Alteration in blood glucose levels in newborns is difficult to detect clinically. Hence a reliable "point of care" device (glucometer) for early detection and treatment is needed. Hypoglycemia is historically one of the most common metabolic problems seen in both the newborn nursery and neonatal intensive care unit. In neonates, there is not always an obvious correlation between blood glucose concentration and the classic clinical manifestations of hypoglycemia. The absence of symptoms does not indicate that glucose concentration is normal and has not fallen to less than optimal level (40 mg/dl) for maintaining brain metabolism. Present study was conducted on 500 newborns admitted to NICU. Blood glucose levels were measured simultaneously by using glucometer (Accu-chek advantage) and laboratory by using glucose oxidase method. There is a strong correlation between values obtained using both the methods with contingency coefficient- 0.7 and p value – 0.000. Accu-chek advantage glucometer had good correlation at glucose levels 40 to 145 mg/dl. Glucometer shouid be considered only as a screening method, not as a diagnostic test due to their questionable reliability in diagnosing neonatal hypoglycaemia. Although the accu-chek advantage glucometer had good sensitivity and negative predictive value in detecting hypoglycaemia, confirmation with laboratory measurements of plasma glucose and clinical assessment of the infant are still of the utmost importance.


The past 40 years of research in the angiogenesis field have focused on identifying genetic signals such as VEGF and Notch, which determine vessel sprouting. However, the role and therapeutic potential of targeting endothelial cell (EC) metabolism have been largely overlooked. We have recently reported that ECs are glycolysis addicted and that glycolysis importantly co-determine vessel sprouting downstream of VEGF and other proangiogenic signals. In addition, we documented that ECs are rather unique in utilizing fatty acidderived carbons for the de novo synthesis of deoxyribonucleotides for DNA synthesis during EC proliferation when vessels sprout. Moreover, targeting (blocking) glycolysis and fatty acid oxidation inhibit pathological angiogenesis and induce tumor vessel normalization (thereby reducing metastasis and improving chemotherapy), suggesting that these metabolic pathways are new targets for anti-angiogenic drug development without evoking systemic side effects. Furthermore, lymphatic ECs differ from other EC subtypes in their metabolic requirements for lymphangiogenesis. Since many of these metabolic targets are pharmacologically druggable, these metabolic pathways represent a new promising target for therapeutic anti-angiogenesis.


Design of on-line embedded web server is a challenging part of many embedded and real time data acquisition and control system applications. The World Wide Web is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billion of users worldwide and allows the user to interface many real time embedded applications like data acquisition, Industrial automations and safety measures etc,. This paper approached towards the design and development of on-line Interactive Data Acquisition and Control System (IDACS) using ARM based embedded web server. It can be a network, intelligent and digital distributed control system. Single chip IDACS method improves the processing capability of a system and overcomes the problem of poor real time and reliability. This system uses ARM9 Processor portability with Real Time Linux operating system (RTLinux RTOS) it makes the system more real time and handling various processes based on multi tasking and reliable scheduling mechanisms. Web server application is ported into an ARM processor using embedded 'C' language. Web pages are written by Hyper text markup language (HTML); it is beneficial for real time IDACS, Mission critical applications, ATM networks and more.


On Sunday, Oct. 4, 1992, an E1 A1 Boeing cargo plane crashed into a 10-story block of flats in the Bijmermeer, on the outskirts of Amsterdam. About 8 people died at the site of the disaster. 37 patients were treated in local hospitals within 90 minutes of the disaster, 16 of whom were admitted. 3 suffered severe, and 6 moderate burns (> 15% and 10-15% of body surface area, respectively). Although there were relatively few injured, a full-scale disaster response was evoked, providing an opportunity to study the effectiveness of current disaster plans. The rapid response of the ambulance service and the hospitals involved indicates that rehearsing disaster preparations is effective. The dispersal of the injured to several nearby hospitals prevented overloading of casualty departments. Secondary transfer of severely burned patients to the burn center was efficient and followed current guidelines. In retrospect, while communication between the various services might be subject to minor criticism, no problems were encountered which interfered with proper execution of the rescue operation. No one who survived the immediate impact died.


BACKGROUND/AIM
This study analyzed the incidence, trends, and common types of cancer in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
This study is based on data collected from the office of the North Cyprus Cancer Registry, Ministry of Health, for 2007-2012. Data were arranged on the basis of age group, sex, and cancer site. Age standardized incidence rates (ASRs) were estimated with the world standard population. EVIEWS (version 9) software was used for statistical analysis.

RESULTS
Of 1395 registered cases, 52.33% (730) were reported in men and 47.67% (665) in women. The crude incidence rate was 96.41 in men and 101.74 in women. The average annual ASR was 88.88 in men and 87.76 in women with the cumulative rate of 21.47% and 14.69% in men and women, respectively. The most common cancers in men were skin (ASR 15.62), prostate (ASR 11.23), bladder (ASR 11.71), lung (ASR 8.01), and colorectal cancer (ASR 7.61), while in women these were breast (ASR 24.07), thyroid (ASR 14.93), skin (ASR 10.75), colorectal (ASR 6.05), and lymphoma (ASR 4.79). Linear regression analysis confirmed rising trends for both men's (10.79, P ≤ 0.03) and women's (14.67, P ≤ 0.04) cancers.

CONCLUSION
Our findings revealed an increasing trend of cancer incidence in the TRNC. For control and prevention, public awareness of the risk factors and proper screening programs should be recommended.


The work begins with a study of several most frequently referred to sub-optimal multiuser receivers. The four structures of interest are the decorrelator, the minimum mean square error receiver, the multistage parallel interference cancellation receiver, and the successive interference cancellation receiver. The performance of the receiver structures is compared through simulation studies on the basis of bit error rate in additive white Gaussian noise, and near-far channels. In the second part of this research, array processing techniques are investigated as a means for improving the performance. We evaluate the system performance of some of the existing adaptive blind array schemes for CDMA receivers, and a new adaptive blind algorithm is derived. The knowledge of the desired user's signature sequence is exploited to design the blind receiver, where no training sequence needs to be transmitted. The blind algorithm is formulated using a constrained energy minimization criterion, and adaptation is carried out by using the LMS algorithm combined with the gradient-projection algorithm to incorporate the quadratic constraint. The multiple access interference coming from the directions other than that of the desired user can be significantly suppressed by using spatial filtering property of antenna arrays. The interference rejection capability of the proposed receiver is examined in situations where a single interferer dominates the received power. It is shown that this combination can significantly improve the system performance and outperform all existing multiuser detectors as well as smart antenna systems. Finally, we present a new structure combining two-dimensional RAKE receiver and the multiuser detection for further enhancement of the system performance in multipath fading channels.


Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) is generally concerned with the study of the magnetic properties (behaviour) of electrically conducting fluids (plasmas, liquid metals etc.) moving in an electromagnetic field. The importance of the concept of MHD in various fields such as astrophysics, bio-medical research, missile technology and geophysics motivates the modelling and investigation of MHD flow and transport problems. The role of fluid suction is paramount in laminar flow control and has wide applications in fields such as aeronautical engineering, automobile engineering and rocket science. This fact inspires the study of the effects of fluid suction in flow and transport models. Time dependent flows are widely encountered in engineering applications such as turbines and in physiological studies such as flow of bio-fluid (blood etc.). In the present paper, an attempt has been made to investigate analytically the problem of a time dependent channel flow with heat transfer, where the channel is bounded by two infinite parallel porous walls. The pressure gradient is assumed to be oscillatory in nature. A magnetic field of uniform strength is assumed to be applied normal to the walls. After necessary idealization of the momentum and energy equations, the governing equations of our problem are solved by adopting the regular perturbation technique. The effects of magnetic field, suction velocity, viscous dissipation, Reynolds number, Prandtl number etc. on the flow and heat transfer are studied and demonstrated graphically. It is seen that magnetic field, fluid suction, viscous dissipation, Reynolds number, Prandtl number have a significant effect on the flow and heat transfer characteristic. For instance, the imposition of the magnetic field enhances the rates of heat transfer at the walls and the fluid suction decreases the temperature and aids in laminar flow control.


Wireless communication exhibits the highest energy consumption in wireless sensor networks nodes. Due to their limited energy supply from batteries, the low power VLSI designs have become inevitable part of today's wireless devices. Power has become a burning issue in VLSI design. In modern integrated circuits, the power consumed by clocking gradually takes a dominant part. Reducing the power consumption not only can enhance battery life but also can avoid the overheating problem. By employing a more appropriate processing element, the power consumption is significantly reduced. In this paper the novel method for low power design is achieved by using Multi-Bit Flip-Flop Merging (MBFM) technique for on-the-node data processing in wireless sensor networks using Parallel Prefix Operations (PPO) and data locality in hardware. Besides power reduction the objective of minimizing area and delay is also considered.


