This Electronic Workshop in Computing (eWiC) proceedings contains selected papers from the workshop on Formal Methods in Industry, held in London, UK, and organised under the auspices of the BCS Formal Aspects of Computing Science (FACS) Specialist Group. The workshop, organised by Paul Boca, Jonathan Bowen and Peter Gorm Larsen, was inspired by the very successful and well-attended Industry Day event at the FM05 conference. The FACS workshop dovetails well with the subsequent Industry Day at FM08, which Peter Gorm Larsen is also co-chairing. The workshop attracted 50 participants, mainly from the UK and other parts of Europe; two attendees travelled nearly 6,000 miles from Japan to attend. The programme consisted of two invited contributions - one from Jim Woodcock, University of York, UK and the other from Peter Gorm Larsen, Engineering College of Aarhus, Denmark - and eight peer-reviewed papers. Tony Hoare, Microsoft, had been invited to give a talk at the workshop, but unfortunately was unwell and could not attend. Woodcock's talk focused on the verified file store, one of the case studies in the Grand Challenges 6 initiative to produce a repository of verified software. A workshop devoted to the verified file store problem took place the day after the Christmas workshop, once again hosted by the BCS. Larsen's talk, which was co-authored with John Fitzgerald, was more pragmatic, focusing on experiences of using VDM in Japan. In particular, uses of VDM in three projects covering different application areas were presented and compared: trading, railway, mobile chip. Larsen illustrated how VDM had benefited and continues to benefit these projects. A number of the regular papers contained in this eWiC indicate how different formalisms (such as Communicating Sequential Processes, VDM, Event-B) and tools (such as the B-tool, FDR) can be used to model, test, improve our understanding of and reason about industrial-scale examples. There is evidence too that formal methods can be viable in industry, saving time and money if used appropriately. The presentations from RAL and Newcastle University (NU) both deal with formal aspects of information shared across different organizations. The RAL contribution presented by Aziz focused on formalizing the security aspects of grid computing. The NU contribution presented by Fitzgerald demonstrated how information flow in virtual organizations can be validated. The presentation given by Hallerstede provided insight in the RODIN tool supporting Event-B whereas the presentation from Rezazadeh demonstrated how this tool can be used in the redevelopment of the CDIS system. Oliver demonstrated how Nokia saved 3 man months of effort using Alloy. Lawrence presented how IBM use CSP to analyse deadlocks in Java classloaders. Finally Treharne presented initial ideas of a new collaborative industrial project with AWE. Papers based on Woodcock's and O'Halloran's talks are not included in these proceedings, but their presentations can be found at the event website along with those of the other presenters: http://www.bcs-facs.org/events/xmas2007.html We hope that these eWiC proceedings will be of interest to readers and will demonstrate that formal methods can be used effectively in industry. The event was sponsored by the BCS Engineering and Technology Forum [5], Formal Methods Europe [6], FACS [2], Google [7] and the EPSRC VSR-net network [8]. The organizers would like to thank all of the sponsors for their generosity. This event could not have taken place without their support. Finally, the organizers give a special thank you to Gemma Liddiard and Rachel Browning from the BCS for running the registration desk, printing the badges and proceedings, and ensuring that there were no problems on the day, despite a change to the venue at the very last minute! [1] http://www.bcs-facs.org/events/xmas2007.html [2] http://www.bcs-facs.org [3] http://www.csr.ncl.ac.uk/fm05/ [4] http://www.fm2008.abo.fi/industry_day.php [5] http://www.bcs.org/category/13821 [6] http://www.fmeurope.org [7] http://www.google.co.uk [8] http://www.fmnet.info/vsr-net/ Paul Boca Jonathan Bowen Peter Gorm Larsen


BACKGROUND
We previously reported metrics of systemic therapy randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in breast cancer, colorectal cancer (CRC), and non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) published 1975-2004. To evaluate trends in the era of targeted therapies (TT), we have repeated a similar analysis of RCTs published 2005-2009.

METHODS
A search for phase III RCTs of systemic agents published in five major journals 2005-2009 was carried out. Trials were classified as TT if they involved any non-hormonal targeted agent. We extracted data regarding biomarker use. Integral biomarkers were defined as tests used to determine eligibility, stratification, or allocation. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze trends over time.

RESULTS
One hundred and thirty-seven eligible RCTs were evaluated. Compared with 1995-2004, the number (17-27 RCTs/year) and size (median sample size 446-722, P < 0.001) of RCTs increased. The proportion of RCTs evaluating TT increased from 4% (7/167) to 29% (40/137) (P < 0.001). There was an increase in the proportion of trials with financial support from industry [57% (95/167) to 78% (107/137), P = 0.001]. Biomarkers were included in 58% (80/137) of RCTs; integral biomarkers were included in 36% (49/137) of trials. Among the 49 RCTs using integral biomarkers, 40 (82%) used HER2 and/or ER/PR status in studies of breast cancer.

CONCLUSIONS
RCTs published in 2005-2009 are larger, more likely to evaluate TT, and be supported by industry. Biomarkers may be increasingly used, but the most common use relates to traditional use of ER/PR and evolving use of HER2 in breast cancer RCTs.


Juvenile American lobster Homarus americanus were quantitatively surveyed in the southeast Baie de Plaisance, Magdalen Islands, from 1995 to 2004. Lobster were collected by SCUBA, in summer and/or early fall after the annual settlement period. Growth for up to 3 yr following settlement was assessed by modal analysis of carapace length (CL)-frequency distributions and was confirmed for the first year by in situ rearing of Stage IV lobster collected from the plankton. In every sampling year, some modes (attributed to instars) were apparent in CL-frequency distributions up to 50 mm CL (estimated to be Instar XVI on average). The mean percent molt increment declined gradually from about 23% at Instar IV to about 15% at Instar XV. Strong year-classes could be tracked reasonably well for up to 2-3 yr after settlement. From this point, we projected growth to fishery recruitment and suggest that lobster reach commercial size at a higher instar and older age than previously believed. This is the first study to explain lobster juvenile growth in such detail, and it constitutes an essential step toward the understanding of potential settler-to-recruit relationships.


Context is derived from a Latin verb for weaving together. It refers to the pattern of a work, the way its subordinate parts relate to its larger structure. In contemporary literary discourse, however, the term usually refers to the much narrower idea of "historical context," insisting that great works of literature are fully and finally determined by the social circumstances in which they were created. What is puzzling about this is why anyone working with the achievements of literary creativity would find notions of cultural determinism an appealing way to go about enjoying complex works such as a play by Shakespeare. If anything might be expected to resist determination by anonymous cultural forces you would think it would be individual works of art. This essay argues for a more spacious view of context that does not legislate a reader's response to the semantic ordering of great works of literature. It is preferable, in my view, to think of context as the enabling conditions for an understanding between an artist's achievement and a reader's competence. Context allows room for the creativity and the emotional engagement of the reader. This is what characterizes vernacular criticism, spontaneity of response based on acknowledging what is subjectively meaningful in a literary work


In the area of natural language processing in recent years, there has been a strong tendency towards reversible natural language grammars, i.e., the use of one and the same grammar for grammatical analysis (parsing) and grammatical synthesis (generation) in a natural language system. The idea of representing grammatical knowledge only once and of using it for performing both tasks seems to be quite plausible, and there are many arguments based on practical and psychological considerations for adopting such a view (in section 2.1 we discuss the most important arguments in more detail). Nevertheless, in almost all large natural language systems in which parsing and generation are considered in similar depth, different algorithms are used - even when the same grammar is used. At present, the first attempts are being made at uniform architectures which are based on the paradigm of natural language processing as deduction (they are described and discussed in section 2.3 in detail). Here, grammatical processing is performed by means of the same underlying deduction mechanism, which can be parameterized for the specific tasks at hand. Natural language processing based on a uniform deduction process has a formal elegance and results in more compact systems. There is one further advantage that is of both theoretical and practical relevance: a uniform architecture offers the possibility of viewing parsing and generation as strongly interleaved tasks. Interleaving parsing and generation is important if we assume that natural language understanding and production are not performed in an isolated way but rather can work together to obtain a flexible use of language. In particular this means a.) the use of one mode of operation for monitoring the other and b.) the use of structures resulting from one direction directly in the other. For example, during generation integrated parsing can be used to monitor the generation process and to cause some kind of revision, e.g., to reduce the risk of misunderstandings. Research on monitoring and revision strategies is a very active area in cognitive science; however, currently there exists no algorithmic model of such a behaviour. A uniform architecture can be an important step in that direction. Unfortunately, the currently proposed uniform architectures are very inefficient and it is yet unclear how an efficiency-oriented uniform model could be achieved. An obvious problem is that in each direction different input structures are involved - a string for parsing and a semantic expression for generation - which causes a different traversal of the search space defined by the grammar. Even if this problem were solved, it is not that obvious how a uniform model could re-use partial results computed in one direction efficiently in the other direction for obtaining a practical interleaved approach to parsing and generation.
Liegt nicht vor.


There is growing recognition that access to good jobs is an important driver of social cohesion. While economic dimensions of labor market outcomes are relatively well documented, evidence on the link between social cohesion and jobs is still surprisingly scarce. This paper, based on an earlier background report for the WDR 2013, presents empirical evidence for pathways between labor market outcomes and social cohesion. The findings indicate that formal employment is associated with a range of social outcomes and behaviors that are typically associated with higher levels of social cohesion. However, there are also indications that this relationship varies across dimensions of social wellbeing. In particular social interactions and political activism among those in regular employment can either improve the quality of aggregate institutions or deepen existing social divides.


