The composition and size of the germinable seed populations of undisturbed heathland soils were compared to those of adjacent farmland which was formerly heathland. The distribution of seeds with soil depth was also examined under the different land use types. In heathland soil, the seed populations of heathland species were very large (17 500-33 700 seed m -2 ) and were concentrated in the litter and top 40 mm of the undisturbed soil profile. Repeated ploughing was found to redistribute the seed population throughout the soil profile. Heathland seed populations exhibited an exponential decay with time under more intensive agricultural management, with an estimated half-life of 10 years. This was compared to half-life estimates of 13 years under nearby conifer plantations. It was thought that the natural decay of heathland seed populations with time was accelerated by cultivation. Each ploughing event brings buried seed to the surface where it germinates and is lost. Despite this, heathland seed populations were found to survive for at least 30-40 years under permanent pasture with occasional periods of arable farming. The redistribution and loss of heathland seed was accompanied by a large increase in the size of the non-heathland seed population. This, together with the increased fertility of farmland soils, makes the restoration of heathland vegetation from relic heathland seed populations problematical and uncertain.


Professor Von Virchow, in "the Huxley Lecture" delivered before the British Medical Association, Oct. 3, 1898, gave utterance to the following statement, pregnant with meaning to the thoughtful physician: "... An indispensable foundation for practical work, and particularly for medical practice, is to construct an objective picture of the nature of vital processes." And further: "The local action of cells must determine the practice of physicians and surgeons." This suggests the true ground to occupy in the battle we are called to wage with disease. And before attempting to construct this picture, permit me to fortify and strengthen the dynamics of Virchow's suggestion by a statement, equally pregnant, made by Prof. Lionel S. Beale. In his latest work, "Vitality," published less than a year ago, he says: "Healing processes can take place only through the agency of the living matter." That is, the bioplasm. If this be so, then biology is


Early diagnosis of interturn short circuit (ITSC) fault is essential to prevent catastrophic electrical machine failures. Along with the detection, locating the faulty winding at its incipient stage is also critical to reduce the outage duration and operation losses. This article proposes a practical method to detect the ITSC fault and locate the faulty winding in permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs) through stray magnetic flux monitoring. It is shown that relying on the fundamental stray flux component can potentially underperform at certain operating conditions leading to fault negative error. To compensate this shortcoming, the third harmonic component of stray flux is comprehensively analyzed and proposed as a complementary ITSC fault indicator. Furthermore, its reliability over the wide range of motor operation is verified to eliminate potential fault negative errors. It is also shown that the proposed method is independent of the fault severity which is a major advantage for practical applications. The findings are supported through 2-D-FEA PMSM drive system simulations and experiments under two different fault severity cases.


It is widely acknowledged that there is a need for molecular profiling in non-small-cell lung cancer. For example, treatment based on EGFR mutation status has attained successful results. However, in spite of excellent initial response to oral EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), progression-free survival is still limited. Current research has focused mostly on acquired resistance mechanisms, such as overexpression of AXL and loss of the Mediator MED12. In this review, in contrast, we discuss adaptive, rather than acquired, resistance. Adaptive resistance can occur almost immediately after starting targeted therapy through a rapid rewiring of cancer cell signaling. By losing ERK negative feedback on receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) expression, cancer cells are exposed to the stimuli of several ligands, and the ensuing activation of several RTKs reprograms all the canonical signaling pathways. The overexpression of several RTKs was observed in breast cancer cell lines treated with a MEK inhibitor and in BRAF(V600E) melanoma cell lines treated with BRAF inhibitors. This rebound effect of overexpression of several RTKs, including ERBB3, also occurs in lung cancers driven by Kras or EGFR mutations when treated with MEK, PI3K or dual PI3K/mTOR inhibitors. Synthetic lethality can be effectively induced by co-targeting these overexpressed RTKs. We speculate that in patients with EGFR mutations, adaptive resistance occurs in a significant proportion of patients. Rebiopsies performed hours after starting treatment with EGFR TKIs can identify which RTKs are overexpressed after treatment. Efficient co-targeting of these RTKs can induce synthetic lethality and help overcome the limited effect of EGFR TKI monotherapy.


In an earlier study of the teleconnection between streamflow and the warm (El nino) phase of the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, we found a strong relationship evident in four regions of the United States: the Gulf of Mexico, the Northeast, the North Central, and the Pacific Northwest. In this present study we have examined the same four regions for a relationship between streamflow and the cold (La nina) phase of the Southern Oscillation (SO). Invariably, we found evidence of strong and consistent streamflow responses to La nina events within the study regions. In each of the four regions, the strongest La nina signal occurred at the same time of year as had the El nino signal in their respective years. The sign of the seasonal streamflow anomaly associated with the La nina events is the opposite of that associated with the El nino events. This documents the existence of the biennial tendency related to the SO in the streamflow anomaly, which is expected, since La nina/El nino are opposite phases of the ENSO cycle. Finally, the relationships between streamflow and La nino/El nino were found to be statistically significant, based on the hypergeometric distribution. The results of this study demonstrate coherent, consistent, and significant midlatitude streamflow responses to the tropical SO phenomenon. This confirms the results of previous climatological studies that have examined the extratropical teleconnections from a hydrological and meteorological perspective.


Approximate Policy Iteration (API) algorithms alternate between (approximate) policy evaluation and (approximate) greedification. Many different approaches have been explored for approximate policy evaluation, but less is understood about approximate greedification and what choices guarantee policy improvement. In this work, we investigate approximate greedification when reducing the KL divergence between the parameterized policy and the Boltzmann distribution over action values. In particular, we investigate the difference between the forward and reverse KL divergences, with varying degrees of entropy regularization. We show that the reverse KL has stronger policy improvement guarantees, but that reducing the forward KL can result in a worse policy. We also demonstrate, however, that a large enough reduction of the forward KL can induce improvement under additional assumptions. Empirically, we show on simple continuous-action environments that the forward KL can induce more exploration, but at the cost of a more suboptimal policy. No significant differences were observed in the discrete-action setting or on a suite of benchmark problems. Throughout, we highlight that many policy gradient methods can be seen as an instance of API, with either the forward or reverse KL for the policy update, and discuss next steps for understanding and improving our policy optimization algorithms.


Currently, geographic information systems (GIS) are accessible to a large public, in particular to users who cannot be considered as experts. However, the access to geographic information and its overtaking by various users are not easy. Indeed, between the rigidity of the available access languages and the ignorance of the organization of information within the GIS, the user is often facing information which is available but no exploitable. To solve this problem and to facilitate the access to geographic information, in this article we propose ENVIS: a visual environment for the querying of GIS according to a figurative approach based on the definition of a visual language. The following sections in this article will try to identify, by the presentation of the prototype ENVIS, the benefits which can be drawn from this visual dialog which offers to the user a means to formulate a geographical query in an intuitive and simplified way.


Abstract. The role of precipitation (P) variability on evapotranspiration (ET) and its two components transpiration (T) and evaporation (E) rates from savannas continues to draw significant research interest given its relevance to a number of eco-hydrological applications. The work here reports on six years of measured ET and energy flux components, and estimated T from a grazed savanna grassland collected at a research site situated in Welgegund, South Africa. During this period, annual P varied considerably in amount (421 mm to 614 mm), rainy season length and precipitation intensity. T was estimated using annual water use efficiency and gross primary production determined from eddy-covariance measurements of net ecosystem CO2 exchange rates. The computed annual T was highly constrained to 352 ± 8 mm (T/ET = 0.55) for four wet years when rainfall was near or above the long-term mean. This is explained by the near constant annual tree transpiration and moderate water stress of C4 grasses during these years. In a drought year with intermittent rainfall, the annual ecosystem T was reduced due to grass dieback-regrowth that alters the temporal dynamics of bare soil cover and infiltration, and complicates monthly T/ET relation to leaf-area index (LAI). However, annual ET remains approximately equal to annual precipitation (P) even during the drought year due to increased soil evaporation. Indeed, at annual scales, ET ≈ P and annual T is conservative despite variation in amount and timing in rainfall, due to constant water use of mature trees, and the ability of C4 grasses to maintain transpiration at moderate water stress and effectively use pulsed rainfall.


Aggregation of polyglutamine (PolyQ)-containing proteins is responsible for several neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer's, Mad Cow and Huntington's diseases. PolyQ41 are peptides containing a repetition of 41 glutamine residues per monomer, which is a sufficient length to induce aggregation in vitro and in transfected cells. Due to its simplicity, PolyQ provides an excellent model to investigate nucleated polymerization. We can assume that neither fragmentation nor coalescence occur in a significant manner, which leads to a model that only includes nucleation (spontaneous reaction of i0 monomers into a nucleus) and polymerization (addition of one monomer to a given polymer). To describe such nucleation and polymerization processes, deterministic models consist of huge systems of ordinary differential equations. The coefficients defining these equations are unknown, and thus we have an inverse problem. In this talk, we will first present a numerical scheme for the forward problem, necessary to solve the inverse problem, approximating the system of ordinary differential equations for a given set of parameters. The difficulty lays in the size difference between a single monomer and an aggregate which might be several orders of magnitude. For large polymers, the system of ODEs can be well approximated by a PDE, however for small polymer sizes this is by no means accurate. We will therefore present a mixed model where we solve the ODE up to a certain polymer size and use the PDE with boundary conditions derived from the ODE solution thereafter. In the second part of this talk, we will focus on the actual aim of this project, the inverse problem and parameter estimation, using experimental data obtained from our collaborators (H.Rezaei et al., INRA). We will discuss possible statistical models for the error in the data collection process on the basis of residual plots between a set of experimental curves and the corresponding simulated ones with best fit parameters. By choosing the statistical model correctly, we are able to determine, amongst others, confidence intervals and standard errors for the estimated parameter sets. This will give us an indication about the size of the model parameters and thus a mean to quantify the quality of the inverse problem solution.