Antineoplastic drugs are pharmaceuticals commonly used to treat cancer (and some non-neoplastic diseases), which are generally referred to as 'chemotherapy'. Oncology nurses are exposed to these drugs via the skin of hands during daily nursing activities, even when protective gloves are being used. Results of tests on bulk and surface contamination samples confirmed that patients intravenously treated with cyclophosphamide excrete the unmetabolized drug. The introduction of new guidelines and regulations on working with antineoplastic drugs, the use of more closed preparation- and infusion-systems and the consequent growing awareness of nurses working with antineoplastic drugs has decreased exposure to antineoplastic drugs considerably. Due to an increase in number of chemotherapy treatments and centralisation of chemotherapy to specialised departments in hospitals, the average weekly exposure level of an oncology nurse has not markedly changed over time, while low and high exposures occur less frequent. The identification of the patient as a source of contamination and exposure makes it very complicated to further reduce exposure to antineoplastic drugs of nurses. Based on current dermal exposure levels to antineoplastic drugs approximately 50% of the population of oncology nurses have an increased risk of a prolonged time to pregnancy compared with non-exposed nurses, and around 10% of Dutch oncology nurses have an increased risk of a premature delivery and delivering a child with a low birth weight. Other effects on reproduction like spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, gender of offspring, and congenital malformations were not related to exposure to antineoplastic drugs. The risk of non-lymphocytic leukaemia among oncology nurses after being exposed for 40 years to current dermal exposure levels of cyclophosphamide was estimated to be well below the target risk (one extra cancer case per 10 million per year) and the maximum tolerable risk (one extra cancer case per 100,000 per year) in the Netherlands. However, this estimate is for cyclophosphamide only and in a worst-case exposure scenario the estimated leukaemia risk exceeded the target risk, so the cancer risk among oncology nurses exposed to antineoplastic drugs should not be ignored. The identification of occupational exposure to antineoplastic drugs in sectors outside the hospital environment (i.e. veterinary medicine, home care, nursing homes and industrial laundries) showed that the number of workers potentially exposed to antineoplastic drugs is larger than previously estimated. Exposure levels in these sectors can potentially be higher than in the hospital environment, because exposure routes are complex and awareness of the hazard (and therefore use of protective measures) is limited.


Characterization studies conducted on Class-F fly-ash specimens gathered from different producers in the southeastern United States confirm general trends reported for fly ash worldwide. Additional tests and detailed analyses explain the spread in specific gravity (interparticle porosity cenospheres), highlight the tendency to segregation and layering, and show marked ferromagnetism. Furthermore, data show that early diagenetic cementation—within days after wetting—hinders densification and produces a fabric that is prone to collapse. New procedures are specifically developed to diagnose and characterize early diagenesis, including (1) pH measurements as an indicator of diagenetic potential, (2) test protocols to assess early diagenesis using oedometer tests and shear-wave velocity, and (3) procedures to determine realizable unit weights as reference values for the analyses of contractive or dilative tendencies and instability. In the absence of early diagenetic cementation, dilative fly-ash behavior is expected in the upper ≈20  m under monotonic shear loading. Flow instability may follow the failure of the containment structure if the ponded ash is saturated and has experienced hindered densification.


Language extensions increase programmer productivity by providing concise, often domain-specific syntax, and support for static verification of correctness, security, and style constraints. Language extensions can often be realized through translation to the base language, supported by preprocessors and extensible compilers. However, various kinds of extensions require further adaptation of a base compiler's internal stages and components, for example to support separate compilation or to make use of low-level primitives of the platform (e.g., jump instructions or unbalanced synchronization). To allow for a more loosely coupled approach, we propose an open compiler model based on normalization steps from a high-level language to a subset of it, the core language. We developed such a compiler for a mixed Java and (core) bytecode language, and evaluate its effectiveness for composition mechanisms such as traits, as well as statement-level and expression-level language extensions.


To have produced yet another new edition of' Price's Medicine' during war is a wonderful achievement, especially in view of the great amount of new material included. The various authors have brought their sections up to date. The uses of penicillin are well covered. The thiourea and thiouracil treatments of hyperthyroidism, the latest diagnostic techniques in Addison's disease, thyroidectomy in the treatment of heart failure, the uses of the sulphonamides, the convulsant treatment of manic depressive states and the insulin treatment of schizophrenia are only a few instances of subjects brought up to date. In the section on blood diseases, always admirably concise and well ordered, some modifications have been made in line with recent developments; the treatment of haemorrhagic disease of the newborn by synthetic vitamin K is given, and there is an excellent summary of the pathology of erythroblastosis foetalis in the light of recent work on the Rh factor. Similarly, in the deficiency diseases section the most recent work is well collated, as well as clear and comprehensible. The section on endocrinology is particularly well done. Industrial toxicology has been given plenty of space, the metallic poisons, coal-tar derivatives and chlorinated hydrocarbons being dealt with in detail. The neurology section has been completely rewritten; as stated in the preface, the aim here has been at greater systematization, and this aim has been achieved. The presentation is clear andc admirable in every way. Even though syndromes have been introduced which were omitted previously there is no feeling of over-concentration; indeed, as an example, the essay on aphasia is a model of lucidity. The textbook is an institution, and its worth increases with each new edition. Its sales are enormous. It is a pity, therefore, that some contributors still affect a medieval style. Some pages are still littered with fatal issues, impending dissolutions, and the exhibition of drugs. including croton oil! One author deprecates the giving of milk to cases of vascular thrombosis because of the well known effect of calcium on the coagulation of blood. Another confides to us that he has always been disappointed by mistletoe. When readers as ignorant as the present reviewer have never known that any substance of value in therapeutics can be obtained from mistletoe, such a statement constitutes a mild psychic shock. The volume is still handsome, and the quality of the paper and print very good indeed. The only evidence of the difficulties encountered in war-time production is the slight increase in misprints; these are particularly noticeable in the section on diseases of the' skin. As the editor states, the sale of this book abroad almost equals that in the United Kingdom. He rightly regards this as evidence of the international prestige of British medicine, but all will agree that medicine owes him, and his devoted collaborators, a great debt of gratitude for enhancing that prestige. D. H.


This presentation describes how singing is re-ignited in Singapore primary schools through the professional development initiative by Singapore Teachers' Academy for the aRts (STAR). Singing brings joy to the child and often, the lack of teacher confidence puts a lid on the capacity of how singing can be a transformative experience to the child. As a national academy with the mandate to improve the quality of art and music teaching-learning in Singapore schools, STAR connects teacher networks to bringing singing into the music classrooms in a more transformative way. Engaging with Songs (EWS) is conceived to deepen Music teachers' professional and pedagogical understanding in leading singing in the music classroom. It consolidates a growing repertoire of songs, including those from Singapore's diverse multi-cultural heritage, to support singing pedagogies in the music classrooms. This professional development programme is also designed to support the implementation of the General Music syllabus at the primary school years. The presentation focuses on two key features of EWS: i) its professional development design and curriculum; and ii) the professional learning journeys of the 61 music teachers and 2 school leaders from the 25 schools who embarked on the programme's first two phases since 2014. Comprising music specialists and generalists, these teachers come together as a community of learners within their schools and across schools, to increase their confidence in singing, and strengthen their music classroom practices in singing.


The last few years have seen a major rethinking of some of the hallowed assumptions of range ecology and range-management practice. The usefulness of terms such as 'vegetation succession˚s, 'carrying capacity˚s, and 'desertification˚s is being reassessed, particularly for the dry rangelands which are dominated by highly variable rainfall and episodic, chance events such as drought. This article examines the management and policy implications of this thinking for pastoral development in dryland areas. It briefly examines the consequences of environmental variability for pastoral development planning, range and fodder management, drought responses, livestock marketing, resource tenure, institutional development, and pastoral administration. By offering new directions for development workers, researchers, and policy planners, the article illustrates, in practical terms, a future for pastoral development in dryland Africa that recognises both the importance of pastoral livelihoods and the significance of envi...


The central problem of this study is that despite the critical role of pre-school education in holistic development of children, there are factors that inhibit access to participation in learning activities. Study by the New Jersey Council for young children indicated that participation in learning activities by most African-American children was moderately low. Another research from Uganda supported by UNICEF, revealed that interactive teaching and learning was very little and that few ECD programmes offered minimum cognitive stimulation. Most government documents in Kenya are silent on key issues such as, terms of service for pre-school teachers, linkages between various players in ECD and modalities of partnership among others. Problems facing pre-schools have not been adequately investigated and understood. In light of the above, the purpose of this study was to carry out a study on pre-schools' children's active participation in learning activities. The independent variables in the study were the teacher's oral communication methods used for delivery of learning content, use of learning materials as well as appropriate curriculum content and the state of the physical learning/play environment. The theory used was Rogoff's Model of Guided Participation. Similar studies appeared not to have been carried out in Kikuyu District, Kiambu County and therefore the district was purposively selected for the study. Pre-schools were randomly sampled. A sample of 10% to 30% was appropriate for the descriptive study. The study randomly selected a sample size of 22 preschools which was 30% of the target population. Random sampling was also applied during the pilot study in which schools from both public and private were included. The data collected was analyzed using frequency distribution tables and cross-tabulations which were followed by chisquare confidence and significance level tests. The data was presented in tables, pie charts and graphs. After the study, determinants of factors that lead to pre-school participation of children in learning were established, and this ensuing report details the whole study and reflections based on the findings.