In the beginning of 1906 Professor S. A. Naber devoted a long paper in Mnemosyne to emendations and remarks upon Apollonius Rhodius. The Professor, following Buttmann, is of opinion that Apollonius was an ignorant imitator of Homer and rebukes him for the introduction of many 'barbarous forms.' This opinion, however, though it may contain some truth, is the result of much exaggeration, for Apollonius imitated Homer as a rival rather than as a servile flatterer, and naturally and deliberately introduced many late forms into his Epic poem. I have no wish to deny that the Professor's paper contains acute and learned remarks, but certainly it does not show that familiarity with his author which might have been expected from so eminent a scholar. For instance, where a particular form is objected to for any reason, it is of no use to propose an emendation for one passage only in which it occurs and to leave other passages unnoticed.


A second-generation cisplatin analogue with antineoplastic activity. Containing a novel ring structure in which glycolate is bound to the platinum by a bidentate ligand, nedaplatin forms reactive platinum complexes that bind to nucelophillic groups in DNA, resulting in intrastrand and interstrand DNA cross-links, apoptosis and cell death. T his agent appears to be less nephrotoxic and neurotoxic compared to both cisplatin and carboplatin. Qeios · Definition, February 7, 2020


Healthcare delivery is reliant on a team‐based approach, and interprofessional education (IPE) provides a means by which such collaboration skills can be fostered prior to entering the workplace. IPE within healthcare programs has been associated with improved collaborative behavior, patient care and satisfaction, reduced clinical error, and diminished negative professional stereotypes. An intensive interprofessional gross anatomy dissection course was created in 2009 to facilitate IPE at McMaster University. Data were collected from five cohorts over five years to determine the influence of this IPE format on the attitudes and perceptions of students towards other health professions. Each year, 28 students from the medicine, midwifery, nursing, physician's assistant, physiotherapy, and occupational therapy programs were randomly assigned into interprofessional teams for 10 weeks. Sessions involved an anatomy and scope‐of‐practice presentation, a small‐group case‐based session, and a dissection. A before/after design measured changes in attitudes and perceptions, while focus group data elaborated on the student experience with the course. Pre‐ and postmatched data revealed significant improvements in positive professional identity, competency and autonomy, role clarity and attitudes toward other health professions. Qualitative analysis of intraprofessional focus group interviews revealed meaningful improvements in a number of areas including learning anatomy, role clarity, and attitudes towards other health professions. Anat Sci Educ 8: 305–316. © 2015 American Association of Anatomists.


This article reports the results of research regarding the farm-level implications for New York dairy producers of national mandatory supply control programs for feed grains and milk. The analysis is based on the proposed Harkin-Gephardt Bill which would authorize a mandatory supply control program for milk and the major supported crops. Representative farm budgets were constructed for a sample of dairy farms to assess the possible effects on costs and returns. Some farmers would gain, while others would not. The results suggest that dairy farmers who purchase all of their feed would be worse off, while farmers who grow grain would be better off under the proposed supply control program.


A case of an adenocarcinoma of ceruminous glands located on the external auditory meatus is presented. It must be noted the discrepancy between the well-differenciated histologic appearance and the markedly aggressive clinical course.


: The recurrent respiratory papillomatosis is a benign lesion induced by virus, with predisposal factors not yet clear out. Several treatment have been used, being the endoscopic surgery with laser CO2 the most used technique. We present our experience with laryngeal papillomatosis patients operated with laser CO2 in the last 15 years. The high rate of recidive in the youth pattern and the possibility of malignant degeneration in the adults charactherises this patients. Meanwhile without not other concluyent works surgery will be the first therapeutic alternative, avoiding mutilant operations, and paying attention in detecting lesions suggesting malignancy.


The optimisation of cooling systems within gas turbine engines is of great interest to engine manufacturers seeking gains in performance, efficiency and component life. The effectiveness of coolant delivery is governed by the complex flows within the stator wells as well as the interaction of main annulus and cooling air in the vicinity of the rim seals. This paper reports the development of a test facility which allows the interaction of cooling air and main gas paths to be measured at conditions representative of those found in modern gas turbine engines and presents data obtained over the range 2x10 6 < Reφ < 2.3x106. The test rig comprises a two stage turbine section with an overall pressure ratio of approximately 2.7:1 at the design condition. Hot air is supplied to the main annulus using an adapted Rolls-Royce Dart compressor driven by a 5 MW aero derivative engine plant. Cooling air is delivered to the stator wells at multiple locations and with a range of flow rates, covering ingestion and egress. The rig has been designed with adaptable geometry to facilitate rapid changes of cooling air path configuration. The coolant delivery system allows swift and accurate changes to the flow settings whilst the rig is running such that thermal transients may be performed. Particular attention has been focused on obtaining high accuracy data, using a radio telemetry system, as well as thorough through-calibration practices. This has allowed temperature measurements to be made on both rotating and stationary discs with an uncertainty in the region of 0.3 K. A novel gas concentration system has also been developed, in order to obtain measurement of re-ingestion and rim seal exchange flows, while high resolution displacement sensors have been installed in order to measure hot running geometry. This paper demonstrates the commissioning of a unique test facility with flexible functionality. Example data from the commissioning phase which the effect of increased cooling flow on stator well metal temperatures. The engine representative test conditions together with the unique density and accuracy of the measured data will support validation of the next generation of conjugate/coupled models to be used for the optimisation of internal cooling systems.


It is difficult to obtain a specific region within unsegmented volume data (region of interest, ROI). The user must first segment the volume, a task which itself involves significant user intervention, and then chooses a desired target within the 3D space. This paper proposes a simple and intuitive user interface for the task: the user traces the contour of the target region using a 2D free form stroke on the screen, and the system instantly returns a plausible 3D region inside the stroke by applying a segmentation algorithm. The main contribution is that the system infers the depth information of the ROI automatically by analyzing the data, whereas existing systems require the user to provide the depth information explicitly. Our system first computes the 3D location of the user-specified 2D stroke based on the assumption that the user traced the silhouette of the ROI, that is, the curve where the gradient is perpendicular to the viewing direction. The system then places constraint points around the 3D stroke to guide the following segmentation. Foreground constraints are placed inside the stroke and background constraints are placed outside the stroke. We currently use the statistical region-merging algorithm of Nock et al. [Nock and Nielsen 2004a] to perform the segmentation. We tested our system with real-world examples to verify the effectiveness of our approach.


Many pairwise classification tasks, such as paraphrase detection and open-domain question answering, naturally have extreme label imbalance (e.g., 99.99% of examples are negatives). In contrast, many recent datasets heuristically choose examples to ensure label balance. We show that these heuristics lead to trained models that generalize poorly: State-of-the art models trained on QQP and WikiQA each have only 2.4% average precision when evaluated on realistically imbalanced test data. We instead collect training data with active learning, using a BERT-based embedding model to efficiently retrieve uncertain points from a very large pool of unlabeled utterance pairs. By creating balanced training data with more informative negative examples, active learning greatly improves average precision to 32.5% on QQP and 20.1% on WikiQA.


In this study, graduates multiple intelligences profile are the main interest in order to enhance the opportunities of the management graduates for employability. In order to measure and classify the multiple intelligences of graduate, Two Step Cluster Analysis is applied. The cluster is based on their demographic background and Howard Gardner's nine intelligences which are musical, spatial/visual, verbal/linguistic, mathematics/logical, bodily-kinaesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist and spiritual. A psychometric test which is Ability Test in Employment (ATIEm) has been used as the instrument to measure the level of nine intelligence types of management graduates for job placement purposes. This study was conducted at Faculty of Technology Management and Technopreneurship (FPTT), Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM). Therefore, 137 surveys were answered and these were considered to be legitimate data. The results represent the dominant intelligence of graduates which majority of the respondents obtains high score in spiritual n=37(27%), followed by mathematical/logical n=24 (17.5%) and interpersonal n=23 (16.7%). In addition, another result also shows high score for each level of intelligences which majority of graduate has high level in interpersonal skills n=130 (94.8%). The mediocre level n=41 (29.92%) and weak/none level n=10 (7.3%) are both in musical skills. The analysis from the Two Step Cluster presents four main clusters. The composition of clusters formed significant variables for Cluster 1: n=49 (35.8%) Malays, Islam, Musical and Verbal. Cluster 2: n=56(40.9%) Musical, Spatial and Verbal, Cluster 3: n=11(8%) Malays (Islam), Non Malays (Buddhism), Musical, Kinaesthetic, Spatial, Verbal, Intrapersonal, Naturalist and Spiritual. Cluster 4: n=21 (15.3%) Non Malays and intelligences are insignificant variable. Based on the Two Step Cluster analysis, a competency model which is Competency Model is constructed namely Cognitive Intelligences Cluster (Cluster 1), Social Intelligences Cluster (Cluster 2) and Foundation Intelligences Cluster (Cluster 3). Cluster 1 and 2 are likely to be employed because of the combination different of ability, the probability of graduate to be employed is enhanced and they are likely to assume higher position at the workplace.


In this work some properties of 11 monoclonal antibodies to C.trachomatis, obtained in our earlier investigations, were studied and the antigens recognized by these McAb were characterized. Some McAb reacted with a genus-specific thermostable antigen, sensitive to sodium metaperiiodate and having a mol. wt. of 10 - 12 kD. Other McAb interacted with C.trachomatis species- and subspecies-specific thermostable proteins with a mol. wt. of 40 kD. Two McAb reacted with thermolabile protein with a mol. wt. of 32 kD and some C.trachomatis unidentified protein. The in vitro study of two McAb, active against subspecies-specific proteins, revealed the neutralizing activity of these McAb. Thus McAb obtained in this investigation may be for the differential identification of different determinants and for further analysis of the antigenic structure of C.trachomatis, as well as for the development of modern immunodiagnostic preparations.


