Multiproxy paleoenvironmental records (pollen and planktonic isotope) from Ocean Drilling Program Site 976 (Alboran Sea) document rapid ocean and climate variations during the last glacial that follow the Dansgaard-Oeschger climate oscillations seen in the Greenland ice core records, thus suggesting a close link of the Mediterranean climate swings with North Atlantic climates. Continental conditions rapidly oscillated through cold-arid and warm-wet conditions in the course of stadial-interstadial climate jumps. At the time of Heinrich events, i.e., maximum meltwater flux to the North Atlantic, western Mediterranean marine microflora and microfauna show rapid cooling correlated with increasing continental dryness. Enhanced aridity conceivably points to prolonged wintertime stability of atmospheric high-pressure systems over the southwestern Mediterranean in conjunction with cooling of the North Atlantic.


For the first time, the CJEU has ruled in VEB v BP on the court competent for deciding liability suits regarding misinformation on the secondary securities market. Surprisingly, the Court localises the damage resulting from misinformation on the secondary financial markets at a single place, that where the financial instruments in question were listed. This raises the question of how the decision can be squared with earlier cases like Kolassa or Löber and other precedent. It is also unclear how the new ruling applies to special cases like dual listings or electronic trading venues. Furthermore, the judgment is of utmost importance for the jurisdiction over collective actions by postulating that they should not be treated any differently than individual actions, without clarifying what this means in practice. This contribution analyses these questions, puts the judgment in larger context, and discusses its repercussions for future cases.


A simple, specific, accurate and stability-indicating reversed phase high performance liquid chromatographic method was developed for the simultaneous determination of Diazepam and Impiramine hydrochloride, using a ODS C-18 (HIQ SIL 4.6mm x 25cm, 10µm) column and a mobile phase composed of Methanol: Phosphate buffer (75:25 v/v). The retention times of Diazepam and Impiramine hydrochloride were found to be 2.85 min and 5.24 min, respectively. Linearity was established for Diazepam and Impiramine hydrochloride in the range of 10-500 μg/ml and 2-12 μg/ml, respectively. The percentage recoveries of Diazepam and Impiramine hydrochloride were found to be in the range of 99.83-99.91% and 98.81-99.96%, respectively. Both the drugs were subjected to variance of conditions like flow rate, difference in mobile phase and concluded that this method can be successfully employed for simultaneous quantitative analysis of Diazepam and Impiramine hydrochloride in bulk drugs and formulations.


Melanoma is the most serious form of skin cancer affecting mostly people of Caucasian origin and is associated with high exposure to solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Antioxidants in the diet are thought to prevent UV-induced DNA damage and oxidative stress and laboratory-based studies have shown that high antioxidant intakes inhibit melanoma development. Corresponding epidemiological evidence is inconsistent, however. We therefore reviewed results from prospective observational studies and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to clarify whether consumption of antioxidant vitamin C, E (tocopherol), and A (retinol), carotenoids and selenium, as food, supplements, or both, or high fruit and vegetable intake, reduce the incidence of cutaneous melanoma. A total of 9 studies (2 cohort, 1 nested case-control, 6 RCTs) were included. Neither antioxidant nutrients, individually or combined, nor fruit and vegetable intake showed any strong and significant associations with melanoma, though the number of relevant studies was limited and several had methodological shortcomings. In particular, melanoma was not a primary disease outcome in any of the RCTs and therefore, none adequately accounted for potential confounding by sun exposure. In conclusion, available evidence is currently inadequate to assess possible beneficial effects of antioxidant intake on melanoma risk.


Natural Dermatophilus congoíensis infection of camels has been reported in Kenya in semi-arid areas. Research is being conducted to discover how widespread the condition is in neighbouring countries with similar eco-climatic conditions. Severe skin infections of camels from the Butana region of Eastern Sudan were examined. The infections were first found in two herds of adult camels, of which 50%-75% of the animals were affected. In the other thirteen herds examined, camel calves were more likely to be infected (34%) than adults (8.9%), and lesions were more severe and involved most parts of the body. The lesions began as hair matting and later developed into hard crusts. The case fatality rate ranged from 10% to 30%. D. congolensiswas isolated from the scabs. Camel dermatophilosis was found to be among the most serious problems faced by camel herders in the Butana region.


Context. In the near- to mid-infrared wavelength domain, bright continuum sources in the central parsec of the Galactic center (GC) are subject to foreground absorption. These sources therefore represent ideal probes of the intervening material that is responsible for the absorption along the line of sight.
Aims. Our aim is to shed light on the location and physics of the absorbing clouds. We try to find out which of the gaseous absorbing materials is intimately associated with the GC and which one is associated with clouds at a much larger distance.
Methods. We used the capabilities of CRIRES spectrograph located at ESO Very Large Telescope in Chile to obtain absorption spectra of individual lines at a high spectral resolution of R = 50 000, that is, 5 km s−1. We observed the 12CO R(0), P(1), P(2), P(3), P(4), P(5), P(6), P(7) and P(9) transition lines, applied standard data reduction, and compared the results with literature data.
Results. We present the results of CRIRES observations of 13 infrared sources located in the central parsec of the Galaxy. The data provide direct evidence for a complex structure of the interstellar medium along the line of sight and in the close environment of the central sources. In particular we find four cold foreground clouds at radial velocities vLSR of the order of −145, −85, −60, and −40 ± 15 km s−1 that show absorption in the lower transition lines from R(0) to P(2) and in all the observed spectra. We also find in all sources an absorption in velocity range of 50–60 km s−1, possibly associated with the so-called 50 km s−1 cloud and suggesting an extension of this cloud in front of the GC. Finally, we detect individual absorption lines that are probably associated with material much closer to the center and with the sources themselves, suggesting the presence of cold gas in the local region.


We face worrying trends: technology becomes more ubiquitous, yet engineering enrollments continue to fall, and women continue to be significantly underrepresented in these disciplines. Robotics has been an outstanding vehicle for helping draw young students to the magic of science and engineering, particularly with national programs such as FIRST, Botball, and BEST. Yet, these existing programs are intense, short term, and competition focused, which, we hypothesize, may be hindering participant diversity. We have aimed to design a technological fluency program called Robot Diaries that is driven instead by strong social narrative that has deep meaning to the students. Robot Diaries enables students in middle school to build completely new robots from craft materials and then animate these physical robots with emotional expressions that can be shared with their friends and their friends' robots over the Internet. Ultimately, Robot Diaries provides a unique stage for expressing aesthetic design, sharing emotions and ideas, and promoting technological fluency. We describe the multiple, parallel design efforts that constitute Robot Diaries.


In the Hippias Major Socrates uses a counterexample to oppose Hippias's view that parts and wholes always have a "continuous" nature. Socrates argues, for example, that even-numbered groups might be made of parts with the opposite character, i.e. odd. As Gadamer has shown, Socrates often uses such examples as a model for understanding language and definitions: numbers and definitions both draw disparate elements into a sum-whole differing from the parts. In this paper I follow Gadamer's suggestion that we should focus on the parallel between numbers and definitions in Platonic thought. However, I offer a different interpretation of the lesson implicit in Socrates's opposition to Hippias. I argue that, ac cording to Socrates, parts and sum-wholes may share in essential attributes; yet this unity or continuity is neither necessary, as Hippias suggests, nor is it impossible, as Gadamer implies. In closing, I suggest that this seemingly minor difference in logical interpretation has important implications for how we should understand the structure of human communities in a Platonic context.


The work comprises a case study and evaluation of the contractual procedures and management techniques attending the disposal of urban waste in a well endowed and rapidly expanding municipality in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The work is in six parts. The first part traces the evolution of Jeddah as a point on the South North Caravan route across Arabia and its importance as the gateway to the Holy Cities of Mecca and Madina. The second part outlines the development of cleaning services in the national context, and the evolution of cleaning services in Jeddah. The third part offers a detailed description of the operational aspects of the first comprehensive cleaning contract for the City of Jeddah, and the performance specification that accompanied it. The fourth part outlines the computer mapping system established by the contractor on which the annual costing of the cleansing operation could be based. It also describes how this system was used by the Municipality in updating planning information. The fifth part analyse the different aspects of the cleaning contract, evaluates the performance of the contractor during the first five years contract, and attempts to identify the optimum way of spending money in order to provide the required service at an acceptable level of cost. Having analysed and compared the various aspects of the collection and disposal of waste in Jeddah, the writer in the sixth part concludes that Jeddah has gained many financial, administrative and environmental advantages by awarding the city cleaning operations to a private contractor through a competitive tendering process. The writer also demonstrates that the contractor's urban data base, if continually updated, could further assist the development control procedures and urban planning techniques of the Jeddah Municipality.


The article aims to present an approach to design and compare cascade Hinf loop shaping and essentially new cascade RGA-Hinf double decoupling magnetic control systems for a multivariable dynamical plant, specifically plasma in a vertically elongated tokamak. Identification of the present control closed-loops containing a plasma linear model of a relatively high order for the spherical Globus-M tokamak (Ioffe Institute, St Petersburg, Russia) to derive a low order linear model (without the application of reduction algorithms) as a plant under control is undertaken. A robust H¥ loop shaping method was applied to the identified model to design a plasma position, current, and shape (6 gaps between the first wall and plasma separatrix) multivariable controller. A structural analysis was done to get the most effective structure of the square plant with the 3rd gap eliminated in the feedback and a separate loop for the plasma current control. The methodology of the relative gain array (RGA) was applied to this structure to choose the proper correspondences between inputs and outputs (pairing), which brought the plant model closer to a decoupling plant (first decoupling in the open plant model). Further, the Hinf adjustment of the control system with the pairing plant and an additional feedback decoupling matrix (second decoupling of the plant model in the feedback) and PI controllers in the feedback gave increased control system accuracy while tracking references. Comparison of the two control systems designed has shown that double decoupling gives higher performance accuracy and a less robust stability margin, while the robust loop shaping method allows the stability margin to be increased but gave less accurate control of the gaps.