Meaningful use of advanced Bayesian methods requires a good understanding of the fundamentals. This engaging book explains the ideas that underpin the construction and analysis of Bayesian models, with particular focus on computational methods and schemes. The unique features of the text are the extensive discussion of available software packages combined with a brief but complete and mathematically rigorous introduction to Bayesian inference. The text introduces Monte Carlo methods, Markov chain Monte Carlo methods, and Bayesian software, with additional material on model validation and comparison, transdimensional MCMC, and conditionally Gaussian models. The inclusion of problems makes the book suitable as a textbook for a first graduate-level course in Bayesian computation with a focus on Monte Carlo methods. The extensive discussion of Bayesian software - R/R-INLA, OpenBUGS, JAGS, STAN, and BayesX - makes it useful also for researchers and graduate students from beyond statistics.


Did global income inequality rise or fall over the last decades of the twentieth century? The answer depends on how cross-country income comparisons are made. Exchange rate comparisons suggest that inequality rose whilst the purchasing power comparisons of the Penn World Table suggest it fell. We show that both measures of real incomes lead to biased international income comparisons. Exchange rate comparisons ignore the relative price of non-tradables, whilst the fixed price method underlying the Penn World Table is subject to substitution bias. The contradictory trends are due to growing dissimilarity between national price structures increasing the degree of bias in each method. When we correct the income data to eliminate bias we find no compelling evidence of a significant change in world inequality.


BI19 Eczema herpeticum in a patient with severe combined immunodeficiency Y.A. G alvez Ju arez, M.B. Torres Alvarez, D.V. Hern andez Blanco and J.P. Castanedo C azares Hospital Central 'Dr. Ignacio Morones Prieto', San Luis Potos ı, Mexico Eczema herpeticum also known as Kaposiform varicelliform eruption is a disseminated cutaneous infection, mostly with herpes simplex virus type 1, in patients with atopic dermatitis, among other skin diseases. Other related viral agents are herpes virus simplex type 2, coxsackie A16, varicella zoster, smallpox and cytomegalovirus. The risk of developing eczema herpeticum is 3–6% in atopic dermatitis, and most cases are reported in children < 3 years of age. This disease is a therapeutic emergency. About 10% of these patients have eye involvement (keratoconjunctivitis). A 7-month-old boy was presented to the paediatric emergency unit with a 2-day history of diffuse eruption of umbilicated, pruritic erythematous vesicles with crusting and erosions on the face, trunk, arms and feet. Erosions on the flexor areas were present. The infant had a 6-month history of severe combined immunodeficiency and no cutaneous disease was reported. Her mother reported a chickenpox infection that had been treated 2 months previously without complications. Oral examination showed white patches on the lateral aspects of the tongue. The patient was febrile; no lymphadenopathy was present. Ophthalmological exploration revealed herpetic keratitis. Based on the clinical appearance and history, eczema herpeticum was diagnosed and treatment with intravenous (IV) aciclovir (20 mg kg daily) divided into three doses, and topical treatment of the left eye with valaciclovir. After 10 days of treatment all lesions resolved with postinflammatory hyperpigmentation. No recurrences have been reported after a 6-month follow-up period. Owing to the deficiency of cellular and humoral response in patients with severe combined immunodeficiency, interferon (IFN)-c production and IFN-c receptor expression are decreased, similar to patients with atopic dermatitis. However, response to treatment with IFN-c is variable. Recurrences are reported in 13–16% of patients and the duration of IV treatment with aciclovir is unlikely to affect the recurrence rate.


In the United States, only 11 ingredients are prohibited or restricted from inclusion in cosmetics, compared to over 1,300 ingredients banned from inclusion in cosmetics sold in Europe. Some legislators have expressed concern that these chemicals can increase the risk of cancer, endocrine and reproductive disorders, and more, but policy action has been minimal. The presence of dangerous chemicals in cosmetics should be a focus of public health leaders and policy makers in the United States, because without further action, rates of disease associated with these ingredients may increase.
 This paper will define the problem of chemicals in cosmetic products and propose changes to policy to correct the problem. This will be done through a review of existing policies and a discussion of the significance of the problem including the types of diseases that result.
 This paper proposes that harmful chemicals are present in products that many consumers believe are safe, and makes recommendations for additional regulation of the cosmetics industry. Along with legislative changes, this paper recommends that educational programs must also be developed to bring awareness to this issue, and a systematic review of all potentially risky substances should also be conducted with alternative options proposed, as well as additional policies to expand regulation in order to emphasize public health.


An investigation into the behaviour of artificially produced ions, released from a point source a few metres above the Earth's surface, is presented. It is shown both experimentally and theoretically that the ions form a plume downwind of the ion source and, moreover, that the nature of this plume is rather similar to that of a smoke plume. Electric field and ion concentration measurements have been used to deduce certain features about ion plumes and distinct connexions between ion plume behaviour and the local meteorological conditions have been observed. In particular, the use of bidirectional vane techniques has indicated that ions can be used quite successfully as a tracer in short range atmospheric diffusion experiments. The technique does however, possess certain limitations, the details of which are included in the text.


Abstract We describe 2 new species of leucochloridiid-like brachylaimoid digeneans parasitizing a variety of birds in the Area de Conservación Guanacaste, Costa Rica, each of which we assign to a new genus. According to Pojmanska's (Pojmanska, T. 2002a. Superfamily Brachylaimoidea Joyeux & Foley, 1930. In Keys to the Trematoda, D. I. Gibson, A. Jones, and R. A. Bray [eds.]. CAB International and The Natural History Museum, London, U.K., p. 31–36.) key for the Brachylaimoidea, we are unable to place either species in any family. One species most closely resembles members of Leucochloridium by having well-developed suckers, lacking an esophagus, and having cecal shoulders, gonads at the posterior end, and the genital pore at posterior end of body but differs by having symmetrical testes, a posttesticular ovary, and a terminal genital pore; thus, we propose the genus Bakkeius for it. The second new genus resembles members of Michajlovia by having ventral genital pores but differs by having extracecal uterine loops in the forebody, a cirrus sac containing the pars prostatica and seminal vesicle, and gland cells surrounding the genital pore; thus, we propose Pojmanskia for it. These new genera must currently be treated as incertae sedis according to Pojmanska (op. cit.); however, we feel that future phylogenetic analyses will require emendation of the family diagnosis for Leucochloridiidae to include those taxa with terminal and ventral genital pores and with preovarian testes.


This study investigates the impact of migrants' post-migration experiences on their integration and housing behaviors. Collaborating with a local town council, we surveyed 1,128 households living in Singapore public housing estates and constructed instrumental variables to resolve identification problems. Two sets of empirical findings are established. First, migrants with more extended periods of post-migration residency demonstrate higher integration levels, both spatially and socially. With 1 more year of residency, migrant renters select housing in areas up to 3.01% farther from their workplace, physically and spatially making a way into the host society. Migrant homeowners show stronger social integration than migrant renters, based on both subjective and objective social integration measures. Second, in the public open rental housing market, where migrants in their early post-migration years typically reside, migrant renters pay rents that are lower by up to 0.67% with 1 more year of post-migration residency. A further test shows that a more extended post-migration residency period increases a migrant's housing search and bargaining power for lower rent due to integration. Our empirical evidence indicates the significance of early years' post-migration experiences in shaping integration and the importance of integration policy in assisting new migrants.


BACKGROUND
 In recent years, both suicide and overdose rates have been increasing. Many individuals who struggle with opioid use disorder are prone to suicidal ideation; this may often result in overdose. However, these fatal overdoses are difficult to classify as intentional or unintentional. Intentional overdose is difficult to detect, partially due to the lack of predictors and social stigmas that push individuals away from seeking help. These individuals may instead use web-based means to articulate their concerns.

 OBJECTIVE
 This study aimed to extract posts of suicidality among opioid users on Reddit using machine learning methods. The performance of the models is derivative of the data purity, and the results will help us to better understand the rationale of these users, providing new insights into individuals who are part of the opioid epidemic.

 METHODS
 Reddit posts between June 2017 and June 2018 were collected from r/suicidewatch, r/depression, a set of opioid-related subreddits, and a control subreddit set. We first classified suicidal versus nonsuicidal languages and then classified users with opioid usage versus those without opioid usage. Several traditional baselines and neural network (NN) text classifiers were trained using subreddit names as the labels and combinations of semantic inputs. We then attempted to extract out-of-sample data belonging to the intersection of suicide ideation and opioid abuse. Amazon Mechanical Turk was used to provide labels for the out-of-sample data.

 RESULTS
 Classification results were at least 90% across all models for at least one combination of input; the best classifier was convolutional neural network, which obtained an F1 score of 96.6%. When predicting out-of-sample data for posts containing both suicidal ideation and signs of opioid addiction, NN classifiers produced more false positives and traditional methods produced more false negatives, which is less desirable for predicting suicidal sentiments.

 CONCLUSIONS
 Opioid abuse is linked to the risk of unintentional overdose and suicide risk. Social media platforms such as Reddit contain metadata that can aid machine learning and provide information at a personal level that cannot be obtained elsewhere. We demonstrate that it is possible to use NNs as a tool to predict an out-of-sample target with a model built from data sets labeled by characteristics we wish to distinguish in the out-of-sample target.

 CLINICALTRIAL


Thermal stresses of grinding plays an important role on the fatigue and wear resistance of the component. A comprehensive analysis of thermal stress induced by surface grinding has been conducted with aid of the finite element method. To obtain a reliable figure of thermal stress induced by grinding, temperature-dependent properties of workpiece materials were taken into account. The developed finite element procedure has also been applied to calculate the surface and sub-surface thermal stress induced by moving source of triangular heat when convection and radiation is occurred over the whole work. Based on an analysis of the effects of wheel velocity on the thermal stress distributions in an elastic-plastic solid, some important conclusions were given.


