3.2 to 25 Gmoles yr−1 to the Arctic and Southern oceans respectively. Atmospheric dust (with little or no combustion products) contains a mean ferrihydrite Fe content of 0.038 wt % (corresponding to a fractional solubility of  ∼  1 %) and delivers much smaller Fe fluxes (0.02–0.07 Gmoles yr−1 to the Arctic Ocean and 0.0–0.02 Gmoles yr−1 to the Southern Ocean). New dust flux data show that most atmospheric dust is delivered to sea ice where exposure to melting/re-freezing cycles may enhance fractional solubility, and thus fluxes, by a factor of approximately 2.5. Improved estimates for these particulate sources require additional data for the iceberg losses during fjord transit, the sediment content of icebergs, and samples of atmospheric dust delivered to the polar regions.


Electrochemical water splitting into hydrogen and oxygen is one of the most promising strategies for the utilization and storage of solar energy. However, the sluggish kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) hinder its larger-scale application. NiFe-based catalysts are some of the most efficient oxygen evolution catalysts (OECs). High-valence Ni is considered as an active site or conductive framework in NiFe-based OECs. However, the oxidation of Ni is usually hindered in the presence of Fe. This paper describes an effective strategy to produce NiFe (oxy)hydroxide with easily oxidized Ni and a hierarchical nanosheet structure as the most efficient OEC. High valence Ni may provide frameworks with good conductivity and facilitate OERs in Fe active sites. In addition, the hierarchical structure can increase the electrochemical surface area, resulting in more active sites for the OER. The as-prepared Fe–O–Ni(OH)2 supported on nickel foam needs overpotentials of 185, 220 and 261 mV to drive current densities of 10, 100 and 500 mA cm−2, respectively. The catalyst also shows excellent stability at the current densities of 100 and 500 mA cm−2 for 50 hours.


Objectives: Periodontitis is an infection which is caused by micro-organisms like Porphyromonas gingivalis. Periodontitis patients can have one or more systemic diseases such as heart diseases, diabetes, renal diseases, respiratory diseases etc. Due to lack of study in Fiji, this study is aimed to determine the presence and types of systemic diseases among patients with periodontitis in Suva, Fiji.
Methods: This is a descriptive study on periodontitis patients with complete self-reported systemic disease history carried out in two dental clinics operated by the Fiji National University. Periodontitis patients with or without self-reported systemic disease history were included in this study. Patients without periodontitis were excluded from this study. The patient clinical records are recorded from 1st January 2013 to 31st December 2014. SPSS was used to analysis the data and all the categorical variables were presented by numbers and percentages.
Results: The total number of periodontitis patients who reported having at least one type of systemic diseases was 35.5% (n=131). The most common types of diseases were heart disease 55.7% ~ 56% (n=73) and diabetes 45% (n=59). The age group 40-64-year-old periodontitis patients showed the highest number of heart diseases and diabetes, (68.1%) and (79.3%), respectively. Amongst all the ethnic groups, the Fijians of Indian Descent showed the highest number of heart diseases (49.1%), and the I-Taukei Fijians showed highest number of diabetes (42.4%). The use of tobacco was 39.7%, alcohol was 38.4% and betel-nut was 5.6% among periodontitis patients with heart diseases. And the use of tobacco was 33.9%, alcohol was 39% and betel-nut was 3.4% among periodontitis patients with diabetes mellitus. Severe periodontitis patients showed high percentages of diabetes (50.9%) among the mild periodontitis and moderate periodontitis patients. However, the occurrence of heart diseases was the same, (40.6%) among moderate and severe periodontitis patients.
Conclusion: The study concluded that the number of periodontitis patients with any one type of systemic disease was 35.5%. And the most common types of systemic diseases seen among the periodontitis patients were heart disease and diabetes. Further research studies in future will provide more insight to the association of periodontitis and systemic diseases.


Decades of research indicate that individuals exposed to childhood adversity are at risk for poor physical and mental health across their life span. More recently, intergenerational transmission of trauma and prenatal programming frameworks suggest an even longer reach for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), with consequences that extend to subsequent generations. Beyond the individual-level consequences typically observed by empirical studies of ACEs, mothers' experiences of early adversity may also compromise the maternal-child dyadic relationship. We propose a conceptual model whereby mothers' ACEs impact maternal-infant dyadic functioning and later biobehavioral health outcomes through heightened perinatal psychosocial risk. We provide support for the proposed paths and mechanistic processes in our model with data drawn from Las Madres Nuevas, a longitudinal study of low-income Mexican-origin families who participated in a series of home and laboratory visits from the prenatal period through early childhood. Higher ACEs exposure among Las Madres Nuevas participants was associated with numerous perinatal psychosocial risk factors, which predicted poorer mother-infant dyadic functioning. Compromised dyadic functioning during infancy was associated with later maternal mental health and child behavior problems. We conclude with discussion of prevention and treatment strategies that can buffer against proposed risk pathways, including perinatal assessment of maternal ACEs and psychosocial risk, perinatal treatment of maternal distress, and mother-infant therapy in the postpartum period. It is our hope that the proposed conceptual model will serve as a guide for future research to examine the lasting consequences of childhood adversities within and across generations among high-risk populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).