The Mars Helicopter will be a technology demonstration conducted during the Mars 2020 mission. The primary mission objective is to achieve several 90-second flights and capture visible light images via forward and nadir mounted cameras. These flights could possibly provide reconnaissance data for sampling site selection for other Mars surface missions. The helicopter is powered by a solar array, which stores energy in secondary batteries for flight operations, imaging, communications, and survival heating. The helicopter thermal design is driven by minimizing survival heater energy while maintaining compliance with allowable flight temperatures in a variable thermal environment. Due to the small size of the helicopter and its complex geometries, along with the fact that it operates with very low power and small margins, additional care had to be paid while planning thermal tests and designing the thermal system. A Thermal Desktop® model has been developed to predict the thermal system's performance. A reduced-order model (ROM) created with the Veritrek software has been utilized to explore the sensitivities of the thermal system's drivers, such as electronics dissipations, gas gaps, heat transfer coefficients, etc., as well as to assess and verify the final thermal design. This paper presents the performance of the Veritrek software products and the details of the ROM creation process. The results produced by Veritrek were utilized to study the effect of the major thermal design drivers and Mars environment on the Mars Helicopter in as little as 10 days, an effort that would have taken over 4 months using traditional thermal analysis techniques.


The lure of convenience in addition to good taste gets people to junk food addiction. With the advent of television children have become more aware of the fast food items available. Children watch television where fast food continues to dominate the food advertisements viewed by children. The easily available fast food in and around school campus and with little knowledge of the far reaching effects of these food items consumed, children fall an easy prey to junk food. Children are unaware of the food they eat and the effects it has on their growth and development. This survey reflects the large percentage of children who surrender to the temptation of junk food consumption with little knowledge of its far sighted effects on their health.


This study aimed at evaluating the General Diploma Program from the point view of student teachers of the academic year 2004/2005. The sample consisted of 210 students in different specializations. Data were collected using a questionnaire comprising 44 items subsumed under seven dimensions. The instrument was validated by a panel of experts and its internal consistency was (0.92). The following are the major findings of the study. First, diploma students are convinced of their selection of teaching as a profession. Second, the diploma program positively developed students' attitudes towards teaching. Third, the program was highly effective in developing student teachers' teaching skills and moderately effective in developing their research and technology skills. Fourth, students reported that they highly benefited from 5 courses; while their benefit from the other courses was moderate. Fifth, there were statistically significant differences in students' views that can be attributed to their majors. Sixth, there were no statistically significant differences in students' views due to their gender. Finally, students were satisfied with their relationship with professors and college administrators; but they were not satisfied with computer and library services.


This is an explorative paper in which we present a new method for music analysis based on pitch class set categories. It has been shown before that pitch class sets can be divided into six different categories. Each category inherits a typical character which can "tell" something about the music in which it appears. In this paper we explore the possibilities of using pitch class set categories for 1) classification in major/minor mode, 2) classification in tonal/atonal music, 3) determination of a degree of tonality, and 4) determination of a composer's period.


A large number of web applications today leverage freely available third-party JavaScript libraries. However, in doing so, there is an increased reliance on not just the core library or feature code, but also any accompanying test code – so that regressions can be found when the feature code is modified, new tests can be written for proposed extensions code using the existing tests as a sample, etc. Thus, it is crucial that both the feature and the test code, that comprise a distributable library, be of high quality. We empirically investigate whether this is the case in practice by virtue of a case study, conducted on 10 large, popular and freely available JavaScript libraries, that compares the quality of test code against that of feature code, using several static quality metrics (size in terms of Source/Compiled Lines of Code, Commenting Ratio, Cyclomatic Complexity, Maintainability Index and Difficulty Measure). Our results are intriguing in that while they support some expectations: we find that feature code is more extensively commented than test code; we also find that more test code is actually written (in terms of compiled lines of code) than the feature code; and yet on average the test code is of a higher quality based on its complexity, maintainability and difficulty.


Abstract. Natural organic matter (NOM) is an important component for understanding the behavior of pollutants in the environment. A fraction of NOM is considered labile, fresh and less oxidized. In this work, a simple method was developed to distinguish between labile (LOM) and recalcitrant (ROM) organic matter in freshwater samples. Pyruvate, lignin and fulvic acid were chosen as model compounds of labile and recalcitrant NOM. The samples were submitted to kinetic monitoring experiments using hydrogen peroxide. Pyruvate was the best standard for the quantification of LOM (for concetrations up to 2.9 mg L−1). ROM was quantified by measuring the difference between total organic carbon (TOC) and LOM concentrations. Curves obtained with 0.5 to 5.0 mg L−1 TOC (pyruvate) in freshwater or ultrapure water samples did not indicate the existence of a matrix effect. This simple method was applied to water samples that were collected monthly for one year; the resulting LOM concentrations ranged from 0.47 to 2.1 mg L−1 and the ROM concentrations ranged from 0.08 to 3.5 mg L−1. Based on this results we concluded that hydrogen peroxide kinetics can be used as a simple method to quantify LOM and ROM concentrations in freshwater samples.


A new laser annealing crystallization method for enhancing the crystallinity of polycrystalline Si (poly-Si) is demonstrated. This method utilizes double-layered amorphous Si films and the high penetration property of the green laser in poly-Si films. The simultaneous crystallization of the upper and lower a-Si layers of the double-layered substrate is achieved, with the upper a-Si layer becoming poly-Si with very large crystal grains. Furthermore, the crystallization laser energy of this double-layered substrate is reduced by approximately 30% compared with that of a conventional single-layer a-Si substrate, suggesting a thermal reserving role of the lower a-Si layer when it crystallizes upon the irradiation of green laser light.


This paper describes CodeAssessor, a web-based assessment tool for CS1 courses that is meant to both assess student's code and to provide immediate feedback to students. The tool provides a web-based form that allows an instructor to enter a program and designate parts of the program as code blocks that are to be completed by the student. For each code block the instructor provides a set of instructions, solution code, and a scoring rubric. The instructor also provides a set of test cases for the entire program. Students complete the problem by writing a block at a time and testing their code using their own test cases. Any empty blocks are compiled using the instructor-provided code. Students may submit code blocks at any time for automatic grading by CodeAssessor. If the student's code does not compile, or the student's output does not match the instructor's output, the student is given appropriate feedback and is allowed to try again. The student is shown the instructor's code either upon correct completion of the code block, when the points available for the code block become 0, or the student gives up. This tool can be used for homework assignments, for exam problems, or for in-class assignments. Although the current language is C++, a one-line change to a couple PhP scripts is all that is required to change the compiler and execution environment to another language, such as Java. By providing the student with portions of the program, and by displaying the instructor's model solution code, we hope to help students move through a problem more expeditiously and with greater understanding.


BACKGROUND
National surveys have shown that painful breasts are the second most common reason for giving up breastfeeding in the first two weeks after birth in the UK. One factor contributing to such pain can be breast engorgement. Views differ as to how engorgement arises, although restrictive feeding patterns in hospital are likely to have contributed in the past. These differing views are reflected in the range of solutions offered to treat engorgement in breastfeeding mothers and these treatments are assessed in this review.

OBJECTIVES
To determine the effects of any proposed intervention to relieve symptoms of breast engorgement among breastfeeding women.

SEARCH STRATEGY
The register of clinical trials maintained and updated by the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group. CINAHL and MEDLINE were also searched. Date of last search: December 2000.

SELECTION CRITERIA
All randomised and 'quasi-randomised' controlled trials, with or without blinding, that assess the effectiveness of treatments for the alleviation of symptoms in breastfeeding women experiencing engorgement.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Data were extracted by one reviewer and verified by a second reviewer.

MAIN RESULTS
Eight trials, involving 424 women, were included. Three different studies were identified which used cabbage leaves or cabbage leaf extracts;. no overall benefit was found. Ultrasound treatment and placebo were equally effective. Use of Danzen (an anti-inflammatory agent) significantly improved the total symptoms of engorgement when compared to placebo (odds ratio (OR) 3.6, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.3 - 10.3) as did bromelain/trypsin complex (OR 8.02, 95% CI 2.8-23.3). Oxytocin and cold packs had no demonstrable effect on engorgement symptoms.

REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS
Cabbage leaves and gel packs were equally effective in the treatment of engorgement. Since both cabbage extract and placebo cream were equally effective, the alleviation in symptoms may be brought about by other factors, such as breast massage. Ultrasound treatment is equally effective with or without the ultra-wave emitting crystal, therefore its effectiveness is more likely to be due to the effect of radiant heat or massage. Pharmacologically, oxytocin was not an effective engorgement treatment while Danzen and bromelain/trypsin complex significantly improved the symptoms of engorgement. Initial prevention of breast engorgement should remain the key priority.


In this paper a novel coordinated voltage control scheme is proposed to enable voltage regulator to efficiently regulate the voltage of multiple feeders in the presence of DGs. The proposed technique is based on placing a remote terminal unit (RTUs) at each DG and each line capacitor. These RTUs coordinate together, through communication, and form a multiagent system. Detailed analysis is given for the estimation of the voltage profile based on the RTUs readings. The conditions under which the usage of one voltage regulator for the regulation of multiple-feeders fails are presented along with proposed solutions for such situation. Simulation results show that this technique enable a considerable increase in the allowed DG injected power to the system.


Immune-mediated granulocytopenia due to cardiac antiarrhythmic medications is a rare, but potentially dangerous, event. This article characterizes the first case, to our knowledge, of severe granulocytopenia associated with the administration of flecanide acetate, a new class I antiarrhythmic drug. Immunologic studies determined that flecanide was capable of binding to the surface of normal neutrophils. The patient's serum contained an IgG antibody that could specifically bind to the haptenized neutrophils, presumably mediating enhanced destruction of mature granulocytes both in the serum and within the bone marrow. Cessation of flecanide therapy resulted in resolution of the granulocytopenia. The titer of antineutrophil antibody in the patient's serum decreased to background levels within the next five months. Similar antibodies were not found in serum from nonsensitized individuals. The capacity of flecanide to bind to normal neutrophils may prove to be a significant risk factor for the subsequent development of antineutrophil antibodies and agranulocytosis in patients receiving this drug. Careful hematologic monitoring of all patients who are receiving this medication is, therefore, strongly urged.