Previous studies on clupeiform reproduction have suggested that in upwelling areas of permanently high wind speed, winter spawning could be selected to promote the retention of offspring close to the coast, where more benign conditions are supposed to exist. The role of winter environmental characteristics, other than those conducive to retention, that could represent trade-offs within this strategy (i.e. larval food limitation, water temperature, intrusion of oceanic predators), however, have traditionally not been assessed. In the present paper, we assess the role of environmental variability on the winter reproductive strategy of the anchovy Engraulis ringens in an area close to its southern limit of distribution. A series of 8 cruises were conducted during the winter of 1995 in the coastal zone off Talcahuano (37° S). Wind field, satellite sea surface temperature and hydrographic characteristics of the water column revealed strong short-term variability of oceanographic conditions in the nearshore area. During winter, upwelling events, a broad river plume and a cross shelf circulation were determined. Peak anchovy egg and larval densities occurred regularly at the nearshore stations. Increases in larval densities at an offshore station (12 nautical miles offshore) coincided with periods of coastal upwelling and the presence of a broad river plume, suggesting rapid transport of larvae from the coast. Maximum densities of gelatinous predators, in turn, coincided with the periods of minimum larval densities offshore, creating an apparent inverse relationship. Predators and larvae, however, did not co-occur in the same water masses, as revealed by the sea surface temperature and hydrography. Despite winter conditions, overall microplankton density in the water column was high during most of the season, with maximum anchovy egg and larval densities co-occurring with peak periods in larval food abundance. The coupling between maximum egg and larval fish density and specific meteorological and oceanographic conditions, the temporal and spatial decoupling between potential gelatinous predators and larval anchovies, and the overall benign larval feeding conditions close to the coast suggest that the timing of spawning and location of young anchovies nearshore may be part of a larger reproductive strategy of this species in the area.


Consisting of contributions from experts in all specialties of cardiovascular geneticsand applied clinical cardiology, Principles and Practice of Clinical ...


Section 102 of the Sentencing Act 2002 gives judges' only limited discretion when sentencing for stage-1 murder: the discretion to rebut the presumption of life imprisonment in circumstances where the sentence would otherwise be "manifestly unjust". This is a high threshold, and the Court of Appeal has said that it will be met only in exceptional cases. The judgment in R v Cunnard is the first time that a person who derived their conviction of murder from a principal offender has had the presumption displaced, and this essay explores whether or not this decision has lowered the threshold to establish manifest injustice. Although Miller J's judgment conforms to the common features that exist in the few cases where the presumption has been successfully displaced, it is not without criticism. There are issues as to whether an overall assessment of the circumstances of the offence and the offender were made, as well as significant concerns regarding the emphasis the judge placed on sentence parity between co-offenders.


In a review article considers issues of efficiency and tactics of the purpose of fat-soluble vitamins, as in cholestatic and noncholestatic liver disease, as well as water-soluble vitamins, particularly vitamin C cholelithiasis. Oxidative stress due to chronic inflammation is one of the major conversion mechanisms of liver fibrosis in cirrhosis. The imbalance between production of reactive oxygen species and antioxidant defense causes a number of pathophysiological changes in the liver, including activation of hepatic stellate cells. The carriers of the I148M PNPLA3 mutation was not observed concentration reduction in liver vitamin A with increasing severity of the disease, but the observed decrease in the level of circulating retinyl palmitate and retinol-binding protein. To the appointment of vitamin A in liver disease should be approached with caution. Hypervitaminosis A leads to accelerated liver fibrosis and stimulates carcinogenesis. Currently actively studied the possibility of using vitamin E as an antioxidant, in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. His presence in the membranes phospholipid bilayer allows cells to prevent non-enzymatic oxidation of cell components by free radicals. Vitamin E can suppress the profibrotic processes. In patients with chronic cholestatic liver disease is common, vitamin K deficiency, even when administered, and is associated with the degree of cholestasis and severity of disease. The vitamin D deficiency, liver disease is also associated with the severity of disease correlated with the severity of liver failure and infectious complications. Vitamin D is an independent prognostic parameter for mortality risk in patients with liver cirrhosis.


A great number of numeric taxonomy methods, varying in the techniques of coding signs, similarity calculations and group analysis, as well as the insufficiency of criteria for the evaluation of numeric taxonomy methods, permitted us to propose the quantitative approach to the evaluation of the optimum method of numeric taxonomy. The dendrograms obtained by different methods were compared by calculating the measure of "proximity" which was assumed to be the sum of distances between divisions on different grouping levels.


: Exocrine pancreatic function was evaluated in 13 dogs, using the chymotrypsin-labile peptide N-benzoyl-L-tyrosyl-p-aminobenzoic acid (BT-PABA). This peptide releases p-aminobenzoic acid (PABA) in the presence of pancreatic chymotrypsin. The amount of PABA in blood or urine after BT-PABA administration then served as an index of pancreatic function. Similarly, a xylose absorption test has been described in the literature to evaluate absorptive function of the small intestine. Here, the pentose sugar d(+)xylose was given orally, and blood xylose concentrations were then measured at intervals. Since both tests were performed in nearly the same way, they were combined into a single test. A solution containing BT-PABA (30 mg/ml) and xylose (100 mg/ml) was administered perorally to dogs with and without pancreatic duct ligation. In the unoperated (control) dogs, peak blood concentrations for PABA occurred between 60 and 120 minutes and xylose concentrations were maximal between 30 and 90 minutes. Pancreatic duct ligation reduced PABA concentrations at 90 minutes to one-sixth of the values in control dogs. Xylose absorption, however, was not altered by pancreatic duct ligation. In this way, digestive and absorptive functions were both evaluated, using a single 90-minute test.


Field and laboratory experiments were conducted in New Jersey to investigate the influence of spray adjuvants on foliar absorption and efficacy of bispyribac–sodium on annual bluegrass, creeping bentgrass, and perennial ryegrass. In laboratory experiments on annual bluegrass, 14C–bispyribac–sodium without an adjuvant had 25% foliar absorption by 8 h after treatment, whereas absorption increased to 45, 46, and 75% when applied with crop oil concentrate, nonionic surfactant, and methylated seed oil, respectively. In creeping bentgrass fairways, sequential bispyribac–sodium applications at 37 g ai/ha with spray adjuvants controlled annual bluegrass similarly to 74 g ai/ha applied sequentially without adjuvants. In perennial ryegrass, treatments with methylated seed oil and nonionic surfactant required 25 and 41% lower bispyribac–sodium rates, respectively, to obtain annual bluegrass control levels comparable to bispyribac–sodium rates without adjuvants. Spray adjuvants did not exacerbate turf-grass discoloration from bispyribac–sodium. Overall, spray-adjuvant use with bispyribac–sodium may allow practitioners to reduce application rates and enhance efficacy for annual bluegrass control. Nomenclature: Bispyribac–sodium, annual bluegrass, Poa annua L., creeping bentgrass, Agrostis stolonifera L., 'L-93', 'Penncross', perennial ryegrass, Lolium perenne L., 'Manhattan 4'


Learning is perpetual, support for learning is memories. Making machine learn requires abundant utilization of memory structures. Neural Networks plays catalytic role for the artificial intelligence and learning processes. Deeper learning was made possible with multiple neural networks playing in synchronization with artificial intelligence, machine learning and convolutional neural networks. Convolution is the basic psychological phenomenon right from the infancy to the adulthood in learning and classifying the real world inputs. Images can be understood by classifying the color palletes and the schemes. Voice is is differentiated with the help of acoustic models and the infra sound detection models. Contribution of Convolution Neural Networks is a great gift to the world in making the machine understands the vitals aspects of sound and images. In this paper a study is presented on the influences of convolutional neural networks and long short-term memory networks that impose new ideas to develop intensive learning frameworks.


Poly(propylene) homopolymer/fly ash (50%wt) composites have been prepared from two samples of fly ash. One of the samples has a greater soluble group I and II metal content. A screening study indicated that Lubrizol Solplus® C800 (an unsaturated carboxylic acid coupling agent), initiated with dicumyl peroxide (DCP), conferred the best strength-toughness balance to composites produced by small scale batch mixing followed by compression moulding, i.e. long residence time in the melt. In the latter case, however the good mechanical properties were related to detachment of the interfacial region due to possible extraction of PP-C800 adduct-group I and II ion reaction products. Interfacial adhesion was arguably too high in the case of the fly ash sample bearing a lower level of group I and II ions. These deductions were also supported by DSC data. However, higher shear - low residence time processing, i.e. by twin screw extrusion and injection moulding, led to better mechanical properties being obtained from C800-DCP modification when the fly ash contained a reduced level of soluble group I and II ions. © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.


THE RESEARCH REPORTED in this paper was inspired by a plane ride I took from China to the United States in 1996. Browsing the newspapers and in-flight magazines, I came across one story about the high level of official corruption in China, and another that extolled the extraordinarily large flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) into China that year.(1) Later in the flight, I struck up a conversation with the passenger sitting next to me, an American business executive who had just visited his joint venture firm in China. I asked him whether the corruption problem in China affected him and his business. He said that it did and went on to explain the myriad problems that his firm had encountered in dealing with corruption and bureaucratic red tape. During and after that flight, I reflected on whether corruption has generally worked as a beneficial "grease," a minor annoyance, or a major obstacle for international investors. In this paper I address three interrelated issues. First, does corruption reduce inward FDI? Second, is China an exceptional case in which corruption does not do much harm? Third, does corruption distort the composition of capital inflows in a way that might raise the likelihood of a currency crisis? International direct investment reached $3.5 trillion in 1997. A small number of countries in the industrial world account for the bulk--about 68 percent--of this investment.(2) Yet international direct investment is especially important for developing countries, for which it is not only a source of scarce capital but also an important conduit for the transfer of technological and managerial know-how.(3) The recent currency crises in East Asia, Russia, and Latin America have highlighted the importance of the composition of capital flows for developing countries. Before I attempt to explain the relationship between corruption and the composition of capital inflows, it is worth noting that there are at least two views on the causes of these crises. One increasingly widespread view is that so-called crony capitalism--the misallocation of financial resources to the friends and relatives of government officials--is partly responsible. However, there is so far virtually no systematic evidence to support or reject this hypothesis.(4) The other view is that the confidence of international creditors in developing economies is fragile, so that small changes in the outlook can give rise to self-fulfilling expectations of a crisis. These two explanations are typically presented as rivals, but there may be a link between them. The extent of corruption in a country may affect that country's composition of capital inflows in a way that makes it more vulnerable to shifts in international creditors' expectations. Corruption here refers to the extent to which firms or individuals need to pay bribes to government officials to obtain permits, licenses, loans, or other government services needed to conduct business in a country.(5) Several studies have shown that the composition of international capital inflows is correlated with the incidence of currency crises.(6) They have found that the lower the share of FDI in total capital inflows, or the higher the ratio of short-term debt to reserves, the more likely a currency crisis becomes. One possible reason is that bank lending or other portfolio investment may be driven more by sentiment than direct investment is. Hence a small, unfavorable change in the recipient country's fundamentals may cause a large swing in portfolio capital flows, from massive inflows to massive outflows. This can strain the country's currency or financial system sufficiently to cause or hasten its collapse.(7) To my knowledge, no studies have examined the connection between corruption (or the intrusiveness of national bureaucracy more generally) and the composition of capital inflows. This paper seeks to fill that void. A small number of previous papers have looked at the effect of corruption on FDI. …