Public-transport (PT) timetables and their compliance mirror the quality of the PT service provided. Hence, vehicles departing too early or ahead of schedule need to be restrained, just as those leaving late must be scheduled or rescheduled to be on time. Because of existing problems of PT reliability, there is need to improve the correspondence of vehicle-departure times with passenger demand instead of assuming that passengers will adjust themselves to given timetables (excluding situations characterized by short headways). With the advance in technology of passenger information systems, the importance of even and clock headways is reduced. This allows for the possibility to create more efficient schedules from both the passenger and operator perspectives. This work contains a methodology framework with developed algorithms for the derivation of vehicle departure times (timetable) with either even headways or even average loads and with a smoothing consideration in the transition between time periods. The procedures presented are accompanied by examples and clear graphical explanations. It is emphasized that the PT timetable is one of the predominant bridges between the operator (and community) and the passengers, and thus its improvement will increase the level-of-service for the PT passengers.


Large scale distributed systems comprising many administration domains have been well-researched. An example is a national health service, with domains such as primary care practices, hospitals, specialist clinics, etc. A new and relatively unexplored scenario is technology-assisted living, in which domains are small, dynamically created, and is associated with units of personal living. There is a great deal of commercial interest in providing technology to support assisted living, but services are created in isolation. We explore how such services could be integrated with a system that can ensure security and privacy. We propose to audit both system behaviour and the actions of principals, holding particular regard to the fulfillment of their obligations, to establish a computational expression of the trust to be associated with each principal


Alpha/beta and gamma type interferons (IFN), act through distinct cell surface receptors and induce transcription of an overlapping sets of genes. MHC class I genes are inducible by both type of interferons. We have analyzed a gastric tumor cell line, AGS, which was completely defective in MHC class I response to interferon-alpha and gamma. Northern blot analysis demonstrated that the lack of IFN response was related with the absence of up-regulation of specific HLA class I mRNA. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays in various tumor cell lines after IFN-alpha and IFN-gamma treatment showed differential binding of the transcriptional factors to MHC class I regulatory elements. Comparison of kappa-B binding activity showed that IFN-alpha and IFN-gamma induced opposite changes in NF-kappa B binding activity in AGS cells, indicating that the absence of MHC class I response in AGS appears to be independent of kappa-B activity. In contrast, there were remarkable differences in the level of transcriptional factor binding to an interferon-responsive sequence element (IRSE), between AGS and other interferon-responsive tumor cell lines. This result suggests that the low level of transcriptional factor binding to IRSE in AGS cells was responsible of the lack of induction of MHC class I antigens. In this context, overlapping factors in the signal transduction pathway of both type I and II interferons may be involved in the non-responsiveness of this gastric carcinoma tumor cell line.


We capitalize on the latest developments in the empirical structural gravity literature to revisit the question of whether and how much does GATT/WTO membership affect international trade. We are the first to capture the non-discriminatory nature of GATT/WTO commitments by measuring the effects of GATT/WTO membership on international trade relative to domestic sales. These unilateral effects of GATT/WTO membership are found to be large, positive, and statistically significant. We also obtain bilateral GATT/WTO estimates, which are larger than those reported in the literature. In particular, our results imply that, on average, joining GATT and/or WTO has increased trade between members by 171% and trade between member and non-member countries by about 88%. We also find that although both GATT/WTO has been effective in promoting trade between members, the WTO has been more effective in promoting trade with non-members than GATT. A battery of sensitivity experiments confirms the effectiveness of our methods and robustness of our main findings.


Electron microscope study of rat mast cell maturation corroborates certain interpretations of features of mast cell differentiation based on light microscope studies. In addition, the ultrastructural variation observed in the granules of differentiating mast cells suggests that granule formation begins with the elaboration of dense granules about 70 mµ in diameter inside Golgi vacuoles. These progranules appear to aggregate inside a membrane and fuse to form dense cords 70 to 100 mµ in diameter. These dense cords are embedded in a finely granular material possibly added to the developing granule by direct continuity between perigranular membranes and cisternae of rough endoplasmic reticulum. The dense cords and finely granular material then appear to be replaced by a mass of strands about 30 mµ in diameter, thought to be a reorganization product of the two formerly separate components. A process interpreted as compaction of the strands completes the formation of the dense, homogeneous granules observed in mature rat mast cells. The similarity between mast cell granule formation and the elaboration of other granules is considered, with special reference to rabbit polymorphonuclear leukocyte azurophil granules. The relationships between the ultrastructural, histochemical, and radioautographic characteristics of mast cell granule formation are considered, and the significance of the perigranular membrane is discussed.


