Two-year, play-based, full-day kindergarten (FDK) has been shown to have long-term academic and self-regulation benefits for young children. This article addresses the question of whether FDK has particular benefits for children who may be at risk for placement in special education. Participants included 592 kindergarten children in their second year of kindergarten, with an average age of 5 years, 9 months. Parent reports indicated that 56% of the children spoke a language other than English at home. The research design exploited a natural experiment that occurred due to the phasing-in of FDK, creating two groups of children who attended either FDK or half-day kindergarten (HDK). Kindergarten children's outcomes in vocabulary, reading, writing, mathematics, and self-regulation were used to create two achievement groups based on data cut-points: below average and average to above average. Following a series of binary logistic regression analyses, results showed that HDK children were significantly more likely than FDK children to be in the below average group in the areas of reading, vocabulary, and self-regulation. In fact, results for self-regulation showed that HDK children were three times more likely to fall into the below average group. These results are consistent with our larger study on the longitudinal impact of FDK to Grade 3. The article discusses the importance of play-based learning in fostering self-regulation and providing opportunities for small- group learning in the FDK program. For children who struggle academically, full-day learning through Abstract Two-year, play-based, full-day kindergarten (FDK) has been shown to have long-term academic and self-regulation benefits for young children. This article addresses the question of whether FDK has particular benefits for children who may be at risk for placement in special education. Participants included 592 kindergarten children in their second year of kindergarten, with an average age of 5 years, 9 months. Parent reports indicated that 56% of the children spoke a language other than English at home. The research design exploited a natural experiment that occurred due to the phasing-in of FDK, creating two groups of children who attended either FDK or half-day kindergarten (HDK). Kindergarten children's outcomes in vocabulary, reading, writing, mathematics, and self-regulation were used to create two achievement groups based on data cut-points: below average and average to above average. Following a series of binary logistic regression analyses, results showed that HDK children were significantly more likely than FDK children to be in the below average group in the areas of reading, vocabulary, and self-regulation. In fact, results for self-regulation showed that HDK children were three times more likely to fall into the below average group. These results are consistent with our larger study on the longitudinal impact of FDK to Grade 3. The article discusses the importance of play-based learning in fostering self-regulation and providing opportunities for small-group learning in the FDK program. For children who struggle academically, full-day learning through play with the guidance of an educator team may present additional benefits.


Public opinion surveys are a fundamental tool to measure support for women's political rights. This article focuses on perceptions of women's suitability for leadership. To what extent do influential cross-country surveys that include such items suffer from measurement errors stemming from gender of interviewer effects? Building on the literature on social desirability, we expect that respondents are more likely to express preference for men's suitability as political leaders with male interviewers and more likely to state support for women's leadership when interviewed by a woman. We hypothesize that these processes are conditioned by having one's spouse present, by age differences between respondents and interviewers, as well as by respondents' levels of education. Analyzing Afrobarometer data, we generally find support for our claims. In addi-tion, it seems that men are slightly more affected by such effects than women are. These gender of interviewer effects persist when analyzing alternative survey rounds and are insensitive to various fixed effects specifications and robustness tests. For the analysis of survey data, we suggest that researchers using gender-related items should control for gender of interviewer effects. We propose that comparative survey programs pay even more attention to interviewer characteristics and the interview situation in their protocols.


SYNOPSIS Objective . Using the Early Head Start dataset, this study examined change over time in European American, African American, and Mexican American mothers' directiveness during play with their young children and associations between these patterns and their children's engagement with and negativity toward them. The influences of maternal positive and negative regard were also investigated. Design . Mother–child dyads (938 European American, 849 African American, and 465 Mexican American) participated in semistructured play sessions when children were 1, 2, 3, and 5 years old. Videotapes were coded for mothers' directiveness, positive regard, and negative regard and for children's engagement with and negativity toward their mothers. Results . All three groups declined in directiveness over time, but varied in initial levels and in rates and patterns of decline. European American mothers had the lowest directiveness ratings and African American mothers had the highest; Mexican American mothers showed the steepest declines after the first observation. Directiveness had generally negative implications for children's behavior toward their mothers, although Mexican American children were least affected. In all three groups, maternal positive regard weakened, while maternal negative regard strengthened, inverse relations between directiveness and child engagement. Conclusions . Although there are ethnic differences in levels of directiveness during play with 1- to 5-year-olds, there are also across-group commonalities in the negative implications of high directiveness, especially in the contexts of low positive and high negative maternal regard.


Keyhole mode Tungsten Inert Gas (K-TIG) welding is a novel advanced deep penetration welding technology which provides an alternative to high power density welding in terms of achieving keyhole mode welding. In order to facilitate welding procedure optimisation in this newly developed welding technology, the relationship among welding parameters, weld formation and tensile properties during the K-TIG welding was investigated in detail. Results show that except for travel speed, the heat input level also plays an important role in forming undercut defect by changing the plasma jet trajectory inside keyhole channel, leading to the formation of hump in the weld centre and exacerbation of undercut formation. Both undercut defect and root side fusion boundary can act as a stress concentration point, which affects the fracture mode and tensile properties considerably. The research results provide a practical guidance of process parameter optimisation and quality assurance for the K-TIG welding process.


Mathematical programming models have received renewed interest in the area of agricultural and agri-environmental policy analysis. Their ability to explicitly represent physical constraints makes them specifically suited for connecting economic and bio-physical aspects of agricultural systems. Furthermore, they allow for a direct representation of many current agricultural policy measures related to production activity levels. The introduction of Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) addressed problems with plausibility of simulated behaviour and lack of empirical validation of these models. This paper reviews the development of PMP in its various forms and takes a look at approaches beyond PMP contributing to the quest for empirically specified programming models.


BACKGROUND
Data on 13 years of outpatient cephalosporin use were collected from 33 European countries within the European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption (ESAC) project, funded by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), and analysed in detail.

METHODS
For the period 1997-2009, data on outpatient use of systemic cephalosporins aggregated at the level of the active substance were collected using the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC)/defined daily dose (DDD) method (WHO, version 2011) and expressed in DDD per 1000 inhabitants per day (DID). For detailed analysis of trends over time, seasonal variation and composition of outpatient cephalosporin use in 33 European countries, we distinguished between first-generation (J01DB), second-generation (J01DC), third-generation (J01DD) and fourth-generation (J01DE) cephalosporins.

RESULTS
Total outpatient cephalosporin use in 2009 varied from 8.7 DID in Greece to 0.03 DID in Denmark. In general, use was higher in Southern and Eastern European countries than in Northern European countries. Total outpatient cephalosporin use increased over time by 0.364 (SD 0.473) DID between 1997 and 2009. Cephalosporin use increased for half of the countries. Low-consuming Northern European countries and the UK further decreased their use. Second-generation cephalosporins increased by >20% in seven countries (mainly cefuroxime), coinciding with a decrease in first-generation cephalosporins. Substantial parenteral use of third-generation substances (mainly ceftriaxone) was observed in France, Italy and the Russian Federation.

CONCLUSIONS
Since 1997, the use of the older (narrow-spectrum) cephalosporins decreased in favour of the newer (i.e. broad-spectrum) cephalosporins in most countries. Extreme variations between European countries in cephalosporin use over time suggest that they are to a large extent inappropriately used.


Purpose/Objectives To investigate pN1 prostate cancer (PCa) patients treated surgically without immediate adjuvant treatment. Materials and Methods We analyzed the database of 2316 patients at our institution who underwent robot-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP)/radical prostatectomy (RP) between July 2005 and November 2012. 87 patients with pN1 PCa and received no neoadjuvant and immediate adjuvant therapy were included in the study. Included pN1 PCa patients were followed up for median of 60 months. Biochemical recurrence (BCR)-free survival, metastasis-free survival (MFS), cancer specific survival (CSS), and overall survival (OS) rates were determined by using Kaplan-Meier analysis. Cox regression analysis was performed to investigate the impact of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level, Gleason score, extraprostatic extension, seminal vesicle invasion, perineural invasion, lymphovascular invasion, positive surgical margin, tumor volume, early post-operative PSA(6 weeks), PSA nadir, lymph node yield, and number of pathologically positive lymph nodes on survival. Results The 5-year OS rate of patients was 86.1%, while the CSS rate was 89.6%. The metastasis-free and BCR-free survival rates were 71% and 19.1%, respectively, and each was significantly correlated with the number of positive lymph nodes on log rank tests (p = 0.004 and p = 0.039, respectively). The presence of 2 or more pathologically positive LNs (HR:2.20; 95% CI 1.30–3.72; p = 0.003) and a Gleason score ≥8 (HR: 2.40;95% CI: 1.32–4.38; p = 0.04) were significant negative predictors of BCR free survival on multivariable regression analysis. Furthermore, the presence of 2 or more positive lymph nodes (HR: 1.06; 95% CI 1.01–1.11; p = 0.029) were significant negative predictors of metastasis-free survival on multivariable regression analysis. Additionally, in the patients who had no BCR without adjuvant treatment 9 patients out of 10 (90%) had single positive LN and 5 patients out of 10 (50%) had Gleason score 7. Therefore, single positive LN, and Gleason scores ≤7 have significantly low risk of disease progression. Conclusions pN1 PCa patients have heterogenous clinical courses. Patients with single positive LN, and Gleason scores ≤7 have low risk of recurrence. Close observation with delayed adjuvant hormone therapy can be considered in these patients.