We present spectrally resolved observations of triatomic carbon (C-3) in several ro-vibrational transitions between the vibrational ground state and the low-energy nu(2) bending mode at frequencies between 1654-1897 GHz along the sight-lines to the submillimeter continuum sources W31C and W49N, using Herschel's HIFI instrument. We detect C-3 in absorption arising from the warm envelope surrounding the hot core, as indicated by the velocity peak position and shape of the line profile. The sensitivity does not allow to detect C-3 absorption due to diffuse foreground clouds. From the column densities of the rotational levels in the vibrational ground state probed by the absorption we derive a rotation temperature (T-rot) of similar to 50-70 K, which is a good measure of the kinetic temperature of the absorbing gas, as radiative transitions within the vibrational ground state are forbidden. It is also in good agreement with the dust temperatures for W31C and W49N. Applying the partition function correction based on the derived T-rot, we get column densities N(C-3) similar to 7-9 x 10(14) cm(-2) and abundance x(C-3) similar to 10(-8) with respect to H-2. For W31C, using a radiative transfer model including far-infrared pumping by the dust continuum and a temperature gradient within the source along the line of sight we find that a model with x(C-3) = 10(-8), T-kin = 30-50 K, N(C-3) = 1.5 x 10(15) cm(-2) fits the observations reasonably well and provides parameters in very good agreement with the simple excitation analysis.


In plants, carotenoids are subjected to enzyme-catalyzed oxidative cleavage reactions as well as to non-enzymatic degradation processes, which produce various carbonyl products called apocarotenoids. These conversions control carotenoid content in different tissues and give rise to apocarotenoid hormones and signaling molecules, which play important roles in plant growth and development, response to environmental stimuli, and in interactions with surrounding organisms. In addition, carotenoid cleavage gives rise to apocarotenoid pigments and volatiles that contribute to the color and flavor of many flowers and several fruits. Some apocarotenoid pigments, such as crocins and bixin, are widely utilized as colorants and additives in food and cosmetic industry and also have health-promoting properties. Considering the importance of this class of metabolites, investigation of apocarotenoid diversity and regulation has increasingly attracted the attention of plant biologists. Here, we provide an update on the plant apocarotenoid biosynthetic pathway, especially highlighting the diversity of the enzyme carotenoid cleavage dioxygenase 4 (CCD4) from different plant species with respect to substrate specificity and regioselectivity, which contribute to the formation of diverse apocarotenoid volatiles and pigments. In addition, we summarize the regulation of apocarotenoid metabolic pathway at transcriptional, post-translational, and epigenetic levels. Finally, we describe inter- and intraspecies variation in apocarotenoid production observed in many important horticulture crops and depict recent progress in elucidating the genetic basis of the natural variation in the composition and amount of apocarotenoids. We propose that the illustration of biochemical, genetic, and evolutionary background of apocarotenoid diversity would not only accelerate the discovery of unknown biosynthetic and regulatory genes of bioactive apocarotenoids but also enable the identification of genetic variation of causal genes for marker-assisted improvement of aroma and color of fruits and vegetables and CRISPR-based next-generation metabolic engineering of high-value apocarotenoids.


: Light sensitivity of the central and peripheral parts of the human retina has been studied in an hour exposure to broadband noise of 95 dBA intensity and in an after-effect period. The indices of time threshold of dark adaptation and the visual acuity restoration time at reduced brightness were analysed. Four types of response to acoustic stimulus have been revealed. Correlation between the initial levels of the indices and the character of changes of the functions studied has been established.


Initially, astrobiology subsumed into philosophy. However, philosophy has increasingly subsumed into astrobiology concurrent with it steadily becoming an observational and experimental activity that mainly focuses on the link between life and the cosmos, rather than on extra-terrestrial life per se. However, the steadily increasing probability of locating such extra-terrestrial life and the questions this will lead to might require a refinement of astrobiology, with a bifurcation into astrobiology and astrophilosophy. There are many reasons for the emergence and necessity of astrobiology. One barely realized reason for its emergence, I will argue, is the dawning realization that biology, until now, has been under a geocentric limitation, which has unavoidably pervaded the perception of life. Additionally, as astrobiology can be said to be a long last movement away from this limitation, astrophilosophy represents a movement away from that limitation because philosophy has, strictly speaking, been restrained by the frames for one species, Homo sapiens. Thus, philosophy has, strictly speaking, been anthropomorphic. Thus, when philosophy, like astrobiology, incorporates the Copernican principle, assuming that terrestrial life, and the thinking of Homo sapiens, is not privileged in the universe, astrophilosophy emerges. Astrobiology and astrophilosophy are not competitors but are rather two distinct but complementary activities that address questions with their own well-defined methods and rigor while still informing each other in an inter-dependent manner. Astrophilosophy concerns questions that are philosophical in nature but are procured by an astrobiological perspective. By including scenarios procured by astrobiology, a number of questions regarding value, rights, communication and intelligence that could arise in the interaction between Homo sapiens and extra-terrestrial life can be addressed.


Territorial cohesion is an important target of European Union, constantly promoted by its institutions and their representatives. In the context of the Europe 2020 strategy, one of the most important support documents, the region represents a very important issue, being considered to be the key to its successfulness. The region is seen as a support for the smart growth and all the operational policy concepts try to make use of the spatial potential, by taking better account of the territorial specificities. Two main questions play attention: the need to transform the present-day developmental regions into administrative ones is a priority? What kind of regionalization it must to be promoted? Correlating these issues with already defined territorial cohesion, the administrative region is a real tool for the future territorial development. The experience of the last 14 years asks urgently the building of a new territorial administrative reform, giving competences to regions. For instant, each development region is a construction resulted from a free association of the counties. Their role in the regional development is much reduced one, because their regional councils are not elected; decisions taken at this level are consultative for the social, economical, cultural or political actors.


The oncoprotein MDM2 regulates the activity and stability of the tumor suppressor p53 through protein-protein interaction involving their N-terminal domains. The N-terminal lid of MDM2 has been implicated in p53 regulation; however, due to its flexible nature, limited data are available concerning its role in ligand binding. The quantitative dynamics study using NMR reported here shows, for the first time, that the lid in apo-MDM2 slowly interconverts between a "closed" state that is associated with the p53-binding cleft and an "open" state that is highly flexible. Our results reveal that apo-MDM2 predominantly populates the closed state, whereas the p53-bound MDM2 exclusively populates the open state. Unlike p53 binding, the small molecule MDM2 antagonist nutlin-3 binds to the cleft essentially without perturbing the closed lid state. The lid dynamics thereby represents a signature for the experimental and virtual screening of therapeutic antagonists that target the p53-MDM2 interaction.


CC chemokine ligand 2 (CCL2, also known as monocyte chemoattractant protein-1) has been demonstrated to recruit monocytes to tumor sites. Monocytes are capable of being differentiated into tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) and osteoclasts (OCs). TAMs have been shown to promote tumor growth in several cancer types. Osteoclasts have also been known to play an important role in cancer bone metastasis. To investigate the effects of CCL2 on tumorigenesis and its potential effects on bone metastasis of human prostate cancer, CCL2 was overexpressed into a luciferase-tagged human prostate cancer cell line PC-3. In vitro, the conditioned medium of CCL2 overexpressing PC-3luc cells (PC-3(lucCCL2)) was a potent chemoattractant for mouse monocytes in comparison to a conditioned medium from PC-3(lucMock). In addition, CCL2 overexpression increased the growth of transplanted xenografts and increased the accumulation of macrophages in vivo. In a tumor dissemination model, PC-3(lucCCL2) enhanced the growth of bone metastasis, which was associated with more functional OCs. Neutralizing antibodies targeting both human and mouse CCL2 inhibited the growth of PC-3(luc), which was accompanied by a decrease in macrophage recruitment to the tumor. These findings suggest that CCL2 increases tumor growth and bone metastasis through recruitment of macrophages and OCs to the tumor site.


ALTHOUGH Part I of this article, in the previous issue, focused on the Parliament of the World's Religions (Chicago, 1993) as a major inter-faith event, "faith" can usefully be understood in a broader sense than in relation to religion. Dialogue is a challenge in many arenas where the entrenched "beliefs", "faiths" or "religions" may correspond to political or ideological factions, philosophies, management styles, cultural biases, or even aesthetic preferences. During the Global Forum, on the occasion of the Earth Summit (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), this challenge was explored in an Inter-Sectoral Dialogue bringing together sectors such as science, religion, labour, industry, environment, and the like (1). Representatives of particular sectors may hold to their ideological faith as strongly as adherents of a particular religion. Dialogue in an inter-religious context may therefore have learnings for other arenas, as is true of the reverse. The point is best reinforced by Kinhide Mushakoji's study of Global Issues and Interparadigmatic Dialogue; essays on multipolar politics (2).


In software programs, most of the time, there is a chance of faults in general, and exception faults in particular. Localizing those pieces of code which are responsible for a particular fault is one of the most complicated tasks and it can make incorrect results if done manually. Semi-automated and fully-automated techniques have been introduced to overcome this issue. However, despite recent advances in fault localization techniques, they are not necessarily applicable to Android applications because of their special characteristics like context-awareness, use of sensors, being executable on various mobile devices, limited hardware resources, and so on. To this aim, in this paper, we introduce a semi-automated hybrid method that combines static and dynamic analysis to localize exception faults in Android applications. Our evaluations with a number of open source Android applications of different sizes with various exceptions show that our proposed technique can correctly identify the root causes of occurred exceptions. These results indicate that our proposed approach is effective in practice in localizing exception faults in Android applications.


This paper explores the labor market, poverty, inequality and pro-poor growth dynamics in the recent economic crisis and recovery in Argentina. In the labor market it is possible to see the diverging experience of the economic crisis and recovery. For instance, the unemployed were more likely to find employment in the informal sector than in the formal sector. In terms of economic sectors it seems that certain labor-intensive, dynamic, low-skilled sectors such as manufacturing, other services, construction and retail contributed most to the movement between the different labor force states of employment, unemployment and inactivity. Policy responses in the labor market to poverty and inequality increases from the economic crisis were implemented through government transfers, in particular the workfare program Plan Jefes y Jefas. The pro-poor features of the early economic recovery period were mainly accounted for by these government transfers. However, at later stages of recovery income increases of the poor are less attributed to government transfers and more due to the pro-poor pattern of growth itself.