This paper offers an account of rock art research on contact and challenges some of the basic assumptions underlying previous approaches to contact rock art. It is argued that many Australian rock art studies incorporating contact art offer merely descriptive accounts of introduced objects without exploring the underlying social processes motivating and directing change within the art system. This study outlines a number of interpretations about the nature and patterning of contact rock art within a specific rock art assemblage in Watarrka National Park, central Australia. These conclusions were reached through the adoption of an analytical archaeological approach informed by readings of anthropological and historical data. The results of this analysis indicate that contact rock art does not merely reflect a series of historical events and the imposition of foreign forces, rather it represents a more complex exchange involving losses and gains. They further indicate that the rock art process of contact is a record of change and continuity which served not only to reflect the changes brought by Europeans but also highlights the active role Indigenous people took in responding to these circumstances.


The spring shoots of 'Autumn Bliss' red raspberry ( Rubus idaeus L. var. idaeus; primocane-fruiting type) were cut on 2, 16, 31 July and 15 and 30 Aug. with the objective of delaying fruit harvest into the off-season under mild winter climatic conditions. Cutting shoots in August delayed fruit harvest until February and April of the following year, but shoot growth was weak and fruit yield low (4.8 and 2.1 g/cane). July cuttings delayed harvest until October to January with acceptable fruit yield (63.5, 52.8, and 26.5 g/cane for 2, 16, and 31 July, respectively). The differences in cane height and total node and fruiting node count between the three cutting dates of July were small, but there was a constant decrease in leaf area per cane from the first to the third date and a sharp decrease in fruit yield from the second to the third date. Vegetative shoot growth was less affected than yield when summer cutting was delayed until the end of July to induce a later harvest. Fruit quality always reached acceptable standards. This study confirms the practicability of using summer-cutting of primocane-fruiting red raspberries to induce off-season fruit production under protected cultivation in mild winter climates.


The exhibition Rorelse i konsten (Movement in Art) in 1961 was the first of a number of exhibitions at Moderna Museet in Stockholm which took the form of a comprehensive milieu. Hon–en katedral (SHE –A Cathedral) in 1966, and Poesi maste goras av alla! (Poetry Must be Made by All!) in 1969 are others. These exhibitions went beyond established exhibition formats, spectator-conventions, and ultimately questioned the idea of the artwork as an autonomous object. Rorelse i konsten has become pivotal in the museum's recounting of its own history, and has been referred to and partly restaged in 2008 and 2011. Rorelse i konsten, and the various forms of re-enactments it has been subject to, will be taken as a starting point for a wider discussion on the on-going writing of exhibition history. Partly conducted from within, the field itself (artists, curators and museum directors are reflecting upon the impact of these exhibitions on their own practices) this form of history writing tends to be partial. Frederick Kiesler's and El Lissitzky's exhibition models from the 1920s and onwards, the 'labyrinthic'exhibitions of the post-war era, of which Rorelse i konsten is an example, are often used as historical references to frame contemporary practices. I will argue that this history is conditioned by interests in ourpresent (such as critical investigations of the art institution, spectator's participation, and artistic collectivity). As such, it tends to obstruct wider investigations of these exhibitions'origination and impact.


According to the manufacturing procedure of liquid crystals modules (LCM), several display distortions of LCM, such as S line distortion, G line distortion, line short-circuit and cs-open are introduced. Combined with its internal structure and its working principle, key causes and repair methods of these distortions are focused on. The pass rate of the product is improved. A foundation has been laid on research in automated diagnosing systems which based on image processing and circuit parameter diagnosing technology.


Most modern metropolitan cities have suffered from increasing traffic accidents and jams. Vehicular ad hoc network (VANET), consisting of information collecting, processing and transmitting units embedded in vehicles assisted by roadside infrastructures, has been proposed as one the most promising solution to problems introduced by the increasing number of vehicles in modern cities. To achieve the goal, it is crucial to allow the transportation administration center to collect information about the traffic and road status through VANET. A major obstacle in this scenario is the privacy concern on the vehicles. To address this issue, this paper proposes a generic privacy-preserving traffic monitoring framework which allows individual vehicle driving status and the road usage information are collected while the privacy of the vehicles is well preserved. This goal is achieved by the novel technology of distinguishing individual vehicles with their spatio-temporal occupations. The continual change of spatio-temporal identities provides privacy for vehicles in a natural way, which remains nonetheless traceable by a trusted authority to prevent misbehaving vehicles from abuse the privacy-preserving mechanism provided by the system.


Q fever is a bacterial zoonosis caused by Coxiella burnetii, a unique intracellular coccobacillus, adapted to live within the phagolysosomes of macrophages and monocytes. It is highly infectious, with as little as one organism needed to cause clinical infection, making it an attractive organism for use in biowarfare. Despite its high infectivity, it has low virulence, and most patients undergo only asymptomatic seroconversion. Acute clinical manifestations are a nonspecific febrile illness, pneumonia, hepatitis, and neurologic abnormalities ranging from headache to meningoencephalitis. Chronic Q fever can result in endocarditis, hepatitis, or a chronic fatigue syndrome. Diagnosis usually is made by serology because culture of the highly contagious organism is potentially hazardous. Tetracyclines are the antibiotics of choice. When individualized therapy is possible, a 14- to 21-day course of doxycycline usually is used. In a mass casualty situation, a 5- to 7-day course of doxycycline is recommended, both for therapy and prophylaxis. For chronic infections such as endocarditis, 18 months of doxycycline supplemented with hydroxychloroquine is currently the best therapy.


ABSTRACT This study proposes a design guideline for polycrystal Ni-based model alloys with high ductility and 100-MPa creep rupture strength beyond 800°C and 105 h. These alloys are strengthened by both the precipitation of fine γ′ particles inside the grain and the Laves phase at the grain boundary. For investigating the damage mechanism, transformation from the non-equilibrium Laves phase to the σ phase at the grain boundary and formation of the equilibrium needle-like Laves phase inside the grain are promoted by increasing the Fe concentration. The rupture time of Fe-free alloys significantly increases because of the equilibrium Laves phase at the grain boundary owing to a suitable Mo equivalent. In particular, W addition can help achieve high-temperature creep strength. The precipitate-free zone (PFZ) is predominantly formed by prior migration at the grain boundary without precipitation. Creep rupture occurs at the precipitation/matrix interface in the PFZ. Therefore, transformation control from the Laves to the σ phase at the grain boundary suppresses creep degradation. Consequently, a Ni-based alloy with strength >100 MPa and rupture elongation >20% at 800°C and 105 h is fabricated using Larson–Miller parameter conversion, and the alloy design guideline's validity is confirmed.


Growth rates of corals on Holocene reefs indicate that carbonate platforms should easily keep pace with long-term subsidence and sea-level changes, yet drowned reefs and platforms are common in the geologic record. Recognition of the negative influence of nutrients on reef communities provides a clue to that paradox. The primary carbonate-sediment producers of the coral reef community are highly adapted to nutrient-deficient environments. Input of nitrates and phosphates stimulates growth of plankton, which reduces water transparency, limiting depth ranges of zooxanthellate corals and calcareous algae and thereby reducing carbonate production. Higher nutrient concentrations and plankton densities also stimulate growth of fleshy algae and ahermatypic suspension-feeding animals in the benthos. Besides displacing hermatypic algae and corals, many of these fastgrowing competitors are bioeroders that actively destroy thze reefal structure. Because rates of carbonate production and bioerosion are similar, even modest increases in nutrient availability can shift a reef community from net production to net erosion. In the geologic record, drowned reefs and carbonate platforms typically exhibit evidence of nondeposition, bioerosion, and reduced redox potential, which indicate excess nutrient availability during drowning. Drowned reefs overlain by shales are possible victims of nutrients in terrestrial runoff that suppressed reef growth before arrival of siliciclastic sediments. Other drowned platforms may have succumbed during rapid pulses of sea-level rise that flooded previously subaerial platforms. Nutrients in the soils of the flooding platform were mixed into surface waters, suppressing reef growth. The reef drowned if submergence proceeded beyond the critical depth before the excess nutrients were exported from the system. Other mechanisms for reef drowning by excess nutrients include changes in local or regional upwelling patterns or mid-ocean overturn.


In this paper we review some recent approaches that have been used to address the difficult problem of estimating the unknown size of a finite population.We start from illustrating what types of inferential difficulties one should expect when no parametric assumption is made on the class of distributions for the distribution of counts of the number of multiple occurrences of the same unit when the observed counts are modelled in terms of Poisson mixtures. We then consider the problem from the species sampling model perspective where each unit is represented by the distinct species and a sequence of exchangeable observations are available. We discuss the implementation of the alternative approaches with real datasets and we compare their performance with simulated data.


Periostracum is the outer shell layer composes mainly of organic materials. In the present study, the green-lipped mussel Perna viridis was used to investigate the distributions of Cu and Zn in the periostracum and soft tissues of the P. viridis which were sampled from 17 geographical sites [23 populations] along the coastal waters of Peninsular Malaysia. The concentrations of Cu in the periostracum and the soft tissues of P. viridis were 7.4142.63 mg/g dry weight and 3.49-31.1 mg/g dry weight, respectively. Meanwhile, the concentrations of Zn in the periostracum and soft tissues of P. viridis were 4.90-39.79 mg/g dry weight and 65.75-144.9 mg/g dry weight, respectively. The ratios of the metals in periostracum to soft tissues were 0.73-3.99 mg/g for Cu and 0.05-0.36 mg/g for Zn. These ratios indicated that the concentrations of Cu in the periostracum were generally greater than those in the soft tissues while the concentrations of Zn were generally higher in the soft tissues than those in the periostracum. The higher Cu levels in the soft tissues compared to that in the periostracum (Fig. 2) and the relatively close relationships of Cu between periostracum and sediment indicated that the periostracum was a good biomonitoring material for Cu, but periostracum was not a good biomonitoring material for Zn because it did not reflect the environmental contamination as reflected in the low correlation between the periostracum and sediment.