Background: Human bites are potentially dangerous wounds constituting an important cause of morbidity. Infections caused by human bites are reported to be more severe than infections caused by animal bites.  The aim of this article is to present two patients with soft tissue infections secondary to human bites, which are rare in the literature. Case presentation: The first patient is a 62-year old female whose 4 th digit of her left hand was bitten by her disabled child and became necrotic. The second patient is a 35-year old female patient whose 2 nd digit in her left hand was bitten by her husband five days ago. Both patients had undergone debridement for the necrotic infections in the area of the lesion and prescribed the appropriate antibiotherapy. Rest, elevation and immobilization were maintained. The reconstruction and physiotherapy gave satisfactory results. Conclusion: Human bite wounds have long had a bad reputation for severe infection and frequent complication. For this reason, prophylactic antibiotic treatment should be given after human bite to prevent infection. If the infection signs and symptoms develop, rapid diagnosis, appropriate antibiotic and surgical therapy should be applied instantly.


Living kidney donation is a very complex psychological experience for donor candidates as well as the recipients improving self-esteem and donor-recipient relationships on one hand while may add on to emotional stresses increasing psychic vulnerability and predisposition to the development of mental disorder. The present study aimed to look into psychosocial outcome among donor characteristics and quantification of the psychological impact of kidney donation.

 This was a retrospective random study conducted among 506 renal transplant donors from 2010 till 2018 at Department of nephrology and transplantation at a tertiary care centre in northern part of India.

 Majority of donors were females ie mothers (38.1%) and wife (35.5%). A total of 18.6% developed one or more co morbid illness following transplantation. Most of the donors ( 98.9%) were motivated by affection and love for the recipient and out of them (89.1%) felt that there were the first choice among the available donors. A majority of them (94.5%) felt that donation had positively affected their relationship and were respected. These donors showed lesser degree of both depressive and anxiety (HAD score 3.5) and depressive score (BDI II 4.8). Donation had upgraded the stature of the donor in the family and recipient which proved statically significant predictor on donor related outcome. Donors well being was dependant on recepients wellbeing and 20% of the donors felt or were made to feel the guilt of the graft failure or a poor outcome.

 The study showed a positive acknowledgement for the donors from the recipients and society thus giving a meaning to life Need of the hours is greater post donation monitoring as well as due recognition among donors which can improve long term donor outcomes.


This paper evaluates asymmetric cluster chip multiprocessor (ACCMP) architectures as a mechanism to achieve the highest performance for a given power budget. ACCMPs execute serial phases of multithreaded programs on large high-performance cores whereas parallel phases are executed on a mix of large and many small simple cores. Theoretical analysis reveals a performance upper bound for symmetric multiprocessors, which is surpassed by asymmetric configurations at certain power ranges. Our emulations show that asymmetric multiprocessors can reduce power consumption by more than two thirds with similar performance compared to symmetric multiprocessors


Studies of gender and politics have typically been studies of women and politics. In contrast, this paper places men at the centre of its inquiry by drawing on interviews with 15 current federal male politicians. Of concern is exploring the ways in which men conceptualise the question of gender equity in the Australian parliament. Three frameworks are identified in the men's narratives. These are that the parliament is a masculinised space but that this is unavoidable; that the parliament is now feminised and women are advantaged; and that the parliament is gender neutral and gender is irrelevant. It is argued that collectively these framing devices operate to mask the many constraints which exist to marginalise women from political participation and undermine attempts to address women's political disadvantage as political participants. The paper concludes by highlighting the significance of the paper beyond the Australian context and calling for further research which names and critiques political men and their discourses on gender and parliamentary practices and processes.


In the United States as in other countries, political and economic divisions cut along geographic and demographic lines. Richer people are more likely to vote for Republican candidates while poorer voters lean Democratic; this is consistent with the positions of the two parties on economic issues. At the same time, richer states on the coasts are bastions of the Democrats, while most of the generally lower-income areas in the middle of the country strongly support Republicans. During a research project lasting several years, we reconciled these patterns by fitting a series of multilevel models to perform inference on geographic and demographic subsets of the population. We were using national survey data with relatively small samples in some states, ethnic groups and income categories; this motivated the use of Bayesian inference to partially pool between fitted models and local data. Previous, non-Bayesian analyses of income and voting had failed to connect individual and state-level patterns. Now that our analysis has been done, we believe it could be replicated using non-Bayesian methods, but Bayesian inference helped us crack the problem by directly handling the uncertainty that is inherent in working with sparse data.


During avian vocal learning, birds memorize conspecific song patterns and then use auditory feedback to match their vocal output to this acquired template. Some models of song learning posit that during tutoring, conspecific visual, social and/or auditory cues activate neuromodulatory systems that encourage acquisition of the tutor's song and attach incentive value to that specific acoustic pattern. This hypothesis predicts that stimuli experienced during social tutoring activate cell populations capable of signaling reward. Using immunocytochemistry for the protein product of the immediate early gene c‐Fos, we found that brief exposure of juvenile male zebra finches to a live familiar male tutor increased the density of Fos+ cells within two brain regions implicated in reward processing: the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc). This activation of Fos appears to involve both dopaminergic and non‐dopaminergic VTA/SNc neurons. Intriguingly, a familiar tutor was more effective than a novel tutor in stimulating Fos expression within these regions. In the periaqueductal gray, a dopamine‐enriched cell population that has been implicated in emotional processing, Fos labeling also was increased after tutoring, with a familiar tutor again being more effective than a novel conspecific. As several neural regions implicated in song acquisition receive strong dopaminergic projections from these midbrain nuclei, their activation in conjunction with hearing the tutor's song could help to establish sensory representations that later guide motor sequence learning.


Specific guidelines for assisting patients in breastfeeding their infants are outlined, beginning in the prenatal period and continuing through initiation of nursing and established lactation. Prevention of possible problems is emphasized, but included are methods for relieving difficulites encountered during breastfeeding, such as flat nipples, sleepy babies, sore nipples, oversupply, engorgement, multiple births, forceful expulsion of milk, and breast infections.


Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity.... [W]e do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life and all of history. --George W. Bush, Third State of the Union Address (2003) (1) [T]he politics of mass manipulation, the politics of myth and symbol--have become the norm in the modern world. --Michael A. Ledeen, D'Annunzio: The First Duce (2002) (2) The presidency of George W. Bush represents a complex intertwining of a number of religious and political factions that would seem, on the surface, to be fundamentally different and even ideologically opposed. Arguably, two of the most important of these factions are the coalition of evangelical Christians often called the New Christian Right (3) and the aggressive political ideologues commonly labeled Neoconservatives. (4) The former began to rise to political power quietly in the 1980's, when such movements as the Moral Majority and later the Christian Coalition undertook massive grassroots campaigns at local levels across the country. The latter has worked primarily through such conservative think-tanks as the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century, counting among their ranks politicians and militarists including Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney, as well as such intellectuals as Irving Kristol, William Kristol, and (until recently) Francis Fukuyama. Despite their many ideological, cultural, and socioeconomic differences, these two factions have come together in the current White House and have found common ground in the policies of George W. Bush. Indeed, Bush represents a kind of structural link or ligament that helps tie these two, otherwise very different factions together: He embodies the ideals of piety, morality, and family values that appeal to his strongest base of popular support among evangelical Christians, while at the same time embracing the aggressive militarism and nation-building agenda promoted by the Neoconservatives. The result is what David Domke has called a kind of "political fundamentalism," that is, "an intertwining of conservative religious faith, politics, and strategic communication." (5) In this essay, I will expand Domke's notion of political fundamentalism by examining what I will call the political uses of fundamentalism (6)--that is, the strategic manipulation of religious beliefs, narratives, and sentiments for political gain at home and for aggressive militarism overseas. Specifically, I want to look at one of the most influential Neoconservative theorists today, who has much to say about the political uses of religion, namely, Michael Ledeen, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Although most Americans have never heard of him, Ledeen is one of the key figures who has worked to bring the Christian Right and the Neoconservatives together in a very effective but also rather disturbing way in the Bush White House. Considered by many the "Guru of the Neoconservatives" (7) and "the driving philosophical force" behind the Bush administration's aggressive foreign policy, (8) Ledeen has also appeared over seventy times on Pat Robertson's televised 700 Club, promoting the Neoconservatives' political plan for the Middle East before an audience of several million evangelical viewers. An outspoken admirer of the political philosophy of Niccolo Machiavelli, Ledeen believes firmly in the use of religion as a powerful political tool to arouse nationalist sentiment and to generate public support for otherwise unpopular things, such as war. Indeed, his favorite example of a great political leader is Moses, who, in his view, used his divine authority to impose a kind of "temporary dictatorship" upon his own people in order to lead them to the higher goal of freedom. …


The HPCC benchmark suite was initially developed for the DARPA's HPCS program 1 to provide a set of standardized hardware probes based on commonly occurring computational software kernels. The HPCS program has initiated a fundamental reassessment of how we define and measure performance, programmability, portability, robustness and, ultimately, productivity in the high-end domain. Consequently, the suite was aimed to both provide conceptual expression of the underlying computation as well as be applicable to a broad spectrum of computational science fields. Clearly, a number of compromises must have lead to the current form of the suite given such a broad scope of design requirements. HPCC was designed to approximately bound computations of high and low spatial and temporal locality (see Figure 1 which gives the conceptual design space for the HPCC component tests). In addition, because the HPCC tests consist of simple mathematical operations, this provides a unique opportunity to look at language and parallel programming model issues. As such, the benchmark is to serve both the system user and designer communities 2 .


Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs), such as military training simulations, emergency preparedness exercises, and online games have made a considerable impact on both commercial and academic fields over the last few years. Due to the rapidly increasing usage of personal mobile devices and the need of executing CVE applications in environments that have no previous network infrastructure, Mobile Collaborative Virtual Environments (MCVEs) will become ubiquitous in the future. In such systems, users will share a 3D virtual environment through their mobile devices in an ad-hoc network (MANET) in order to accomplish specific missions. We aspire to develop and deploy CVEs over MANETs using the peer-to-peer model. Both peer-to-peer networks and MANETs exhibit the same features; which include complete decentralization, self-configuration, and self-healing. However, peer-to-peer networks and MANETs operate on different network layers, and may introduce poor performance. Mobile ad-hoc and peer-to-peer networks drive the future of CVEs, and thus form the foundation for this thesis.
Most existing CVE systems are tuned to specific tasks, and their architectures are typically tightly coupled with wired networks and desktop settings, therefore they are not adequate enough for addressing mobile collaborative virtual environments. The evolutionary step in MCVE applications is handling the mobility effect in all its forms, and tackling the poor performance of the ad-hoc network. In this thesis, we explain the main networking issues involved in building scalable MCVEs, and review the most well-known CVE and peer-to-peer systems. We then present a mobility-aware cross-layer approach for MCVE applications; this approach relies on building a dynamic multi-tier overlay network architecture-based Gnutella network. The proposed overlay network will manage mobile devices using a novel rule-based discovery technique, in which users are discovered by their virtual environment interest and proximity. With the help of a caching mechanism and a Gnutella Ultrapeer System to perform a dynamic Ultrapeer selection, we were able to outperform traditional mobile overlay networks, as shown in our simulation results.


THE RECENT WAR, with its large number of psychiatric casualties, stimulated psychiatrists to seek to develop methods of treatment which would work in simple, quick and effective fashion. The exigencies of warfare demanded changes in the commoner psychotherapeutic technics utilized in civilian practice. The goal of treatment as dictated by the military setting was to return the man to duty as soon as possible. Therefore, the therapeutic aim was limited to the working through of the immediate traumatic experience, and the problem was one of restoring the personality equilibrium rather than of effecting a fundamental change in lifelong neurotic patterns of behavior. Grinker and Spiegel 1 early in the war developed a method of treating men with "combat fatigue" by using "sodium pentothal" (sodium 5 -ethyl-5-[1-methylbutyl]-thiobarbiturate) intravenously as a sort of "chemical hypnotic agent." These authors coined the term "narcosynthesis" to describe their technic, and emphasized especially the need to


Marine diversity across the Australian continental shelf is shaped by characteristic benthic habitats which are determined by geomorphic features such as paleoshorelines. In north-western Australia there has been little attention on the fish communities that inhabit an ancient coastline at ~125 m depth (the designated AC125), which is specified as a key ecological feature (KEF) of the region and is thought to comprise hard substrate and support enhanced diversity. We investigated drivers of fish species richness and assemblage composition spanning six degrees of latitude along sections of the ancient coastline, categorised as 'on' and 'off' the AC125 based on depth, across a range of habitats and seafloor complexity (~60–180 m depth). While some surveyed sections of the AC125 had hard bottom substrate and supported enhanced fish diversity, including over half of the total species observed, species richness and abundance overall were not greater on the AC125 than immediately adjacent to the AC125. Instead, depth, seafloor complexity and habitat type explained patterns in richness and abundance, and structured fish assemblages at both local and broad spatial scales. Fewer fishes were associated with deep sites characterized by negligible complexity and soft-bottom habitats, in contrast to shallower depths that featured benthic biota and pockets of complex substrate. Drivers of abundance of common species were species-specific and primarily related to sampling Areas, depth and substrate. Fishes of the ancient coastline and adjacent habitats are representative of mesophotic fish communities of the region, included species important to fisheries and conservation, and several species were observed deeper than their currently known distribution. This study provides the first assessment of fish biodiversity associated with an ancient coastline feature, improving our understanding of the function it plays in regional spatial patterns in abundance of mesophotic fishes. Management decisions that incorporate the broader variety of depths and habitats surrounding the designated AC125 could enhance the ecological role of this KEF, contributing to effective conservation of fish biodiversity on Australia's north west shelf.


We used mouse models of pneumococcal colonization and disease combined with full genome sequencing to characterize three major drug resistant clones of S. pneumoniae that were recovered from the nasopharynx of PCV7-immunized children in Portugal. The three clones – serotype 6A (ST2191), serotype 15A (ST63) and serotype 19A (ST276) carried some of the same drug resistance determinants already identified in nasopharyngeal isolates from the pre-PCV7 era. The three clones were able to colonize efficiently the mouse nasopharyngeal mucosa where populations of these pneumococci were retained for as long as 21 days. During this period, the three clones were able to asymptomatically invade the olfactory bulbs, brain, lungs and the middle ear mucosa and established populations in these tissues. The virulence potential of the three clones was poor even at high inoculum (105 CFU per mouse) concentrations in the mouse septicemia model and was undetectable in the pneumonia model. Capsular type 3 transformants of clones 6A and 19A prepared in the laboratory produced lethal infection at low cell concentration (103 CFU per mouse) but the same transformants became impaired in their potential to colonize, indicating the importance of the capsular polysaccharide in both disease and colonization. The three clones were compared to the genomes of 56 S. pneumoniae strains for which sequence information was available in the public databank. Clone 15A (ST63) only differed from the serotype 19F clone G54 in a very few genes including serotype so that this clone may be considered the product of a capsular switch. While no strain with comparable degree of similarity to clone 19A (ST276) was found among the sequenced isolates, by MLST this clone is a single locust variant (SLV) of Denmark14-ST230 international clone. Clone 6A (ST2191) was most similar to the penicillin resistant Hungarian serotype 19A clone.


The Prime Minister, David Cameron, recently set out his vision of a 'big society'. Its core themes are empowering communities, redistributing power from the state to citizens and promoting a culture of volunteering. The idea is badly flawed. It overlooks the crucial role that needs to be played by the state in promoting social justice, which is vital to the development of active citizenship and vibrant communities. Moreover, Cameron views the active citizen as simply a philanthropist and volunteer rather than as a politically literate individual, knowledgeable about the major political issues of the day and actively involved in debates about how public or private services ought to be run. The initiative is particularly perverse in the context of the credit crunch, a vitally important cause of which was precisely not the development of an over-mighty state but rather the inadequate state regulation of free market trading activities by banks.


The paper presents a new method for model reference adaptive control for nonminimum phase discrete-time systems using approximate inverse systems obtained from the least-squares approximation. We show how unstable pole-zero cancellations can be avoided and how the effect of the disturbances can be decoupled from the plant output. Finally, the results of computer simulation are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.


A major goal in the discovery and characterisation of exoplanets is to identify terrestrial-type worlds that are similar to (or otherwise distinct from) our Earth. Recent results have highlighted the importance of applying devolatilisation -- i.e. depletion of volatiles -- to the chemical composition of planet-hosting stars to constrain bulk composition and interiors of terrestrial-type exoplanets. In this work, we apply such an approach to a selected sample of 13 planet-hosting Sun-like stars, for which high-precision photospheric abundances have been determined in the first paper of the series. With the resultant devolatilised stellar composition (i.e. the model planetary bulk composition) as well as other constraints including mass and radius, we model the detailed mineralogy and interior structure of hypothetical, habitable-zone terrestrial planets ("exo-Earths") around these stars. Model output shows that most of these exo-Earths are expected to have broadly Earth-like composition and interior structure, consistent with conclusions derived independently from analysis of polluted white dwarfs. The exceptions are the Kepler-10 and Kepler-37 exo-Earths, which we predict are strongly oxidised and thus would develop metallic cores much smaller than Earth. Investigating our devolatilisation model at its extremes as well as varying planetary mass and radius (within the terrestrial regime) reveals potential diversities in the interiors of terrestrial planets. By considering (i) high-precision stellar abundances, (ii) devolatilisation, and (iii) planetary mass and radius holistically, this work represents essential steps to explore the detailed mineralogy and interior structure of terrestrial-type exoplanets, which in turn are fundamental for our understanding of planetary dynamics and long-term evolution.


The article deals with the problem of creating a stable order in Russia based on the rule of law. So far, all efforts to create it have failed. The instability of the rule of law in Russia is explained by the fact that attempts to create such a regime were limited to infrastructure reforms and modern proposals to reform the legal and political systems are reduced to infrastructure 2 changes. The author shows that despite the importance of infrastructure, the main reason for the instability of the rule of law in Russia is the legal consciousness of citizens. At the beginning of the XXI century, the concept of "social norm of the rule of law" was introduced in scholarly debates and it was shown that the presence of this social norm in their legal consciousness is crucial for the observance of laws by members of the community. The article builds a model of legal consciousness of Russian citizens and shows that they do not have this social norm. But contrary to popular opinion, Russian citizens are not legal nihilists, but legal utilitarians. Accordingly, the stability of the rule of law regime in Russia can be achieved if conditions are created for the emergence of a social norm of the rule of law in the legal consciousness of Russian citizens. Three ways of creating such conditions are considered and it is shown that, contrary to popular opinion, such a social norm can appear quite quickly. The practical possibility of transformation of the Russian legal system is shown, based on the most realistic of these three methods.