The research was conducted to investigate the effect of different levels of rosemary powder supplementation  on some productive traits of broiler chicken ross strain. Three hundred unsexed broiler chicks of one-day-old were equally divided into five groups, 2 replicates per group (30 chicks per replicate). Chicks were fed on starter diet from one-day-old until end of three weeks then replaced to finisher diet from the beginning of four weeks until the end of six weeks, starter and finisher diet supplemented with four ratios from rosemary powder 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5 and 2% which represented experimental groups.
         Results showed a significant superiority (P≤0.05) in average live body weight, weight gain, feed conversion ratio and dressing percentage in birds supplemented with rosemary powder as compared with control group at 3 and 6 weeks of birds age. Moreover, supplementation of rosemary had significantly (P≤0.05) decreased mortality ratio in experimental groups as compared with the control group.
           It can be concluded that supplementation of rosemary powder to the diet had a profound effect to enhance productive traits of broiler chicken ross strain.


BACKGROUND
Enterococcus faecalis is one of the most commonly occurring organisms retrieved from root canal treated teeth that show refractory apical periodontitis. Though it is well known that the ability of E. faecalis to form a matrix-encased biofilm contributes to its pathogenicity, the role of extracellular dextran and DNA in biofilm formation and its effect on the susceptibility of the biofilm to chlorhexidine remains poorly understood. It was hypothesized that the addition of an Extracellular Polymeric Substance (EPS) degrading enzyme along with a detergent to chlorhexidine may increase the susceptibility of the E. faecalis biofilm.

AIM
To evaluate the sensitivity of Enterococcus faecalis biofilms treated with DNase enzyme and their susceptibility to 2% chlorhexidine used alone or in conjunction with a detergent in a dentin disinfection model and examine under confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Semi cylindrical shaped dentin specimens were infected with E. faecalis and incubated for 24 hours. Following incubation, the infected dentin specimens were exposed for 3 minutes to the four disinfecting solutions and grouped accordingly. {Group I- Sterile saline, Group II- 2% Chlorhexidine (CHX), Group III- Dnase1 Enzyme + 2% CHX, Group IV- DNase1 Enzyme + 2% CHX & Tween 80. Bacterial viability was then assessed by staining the specimens and examining under CLSM to analyse the proportion of dead and live bacteria within the dentinal tubules.

RESULTS
The Groups II, III and IV showed statistically significant (p<0.05) percentage of dead bacteria compared to the control (Group I). However there was no significant difference in the killing effectiveness within the experimental groups (II-IV) at (p<0.05).

CONCLUSION
EPS degrading enzyme (DNase I) disrupts the biofilm and increases the susceptibility of E.faecalis when exposed to 2% Chlorhexidine and the use of a surfactant with this combination significantly contributes to improving the antibacterial efficacy.


Syriac Christianity spread along the Silk Road together with Aramaic culture and liturgy. Because of this, the staging posts of Christian merchants along the trade routes grew into missionary centers. Thus, the mission of the Church of the East stretched from Persia to Arabia and India, and from the Oxus River to the Chinese shores. This book contains a collection of studies on the Church of the East in its historical setting. It sheds new light on this subject from various perspectives and academic disciplines, providing fresh insights into the rich heritage of Syriac Christianity. (Series: orientalia - patristica - oecumenica - Vol. 5)


Malnutrition remains a global health concern and contributes significantly to childhood mortality. Nearly half of all deaths in children <5 years of age are attributed to undernutrition, especially in developing countries. It is important to differentiate between acute and chronic malnutrition, as the management and mortality for these two conditions differ. Management should follow integrative management protocols to ensure that mortality and morbidity are minimised. General principles for inpatient management of acute malnutrition can be divided into two phases, i.e. the initial stabilisation phase (usually in the first week) for acute complications, and the much longer rehabilitation phase. The initial phase lasts approximately 1 week and involves intensive monitoring and treatment. Severe acute malnutrition remains a problem in public health, especially in developing countries. Adhering to programmatic approaches for diagnosis and management ensures lower mortality rates and better outcomes.


Human parvovirus B19 infection is occasionally associated with acute lymphocytic myocarditis (ALM). Three infants with B19 virus-associated ALM were followed up clinically, histologically, and immunovirologically. Each infant had B19 virus DNA in the blood or B19 virus-specific IgM antibodies. Two infants with postnatal infection recovered after immunosuppressive therapy. The third infant with possible prenatal infection developed chronic persistent myocarditis associated with persistent B19 virus DNA in the blood. All 3 infants had increased levels of interferon-gamma, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, and interleukins -6 and -8. Four newborns with congenital B19 virus infection and 4 infants and children who had postnatally acquired B19 virus infection without myocarditis all had normal levels of these cytokines. These observations suggest that B19 virus infection in infancy causes ALM in some infants and children.


PURPOSE
Both the -366/+43 and the -282/+43 mouse alphaA-crystallin (or alphaA) promoters have been effective at driving transgene expression in lens fiber cells, but not in lens epithelium. Because the chick delta1-crystallin gene is expressed in lens epithelial cells, an enhancer was borrowed from this gene and linked to the alphaA promoter. This heterogenic enhancer/promoter construct was tested in transgenic mice to see whether it was active in both lens epithelium and fiber cells while retaining lens specificity.

METHODS
The third intron of the chick delta1-crystallin gene, which contains a lens enhancer element, was added to the 5' end of the mouse alphaA promoter. We refer to this chimeric regulatory element as the deltaenalphaA promoter. To test its activity, we inserted coding sequences for five different genes. Transgenic mice were generated by pronuclear microinjection. Transgene expression patterns were analyzed by either X-gal staining, in situ hybridization or immunohistochemical staining.

RESULTS
When deltaenalphaA-lacZ transgenic embryos were stained with X-gal at embryonic day (E)11.5, beta-galactosidase activity was detected only in the eye. Histologic sections of the stained embryos revealed that lacZ was expressed exclusively in the lens, in both epithelial and fiber cells. Transgenic mice were also generated using either the original alphaA- or the new deltaenalphaA promoter linked to an insulin cDNA. In situ hybridizations confirmed that the short alphaA promoter targeted prenatal insulin expression specifically to the lens fiber cells, whereas the deltaenalphaA promoter was active in both lens epithelial and fiber cells. Developmental studies of the deltaenalphaA-insulin mice showed that the deltaenalphaA promoter became active at the lens pit stage and remained active in all lens cells, even at postnatal ages. The deltaenalphaA promoter also successfully directed expression of SV40 T-antigen (TAg), human E2F2, and dominant negative Sprouty2 (dn-Spry2) genes to lens epithelial and fiber cells. The lens specificity of the deltaenalphaA promoter was maintained in minigenes with different types of introns and polyadenylation signals.

CONCLUSIONS
A new lens-specific regulatory element was generated-the deltaenalphaA promoter, which can drive high levels of transgene expression in both lens epithelium and fiber cells throughout development. This modified promoter can be used for future transgenic studies of signal transduction and cell cycle regulation in lens epithelial cells.


BACKGROUND
 As an overrepresented population on the transplant waitlist, stagnated rates of organ donation registration among Latinxs must be redressed. Promotoras (community health workers), who are effective at advocating and spearheading health promotion efforts in the Latinx community, show promise in their ability to educate about organ donation and donor registration.

 OBJECTIVE
 This study aimed (1) to develop an interactive, evidence-based program to educate promotoras about organ donation, the need for organ donors in the Latinx American community, and ways to register as deceased organ donors and (2) to train promotoras to lead discussions about organ donation and to promote the act of donor registration.

 METHODS
 In partnership with 4 promotoras organizations, the culturally targeted Promotoras de Donación eLearning module was developed based on input from 12 focus groups conducted with Latina women (n=61) and promotoras (n=37). Formative work, existing literature, the Vested Interest Theory, and the Organ Donation Model guided curriculum development. In partnership with the Gift of Life Institute and regional promotoras, the curriculum was designed, filmed, and developed in a visually appealing module interface. The module was beta-tested with promotoras before launch.

 RESULTS
 Promotoras de Donación, available in Spanish with English subtitling, lasts just over an hour. The module comprised 6 sections including various activities and videos, with the curriculum divided into a skills-based communication component and a didactic educational component. Pre- and posttests assessed the module's direct effects on promotoras' organ donation knowledge and attitudes as well as confidence promoting the act of donor registration.

 CONCLUSIONS
 This novel, theoretically and empirically based intervention leveraged the existing network of promotoras to promote the act of donor registration. Future research should assess whether the module helps increase rates of donor registration within Latinx communities and reduce disparities in access to transplantation.