Background There are three types of carrageenan available (iota, kappa, and lambda) which differ in composition and degree of sulfation in polymeric structure. A malignant lymphocytes that accumulate in lymph nodes causes a group of diseases called Lymphomas causing the characteristics lymphadenopathy. These may pelt over into the blood or infiltrate organs outside the lymphoid tissue. They are Hodgkin›s lymphoma and non–Hodgkin›s lymphoma and this is based on the histologic presence of Reed-Sternberg cells in Hodgkin›s lymphoma. Objectives The present study designated to determine the oral manifestations after application of carrageenan in patients with Hodgkin›s& Non-Hodgkin›s lymphoma receiving chemotherapy and to determine the effect of topical carrageenan on the levels of salivary immunoglobulin A, interleuekin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-α in Hodgkin›s & non-Hodgkin›s lymphoma patients. Results The oral manifestations was in Non-Hodgkin›s lymphoma patients (64%) and in Hodgkin›s lymphoma patients (36%) taste alteration, followed by burning mouth syndrome, dry mouth and lastly candidiasis with significant differences after application of carrageenan p>0.05.The levels of salivary immunoglobulin A, interleuekin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-α were slightly decreased but not significantly differences after carrageenan application. Conclusions The carrageenan effects on oral lesion may allow the use of Κ –carrageenan as a base or primary compound in dental practice besides the other compounds like chlorhexidine. The salivary immunological markers level slightly decreased in lymphoma patients after receiving carrageenan which indicate that there is no absorption from oral mucosa.


Brazil, which has always been in the forefront of sugarcane production, also occupies a prominent position as the first country to produce and use biofuel in its automobile fleet. This fact is a consequence of the introduction of a program which has already turned 30 years, the Proalcool (National Alcohol Program). The oil crisis in the seventies encouraged the government to develop an alternative way to replace gasoline. Bioethanol was then born as fuel obtained from fermentation of sugarcane juice, molasses or both. In the eighties, 85% of the cars ran exclusively on alcohol. Ethanol production in that decade exceeded sugarcane production by the mills. The installed units reached in that period the capacity to produce 18 billion liters of bioethanol per season, a volume equivalent to 100 million barrels of gasoline. The fermentation process, which so far had been restricted to manufacturing sugarcane liquor (aguardente) or ethanol as a byproduct of sugarcane, takes over the spotlight in the entrepreneurial scene. As a result, processes comprising engineering concepts came up and most of the biological phenomena involved in fermentation were understood. The knowledge gathered and the units installed have granted Brazil the hold of production technology and use of a clean fuel.


Abstract Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitors (PARPi) are a unique class of antineoplastic agents that function by inducing synthetic lethality. Synthetic lethality occurs when PARPi and either another agent or an underlying genetic alteration together lead to overwhelming DNA damage and ultimately cell death. PARPi first showed promise as a cancer therapy in patients with BRCA1/2 mutations and have become part of standard treatment for breast and ovarian cancer. In prostate cancer, two PARPi, rucaparib and olaparib, have been FDA approved for the treatment of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). While both agents are approved for tumors with BRCA1/2 alterations, for olaparib the indication is also expanded to patients with 12 other homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) gene alterations including ATM and PALB2. PARPi differ in their pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, and additional studies are being conducted with niraparib, veliparib, and talazoparib in prostate cancer. While PARPi are fairly well tolerated, common toxicities include hematologic (anemia/thrombocytopenia) and gastrointestinal effects (nausea/vomiting). Ongoing studies are being conducted combining PARPi with other agents in patients with and without HRD alterations. Early data are promising for the combination of PARPi with second-generation antiandrogens and with immunotherapy. As additional trials are developed and reported, the hope is that the patient population who may benefit from PARPi will continue to expand.


Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has already led to major increases in unemployment and is expected to lead to unprecedented increases in poverty and food insecurity, as well as poor health and nutrition outcomes. Families where young children, pregnant and lactating women live need to be protected against the ongoing protracted pandemic and the aftershocks that are very likely to follow for years to come. The future wellbeing of the vast majority of the world now depends on reconfiguringthe current ineffective food, nutrition, health and social protection systems to ensure food security for all. Because food, nutrition and social protection are intimately linked with health in a multidirectional way, it is essential that that we fully address global and local food, health care, and social protection systems and the inter-relationship among them. Implementation science research will be needed to fill in the current major gaps. Not doing so will not only put the development of individuals at further risk, but also negatively impact on the development potential of entire nations and ultimately our Planet.


Thin sheets of sand and gravel occur within a sequence of fine organic-rich sediments at Catala Lake, off the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The uppermost of these coarse sheets thins and fines landward away from the lake outlet, consistent with deposition by a tsunami. This coarse sediment sheet has been radiocarbon dated to some time after AD 1655; we suggest that it was deposited in 1700 by the tsunami of the last great earthquake at the Cascadia subduction zone. Abundant plant macrofossils, derived from nearby forest, are present within and on top of the sand and gravel layer, suggesting that the tsunami transported forest-floor litter, mosses, and seeds into Catala Lake. Deposition coincided with abrupt changes in diatom and foraminifera communities in the lake. The post-tsunami diatom assemblage is more marine in character than the immediate pre-tsunami assemblage, and the foraminifera community became more diverse after the tsunami. These changes are due either to coseismic subsidence or erosion of the outlet by the tsunami, which increased tidal exchange between the sea and the lagoon that was the precursor to Catala Lake. Older coarse sediment layers in cores from Catala Lake and the bordering marsh may also be tsunami deposits. One of these layers is about 1,000 years old and dates to the time of the penultimate great Cascadia earthquake.


In this note, the problem of second-order leader-following consensus by a novel distributed event-triggered sampling scheme in which agents exchange information via a limited communication medium is studied. Event-based distributed sampling rules are designed, where each agent decides when to measure its own state value and requests its neighbor agents broadcast their state values across the network when a locally-computed measurement error exceeds a state-dependent threshold. For the case of fixed topology, a necessary and sufficient condition is established. For the case of switching topology, a sufficient condition is obtained under the assumption that the time-varying directed graph is uniformly jointly connected. It is shown that the inter-event intervals are lower bounded by a strictly positive constant, which excludes the Zeno-behavior before the consensus is achieved. Numerical simulation examples are provided to demonstrate the correctness of theoretical results.


We have created a kappa transgene in which a polymerase (pol) III promoter replaces the pol II promoter. Two independent transgenic lines show somatic hypermutation of the transgene in B cells from hyperimmunized mice. Both lines transcribe transgenes from the pol III promoter in the liver. However, in spleen and spleen B cell-derived hybridomas, they also transcribe mRNA from pol II promoters located within the 3' kappa enhancer of the preceding transgene copy in a tandem transgene array. The findings demonstrate that in an array of multiple transgenes the expression (and somatic hypermutation) of an individual transgene copy must be considered in the context of the other copies. We also show that sequences around the 3' kappa enhancer in endogenous genes are transcribed. The possible role of these promoters in endogenous kappa gene expression is discussed. An unrelated finding in this study was a novel RNA splice in one hybridoma.


BACKGROUND
The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of selected sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and the level of knowledge and attitudes regarding HIV/AIDS among Turkish brothel based sex-workers (SWs).

SUBJECTS AND METHODS
A pre-designed questionnaire was administered to 199 SWs to obtain their sexual behaviours and their level of knowledge of HIV/AIDS. The specimens collected for C trachomatis/N gonorrhoeae and human papillomavirus (HPV) were tested using Gen-Probe PACE 2 and HPV-screening assays, respectively.

RESULT
Aproximately sixty-seven per cent of the SWs knew that condoms afforded protection against HIV/AIDS and 62% reported continued use of condoms. Although most of the SWs had heard about HIV/AIDS, thorough knowledge of transmission and prevention was lacking. The overall estimated rates for C trachomatis/N gonorrhoeae and HPV were 18.6% and 9.7%, respectively.

CONCLUSION
There is a need for further studies to generate more data on the prevalence of STDs and the knowledge of STDs in this population.


This paper presents the use of the Design Competency Assessment (DesCA) framework to enhance collaboration between courses in an interdisciplinary design-based curriculum at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). The paper illustrates the use of this framework in SUTD's second term Design Thinking Project (DTP). The DTP explicitly brings together the learnings of the courses taking place in that term, in particular the introductory Design Thinking and Innovation (DTI) course. DTP as a joint project is facilitated by faculty from different disciplines. Students have to demonstrate how different disciplines have influenced their design project. DesCA was introduced in the planning of the project to identify competencies needed for DTP and overlay these onto the existing course schedule. The results of this case study suggests that DesCA, as a competency-based approach, provides a common language between faculty of different disciplines and is an effective means: to gain a common understanding of the required competencies; to obtain coherence between courses in an interdisciplinary curriculum; and to form the basis for assessment. This should allow for a more coherent and integrated approach to design education, which is essential for producing graduates with a broad range of knowledge and skills and attitudes to tackle complex global challenges.


