Conclusion: Higher apolipoprotein B/A-I and total /HDL cholesterol ratios are independent predictors of increased arterial stiffness in never-treated hypertensives and predict increased arterial stiffness better than LDL. Introduction: erythematosus (SLE) sclerosis (SSc) Methods: We studied 60 women with RA (aged 40.47 (cid:1) 9.93 years) with disease activity (DAS28) 5.47 (cid:1) 0.94, 30 women with SLE (aged 37.33 (cid:1) 9.22 years), disease activity index (SLEDAI) 18.40 (cid:1) 8.17, organ damage index (SLICC) 1.27 (cid:1) 1.53 and 16 women with diffuse cutaneus SSc (aged 47.94 (cid:1) 10.46 years). Blood tests included serum lipid profile, glucose and high-sensitivity CRP (hsCRP) measurement. The endothelium-dependent flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) test in a brachial artery was performed by the ultrasound system (Logiq 700, General Electric). Results: Direct comparison of FMD in RA, SLE and SSc groups has shown that there was overall difference between groups (p Z 0.033). This result was confirmed by application of linear models with adjustment for other con- founding factors. FMD significantly differed in SSc and RA groups (5.69 (cid:1) 5.10 % vs. 8.37 (cid:1) 3.84 %; p Z 0.021; b Z -0.2) as well as in SSc and SLE groups (5.69 (cid:1) 5.10 % vs. 9.25 (cid:1) 5.15 %; p Z 0.021; b Z -0.2). Conclusion: Results of our study have shown that FMD is lower in SSc group as compared to RA and SLE groups, thus the SS does greater damage on endothelial function as compared with RA and SLE. and wall stress. ACE genotype was determined by PCR followed by gel elec- trophoresis, and circulating ACE level was measured using ELISA. Results: Male carriers of the ACE D allele had a lower distensibility coeffi- cient than II carriers (ID/DD 8.09 vs. II 10.38, p Z 0.017). Multiple regression analyses adjusting for confounding factors showed significant associations between the ACE D-allele and increased stiffness b as well as reduced CC. No significant association between abdominal aortic stiffness and the ACE D-allele was found in women. Conclusion: This study showed, for the first time, a gender-specific associa- tion between the ACE-D allele and abdominal aortic wall mechanics, with men carrying the ACE D-allele having stiffer abdominal aortas compared to II carriers. Increased abdominal aortic stiffness indicates impaired vessel wall integrity, which along with other local predisposing factors, may increase the risk of aneurysm formation. Objectives: Patients with abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) have a high cardiovascular comorbidity besides the risk of aneurysmal rupture, the reasons being largely unknown. The aim of this study was to determine other possible vascular defects in the arterial system besides aneurysmal disease that might be of relevance for the increased comorbidity. Methods: 23 male AAA-patients and 20 age-matched controls (C) were exam-ined with tonometry using the Sphygmocore system, to determine aortic and brachial PWV. The relation between local common carotid artery (CCA) pressure and lumen diameter (LD) as well as IMT determined by ultrasound was studied as a measure of remodelling capacity of the carotid wall. Results: AAA:s had higher aoPWV than C (11,2 (cid:1) Results: FMDrangedfrom18,4%to-1,8%(6,8 (cid:1) 0,7%),PWVfrom9,7m/sto16,3 (12,1 (cid:1) 0,2 m/s), RDW from 12,3% to 16,2 % (14,2 (cid:1) 0,1%). Endothelial dysfunction was detected in 46% patients, increasing the arterial stiffness in 61% and elevated RDW in 37%. Patients with elevated RDW had lower FMD (4,6 (cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:1) in comparison with patients with normal RDW. RDW correlated with FMD: r Z - 0,4, p 0,01. Chance of endothelial dysfunction in young men with arterial hypertension and elevated RDW is more in 5 times.


ABSTRACT To sensitize individuals, organizations, and communities to the sociostructural barriers individuals with disabilities face, Mace et al. (1997) advanced seven principles of universal design (as cited by the Center for Excellence in Universal Design, n.d.). Each principle provides guidance on how spaces, products, and services can be developed or adapted to encourage usability by all individuals. Researchers and practitioners in adapted physical activity (APA) have worked to further extend the application of the principles of universal design into the physical domain, which helps expand opportunities for all to fully participate within exercise, sport, and physically active recreation. A less scrutinized sociostructural barrier in APA promotion is the suitability of materials used to teach adults experiencing disability ways to adapt leisure and exercise routines (Thomas & Cardinal, 2020a). However, on the basis of a recent meta-analysis (Thomas et al., 2018), knowledge of the degree suitability issues pervading materials used in routine APA promotion strategies or programs is limited. Further, it appears research has yet to gauge the prevalence of suitability issues in physical activity promotion from a broader universal design framework. These gaps in kinesiology knowledge represent fruitful lines of future research. In this essay, we present recommendations for future research toward addressing suitability knowledge gaps within APA promotion. Consistent with the call for leadership beyond college and university campuses to drive change as experts (NAKHE Newsletter, 2019, p. 4), such lines of inquiry would promote the dissemination of resources that support efforts to bring about full participation in the physical domain.