This paper deals with biohydrometallurgy applied for the remediation of sediments contaminated by heavy metals. Both metal mobilization by bioleaching and metal stabilization by sulfate reducing bacteria stimulation have been investigated. In the first case, leaching experiments were performed with different microbial strains: i) autotrophic Fe/S-oxidizing bacteria, ii) heterotrophic Fe reducing bacteria, and iii) a mix of them. The highest extraction yields were 90% for Cu, Cd, Hg and Zn and were achieved with a consortium of the autotrophic and the heterotrophic strains. In the second case, anaerobic microcosm experiments were performed according to a full factorial experiment where the main factors were: i) acetate, ii) inoculum of alloctonous sulfate-reducing bacteria and iii) treatment time. Significant changes on metal partitioning were observed in all the investigated treatments: in particular, Cu, Pb and Zn concentrations in the mobile fraction were reduced and the ones in the oxidizable fraction significantly increased. Anaerobic processes where hypothesized to lead to the formation of metal sulfides, relatively stable and less bioavailable than mobile fractions. The obtained results open new perspectives for biohydrometallurgy applied in the context of remediation strategies for sediments contaminated by heavy metals.


Background Humans are exposed to various stimuli which lead to somatic modifications and changes in body posture, negatively affecting many of its characteristics. The purpose of this study was to assess significant alterations which occurred in selected morphological features and spinal curvatures in children and adolescents over a period of 40 years. Material/Methods The total of 7041 subjects, aged 4–18 years (mean age 11.3 years) were included in the study, which was designed to compare measurements performed in year 1959 (Group 1, n=3235 individuals) and in year 2003 (Group 2, n=3806 individuals). The children were examined for body height, body mass, as well as thoracic and lumbar curvatures. In 1959, the measurements were carried out using a spherodorsimeter, while in 2003, the CQ System photogrammetry was used, producing corresponding results. The Mann-Whitney U test and the Student's t-test were used for statistical analysis. Results The findings showed a significant decrease in the angle of lumbar lordosis and in sacral inclination as well as an increase in body height and mass, particularly in prepubertal children. On the other hand, the angle of thoracic kyphosis and the partial angles of physiological spinal curvatures changed only to a small degree over the 40-year period. Conclusions This study provides evidence related to changes which occurred during the relevant period of over 40 years, namely a decrease in both the angle of lumbar lordosis and the sacral inclination angle, as well as an increase in body height and mass. These changes should be taken into consideration in selecting norms and standards applied in healthcare services, and the findings suggest it is necessary to regularly update such standards.


C preprocessor (CPP) is a major cause that makes it much difficult to accurately analyze C source code, which is indispensable to refactoring tools for C programs. To accurately analyze C source code, we need to generate CPP mapping information between unpreprocessed C sourcecode and preprocessed one. Previous works generate CPP mapping information by extending the existing CPP, which results in low portability and low maintainability due to the strong dependency of CPP implementation. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a novel approach (called TBCppA) based on tracer, which generates CPP mapping information by instrumenting the unpreprocessed C source code using XML-like tags called "tracers". The advantage of TBCppA is high portability and high maintainability, which the previous methods do not have. We successfully implemented a first prototype of TBCppA, and our preliminary evaluation of applying TBCppA to gcc-4.1.1 produced promising results.


This anthropological dissertation is based on fieldwork carried out among Yuracare people in the Bolivian Amazon. The study explores local conceptions of personhood and human-spirit relations by looking into Yuracare life cycle practices and associated ideas, particularly in connection with birth, girls' initiation (menarche), illness and death. I also consider forms through which men and women, in their daily life, take account of and interrelate with numerous spirit agencies that are thought to inhabit the surrounding environment. Principal among these are the various kinds of Owner spirits that live in the forest, the river, the ground, as well as in trees and certain other plants. Analytically, the study addresses ideas about soul, body, gender, and human-spirit interactions. It develops a particular perspective on human personhood which emphasises the corporal shaping of individuals – effected through food and behavioural proscriptions and life cycle rituals – for the insurance of health and for the endowment of the physical, social and moral qualities essential to attaining ideal male and female Yuracare persons in adulthood. A corollary of this perspective is that gender differentiation to a significant extent is construed as actively created and constituted "within" the bodies of children. The study also explores the fact that this particular understanding of personhood is combined with a conception that individuals, especially children, are highly vulnerable to spirit predation, in the form of Owner spirits capturing and carrying away the souls of their victims. In the human world, such soul captures by spirits manifest themselves as illness and death. In the dissertation it is proposed that these two ideological features – the importance given to body-shaping practices, and the constant concern for soul loss – form part of a cosmology, widespread in Amazonia, which posits bodies and persons' sociocosmological identities as intrinsically transformable and mutable.