In a country that has rapidly evolved in many industries, it has always mystified me as to why advancement in the arts, specifically dance, has lagged behind. My hypothesis as to why this is occuring is that concert dance in America is not as synonymous to the cultural identity of the nation as it is in comparison to its European ancestors. I began my research with the creation of ballet in order to determine the cultural roots that were established within particular societies. I then compared the funding models between the nations with this deep attachment to the funding models of our country. After making the comparison, it was evidently clear that the difference lies within our economic structure. America being capitalistic and the European nations being socialist, the state can only have so much influence in its contributions to the companies. I also realized that the companies, being primarily nonprofit institutions, are not fully utilizing their resources. I then proposed that the only way to establish the cultural identity of concert dance within America is to do what America does best: establish corporate sponsorships. By understanding the current sports marketing, advertising, and sponsorship tactics being utilized by major corporations, I proposed the same tactics be used for concert dance companies. The financial risks would then be lifted from the companies whose sole purposes should be to create meaningful art. One way to fully test the effectiveness of this method would be a corporate sponsorship of a small dance company to see how it affects its growth. Because major companies have already established a rapport with its community, the effectiveness of the tactics would not be as apparent. After its effectiveness is evaluated, corporations could see the potential benefits of associating their brand with the brand of a cultural institution.


The experience of being "present" in a mediated environment, such that it appears real, is known to be affected by deficits in perception yet little research has been devoted to disabled audiences. People with a visual impairment access audiovisual media by means of Audio Description, which gives visual information in verbal form. The AD user plays an active role, engaging their own perceptual processing systems and bringing real-world experiences to the mediated environment.

In exploring visual impairment and presence, this thesis concerns a question fundamental to psychology, whether propositional and experiential knowledge equate. It casts doubt on current models of sensory compensation in the blind and puts forward an alternative hypothesis of linguistic compensation. Qualitative evidence from Study 1 suggests that, in the absence of bimodal (audio-visual) cues, words can compensate for missing visual information. The role of vision in multisensory integration is explored experimentally in Studies 2 and 3. Crossmodal associations arising both from direct perception and imagery are shown to be altered by visual experience. Study 4 tests presence in an auditory environment. Non-verbal sound is shown to enhance presence in the sighted but not the blind. Both Studies 3 and 4 support neuroimaging evidence that words are processed differently in the absence of sight. Study 5, comparing mental spatial models, suggests this is explained by explicit verbal encoding by people with a visual impairment. Study 6 tests the effect of words on presence and emotion elicitation in an audiovisual environment. In the absence of coherent information from the dialogue, additional verbal information significantly improves understanding. Moreover, in certain circumstances, Audio Description significantly enhances presence and successfully elicits a target emotion. A model of Audio Description is presented. Implications are discussed for theoretical models of perceptual processing and presence in those with and without sight.


Phytosterols are increasingly used as health supplements in functional foods and are associated with having both positive and negative effects on health.1 In contrast to the heavily promoted health benefits of dietary phytosterol supplementation, a number of groups have identified adverse health effects of phytosterols: induction of endothelial dysfunction and increased size of ischaemic stroke; inhibition of cell growth; aggressive vascular disease in sitosterolaemic patients.2,3 Given this disparity, an investigation of their full individual biological profile is imperative in order to assure food safety. Herein we describe the de novo synthesis of pure phytosterols in multigram scale and report the first synthesis of the key phytosterol Dihydrobrassicasterol and its oxides along with a comparison of routes to Campesterol.4,5 A detailed spectroscopic analysis is included with full assignment of the 13C NMR of both phytosterols, mixtures and their precursors leading to the potential use of NMR as a tool for analysis of these sterol mixtures. A comprehensive toxicological profile of these key phytosterol oxide products (POPs) identifies critical problems with the use of phytosterol mixtures as food additives.5,6,7
References

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In many medical applications, combining information from multiple biomarkers could yield a better diagnosis than any single one on its own. When there is a lack of a gold standard, an algorithm of classifying subjects into the case and non‐case status is necessary for combining multiple markers. The aim of this paper is to develop a method to construct a composite test from multiple applicable tests and derive an optimal classification rule under the absence of a gold standard. Rather than combining the tests, we treat the tests as a sequence. This sequential composite test is based on a mixture of two multivariate normal latent models for the distribution of the test results in case and non‐case groups, and the optimal classification rule is derived returning the greatest sensitivity at a given specificity. This method is applied to a real‐data example and simulation studies have been carried out to assess the statistical properties and predictive accuracy of the proposed composite test. This method is also attainable to implement nonparametrically. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


An optimization method, based on classical lamination theory and a numerical search, for the minimum cost design of a glass fiber reinforced composite box beam is discussed. A sequential unconstrained minimization technique is utilized to find the lowest cost box beam which satisfies particular geometric, loading, and failure criteria. In formulating the optimization problem, the deflection and stresses of a box beam during loading must be predicted. A composite box beam model is presented which provides bending stiffness, midpoint deflection, and load at failure for the beam. The box beam model is validated by comparing model predictions with experimental data for a commercially available (proprietary) box beam design. An optimization code is developed, incorporating this box beam model, which yields a new box beam design with a 6 percent reduction in raw material cost as compared to the current commercial beam design. Similar beam bending models for circular and elliptical hollow cross sections are presented. A methodology to optimize these cross sections is discussed.


International criminal law is frequently portrayed as the strong arm of the international human rights regime, an instrument designed to safeguard the dignity of each human person. There is an important truth to this characterization: international crimes involve many of the most grotesque violations of individual rights human beings inflict and endure. Yet the areas of international criminal law that are the subject of this Article apply to the doings and sufferings of individuals only indirectly. The law governing crimes against humanity and genocide frames the acts and fates of individuals against broader and darker patterns of group perpetration and group victimization. It is only within the context of group violence that international law attributes individual responsibility for wrongdoing and vindicates the rights of the individuals wronged. The conceptual mismatch between the moral individualism of human rights discourse and the collectivist structure of international criminal law requires theoretical resolution. The theory developed in Part II locates the legitimacy of institutional coercion within a structure of rights and duties linking authors of wrongs, victims of crime, and agents of punishment. As Part III explains, the need for international criminal law arises from the defective embodiment of this relational structure in social groups and failing states, defects which devolve retributive justice into cycles of escalating violence. The displacement of group vengeance by legal process is not the (broadly consequentialist) ground of the relational structure, but rather a reason for one set of social institutions rather than others to occupy a position of authority within that (broadly deontological) structure. Although the relational theory is intended as an independent contribution to the philosophy of criminal law, its cash value lies in its power to illuminate the role of group perpetration and group victimization in justifying the displacement of domestic law by international law and the intervention of international tribunals into internal armed conflict (Part IV); the relative gravity of genocide and crimes against humanity as well as the grouping of persecution and apartheid with crimes whose constituent acts cause greater physical destruction (Part V); and the roots of state resistance to international tribunals and the role of complementary jurisdiction in rationing the latter's political capital (Part VI).The Article concludes by revisiting the grounds of the duties asserted, arguing that the duty to punish rests ultimately on the duty to protect, that invocation of the former implicitly admits failure to discharge the latter. The Article is intended as a contribution both to the growing literature surrounding the philosophical foundations of international criminal law and to traditional criminal law theory.


Federated learning enables training a global model from data located at the client nodes, without data sharing and moving client data to a centralized server. Performance of federated learning in a multi-access edge computing (MEC) network suffers from slow convergence due to heterogeneity and stochastic fluctuations in compute power and communication link qualities across clients. We propose a novel coded computing framework, CodedFedL, that injects structured coding redundancy into federated learning for mitigating stragglers and speeding up the training procedure. CodedFedL enables coded computing for non-linear federated learning by efficiently exploiting distributed kernel embedding via random Fourier features that transforms the training task into computationally favourable distributed linear regression. Furthermore, clients generate local parity datasets by coding over their local datasets, while the server combines them to obtain the global parity dataset. Gradient from the global parity dataset compensates for straggling gradients during training, and thereby speeds up convergence. For minimizing the epoch deadline time at the MEC server, we provide a tractable approach for finding the amount of coding redundancy and the number of local data points that a client processes during training, by exploiting the statistical properties of compute as well as communication delays. We also characterize the leakage in data privacy when clients share their local parity datasets with the server. Additionally, we analyze the convergence rate and iteration complexity of CodedFedL under simplifying assumptions, by treating CodedFedL as a stochastic gradient descent algorithm. Finally, for demonstrating gains that CodedFedL can achieve in practice, we conduct numerical experiments using practical network parameters and benchmark datasets, in which CodedFedL speeds up the overall training time by up to $15\times $ in comparison to the benchmark schemes.