A main control task in photovoltaic (PV) power generation is the output voltage stabilization under varying irradiation or load changes. Taking into account the input voltage nonlinear dependence from the input current of a PV system as well as the nonlinear dynamics of a DC/DC boost converter, an appropriate PI controller is proposed. To this end, the passivity-based control analysis as it has been developed for switched power converters is suitably modified for this case. Hence, as it is proven in the paper, this controller is capable to guarantee system stability and convergence to the desired operating point. Extensive simulation results verify the system good performance and the controller efficiency.


This paper investigates the friction compensation of an indirect drive mechanism in the absence of precise end-effector position measurement. Unlike direct drive mechanisms, a typical indirect drive mechanism in the mechanical systems is composed of an actuator (motor side) and an inertia load (load side/end-effector), separated by the gear transmission. Friction in the gear transmission makes the dynamics of the indirect drive mechanism complicated and the precise position control of the end-effector challenging. More specifically, when joint compliance exists in the gear transmission, it is not simple to observe and compensate for the friction. In this paper, a mathematical model and its parameter adaptation method are proposed for the estimation and compensation of the friction in indirect drive mechanisms. For the ultimate objective of tracking the predefined load side reference trajectory, we feed back the estimated friction into the control system by refining the motor side reference trajectory, as well as by adding a feedforward signal to the control input of the motor. Both methods (i.e., the torque compensation and the motor side reference modification) are combined to effectively reject the friction effects in indirect drive mechanisms. The success of the two friction compensation methods depends on their effective integration. For this purpose, a hybrid decision making is adopted to engage or disengage the load side compensation algorithm when the task is repetitive. The proposed method is verified by experimental results on a single-joint indirect drive testbed.


We report the laser irradiation of CH3NH3PbI3 solar cells to generate and control localized PbI2 degradation product. We show that by tuning the laser power and illumination time, we can controllably form a local excess of PbI2. High-resolution advanced multi-mapping techniques are used to highlight the effect of PbI2 on the photophysical and photoelectrical properties in a complete perovskite device. Whereas a thick PbI2 film at the perovskite/hole transport layer interface has a detrimental effect on the photocurrent and photoluminescence, a thin PbI2 film (<20 nm) leads to a significant photocurrent increase, which is ascribed to the passivation of non-radiative defects and reduced charge recombination at the interface. Our findings reveal that laser irradiation is a new approach to understand the effect of PbI2 surface layers and potentially offers a means to passivate trap states and improve PV properties of perovskite devices.


Inspiral signals from binary black holes, in particular those with masses in the range may last for only a few cycles within a detector's most sensitive frequency band. The spectrum of a square-windowed time-domain signal could contain unwanted power that can cause problems in gravitational wave data analysis, particularly when the waveforms are of short duration. There may be leakage of power into frequency bins where no such power is expected, causing an excess of false alarms. We present a method of tapering the time-domain waveforms that significantly reduces unwanted leakage of power, leading to a spectrum that agrees very well with that of a long duration signal. Our tapered window also decreases the false alarms caused by instrumental and environmental transients that are picked up by templates with spurious signal power. The suppression of background is an important goal in noise-dominated searches and can lead to an improvement in the detection efficiency of the search algorithms.


Researchers and strength and conditioning practitioners have had an increased interest in the effects of interlimb asymmetries on different aspects of sport performance over the past couple of years. Interlimb asymmetries have been found to negatively affect performance in key performance indicators (KPI) such as jumping, sprinting, and changing directions, within various sports populations. However, there is no consensus about a meaningful threshold at which asymmetries start to negatively affect KPIs or performance. The aim of this study was to investigate a potentially meaningful threshold for three asymmetry metrics (mean peak velocity [mPV], mean peak power [mPP], mean average power [mAP]) that were extracted from the Bulgarian split squat and found to be significantly related to change of direction performance (via L-drill test) within a sample of collegiate American football players. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to identify asymmetry thresholds for all metrics that discriminated between faster and slower performers in the L-drill. Players with asymmetries over 10.65% (mAP), 14.59% (MPP), and 14.96% (mPV) were identified by ROC curves as more likely to be classified as low performers. These findings may be helpful for practitioners interested in screening athletes for interlimb asymmetries that may negatively affect their change of direction performance.


Nonlinear manifold learning from unorganized data points is a very challenging unsupervised learning and data visualization problem with a great variety of applications. In this paper we present a new algorithm for manifold learning and nonlinear dimension reduction. Based on a set of unorganized data points sampled with noise from the manifold, we represent the local geometry of the manifold using tangent spaces learned by fitting an affine subspace in a neighborhood of each data point. Those tangent spaces are aligned to give the internal global coordinates of the data points with respect to the underlying manifold by way of a partial eigendecomposition of the neighborhood connection matrix. We present a careful error analysis of our algorithm and show that the reconstruction errors are of second-order accuracy. We illustrate our algorithm using curves and surfaces both in
2D/3D and higher dimensional Euclidean spaces, and 64-by-64 pixel face images with various pose and lighting conditions. We also address several theoretical and algorithmic issues for further research and improvements.


This article introduces the Systemic Approach to Technology (SAT) as a framework for society-focused technology. The authors argue that technology should be teleologic, meaning it should be evaluated based on its application rather than being seen as inherently good or bad. They emphasize the importance of understanding the systemic relationships between technology and its context, advocating for a systemic approach to technology design. The paper also discusses the need for technology development to be propositive and focused on addressing societies' greatest challenges. The authors highlight the potential of this approach in guiding a new era of technological development and shaping a positive impact on society.


: Twelve cases of Shigella sonnei infection, with two deaths, occurred at a custodial institution in Donelson, Tennessee, in April and May 1973. Nine of the cases and both deaths were in patients hospitalized at the institution's infirmary. The patients with nosocomial shigellosis were significantly younger and had been hospitalized significantly longer than controls. Epidemiologic investigation implicated staff members in the transmission of illness from one patient to another and identified the previous use of broad-spectrum antibiotics as a significant factor in placing patients at risk of acquiring shigellosis.


This thesis investigates Emily Dickinson's spatial imagination. It examines how her poetic landscape responds to the conditions of modernity in an age of modernization, expansionism, colonialism and science. In particular, I look at how the social and cultural representations of nature and heaven are revised and appropriated in her poems to challenge the hierarchical structure of visual dominance embedded in the public discourses of her time. Although she seldom travelled, her writing oscillates between experiential empiricism, sensationalistic reportage, and ecological imagination to account for the social and geographical transition of a rapidly industrialized and commercialized society. The notion of transcendence, progress and ascension in Enlightenment and Transcendentalist writings, based upon technological advancement and geographical expansion, characterized the social and cultural imagination of her time. Alternatively, an increasingly cosmopolitan New England registers a poetic contact zones as well as a Bakhtinian carnivalesque space, in which colonial relations can be subverted, western constructions of orientalism challenged, and capitalist modernity inflected. Dickinson voiced in her poems her critical reception of such a phantasmagoric site of a modern world. I explore how her cartographic projection registers the conflicting nature of modernity, while resists the process of empowerment pursued by her contemporary writers, presenting a more dynamic poetic vision of the world. In the first chapter, I explore her use of empirical mapping as a poetic approach to challenge the Enlightenment notion of progress and modernity. I look at her poems of social transitions, especially her poems of the Bible, the train, the pastoral, and the graveyard, to show how she addresses the issue of modernization. Her visit to Mount Auburn and the rural landscape movement are explored to show her complex poetic response toward modernity. In the second chapter, I focus on her poems of emigration and exploration to see how she appropriates frontier metaphors and exploratory narratives that dominated the discourses of national and cultural projects of her time. The colonial expeditions and national expansionism of her time are examined to show her revision and deconstruction of quest narratives. In the third chapter, I examine her commercial metaphors in relation to cosmopolitanism. I discuss her metaphors of tourism to see how her poems are based upon the notion of consumption as a poetic mode that is closely related to the violence of global displacement and imperial contestation. Her tourist experiences and reading of travel writings will be examined to show her critical response towards the dominant visual representations of her time. In the last chapter, I explore her poems of visitation and reception to show her elastic spatial imagination through her notion of neighbouring and compound vision. In particular, I discuss her poetic reception and appropriation of the theories of Edward Hitchcock and Thomas De Quincey. I conclude suggesting that her spatial imagination reveals her poetic attempt to account for the conditions of modernity.


Iodothyronine type II 5'-deiodinase (5'D-II) activities were studied in cultures of rat brown adipocytes. In the presence of serum, the adrenergically stimulated 5'D-II activities were very low. In the absence of serum, adenosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate (cAMP) analogues stimulated 5'D-II activity. Thyroxine (T4) inhibited these increases. Norepinephrine slightly increased 5'D-II activity in hypothyroid conditions, but 3,5,3'-triiodothyronine (T3) strongly potentiated the adrenergic stimulation of 5'D-II (20-fold). T3 amplification of the adrenergic stimulation was via beta-adrenergic receptors, specifically mimicked by beta3-agonists, but it was not observed using cAMP analogues. The stimulatory effect of T3 predominated over the inhibitory action of T4, increased with exposure to T3, and required de novo protein synthesis. The half-life of 5'D-II was 30 min, suggesting that stabilization of 5'D-II did not occur. The effect was only observed in differentiated adipocytes. Retinoic acid has similar although smaller effects than T3. In conclusion, the presence of T3 is required and strongly potentiates the noradrenergic stimulation of 5'D-II activity in rat brown adipocytes.