The paper presents a concept and implementation of a novel hybrid approach to the modelling, optimization and analysis of the supply chain problems. Two environments, mathematical programming (MP) and constraint programming (CP), in which constraints are treated in different ways and different methods are implemented, were combined to use the strengths of both. This integration and hybridization, complemented with an adequate transformation of the problem, facilitates a significant reduction of the combinatorial problem. The whole process takes place at the implementation layer, which makes it possible to use the structure of the problem being solved, implementation environments and the very data. The superiority of the proposed approach over the classical scheme is proved by considerably shorter search time and exampleillustrated wide-ranging possibility of expanding the decision and/or optimization models through the introduction of new logical constraints, frequently encountered in practice. The proposed approach is particularly important for the decision models with an objective function and many discrete decision variables added up in multiple constraints. The presented approach will be compared with classical mathematical programming on the same data sets.


Abstract

Objective – The purpose of this study was to examine the reference service mode preferences of community college (two-year) and four-year college students.

Methods – The researchers administered a paper-based, face-to-face questionnaire at two institutions within the City University of New York system: Hunter College, a senior college, and Queensborough Community College, a two-year institution. During the summer of 2015, the researchers surveyed 79 participants, asking them to identify their most and least preferred mediums for accessing library reference services.

Results – Nearly 75% of respondents expressed a preference for face-to-face reference, while only about 18% preferred remote reference services (online chat, e-mail, text message, and telephone). Close to 84% of the participants cited remote reference services as their least preferred modes and slightly more than 10% said this of face-to-face. The data reveal a widespread popularity of face-to-face reference service among all types of participants regardless of institutional affiliation, age, gender, academic level, field of study, and race or ethnicity.

Conclusion – This study suggests that given the opportunity academic library users will utilize face-to-face reference service for assistance with research assignments. Academic libraries at both two-year and four-year institutions might consider assessing user views on reference modes and targeting support toward services that align with patron preferences.


In this paper, power flow is controlled in a distributed microgrid. The local loads in the microgrid are supplied from the distributed generator (DG) with wind energy system (WES). In DG, a voltage source inverter (VSI) is operated in a current control mode in order to inject real power and achieve load compensation. The generation of reference currents for voltage source inverter depends upon the available wind power for real power injection and load reactive and harmonic component for load compensation. Simulation studies are performed using PSCAD/EMTDC to validate the proposed power flow control and load compensation in the distributed microgrid.


The majority of early hearing disorders are of genetic origin. In view of the genetic heterogeneity, high-throughput sequencing analysis of a panel of genes involved in hearing loss is the most effective and economical approach, providing a diagnostic yield of around 40 % today. The determination of a molecular diagnosis makes it possible to: i) adapt the audiological care; ii) to search for possible somatic problems associated with so-called syndromic hearing loss; (iii) to avoid unnecessary additional examinations in isolated hearing loss; (iv) to establish accurate genetic counseling for relatives, or even to provide early diagnosis; and (v) to lay the foundation for potential future molecular hearing loss therapies in selected cases.


We tackle stationary crowd analysis in this paper, which is similarly important as modeling mobile groups in crowd scenes and finds many applications in surveillance. Our key contribution is to propose a robust algorithm of estimating how long a foreground pixel becomes stationary. It is much more challenging than only subtracting background because failure at a single frame due to local movement of objects, lighting variation, and occlusion could lead to large errors on stationary time estimation. To accomplish decent results, sparse constraints along spatial and temporal dimensions are jointly added by mixed partials to shape a 3D stationary time map. It is formulated as a L0 optimization problem. Besides background subtraction, it distinguishes among different foreground objects, which are close or overlapped in the spatio-temporal space by using a locally shared foreground codebook. The proposed technologies are used to detect four types of stationary group activities and analyze crowd scene structures. We provide the first public benchmark dataset for stationary time estimation and stationary group analysis.


In current bridge aeroelastic analysis frameworks, predictions of flutter instability and buffeting response to wind fluctuations are treated as two separate procedures. The flutter instability is analyzed through the solution of a complex eigenvalue problem, offering information on how the self-excited forces influence bridge dynamics, especially the modal damping, and eventually drive the bridge to develop unstable flutter motion. On the other hand, the buffeting response is quantified through spectral analysis that involves the evaluation of a complex frequency response matrix/transfer matrix at discrete frequencies, offering prediction of the statistics of bridge response. The modal properties at varying wind velocities predicted through flutter analysis have not yet been explicitly employed in predicting and interpreting buffeting response. Furthermore, current buffeting analysis frameworks often regard the complex aerodynamic admittance functions as real-valued, neglecting the phase differences of buffeting force components with respect to wind fluctuations. In this paper, a unified analysis framework of integrating both flutter and buffeting analysis is presented. The buffeting response is explicitly expressed in terms of the bridge modal properties that are influenced by the self-excited forces and predicted through the flutter analysis. Closed-form formulations are provided for quantifying the variance/covariance of buffeting response. This framework not only is computationally more effective, but also sheds more physical insight into bridge aeroelastic response by explicitly linking the effects of self-excited and buffeting forces on bridge response. The effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed framework are illustrated through a long span suspension bridge example. The multimode coupled bridge aeroelastic response is discussed with an emphasis placed on the significance of complex aerodynamic admittance functions on buffeting response.