These three stories of Tolstoy's maturity show him increasingly grappling with fundamental issues of religion and morality. In "Master and Man", he depicts an employer, bent on closing a business deal, travelling with his servant through the swirling snow - little realizing how soon he may have to settle his accounts with his maker. "Father Sergius" portrays a priest tormented beyond endurance by the longings of his body, while "Hadji Murat" dramatizes the divided loyalties of a leading figure in Russia's struggle to subdue the Caucasus. With a compelling combination of moral seriousness and extraordinary sympathy and understanding, these stories reveal Tolstoy as a writer at the height of his creative powers.


Genetic resistance to stem rust (caused by Puccinia gram in is Pers.:Pers. subsp. graminicola Z. Urban) could reduce the need for fungicides to control the disease in tall fescue [Lolium arundinaceum (Schreb.) Darbysh. (=Festuca arundinacea subsp. arundinacea)] grown for seed. Two populations from 14 resistant forage-type plants (F) and 20 turf-types (T) were developed using polycross (PX) and open pollination (OP) progenies. A two-stage controlled environment inoculation was used for screening and selection for two cycles. Direct selection response was determined after two artificial inoculations in a controlled environment. Indirect selection response for seed yield was measured, using the same plants as the direct selection study, in the field using natural inoculation for 4 yr. Plants with resistant reaction, based on pustule type, increased from 5 to 54% in the F population and from 6 to 50% in the T after two cycles of PX selection and from 5 to 63%, and from 6 to 50% in the F and T populations, respectively, after one cycle of OP followed by one cycle of PX selection. In each selection scheme, the largest increase came from the first PX cycle. Seed yield of tall fescue with improved stem rust resistance was higher than for susceptible populations or cultivars with heavy stem rust presence (1998), but yields were similar with no rust pressure (1999). These results indicate that seed yields in tall fescue can be maintained using genetic resistance to stem rust sufficient to slow or eliminate disease epidemic development.


Summary The purposes of this study were to estimate the effects of risk factors on stillbirth parturition and evaluate the effects of stillbirth on lactation performance in Holstein dairy cows. Data were obtained from a dairy cattle herd located in Isfahan province, Iran. The logit of the probability of stillbirth was modeled using logistic regression and the effect of stillbirth on lactation performance was analyzed through mixed linear model using 12283 lactation records on 5201 cows. The results showed that 6% of the calves born die within 48 h of birth. The results of logistic regression analysis demonstrated that the frequency of stillbirth is significantly influenced (P<0.05) by calving year, parity number and calving difficulty. The stillbirth frequency was found to be significantly higher for first parity cows, (P<0.05). Also, calving difficulty was shown to be significantly associated with increased risk of stillbirth (P<0.05). Mixed linear model analysis results demonstrated that stillbirth significantly reduced milk and fat yield (P<0.05), but had no significant impact on milk fat percentage (P≥0.05). The 305-d milk and fat yields for cows with stillbirth were estimated to be 8274.17 ± 100.79 and 245.60 ± 3.7 kg compared to 8865.60 ± 88.16 and 259.36 ± 3.2 kg for cows that had a live calf, respectively.


The first assessments of the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations have been completed, and deliberations about world health are increasing. Now is an appropriate time to consider the case of Cuba, which has functioned under difficult conditions for many years, and followed its own path. Cuba's health indicators are much better than might be expected considering its level of income; in many cases the indicators compare to those of industrialized countries. These results should be viewed as the product of a well-defined strategy and the use of essential public health principles rather than as the accumulation of better numbers. The Cuban experience demonstrates that a population's health can improve in even the most adverse economic conditions. This is attainable when sound public health practices are implemented under the principle that health is a basic right and therefore a national priority. An understanding of the Cuban public health system can help other low-income countries adapt these practices to their own conditions and meet the Millennium Development Goals. If this were to occur, there would be substantial improvement in the world's health.


The wet surface modification process were used in this work to get the well lipophilic molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) powders and the modified MoS2 were filled into the polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) and polypropylene (PP) powders with different proportions to make polymeric based composites through hot-press molding equipment. The Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FT-IR) analysis showed that the modification agents of stearic acid (SA), orγ-Methacryloxypropyl trimethoxy silane(KH570 or A-174), could react with the adsorption hydroxyl(−OH) of the MoS2 powders and finally form chemical coatings, the SA could form a layer of physics wrap too. The powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis reveled that the SA or KH570 could not change the laminated structure of MoS2. The wearability testing showed that the composites filled by modified MoS2 owned the better wearable performances than the filled not one. From minimum to maximum, the wear mass rates of SA/MoS2/PP/PPS, KH570/MoS2/PP/PPS, PP/PPS were 0.7216, 5.4187 and 7.3198 percent in turns. Scanning electronic microscope (SEM) analysis showed the surface modification could uniformize the modified MoS2 to disperse in the polymeric based composites, and also reflect the abrasion mechanism which the particles and the adhering wear modes could all make the mass loss of the testing samples and they coexisted and could transform each other, the former would produce higher loss rates than the later and their leader status would gradually change from the particles wear to the adhering wear during the course of wearing-resisting tests.


In addition to their intended purpose, graded reader texts can be made into a corpus appropriate for use with lower-level learners. Here I consider using such a corpus for data-driven learning (DDL), to make this approach more accessible to intermediate level students. However, how far does grading the corpus in this way compromise the authenticity of the language learners are exposed to? The simplified nature of such corpora may limit learners' exposure to lexical chunks, which are fundamental to the acquisition of natural and fluent language. This paper compares lexical chunks in graded corpora and the British National Corpus, examining frequency, type, and composition, to evaluate the 'authenticity' of graded input. Despite some differences, it is argued that the scale and type of lexical chunks are sufficient to provide input that reflects authentic language, suggesting that graded readers may offer an acceptable balance of accessibility and authenticity.


During the interaction of an intense laser pulse with a solid metal target, a high temperature, high density plasma is formed. Pulsed laser ablation has attracted much interest over the past fifty years with experimental and theoretical work largely focussed on the study of laser produced plasmas in vacuum. The study of pulsed laser ablation has been largely motivated from a materials processing perspective, with the characterisation of thin films using pulsed laser deposition of particular interest. Another application resulting from the study of laser produced plasmas is the use of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) for elemental composition and quantitative analysis of samples. LIBS is now a widely used technique employed in various fields including environmental analysis, forensics and biomedical applications.

While much work has been carried out on pulsed ablation of materials in vacuum and gas ambient, comparatively little research has been done on ablation in liquid media. As a result, the fundamental understanding of laser produced plasmas in liquids remains insufficient. Using techniques such as time resolved imaging and spectroscopy, a full characterisation of the plasma formed in air was undertaken as a comparison to the subsequent investigation of the plasma formed in water ambient. Single pulse studies revealed information on the dynamic evolution of a laser plasma formed in the liquid phase where strong confinement and broadband emission were the main observations. Shadowgraphy measurements were performed to examine the dynamic behaviour of the cavitation bubble that eventually forms post plasma ignition. The results of time resolved optical emission measurements from within the cavitation bubble using a second laser pulse reveal for the first time the full dynamic evolution of the plasma formed in such an environment.


The reduction of energy consumption is today addressed with great effort in manufacturing industry. In this paper, we improve upon a previously presented method for robotic system scheduling. By applying dynamic programming to existing trajectories, we generate new energy optimal trajectories that follow the same path but in a different execution time frame. With this new method, it is possible to solve the optimization problem for a range of execution times for the individual operations, based on one simulation only. The minimum energy trajectories can then be used to derive a globally energy optimal schedule. A case study of a cell comprised of four six-link manipulators is presented, in which energy optimal dynamic time scaling is compared to linear time scaling. The results show that a significant decrease in energy consumption can be achieved for any given cycle time.


This study investigates intermedia agenda-setting dynamics between traditional news media and social media in a policy reform debate. Whereas the role of traditional news media in public debates is generally acknowledged, the growth of social media raises questions about its potential power to set the agenda. This study contributes to the intermedia agenda-setting literature by extending the theory to the social media context, aiming to unravel causal relationships between traditional and social media. We use an automated content analysis to examine traditional and social media coverage between 2009 and 2016 of the Dutch policy reform to raise the retirement age. Results of pooled fixed effects time series models show support for a mutual influence between the traditional and social media agendas. By looking at the effects per subissue, monthly level vector autoregression models provide more empirical support for the influence of traditional news media on social media than for the reverse.


BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Distinguishing between toxoplasmosis and lymphoma brain lesions in AIDS patients is difficult but clinically relevant. This study was performed to test the hypothesis that diffusion-weighted (DW) imaging with apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps can be used to distinguish these two lesions.

METHODS
The ADC values were calculated in regions of interest placed in 13 brain toxoplasmosis lesions and eight brain lymphoma lesions in patients with AIDS. These values were compared with those of normal white matter. ADC ratios in lymphoma lesions then were compared with those in toxoplasmosis lesions by using a two-sample two-tailed t test.

RESULTS
Toxoplasmosis lesions demonstrated significantly greater diffusion than that of lymphoma lesions (P =.004). ADC ratios were 1.63 +/- 0.41 (mean +/- standard deviation) in the 13 toxoplasmosis lesions and 1.14 +/- 0.25 in the eight lymphoma lesions. While considerable overlap was present for ADC ratios between 1.0 and 1.6, ADC ratios greater than 1.6 were associated solely with toxoplasmosis, accounting for seven of 13 toxoplasmosis lesions.

CONCLUSION
ADC values are helpful in differentiating toxoplasmosis from lymphoma in patients with AIDS.


Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) constitute host defense peptides found among insects, fish, amphibians, and mammals including man. The targets of AMPs are gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria, fungi, enveloped viruses, and transformed/cancerous cells. The AMPs are broad spectrum antibiotics which display the propensity to serve as therapeutic agents not only in infectious disease, but also in human cancer. AMPs demonstrate unique properties which include cell membrane penetration, destabilization of biological membranes, ability to form and/or interact with membrane channels, and the capability to modulate host immune responses. The three types of AMPs consists a) naturally-occurring; b) artificially synthesized; and c) cleaved peptide fragments from blood and extracellular matrix proteins. The present treatise presents one such example of an AMP-like peptide derived from a naturally-occurring human protein as a potential candidate for future cancer therapy. The biological activities of human AMP-like peptides as cancer therapeutic agents are reviewed and reported in multiple in vitro and in vivo cancer assays. The possibility of using such human protein-derived peptides as primary and adjunct cancer therapeutic agents is addressed.


There are many steps in analyzing transcriptome data, from the acquisition of raw data to the selection of a subset of representative genes that explain a scientific hypothesis. The data produced can be represented as networks of interactions among genes and these may additionally be integrated with other biological databases, such as Protein-Protein Interactions, transcription factors and gene annotation. However, the results of these analyses remain fragmented, imposing difficulties, either for posterior inspection of results, or for meta-analysis by the incorporation of new related data. Integrating databases and tools into scientific workflows, orchestrating their execution, and managing the resulting data and its respective metadata are challenging tasks. Additionally, a great amount of effort is equally required to run in-silico experiments to structure and compose the information as needed for analysis. Different programs may need to be applied and different files are produced during the experiment cycle. In this context, the availability of a platform supporting experiment execution is paramount. We present GeNNet, an integrated transcriptome analysis platform that unifies scientific workflows with graph databases for selecting relevant genes according to the evaluated biological systems. It includes GeNNet-Wf, a scientific workflow that pre-loads biological data, pre-processes raw microarray data and conducts a series of analyses including normalization, differential expression inference, clusterization and gene set enrichment analysis. A user-friendly web interface, GeNNet-Web, allows for setting parameters, executing, and visualizing the results of GeNNet-Wf executions. To demonstrate the features of GeNNet, we performed case studies with data retrieved from GEO, particularly using a single-factor experiment in different analysis scenarios. As a result, we obtained differentially expressed genes for which biological functions were analyzed. The results are integrated into GeNNet-DB, a database about genes, clusters, experiments and their properties and relationships. The resulting graph database is explored with queries that demonstrate the expressiveness of this data model for reasoning about gene interaction networks. GeNNet is the first platform to integrate the analytical process of transcriptome data with graph databases. It provides a comprehensive set of tools that would otherwise be challenging for non-expert users to install and use. Developers can add new functionality to components of GeNNet. The derived data allows for testing previous hypotheses about an experiment and exploring new ones through the interactive graph database environment. It enables the analysis of different data on humans, rhesus, mice and rat coming from Affymetrix platforms. GeNNet is available as an open source platform at https://github.com/raquele/GeNNet and can be retrieved as a software container with the command docker pull quelopes/gennet.


The barriers for entering the medical textiles market are rather strong as it is highly technically specialised and dominated by long established players. An approach for entering this market could be to consider the newly evolving 3D-weaving and uniaxial noobing processes as they produce entirely new 3D fabric structures compared with traditional 2D structures. They thus present completely fresh research and business opportunities for developing and marketing innovative 3D fabric based healthcare products.


An integrated biostratigraphic approach, based on ammonites, calcareous nannofossils, dinoflagellates, combined with sedimentology, carbon-isotope and physical stratigraphy, is proposed for the Subalpine Basin (Thuoux and Saint-Pierre d'Argencon sections). Within the expanded marl deposits of the Terres Noires Fm., the Callovian-Oxfordian boundary is particularly well defined by ammonite taxa from different families (i.e. Cardioceratidae, Oppeliidae, Aspidoceratidae and Perisphinctidae), calcareous nannoplankton (first occurrence of large-sized Stephanolithion bigotii) and dinoflagellate cysts (first occurrence of Wanaea fimbriata). This precise biostratigraphy and diversity of ammonites permit long-range correlations with Boreal and Pacific domains. The exceptional outcrop conditions and continuous sedimentation allow high-resolution chemostratigraphy and cyclostratigraphy to be used. Variations of the δ13C record (1.5‰ increase during the Lamberti Zone), consistent with data from other sections of the Subalpine Basin and with the Paris Basin, provide additional markers to characterise the Callovian-Oxfordian boundary. Promising results from cyclostratigraphy should serve to constrain the duration of biostratigraphic units and thus improve the Late Jurassic Geologic Time Scale. Comparisons are made with the two other candidates for an Oxfordian GSSP, Redcliff Point (UK) and Dubki (Russian Platform). Finally, the advantages of the Subalpine Basin sections support the proposal of Thuoux as a suitable GSSP candidate for the base of the Oxfordian Stage.


In order to obtain the thermal comfort work environment, the distribution of temperature and airflow velocity in typical computer room of school building is discussed with different supply air angles and velocities of incidence by CFD model. The calculated temperature after cooling in the room has a good agreement with the measured value. Furthermore, the distribution of temperature and airflow is uniform and the environment is comfort for working with supply air angles and velocity of incidence 45° and 60° and supply air velocity of incidence 1m/s comparing with that of other parameters. Additionally, the change of temperature becomes slow down with the increment of time and the air-conditioning has less influence on the change of temperature after about 900s with supply air angle and velocity of incidence 45°and 1m/s, respectively. The research is of great significance both in theory and practice to design air conditioning systems and evaluate the thermal comfort conditions.


Fatigue plays an important role in rheumatic diseases as it is a commonly experienced
symptom. Because of the great prevalence and importance of fatigue the aim of this study was
to gain insight into the relationship of this outstanding symptom and the patients' quality of
life. Furthermore the study's aim was to test sex and SES related differences in fatigue and in
its impact on quality of life. Previous findings concerning sex and SES related differences in
fatigue are often conflicting. The present study assumed that women and patients with a low
SES suffer from more fatigue and have a lower quality of life than men and patients with a
high SES.
To examine the relation of fatigue and quality of life and to test possible sex and SES
differences in fatigue and its impact on quality of life an existing dataset was used. It
consisted of data from 207 outpatients of Medical Spectrum Twente, The Netherlands,
affected by various forms of rheumatic diseases. The patients filled out the SF-36v2 Health
Survey to evaluate their quality of life. The present study made use of five of the eight
dimensions of the SF-36v2. Furthermore, the patients indicated their actual pain level by
means of a numerical rating scale and stated their current fatigue by means of three visual
analogue scales that measure the severity of fatigue, its effect and coping with fatigue.
The results revealed that there were significant sex differences in the severity of fatigue with
women rating their fatigue as more severe than men. Furthermore, there was also significant
sex difference in pain with women reaching a higher mean score than men. An analysis of
covariance showed that the effect of sex on pain outweighed the effect of sex on fatigue so
that sex was not significantly related to the severity of fatigue as pain was controlled. On top
of this the results revealed significant SES differences in coping with fatigue with patients
with low SES coping worse with fatigue than patients with high SES. Moreover the results
identified sex and SES differences in some dimensions of quality of life. It was further shown
that fatigue, pain and physical functioning were related to all aspects of quality of life that
were measured. Because fatigue was shown to be an outstanding symptom among several
forms of rheumatism more information about causes and treatment of fatigue is needed so that
patients get supported in using self-management strategies. It may be that women and patients
with low SES benefit more from special treatment than men and patients with high SES.


A large scale centrifugal shaker is the most effective testing facility for dynamic problems in geotechnical earthquake engineering. There are only two worldwide nowadays, whereas, no one has been established in China. As the most advanced testing facility, almost every aspect in the construction of a large scale centrifugal shaker encounters new challenges. Meanwhile, the facility layout and construction design face many new difficulties. In this paper, the general layout of laboratory and some relevant key technologies in construction are investigated and the scheme of facility general layout is proposed. The composition and variation of total power of centrifuges is analyzed, simultaneously the advantages and limitations of different cooling systems in the operation hall are compared. Also basic requirements and difficulties of foundation design are discussed, which can provide reference and guidance to construction of large scale centrifugal shakers.


Great improvement have occurred in echocardiographic tecniques recently. So, various relationships between transmitral flow index obtained by PW Doppler and pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (PCWP), which can only be measured with an invasive process and being an important indicator of heart functions, was put forward. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether there was a relationship between transmitral flow index and PCWP. 72 cases who have various heart disease were included in the study. On the same day, cardiac catheterization and echocardiographic assessment were applied to the cases included in the study. In cardiac catheterization, PCWP was measured by invasive method. In transthorasic echocardiography, transmitrai flow index was measured by PW Doppler. The relationship between transmitral flow index obtained by PW Doppler and PCWP was evaluated by Pearson correlation analysis. PCWP measured in catheterization was mean 14.77 ± 7.60 mmHg. There was positive correlation between CWP and deseleration rate (DT) (r: 0.87), Ep (r: 0.50), E/A (r: 0.54) and E/A:IVRZ (r: 0.71); there was a negative relationship between PCWP and isovolumetric relaxation time (IVRT)(r: -0.71), deseleration time (DT) (r: -0.70) and Ap (r: -0.26). In conclusion, by using transmitral PW Doppler index, which is repeated method and having no risk and which was looked at in bed, some useful knowledge can be obtained about PCWP. So we think that it will be a useful method in following up the cardiac-patients


With guidance from an expert consultant and SAP insider, learn to carefully plan and analyze your business path. From strategic planning through integration, understand the business steps and requirements needed to work with SAP's applications for enterprise performance management. * Understand how SAP Enterprise Performance Management enables financial planning processes * Learn best practices for streamlining strategy, planning, and profitability analysis * Preview SAP's vision for EPM, including SAP Business Planning and Consolidation, SAP HANA support, and more The Financial Planning and Analysis Lifecycle Strategy roll-out. Planning, budgeting, and forecasting. Profitability and cost management. Monitoring and reporting. Find the information that you need to implement these essential practices in your organization. SAP EPM Applications Learn about the SAP EPM applications such as SAP Strategy Management and SAP Business Planning and Consolidation, and how they enable organizations to meet their strategic financial goals and performance improvement initiatives. Integration Know how to extend the reach of EPM. You'll learn about options for integrating SAP EPM with SAP ERP, BI tools, and more. * Performance management methodologies * Financial planning and analysis * SAP Business Planning and Consolidation * SAP Profitability and Cost Management * SAP Strategy Management * SAP BusinessObjects BI tools * SAP Rapid Deployment solutions * SAP EPM Unwired * Processes powered by SAP HANA


Nitrogen is a crucial input for the efficient production of rice and is generally applied in two split treatments, before flooding the rice paddocks at sowing time and within a week after the beginning of the panicle initiation stage. There is no pre-sowing test to estimate nitrogen requirements and farmers use cropping history to make this decision. The aim of this study was to first value the information to growers provided by a nitrogen test for soils of rice paddocks and then estimate the returns to the industry from investments in R&D to develop this test. In our approach the information provided by the test allowed growers to revise their expectations about soil nitrogen status according to Bayesian decision theory and consequently to use nitrogen more profitably. We found that the test is likely to provide information potentially valuable to growers at around $2/ha and that research in developing the test has been a profitable investment for the Rice CRC with a benefit cost ratio just above one. As the accuracy of the test is improved to current industry standards, its use will become more profitable.