Opponent modeling is necessary in multi-agent settings where secondary agents with competing goals also adapt their strategies, yet it remains challenging because strategies interact with each other and change. Most previous work focuses on developing probabilistic models or parameterized strategies for specific applications. Inspired by the recent success of deep reinforcement learning, we present neural-based models that jointly learn a policy and the behavior of opponents. Instead of explicitly predicting the opponent's action, we encode observation of the opponents into a deep Q-Network (DQN); however, we retain explicit modeling (if desired) using multitasking. By using a Mixture-of-Experts architecture, our model automatically discovers different strategy patterns of opponents without extra supervision. We evaluate our models on a simulated soccer game and a popular trivia game, showing superior performance over DQN and its variants.


We present highly efficient algorithms for performing forward and backward propagation of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) for pixelwise classification on images. For pixelwise classification tasks, such as image segmentation and object detection, surrounding image patches are fed into CNN for predicting the classes of centered pixels via forward propagation and for updating CNN parameters via backward propagation. However, forward and backward propagation was originally designed for whole-image classification. Directly applying it to pixelwise classification in a patch-by-patch scanning manner is extremely inefficient, because surrounding patches of pixels have large overlaps, which lead to a lot of redundant computation.
The proposed algorithms eliminate all the redundant computation in convolution and pooling on images by introducing novel d-regularly sparse kernels. It generates exactly the same results as those by patch-by-patch scanning. Convolution and pooling operations with such kernels are able to continuously access memory and can run efficiently on GPUs. A fraction of patches of interest can be chosen from each training image for backward propagation by applying a mask to the error map at the last CNN layer. Its computation complexity is constant with respect to the number of patches sampled from the image. Experiments have shown that our proposed algorithms speed up commonly used patch-by-patch scanning over 1500 times in both forward and backward propagation. The speedup increases with the sizes of images and patches.


The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of high dietary iron concentrations on the antioxidant status of rats fed two different types of fat. Four groups of male adult Sprague-Dawley rats were fed diets with adequate (50 mg iron supplemented per kg diet) or high (500 mg iron supplemented per kg diet) iron concentrations with either lard or salmon oil as dietary fat at 100 g/kg for 12 wk. The antioxidant status of the rats was profoundly influenced by the type of fat. Rats fed salmon oil diets had higher concentrations of thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARS) (P < 0.001), various cholesterol oxidation products (COP) (P < 0.001), total and oxidized glutathione (P < 0.05) and a lower concentration of alpha-tocopherol (P < 0.05) in liver and plasma than rats fed lard diets. The iron concentration of the diet did not influence the concentrations of TBARS, the activities of superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase or the concentration of alpha-tocopherol in plasma or liver. The activity of catalase (P < 0.01) and the concentrations of total, oxidized and reduced glutathione (P < 0.05) in liver were slightly but significantly higher in rats fed high iron diets than in rats fed adequate iron diets, irrespective of the dietary fat. Rats fed the high iron diets with salmon oil, moreover, had higher concentrations of various COP in the liver (P < 0.001) than rats fed adequate iron diets with salmon oil. These results suggest that feeding a high iron diet does not generally affect the antioxidant status of rats but enhances the formation of COP, particularly if the diet is rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids.


This chapter introduces you to the study of the English legal system in higher education. After explaining some of the different expectations of studying at this level, the chapter's focus is on how you will learn and how to succeed on the module. There is considerable advice and tips on how to get the most out of lectures and seminars. The coverage introduces some key terminology and emphasises the importance of independent research and reading both primary (legislation and case law) and secondary sources (textbooks and journal articles). Finally, the chapter discusses and provides guidance on how to tackle commonly used assessments such as written essays, oral presentations, and examinations.


In a very short period of time, 10Be data have significantly improved our knowledge in various fields of Earth and planetary sciences. Examples are: (a) solar modulation of isotope production, revealed in 10Be ice-core profiles; (b)geomagnetic m odulation of isotope production, revealed in 10Be ice-core (from the past 10 ka) and ocean-sediment profiles (geomagnetic reversals); (c) climatic effects reflected in 10Be profiles in loess and polar ice cores (10Be behaviour in atmosphere); (d) comparison of 10Be and 14C variations (tree rings) from carbon-cycle models and inform ation on ocean circulation history from 14C m easurements on benthic and planktonic Foram inifera in ocean sediments. An overview on work in collaboration with the Zurich AMS facility (with Professor W. Wolfli) is given.


The Third Battle of Ypres was officially terminated by Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig with the opening of the Battle of Cambrai on 20 November 1917. Nevertheless, a comparatively unknown set-piece attack – the only large-scale night operation carried out on the Flanders front during the campaign – was launched twelve days later on 2 December. This thesis, a necessary corrective to campaign narratives of what has become popularly known as 'Passchendaele', examines the course of events from the mid-November decision to sanction further offensive activity in the vicinity of Passchendaele village to the barren operational outcome that forced British GHQ to halt the attack within ten hours of Zero. A litany of unfortunate decisions and circumstances contributed to the profitless result. At the tactical level, a novel hybrid set-piece attack scheme was undermined by a fatal combination of snow-covered terrain and bright moonlight. At the operational level, the highly unsatisfactory local situation in the immediate aftermath of Third Ypres' post-strategic phase (26 October-10 November) appeared to offer no other alternative to attacking from the confines of an extremely vulnerable salient. Perhaps the most tragic aspect of the affair occurred at the strategic level, where Haig's earnest advocacy for resumption of the Flanders offensive in spring 1918 was maintained despite obvious signs that the initiative had now passed to the enemy and the crisis of the war was fast approaching.


Background: Endophthalmitis is a rare but dreaded complication of cataract surgery. It is, therefore, imperative for cataract surgeons to know about its prevalence and how to prevent it in their institutions. Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of postcataract surgery endophthalmitis in a private health facility in Port Harcourt. Methods: A retrospective analysis of the case files and theater records of 92 eyes of all 83 patients who had cataract surgery at the DDS Eye Centre and Surgery, Port Harcourt, Nigeria, between August 2006 and November 2012 was done. This included pre-, intra-, and post-operative care and features of endophthalmitis. Statistical software package SPSS version 17 was used to analyze the data (P < 0.005) with the prevalence of endophthalmitis between extracapsular cataract extraction and small incision cataract surgery. Results: A total of 2484 (1490 males and 994 females) patients were seen in the private eye hospital in the period under review and 92 eyes of 83 (3.34%) patients (59 males and 24 females) were included in the study. Sixty-seven (73%) eyes had extracapsular cataract extraction with intra-ocular lens (ECCE + IOL) whereas twenty-five (27%) had small incision cataract surgery with intra-ocular lens (SICS + IOL). Among those who had ECCE, one (1.49%) developed endophthalmitis while two (8%) developed endophthalmitis following SICS, and they were all males which was statistically significant for surgery type. The prevalence of endophthalmitis in this study was 3.23%. Conclusion: The high prevalence of endophthalmitis in this study may be due to inadequate management of comorbid conditions such as corneal ulcer and diabetes. The incisions were temporally placed and sutures were not used which may have compromised the integrity of the wound in SICS, causing a higher prevalence of endophthalmitis with this method.


Little is known about the existence of extrasolar planets around ultracool dwarfs. Furthermore, binary stars with Sun-like primaries and very low-mass binaries composed of ultracool dwarfs show di erences in the distributions of mass ratio and orbital separation that can be indicative of distinct formation mechanisms. Using FORS2/VLT optical imaging for high precision astrometry we are searching for planets and substellar objects around ultracool dwarfs to investigate their multiplicity properties for very low companion masses. Here we report astrometric measurements with an accuracy of two tenths of a milli-arcsecond over two years that reveal orbital motion of the nearby L1.5 dwarf DENIS-P J082303.1-491201 located at 20:77 0:08 pc caused by an unseen companion that revolves about its host on an eccentric orbit in 246:4 1:4 days. We estimate the L1.5 dwarf to have 7:5 0:7% of the Sun's mass that implies a companion mass of 28 2 Jupiter masses. This new system has the smallest mass ratio (0:36 0:02) of known very low-mass binaries with characterised orbits. With this discovery we demonstrate 200 micro-arcsecond astrometry over an arc-minute field and over several years that is su cient to discover sub-Jupiter mass planets around ultracool dwarfs. We also show that the achieved parallax accuracy of < 0.4 % makes it possible to remove distance as a dominant source of uncertainty in the modelling of ultracool dwarfs.


miR-124 is conserved in sequence and neuronal expression across the animal kingdom and is predicted to have hundreds of mRNA targets. Diverse defects in neural development and function were reported from miR-124 antisense studies in vertebrates, but a nematode knockout of mir-124 surprisingly lacked detectable phenotypes. To provide genetic insight from Drosophila, we deleted its single mir-124 locus and found that it is dispensable for gross aspects of neural specification and differentiation. On the other hand, we detected a variety of mutant phenotypes that were rescuable by a mir-124 genomic transgene, including short lifespan, increased dendrite variation, impaired larval locomotion, and aberrant synaptic release at the NMJ. These phenotypes reflect extensive requirements of miR-124 even under optimal culture conditions. Comparison of the transcriptomes of cells from wild-type and mir-124 mutant animals, purified on the basis of mir-124 promoter activity, revealed broad upregulation of direct miR-124 targets. However, in contrast to the proposed mutual exclusion model for miR-124 function, its functional targets were relatively highly expressed in miR-124–expressing cells and were not enriched in genes annotated with epidermal expression. A notable aspect of the direct miR-124 network was coordinate targeting of five positive components in the retrograde BMP signaling pathway, whose activation in neurons increases synaptic release at the NMJ, similar to mir-124 mutants. Derepression of the direct miR-124 target network also had many secondary effects, including over-activity of other post-transcriptional repressors and a net incomplete transition from a neuroblast to a neuronal gene expression signature. Altogether, these studies demonstrate complex consequences of miR-124 loss on neural gene expression and neurophysiology.