Social workers have been involved in social development for many years, but it is only recently that these ideas have been explicitly applied to social work practice. The result is that a new and distinctive approach to social work practice known as developmental social work has emerged. Developmental social work emphasizes the role of social investment in professional practice. These investments meet the material needs of social work's clients and facilitate their full integration into the social and economic life of the community. Developmental social workers believe that client strengths and capabilities need to be augmented with public resources and services if those served by the profession are to live productive and fulfilling lives. Although developmental social work is inspired by international innovations, particularly in the developing countries, it highly relevant to practice in the United States and other Western nations. In the first book to lay out a clear framework for developmental social work practice, chapters will focus on the traditional fields of social work practice, showing how social investment strategies can be adopted by social workers in their daily practice with populations including families and children, people with mental illness, homeless youth, people with disabilities, the elderly, and those in the correctional system. By facilitating clients' full social and economic participation through a variety of strategies, such as microenterprise or asset-building programs, practitioners can help bring about meaningful changes in clients' lives and throughout their communities. The editors and contributors offer a highly original exposition of developmental social work theory and practice, providing a definitive guide to an emerging and exciting new approach to practice.


Since their inception, Game Studies and its sub-discipline Historical Game Studies have stressed the pedagogical potential of (historical) games for learning. Today, popular off-the-shelf historical digital games such as Assassin's Creed: Origins (2017), Total War: Three Kingdoms (2019), and Red Dead Redemption (2010) have achieved period-faithful and authentic interactive representations of elements of history that possess pedagogical value distinct from written accounts. To substantiate this claim, the authors forward a multimodal account of the varied ways in which historical knowledge is present in both game design and the gameplay experience. Their approach is illustrated with an under-investigated (yet valuable) mode of historical exploration – 'Imaginative History.' Using video and/or screen captures from several sequences of recorded game footage taken from A Plague Tale: Innocence, the authors present a case example from the game's fantastical portrayal of the Black Death plague. The game's value for teaching and learning is examined in relation to its re-mediation and subversion of past pre-modern folklore imaginations and beliefs concerning the Black Death. The authors also account for the relevance of the way games achieve a specific mode of engagement that is experientially based and structured within gameplay.


Neurophysiological and functional imaging studies have demonstrated that frontal regions of the brain are particularly responsive to homeostatic sleep pressure. Previous neuropsychological studies indicate that sleep deprivation causes impairments in prefrontal cortical function. Random number generation (RNG) is thought to provide a sensitive index of executive functions that rely on the prefrontal cortex. The present study tested the hypothesis that sleep deprivation would impair RNG and that caffeine would mitigate this impairment. Healthy young men (n = 21) participated in two 40‐h sleep deprivations 1 week apart. During each sleep deprivation period subjects received either caffeine or placebo according to a randomized, double‐blind cross‐over design, and they completed an oral RNG task at 3‐h intervals. Comparison of test sessions at analogous times of day revealed that sleep deprivation was associated with significant drops in the number of responses, a threefold increase in the percentage of rule violations, 59% greater response redundancy and a 20% increase in stereotypy of adjacent response pairs. Sleep deprivation did not consistently alter counting tendency. Caffeine ameliorated the decrease in the number of responses but did not mitigate other deficits in RNG that arose during sleep deprivation. These findings are consistent with prior reports of diminished vigilance and increased perseveration during extended wakefulness. They support the conclusion that caffeine preserves simple aspects of cognitive performance during sleep deprivation, whereas caffeine may not prevent detrimental effects of sleep deprivation on some complex cognitive functions.


This Article begins with a review of previous efforts to categorize mediation and their shortfalls, including the lack of any widely-shared comprehensive method for describing the various approaches to mediation practice. The Article then offers a new "grid" system for classifying mediator orientations, strategies, and techniques and describes the potential utility of the grid, particularly its effectiveness in selecting mediators.


Detecting Android malware is imperative. Among various detection schemes, permission pair based ones are promising for practical detection. However, conventional schemes cannot simultaneously meet requirements for practical use in terms of efficiency, intelligibility, and stability of detection performance. Although the latest scheme relies on differences of frequent pairs between benign apps and malware, it cannot meet the stability. This is because recent malware tends to require unnecessary permissions to imitate benign apps, which makes using the frequencies ineffective. To meet all the requirements, in this paper, we propose Android malware detection based on a Composition Ratio (CR) of permission pairs. We define the CR as a ratio of a permission pair to all pairs in an app. We focus on the fact that the CR tends to be small in malware because of unnecessary permissions. To obtain features without using the frequencies, we construct databases about the CR. For each app, we calculate similarity scores based on the databases. Finally, eight scores are fed into machine learning (ML) based classifiers as features. By doing this, stable performance can be achieved. Since our features are just eight-dimensional, the proposed scheme takes less training time and is compatible with other ML based schemes. Furthermore, our features can quantitatively offer clear information that helps human to understand detection results. Our scheme is suitable for practical use because all the requirements can be met. By using real datasets, our results show that our scheme can detect malware with up to 97.3% accuracy. Besides, compared with an existing scheme, our scheme can reduce the feature dimensions by about 99% with maintaining comparable accuracy on recent datasets.


Background Deprivation usually encompasses material, social, and health components. It has been shown to be associated with greater risks of developing chronic health conditions and of worse outcome in multimorbidity. The DipCare questionnaire, an instrument developed and validated in Switzerland for use in primary care, identifies patients subject to potentially higher levels of deprivation. Objectives To identifying determinants of the material, social, and health profiles associated with deprivation in a sample of multimorbid, primary care patients, and thus set priorities in screening for deprivation in this population. Design Secondary analysis from a nationwide cross-sectional study in Switzerland. Participants A random sample of 886 adult patients suffering from at least three chronic health conditions. Main measures The outcomes of interest were the patients' levels of deprivation as measured using the DipCare questionnaire. Classification And Regression Tree analysis identified the independent variables that separated the examined population into groups with increasing deprivation scores. Finally, a sensitivity analysis (multivariate regression) confirmed the robustness of our results. Key results Being aged under 64 years old was associated with higher overall, material, and health deprivation; being aged over 77 years old was associated with higher social deprivation. Other variables associated with deprivation were the level of education, marital status, and the presence of depression or chronic pain. Conclusion Specific profiles, such as being younger, were associated with higher levels of overall, material, and health deprivation in multimorbid patients. In contrast, patients over 77 years old reported higher levels of social deprivation. Furthermore, chronic pain and depression added to the score for health deprivation. It is important that GPs consider the possibility of deprivation in these multimorbid patients and are able to identify it, both in order to encourage treatment adherence and limit any forgoing of care for financial reasons.


Abstract While congregations have a spiritual mandate to be open and welcoming, they must be aware of the risks involved in ministry and be prepared to protect children from all types of abuse and neglect. In 2010 and again in 2018, Dove's Nest, a nonprofit organization, conducted an online survey to determine the characteristics, practices, and experiences of Mennonite Church USA congregations with and without written child protection policies. The research questions for this study were: 1. What are the characteristics, practices, and experiences of congregations in regard to child protection, and how have they changed since 2010? 2. What is the relationship between types of congregations and their child protection practices? 3. What information and resources do congregations want to enhance their child protection practices While improvements were made, especially among congregations without child protection policies, much remains to be done. In particular, improvements are needed among small churches in urban settings. Implications for social work practice are included. Other denominations should conduct similar studies and engage non-English-speaking members. Further research is also needed to discover the prevalence of abuse among church members, and the impact of policies and other practices on the prevention of child abuse.


Introduction: Meniere's disease (MD) is a disease of the inner ear that presents itself with repeated episodes of vertigo (96.2%), tinnitus (91.1%), and sensorineural hearing loss (87.7 %). In this article we sought to assess the effects of intratympanic (IT) injections of dexamethasone on definite cases of MD using electrocochleography (ECOG). Materials and Methods: In this hospital-based case series in 36 patients, we measured audiometric values and ECOG in all patients before, 1 month and 6 months after 4-mg/mL IT injections of dexamethasone. Results: Four patients (11%) had improved hearing following the intervention. No difference in pure tone audiometry (PTA) was observed following IT injections (P=0.492), while speech discrimination score (SDS) was significantly improved (P=0.008). There was a significant improvement in vertigo 1 month after IT injections (P<0.001), although this effect did not last for 6 months. No significant change in ECOG was observed between before and after treatment (P=0.052). Conclusion: IT dexamethasone injections can improve vertigo in definite cases of MD, although it seems that the effect is only temporary.