 CLINICALTRIAL
 ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04007419; https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04007419


In Brazil, forage is the main source of nutrients for ruminants, but most production systems are extensive and low amounts of inputs are used to improve soil fertility. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of nitrogen doses on dry matter yield and protein content in leaves, stems and shoots of Brachiaria brizantha cv. Marandu. The soil was fertilized with dolomitic limestone and gypsum to raise base saturation to 60% in the 0-20 cm layer and decrease exchangeable aluminum in the subsurface layer. The experimentaldesign was the randomized blocks with four replications, and the plots were five meters long by five meters wide. Nitrogen fertilization doses were 0 (control), 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250 kg of N ha-1, and applied on the soil surface at the beginning of the regrowth period. Phosphate and potassium fertilization of 50 kg P ha-1 and 150 kg K ha-1 were also carried out. Plants were cut thirty-seven days after fertilization. The evaluations were carried out in the central 9.0 m2 of the plot. A positive effect of nitrogen fertilization was found on all the variables assessed in the study. The effect was linear for fresh matter and dry matter accumulation in leaves + stems of Brachiaria brizantha cv. Marandu. The accumulation of dry matter in leaves + stems was 4.46 t ha-1 in the control treatment, increasing to 6.03 t ha-1 at the highest nitrogen dose. Nitrogen fertilization positively influenced the percentage accumulation of dry matter in leaves of Brachiaria brizantha cv. Marandu, achieving the equation Y= 25.529 + 0.0372x. Consequently, there was a percentage reduction in the dry matter allocated in stems. At the highest nitrogen dose, the percentage increase of dry matter in leaves was 17%. Theeffect of nitrogen fertilization on protein content in leaves, stems and leaves + stems was also found. At the highest nitrogen dose (250 kg of N ha-1), there was an increase in protein per kg of dry matter of 86.78 g, as content in the control treatment was 67.5 g kg-1, increasing to 154.3 g kg-1. In addition to increasing the yield due to dry matter accumulation in the plant and improving the bromatological quality, nitrogen fertilization also increased protein production. We should also note that there was an increase in yield and protein production per hectare with the highest dose of nitrogen fertilization.


Relation classification is one of the key topics in information extraction, which can be used to construct knowledge bases or to provide useful information for question answering. Current approaches for relation classification are mainly focused on the English language and require lots of training data with human annotations. Creating and annotating a large amount of training data for low-resource languages is impractical and expensive. To overcome this issue, we propose two cross-lingual relation classification models: a baseline model based on Multilingual BERT and a new multilingual pretraining setup, which significantly improves the baseline with distant supervision. For evaluation, we introduce a new public benchmark dataset for cross-lingual relation classification in English, French, German, Spanish, and Turkish, called RELX. We also provide the RELX-Distant dataset, which includes hundreds of thousands of sentences with relations from Wikipedia and Wikidata collected by distant supervision for these languages. Our code and data are available at: https://github.com/boun-tabi/RELX


PHEMT stability in high efficiency power amplifiers (where the PHEMT is typically driven into reverse gate-drain breakdown) has been examined under accelerated dc stresses. Such stresses initially caused a slight increase in drain current and decrease in threshold voltage due to hot-carrier injection into the buffer which was not seen in similarly stressed MESFET's. On the other hand, continued stressing resulted in significant decrease in drain current and increase in drain resistance due to hot-carrier injection into the surface passivation which is consistent with the typical MESFET degradation mode. The degradation rate of PHEMT's is approximately two orders of magnitude faster than that of MESFET's. Two-dimensional physical device simulation confirms that the faster degradation of PHEMT's is due to their higher sensitivity to surface conditions.


Limited information exists about the temporal residency patterns of marine predators, especially at the individual level. Temporal partitioning of resources can reduce intra-specific competition, but this has seldom been examined in predators in marine ecosystems. Here, we used 8 years of acoustic telemetry data from 27 receivers deployed in a large coastal embayment to examine the temporal residency of 51 Port Jackson sharks (Heterodontus portusjacksoni), during their breeding season. We found that the residency lengths of male and female Port Jackson sharks on breeding reefs differed throughout the breeding season, with males showing longer residency at the start of the season and females showing longer residency at the end of the season. Port Jackson sharks also showed a 24-h or diel periodicity in their detection patterns. Although the majority of individuals were nocturnal, a small proportion of sharks was detected more frequently during the day, possibly to reduce competition for resources. Surprisingly, there was no difference in the sex ratio nor the size of diurnal and nocturnal individuals. This study provides long-term insight into the temporal residency patterns of mesopredatory sharks at a breeding site and, more broadly, our results highlight the importance of studying temporal variation at the individual level in movement ecology studies.


This paper proposes a novel architecture for a hierarchical Wireless Networked Control System (WNCS). It consists of three cascaded workcells each containing 30 sensors, 30 actuators and one controller. The wireless communication protocol used is IEEE 802.11g with multicasting. The hierarchy of the system is such that the lowest level is that of the sensors and actuators, the intermediate level is the controllers, and the highest level is a supervisory node. This supervisor can be either active or passive. System performance is measured using OPNET simulations and the results are confirmed analytically. The system is shown to tolerate all possible controller failure scenarios. The supervisor can handle the entire control load of all three controllers, should the need arise. The system exhibits zero packet drops and delay constraints are met in all scenarios. The effect of interference is then investigated and the maximum interference that can be tolerated by the system is quantified.


Su, B., Wang, L., Wang, H., Shi, B., Shan, A. and Li, Y. 2013. Conjugated linoleic acid and betain prevent pork quality issues from diets containing distillers′ dried grains with solubles. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 93: 477-485. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) or betaine (BET) in diets containing distillers′ dried grains with solubles (DDGS) on the fatty acid profile and the shelf-life attributes of pork. Thirty-two (60±2 kg) crossed-bred barrows (Duroc×Landrace×Yorkshine) were randomly assigned to one of four diets: (1) the control diet containing no corn DDGS (control group); (2) the diet containing 30% corn DDGS (DDGS-fed group); (3) the diet containing 30% corn DDGS and 10 g kg-1 CLA (CLA-fed group); (4) the diet containing 30% corn DDGS and 1 g kg-1 BET (BET-fed group). Dietary DDGS decreased the proportion of saturated fatty acids (SFA) (P<0.05), and increased the proportion of unsaturated fatty acids (UFA) and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) (P<0.05) in pork with respect to the control group, whereas dietary CLA and BET decreased the proportion of PUFA and increased the proportion of SFA in pork compared with DDGS-fed group. Pork treated with DDGS alone had higher total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N) value (P<0.05) and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) value (P<0.05) with respect to the control diet during display, whereas CLA-fed group and BET-fed group had lower TVB-N concentration and TBARS value (P<0.05) in pork than DDGS-fed group. There was no significant difference of instrumental color (L*, a*, b*) between DDGS-fed group and the control group (P>0.05). However, CLA-fed and BET-fed groups maintained lower L* values and higher a* values (P<0.05), but did not affect b* values with respect to the DDGS-fed group and the control group. Results confirmed that diets containing 30% DDGS have some adverse effects on pork freshness and lipid peroxidation; However, supplementation with CLA or BET can partially reverse these effects and improve color image of pork during display.


This is a critical edition of the Abrege des Croniques presented to Charles VII, king of France, in 1459, by his counsellor and former notary and secretary, Noel de Fribois. Historians of mentalities and the development of the late medieval state have hitherto cited manuscripts at random, unaware of the complex relationships between different versions of the text, The current edition analyses the five redactions of the text, based on 23 surviving manuscripts, and provides a fully annotated edition of the version most representative of the text presented to Charles VII in 1459.It considers the text as a cultural product of the royal chancellery and entourage of Charles VII. It analyses its importance within the changing political landscape of France at the end of the Hundred Years War, as a conduit of ideas that were to create the Absolutist state of the early modern period.


Workpiece's precision is an important indicator of hydraulic press. In order to accurately predict the accuracy of the part, a method that combined the genetic algorithm and neural network is put out. Design of orthogonal experiment (DOE) is used to determine the input samples of neural network training and testing samples. The output samples are obtained by finite element analysed method (FEA). Through optimizing weights and thresholds of BP neural network using genetic algorithms, prediction model of workpiece's precision is established. The established predict model overcomes the shortcomings of slow to convergence and easy to fall into the local minimum point of BP neural network model . By comparing the neural network forecast result with FEA 's results, it can be seen that the established prediction model has good fitting and generalization ability. So the model can be used to predict the workpiece's precision.


The presented work is a step towards designing a numerical strategy capable of assessing the nocivity of a small defect in terms of its size and position in the structure with low computational cost, using only a mesh of the defect-free reference structure. We focus here on presenting two computational scenarios allowing to efficiently evaluate flaw criticality. These scenarios are considering either the effect of a fixed flaw for any evalutaion point in solid, or varying flaws on a fixed evaluation point. 1 Motivation, introduction and problem definition The role played by defects in the initiation and development of rupture is crucial and has to be taken into account in order to realistically describe the behavior till complete failure. The difficulties in that context revolve around (i) the fact that the defect length scale is much smaller than the structure length scale, and (ii) the random nature of their position and size. Even in a purely deterministic approach, taking those defects into consideration by standard models imposes to resort to geometrical discretisations at the defect scale, leading to very costly computations and hindering parametric studies in terms of defect location and characteristics. Our current goal is to design an efficient two-scale numerical strategy which can accurately predict the perturbation in terms of stress caused by an inhomogeneity in elastic (back-ground) material. To make it computationally efficient, the analysis uses only a mesh for the defect-free structure, i.e. the mesh size does not depend on the (small) defect scale. We consider a linearly elastic body occupying a smooth bounded domain Ω ⊂ R d (with the spatial dimensionality d = 2 or 3), whose boundary Γ is partitioned as Γ = Γ D ∪Γ N support a prescribed traction ¯ t and a prescribed displacement ¯ u, while a body force density f is applied in Ω. On the basis of this fixed geometrical and loading configuration, we consider two situations, namely (i) a reference solid characterized by a given elasticity tensor C, which defines the background solution u, and (ii) a perturbed solid constituted of the same background material except for a small inhomogeneity whose material is characterized by C , which defines a perturbed solution u a. The aim of this work is to formulate a computational approach allowing to treat case (ii) as a perturbation of the background solution (i), in particular avoiding any meshing at the small inhomogeneity scale. This will be achieved by applying known results on the asymptotic expansion of the displacement