ABSTRACT Plotting of grain-shape data on a conventional ternary composition diagram, with long (L), intermediate (I), and short (S) axes of clasts as end members, has advantages over triangular diagrams that employ geometric ratios as primary scales. The isometric (linear) nature of the conventional ternary scale facilitates plotting and interpretation, and the plot provides a basis for comparing the three components over a common denominator (100). Consequently, the graph preserves the information on individual axial values (as a percentage of their sum). The triangle serves as a compilation diagram on which the L-I-S phase space can be subdivided in any number of ways, one of which is the use of selected contour lines of percentage values. In addition, the graph is capable of accommodating t e various grain-shape diagrams (e.g., those of Zingg, Krumbein, and Sneed and Folk) by superposition; this allows for direct, graphic comparison of all such diagrams, and evaluation of their relative efficacy for shape classification. The percentage triangle can be subdivided using a variety of additional functions, such as those that express relative axial uniformity (an entropy-like function), or any other parameter derived from the basic axial values. Employing a scale of percentage values of S versus the form index (L-I) in Cartesian coordinates, superimposed on a conventional isometric composition diagram, yields a ternary plot of great simplicity and high information content.


Hepatic inflammatory pseudotumor (HIP) is rare. To our knowledge, there have only been 27 cases reported since 1953. We studied additional five cases, male, aged 13-56 years, with a history of the disease of 20 days-1 year. Major complains were epigastric pain, fever of unknown causes, and epigastric mass. All five HIPs were solitary and surgically resected with a final diagnosis made pathologically. HIPs mimic the characters of liver cancer on ultrasonography and CT scanning, however, the following several points could be used to establish the diagnosis: patients with a long history of hepatic tumor still in a rather good condition; patients with no cirrhosis and negative AFP test results; tumors that are well encapsulated, etc. Surgical exploration should be attempted in all patients unless in those with poor risks in which steroid therapy may prove useful.


A method for generalizing the conventional amplitude variation with offset model from an isolated interface to a scattering reservoir interval is presented. The advantage of this new method is that it can provide enhanced detection of subtle reservoir and pore fluid properties. First- and second-order expressions for the reflected compressional wave energy from a specified heterogenous interval are given. These expressions are applied to two problems of interest for reservoir description. One application is discriminating low versus higher saturations of hydrocarbons, and the other is detecting the extent of vertical stratification within a reservoir. The first-order expression is used for determining hydrocarbon saturations, and the second-order expression is used for detecting the magnitude of fine-scale layering within a reservoir. Synthetic models and field data examples are used in demonstrating the applicability of the proposed method.


The emergence and upsurge of Multiple Antibiotic Resistant (MDR) Enterobacteriaceae in the environment is a cause of concern as this can result in an outbreak and spread to healthcare settings. MDR Enterobacteriaceae have been associated with high morbidity and mortality due to delay in selecting and delivering active therapy in time.

 The study was conducted to investigate the level of contamination of raw meat and Ghanaian coins in circulation at Cape Coast Metropolis. In all, 10 raw meat were sampled each from chevron and beef from Kotokuraba market, and 400 Ghanaian coin currencies retrieved from food vendors, students, transport operators and banks were used in this study.

 The Enterobacteriaceae species isolated were tested for their susceptibility to Ampicillin, Tetracycline (TET), Gentamicin (GEN), Cotrimoxazole (COT), Cefuroxime (CRX), Cefixime (CXM), Cefotaxime (CTX), Penicillin (PEN), Cloxacillin (CXC), Erythromycin (ERY) and Amikacin (AMK) antibiotics using Mueller-Hinton agar antibiotic diffusion technique. Of the isolated Enterobacteriaceae, 30% and 62% from chevron and beef respectively and 14.17%, 13.75% and 10.63% from food vendors, students and transport operators respectively showed resistance to some of the antibiotics tested.

 8.6% of the Escherichia coli (E. coli) isolated from chevon were resistant to CRXr-CHLr-AMPr-COTr-GEMr and 15.5% of CRXi-CHLi-AMPr-TETr-COTr from beef. 40.0% of E. coli isolated from coin currencies were resistant to CRXr-CHLr-AMPr-TETr-CTXr, 50.0% of Enterobacter spp to CRXr-CHLr-AMPr-TETr-CTXr, 16.67% of Proteus spp to CRXi-CHLi-AMPr-TETr-AMKi, 40% Pseudomonas spp to CRXr-AMPr-TETr-AMKi and 100% of Enterobacter spp to CRXr-AMPr-TETi-CTXr.

 The multidrug-resistant Enterobacteriaceae isolates from circulating Ghanaian coins and raw meats in the Cape Coast metropolis is an indication of an impending danger which requires immediate attention to prevent a possible outbreak and spread from the society to the hospital setting.


Feulgen cytophotometry has revealed tetraploid DNA content in some hypersegmented mature granulocytes in rat peripheral blood after two weeks of daily injections of cyclophosphamide (20 mg/kg of body weight). In bone marrow of rats which were given the preparation for 7 days myeloblasts, promyelocytes and myelocytes are blocked in G2 phase of the mitotic cycle. About 50% of metamyelocytes, bands and segmented granulocytes are also tetraploid. Thus cyclophosphamide has induced tetraploid hypersegmented neutrophils in rats as a result of maturation of G2 blocked proliferative pool granulocytes.


Culture of edible molluscs is now recognised
as an effective way of enhancing food production
and sea mussels among all the known cultivable
organisms, give the highest production rate for
two reasons : (1) they feed directly on the primary
producers namely the phytoplankton and (2) it is
farmed three-dimensionally in the water colunm
at the farm site. The world production of mussels
amounted to 13,37,551 tonnes in 1988 (FAO, 1992)
of which 10,86,310 t originated from culture.
China ranks first in the production of cultured
mussels in the world, followed by Spain, Italy,
Netherlands, Denmark and France.


This paper introduces Click to Move (C2M), a novel framework for video generation where the user can control the motion of the synthesized video through mouse clicks specifying simple object trajectories of the key objects in the scene. Our model receives as input an initial frame, its corresponding segmentation map and the sparse motion vectors encoding the input provided by the user. It outputs a plausible video sequence starting from the given frame and with a motion that is consistent with user input. Notably, our proposed deep architecture incorporates a Graph Convolution Network (GCN) modelling the movements of all the objects in the scene in a holistic manner and effectively combining the sparse user motion information and image features. Experimental results show that C2M outperforms existing methods on two publicly available datasets, thus demonstrating the effectiveness of our GCN framework at modelling object interactions. The source code is publicly available at https://github.com/PierfrancescoArdino/C2M.


Abstract Recent technological developments have enabled us to collect complex and high-dimensional data in many scientific fields, such as population health, meteorology, econometrics, geology, and psychology. It is common to encounter such datasets collected repeatedly over a continuum. Functional data, whose sample elements are functions in the graphical forms of curves, images, and shapes, characterize these data types. Functional data analysis techniques reduce the complex structure of these data and focus on the dependences within and (possibly) between the curves. A common research question is to investigate the relationships in regression models that involve at least one functional variable. However, the performance of functional regression models depends on several factors, such as the smoothing technique, the number of basis functions, and the estimation method. This article provides a selective comparison for function-on-function regression models where both the response and predictor(s) are functions, to determine the optimal choice of basis function from a set of model evaluation criteria. We also propose a bootstrap method to construct a confidence interval for the response function. The numerical comparisons are implemented through Monte Carlo simulations and two real data examples.


Thioredoxin, a known catalyst for reducing protein disulfides, was shown to catalyze efficiently the refolding of pancreatic RNase either from the reduced, denatured form or from the scrambled form containing oxidized but incorrectly paired disulfides. Thioredoxin was 1000-fold more efficient on a molar basis than the model dithiol, dithiothreitol, in reactivating reduced, denatured RNase, suggesting that thioredoxin acts as an efficient catalyst for disulfide interchange. Starting with reduced, denatured RNase, enzyme activity was recovered quantitatively with a t1/2 of 30 hr with 100 microM thioredoxin compared to only a 10-20% recovery of activity in the control using air oxidation. Oxygen further stimulated the effectiveness of thioredoxin severalfold. Thioredoxin was most effective in reactivating inactive scrambled RNase, which contained mispaired disulfides, showing a t1/2 of 2 hr. Reduced thioredoxin was optimal for catalyzing disulfide interchange in scrambled RNase, whereas oxidized thioredoxin was required for reactivation of the reduced, denatured species. Optimal reactivation of scrambled RNase required a mixture of reduced and oxidized thioredoxin. Addition of reduced thioredoxin after initiating refolding of reduced denatured RNase with oxidized glutathione effected a rapid reactivation of RNase, suggesting a two-step model for protein refolding in which the monothiol catalyzes the rapid initial formation of protein disulfides and thioredoxin catalyzes the second step of disulfide interchange. Arguments are presented suggesting that thioredoxin may serve an in vivo role analogous to the protein disulfide-isomerase (EC 126.96.36.199).