The magnitude of late Mesozoic terrane translation along the western North American continental margin is controversial. Paleomagnetic data suggest more than 3000 km of dextral displacement of the Insular superterrane and associated assemblages between ca. 74 and 50 Ma. Conversely, geologic evidence is more compatible with less than 500 km of offset during this time. Precambrian cratonic rocks older than 2.5 Ga are restricted to northern latitudes (above 40°N) in North America, and the presence or absence of Archean zircons within easterly derived Cretaceous strata has been proposed as a "crucial test" of the major translation hypothesis. There is no plausible source of Archean and Early Proterozoic zircons found in the Queen Charlotte, Nanaimo, and Methow basins other than the Canadian Shield or closely associated Proterozoic strata. The coexistence of Archean–Early Proterozoic, Middle Proterozoic (1.5–1.6 Ga) and Mississippian detrital zircon in these basins indicates deposition in northern latitudes, incompatible with the Baja B.C. hypothesis.


Six new alkali and alkaline earth metal coordination polymers based on rigid 1,4-naphthalenedicarboxylic acid (H2NDA), [Li(HNDA)(H2O)2] (1), [Na2(NDA)(DMF)] (2), [Mg2(NDA)2(H2O)3]·0.25H2O (3), [Ca(NDA)(DMF)] (4), [Sr(NDA)(DMF)] (5), and [Ba(NDA)(DMF)] (6) have been synthesized under solvothermal conditions in order to evaluate the coordination behavior of H2NDA towards Li+, Na+, Mg2+, Ca2+, Sr2+, and Ba2+ ions and the structural features of the resulted polymeric complexes. Their structures were determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction studies. The coordination number of the metal ions varies from 4 (for Li), 5 (for Na), 6 (for Na and Mg) to 7 (for Ca, Sr, and Ba), while the number of metal ions bound to the ligand ranges from 2 (Li), 4 (Mg), 5 (Ca, Sr, and Ba) to 8 (Na). Compound 1 has a one-dimensional polymeric structure which is further connected by hydrogen bonds to form a supramolecular assembly. Compound 2 is a three-dimensional metal–organic framework (MOF) possessing hexagonal channels which are built up by helical 1D infinite inorganic chains connected with NDA ligands. Interestingly, the porous MOF, 2, exhibited high gas sorption properties for CO2 over N2. Compound 3 has a three-dimensional structure having 1D inorganic chains connected with NDA ligands in two directions to form a cage-like structure. Compounds 4, 5 and 6 are isostructural, having three-dimensional structures in which 1D inorganic chains are connected by NDA to form a 2-nodal 5,5-connected net. In addition, the solid state photoluminescence properties of all the compounds have also been studied.


One of the most fascinating and promising research areas in economics is the integration of the following three fields of economics: experimental economics, computational economics and neuroeconomics. Due to their methodologically interdisciplinary nature, the development of each of the three should interest computer scientists and engineering people. The relationship among experimental economics, agent-based computational economics and neuroeconomics is, in essence, a relationship between human agents and software agents. Software agents can be regarded as the effective abstraction or model of human agents "which we learn from experimental economics or neural economics.


Abstract Background: Although women with fear of birth often report negative birth experiences, few studies have focused on their experiences in the long term. The aim of this study was to compare birth experiences a year after childbirth in two groups of women receiving treatment for experiencing fear of birth during pregnancy. Methods: As part of the U-CARE: Pregnancy Trial, a prospective multicenter randomized controlled trial comparing the effects of internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy (iCBT) and standard care among pregnant women with fear of birth. Women were recruited at three Swedish hospitals following a screening procedure that assessed their fear of birth. Data were collected online with the Childbirth Experience Questionnaire (CEQ), one question about the overall birth experience, and questions about personal background, collected before randomization. Results: A total of 181 women responded to the follow-up questionnaire a year after childbirth. Approximately half of participants reported a less positive birth experience. Preferred mode of birth, actual mode of birth, marital status and psychiatric history were associated with the domains of the CEQ. However, no statistically significant differences emerged between the treatment groups. Conclusions: Being randomized to receive iCBT or counseling with midwives for fear of birth was not associated with perceptions of the birth experience assessed a year after birth. Most participants reported less-than-positive birth experiences and scored low on the domain of the CEQ reflecting Own capacity. In response, additional research remains necessary to identify the best model of care that might facilitate positive experiences with giving birth among women with fear of birth.