~~ah' . &ibb s lpwreck ofT the island of Zante (Fltz16~n, G. 11. P. (1951) Irish J. med. Sci., 6, 3 2). . A. d' ~e IcoUmarol derivative used as a rat poison. ratPe~ted administration is required but the sio \vllI take a number of doses without revulchikJ The risk of accidental poisoning to !\.iellren or animals is said to be slight (B. lttVy ander and Astrom, O. (1951), Hyg. 1. N ·,40, 137-45)· ac~~ It has been suggested that they may liu ally be harmful (Brown, W. M. C., and 5. 'l'hnter, R. B. (1948), Brit. med. J., 2, 984). Str~ re~ex is elicited by means of a brisk e!ll.i e In a distal direction on the thenar llle nence. This results in an upward moveSo nt of the mentalis muscle. Present in about in Per cent of normal adults it is accentuated 1<.u PYramidal disease (Blake, J. R., and Chi~kle, E. C. (1951), Arch. Neural. Psychiat., go, 65, 337-45). . MEDICINE ILLUSTRATED


Street food is an affordable and acceptable source of dietary intake remarkable for its high consumption in developing countries. The aim of this study was to assess the dietary diversity and nutritional status of street food consumers in Oyo, a Nigerian urban town. The study was cross-sectional in design. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to elicit information on the socio-economic characteristics, consumption of street food and a single 24hr dietary recall from 385 street food consumers in Oyo town of Oyo State. The nutritional status of the respondents was assessed with the use of anthropometric indices-weight (kg) and height (m) to estimate the Body Mass Index (BMI) which was classified as Underweight (<18.5kg/m 2 ), Normal (18.5-24.9 kg/m 2 ), Overweight (25.0- 29.9 kg/m 2 ) and Obese (≥30.0kg/m 2 . Dietary Diversity was based on the number of food groups consumed in the previous 24hours and a Dietary Diversity Score (DDS) ranging from 0 to 9 was constructed from a 9-food group model. The mean age of the respondents was 38.8±12years, majority (87%) were male and 59.7% were self-employed. About 40% spent half of their income on food while 10% spent more than three-quarters on food. More than 60% consumed street food daily, 82.1% indicated street meal as the most preferred street food whilst snacks and beverages were preferred by only 13%. Majority (74.0%) consumed street foods in the afternoon and about 20% in the morning. Four out of 10 respondents had low DDS, about half had medium DDS and 10% had high DDS. The nutritional status indicated 25.2% to be overweight while 3.1% and 6.2% were found to be underweight and obese, respectively. A significant association was found between the dietary diversity and nutritional status of the respondents. This study revealed that street food consumers in the ancient town of Oyo, Nigeria were either overweight or obese and their dietary diversity was low. Keywords: Street food, Consumers, Dietary Diversity, Nutritional status, South Western, Nigeria


We analytically show that probabilistic amplification of a weak coherent state stored inside an atomic medium can be achieved via detection of coherently scattered photons. We show that this is because of collective excitations created among atoms in the ensemble. We describe the physics of the amplification and identify the failure events, which occur during the amplification process. The amplification is realized by coherently mapping a weak coherent state in an ensemble of $ \Lambda $Λ-level atoms followed by detection of multiple Raman scattered photons, conditionally projecting the coherent state into an amplified state upon retrieval.


Ni-based superalloys with excellent high temperature strength have been used in advanced thermal power plants. It was found that grain boundary cracking is caused in the alloy under creep-fatigue loading due to the degradation of the crystallinity of grain boundaries and the grain boundary cracking degrades the lifetime of the alloy drastically. In order to clarify the mechanism of intergranular cracking, in this research, static and dynamic strains were applied to a bicrystal structure of the alloy perpendicularly to the grain boundary using molecular dynamics analysis. In addition, the effect of the accumulation of vacancies in the area with high-density of dislocations on the strength of the bicrystal structure was analysed. It was found that the fracture mode of the bicrystal structure changed from ductile transgranular fracture to brittle intergranular one as strong functions of the combination of Schmid factor of the two grains and the density of defects around the grain boundary. The local heavy plastic deformation occurred around the grain boundary with large difference in Schmid factor between nearby grains and the diffusion of the newly grown dislocations and vacancies was suppressed by the large strain field due to the large mismatch of the crystallographic orientation between the grains. The accumulation of vacancies accelerated the local plastic deformation around the grain boundary. Therefore, the mechanism of the acceleration of intergranular cracking under creep-fatigue loading was successfully clarified by MD analysis.


Preface. 1 Aspects of Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics. 1.1 History. 1.2 Nomenclature. 1.3 Solar System Abundances. 1.4 Astrophysical Aspects. 1.4.1 General Considerations. 1.4.2 Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram. 1.4.3 Stellar Evolution of Single Stars. 1.4.4 Binary Stars. 1.5 Masses, Binding Energies, Nuclear Reactions, and Related Topics. 1.5.1 Nuclear Mass and Binding Energy. 1.5.2 Energetics of Nuclear Reactions. 1.5.3 Atomic Mass and Mass Excess. 1.5.4 Number Abundance, Mass Fraction, and Mole Fraction. 1.5.5 Decay Constant, Mean Lifetime, and Half-Life. 1.6 Nuclear Shell Model. 1.6.1 Closed Shells and Magic Numbers. 1.6.2 Nuclear Structure and Nucleon Configuration. 1.7 Nuclear Excited States and Electromagnetic Transitions. 1.7.1 Energy, Angular Momentum, and Parity. 1.7.2 Transition Probabilities. 1.7.3 Branching Ratio and Mixing Ratio. 1.7.4 Gamma-Ray Transitions in a Stellar Plasma. 1.7.5 Isomeric States and the Case of 26 Al. 1.8 Weak Interaction. 1.8.1 Weak Interaction Processes. 1.8.2 Energetics. 1.8.3 Beta-Decay Probabilities. 1.8.4 Beta-Decays in a Stellar Plasma. 2 Nuclear Reactions. 2.1 Cross Sections. 2.2 Reciprocity Theorem. 2.3 Elastic Scattering and Method of Partial Waves. 2.3.1 General Aspects. 2.3.2 Relationship Between Differential Cross Section and Scattering Amplitude. 2.3.3 The Free Particle. 2.3.4 Turning the Potential On. 2.3.5 Scattering Amplitude and Elastic Scattering Cross Section. 2.3.6 Reaction Cross Section. 2.4 Scattering by Simple Potentials. 2.4.1 Square-Well Potential. 2.4.2 Square-Barrier Potential. 2.4.3 Transmission Through the Coulomb Barrier. 2.5 Theory of Resonances. 2.5.1 General Aspects. 2.5.2 Logarithmic Derivative, Phase Shift, and Cross Section. 2.5.3 Breit-Wigner Formulas. 2.5.4 Extension to Charged Particles and Arbitrary Values of Orbital Angular Momentum. 2.5.5 R-Matrix Theory. 2.5.6 Experimental Tests of the One-Level Breit-Wigner Formula. 2.5.7 Partial and Reduced Widths. 2.6 Continuum Theory. 2.7 Hauser-Feshbach Theory. 3 Thermonuclear Reactions. 3.1 Cross Sections and Reaction Rates. 3.1.1 Particle-Induced Reactions. 3.1.2 Photon-Induced Reactions. 3.1.3 Abundance Evolution. 3.1.4 Forward and Reverse Reactions. 3.1.5 Reaction Rates at Elevated Temperatures. 3.1.6 Reaction Rate Equilibria. 3.1.7 Nuclear Energy Generation. 3.2 Nonresonant and Resonant Thermonuclear Reaction Rates. 3.2.1 Nonresonant Reaction Rates for Charged-Particle-Induced Reactions. 3.2.2 Nonresonant Reaction Rates for Neutron-Induced Reactions. 3.2.3 Nonresonant Reaction Rates for Photon-Induced Reactions. 3.2.4 Narrow-Resonance Reaction Rates. 3.2.5 Broad-Resonance Reaction Rates. 3.2.6 Electron Screening. 3.2.7 Total Reaction Rates. 4 Nuclear Physics Experiments. 4.1 General Aspects. 4.1.1 Charged-Particle Beams. 4.1.2 Neutron Beams. 4.2 Interaction of Radiation with Matter. 4.2.1 Interactions of Heavy Charged Particles. 4.2.2 Interactions of Photons. 4.2.3 Interactions of Neutrons. 4.3 Targets and Related Equipment. 4.3.1 Backings. 4.3.2 Target Preparation. 4.3.3 Contaminants. 4.3.4 Target Chamber and Holder. 4.4 Radiation Detectors. 4.4.1 General Aspects. 4.4.2 Semiconductor Detectors. 4.4.3 Scintillation Detectors. 4.4.4 Proportional Counters. 4.4.5 Microchannel Plate Detectors. 4.5 Nuclear Spectroscopy. 4.5.1 Charged-Particle Spectroscopy. 4.5.2 Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy. 4.5.3 Neutron Spectroscopy. 4.6 Miscellaneous Experimental Techniques. 4.6.1 Radioactive Ion Beams. 4.6.2 Activation Method. 4.6.3 Time-of-Flight Technique. 4.7 Background Radiation. 4.7.1 General Aspects. 4.7.2 Background in Charged-Particle Detector Spectra. 4.7.3 Background in &alpha -Ray Detector Spectra. 4.7.4 Background in Neutron Detector Spectra. 4.8 Yields and Cross Sections for Charged-Particle-Induced Reactions. 4.8.1 Nonresonant and Resonant Yields. 4.8.2 General Treatment of Yield Curves. 4.8.3 Measured Yield Curves and Excitation Functions. 4.8.4 Determination of Absolute Resonance Strengths and Cross Sections. 4.9 Transmissions, Yields, and Cross Sections for Neutron-Induced Reactions. 4.9.1 Resonance Transmission. 4.9.2 Resonant and Nonresonant Yields. 4.9.3 Effective Cross Section. 4.9.4 Measured Yields and Transmissions. 4.9.5 Relative and Absolute Cross Sections. 5 Nuclear Burning Stages and Processes. 5.1 Hydrostatic Hydrogen Burning. 5.1.1 pp Chains. 5.1.2 CNO Cycles. 5.1.3 Hydrostatic Hydrogen Burning Beyond the CNO Mass Region. 5.2 Explosive Hydrogen Burning. 5.2.1 Hot CNO Cycles. 5.2.2 Explosive Hydrogen Burning Beyond the CNO Mass Region. 5.3 Hydrostatic Helium Burning. 5.3.1 Helium-Burning Reactions. 5.3.2 Nucleosynthesis During Hydrostatic He Burning. 5.3.3 Other Helium-Burning Reactions. 5.4 Explosive Hydrogen-Helium Burning. 5.4.1 Breakout from the HCNO Cycles. 5.4.2 Network Calculations at Constant Temperature and Density. 5.4.3 Nucleosynthesis for Temperature-Density Profiles. 5.5 Advanced Burning Stages. 5.5.1 Carbon Burning. 5.5.2 Neon Burning. 5.5.3 Oxygen Burning. 5.5.4 Silicon Burning. 5.5.5 Nuclear Statistical Equilibrium and Freeze-Out. 5.6 Nucleosynthesis Beyond the Iron Peak. 5.6.1 The s-Process. 5.6.2 The r-Process. 5.6.3 The p-Process. 5.7 Origin of the Solar System Nuclides. Appendix. A Solutions of the Schrodinger Equation in Three Dimensions. A.1 Zero Orbital Angular Momentum and Constant Potential. A.2 Arbitrary Orbital Angular Momentum and Zero Potential. A.3 Arbitrary Orbital Angular Momentum and Coulomb Potential. B Quantum Mechanical Selection Rules. C Kinematics. C.1 Relationship of Kinematic Quantities in the Laboratory Coordinate System. C.2 Transformation Between Laboratory and Center-of-Mass Coordinate System. D Angular Correlations. D.1 General Aspects. D.2 Pure Radiations in a Two-Step Process. D.3 Mixed Radiations in a Two-Step Process. D.4 Three-Step Process with Unobserved Intermediate Radiation. D.5 Experimental Considerations. D.6 Concluding Remarks. E Constants, Data, Units, and Notation. E.1 Physical Constants and Data. E.2 Mathematical Expressions. E.3 Prefixes and Units. E.4 Physical Quantities. Color Plates. References. Index.