Approximately one in four pregnant women experience one or more miscarriages, making spontaneous abortion the most common pregnancy complication, and of public health importance. Recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA) can be defined as the loss of two or more pregnancies and affects 1% of couples. This prevalence is higher than expected by chance, suggesting some couples have an underlying systemic cause for RSA. We have chosen to study two immunological aspects of pregnancy loss. The first involves maternal defense against infection in terms of predicted mannose binding lectin (MBL) plasma levels. The second approach is to analyze the human leukocyte antigen-G (HLA-G) gene, which is believed to play a role in maternal recognition of paternal antigens at the maternal-fetal interface. The case population included women having two or more clinically recognized spontaneous abortions as well as having unknown etiology for RSA. Controls subjects were selected from healthy primiparous women with no history of miscarriage. Cases and controls were genotyped for five MBL single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Both populations genotyped were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, at all five sites. Fisher's exact test of cases and controls was not significant at each of the five sites, p-values > 0.05. No association was observed between MBL genotypes or predicted MBL plasma levels and risk of RSA, or presence of live birth and recurrent pregnancy loss, among women with unexplained RSA. Using the same population, the HLA-G promoter region and 3' untranslated region (UTR) was sequenced in cases and controls. Twenty-three SNPs were observed with a minor allele frequency >0.02 in the promoter region. Linkage disequilibrium was detected throughout 1400 base pairs of the promoter region that were sequenced. While SNP data revealed allele frequency differences between cases and controls, haplotype data proved even more beneficial; one haplotype potentially predicting increased risk of RSA, while the other potentially protecting against risk of RSA. Finally, cases had a higher frequency of individuals homozygous for the 14 base pair insertion in the 3' UTR.


High-throughput high-dimensional data is now being generated in massive quantities in many fields including biology, medicine, chemistry, finance and physics. Researchers have successfully used manifold learning in order to gain insight from such data, particularly in biomedical and single cell data. One such technique, data diffusion geometry, has been useful in understanding manifold intrinsic distances, density, and major non-linear axes or paths through the data. However, a relatively unstudied feature of high-dimensional data is curvature. While curvature is well-defined and easy to compute in low dimensions, it poses computational and conceptual difficulties in high dimensions. Here, we present two techniques to estimate curvature from high-dimensional data starting from data diffusion probabilities. The first technique, diffusion curvature, uses the spread or conversely laziness of a random walk to estimate curvature pointwise in data. The second technique, deep diffusion curvature, trains a neural network to estimate pointwise curvature. Since these techniques are scalable, we anticipate that they can be used to describe and compare datasets as well as find points in data that represent transitional entities.


Proc Amer Assoc Cancer Res, Volume 46, 2005

4944

Quantitative determination of synergistic/antagonistic combinations of antitumor agents in vitro in terms of isobologram and combination index (CI) is relatively easy to be carried out using computer simulation. However, drug combination against xenograft tumor is frequently complicated by variability, experimental size, experimental optimization and cost. This paper demonstrates how to overcome these difficulties by using microtubule targeting antitumor agents, Taxotere (TXT) and [T900607][1] (T607), as examples and using the median-effect principle (Chou) and the CI method (Chou-Talalay). We have succeeded in quantitative determination and antitumor synergism of these two drugs without enhancement of toxicity. This conclusion is reached with i) constant ratio combination (diagonal scheme); ii) previously established optimal conditions (doses, schedule and route) and with determining tumor size and body weight changes; and iii) the use of new computer software "CompuSyn" (Chou & Martin, 2003). In all, only 72 nude mice were used and about 2 months were spent for each experiment. Human colon carcinoma HCT-116 xenografts were implanted on day 0, and i.v. treatment, Q3Dx4 and x3 were started on day 14 with TXT (3, 5, 6, 7 mg/kg) and/or T607 (15, 25, 30, 35mg/kg) on day 14, 17, 20, 23, 32, 35 and 38, (n=6). Computerized analysis indicates that synergism (CI<1) occurred on day 32 with increasing synergism on D35 as indicated by the Fa-CI plots and the isobologram. Surprisingly, body weight decreases during and after combination treatment were less than those treated with each drug alone. This is considered a rare incidence of mutual protection in toxicity. Computer simulation of dose-reduction index (DRI) indicates that TXT doses can be reduced by 1.8-fold and T607 doses can be reduced by 4.5-fold when compared with each drug alone for a given degree of tumor suppression. Thus, decreases in dose led to decrease in toxicity while not compromising therapeutic effects. In a similar experiment with human mammary carcinoma MX-1 xenografts, T607 (25-35mg/kg) and TXT (7.5-15mg/kg) Q3Dx4, i.v. were given on D7, 10, 13 and 16. Increasing therapeutic synergism was observed on 16, 19 and 21. On D19, T607 (30mg/kg) and TXT (15mg/kg) resulted in 0/6 and 2/4 tumor disappearance, respectively, whereas in combination 5/5 tumor disappearance was observed. These results suggest that in vivo drug combinations can be conducted efficiently and synergy can be quantitatively determined, and that combination of TXT and T-607 for clinical development is warranted.

 [1]: /lookup/external-ref?link_type=GEN&access_num=T900607&atom=%2Fcanres%2F65%2F9_Supplement%2F1167.3.atom


: There is a serious lack of support for trustworthy smart IoT systems within DevOps. Security and privacy are often overlooked in DevOps cultures and almost absent in the context of IoT. In this paper, we focus on the planning stage of DevOps and propose a tool-supported method for risk-driven planning considering security and privacy risks. Our method consists of five steps: establish context, analyse dataflow, model privacy and security risk, develop risk assessment algorithm based on risk model, and execute risk assessment algorithm. Our tool supports this method in the first and the last step and facilitates dynamic risk assessment based on input provided by the user or collected from the monitoring stage into predefined risk models. The output of the tool is a risk assessment which the end users, e.g. developers, can use as decision support to prioritize certain parts of the target under analysis in the next cycle of DevOps. The tool and the method are evaluated in a real-world smart home case. Our initial evaluation indicates that the approach is comprehensible for our intended users, supports the planning stage in terms of security and privacy risk assessment, and feasible for use in the DevOps practice.


With increasing concerns about public health and the development of molecular techniques, new detection tools and the combination of existing approaches have increased the abilities of pathogenic bacteria monitoring by exploring new biomarkers, increasing the sensitivity and accuracy of detection, quantification, and analyzing various genes such as functional genes and antimicrobial resistance genes (ARG). Molecular methods are gradually emerging as the most popular detection approach for pathogens, in addition to the conventional culture-based plate enumeration methods. The analysis of pathogens in wastewater and the back-estimation of infections in the community, also known as wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE), is an emerging methodology and has a great potential to supplement current surveillance systems for the monitoring of infectious diseases and the early warning of outbreaks. However, as a complex matrix, wastewater largely challenges the analytical performance of molecular methods. This review synthesized the literature of typical pathogenic bacteria in wastewater, types of biomarkers, molecular methods for bacterial analysis, and their recent advances in wastewater analysis. The advantages and limitation of these molecular methods were evaluated, and their prospects in WBE were discussed to provide insight for future development.


Cu-2wt.Ag-2wt.%Zr alloy was directionally solidified with different growth rates(V=10-200 um/s) at a constant temperature gradient(G=3.1 K/mm) in a modified Bridgman furnace. The influence of growth rate was investigated by observing the microstructure and measuring the solutes' compositions within the Cu-matrix and dendrite boundaries. The experimental results show that increasing the growth rate, decreased both the primary and secondary arm spacing and increased micro-Vickers hardness. The solutes' concentration also increased as a result of the back diffusion caused by a decreasing growth rate. The electrical conductivity depends on the solutes' distribution.


Background and Aims Current cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention is based on diagnosis and treatment of specific disease. Little is known for high risk people with CVD at the community level. In rural China, health records of all residents were established after the recent health reforms. This study aims to describe the characters of the rural population with high CVD risk regarding their clinical indicators, disease patterns, drug treatment and adherence. Methods and Results 17042 (87%) of all the 19500 rural residents in the two townships had valid health records in 2009. We employed a validated tool, the Asian Equation, to screen 8182 (48%) resident health records of those aged between 40–75 years in 2010. Those who were identified with a CVD risk of 20% or higher were selected for a face-to-face questionnaire survey regarding their diagnosed disease and drug treatment. 453 individuals were identified as high risk of CVD, with an average age of 53 years, 62% males, 50% smoking rate and average systolic blood pressure of 161 mmHg. 386 (85%) participated in the survey, while 294 (76%) were diagnosed with and 88 (23%) were suspects of CVD, hypertension, diabetes or hyperlipidaemia. 75 (19%) took drug regularly and 125 (32%) either stopped treatment or missed drugs. The most often used drugs were calcium channel blockers (20%). Only 2% used aspirins and 0.8% used statins. The median costs of drugs were 17 RMB (USD2.66) per month. Conclusion The majority of the high risk population in our setting of rural China had already been diagnosed with a CVD related disease, but very few took any drugs, and less still took highly effective drugs to prevent CVD. A holistic strategy focused on population with high risk CVD and based on the current China public health reform is suggested in the context of primary care.


Auto-regressive text generation models usually focus on local fluency, and may cause inconsistent semantic meaning in long text generation. Further, automatically generating words with similar semantics is challenging, and hand-crafted linguistic rules are difficult to apply. We consider a text planning scheme and present a model-based imitation-learning approach to alleviate the aforementioned issues. Specifically, we propose a novel guider network to focus on the generative process over a longer horizon, which can assist next-word prediction and provide intermediate rewards for generator optimization. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed method leads to improved performance.


This article reports on the occurrence of well within an analytically delimited sequential environment: turn-initial position in the second pair-part position of adjacency pair sequences launched by a wh-question. We show that these well-prefaces operate as general alerts that indicate nonstraightforwardness in responding, and we compare this form of alert to others that operate in talk-in-interaction. We conclude by addressing the relationship of answering to responding, and by considering the relationship of well-prefacing to preference organization.