This study compared the administration of, and results yielded by, two different contextual reading instruments (an informal reading inventory [IRI] and the Text Reading and Comprehension inventory [TRC]). The purpose was to determine which instrument would provide the most valid assessment of children's reading ability. The study targeted the TRC because it is the required reading assessment for primary-grade students (K – 3) in North Carolina. IRI assessments have long been used for assessing children's reading levels.A trained team of teachers administered both reading assessments to 196 students, 1-3 grade. A third informal test (word recognition-timed) was administered to a randomly-selected one third of the 196 students. Results showed differences between the IRI and the TRC in administration time and student reading level yielded. The TRC assessments took nearly three times as long to administer. The student reading levels yielded by the assessments were significantly different, with the IRI levels higher and more often in agreement with the neutral measure, WR-t. The data revealed that the TRC underestimated students' reading instructional level most often because of poor student performance on written comprehension questions. These findings are important for evaluating state-mandated testing. Several suggestions for improving the assessment are offered.


Investigating the association between brain regions and genes continues to be a challenging topic in imaging genetics. Current brain region of interest (ROI)-gene association studies normally reduce data dimension by averaging the value of voxels in each ROI. This averaging may lead to a loss of information due to the existence of functional sub-regions. Pearson correlation is widely used for association analysis. However, it only detects linear correlation whereas nonlinear correlation may exist among ROIs. In this work, we introduced distance correlation to ROI-gene association analysis, which can detect both linear and nonlinear correlations and overcome the limitation of averaging operations by taking advantage of the information at each voxel. Nevertheless, distance correlation usually has a much lower value than Pearson correlation. To address this problem, we proposed a hybrid correlation analysis approach, by applying canonical correlation analysis (CCA) to the distance covariance matrix instead of directly computing distance correlation. Incorporating CCA into distance correlation approach may be more suitable for complex disease study because it can detect highly associated pairs of ROI and gene groups, and may improve the distance correlation level and statistical power. In addition, we developed a novel nonlinear CCA, called distance kernel CCA, which seeks the optimal combination of features with the most significant dependence. This approach was applied to imaging genetic data from the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort (PNC). Experiments showed that our hybrid approach produced more consistent results than conventional CCA across resampling and both the correlation and statistical significance were increased compared to distance correlation analysis. Further gene enrichment analysis and region of interest (ROI) analysis confirmed the associations of the identified genes with brain ROIs. Therefore, our approach provides a powerful tool for finding the correlation between brain imaging and genomic data.


This investigation is a continuation of work started in 1928 and described in NACA-TR-348 which shows that the insertion of gusset plates was the most satisfactory way of strengthening a joint. Additional tests of the present series show that joints of this type could be improved by cutting out the portion of the plate between the intersecting tubes. T and lattice joints in thin-walled tubing 1 1/2 by 0.020 inch have somewhat lower strengths than joints in tubing of greater wall thickness because of failure by local buckling. In welding the thin-walled tubing, the recently developed "carburizing flux" process was found to be the only method capable of producing joints free from cracks. The "magnetic powder" inspection was used to detect cracks in the joints and flaws in the tubing.


Background The multi-host taeniosis/cysticercosis disease system is associated with significant neurological morbidity, as well as economic burden, globally. We investigated whether lower cost behavioral interventions are sufficient for local elimination of human cysticercosis in Boulkiemdé, Sanguié, and Nayala provinces of Burkina Faso. Methodology/Principal findings Province-specific data on human behaviors (i.e., latrine use and pork consumption) and serological prevalence of human and pig disease were used to inform a deterministic, compartmental model of the taeniosis/cysticercosis disease system. Parameters estimated via Bayesian melding provided posterior distributions for comparing transmission rates associated with human ingestion of Taenia solium cysticerci due to undercooking and human exposure to T. solium eggs in the environment. Reductions in transmission via these pathways were modeled to determine required effectiveness of a market-focused cooking behavior intervention and a community-led sanitation and hygiene program, independently and in combination, for eliminating human cysticercosis as a public health problem (<1 case per 1000 population). Transmission of cysticerci due to consumption of undercooked pork was found to vary significantly across transmission settings. In Sanguié, the rate of transmission due to undercooking was 6% higher than that in Boulkiemdé (95% CI: 1.03, 1.09; p-value < 0.001) and 35% lower than that in Nayala (95% CI: 0.64, 0.66; p-value < 0.001). We found that 67% and 62% reductions in undercooking of pork consumed in markets were associated with elimination of cysticercosis in Nayala and Sanguié, respectively. Elimination of active cysticercosis in Boulkiemdé required a 73% reduction. Less aggressive reductions of 25% to 30% in human exposure to Taenia solium eggs through sanitation and hygiene programs were associated with elimination in the provinces. Conclusions/Significance Despite heterogeneity in effectiveness due to local transmission dynamics and behaviors, education on the importance of proper cooking, in combination with community-led sanitation and hygiene efforts, has implications for reducing morbidity due to cysticercosis and neurocysticercosis.