As part of long‑term bilateral cooperation with Martin Luther University in Halle, the 27th Bilateral Symposium Poznan‑Halle "Rare diseases in clinical practice" was held on December 16. The participants of the symposium included research workers of both partner universities. On this occasion, talks were held to set up research groups that will carry out joint activities in the field of science and research and the first Poznan‑Halle groups were tentatively established. Presentation of prizes for the best oral and poster presentations is a long‑standing tradition of the symposium. This award is named after two Professors: Prof. Zeige and Prof. Hasik, who initiated cooperation between our Universities over 30 years ago. In the current edition of the symposium the first prize, two second prizes and two third prizes were given. To add, two representatives of our university were honored. The first prize went to Krzysztof Piersiala, a 6th year student of the First Medical Faculty I and the deputy chairman of the Student Scientific Club at the Clinic of Otolaryngology and Laryngological Oncology. The awarded work was written under the supervison of Prof. Malgorzata Wierzbicka, who is the Head of the Clinic and Joanna Jackowska M.D., Ph.D. The third prize went to Dr Michal Prendecki, who is preparing a doctoral dissertation at PUMS Department and Clinic of Neurology (Head: Prof. Wojciech Kozubski). The work presented at the symposium was prepared in the Laboratory of Neurobiology and supervised by Prof. Jolanta Dorszewska, who tutors Dr Prendecki's doctoral thesis.


BACKGROUND
Staphylococcus aureus adhesion to platelets via microbial surface components recognizing adhesive matrix molecules (MSCRAMMs) is a critical first step in vascular infection. The molecular mechanisms governing adhesion are influenced by the repertoire of MSCRAMMs expressed on the bacterial surface and the fluid mechanical shear rates present in the vasculature. We compared the predominant adhesion mechanisms between early and late growth phase S. aureus under physiological shear conditions.

METHODS
A parallel-plate flow chamber was used to quantify the adhesion of early and late growth phase S. aureus to immobilized platelet layers as a function of wall shear rate. Specifically, we evaluated the influence of clumping factor (Clf) A, ClfB, serine-aspartate repeats, fibronectin-binding proteins (Fnbps), and protein A in supporting S. aureus adhesion to platelets. The ability of the plasma proteins fibrinogen and fibronectin to act as bridging molecules was also investigated.

RESULTS
Our results demonstrate a markedly elevated binding efficiency for late growth phase staphylococci to immobilized platelets, compared with that of the early growth phase cells in the high shear regime. During the late growth phase, fibrinogen in concert with von Willebrand factor (vWF) potentiates S. aureus-platelet binding via shear-dependent mechanisms. By contrast, fibrinogen, but not vWF, supports the adhesion of early growth phase S. aureus at the high wall shear rates. During the early growth phase, ClfA is identified as the dominant staphylococcal adhesion receptor, with Fnbps playing a supporting role.

CONCLUSION
The results presented here demonstrate a differential mechanism and binding efficiency for the adhesion of early versus late growth phase S. aureus to immobilized platelets.


Mixed species forests can often be more productive and deliver higher levels of ecosystem services and functions than monocultures. However, complementarity effects for any given tree species are difficult to generalize because they can vary greatly along gradients of climatic conditions and resource availability. Identifying the conditions where species diversity can positively influence productivity is crucial. To date, few studies have examined how growth complementarity across species and mixture types is modulated by stand and environmental factors, and fewer have considered more than one or two factors. We investigated how complementarity effects for several major Central European tree species change with climatic and edaphic conditions, and with stand structural characteristics, including species composition. We used data from the Swiss National Forest Inventory, which is based on 3,231 plots of pure and mixed stands (19 mixture types) across a broad environmental gradient, to test (i) how mixing effects change depending on the identity of the admixed species and (ii) if complementarity consistently increases when environmental conditions become harsher. The magnitude, whether positive or negative, of complementarity increased with increasing stand density and stand developmental stage, but no general pattern could be identified across mixture types. Complementarity for many species increased as drought intensity and temperature increased, but not for all species and mixture types. While soil conditions, nitrogen and site topography influenced complementarity for many species, there was no general pattern (increases and decreases were observed). Synthesis. Our study indicates that complementarity varies strongly with stand density and stand development as well as with topographic, climatic and soil conditions. This emphasizes the need to account for site‐dependent conditions when exploring mixture effects in relation to forest productivity. We found that under certain conditions (i.e. increasing drought, higher temperature), mixed forests can promote individual tree growth in Central European temperate forests. However, careful assessments depending on the species composing the stands are required under changing resource availability as well as under different levels of stand density and development.


Transition metal oxides, in particular, 3d or 4d perovskites have provided diverse emergent physics that originates from the coupling of various degrees of freedom such as spin, lattice, charge, orbital, and also disorder. 5d perovskites form a distinct class because they have strong spin-orbit coupling that introduces to the system an additional energy scale that is comparable to bandwidth and Coulomb correlation. Consequent new physics includes novel Jeff = 1/2 Mott insulators, metal-insulator transitions, spin liquids, and topological insulators. After highlighting some of the phenomena appearing in Ruddlesden-Popper iridate series Srn+1IrnO3n+1, we focus on the transport properties of perovskite SrIrO3. Using epitaxial thin films on various substrates, we demonstrate that metal-insulator transitions can be induced in perovskite SrIrO3 by reducing its thickness or by imposing compressive strain. The metal-insulator transition driven by thickness reduction is due to disorder, but the metal-insulator transition driven by compressive strain is accompanied by peculiar non-Fermi liquid behaviors, possibly due to the delicate interplay between correlation, disorder, and spin-orbit coupling. We examine various theoretical frameworks to understand the non-Fermi liquid physics and metal-insulator transition that occurs in SrIrO3 and offer the Mott-Anderson-Griffiths scenario as a possible solution.


Paternal transmission of the bithorax-complex (BX-C) rearrangement, inversion Uab1, causes a specific dominant gain of function phenotype in most abdominal segments. This represents a case of paternal imprinting since the mutant phenotype will occur only if inversion Uab1 is paternally transmitted. The transformations in males are toward genital arch tissue. For females the transformations are to tissue found on abdominal segment 7 (Ab7) and to structures normally restricted to the genital disc. Ninety-six percent of transformed areas appear on Ab5 and Ab6 in both sexes and on Ab7 in females, coinciding with the Abd-B domain. Four percent of the transformations occurred on Ab1 through Ab4, coinciding with the abd-A domain. The mutant phenotype can be dramatically enhanced by modifying genes such as the posterior BX-C mutant tuh-3. Expressivity is modulated by maternal effect alleles interacting with tuh-3. A region of function within inversion Uab1 appears to be programmed during spermatogenesis to function in a legacy dependent manner during embryogenesis.


The pathogenesis of sudden hearing loss is as yet unknown. Vascular disturbances are thought to play a major role, but they cannot be diagnosed clinically. We have therefore developed an animal model which allows measurements of the cochlear blood flow (CBF) and function. For CBF measurements a new technique based on coloured microspheres was developed. New Zealand rabbits were anaesthetised, ventilated and blood pressure and heart frequency were continuously monitored. 6 x 10(6) microspheres of one colour were injected in the left ventricle; different colours are available and allow multiple measurements. The amount of microspheres trapped in the capillary bed of the cochlea depends on the regional blood flow. An arterial reference blood sample makes it possible to calculate absolute values of the regional blood flow in the cochlea. The amount of microspheres trapped in the cochlea was determined microscopically after dissecting, dissolving and filtrating the cochlea. Measurements of the CBF in a control group (5 rabbits, 10 inner ears) at the beginning and after 120 minutes were performed. Mean CBF was 3.8 +/- 1.1 microliters/min and 4.3 +/- 1.3 microliters/min. The coloured microsphere technique allows repeated measurements of the CBF with good reproducibility and an acceptable standard deviation. CBF can be measured in absolute values, which is of advantage for determining a lower limit of the CBF for the cochlea function.