BACKGROUND
With the onset of improved protective equipment against fragmentation, blast-induced neurotrauma has emerged as the "signature wound" of the current conflicts in the Middle East. Current research has focused on this phenomenon; however, the exact mechanism of injury and ways to mitigate the ensuing pathophysiology remain largely unknown. The data presented and literature reviewed formed the fundamentals of a successful grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research to Wayne State University.

METHODS
This work is a culmination of specialized blast physics and energy-tissue coupling knowledge, recent pilot data using a 12-m shock tube and an instrumented Hybrid III crash test dummy, modeling results from Conventional Weapons effects software, and an exhaustive Medline and government database literature review.

RESULTS
The work supports our hypothesis of the mechanism of injury (described in detail) but sheds light on current hypotheses and how we investigate them. We expose two areas of novel mitigation development. First, there is a need to determine a physiologic and mechanism-based injury tolerance level through a combination of animal testing and biofidelic surrogate development. Once the injury mechanism is defined experimentally and an accurate physiologic threshold for brain injury is established, innovative technologies to protect personnel at risk can be appropriately assessed. Second, activated pathophysiological pathways are thought to be responsible for secondary neurodegeneration. Advanced pharmacological designs will inhibit the key cell signaling pathways. Simultaneously, evaluation of pharmacological candidates will confirm or deny current hypotheses of primary mechanisms of secondary neurodegeneration.

CONCLUSIONS
A physiologic- or biofidelic-based blast-induced tolerance curve may redefine current acceleration-based curves that are only valid to assess tertiary blast injury. Identification of additional pharmaceutical candidates will both confirm or deny current hypotheses on neural pathways of continued injury and help to develop novel prophylactic treatments.


Tissue distribution and cellular localization of PC1/3 mRNA in porcine tissues were examined by ribonuclease protection assay and in situ hybridization. PC1/3 mRNA was detected mainly in the corpus luteum of pregnant sow and brain. Within the ovary, PC1/3 and relaxin transcripts colocalized within large luteal cells. Levels of PC1/3 transcripts in corpora lutea increased as gestation advanced, parallel with an observed increase in relaxin transcripts. A role for PC1/3 in proprotein processing in the ovary is discussed. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 57:361±365, 2000. ß 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.


This special issue of Copenhagen Studies in Language is devoted to human and machine translation and human-computer interaction in translation, which were the two main foci of the 8th International Workshop on Natural Language Processing and Cognitive Science (NLPCS 2011), held at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, in August 2011. The volume includes the 19 papers which were selected for presentation at the workshop and the text of invite keynote lectures. The workshop provided an attractive interdisciplinary forum for fostering interactions among researchers and practitioners in Natural Language Processing (NLP) working within the paradigm of Cognitive Science (CS). The overall emphasis of the annual NLPCS research workshop series is on the contribution of cognitive science to language processing, including human and machine translation, human-machine interface design, conceptualisation, representation, meaning construction, ontology building, and text mining.

Bernadette Sharp; M. Carl; M. Zock; A.L. Jacobsen


We examine the superconducting solution in the Holstein model, where the conduction electrons couple to the dispersionless Boson fields, using the Migdal-Eliashberg theory and Dynamical Mean Field Theory. Although different in numerical values, both methods imply the existence of an optimal Boson energy for superconductivity at a given electron-Boson coupling. This non-monotonous behavior can be understood as an interplay between the polaron and superconducting physics, as the electron-Boson coupling is the origin of the superconductor, but at the same time traps the conduction electrons making the system more insulating. Our calculation provides a simple explanation on the recent experiment on sulfur hydride (H$_2$S), where an optimal pressure for the superconductivity was observed. The validities of both methods are discussed.