This article considers the attitudes of members of the parliamentary Conservative Party (PCP) during the European Union (EU) membership referendum held in the United Kingdom (UK) on 23 June 2016. First, the article identifies the voting positions – remain or leave – of each Conservative parliamentarian in order to assess the strength of opinion within the PCP and place it within its historical context. Second, the article uses multivariate analysis to test a series of hypotheses about the voting of Conservative parliamentarians. Through this we will aim to identify whether any associations existed between advocates and opponents of Brexit and social variables such as age, schooling, university, occupation and gender; political variables such as constituency marginality, and whether they were a minister, an ex-minister or a permanent backbencher; and the ideological variable of morality – such as support for or opposition to same sex marriage.


Abstract Large-diameter (2–10 cm) crustacean burrows preserved in the latest Cretaceous and early Paleocene estuarine barforms of southern Wyoming's Ferris Formation exhibit simple, nonbranching architecture, elliptical cross sections, J- and U-shaped shaft morphologies, and walking-leg impressions along the burrow walls. The burrows are classified as Psilonichnus isp. based on their morphology and environmental occurrence. In the Ferris Formation, Psilonichnus is found within multistory channel deposits and is associated with lithofacies that indicate strong tidal influence. Thalassinoides is more abundant in single-story channels with shallower flow depths, and Camborygma is found in alluvial deposits of the overlying Paleocene Hanna Formation. The presence of Psilonichnus in estuarine barforms of the Ferris Formation supports reconstructions of the Western Interior Sea showing a much wider distribution during the Cretaceous–Paleogene transition than has normally been accepted.


Intermarriage between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is increasing as cultural and socioeconomic divisions are broken down. For the first time at the 2006 census, a majority of both male and female Indigenous persons were partnered with non-Indigenous persons. This analysis shows that location is more important than education or income in determining rates of intermarriage. In metropolitan areas the overwhelming majority of partnered Indigenous people live with, or are married to, non-Indigenous people; in non-metropolitan areas this is true only of those who are highly educated and/or on high incomes.


Two experiments were used to evaluate the potential interaction of fat source and vitamin E (VE) in heavy slaughter weight pigs. In Experiment 1, a total of 64 individually-fed pigs (28.41 ± 0.83 kg) were randomly assigned to 8 dietary treatments in a 4×2 factorial arrangement. Fat treatments included cornstarch (CS), tallow (TW), corn-oil (CO), and coconut-oil (CN). VE treatments were dietary α-tocopheryl-acetate (ATA) at 11 and 200 ppm. In Experiment 2, a total of 72 individually fed pigs (28.55 ± 1.16 kg) were randomly assigned to 12 dietary treatments in a 2×6 factorial arrangement. Fat treatments were TW and CO. VE treatments included four levels of ATA (11, 40, 100, and 200 ppm) and two levels of mixed tocopherols (primarily γ-tocopherol; 40 and 100 ppm). VE deposition, growth performance, and meat quality were measured in both experiments. In both experiments, interaction between fat sources and VE were detected (P < 0.01) on plasma VE concentration, which increased (P < 0.01) with time and with increasing dietary VE, but increased faster (P < 0.05) in pigs fed with CN and TW compared to pigs fed CS and CO. Compared to CO, more saturated dietary fat sources (CN and TW) led to firmer belly (P < 0.01), which had more (P < 0.01) SFA and MUFA while less (P < 0.01) PUFA. In Experiment 1, increasing dietary ATA decreased (P < 0.05) FCR in Phase 4 and Phase 5. In Experiment 2, increasing dietary ATA increased overall ADG (linear, P = 0.02), with an interaction (P < 0.05) with fat sources on cumulative ADG during Phase1-4, wherein pigs fed CO, but not TW, had increased ADG with increasing dietary ATA. Increasing dietary ATA increased (quadratic, P < 0.05) liver SOD activity, and decreased (quadratic, P < 0.05) liver MDA content. The oxidative stability of loin was improved (P < 0.01) when dietary ATA increased over 40 ppm. In summary, both dietary fat source and VE supplementation affected the response measures.


Lissencephaly is a rare disorder that is characterized by the disorganized and unlayered cortex. The cause of this disorder is related to chromosomal abnormalities and infection. The pathogenesis of lissencephaly is faulty migration of neuroblast. Lissencephaly is associated with Dandy-Walker syndrome and Miller-Dieker syndrome. A woman at 35 weeks of gestation was transferred to our hospital due to structural abnormality of fetal brain. Fetal brain showed ventricular dilation and decreased sulci in cerebral cortex on prenatal ultrasound examination and we diagnosed this case as lissencephaly. The baby was spontaneously delivered at 37 weeks 3 days of gestation and lissencephaly was confirmed by postnatal magnetic resonance imaging.


There have been very limited studies conducted on subjective outcome with regard to psychological factor, quality of life (QOL) and patient education after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) rehabilitation among male involved in recreational activities. This study investigated fear of re-injury, QOL and patient education after ACLR rehabilitation. The purposes were (1) to determine the correlation between fear of re-injury and functional activity performance; (2) to determine the correlation between QOL, fear of re-injury and functional activity performance; (3) to identify the determinants of QOL concerning patients' background, fear of re-injury and functional activity performance; (4) to explore patients' experience in patient education by patientphysiotherapist face-to-face interaction on ACLR rehabilitation; and (5) to explore patients perception of patient education related to QOL after ACLR rehabilitation. A cross-sectional survey was conducted on 60 participants recruited by convenient sampling. They completed background information form, IKDC, KOOS and Lysholm, Tanpa Scale of Kinaesiophobia and ACL-QOL after 14 to 16 weeks of ACLR rehabilitation. Data were analysed by Pearson and Spearman correlation including multiple linear regression. For phenomenological design, interview guide was used to conduct interviews on 10 participants taken by purposive sampling. The transcriptions were analysed by thematic network analysis. In the multi-method design, quantitative and qualitative studies were performed concurrently. The TSK and KOOS-symptoms revealed a very weak correlation (r = -.155) and QOL with all variables had mainly positive with strong correlation (r = .490 to .717). Only TSK showed negative correlation. Multiple regression model was significant [F(l 1,48) = 27.5, p < .001] with the predictors explaining 59.5% of the variation in QOL. Only KOOS-pain and KOOS-sport/recreation were the significant contributors to QOL. The network on interpersonal interaction in face-to-face teaching and the holistic approach in QOL described the usefulness of patient education. Three significant contributions to physiotherapy practice are identified. To improve the proficiency of practice, the creation of a specific checklist is essential to assess physical and psychological profile with the potential to improve QOL after ACLR rehabilitation. Furthermore, head of physiotherpy department need to impose a regulation on physiotherapists to use a standadised reading materials to promote adherence to patient education on ACLR rehabilitation. Finally, the Holistic Rehabilitation Strategy (HRS) model is applicable to education and research in physiotherapy and sport-related injury management of ACLR. Future research include (1) a survey by using a larger sample size to compare QOL, functional performance and fear of re-injury between male and female (2) a focus group for patients' perception on patient education reading material developed from the present study and its inter-relation with empowerment in functional, psychological and social wellbeing; and (3) the development of a multi-component questionnaire to evaluate the HRS model. The reading material may enhance efficiency in rehabilitation time frame by motivating patients in self management of ACL rehabilitation. Additionally, the HRS model is applicable to the enhancement of physical and psychological outcome as well as the planning of ACLR rehabilitation protocol.


Recent simulations have shown that the lack of resolution to be found in taxonomic relative to phylogenetic classification systems only slightly inflates the probability of Type 1 error (inappropriately rejecting the null hypothesis) in evolutionary comparative studies that take relatedness into account. Thus, on this basis, taxonomies may be expected to organize the data adequately for such studies when phylogenies are not available. However, phylogenies instigate particular rearrangements in plant classification that are not easily addressed by simulation, and an analysis of specific variables is used here to gain insight into the consistency of results when a large dataset is organized prior to analysis first with a taxonomy, and then with a phylogeny. This study examines commonness and rarity as it is measured by plant range size of species drawn from the floras of the islands of Great Britain and Crete. The data were restricted to native species of the main island of each group. Using a taxonomic classification of the data, both floras were investigated for the effect of range size on woodiness versus non-woodiness, and tree versus shrub life form. The flora of Great Britain was further examined for possible differences in range size due to overall plant size, and pollination and dispersal types. Using a phylogeny to organize the data, all of the same comparisons of growth form and mutualistic interactions were made for the flora of Great Britain, plus comparisons of cloning versus non-cloning, vining versus non-vining and reproductive schedule (annual, biennial and perennial). Although a phylogeny is the preferred tool for organizing that data, the results suggest that analyses using a taxonomy can lead to conclusions reliable across classification schemes. With either organizational system, trees had larger range sizes than shrubs, and wind-pollinated species had larger range sizes than related non-wind-pollinated species. Additional analyses also indicated that non-clonal plants are more widespread than related clonal species. Changes in the relative position and number of contrasts within comparisons indicate that the exact effect of using a phylogeny versus a taxonomy will depend on the distribution within the phylogeny of the trait being studied.