The Palaearctic predator Dicyphus errans (Hemiptera: Miridae) lives omnivorously on various host plants, preying on a wide range of small arthropods, including some new invasive alien species. These characteristics make it a promising biological control agent (BCA) in organic greenhouses. The capacity of a BCA to find, kill and consume prey plays a fundamental role in trophic interactions and population dynamics in a predator-prey system. The functional response of a predator, which describes how the individual rate of prey consumption changes in response to prey density, is a key component to assess its effectiveness in pest control and the stability of its own populations. Therefore, the functional response of D. errans on different prey was studied to improve our knowledge on the potential of this mirid, which is naturally widespread in European organic greenhouses. Laboratory experiments were carried out on three exotic pests: the poinsettia thrips Echinothrips americanus (Thysanoptera: Thripidae), the greenhouse whitefly Trialeurodes vaporariorum (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae), and the tomato borer Tuta absoluta (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), to build functional response curves. Prey was offered at different densities to single females of D. errans for 24 h. The predation behaviour of D. errans on all the prey species was defined by Type II functional response curves. The female could daily prey about 62 adults of E. americanus, 114 pupae of T. vaporariorum, and 236 eggs of T. absoluta. The high voracity of this generalist predator on different prey confirmed its suitability as a BCA. For effective and stable pest control strategies, a prior to pest establishment of D. errans in organic greenhouses may prevent pest escaping in case of high infestation rates, even if the type II functional response reaches saturation at very high prey densities.


New Zealand has one of the highest suicide rates in the world and mental health nurses are the most likely professionals to assess a person presenting with suicidal ideation. Managing a suicidal crisis is acknowledged as being one of the most difficult and frightening challenges facing mental health professionals. This research aimed to have mental health nurses who work in acute mental health settings describe the impact that working with people experiencing suicidal ideation has on their personal and professional lives. This study followed the tenets of fundamental qualitative description as presented by Sandelowski (2000). Five mental health nurses participated in individual semi structured interviews. The data collected under-went systematic thematic analysis and the extracted findings were presented as a straight description. The findings from this study revealed that personal philosophies of care, the work place culture, organisational and professional expectations and their personal concepts about suicide all influenced the experiences of these participants. Mental exhaustion, tension and feelings of isolation and alienation from family and society were universal experiences. Two recommendations have been made based on the insights gained from this research. These are; tertiary institutions should offer post graduate studies on the subject of suicide as it relates to mental health nursing and national guidelines for the provision of supervision to mental health nurses need to be developed.


Background: Physical frailty, the multi-dimensional syndrome characterized by diminished strength, endurance, and reduced physiologic function is increasingly prevalent with advancing age. Frailty leads to increased risk of acute illness, falls, disability, hospitalization, institutionalization and mortality. The negative impact of frailty on the immune system is beyond that of aging-related changes alone. Frailty is also associated with psychosocial aspects of quality of life such as depression and stress. Methods: This three-paper dissertation examined the effects of physical frailty in adults ≥ 50 years of age on both immunological response to influenza vaccine (papers 1 and 2) and psychosocial factors (paper 3). Results: Paper 1: Frailty exists in community-dwelling adults < 65 years of age and the relationship to influenza vaccine immune response in frail younger adults differs from frail adults ≥ 65. In adults 50-64 years of age, frailty appeared to be protective in eliciting beneficial immune system response to influenza vaccine. Paper 2: Among long-term care residents ≥ 65 years, there was a differential effect of frailty on immune response to influenza vaccine by vaccine type. Frail long-term care residents, as compared to non-frail, showed overall greater odds of obtaining influenza vaccine immunogenicity protection outcomes by the high dose vaccine group than those in the standard dose group. Paper 3: Among community-dwelling adults ≥ 50 years, the relationship between quality of life measures and frailty was moderated by spirituality. The effect of quality of life upon frailty varied by the level of spirituality; as spirituality decreased, quality of life became more important. Conclusion: There have been few studies that have specifically measured the influence of physical frailty on immune system response to influenza vaccination. Only one prior study has examined the role spirituality had in moderating the quality of life-frailty relationship. With an increasingly aging population and the costs associated with increased healthcare utilization, it is important to address the immunological and psychosocial aspects of health affected by physical frailty. This dissertation addresses both aspects. Public Health Significance: All three studies are among the first of their kind thereby adding to the literature. Important findings have emerged from this dissertation and steps are given for future research direction.


Millington effect for on-body propagation enhancement is presented in the 60-GHz band. Millington's equations are developed to describe propagation above a flat inhomogeneous surface. This study focuses on mixed paths (human skin-metallic) for on-body scenarios. It is shown that adding metallic paths on the human skin can improve the power link budget between two nodes placed on the body. Two different schemes are studied experimentally to assess the analytical model using a flat phantom with electric properties of human skin and different lengths of metallic inserts. The first scheme considers a metallic plate between the transmitting and receiving antennas, while the second scheme proposes locating the metallic plates under the antennas. It is shown that the second scheme yields a better link budget than the first one for the same length of metal. Moreover, a numerical study is performed to assess the impact of the following different parameters: the location of the metal plate, size of the plate, and the height of the antennas. Excellent agreement between numerical and experimental results has been shown. In the best cases, the presented techniques allow to improve the path loss of 10-20 dB.


e-Learning is having a strong impact on Higher Education. It is reinventing approaches to education and is causing sharp debates among its practitioners about the future direction of learning. Advocates argue that e-learning is a viable option to combat the high cost of higher education; that it extends educational opportunities to a greater number of students; that it trains students for the emerging Knowledge Economy. In fact, the e-learning education market has seen a continuous influx of new players; not only are traditional universities going online, but for-profit universities are emerging, some having a global reach, and most recently MOOCs (massive online open courses) that are offered as online education for free—many from elite universities that were the last to go online. These developments have created debates over assessment and accreditation. Educator Clayton Christensen calls e-learning "the great disrupted" that is transforming the higher education landscape. Yet even with the steady increase of e-learning options, e-learning is still regarded as inferior to traditional forms of learning. Critics regard is as too business and vocationally orientated, unmindful of questions of quality. This paper looks at some of the issues surrounding the controversy of e-learning options and makes some recommendations as to its improvement.


The paper deals with the analysis of the linking between country image and level of economic security. The studies confirmed that ongoing tendency on world competitiveness justified considering direct and indirect dimensions which influence on the country's economic security. The authors generalised the factors which affected the economic security of the country. The finding proved that one of the significant indirect parameters is the country image. The authors analysed and summarised the most appropriate definitions of country brand and image. The authors analysed the frequency of country brand and image in the scientific paper. The paper aimed to identify the scientific clusters on the investigation of economic security and the country's brand. The study used the bibliometric analysis using software VOSviewer, Web of Science and Scopus Tools Analysis. The data of analysis was obtained from the scientific database Scopus and Web of Science for 1991-2019 years. For the analysis, the papers were selected as the criteria as follows: English language; published for 1991-2019 years; contained the keywords brand, image, county and security. The results of the analysis proved that the paper which used the term "country image" is more than "country brand" in Scopus and Web of Science. The findings from the Web of Science and Scopus Tools Analysis confirm the hypothesis on the increasing tendency of publishing activities papers which focused on the analysis of security and country's image. The visualising of co-authorship by country allowed identifying that the 50% papers published by the scientists with the American, Ukrainian, Canadian, Spanish and Russian affiliations. The VOSviewer results allowed identifying two significant scientific clusters as follows: country image and economic security. Besides, between the two most significant cluster were as mediators: governance, nation branding, developing countries and environment. Besides, analysing the new publication for 2015-2019 years, the most cited papers on economic security connected with analysis not only quantitively economic parameters but also with political, sustainable development and country's image. The bibliometric analysis formed the background for checking the casual relationship between image and economic security of the country.

Keywords
bibliometric analysis, brand, brand management, country brand, VOSviewer.


Henry VIII (1491 - 1547) acquired Oatlands Manor in 1537. A year before, on 30th May 1536, Henry had married Jane Seymour. Two months after they married, the king's illegitimate son by his mistress Elizabeth Blount, Henry Fitzroy, duke of Richmond, died at the age of 17. Jane Seymour, who was never crowned queen, died on 24th October 1537, shortly after giving birth to Henry's only legitimate son, Edward. Henry buried Jane in the tomb he had prepared for himself in St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, making Jane the only of his six wives to be buried with him. For over two years after her death Henry remained single, perhaps genuinely grief-stricken for Jane Seymour. Therefore, Henry's motives for acquiring Oatlands Manor were twofold: After Jane's death, he threw himself into his second favourite manly pursuit, hunting, and began creating a vast chase called 'The Honour of Hampton Court'. Oatlands Manor was ideally placed to be a luxurious lodge at one end of the chase, with Hampton Court in the middle, and Nonsuch Palace at the other end. However, a second and more pressing domestic reason soon emerged for developing Oatlands when Henry needed a new palace for his next queen. Following his marriage to Anne Boleyn (the one before Jane) the split from Papal authority in Rome, and the Catholic powers of France and Spain, had left England isolated and vulnerable. On 6th January 1540, Henry married Anne of Cleves, whose brother the Duke of Cleves was seen as an important ally in the event that France and the Holy Roman Empire decided to move against England. Henry wanted a separate palace to keep the new queen's German entourage away from the political intrigues of Hampton Court, and keep the prying eyes of the queen's spies from his courtly affairs and dalliances. Despite Hans Holbein's flattering portrait of her, Henry failed to find Anne attractive in the flesh, and quickly moved on to the fifteen year-old 'bon-air and buxom' Kathryn Howard. Nevertheless, Oatlands was transformed into a palace quite literally fit for a queen. Henry married Kathryn in the chapel at Oatlands on 28th July 1540. So, Oatlands, and thereby Elmbridge, was fundamentally shaped, like all of English society, by the great division between Protestant and Catholic begun by (Kathryn's cousin, and Henry's second wife) Anne Boleyn. Despite speaking fluent French, and having great taste in French clothes, poetry, music, and courtly lovemaking, Anne almost certainly introduced to Henry to ideas of religious reform.