In this article, I want to suggest that there is a significant difference between the current interest of law in sociology (anthropology, geography) and the earlier instance of legal sociology. Whereas historically earlier stances responded, in no small degree, to legal positivism and, eventually, to both technological and societal change, the current social scientific engagement by lawyers appears driven by a differently articulated concern, even anxiety, about the viability of legal analytical, conceptual and semantic tools in a changed, transnational context. With the shift of law's bearings from the nation-state to globalization's strange land, law's need to learn anew and differently can be felt throughout: in textbooks, classrooms, professional ethics and legal practice. In light of the again growing importance of interdisciplinarity, legal pluralism and globalization, law's new frontier might lie in its reconstitution as transnational sociological jurisprudence. At the center of such an enterprise lies an engagement with the ways in which legal "fields" are conceptualized and put into practice as determinative translations between competing sets of knowledge. The here made contention is that underneath the shifts between different disciplinary approaches to law in the context of legal sociology, comparative law, post-colonial studies or different iterations of "law and…" (culture, history, anthropology, geography etc.) are longstanding questions regarding law as doctrine, theory, practice, culture. These are re-emerging with particular thrust in the transnational regulatory realm, that is to markedly characterized by the absence of institutional infrastructures known from the Western rule of law and welfare state traditions.


The government of Kenya overtime has formulated a series of revolving funds to counter the poverty in the rural areas and to make the citizens living in these sections to earn a decent living, through their on-going income-generating activities. The most common is the Youth Enterprise Development Fund and the Women Enterprise Fund. There have been issues on the loan repayment affecting sustainability of the revolving funds. The main focus of this study was to analyze the loan repayment and sustainability issues of government revolving funds in Murang'a County. The study was guided by the following specific objective:to examine the implication of socio-economic functions of groups to government revolving funds sustainability. The study adopted a positivism philosophy of research, where the researcher was independent on what was being observed and studied. Descriptive survey design was used to determine the level of government revolving fund repayment and its effect on sustainability for other borrowers. The target population was 1520 social and economic groups in Murang'a County. Clustering and Simple Random Sampling techniques were applied to select a sample size of 307 groups, in addition a census of 16 constituency credit officers, who were also interviewed. This, in total accounted to 19.5% of the total population. A questionnaire and an interview schedule were used to collect data. Descriptive data were analysed using tables and charts. Quantitative data were analysed using Chi-square, Analysis of Variance and Logit Regression Model. The results indicated that socio-micro groups' functions' was statistically significance to loan repayment and sustainability. The study recommended review of the education curriculum to reverse the teaching business studies in primary schools.


Denial of Service (DoS) attacks disable network services for legitimate users. A McAfee report shows that eight out of ten Critical Infrastructure Providers (CIPs) surveyed had a significant Distributed DoS (DDoS) attack in 2010.1 Researchers proposed many approaches for detecting these attacks in the past decade. Anomaly based DoS detection is the most common. In this approach, the detector uses statistical features; such as the entropy of incoming packet header fields like source IP addresses or protocol type. It calculates the observed statistical feature and triggers an alarm if an extreme deviation occurs. However, intrusion detection systems (IDS) using entropy based detection can be fooled by spoofing. An attacker can sniff the network to collect header field data of network packets coming from distributed nodes on the Internet and fuses them to calculate the entropy of normal background traffic. Then s/he can spoof attack packets to keep the entropy value in the expected range during the attack. In this study, we present a proof of concept entropy spoofing attack that deceives entropy based detection approaches. Our preliminary results show that spoofing attacks cause significant detection performance degradation.


Along with the ever-growing Web comes the proliferation of objectionable content, such as sex, violence, racism, etc. We need efficient tools for classifying and filtering undesirable Web content. In this paper, we investigate this problem and describe WebGuard, an automatic machine learning-based pornographic Web site classification and filtering system. Unlike most commercial filtering products, which are mainly based on textual content-based analysis such as indicative keywords detection or manually collected black list checking, WebGuard relies on several major data mining techniques associated with textual, structural content-based analysis, and skin color related visual content-based analysis as well. Experiments conducted on a testbed of 400 Web sites including 200 adult sites and 200 nonpornographic ones showed WebGuard's filtering effectiveness, reaching a 97.4 percent classification accuracy rate when textual and structural content-based analysis was combined with visual content-based analysis. Further experiments on a black list of 12,311 adult Web sites manually collected and classified by the French Ministry of Education showed that WebGuard scored a 95.62 percent classification accuracy rate. The basic framework of WebGuard can apply to other categorization problems of Web sites which combine, as most of them do today, textual and visual content.


November 1990, with the stepping down of Singapore's inaugural Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, saw the changing of the guard in Singapore, together with 1he promise of a more consultative style of government and greater citizen participation. However, the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) had been quick to point out that the new openness did not mean that they would tolerate undue criticisms of the government. Participants in political discussions are thus constrained by the Out-of-bounds markers (OB markers) which dictate the rules of political engagement and the topics which are deemed by the PAP as too sensitive for public debate. The OB markers are not a defined set of rules, and evolve with the prevailing socio-political climate. The OB markers have been in existence long before it was brought into the limelight in 1994, when a Singaporean author was chastised by the PAP for two critical political commentaries published in the press. The Singaporean government has justified the need for OB markers in maintaining national security and religious and n:.cial harmony. Although Singaporean academics have mentioned the OB markers in their work, there has 0een no extensive study performed on the topic. This thesis aims to explore the conditions which have infonned the need for OB markers and its implementation in the local press, using The Straits Times as a case study. The thesis will also discern if there has been a shift in these markers using the public discussion of the Marxist Conspiracy, the Catherine Lim incident and the Ong Presidency as test cases. School of Communications and Multimedia Honours Thesis


Abstract: In present Cellular network operators are always seeking to improve the rural network demand, this makes the potential customers in remote rural areas. However, because of load demand, non-renewable energy resources (fossil fuel) pose major challenges to cellular network operators. The specific power supply needs for remote based telecom stations (RBTSs) such as economical, highly efficient and reliable which can be satisfied by taking advantage of the technological advances in renewable sources. In order to ensure continuous supply of power suitable storage technology is used as backup by effective control logic In this paper, the sustainability of a 4-kW hybrid of wind and battery system is investigated for meeting the requirements of a 3-kW remote based telecom stations by integration of MPPT logic and pitch control logic. A charge controller for battery bank based on turbine maximum power point tracking and battery state of charge is developed to ensure controlled charging and discharging of battery. The mechanical safety of the RBTSs is assured by means of pitch control logic. The Battery SOC and pitch control schemes are integrated and the efficacy is validated by testing it with various load and wind profiles in MATLAB/SIMULNIK. Finally we are going to find the wind turbine and battery parameters under the influence of gradual variation, step variation and   arbitrary variation of wind speed. Buck converters for telecom based DC load regulation Integration of MPPT based pi controller logic and pitch control logic in closed loop operation Index Terms—Maximum power point tracking base error accuracy, turbine pitch control logic, Battery storage capacity, rural based telecom stations (RBTSs)


Bioprinting can be defined as additive biofabrication of three-dimensional (3D) tissues and organ constructs using tissue spheroids, capable of self-assembly, as building blocks. The thyroid gland, a relatively simple endocrine organ, is suitable for testing the proposed bioprinting technology. Here we report the bioprinting of a functional vascularized mouse thyroid gland construct from embryonic tissue spheroids as a proof of concept. Based on the self-assembly principle, we generated thyroid tissue starting from thyroid spheroids (TS) and allantoic spheroids (AS) as a source of thyrocytes and endothelial cells (EC), respectively. Inspired by mathematical modeling of spheroid fusion, we used an original 3D bioprinter to print TS in close association with AS within a collagen hydrogel. During the culture, closely placed embryonic tissue spheroids fused into a single integral construct, EC from AS invaded and vascularized TS, and epithelial cells from the TS progressively formed follicles. In this experimental setting, we observed formation of a capillary network around follicular cells, as observed during in utero thyroid development when thyroid epithelium controls the recruitment, invasion and expansion of EC around follicles. To prove that EC from AS are responsible for vascularization of the thyroid gland construct, we depleted endogenous EC from TS before bioprinting. EC from AS completely revascularized depleted thyroid tissue. The cultured bioprinted construct was functional as it could normalize blood thyroxine levels and body temperature after grafting under the kidney capsule of hypothyroid mice. Bioprinting of functional vascularized mouse thyroid gland construct represents a further advance in bioprinting technology, exploring the self-assembling properties of tissue spheroids.


Hand in hand with such health crises as HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, and the resurgence of tuberculosis has come an explosion of scientific and medical technologies. As technology documents illness with ever greater precision and clarity, the knowledge and vocabulary of patients is being similarly expanded by activists, consumer advocates, and artists working with new electronic technologies. Into this breach steps The Visible Woman, collecting professional, academic, and lay viewpoints on gender and the role of visual and textual representation in contemporary health and science. From fetal photography and mammography to mental retardation and chronic fatigue syndrome, The Visible Woman reveals how identities are constructed in medical research and public health initiatives, as well as in popular press accounts of health. New ways of seeing the body, through medical imaging, plastic and sexual surgery, and services for people with disabilities, are all informed, the book argues, by a broader cultural fascination with visuality and media. Emphasizing the authors' first-hand experiences as medical practitioners, activists, scholars, and patients, The Visible Woman breaks with more established approaches that cast patients as passive objects of medical inquiry, and medical professionals as perpetrators of institutional exploitation in the name of the public good. Asking what it means to be on both ends of the microscope, The Visible Woman highlights the complex perspectives of medical and scientific practitioners who themselves exist both inside and outside their workplaces and professional identities. The contributors are Michael Berube, Lisa Cartwright, Stacie A. Colwell, Richard Cone, Anne Eckman, Valerie Hartouni, Janet Lyon, Emily Martin, Gaye Naismith, Mark Rose, Ella Shohat, Vivian Sobchack, Carol Stabile, Sandy Stone, and Paula A. Treichler.