A thin translucent plate of bone usually separates coronoid and olecranon fossa of humerus. In some humerii this plate is perforated and gives rise to an aperture, known as supratrochlear foramen. The present study was conducted on 1776 dried humerii (Right-905, left-871) of which 1352 belong to males and 424 to females. The sex determination of humerus was determined by using Vernier sliding calipers by measuring the maximum length, circumference of midshaft, vertical and transverse diameters of head and maximum medial epicondylar breadth of humerus to document the incidence of supratrochlear foramen in North Indian population. The transverse and vertical diameter of the supratrochlear foramen was measured by using digital Vernier calipers.. The supratrochlear foramen was found in 24.10% of humerii. The incidence was more common on left side (28.13%) as compared to right (20.22%). Oval, round and triangular shapes of the supratrochlear foramen were observed among which the oval shape was found to be maximum. The knowledge of higher incidence of supratrochlear foramen in Indians will be helpful to orthopaedic surgeons and radiologists in treating and interpreting the pathology in this area respectively.


The Austin Group in central Texas represents a distinct cycle of carbonate deposition that consists predominantly of soft, white, sparse to well-packed, pelecypod and foraminiferal biomicrite, popularly called chalk. The abundance of biomicrite and the general absence of biosparite suggest deposition below wave base on a broad carbonate shelf. Between Dallas and San Antonio the Austin Group can be divided into four geologically distinct areas based on facies changes and thickness. These changes reflect the presence of two slightly positive areas, the San Marcos arch and the Belton high, that represented a more stable part of the shelf than the adjacent, more rapidly subsiding areas. The negative area between the San Marcos arch and the Belton high has been named the Roundrock syncline and the negative area north of the Belton high is referred to as the Dallas basin. In the Roundrock syncline, from the type area in Travis County north through Bell County, the Austin Group ranges in thickness from 350 to 550 ft and is End_Page 2170------------------------------ divisible into five formations. In ascending order they are named the Atco Chalk, Vinson Chalk, Jonah Limestone, Dessau Chalk, and Burditt Marl. The group as a whole is characterized in this area by medium- to massive-bedded chalk and marly chalk with distinct, laterally persistent key beds and a general absence of fragmental limestone. From Travis County south to Bexar County, on the southwest flank of the San Marcos arch, the Austin Group thins to approximately 100 ft. Formations recognized in the Roundrock syncline lose their identity as the entire section changes facies to a thin- to medium-bedded, slightly fragmental, commonly glauconitic, dense biomicrite. Diastems occur within the unit and a disconformity separates the Austin Group from the overlying Anacacho Limestone. From Falls County north through McLennan County the Austin Group thins over the Belton high to less than 150 ft, and facies changes occur which are similar to those on the San Marcos arch. A disconformity separates the Austin and Taylor Groups in the area. From Hill County north to Dallas County the Austin Group thickens into the Dallas basin to more than 600 ft and can be subdivided into three informal units called the "lower," "middle," and "upper chalk." Farther north in Grayson and Hunt Counties another positive element, the Preston anticline, separates the carbonate sequence of the Austin Group from its clastic equivalents in northeast Texas. General criteria that may be useful in the recognition of positive areas that existed during deposition of the Austin Group include the following: (1) thinning of the group; (2) a facies change from massive-bedded chalk and marly chalk to thin-bedded, commonly fragmental, and glauconitic chalk; (3) loss of identity of formations and key beds recognized in adjacent negative areas; and (4) the appearance of local diastems in the section. End_of_Article - Last_Page 2171------------


We consider a general statistical linear inverse problem, where the solution is represented via a known (possibly overcomplete) dictionary that allows its sparse representation. We propose two different approaches. A model selection estimator selects a single model by minimizing the penalized empirical risk over all possible models. By contrast with direct problems, the penalty depends on the model itself rather than on its size only as for complexity penalties. A Q-aggregate estimator averages over the entire collection of estimators with properly chosen weights. Under mild conditions on the dictionary, we establish oracle inequalities both with high probability and in expectation for the two estimators. Moreover, for the latter estimator these inequalities are sharp. The proposed procedures are implemented numerically and their performance is assessed by a simulation study.


: In vivo studies were done on mongrel dogs to determine the effect of angiotensin II on renal electrolyte excretion. Angiotensin II was infused directly into the left renal artery at a rate of 1 ng/kg/min. Angiotensin produced consistent reductions in the excretion of Na+, K+, and Cl- in the left kidney. These reductions could not be attributed to decreases in GFR or RPF. Electrolyte excretion by the right kidney was constant. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that angiotensin II may function as an intrarenal, antinatriuretic hormone.


Petri net unfoldings are a useful tool to tackle state-space explosion in verification and related tasks. Moreover, their structure allows to access directly the relations of causal precedence, concurrency, and conflict between events. Here, we explore the data structure further, to determine the following relation: event a is said to reveal event b iff the occurrence of a implies that b inevitably occurs, too, be it before, after, or concurrently with a. Knowledge of reveals facilitates in particular the analysis of partially observable systems, in the context of diagnosis, testing, or verification; it can also be used to generate more concise representations of behaviours via abstractions. The reveals relation was previously introduced in the context of fault diagnosis, where it was shown that the reveals relation was decidable: for a given pair a,b in the unfolding U of a safe Petri net N, a finite prefix P of U is sufficient to decide whether or not a reveals b. In this paper, we first considerably improve the bound on |P|. We then show that there exists an efficient algorithm for computing the relation on a given prefix. We have implemented the algorithm and report on experiments.


Three distinctive schools present diverse interpretations of agricultural marketing. One of these derives from the economics of the farm business and casts marketing as all that happens to products past the farm. A second centres on marketing's co-ordinative role. A third is in allegiance to market development. Contemporary problems, beginning with those of the 1920 price reductions in the United States and accentuated by the worldwide depression of the 1930's, primarily explain the periods of heightened interest in marketing. In the early 1970's the common thread is institutional change in marketing, which originates in events as diverse as declining importance of assembly markets for price discovery, and the redesign of marketing within trading blocs such as the European Common Market.


Background and Aim: The Lacey Assessment of Preterm Infants (LAPI) is reported to have low sensitivity but high specificity to predict neurological function. The study objective was to find the predictive validity of the LAPI of preterm infants (LAPIs) to predict neuromotor outcomes of infants born preterm at the corrected age of 3–4 months. Materials and Methods: In this prospective cohort study, infants born below 35 weeks' gestation were assessed using the LAPI before their discharge from the neonatal intensive care unit. Data were collected from Latifa Hospital, Dubai. Outcome assessment was done between 3 and 4 months corrected age using Prechtl's general movement assessment (GMA) and the Test of infant motor performance (TIMP). Results: A total of 125 infants completed the tests (45.6% females); their mean gestational age was 30.28 (standard deviation 2.59) weeks. LAPI showed 87.50% sensitivity (95% confidence interval [CI] =47.35%–99.68%), 96.58% specificity (95% CI = 91.48%–99.06%), and 99.12% negative predictive value (95% CI = 94.75%–99.86%) in predicting fidgety movements in the GMA. The specificity and negative predictive value of the LAPI to predict the motor outcome in the TIMP was 98.06% (95% CI = 93.16%–99.76%) and 88.60% (95% CI = 84.57%–91.67%) respectively whereas sensitivity was 40.91% (95% CI = 20.71%–63.65%). Developmental score in the LAPI showed a weak correlation (P = 0.02, r = 0.20) with the TIMP score. Conclusion: The results suggest that the LAPI can be used to reliably predict neurological function for infants born preterm at 3–4 months corrected age. LAPI can be used as a discharge assessment tool in neonatal units to identify candidates for early intervention services.


Despite the common usage of high-dose vitamin C among breast cancer patients, the published medical literature is not in agreement as to how mega-dose vitamin C may interact with conventional therapy to affect clinical outcomes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the interaction of mega-dose vitamin C with radiation therapy and with doxorubicin in the treatment of breast cancer. Cultures of EMT6 mouse mammary tumor cells were treated concurrently with varying dose of vitamin C and either radiation or doxorubicin. A clonogenic assay was then performed to determine the surviving fraction of the cells. The surviving fractions of cells in cultures receiving different doses of vitamin C were compared among themselves as well as with controls and dose response curves were generated. Results show that ascorbic acid administered in concentrations of 1 mM or 10 mM 4 hours before x-irradiation protected the cells from radiation-induced cytotoxicity. The dose-modifying factors for 1 mM and 10 mM ascorbic acid as compared to controls were 1.23 and 1.37 respectively. These results support the hypothesis that mega-dose vitamin C, when taken concurrently with radiation therapy, protects cancer cells from the cytotoxic effects of ionizing radiation. No evidence was found to suggest that mega-dose vitamin C alters the antineoplastic effects of doxorubicin.


Abstract Smallholder farmers are normally faced with making a decision on market participation and consequently choosing the appropriate marketing channel for their agricultural produce. This study focuses on how a multi-stakeholder innovation platform approach for improving the uptake of System of Rice Intensification and rice productivity influences marketing decisions among smallholder rice farmers. The study relies on primary data collected from 102 households in Homa-Bay County, Kenya. Logistic and multinomial logistic regression models were used in the analysis. The practice of system of rice intensification, membership to farmer groups, frequency of access to extension services, distance to the nearest market and access to transportation facilities were important determinants to market participation among farmers. A farmers' choice of marketing channel was commonly influenced by size of land under rice cultivation, access to transport facilities and whether rice was to be sold collectively or individually. We therefore conclude that the multi-stakeholder innovation platform approach improves decision making in marketing. We thus recommend that governments embrace multi-stakeholder Innovation Platforms as a framework for improving farmer participation in rice markets and improving decision making when approaching available markets.