The objective of this US study was to assess the association of toenail nicotine level as a novel biomarker with lung cancer risk independent of reported smoking history. A nested case-control study of 210 male lung cancer cases and 630 matched controls aged 40-75 years participating in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study was conducted. Toenail samples collected in 1987 were analyzed for nicotine levels, and incident lung cancer cases were diagnosed between 1988 and 2000. Mean toenail nicotine level among cases was 0.95 ng/mg compared with 0.25 ng/mg among controls (P < 0.0001). In univariate analyses, the relative risk of lung cancer for the highest versus lowest quintiles of toenail nicotine level was 10.50 (95% confidence interval: 5.61, 19.64; P for trend < 0.0001). When the authors adjusted for pack-years from reported smoking history in multivariate analyses, the relative risk for toenail nicotine levels in the highest quintile was still significant in predicting lung cancer risk: 3.57 (95% confidence interval: 1.73, 7.37; P for trend < 0.0001). In conclusion, the toenail nicotine biomarker was found to be a strong predictor of lung cancer independent of smoking history, suggesting that the adverse effects of cigarette smoke may be underestimated in studies based on smoking history only.


Healthcare associated infections are the most commonly reported complications affecting patients in the global healthcare environment. The rate is increasing. A substantial proportion is attributable to the suboptimal infection prevention and control practice of healthcare workers. This paper discusses the current status of healthcare associated infections, the strategies used to date to improve suboptimal practice, and applies the social psychology paradigm to provide insight into resistance to changing suboptimal practice.


A simple and effective technique for designing transformer-type Marchand baluns is presented in this paper. The coupled-line sections required in a Marchand balun design are realized using planar transformers with a scalable model. The proposed design technique enables the prediction and optimization of Marchand balun performance over a wide range of layout and process parameters. To demonstrate the optimization process, Marchand baluns are designed for implementation using silicon and glass integrated passive device (IPD) technologies. Finally, experimental verification shows very good agreement between the modeled and measured results, thereby validating the IPD design optimization.


We synthesize the findings from several recent papers on South Africa's very high income inequality. These papers use new datasets - including income tax data - and new empirical methods to investigate the drivers of household income and individual earnings inequality in South Africa. Increased returns to experience and an increased rate of return to tertiary qualifications are key drivers of a widening earnings distribution. Tax data merged with survey data show that those at the top of the earnings and income distributions have done well in both absolute and relative terms, thus increasing inequality. Direct taxes and social grants are progressive, indirect taxes are less progressive, and tax exemptions for health insurance and pension fund contributions are regressive. A significant proportion of the current middle class are vulnerable to falling into poverty. Overall, South Africa has not made progress in reducing its extreme inequality over the last decade.


To answer the question of when are assets complementary, we investigate specific resource combinations along the value chain, focusing on two mechanisms that are central to combining resources for innovation in the pharmaceutical industry: recruitment and retention of star scientists, and 2) engagement in strategic alliances. We propose that resource combinations that focus on the same parts of the value chain are substitutes due to knowledge redundancies. Conversely, we hypothesize that resource combinations that link different parts of the value chain are complements due to integration of nonredundant knowledge. To test these hypotheses, we empirically track the innovative performance of 108 global pharmaceutical firms over three decades (1974–2003). Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Although social work has traditionally been concerned with economically disadvantaged populations, separation of income maintenance and public social services functions in the 1970s resulted in a decrease in social work influence and involvement in public assistance programs. In an effort to incorporate certain social work principles and practices into the public assistance function, a school of social work and a state agency collaborated to develop a program to train Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) and food stamp eligibility workers in policy and casework skills. The purpose of this article is to present findings of the evaluation of this innovative program. In addition to assessing the efficacy of training, this study also surveyed caseworkers' and supervcsors' attitudes about the use of certain interpersonal skills within the context of the eligibility determination interview. Data on the extent of policy learning and information on trainees' final course grades was also collected. Results indicate that the programs are effective in teaching both policy and casework skills. Caseworkers and supervisors have positive attitudes about the relevance of casework skills for the public assistance interview. Barriers to the use of casework skills are discussed, along with implications of the findings for future research and training programs.


Reputation systems are meta systems that record, aggregate and distribute information about the past behaviour of principals in an application. Typically, these applications are large-scale open distributed systems where principals are virtually anonymous, and (a priori) have no knowledge about the trustworthiness of each other. Reputation systems serve two primary purposes: helping principals decide whom to trust, and providing an incentive for principals to well-behave. A logical policy-based framework for reputation systems is presented. In the framework, principals specify policies which state precise requirements on the past behaviour of other principals that must be fulfilled in order for interaction to take place. The framework consists of a formal model of behaviour, based on event structures; a declarative logical language for specifying properties of past behaviour; and efficient dynamic algorithms for checking whether a particular behaviour satisfies a property from the language. It is shown how the framework can be extended in several ways, most notably to encompass parameterized events and quantification over parameters. In an extended application, it is illustrated how the framework can be applied for dynamic history-based access control for safe execution of unknown and untrusted programs.


Considering the current expansion of distance education (DE), writing for DE demands accurate and specific competences so it is crucial to search for more consistent criteria for validating this kind of material. In this paper, we try to place this production in the DE debate as we present the traits that distinguish self-instructional material as an emerging genre. We start off analyzing the proposals of English Open University and the Spanish UNED in order to scrutinize, detail and expand the macro- and micro-structural characteristics of the self-instructional genre, considering the European model. Furthermore, we elucidate what might cause this genre specification due to the need to incorporate relevant features of traditional learning to didactically-aimed academic writing. Finally, we present some critical points in which writing for DE is articulated to the available technological resources, focusing on the composition of professional teams who work with DE.


MgB2 hollow wires have been produced with a new technique which uses a conventional wire manufacturing process but is applied to composite billets containing the elemental B and Mg precursors in an appropriate shape. The technique has been applied to the manufacture of both monofilamentary and multifilamentary wires of several tens of metres in length. The superconducting transport properties of the MgB2 hollow wires have been measured in a magnetic field and in the temperature range from 4.2 to 30 K. Promising results are obtained, which indicate the possibility of the application of these wires as superconductors in the temperature range of 15–30 K and at medium-high values of magnetic field.


In the earliest studies on experimental hypertension due to renal ischemia 1 it was shown that constriction of the main artery of only one kidney in a dog or a monkey is sufficient to cause elevation of the blood pressure. It was also shown in these and in later studies 2 that this elevation does not usually persist indefinitely unless the other kidney is removed or unless the main artery of the other kidney is also constricted. In most dogs with unilateral renal ischemia the blood pressure returns to the preoperative level in six weeks or less, but in some the hypertension may persist at a high level for many months. The return of the blood pressure to normal obviously may be due ( a ) to the development of considerable accessory circulation to the ischemic kidney or ( b ) to the compensating, neutralizing or inhibiting effect of the contralateral normal kidney. The


This article explores the conditions under which revolutionary mass uprisings are likely to occur. We offer a probabilistic explanation of the social and political conditions that make people rise against autocrats. The article presents a medium-n dataset of 79 revolutionary mass uprisings in 165 autocracies since 1945. Since revolutions are rare events, a combination of factors must come together to trigger them. Drawing on the extant literature on revolutionary change, we find initial support for a range of discrete factors. Our findings suggest that four such factors are particularly powerful explanations of revolutionary mass uprisings—and a combination of those factors will go a long way in predicting revolutionary change: a history of protracted low-level popular contention; the presence of personalist regimes; long tenure of incumbents in office; and the showroom effect of uprisings in the temporal and spatial vicinity of states. In a broader theoretical perspective, these findings give rise to a breaking-point explanation of revolutionary situations, emphasizing that mass uprisings build up over time, whereas structuralist theories or grievance-based approaches fare less well in predicting revolutionary ruptures.


Background. Exercise interventions can enhance mobility after stroke as well as prevent falls in elderly persons. Objective. Investigate whether an exercise intervention can enhance mobility, prevent falls, and increase physical activity among community-dwelling people after stroke. Method. A randomized trial with blinding of physical outcome assessment was conducted through local stroke clubs. Both groups, on average 5.9 years poststroke, received exercise classes, advice, and a home program for 12 months. The experimental group (EG) program (n = 76) aimed to improve walking, prevent falls and increase physical activity. The control group (CG) program (n = 75) aimed to improve upper-limb and cognitive functions. The primary outcomes were walking capacity, walking speed measured before and after the intervention, and fall rates monitored monthly. Results. At 12 months, the EG walked 34 m further in 6 minutes (95% confidence interval [CI] = 19-50; P < .001) and 0.07 m/s faster over 10 m (95% CI = 0.01-0.14; P = .03) than the CG. The EG had 129 falls, and the CG had 133. There were no differences in proportion of fallers (relative risk = 1.22; 95% CI = 0.91-1.62; P = .19) or the rate of falls between groups (incidence rate ratio = 0.96; 95% CI = 0.59-1.51; P = .88). Conclusion. The experimental intervention delivered through stroke clubs enhanced aspects of mobility but had no effect on falls.