This Survey investigates the factors affecting research performance of faculty members in Islamic Azad University Roudehen branch. Methodologically, this is a correlational study. The population of this study included all faculty members of Islamic Azad University Roudehen branch, out of which 325 faculty members filled the questionnaires. Reliability of questionnaire used to collect the data was α=83% using Cronbach Alpha coefficient. The Spearman correlation coefficient indicated a significantly positive relationship between some of the individual and professional variables (e.g., using internet, research project, and training classes) and their research performance. In general, results showed that the above variables could explain about 68 percent of the variation in dependent


This paper sets out to examine the effect of business diversification strategy on capital structure in Malaysia. The study segregates the firms into related and unrelated firms based on segmentation of Standard Industry
Classification Code. It involes 76 public listed firms in Bursa Malaysia from 1994 to 2012. This research uses
static panel data to determine the credible association between diversification strategy and choice of financing.
The authors find that period fixed effect with seemingly unrelated regression produce better results to explain the
relationship between independent and dependent variables. The results demonstrate that there is insignificant
relationship between diversification strategy and capital structure. Robustness check on pre and post crisis data
generate similar output. The potential contribution of this work lies in offering empirical evidence to test the
previous held assumption that there is a significant relationship between corporate expansion and financing
decision done by firms. Future research should explore the possibility by using international firms to investigate
the association between those variables.


Behaviour on even simple experimental games shows considerable individual differences, but previous attempts to link these preferences to stable personality traits have had mixed results. Here we address three limitations of earlier studies, namely: 1) uncertainties concerning the reliability of preferences; 2) use of personality instruments with limited cross-study comparability; and 3) confounds where more than one psychological motive can lead to a particular choice. Sixty-seven participants completed 12 distinct real-money games twice over a two-week interval along with 6 measures concerning their expectations about other players' choices. Personality was measured using the full NEO-PI-R. Choices were highly stable across time (r = .84). Moreover, choices on the 12 games and 6 expectations reflected a single underlying dimension of "prosocial orientation", measuring concern for the payoffs received by other players. Scores on the prosocial orientation dimension were related to personality, with openness, (low) neuroticism, and (low) extraversion retained as significant predictors.


Barrier ribs of plasma display panel (PDP) were prepared via injection molding of thermally curable paste. The paste composition was optimized by considering the effects of powder content, binder type and content on the viscosity of paste. Various types of molds including stripe, honeycomb, and meander were prepared using UV lithography. In this study, main causes ofdimensional change during sintering of meander type barrier ribs produced by injection molding process were investigated by changing powder content in the paste. The results indicated that sintering stress generated in the barrier rib is not balanced at the points where the ribs are curved, causing dimensional change in the ribs.


Data-flow refers both to a language-level paradigm of computation and to a family of processor architectures based on this paradigm. This article elaborates data-flow language issues and the evolution of data-flow languages. In considering limits to the expressive power of these languages, underlying architectural issues are discussed. Although the article attempts to present a complete history of data-flow languages, it concentrates on those languages that specifically belong to this class and have been implemented for a data-flow machine. In many cases, the distinctions between issues of language semantics and machine architecture are unclear. Usually we have found that this reflects the evolution of data-flow, and the close association between language and architecture development. In some sections of the article, it may appear that there is an imbalance in the amount of detail presented when compared with other sections. This imbalance is proportional to the publications and the amount of information readily available for the topics.<<ETX>>


The metabolic fates of the synthetic surfactants, sodium [1-(14)C]undecyltriethoxy sulphate and sodium [1-(14)C]dodecyltriethoxy sulphate were studied in the rat. Both compounds were extensively metabolized regardless of the route of administration, oral, intraperitoneal or intravenous. Short-chain radioactive products were eliminated in the urine: the major metabolite of the dodecyl homologue in the urine was identified as (-)O(2)C(14)CH(2)- (OC(2)H(4))(3)OSO(3) (-) by n.m.r. and g.l.c.-mass spectrometry, whereas the major metabolite of the undecyl homologue in the urine was tentatively identified as (-)O(2)CCH(2) (14)CH(2)- (OC(2)H(4))(3)OSO(3) (-). In contrast with experiments with the dodecyl derivative, when [1-(14)C]undecyltriethoxy sulphate was administered to rats, appreciable amounts of radioactivity were recovered as (14)CO(2) in expired air. Whole-body radioautography implicated the liver as the major site of metabolism of both surfactants. The nature of the metabolic products establishes that both compounds are degraded by omega,beta-oxidation. Cleavage of the ether linkage proximal to the sulphate moiety may account for the small amounts of (14)CO(2) recovered in expired air after the administration of [1-(14)C]dodecyltriethoxy sulphate. It is suggested the substantial amounts of (14)CO(2) recovered after [1-(14)C]-undecyltriethoxy sulphate administration originate from (-)O(2) (14)C(OC(2)H(4))(3) OSO(3) (-), an unstable product of omega,beta-oxidation. An n.m.r. spectrum of the metabolite identified as 2-(triethoxy sulphate)acetic acid and a mass spectrum of the trimethylsilyl derivative of the parent alcohol of that metabolite have been deposited as Supplementary Publication SUP50086 (5 pages) at the British Library Lending Division, Boston Spa, Wetherby, West Yorkshire LS23 7BQ, U.K., from whom copies can be obtained on the terms indicated in Biochem. J. (1978) 169, 5.


Cattle are constantly exposed to environmental pathogens and are susceptible to a number of diseases which cause significant economic loss or animal welfare concerns. The mucosal surface is a key barrier to infection and a greater understanding of bovine mucosal immunology may lead to improved disease management strategies. The cathelicidins are a family of host defence proteins which may play an important role in this defensive barrier.  The cathelicidins are composed of a globular cathelin-like domain (CLD) and a C-terminal antimicrobial peptide (AMP) domain. The CLD is highly conserved across all species in which cathelicidins are found, yet the role of the CLD during infection has not been firmly established. The first aim of this thesis was to produce functional recombinant bovine CLD as a precursor to further experiments. However, the recombinant protein bound less lipopolysaccharide, was unable to agglutinate microbes, and was unable to permeabilise neutrophil membranes when compared to the activity of a native CLD preparation. Although further studies were not carried out with recombinant CLD, these results demonstrated that cell death induced by the native CLD and the agglutination of microbes potentially contribute to a broad anti-inflammatory role for the CLD during infection.  In contrast to humans and mice where only one cathelicidin isoform is expressed, bovine express seven cathelicidins, with variable AMP domains. Therefore the second aim of this thesis was to profile the effect of bovine cathelicidin AMPs on neutrophil function. The bovine AMPs were able to modify a number of activities. Migration and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production were enhanced by several peptides while ROS production was inhibited by others. When investigated in further detail, linear Bac1 (bactenecin), Bac5 and BMAP-34 (bovine myeloid antimicrobial peptide) were able to dose-dependently induce or inhibit several key neutrophil functions including migration, degranulation, respiratory burst and phagocytosis, indicating significant roles in differential modulation of immune responses. In particular, Bac5 was able to differentially modify neutrophil respiratory burst without significant disruption to cellular homeostasis, which suggested Bac5 was acting via an intracellular mechanism.  The third aim of this thesis was to investigate the mechanism by which Bac5 modulated neutrophil function. The results demonstrated the ability of Bac5 to be internalised by neutrophils and that Bac5 inhibition of p47phox binding to nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) oxidase is a possible explanation for the differential induction and inhibition of extracellular ROS production. β-actin was identified as a major intracellular target for Bac5 and is consistent with the ability of Bac5 to modulate multiple neutrophil functions.  In summary, this thesis demonstrates that the bovine cathelicidins have multiple roles in host defence. The conserved CLD appears to have an anti-inflammatory role through an as yet undefined mechanism. The variable AMPs together have multifaceted roles which may act in concert to promote elimination of pathogens and regulate excessive detrimental neutrophil activity. The combined effect of these roles will facilitate clearance of pathogens during infection and aid in the resolution of the innate inflammatory response at mucosal surfaces.


Special model concrete cells, providing identity of tests for six armature samples, were prepared. Polarisation characteristics and impedance dependencies of the model cells, exposed to acid rain solution, were studied. It was established, that the inhibitor blend, containing sodium molibdate and calcium nitrate at equal mass ratio, is most effective for corrosion protection of steel armature. Inhibition efficiency of the blend is in 10–12 times higher than efficiencies of its single components. This clearly indicates a synergistic effect. An addition of the inhibitor to polyurethane injection composition, used for concrete construction repair, increases the adhesion between concrete and reinforcement exposed in corrosion environment. The use of synergism effect in the development of inorganic inhibitor mixtures allows significantly to reduce consumption of materials and to improve manufacturability of injection polymer compositions for reinforced concrete repair.


During the two and a half years which have elapsed since Elvehjem and his associates 1 demonstrated the nutritional significance of nicotinic acid, much progress has been made in the clinical application of their discovery and much better insight into certain deficiency states has been gained. It was at once suspected that the importance of nicotinic acid in nutrition was related to its presence as the reactive fraction of the coenzymes diphosphopyridine nucleotide and triphosphopyridine nucleotide. Both coenzymes function in a number of dehydrogenating or oxidizing reactions, and the diphosphopyridine nucleotide may also act as a phosphate carrier. Their activity in the intermediate metabolism of dextrose is probably of the greatest clinical interest. The chemical reactions may be tentatively summarized. After the phosphorylation of hexose to hexose diphosphate and subsequent cleavage to triose phosphate, the pyridine nucleotides oxidize triose phosphate, losing oxygen, which is replaced by the oxidation of flavoprotein.