The aim of the study was to verify if vineyard kaolin application during the 2017 hot summer could reduce the negative effects of high temperatures and heat stress on canopy physiological processes, yield and fruit quality. The kaolin was applied once at the beginning of August, at 3% concentration, in a Pinot Noir vineyard. The application was performed only to the west side of the rows, where the vines were more subjected to heat stress. The 2017 summer was very hot, with maximum air temperature higher than 35 °C for several consecutive days in June, July and August and with heat waves that reached 42.3 °C in August. The kaolin coating works by significantly reducing leaf temperatures in comparison to untreated vines, with an average of about − 4 °C and up to −6 °C. Moreover, it maintains high the photosynthetic activity preventing irreversible photoinhibition phenomena, whereas untreated vines exhibit a marked physiological damage with chlorotic and necrotic leaves, dehydrated berries and sunburn damages. At harvest, 30-35% of the untreated vines were affected by severe water stress symptoms and produced unmarketable fruits. In comparison to the untreated vines, those sprayed with kaolin showed a higher yield (+27%), higher anthocyanins (+35%) and higher concentration of organic acids (+11%)


Background: L-selectin (CD62L) and Mac-1 (CD11b/CD18) play a crucial role in the infiltration of eosinophils. However, changes in CD62L and CD11b expression on eosinophils after stimulation with cytokines were little studied. Methods: Eosinophils in peripheral blood of healthy volunteers were purified and cultured with interleukin-5 (IL-5), granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) or interferon-γ (IFN-γ). After up to 24 h incubation, CD62L and CD11b expression were examined using flow cytometry. The effects of dexamethasone (Dex), cycloheximide (CHX) or theophylline on CD62L expression on IFN-γ-stimulated eosinophils were also studied. Results: IL-5 or GM-CSF downregulated CD62L and upregulated CD11b expression on eosinophils after 30 min stimulation. Conversely, IFN-γ upregulated CD62L after 12 h stimulation in a time- and dose-dependent manner, and had no effect on CD11b expression. Dex, CHX or theophylline dose-dependently decreased CD62L expression on IFN-γ-stimulated eosinophils. Conclusions: IFN-γ is a particular cytokine which can increase CD62L expression on circulating or infiltrated human eosinophils. It is suggested that protein synthesis and intracellular cAMP participate in the increase in L-selectin expression on IFN-γ-stimulated eosinophils.


Editor's column
 Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met in mid-June on the sidelines of a World Cup game in Moscow to discuss oil prices and diplomacy ahead of the recent OPEC meeting. It was the latest effort to wrest control of oil prices that began with the historic Vienna production cuts in 2016 that rescued the oil market, and the most recent in a long line of attempts to control the oil price cycle.
 The production cuts worked. The OPEC members and several largest producers, including Russia and Mexico, agreed in late 2016 to curb oil production by 1.8 million B/D to reduce the supply glut that had sent prices plummeting and caused massive layoffs throughout the industry. Compliance was not only good, but better than expected. Some countries cut supply even more than they agreed, and Venezuelan output dropped sharply because of that country's economic crisis, which brought the market back in balance. The production cuts totaled almost 2.5 million B/D, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
 The extent of the cuts has led some, including the IEA, to fear that the market could soon be in short supply, sending prices sharply higher, and continuing the cycle of sharp shocks to the market. To them, oil prices in the $60–70 bbl range would be ideal, encouraging new production to replace declining reserves without disrupting demand growth. The oil market has tightened quickly, which should lead to output increases from major producers this year and next.
 Common phrases in the industry this year are "cautious optimism" about prices and "capital discipline." But oil price cyclicality appears inevitable. The long-term nature of the business that requires years to develop new production, along with reliance on lagging indicators and the relative price inelasticity of consumption, underlies the difficulty of balancing supply and demand. Since 2014, rebalancing the oil market has meant cutting production and reducing inventories; for the rest of this year and 2019, it will mean increasing supply to prevent prices from rising too quickly.
 One source of supply that may help is the Permian Basin, which has seen remarkable growth during the downturn, and could act as a swing producer and a major oil exporter. A new report from IHS Markit forecasts that Permian production will rise by almost 3 million B/D to 5.4 million B/D by 2023. Production from the Permian by itself would be greater than any OPEC country except Saudi Arabia and the additional output would be more than the production of Kuwait, the report said. Permian output was less than 1 million B/D in 2010. One thing that could derail this predicted increase is strains on infrastructure. Already, logistical bottlenecks in pipelines and trucking have occurred, causing some production to be deferred to next year.


Recently we have proposed that stress distribution of a subject can be visualized by utilizing a novel mechanoluminescence phenomenon that can give intense visible light emission by application of mechanical stress. As the luminescence intensity is proportional to the time-variation of strain energy in the elastic region, we call it elastico-luminescence. In order to realize a high space resolution in such visualization for stress distribution, we aim to develop strong elastico-luminescent nanoparticles, such as a controlled structure of α-SrAl2O4:Eu (monoclinic phase). The processing of the nanoparticles, the property and the applications will be reported in the present work.