What does it mean to claim of law that it is a normative discipline? Can the answer be so simple that one need merely refer to law's normative object of study and the conclusions that the legal participant must allegedly draw from this? What, in any case, is a 'normative discipline'? The essay attempts to address these questions by analysing Hans Kelsen's 'normological' theory of law through his work on sovereignty and especially by focusing on the normative character of Kelsen's epistemological claims regarding law. A theoretical critique of Kelsen is offered through Edmund Husserl's phenomenological account of logic as a normative dis-


We present two major information examination strategies for diagnosing the reasons for system disappointments and for identifying system disappointments early. Syslogs contain log information created by the framework. We dissected syslogs what's more, prevailing with regards to distinguishing the reason for a system disappointment via consequently learning more than 100 million logs without requiring any past learning of log information. Investigation of the information of an interpersonal interaction benefit (in particular, Twitter) empowered us to recognize conceivable system disappointments by extricating system disappointment related tweets, which represent under 1% of all tweets, continuously and with high exactness.


This final volume of Wayne G. Broehl, Jr.'s Cargill trilogy brings the history of this large privately held company up to the present day, offering a unique and informative behind-the-scenes look at one of the world's premier agribusiness corporations. The story picks up in 1977 as Whitney MacMillan begins his stewardship of the company and as Cargill begins to work its way through issues of corporate governance, business restructuring, and generational transitions within the owning families. MacMillan leads the company through great growth, diversification, and globalization. Broehl also discusses the changes at Cargill under two non-family CEOs, Ernest Micek and Warren Staley. Together, they transform the organization from a commodity-oriented entity to a customer-focused one.


Chronic anal fissure is an extremely common problem of the anorectum. It is often confused with symptomatic hemorrhoids and is frequently missed by the examining physician. Symptoms are most commonly pain and bleeding after defecation. A simple office procedure involving partial lateral internal sphincterotomy with or without excision of a sentinel tag has been used over the past five years with extremely satisfactory results. This procedure was used upon 86 patients. Anatomic and symptomatic relief was obtained in 96.4 per cent of the patients. Due to diagnostic related groups and attempts at cutting medical costs by avoiding hospitalization, sphincterotomy performed as an office procedure is the method of choice for treating chronic anal fissures unresponsive to medical management. Hospitalization is rarely required.


Purpose. The high prevalence of myopia in Chinese children living in urban East Asian countries such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China has been well documented. However, it is not clear whether the prevalence of myopia would be similarly high for this group of children if they were living in a Western country. This study aims to determine the prevalence and progression of myopia in ethnic Chinese children living in Canada. Methods. Right eye refraction data of Chinese-Canadian children aged 6 to 12 years were collated from the 2003 clinical records of an optometric practice in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Myopia was defined as a spherical equivalent refraction (SER) equal or less than −0.50 D. The prevalence of myopia and refractive error distribution in children of different ages and the magnitude of refractive error shifts over the preceding 8 years were determined. Data were adjusted for potential biases in the clinic sample. A questionnaire was administered to 300 Chinese and 300 Caucasian children randomly selected from the clinic records to study lifestyle issues that may impact on myopia development. Results. Optometric records of 1468 children were analyzed (729 boys and 739 girls). The clinic bias adjusted prevalence of myopia increased from 22.4% at age 6 to 64.1% at age 12 and concurrently the portion of the children that were emmetropic (refraction between −0.25 and +0.75 D) decreased (68.6% at 6 years to 27.2% at 12 years). The highest incidence of myopia for both girls (∼35%) and boys (∼25%) occurred at 9 and 10 years of age. The average annual refractive shift for all children was −0.52 ± 0.42 D and −0.90 ± 0.40 D for just myopic children. The questionnaire revealed that these Chinese-Canadian children spent a greater amount of time performing near work and less time outdoors than did Caucasian-Canadian children. Conclusions. Ethnic Chinese children living in Canada develop myopia comparable in prevalence and magnitude to those living in urban East Asian countries. Recent migration of the children and their families to Canada does not appear to lower their myopia risk.


Air traffic controllers' (ATCs) work process can be presented as uninterrupted set of decisions. These decisions occur and are implemented in both clear and stealth forms being influenced a lot. Determined and stochastic risks are especially important in this process. Human factor (HF) effect on flight safety is proven to be better considered through operators' attitudes toward unsafe acts and conditions. This seamlessly integrates in ICAO safety paradigm. Air traffic controllers' preferences system (PS) is discussed in regard to typical professional mistakes set. Using paired comparison, normative part of summary hazard and differentiating part of summary hazard, the preferences system of air traffic controllers is received. For the first time, mistakes pair summary hazard is determined on the unique qualimetric 100-point scale. Systems pair has high correlation level according to Spearman coefficient (R = 0.9727). Proposed Kendall rank coefficient outweighs the traditional one twice (Wtraditional = 0.2722, Wproposed = 0.55237). The significance level for all cases is equal to 1%. Multistep procedure of marginal opinions separation is implemented. It increased Kendall rank coefficient value up to Wproposed = 0.7. Survey procedure influenced positively on the ability of mistakes memorization, recognition, and avoidance during simulation training.


PURPOSE
To present the acceptance and the commissioning, to define the reference dose, and to prepare the reference data for a quality assessment (QA) program of an ultra-high dose rate (UHDR) electron device in order to validate it for pre-clinical animal FLASH radiotherapy (FLASH RT) experiments and for FLASH RT clinical human protocols.

METHODS
The Mobetron® device was evaluated with electron beams of 9 MeV in conventional (CONV) mode and of 6 MeV and 9 MeV in UHDR mode (nominal energy). The acceptance was performed according to the acceptance protocol of the company. The commissioning consisted of determining the short- and long-term stability of the device, the measurement of percent depth dose curves (PDDs) and profiles at two different positions (with two different dose per pulse regimen) and for different collimator sizes, and the evaluation of the variability of these parameters when changing the pulse width and pulse repetition frequency. Measurements were performed using a redundant and validated dosimetric strategy with alanine and radiochromic films, as well as Advanced Markus ionization chamber for some measurements.

RESULTS
The acceptance tests were all within the tolerances of the company's acceptance protocol. The linearity with pulse width was within 1.5% in all cases. The pulse repetition frequency (PRF) did not affect the delivered dose more than 2% in all cases but 90 Hz, for which the larger difference was 3.8%. The reference dosimetry showed a good agreement within the alanine and films with variations of 2.2% or less. The short-term (resp. long-term) stability less than 1.0% (resp. 1.8%) and were the same in both the CONV and UHDR modes. PDDs, profiles, and reference dosimetry were measured at two positions, providing data for two specific dose rates (about 9 Gy/pulse and 3 Gy/pulse). Maximal beam size was 4cm and 6cm at 90% isodose in the two positions tested. There was no difference between CONV and UHDR mode in the beam characteristics tested.

CONCLUSIONS
The device is commissioned for FLASH RT preclinical biological experiments as well as FLASH RT clinical human protocols.


We experimentally investigate the relaxation of spatially confined microcavity polaritons. We measure the time- and energy-resolved photoluminescence under resonant excitation and in the low-density regime. In this way, we have access to the time evolution of the energy distribution of the polariton population. We show that, when one confined level is resonantly excited, after an initial transient, the population of the confined levels is thermally distributed. The reported efficiency of the relaxation process strongly depends on the confinement size. These experimental findings are well reproduced by a theoretical model accounting for the coupling between the confined states and a bath of acoustic phonons. Our results thus suggest that the phonon-mediated relaxation mechanisms are enhanced in the presence of spatial confinement.


Pot marigold ( Calendula officinalis L.) is the second most commonly-sold medicinal herb in Colombia. The study was performed in Tunja, Colombia, in which chlorophyll and carotenoid content were evaluated in pot marigold grown under low and high light conditions (35% and 100% of full daylight). Chlorophyll fluorescence parameters and electron transport rate were also evaluated. Compared to full sun plants, shaded plants had a higher ratio of chlorophyll a to chlorophyll b, and a lower ratio of carotenoids to chlorophyll. Values for maximum fluorescence ( Fm ), variable fluorescence ( Fv ), and maximum quantum efficiency of photosystem II (the ratio Fv/Fm ) increased in shaded plants, while electron transport rate was reduced. These results suggest that pot marigold plants are very sensitive to low-light conditions.


Organisations have been disclosing environmental and social information through different tools, including their websites. However, the type of environmental and social information that organisations disclose online, and what are the characteristics of those organisations is still not fully understood. This research aims to (a) identify which environmental and social information organisations disclose online; and (ii) explore drivers of the specific information disclosed. We collected data on sustainability disclosures from 2008 Italian organisations. Results show that overall the amount of environmental and social information disclosed online is low. However, organisational characteristics explain different contents of disclosure. Bigger organisations (in terms of revenues and number of employees), and with environmental and social certifications in place tend to disclose more environmental and social information. Also, consumer goods' organisations disclose mostly information related to the supply chain; whilst resource-intensive industries disclose mostly information on corporate social responsibility. This research shows that overall there is still a reserved attitude towards disclosing environmental and social information in Italian organisations, providing little information to stakeholders about environmental and social policies, strategies and practices. This study provides researchers and practitioners information on the content of sustainability information disclosed and possible drivers for their disclosure; this supports their understanding of the conditions where voluntary sustainability disclosure is more expected.


In this talk I critically review the hints in favour of neutrino mass states at the eV scale. In particular I discuss the status of the sterile neutrino explanations of the reactor and LSND anomalies, focusing on recent developments. While the situation of the reactor anomaly remains ambiguous and explanation of LSND in terms of oscillations becomes exceedingly disfavoured by the non-observation of muon neutrino disappearance.