We introduce an indirect approach to estimate the solvation contributions to the thermodynamics of noncovalent complex formation through molecular dynamics simulation. This estimation is demonstrated by potential of mean force and entropy calculations on the binding process between β-cyclodextrin (host) and four drug molecules puerarin, daidzin, daidzein, and nabumetone (guest) in explicit water, followed by a stepwise extraction of individual enthalpy (ΔH) and entropy (ΔS) terms from the total free energy. Detailed analysis on the energetics of the host-guest complexation demonstrates that flexibility of the binding partners and solvation-related ΔH and ΔS need to be included explicitly for accurate estimation of the binding thermodynamics. From this, and our previous work on the solvent dependency of binding energies (Zhang et al. J. Phys. Chem. B 2012, 116, 12684-12693), it follows that calculations neglecting host or guest flexibility, or those employing implicit solvent, will not be able to systematically predict binding free energies. The approach presented here can be readily adopted for obtaining a deeper understanding of the mechanisms governing noncovalent associations in solution.


This dissertation is an outcome of the research study conducted and the project being implemented in Pugu Bombani, Ilala District, and Dar es Salaam Region. The Community Needs Assessment conducted in the area using participatory methods and tools like Questionnaire, Focus Group Discussions and Documentary Reviews, came out with five major community needs, which needed to be urgently addressed. Data collected were analyzed using SPSS computer software program. Prioritizations of the problem were done by using Pair wise ranking. The major identified problems were poor skills on poultry keeping among Mwakuda members, which lead to low income, unemployment, poor nutrition and high mortality rates due to existence of different poultry killer diseases in the area. The project implementation has focus on improving community Income for sustainable livelihood through poultry keeping as a priority project. The objectives of the project were mainly three;) Sensitize and Train 40 Mwakuda members on Entrepreneurship and Business Management by September 2014 (i) Acquire Plot and construct a house for poultry production for MWAKUDA members by October 2014 (ii) Improve employment opportunities and income to 40 Mwakuda members through Poultry production by February 2015. Few outputs for the objectives have so far realized and reported during project monitoring and midterm evaluation that there is skills improvement in poultry keeping business that contributes to improvement of nutrition, disease control that includes vaccination and treatment, management and care baby chicks mortality decreased drastically. Project implementation is going on well while monitoring and midterm evaluation have also been done and indicators for sustainability plan have been established.


This paper evaluates the impact of corruption on deforestation in Indonesia. The world's nature environment and global warming questions are one of the main factors of international concerns. Massive deforestation threatens Indonesian biodiversity. This research paper analyses issues of whether deforestation in Indonesia is caused by corruption and supported by crude palm oil production. This issue was questioned earlier by using Engel Granger cointegration test, three time series of data, specifically corruption perception index (CPI), rate of deforestation and price of crude palm oil that was inspected for a long-run relationship. Yet long-run relationship was not found. The author of this article shows that while answering this question, CPI values are not as important as the very nature of corruption in Indonesia. However, CPI is still extremely high in Indonesia as the nature of corruption is convenient for illegal logging. Thus, international response is needed so that to decrease the level of deforestation in Indonesia. With the new European Union Law that requires legal sourcing of wood products, Indonesia commits to enforce new rules in the Asia's largest rainforest. For example, FLEGT licensing became operational on November 15, 2016. The European Union is strictly enforcing these rules what is a good step against deforestation in hand with illegal logging in Indonesia. In this way to analyse in detail the FLEGT programme and the EU activities, is beyond the scope of this paper. There stays questioned the Indonesian Presidents' ban on new palm oil plantations and mining licence, because such approach can potentially increase corruption and unofficial economy at local levels. The author of this paper wants to fulfil the gap in understanding about the link between deforestation in Indonesia and corruption. The level of corruption in Indonesia is not the main issue, but the nature of corruption is the main problem. KEYWORDS: corruption, FLEGT licensing, deforestation, international relations. JEL CODES: D73, Q2, Q5, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15181/rfds.v25i2.1745


Background Adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (AD-MSCs) from fat tissue considered "surgical waste" during joint surgery may provide a potent source for regenerative medicine. Intra-articular, homologous fat tissue (Hoffa's fat pad, pouch fat) might possess a superior chondrogenic and osteogenic differentiation potential in comparison to extra-articular, nonhomologous fat. Blood products might further enhance this potential. Methods AD-MSCs were isolated from fat tissue of 3 donors from 3 locations each, during total knee replacement. Isolated cells were analyzed via flow cytometry. Cells were supplemented with blood products: two types of platelet-rich plasma (EPRP—PRP prepared in the presence of EDTA; CPRP—PRP prepared in the presence of citrate), hyperacute serum (hypACT), and standard fetal calf serum (FCS) as a positive control. The viability of the cells was determined by XTT assay, and the progress of differentiation was tested via histological staining and monitoring of specific gene expression. Results Blood products enhance ex vivo cell metabolism. Chondrogenesis is enhanced by EDTA-PRP and osteogenesis by citrate PRP, whereas hyperacute serum enhances both differentiations comparably. This finding was consistent in histological analysis as well as in gene expression. Lower blood product concentrations and shorter differentiation periods lead to superior histological results for chondrogenesis. Both PRP types had a different biological effect depending upon concentration, whereas hyperacute serum seemed to have a more consistent effect, independent of the used concentration. Conclusion (i) Blood product preparation method, (ii) type of anticoagulant, (iii) differentiation time, and (iv) blood product concentration have a significant influence on stem cell viability and the differentiation potential, favouring no use of anticoagulation, shorter differentiation time, and lower blood product concentrations. Cell-free blood products like hyperacute serum may be considered as an alternative supplementation in regenerative medicine, especially for stem cell therapies.


Abstract. In this short contribution the use of different sunspot numbers for the estimation of past solar and upper atmosphere conditions from historical and modern auroral observations realised by Schroder et al. (2004) is analysed. Moreover, some comments are made on the relationships between mean annual visual observations of the auroras at middle latitudes of Europe and the mean annual sunspot number during 1780–1829. Keywords. Atmospheric composition and structure (Airglow and aurora) – Magnetospheric physics (Auroral phenomena, solar wind-magnetosphere interactions) – History of geophysics (Solar-planetary relationship)


We present LLaMA-Adapter, a lightweight adaption method to efficiently fine-tune LLaMA into an instruction-following model. Using 52K self-instruct demonstrations, LLaMA-Adapter only introduces 1.2M learnable parameters upon the frozen LLaMA 7B model, and costs less than one hour for fine-tuning on 8 A100 GPUs. Specifically, we adopt a set of learnable adaption prompts, and prepend them to the word tokens at higher transformer layers. Then, a zero-initialized attention mechanism with zero gating is proposed, which adaptively injects the new instructional cues into LLaMA, while effectively preserves its pre-trained knowledge. With our efficient training, LLaMA-Adapter can generate high-quality responses, comparable to Alpaca with fully fine-tuned 7B parameters. Besides language commands, our approach can be simply extended to multi-modal instructions for learning image-conditioned LLaMA model, which achieves superior reasoning performance on ScienceQA and COCO Caption benchmarks. Furthermore, we also evaluate the zero-initialized attention mechanism for fine-tuning other pre-trained models (ViT, RoBERTa) on traditional vision and language tasks, demonstrating the superior generalization capacity of our approach. Code is released at https://github.com/OpenGVLab/LLaMA-Adapter.


Factorial mating analysis of eighty crosses of maize (Zea mays L.), produced by crossing five females with sixteen pollen parents, was conducted over two locations for combining ability. Mean squares due to environments (E), females (F), males (M), F X M, F X E, M X E, and F X M X E were significant for grain yield and most of the quantitative traits studied. Specific combining ability (sca) and sca x E components were of higher magnitude than general combining ability (gca) and gca x E components for grain yield, indicating greater contribution of nonadditive gene action and its pronounced interaction with the environments. Sixteen crosses significantly out yielded the best hybrid check. Some of the high yielding hybrids were short, with high harvest index and at par with the best check for silking and maturity. These studies provided possibility to obtain better hybrids which may be used in breeding programme.


Abstract Land use and Land cover (LULC) mapping is one of the most important application areas of remote sensing which requires both spectral and spatial resolutions in order to decrease the spectral ambiguity of different land cover types. Airborne hyperspectral images are among those data which perfectly suits to that kind of applications because of their high number of spectral bands and the ability to see small details on the field. As this technology has newly developed, most of the image processing methods are for the medium resolution sensors and they are not capable of dealing with high resolution images. Therefore, in this study a new framework is proposed to improve the classification accuracy of land use/cover mapping applications and to achieve a greater reliability in the process of mapping land use map using high resolution hyperspectral image data. In order to achieve it, spatial information is incorporated together with spectral information by exploiting feature extraction methods like Grey Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM), Gabor and Morphological Attribute Profile (MAP) on dimensionally reduced image with highest accuracy. Then, machine learning algorithms like Random Forest (RF) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) are used to investigate the contribution of texture information in the classification of high resolution hyperspectral images. In addition to that, further analysis is conducted with object based RF classification to investigate the contribution of contextual information. Finally, overall accuracy, producer's/user's accuracy, the quantity and allocation based disagreements and location and quantity based kappa agreements are calculated together with McNemar tests for the accuracy assessment. According to our results, proposed framework which incorporates Gabor texture information and exploits Discrete Wavelet Transform based dimensionality reduction method increase the overall classification accuracy up to 9%. Amongst individual classes, Gabor features boosted classification accuracies of all the classes (soil, road, vegetation, building and shadow) to 7%, 6%, 6%, 8%, 9%, and 24% respectively with producer's accuracy. Besides, 17% and 10% increase obtained in user's accuracy with MAP (area) feature in classifying road and shadow classes respectively. Moreover, when the object based classification is conducted, it is seen that the OA of pixel based classification is increased further by 1.07%. An increase between 2% and 4% is achieved with producer's accuracy in soil, vegetation and building classes and an increase between 1% and 3% is achieved by user's accuracy in soil, road, vegetation and shadow classes. In the end, accurate LULC map is produced with object based RF classification of gabor features added airborne hyperspectral image which is dimensionally reduced with DWT method.