The objective of this study was to determine if maternal plasma progesterone (P4) during early gestation influences within-litter birth weight variation in pigs. White crossbred females (n = 589) of mixed parity (1–4) were bred at standing estrus designated as day 0 of pregnancy and again 24 h later using single-sire semen from commercial Yorkshire genetics. At day 7 of pregnancy, a single blood sample from each female was collected, processed for plasma and P4 was analyzed using a validated RIA for swine. Dams were allowed to farrow under normal management procedures and standard litter statistics (e.g., number born alive, piglet birth weight, etc.) were recorded. Within-litter birth weight variation (BWV) was determined for each litter using the coefficient of variation of birth weight. Pearson correlation analysis illustrated there was a low (r = 0.0967) but significant (P = 0.0191) positive correlation between P4 and BWV. Linear regression demonstrated that for every ng/ml increase in P4 during early gestation, BWV increased 0.11 ± 0.04%. For this population, the mean BWV was 19.4% with a SD of 7.8%. When analyzing P4 concentrations from extreme groups of females with high or low BWV [i.e. females with 1 SD above, high group (>27.2%; n = 100); or below, low group (< 11.6%; n = 106) the mean BWV] by GLM procedures, high BWV group females had increased (P = 0.0473) concentrations of P4 during early gestation compared to low BWV group (13.9 ± 1.4 vs. 9.0 ± 1.7 ng/ml, respectively). These data demonstrate a positive relationship for early gestation plasma P4 concentrations with greater BWV; thereby, illustrating that high concentrations of P4 during early gestation influence within-litter birth weight variation in pigs. USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.


Selective laser melting (SLM) has been widely used to manufacture customised metallic parts because it provides an integrated way to manufacture three-dimensional (3D) parts from computer-aided design models after several sub-processes. On the other hand, aluminium-based nanocomposites are widely used in the aerospace and automotive industries due to their light weight, high specific strength, excellent wear resistance, but their manufacturability and mechanical properties are not well understood when these new materials are employed in SLM. This is an important consideration because, compared with traditional manufacturing technologies, SLM offers the ability to manufacture engineering parts with very complex geometries by employing a layer-by-layer manufacturing principle. Hence, this thesis systematically studies the SLM of an advanced Al-Al2O3 nanocomposite that is synthesised using high-energy ball-milling (HEBM) process.
The aim of this study is to use SLM to fabricate a nearly full dense Al-Al2O3 nanocomposite composed of 96 vol.% Al and 4 vol.% Al2O3 powder. The synthesis and characterisation of ball-milled powder is the first contribution of this study, which also investigates the influence of milling and pause duration on the fabrication of ball-milled composite powder. The second contribution of this work is the development of a 3D finite element model to predict the thermal behaviour of the first layer's composite powder. Both the transient temperature distribution and molten pool dimensions are predicted within the laser scanning, which
VI
enables a more efficient selection of the process parameters (e.g. hatch spacing and scanning speed).
The third contribution of this study is the optimisation of the SLM process parameters and microstructure investigation of the fabricated samples. The optimum laser energy density and scanning speed that are used to fabricate nearly full dense Al-Al2O3 nanocomposites are found to be 317.5 J/mm3 and 300 mm/s, respectively. The relative density is evaluated by quantifying the porosity on both the horizontal and vertical sections. The fabricated composite parts were observed to exhibit a very fine granular-dendrite microstructure due to the rapid cooling, while the thermal gradient at the molten pool region along the building direction was found to facilitate the formation of columnar grains.
The final contribution of this study is the investigation of mechanical properties such as tensile strength, microhardness and macro and nanoscale wear behaviour. Compared to pure Al, the addition of 4 vol.% Al2O3 nanoparticulates was found to contribute to a 36.3% and 17.5% increase in the yield strength and microhardness of the composite samples, respectively. Cold working was found to contribute to a 39% increase in microhardness due to grain deformation. The pin-on-disc wear testing and atomic force microscopy (AFM) nanoscratching were performed to study the macro and nanoscale wear behaviour of the fabricated samples, respectively.


Distortion of real video is affected by many factors. Many existing old videos n have the problem of low definition. However, most video enhancement based on paired learning is trained for specific degradation problem, lack of the ability to enhance real low-definition video with unknown distortion. In this paper, we propose a joint video enhancement algorithm based on unpaired learning, which uses a high-definition video to enhance a low-definition video with similar contents. In order to train the network, we also build three pairs of unpaired video datasets with chimpanzee, city night view and military figures as contents. In experiments, we compare our method with enhancement algorithm based on paired learning and other unpaired framework and find that our method achieves a higher performance,


We extract a novel quantum programming paradigm - superposition of programs - from the design idea of a popular class of quantum algorithms, namely quantum walk-based algorithms. The generality of this paradigm is guaranteed by the universality of quantum walks as a computational model. A new quantum programming language QGCL is then proposed to support the paradigm of superposition of programs. This language can be seen as a quantum extension of Dijkstra's GCL (Guarded Command Language). Surprisingly, alternation in GCL splits into two different notions in the quantum setting: classical alternation (of quantum programs) and quantum alternation, with the latter being introduced in QGCL for the first time. Quantum alternation is the key program construct for realizing the paradigm of superposition of programs.
The denotational semantics of QGCL are defined by introducing a new mathematical tool called the guarded composition of operator-valued functions. Then the weakest precondition semantics of QGCL can straightforwardly derived. Another very useful program construct in realizing the quantum programming paradigm of superposition of programs, called quantum choice, can be easily defined in terms of quantum alternation. The relation between quantum choices and probabilistic choices is clarified through defining the notion of local variables. We derive a family of algebraic laws for QGCL programs that can be used in program verification, transformations and compilation. The expressive power of QGCL is illustrated by several examples where various variants and generalizations of quantum walks are conveniently expressed using quantum alternation and quantum choice. We believe that quantum programming with quantum alternation and choice will play an important role in further exploiting the power of quantum computing.


Introduction: The Hospital Infection Control Committee (HICC) has an arduous role in a tertiary care hospital where lapses in infection control measures can adversely impact patient morbidity and survival. Outbreaks of epidemiologically important Gram-negative and Gram-positive pathogens can further worsen the scenario due to development of multiple drug resistant strains. WHONET is a freely downloadable software that can be used to monitor the impact of hospital infection control measures with the intensive care unit as an indicator. Objective: To assess the impact of Hospital Infection Control Committee (especially the activities of the Infection Control Team) on infection control measures in an intensive care unit on the isolation of Gramnegative and Gram-positive pathogens by the use of WHONET. Methods: Hospital infection surveillance using the WHONET data collection tool is a routine activity in our 780-bed teaching tertiary health care hospital in Lucknow. From Nov 2015 through Dec 2015, interventional and educational activities were reinitiated for health care workers (HCWs). The education included lectures to residents, medical officers and nursing and paramedical staff on best practices in Infection control and how hand washing could impact infection control amidst ICU intervention measures. Organism surveillance ICU data from pre-intervention (Jan-Dec 2015) and postintervention (Jan-Mar 2016) were imported from the surveillance system and statistically analyzed. Results: During the period from January 2015 to December 2015, a total of 1014 patients were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU), which includes Medical, Surgical and Step-down units of the hospital. The activities initiated by the members of the HICC resulted in an overall reduction in the Gram-positive and Gram-negative isolation rates from the ICU. Conclusion: With the widespread dissemination of multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria globally there is a renewed need for a relook at the role of the HICC. A multipronged approach of the HICC works well to optimize the management of patients infected or colonized with these bacteria.


We experimentally demonstrate the efficient generation of circularly polarized pulses tunable from the vacuum to deep ultraviolet (160-380 nm) through resonant dispersive wave emission from optical solitons in a gas-filled hollow capillary fiber. In the deep ultraviolet, we measure up to 13 µJ of pulse energy, and from numerical simulations, we estimate the shortest output pulse duration to be 8.5 fs. We also experimentally verify that simply scaling the pulse energy by 3/2 between linearly and circularly polarized pumping closely reproduces the soliton and dispersive wave dynamics. Based on previous results with linearly polarized self-compression and resonant dispersive wave emission, we expect our technique to be extended to produce circularly polarized few-fs pulses further into the vacuum ultraviolet, and few to sub-fs circularly polarized pulses in the near infrared.