As a novel advanced oxidation process (AOP), electro-Fenton process is powerful for degrading most organic compounds including toxic and non-biodegradable ones, and so has attracted great attention. This paper reviews this process in detail including the mechanism, electrolytic bath, electrode materials, aerations and operation parameters. The application of electro-Fenton method in wastewater treatment is evaluated and summarized. Future work in this field is suggested, and three main directions of new electrode exploitation, development of assisted technologies and mechanistic study should be strengthened.


This paper investigates the application of reinforcement learning to the game Lines of Action by using a multi-layer perceptron (MLP). It investigates which training and testing method leads the agent to perform best, while applying a temporal difference learning algorithm. Three opponents are created in order to determine the most suitable training opponent: a random opponent, a fixed opponent and the agent itself. Additionally, different kinds of input representations are fed into the multi-layer perceptron, to see whether they affect the performance if used during training. Lastly, a testing method is introduced where the agent uses a look-ahead strategy. This allows the agent to perform a deep search, which may affect its performance. For this research the temporal difference learning method TD(0) was used in combination with an MLP. By using the training opponents as testing opponents, the resulting performances showed that the agent learns best against itself. The look-ahead play was tested in an identical manner, which produced a significant improvement in performance against opponents that are not completely random. Finally, we found that by training the agent with different game state representations, performance significantly increases when trained against a fixed opponent or the random opponent.


A shift appears to be occurring in thinking about flooding, from a resistance-based approach to one of resilience. Accordingly, how stakeholders in flood-prone regions perceive the system and its governance are salient questions. This study queried stakeholders' internal representations of ecosystems (resistance- or resilience-based), preferences for governance actors and mechanisms for flooding, and the relationship between them in five different regions of the world. The influence of personal experience on these variables was also assessed. Most respondents aligned themselves with a resilience-based approach in relation to system connectedness and response to disturbance; however, respondents were almost evenly split between resistance- and resilience-based approaches when considering system management. Responses generally were considered to hold for other disturbances as well. There was no clear relationship between internal representations and preferences for governance actors or mechanisms. Respondents generally favoured actor combinations that included governments and mechanism combinations that included regulations and policies. Those who had personal experience with flooding tended to align themselves with a resilience-based internal representation of system management, but personal experience showed no clear relationship with governance preferences. The findings support an evolutionary perspective of flood management where emerging paradigms enhance preceding ones, and prompt a critical discussion about the universality of resilience as a framing construct.


Intratumoral T cells that might otherwise control tumors are often identified in an 'exhausted' state, defined by specific epigenetic modifications as well as upregulation of genes such as CD38, CTLA-4 and PD-1. While the term might imply inactivity, there has been little study of this state at the phenotypic level in tumors to understand the extent of their incapacitation. Starting with the observation that T cells move more quickly through mouse tumors as residence time increases and they progress towards exhaustion, we elaborated a non-stimulatory live-biopsy method for real-time study of T cell behaviors within individual patient tumors. Using two-photon microscopy, we studied native CD8 T cells interacting with APCs and with cancer cells in different micro-niches of human tumors, finding that T cell speed was variable by region and by patient, was independent of T cell density and was inversely correlated with local tumor density. Across a range of tumor types, we found a strong relationship between CD8 T cell motility and exhausted T cell state that corresponds to observations made in mouse models where exhausted T cells move faster. While this is a small study, it demonstrates at least two types of T cell dynamic states in individual human tumors and supports the existence of an active program in 'exhausted' T cells that extends beyond incapacitating them.


Underperformance of students in EAP reading comprehension has been an issue of concern for teachers, syllabus designers, and curriculum developers in general and for EAP practitioners in particular. In spite of the fact that considerable efforts have been made to improve reading comprehension of students through strategies instruction over past decades, EAP students however have not benefited much from learning strategies. Thus, this study intended to investigate the impact of a Strategies-Based Instruction (SBI) on undergraduate students' reading strategy use in an EAP context. Taking an instructional model from strategies taxonomy of Oxford (1990; 2001), it was assumed that in contrast to conventional EAP reading methods, SBI would be more effective in encouraging reading strategy use and as a result developing reading comprehension of EAP students through encouraging the use of effective strategies and skills. To do so, 80 freshman undergraduate students were chosen as the participants of this study who were in two intact classes. After administration of a pre-test, treatment (22 sessions, 2 sessions per week), and a post-test, the collected data was analyzed using t-test to examine the effect of the proposed method of instruction. The results of the analysis showed that the teaching intervention had a significant effect on students' reading strategy use. The findings have implications for teachers encouraging effective reading comprehension instruction through the use of strategies in EAP teaching contexts.


Many interaction techniques have been developed for virtual worlds including the use of novel devices. Nowadays, technological development has placed us in a time where the interaction devices are no longer available just to high technology laboratories. In this context, today we can develop solutions for natural user interfaces and its massive adoption presents research challenges. In this paper we analyze the use of gesture-based interaction for the navigation of virtual worlds. For them we have created a virtual world and contrasted the use of interactive interfaces based on gesture of hands or body, as well as interaction based on mouse and keyboard. The results found indicate that the natural is not as it is even though we imitate what we do in real life.


The effect of aflatoxin in the growth of hens was histopathologically analyzed. Mycotoxigenic fungi were isolated and characterized as Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus niger. The aflatoxin was extracted from Aspergillus flavus and their impact on the growth pattern of hens was evaluated. The histopathological analysis reveals that more lesions were found in the vital organs of hens in comparison with the control chick group. In the present study, it is concluded that the quality of poultry feed plays the most important role in a poultry farm. It is suggested that the use of chicks resistant to aflatoxicosis will help in minimizing the problem of poor growth rate and poor feed conversion, which perhaps are the 2 most important factors in poultry management.


The process by which translation is initiated has long been considered similar in Bacteria and Eukarya but accomplished by a different unrelated set of factors in the two cases. This not only implies separate evolutionary histories for the two but also implies that at the universal ancestor stage, a translation initiation mechanism either did not exist or was of a different nature than the extant processes. We demonstrate herein that (i) the "analogous" translation initiation factors IF-1 and eIF-1A are actually related in sequence, (ii) the "eukaryotic" translation factor SUI1 is universal in distribution, and (iii) the eukaryotic/archaeal translation factor eIF-5A is homologous to the bacterial translation factor EF-P. Thus, the rudiments of translation initiation would seem to have been present in the universal ancestor stage. However, significant development and refinement subsequently occurred independently on both the bacterial lineage and on the archaeal/eukaryotic line.


Student learning situations in schools do not always benefit psychologically for certain students and teachers, because there are attitudes and behaviors of students that show contradiction with should occur. Ideally, the student should seriously study but is sometimes shown by aberrant behavior. Student learning orientation should focus on achieving success, get maximum achievement in a school, but sometimes fact justeri on the contrary, studying student no more just doing duty for the sake of pleasing parent and reach social status finished school. What is described above, the emergence is not without cause, the attitude of disorientation of students' learning in school is basically sourced from internal students themselves rather than from external factors. Students' disorientation in learning does not just appear, but arises from a cause, among them is the negative cycle of academic development experienced by students, low perceptions of learning, and effort in learning is very low. The adverse effects of these three factors will also affect students' attitudes toward learning, such as the use of ego in learning is greater than the logic, avoidance of challenges, such as dislike of difficulties, because it does not like to something hard and become a heavy burden for the brain , So can not measure the success and failure in learning. The consequences of it all have an effect on their behavior, such as tend to be difficult to control to learn by the teacher, ignorance of the teacher and the lesson, likes to belittle the lesson learned, the less attention to the lesson and sometimes show the destructive behavior when facing the excessive challenge in learning, So the challenge he likes to be physically fit is not an intellectual challenge. In order to provide solutions to the attitudes and behaviors of students as described above, there needs to be a breakthrough that can be done, at least can be done through two kinds of strategies, namely motivation strategy and emotional strategy. Both are solutions that are internal rather than external.


A cholesteric liquid crystal cholesteryl nonanoate was synthesized and then characterized by means of differential scanning calorimetry and polarized optical microscopy. As temperature decreased from its clearing point, cholesteric phase was formed for cholesteryl nonanoate and accompanied by continuous evolution of colors in the focal conic textures. Furthermore, beautiful spherulite crystals were observed to grow out of the cholesteric phase as the crystallization continued. The evolution of the colors in recorded textures was contributed to temperature-dependent selective reflection of the liquid crystal.


We study the propagation of classical electromagnetic waves on the simplest four-dimensional spherically symmetric metric with a dilaton background field. Solutions to the relevant equations are obtained perturbatively in a parameter which measures the strength of the dilaton field (hence parameterizes the departure from Schwarzschild geometry). The loss of energy from outgoing modes is estimated as a back-scattering process against the dilaton background, which would affect the luminosity of stars with a dilaton field. The radiation emitted by a freely falling point-like source on such a background is also studied by numerical methods.