In the past the operational quantity Hp(3) has been defined for calibration purposes in a slab phantom. Recently, an additional phantom in the form of a cylinder was suggested for eye lens dosimetry as a cylinder much better approximates the shape of a head than a slab. Therefore, this work investigates whether the quantity Hp(3), when defined in the respective calibration phantom, adequately estimates the eye lens dose (or is at least conservative) depending on the phantom: it turns out that in most cases both calibration phantoms are similarly well suited. Finally, the definition of the eye lens dose is discussed together with possible consequences on the definition of Hp(3): the consideration of only the radiation sensitive volume of the lens causes Hp(3) not to be conservative in beta radiation fields.


The relative effectiveness of three common strategies to increase participation in worksite health promotion programs was assessed. The interventions, designed for low income employees, were (1) written information, (2) written information and an informational meeting, and (3) written information, an information meeting and a group contest Thirty teams of low income employees were randomly allocated to receive one of the three interventions. Participation was measured at baseline and at follow-up. Team participation did not vary by strategy but individual participation was more likely for those offered the contest than for those provided only written information or written information and a meeting. Even under the most intensive recruitment condition, however, few teams and housekeepers participated in the health promotion program. Interviews were conducted with housekeepers to obtain reasons for participation and non-participation, and to identify suggestions for facilitating participation.


The specific type of epilepsy must be identified. The history and the EEG provide the evidence. Drug selection is then based on the classification of the patient's epilepsy. Major drugs used in the management of epilepsy are phenytoin, phenobarbital, primidone, carbamazepine, ethosuximide and valproic acid. The physician should know their kinetics, interactions and side effects, and the value of monitoring blood levels of these anticonvulsant agents.


Early life nutrition is important in the regulation of metabolism in adulthood. We studied the effects of different fatty acid composition diets on adiposity measures, glucose tolerance, and peripheral glucocorticoid (GC) metabolism in overfed neonatal rats. Rat litters were adjusted to a litter size of three (small litters (SLs)) or ten (normal litters (NLs)) on postnatal day 3 to induce overfeeding or normal feeding respectively. After weaning, SL and NL rats were fed a ω6 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) diet (14% calories as fat, soybean oil) or high-saturated fatty acid (high-fat; 31% calories as fat, lard) diet until postnatal week 16 respectively. SL rats were also divided into the third group fed a ω3 PUFA diet (14% calories as fat, fish oil). A high-fat diet induced earlier and/or more pronounced weight gain, hyperphagia, glucose intolerance, and hyperlipidemia in SL rats compared with NL rats. In addition, a high-fat diet increased 11β-hsd1 (Hsd11b1) mRNA expression and activity in the retroperitoneal adipose tissue of both litter groups compared with standard chow counterparts, whereas high-fat feeding increased hepatic 11β-hsd1 mRNA expression and activity only in SL rats. SL and a high-fat diet exhibited significant interactions in both retroperitoneal adipose tissue and hepatic 11β-HSD1 activity. Dietary ω3 PUFA offered protection against glucose intolerance and elevated GC exposure in the retroperitoneal adipose tissue and liver of SL rats. Taken together, the results suggest that dietary fatty acid composition in the post-sucking period may interact with neonatal feeding and codetermine metabolic alterations in adulthood.


Different warm-up protocols (WUP) have been most commonly researched and it has been clearly demonstrated that some of these WUP elicit PAP however limited data are available about the best pre-conditioning activity (type of exercise, duration, volume, intensity). Therefore, our aim was to analyse 4 different WUP in order to examine the subsequent performance in countermovement jump (CMJ) and sprint performance at the same time, together with lactate along with performance in CMJ and sprint, what would be important and interesting information of the PAP-fatigue relationship for each one of protocols. Twelve high level sprinters (age 22 ± 2 y, body mass 70.2 ± 3.6 kg, height 181 ± 5 cm; body fat 7.4 ± 3.1%) took part in this study. Four different pre-conditioning activities (PCA) were designed, and after that, athletes randomly assigned to each one during 4-wk. PCA were squat (SQ) with 80% 1RM, (CMJ) with loads of 100% of body weight (BW), traditional WUP with three progressive sprint races and a specific sprint-based WUP composed by progressive sprint races. PAP effect was verified on CMJ and sprint performance in 0, 4, and 6 min after each WUP and group. CMJ height increased significantly at 0 and 4 min after all PCA protocols, showing a higher improvement in the specific sprint-based WUP (4.3%; p < 0.001; ES 0.93). Also a reduction in sprint time performance at 0 and 4 min was checked, with 2.6% (p < 0.01) with sprint-based WUP too. An interesting finding was that lactate values between 5.25 mmol·L-1 and 7.74 mmol·L-1 elicited PAP on sprint and CMJ performances for different WUP. Using a specific potentiation protocol that could enhance sprint performance would provide vital information, because running speed is critical in many athletic events. The knowledge of acute effects of PAP can be used to improve performance by including resistance exercises, jumps with extra load or sprint in an athlete's warm-up (Mitchell and Sale, 2011, EJAP, 111: 1957–63).