In this work, a new method to fabricate high-purity Ti3AlC2 powder by pressureless sintering (PLS) was reported through adding a little amount of B2O3 as a low-temperature aid. The elemental Ti, Al, and active carbon powders were used as raw materials with the molar ratio of 3 : 1.2 : 2. The effect of sintering temperature on the purity of Ti3AlC2 was investigated at the range of 800°C to 1400°C. The results showed that high-purity Ti3AlC2 powders, in which almost no TiC phase could be found, were stably fabricated by pressureless synthesis at 1400°C for 5 mins in flow Ar atmosphere. The roles of B2O3 addition were discussed in the paper.


The main objective of this study was to evaluate and optimize the chemical oxidation process to be implemented at a power plant in Penghu County, Taiwan through laboratory and pilot-scale experiments were used to evaluate and optimize the chemical oxidation process at a power plant in Penghu County, Taiwan. Prior to pilot test, bench-scale tests were performed in the laboratory and analytical results indicated that persulfate oxidation achieved 90% removal of fuel oil while Fenton-like oxidation achieved only 41% removal of fuel oil within three days of testing period. Persulfate oxidation coupled with Fenton-like reaction was then used in a pilot test to treat the contaminated soil onsite. The Fenton-like reaction served the first stage of oxidation which formed hydroxyl radicals to break down fuel oil. The excess heat and ferrous ions resulted from such oxidation process would then activate persulfate oxidation which, in turn, produced sulfate radicals for continual brake-down of fuel oil. Result of soil pilot test indicated that the concentration of fuel oil was reduced to below the regulated standard in less than a week. Because the treated soil was originated from the local basaltic basement rock, it is rich in heavy metals, by nature. As such, the heavy metals as nickel and chromium were detected in leachate collected from the treatment cells, at concentrations exceeding the Taiwan Contaminant Control Standard and would have posed secondary contamination to the ambient environment if in-situ soil persulfate oxidation was implemented. Therefore, the result of this case study provides an alert that implementation of in-situ persulfate oxidation for soil and groundwater treatment could pose a threat of secondary contamination of heavy metals to the ambient environment.


The project proposes the enhancement of security system for secret data communication through video file using adaptive data hiding with cryptographic technique. A given input video file is converted into frame sequences and one of frame will be selected to conceal the secret data for secured data communication. The proposed technique uses public key cryptography for encrypting a secret text data into cipher text to avoid data hacking issues. After data encryption, the data hider will conceal the secret encrypted data into the selected frame using adaptive embedding algorithm. Although encryption achieves certain security effects, they make the secret messages unreadable and unnatural or meaningless. These unnatural messages usually attract some unintended observers" attention. The data hiding technique uses the LSB replacement algorithm for concealing the secret message bits into the image in frequency domain. An Integer wavelet transform is used to determine the high frequency components for effective data concealing for preserving image quality. In the data extraction module, the secret data will be extracted by using relevant key for choosing the pixel coefficient sand it will be decrypted to get original data using private key. Finally the performance of this proposal in data encryption and hiding will be analyzed based on image and data recovery.


Motivation Accurate identification of genotypes is critical in identifying de novo mutations, linking mutations with disease, and determining mutation rates. Because de novo mutations are rare, even low levels of genotyping error can cause a large fraction of false positive de novo mutations. Biological and technical processes that adversely affect genotyping include copy-number-variation, paralogous sequences, library preparation, sequencing error, and reference-mapping biases, among others. Results We modeled the read depth for all data as a mixture of Dirichlet-multinomial distributions, resulting in significant improvements over previously used models. In most cases the best model was comprised of two distributions. The major-component distribution is similar to a binomial distribution with low error and low reference bias. The minor-component distribution is overdispersed with higher error and reference bias. We also found that sites fitting the minor component are enriched for copy number variants and low complexity region. We expect that this approach to modeling the distribution of NGS data, will lead to improved genotyping. For example, this approach provides an expected distribution of reads that can be incorporated into a model to estimate de novo mutations using reads across a pedigree. Availability Methods and data files are available at https://github.com/CartwrightLab/WuEtAl2016/. Contact email@example.com


This study aimed to evaluate the completeness of data on nine items included in both the certificate of live birth (CLB) and death certificate (DC), as well as the retrieval of data on early neonatal deaths. The study assessed live birth and early neonatal and fetal death records in municipalities in the Ribeirão Preto Region, São Paulo State, Brazil, from 2000 to 2007. Database matching for live births and deaths allowed retrieving data on early neonatal deaths. Data completion was good on the CLB and poor on the DC. Retrieval of data related to mortality was satisfactory, except for maternal schooling, number of live born children, and stillbirths. The findings highlight the need to improve completion of the DC and showed that the retrieval process improved the completeness of data from the database on early neonatal deaths. The use of reports on local investigation of deaths is recommended as a strategy to make mortality databases more complete.


: Thirteen horses and ponies were used to evaluate an anastomotic technique utilizing a modified Gambee suture pattern. The modified Gambee technique was compared with a single-row everting technique and a double-row inverting technique. The double-row inverting technique predisposed to intestinal obstruction and resulted in minimal adhesions. The everting technique predisposed to leakage of intestinal contents and subsequent peritonitis. Adhesions were formed at the site of the anastomosis to such an extent as to jeopardize the proper position of the bowel. The technique did not cause any luminal constriction initially, but the ensuing adhesions did tend to limit the expansibility of the bowel. The modified Gambee technique was associated with minimal constriction of the bowel lumen. Excessive adhesions and leakage were not found to be problems associated with the technique. It was concluded that, in Equidae, the modified Gambee technique for intestinal anastomosis results in near normal lumen diameter, minimal adhesions, and adequate strength, thus being safe and effective.


Due to the long simulation time of the reference input set, computer architects often use reduced time simulation techniques to shorten the simulation time. However, what has not yet been thoroughly evaluated is the accuracy of these techniques relative to the reference input set and with respect to each other. To rectify this deficiency, this paper uses three methods to characterize reduced input set, truncated execution, and sampling-based simulation techniques while also examining their speed versus accuracy trade-off and configuration dependence. Our results show that the three sampling-based techniques, SimPoint, SMARTS, and random sampling, have the best accuracy, the best speed versus accuracy trade-off, and the least configuration dependence. On the other hand, the reduced input set and truncated execution simulation techniques had generally poor accuracy, were not significantly faster than the sampling-based techniques, and were severely configuration dependent. The final contribution of this paper is a decision tree, which can help architects choose the most appropriate technique for their simulations.


Tracking mitotic chromosome formation How cells pack DNA into fully compact, rod-shaped chromosomes during mitosis has fascinated cell biologists for more than a century. Gibcus et al. delineated the conformational transition trajectory from interphase chromatin to mitotic chromosomes minute by minute during the cell cycle. The mitotic chromosome is organized in a spiral staircase architecture in which chromatin loops emanate radially from a centrally located helical scaffold. The molecular machines condensin I and II play distinct roles in these processes: Condensin II is essential for helical winding, whereas condensin I modulates the organization within each helical turn. Science, this issue p. eaao6135 Mitotic chromosome folding involves formation of increasingly compacted helically arranged nested loop arrays. INTRODUCTION During mitosis, cells compact their chromosomes into dense rod-shaped structures to ensure their reliable transmission to daughter cells. Our work explores how cells achieve this compaction. We integrate genetic, genomic, and computational approaches to characterize the key steps in mitotic chromosome formation from the G2 nucleus to metaphase, and we identify roles of specific molecular machines, condensin I and II, in these major conformational transitions. RATIONALE We used chicken DT-40 cells expressing an analog-sensitive CDK1 to produce cell cultures that synchronously enter mitosis. We collected cells at key time points during mitotic entry; analyzed chromosome organization by microscopy, chromosome conformation capture, and polymer simulations; and delineated a pathway of mitotic chromosome formation. We used engineered cell lines to study the function of condensin complexes, which are critical for mitotic chromosome formation. We fused condensin I and II subunits to plant auxin-inducible degron domains, thus enabling their rapid depletion in late G2 just before mitotic entry. These cell lines allowed us to determine the roles of condensin I and II in specific steps of the mitotic chromosome morphogenesis pathway. RESULTS Our analysis of G2 chromosomes reveals hallmarks of interphase chromosomes, including topologically associating domains and compartments. Upon entry into prophase, this organization is lost within minutes, and by late prophase, chromosomes are folded as arrays of consecutive loops condensed around a central axis. These loops project with random but mutually correlated angles from the axis. During prometaphase, the loop array undergoes two major reorganizations. First, it acquires a helical arrangement of loops. Polymer simulations of Hi-C data show that the centrally located axis acquires a helical twist so that consecutive loops emanate as the steps of a spiral staircase. Second, the chromatin loops become nested with ~400-kb outer loops split up by ~80-kb inner loops. As prometaphase proceeds, chromosomes shorten through progressive helical winding, with the numbers of loops per turn increasing. As a result, the size of a helical turn grows from ~3 Mb (~40 loops) to ~12 Mb (~150 loops). Depletion of condensin I or II before mitotic entry revealed their differing roles in mitotic chromosome formation. Either condensin can mediate loop array formation. However, condensin II is required for the helical twisting of the scaffold from which loops emanate, whereas condensin I modulates the size and arrangement of nested inner loops. CONCLUSION We describe a pathway of mitotic chromosome folding that unifies many previous observations. In prophase, condensins mediate the loss of interphase organization and the formation of arrays of consecutive loops. In prometaphase, chromosomes adopt a spiral staircase–like structure with a helically arranged axial scaffold of condensin II at the bases of chromatin loops. The condensin II loops are further compacted by condensin I into clusters of smaller nested loops that are additionally collapsed by chromatin-to-chromatin attractions. The combination of nested loops distributed around a helically twisted axis plus dense chromatin packing achieves the 10,000-fold compaction of chromatin into linearly organized chromosomes that is required for accurate chromosome segregation when cells divide. A pathway for mitotic chromosome formation. In prophase, condensins mediate the loss of interphase chromosome conformation, and loop arrays are formed. In prometaphase, the combined action of condensin I (blue spheres in the bottom diagram) and II (red spheres) results in helically arranged nested loop arrays. Mitotic chromosomes fold as compact arrays of chromatin loops. To identify the pathway of mitotic chromosome formation, we combined imaging and Hi-C analysis of synchronous DT40 cell cultures with polymer simulations. Here we show that in prophase, the interphase organization is rapidly lost in a condensin-dependent manner, and arrays of consecutive 60-kilobase (kb) loops are formed. During prometaphase, ~80-kb inner loops are nested within ~400-kb outer loops. The loop array acquires a helical arrangement with consecutive loops emanating from a central "spiral staircase" condensin scaffold. The size of helical turns progressively increases to ~12 megabases during prometaphase. Acute depletion of condensin I or II shows that nested loops form by differential action of the two condensins, whereas condensin II is required for helical winding.