ANYONE who gives electric shock treatments is bound to have observed that the convulsion threshold rises successively during a series of treatments and then seems gradually to become stable. Some weeks after the final treatment the convulsion threshold is found to have resumed its original level. Kalinowsky 1 refers to this phenomenon, which had been observed by Elsberg and Stookey 2 before the introduction of electric shock therapy. Barany and Stein-Jensen 3 found the same tendency in animals. Toman and Goodman, 4 in their experiments with animals, carefully studied the inhibitory period during some hours immediately after the electroconvulsions. As I had observed that the duration and intensity of the convulsive seizure appeared to decrease, while the convulsive threshold was increased during series of shock treatments, I thought it worth while to study these effects more closely. METHOD AND MATERIAL First, the duration of the convulsions was calculated for a


We present a theoretical study of near-field heat transfer between two uniaxial anisotropic planar structures. We investigate how the distance and relative orientation (with respect to their optical axes) between the objects affect the heat flux. In particular, we show that by changing the angle between the optical axes it is possible in certain cases to modulate the net heat flux up to 90% at room temperature, and discuss possible applications of such a strong effect.


High‐resolution, coupled, process‐based hydrology models, in which subsurface, land‐surface, and energy budget processes are represented, have been applied at the basin‐scale to ask a wide range of water science questions. Recently, these models have been developed at continental scales with applications in operational flood forecasting, hydrologic prediction, and process representation. As use of large‐scale model configurations increases, it is exceedingly important to have a common method for performance evaluation and validation, particularly given challenges associated with accurately representing large domains. Here, we present phase 1 of a comparison project for continental‐scale, high‐resolution, processed‐based hydrologic models entitled the Continental Hydrologic Intercomparison Project (CHIP). The first phase of CHIP is based on past Earth System Model intercomparisons and comprised of a two‐model proof of concept comparing the ParFlow‐CONUS hydrologic model, version 1.0 and a NOAA US National Water Model configuration of WRF‐Hydro, version 1.2. The objectives of CHIP phase 1 are: (a) describe model physics and components, (b) design an experiment to ensure a fair comparison, and (b) assess simulated streamflow with observations to better understand model bias. To our knowledge, this is the first comparison of continental‐scale, high‐resolution, physics‐based models which incorporate lateral subsurface flow. This model intercomparison is an initial step toward a continued effort to unravel process, parameter, and formulation differences in current large‐scale hydrologic models and to engage the hydrology community in improving hydrology model configuration and process representation.


The physical condition and the general health of personnel certified for operations that are important to safety shall not be such as might cause operational errors that could endanger the public health and safety. Any condition which might cause impaired judgment or motor coordination must be considered in the selection of personnel for activities that are important to safety. These conditions need not categorically disqualify a person, so long as appropriate provisions are made to accommodate such conditions.


In order to conform to the concept of smart factory for industry 4.0, this paper developed a low-cost tool measuring machine included the structure design, hardware planning of the server, electromechanical control, drive system, human machine interface, communication between hardware and software, software development, and so on. The proposed measuring system provided more flexibility and integration with peripheral equipment for the requirements of industry 4.0. Compared with a Germanic measuring machine, experimental results showed that the percentage of errors of the designed inspection instrument were 0.004 % and 0.003 % for the tool length and diameter measurements of a square end mill, respectively. Index Terms Industry 4.0, tool measuring system, tool presetter.


Shell stiffeners are used effectively to prevent preferential local buckling of LNG tank shell. In this paper, Finite element method (FEM) is applied to pay attention to the thermal analysis on the shell stiffeners of double steel wall LNG storage tank. The structural requirements according to British Standard 7777-2:1993 has been considered and then some dimensional adjustments of shell stiffeners are made to evaluate their influence on the thermal field of double steel wall LNG storage tank. Temperature distributions and heat flux of different dimensional shell stiffeners are presented. Though the analysis of results, it puts forward the conclusion that the dimensional design of shell stiffeners used in double steel wall LNG storage tank shall take not only the structural design requirements but also the thermal design ones into consideration in order to finally save cost in both construction and normal operation.


1. Microelectrode recordings of multiple-unit activity were made from the dorsal cap of the inferior olive of anesthetized and unanesthetized rabbits during vestibular and optokinetic stimulation. 2. A large field potential could be evoked in the dorsal cap by photic stimulation of the contralateral eye when the rabbit was anesthetized with sodium pentobarbital or chloralose-urethan. This field potential could not be evoked in rabbits that were anesthetized with halothane or in unanesthetized rabbits. 3. Dorsal cap neurons were maximally excited by large, contrast-rich stimuli presented to the contralateral eye, moving in the posterior-anterior direction at a velocity of 1--2 degrees/s. The discharge rate of dorsal cap neurons was decreased by stimuli moving in the opposite direction. 4. The activity of dorsal cap neurons was not modulated by vestibular stimulation when visual inputs were excluded. 5. Dorsal cap neurons were sensitive to retinal slip velocity and higher derivatives of optokinetic stimulation. Their activity was related to eye movements only when the eye movements affected movement of optokinetic images on the retina.


This study explored 'To what extent will preservice teachers with adequate nature of science (NOS) conceptions and who participate in a community supporting NOS instruction teach NOS in their internship settings?' Using a combination of focus group discussions and peer feedback, five preservice teachers met with university personnel bi-monthly during their internships to share NOS teaching and assessment ideas and ask questions. Field notes and voice recordings were used to track conversations at focus group settings and videotapes were made of science instruction in each internship setting. None of the preservice teachers had cooperating teachers who taught NOS, yet results showed that all five preservice teachers were able to explicitly teach NOS in their science lessons, albeit in different ways and to different degrees.


Abstract. The rapid growth of methods and techniques to acquire geospatial data has led to a wide availability of overlapping geographic datasets with different characteristics. Road network data sources are today a significant number, with high differences in level of detail and modelling schemas, depending on the main purpose. In addition, continuous information about people and freight movement is today available also in real-time. This type of data is today exchanged between traffic operators using referencing standards as Traffic Message Channel. Integrating these heterogeneous databases, in order to build an added value product, is a serious task in geographical data management. The paper is focus on techniques to conflate the Traffic message Channel logical network on Open Source road network dataset, in order to allow the precise visualisation of traffic data also in real-time.A first step of the research was the quality assessment of available Open Source (OS) road network dataset, then, a specific procedure to conflate data was set up, using an iterative process in order to reduce at every step the number of possible matching features. A first application of the enhanced OTM dataset is shown for the city of Turin: real-time open data of traffic flows recorded by road network fixed sensors, made available by the metropolitan Traffic Operation Centre (5T) and based on the TMC location referencing, are matched on the OTM road network, allowing a detailed real-time visualisation of traffic state.


A more comprehensive,systematic experimentical ground tests of the expansion process of expandable casing were performed. In the tests, 6 5 1/2"N80 casings were selected, of which five had been carried out expansion tests , another one casing was used to test the collapse strength , not been expanded. In the course of the tests,some important parameters of the expandable casing were measured before and after expansion,including the inner and outer diameter, wall thickness, ovality, wall thickness of inequality and the axial deformation, etc..These data provide a reliable basis for the mechanism research of the N80 casing expansion. After expansion tests, these six casing pipes had been performed the collapsing tests in Xi'an Tubular Goods Research Institute of CNPC.The test results show that after expansiong the collaps strength of expandable casing get decreased compared with unexpanded casing which provides a practical basis and reference for the design of expandable casing.


Gamma-aminobutyric acid is not formed in significant amounts from putrescine by incubation with rat brain homogenates. However, it is formed if acetyl-CoA is added to the incubation medium. This is taken as further evidence for the existence of a metabolic pathway in mammalian brain which comprises acetylation of putrescine to monoacetyl putrescine and oxidative deamination of monoacetyl putrescine by MAO. Nerve cells and glia cells have comparable capacities for putrescine degradation along this pathway.


CONTEXT.—
Cystoisospora belli is an intracellular parasite associated with gastrointestinal disease in immunocompromised hosts. Although infection has been classically associated with intestinal disease, studies have identified Cystoisospora in the gallbladder of immunocompetent patients based on hematoxylin-eosin morphology. Recently, the identity of this histologic finding as Cystoisospora has been questioned based on negative results of nucleic acid studies.

OBJECTIVE.—
To determine the prevalence of this histologic feature in pediatric patients, we retrospectively reviewed all cholecystectomy specimens from a pediatric hospital during a 24-month period.

DESIGN.—
In 180 cholecystectomy specimens, we identified 11 cases (6.1%) with classical histologic features previously described to represent Cystoisospora organisms. To further investigate these structures, we retrieved tissue from paraffin-embedded blocks and performed electron microscopy.

RESULTS.—
Ultrastructural examination identified ovoid perinuclear cytoplasmic structures composed of dense fibrillar aggregates rather than organisms. Patients with positive cases were similar in age to controls (positive cases: mean patient age 13.4 years [range, 2-23 years]; negative cases: mean patient age 14.7 years [range, 12 weeks-31 years]; P = .35). There was no significant association of this finding with cholelithiasis (54.5% versus 65.1%, P = .52), cholesterolosis (0% versus 22.5%, P = .12), acute cholecystitis (9.1% versus 10.1%, P > .99), or chronic cholecystitis (45.5% versus 66.3%, P = .20).

CONCLUSIONS.—
To our knowledge, this is the first positive identification of these structures as cytoplasmic fibrillar aggregates rather than parasitic inclusions by ultrastructural examination, and the first study of this histologic finding in pediatric cholecystectomies.