Introduction: Analysis of total signal decay is based on prognosis of the total path loss occurring in the atmospheric communication links, accounting for effects of gaseous structures attenuation and scattering, hydrometeors (rain, snow and clouds) absorption and attenuation, and turbulent structures fast fading on radio and optical signals passing atmospheric channels with fading. Purpose: To perform a novel methodology of definition and estimation of effects of decay, absorption, scattering, and fading of radio and optical signals propagating in atmospheric channels in various meteorological conditions. Results: Wasanalyzed the impact of gaseous structures, hydrometeors and turbulent structures in total path loss for link budget design and in degradation of data stream parameters, such as capacity, spectral efficiency and bit-error-rate, which lead in loss of information data signals passing such kinds of channels with fast fading and decrease of quality of service. An optimal algorithm was found of the total path loss prediction for various meteorological situations occurring in the real atmosphere at different heights and for various frequencies of radiated signals. A method was proposed of how to evaluate the data stream parameters, capacity, spectralefficiency and bit-error-rate, accounting for the effects of atmospheric turbulence impact on fast fading, which corrupts information passing such kinds of channels. All practical tests were illustrated by the use of the MATLAB utility. A new methodology was proposed on how to evaluate and estimate the capacity, the spectral efficiency, and the loss in energy and in the information data stream for different scenarios of radio and optical signals propagation via atmospheric channels with fading caused by different meteorological conditions. Practical relevance: The results obtained allow to achieve better accuracy of prognosis and increase quality of service in atmospheric communication channels.


—This paper identifies that academic staff need to be suitably prepared to deliver wholly online courses, and outlines the steps taken towards achieving this, at one Higher Education institution in the UK. E-learning, whether partially (blended) or wholly online, is not simply about the technology, but also requires an understanding of the pedagogical considerations, and the skills that are needed, to effectively facilitate them. Through the use of a formal questionnaire, and collation of informal comments made on a social network, evaluation is made of a staff development course designed specifically to promote effective facilitation of high quality online courses. The results determined that the course is fit for purpose and achieves its aims. Future cohorts are already over-subscribed as a result of positive commentary by participants. Further developments will be made, based upon constructive feedback by participants. Whilst possibly not unique, this course demonstrates action being taken in an educational institution to recognise that effective online delivery requires specific knowledge and skills that are different from those used in the traditional classroom.


A principal and independent component analysis (PCA and ICA) and a minimum noise fraction analysis (MNFA) were applied in this study to Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) images along the Adıyaman fault zone in Eastern Turkey. These analyses indicated that the lithologic units, fault patterns, and the morphological and structural features can be mapped highly accurately by using spectral-matching techniques in regions where rocks are well exposed. An inspection of all possible band combinations indicated that the PCA 134 and 231 and the ICA 132 band combinations give the best false color composite images for identifying the lithological units and contacts. The findings of the MNFA band combinations show that the MNFA 521 band combination also is robust for discriminating the lithological units, particularly Quaternary clastic units (colluvium/alluvium). MNFA band 1 alone provides the best image for tracing the tectonic and structural elements in the study area. The new up-to-date lithologic map of the Adıyaman fault zone we produced upon the interpretation of the processed OLI images reveals several river channels that are offset and beheaded by the Adıyaman fault, which verifies its Quaternary activity. This study demonstrated that, when used with the OLI data, the PCA, ICA, and MNFA are very powerful for lithological and structural mapping in actively deforming tectonic zones and hence can be applied to other regions elsewhere in the world where the climate is arid to semiarid, and the vegetation cover is scarce.


Artists featured include those who specifically address issues of race in their work as well as those who may not have intended to address racial issues but whose work nonetheless raises them. They include: Jessica Craig-Martin, Chester Higgins, Nikki Lee, Catherine Opie, Lorna Simpson, Vanessa Beecroft, Simon Johan, Carrie Mae Weems, Nancy Burson, Garry Winogrand, Pedro Meyer, Robert Misrach, Lewis Hine, Lee Friedlander, John Baldessari, Ansel Adams, Man Ray, F. Holland Day and Thomas Eakins.


: Family practice residents were surveyed to determine their perceptions of working with geriatric patients. Three areas were surveyed: residents' views of the elderly, their comparisons of the elderly with younger patients and their ideas of what it would be like to work with elderly patients. The results show that generally residents have positive views of geriatric patients. Residents see the elderly as comparing favorably with younger people. Also, they view the elderly as possessing favorable personality characteristics, such as a sense of humor, preference for independence, flexibility, and being easy to work with. Although residents are positive about working with the elderly, they do feel some ambivalence toward working in stroke-rehabilitation programs, as well as with geriatric patients who have lost contact with reality. Medical educators need to be aware of the perceptions that residents have concerning the geriatric patient, since this type of patient will in the future comprise a larger percentage of the resident's practice.


Poly(ADP-robose) polymerase-1 (PARP1) or ADP-ribosyltransferase diphtheria toxin-like 1 (ARTD1) is the most abundant and the best understood member of the 17 PARP family proteins. PARP1 binds to both single strand breaks (SSBs) and double-strand breaks (DSBs) and participates in the recognition, excision and repair of DNA damage. The most extensively studied role of PARP1 is its involvement in base excision repair (BER) and PARP inhibition induced-trapping of PARP1 during BER. Moreover, suppression of PARP1/2 leads to synthetic lethality in BRCA1/2-defecient tumors, indicating that PARP1-dependent BER and BRCA-dependent homologous repair pathway have overlapping and redundant functions in DNA repair. Recent studies have also pointed to a broader utility of PARP inhibitors beyond hereditary BRCA-deficient cancers. Pyruvate kinase isoform M2 (PKM2) is a glycolysis enzyme that converts phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) into pyruvate. Up-regulation of PKM2 has been shown recently to be an important feature of tumorigenesis. In tumor cells, PKM2 forms a dimmer that is catalytically inactive as a glycolysis enzyme, but provides advantage for tumor progression due to Warburg effect. In this report, we demonstrated that poly-ADP-ribose (PAR) is required for nuclear retention and nuclear function of PKM2. PKM2 translocates into nucleus and binds to PAR upon EGF stimulation. PARP inhibition, or the PKM2-C/A mutant, which abolishes the PKM2/PAR interaction, suppresses the nuclear function of PKM2. In addition, PARP inhibition also diminishes the nuclear PKM2-dependent glycolysis and tumor growth. Moreover, we showed that nuclear localization of PKM2 correlates with PAR expression in EGFR-mutant human lung cancer tissues. Interestingly, PARP inhibition leads to growth suppression of some EGFR-mutant lung cancer cells, which are resistant to EGFR inhibitor. These data together support an unexpected function of PARP inhibition in tumor suppression and indicate that nuclear PKM2 may serve as a promising biomarker for the further development of PARP inhibitor-based therapies. Note: This abstract was not presented at the meeting. Citation Format: Nan Li, Steven H. Lin. PARP inhibitors suppress growth of EGFR-mutant cancers by targeting nuclear PKM2 [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 328. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-328


Alternative-focused thinking is conventionally recognized as the right way to make career decisions, which uses weighted mean to assess the better one. However, alternatives are relevant only because they are means to achieve values. With value-focused thinking (VFT), the authors advance decision-making values should be the primary focus of decision making rather than alternatives. VFT describes and illustrates concepts and procedures for creating better alternatives for career decision-making problems. This article articulates and uses one's fundamental values to guide and integrate his/her career decision making activities. As a result, career decision-making study has new angle of views and explores many implicated techniques to understand a decision-making setting.


Introduction: The last century focused all its attention on the care of the pathological pregnancies with remarkable results, at the price of fatal overmedicalisation in normal pregnancies. Efforts centered on the pregnant patients at low risk are being developped. Objectives: To compare obstetric and neonatal outcomes obtained by independent midwives (IM) to a group control of pregnant women at low risk at Hospital Erasme. Material and Methods: Retrospective constitution of a multivariated cohort case-witnesses 1:2 of patients at low risk including 128 followed in antenatal and delivered by the IM and 256 followed in antenatal and delivered by the group control Erasme (E) Results: The rate of spontaneous vaginal delivery is significantly higher in the group IM (88,28 % versus 77,7 % in the group E). The rates of epidurals (66,79 % versus 37,50 %) and episiotomies (24,61 % versus 8,60 %) are significantly higher in the group E. Transfers to the neonatal unit are more frequent in the group E. Conclusion: The obstetrics attitudes are less interventionist in the IM group. The reasons can be linked to bias selection or to different obstetrics practices in both groups. Positive effects in terms of maternal and neonatal outcomes are quite positive.


Some of the important implications of the parental investment model of intergenerational mobility have been derived under the assumption that parental income is the main source of heterogeneity. We explicitly model the variability and inheritability of innate' earnings ability and the variability of tastes, showing how they affect observed degrees of intergenerational consumption and earnings mobility. Heterogeneity increases the difficulty of detecting the existence of borrowing constrained families. Conversely, the presence of heterogeneity means that economic and linear statistical models of inheritance generate similar intergenerational data on consumption and earnings. In this sense, our findings offer some support for Goldberger's (1989) criticism of human capital models of inheritance. Finally, we suggest that any cross-country differences in intergenerational earnings mobility are more readily interpreted according to the heterogeneity of inherited ability, rather than optimal family responses to country-specific institutions for accumulating human capital.