ABSTRACT
The role of ferrous iron in the phosphorus cycle of an aquatic ecosystem is poorly understood because of a lack of suitable methods to quantitatively evaluate ferrous iron phosphorus (FIP) phases. Using sediments sampled from Fubao Bay of Dianchi Lake in China, a novel extraction method for FIP using 2,2′‐bipyridine was explored. Total phosphorus and iron in the sediments ranged from 1.0 to 5.0 mg/g (dry weight) and 28.5 to 90.6 mg/g, respectively. Organic content (as indicated by loss on ignition or LOI) and iron(II) ranged from 3.1 to 27.0% and 26.5 to 64.9 mg/g, respectively. The dissolution dynamics of FIP extraction with a low solid/liquid ratio (1:25) indicated that a single application of 0.2% 2,2′‐bipyridine extracted both iron(II) (Fe(II)) and phosphorus (as PO43−) in sediments with different organic contents with low efficiency. The extraction efficiency of Fe(II) was improved by alteration of the solid/liquid ratio, but the effect was limited. However, addition of a 1:1000 solid/liquid ratio of 0.5 M potassium chloride to a 0.2% 2,2′‐bipyridine solution significantly accelerated extraction of FIP with the release of Fe(II) and phosphorus toward equilibrium at approximately 150 hours. Further investigation demonstrated that 2,2′‐bipyridine exhibited a higher selectivity in distinguishing FIP from phosphorus bound to ferric (Fe(III)) oxides or precipitated by calcium (Ca2+). Air‐drying sediments significantly decreased the amount of extracted FIP, which indicates that fresh, wet sediment should be used in this type of FIP extraction. Based on experimental results using the proposed extraction protocol, (1) FIP in sediments of Fubao Bay had a predominant status in the lake sediment and accounted for 23.4 to 39.8% of total phosphorus, and (2) Fe(II)FIP released in the extraction is directly proportional to phosphorusFIP (Fe(II)FIP = 2.84 × PFIP + 0.0007; R2 = 0.97) with an average molar ratio of Fe(II)FIP/PFIP of 2.7. This study shows that FIP extraction with 2,2′‐bipyridine is a robust method for releasing ferrous iron associated with phosphorus. Further, the high percentage of FIP in total phosphorus (40%) measured in the study site using this extraction method suggests that FIP might have been often underestimated in previous studies.


SUMMARY: A carcinogenic substance, o-aminoazotoluene (AAT), inhibited the incorporation of [1-14C]glycine and [1-14C]leucine into the lipid fraction of Mycobacterium smegmatis. It inhibited transiently the incorporation of [1-14C]glutamic acid into lipids, but it did not inhibit the incorporation of [1-14C]acetate into lipids. AAT did not inhibit the incorporation into the protein and nucleic acid fractions of [1-14C]glycine, [1-14C]leucine, [1-14C]glutamic acid, and [1-14C]acetate.


Advancements in deep generative models have made it possible to synthesize images, videos and audio signals that are hard to distinguish from natural signals, creating opportunities for potential abuse of these capabilities. This motivates the problem of tracking the provenance of signals, i.e., being able to determine the original source of a signal. Watermarking the signal at the time of signal creation is a potential solution, but current techniques are brittle and watermark detection mechanisms can easily be bypassed by doing some post-processing (cropping images, shifting pitch in the audio etc.). In this paper, we introduce ReSWAT (Resilient Signal Watermarking via Adversarial Training), a framework for learning transformation-resilient watermark detectors that are able to detect a watermark even after a signal has been through several post-processing transformations. Our detection method can be applied to domains with continuous data representations such as images, videos or sound signals. Experiments on watermarking image and audio signals show that our method can reliably detect the provenance of a synthetic signal, even if the signal has been through several post-processing transformations, and improve upon related work in this setting. Furthermore, we show that for specific kinds of transformations (perturbations bounded in the `2 norm), we can even get formal guarantees on the ability of our model to detect the watermark. We provide qualitative examples of watermarked image and audio samples in the anonymous code submission link.


N -type silicon presents several advantages compared to p -type material, among them, the most important is the small capture cross sections of metallic impurities, which are neatly smaller. As a consequence lifetime and also diffusion length of minority carriers should be neatly higher in n -type than in p -type, for a given impurity concentration. This is of a paramount interest for multicrystalline silicon wafers, in which the impurity-extended crystallographic defects interaction governs the recombination strength of minority carriers. It is experimentally verified that in 1.2  cm raw wafers lifetimes about 200 s and diffusion lengths around 220 m are measured. These values increase strongly after gettering treatments like phosphorus diffusion or Al-Si alloying. Scan maps reveal that extended defects are poorly active, although in regions where the density of dislocations is higher than 10 6 cm -2 . Abrupt junctions are obtained by Al-Si alloying after annealing between 850 and 900 °C, which could be used for rear junction cells. Such cells can be processed by means of similar processing steps used to make conventional p -type base cells.


"This manual explains the use of z-Tree, the ""Zurich Toolbox for Readymade Economic Experiments"". No programming knowledge is necessary to use z-Tree. This software allows to program and to conduct a wide range of experiments. This includes simultaneous and sequential games as well as market experiments and posted offer markets or double auctions. Because many features needed in an experimental software are built into z-Tree (as data saving, time and period display, profit calculation, group matching, provisions in case of losses and bankruptcy), new experiments can be developed quickly and easily."


Study hypothesis
The costs of anti-epileptic medication (AED) and poor care coordination result in increased Emergency Department (ED) visits for seizure events and produce both direct and indirect economic burdens on patients with frequent seizures.

Methods
A retrospective chart review study of ED visits with chief concern of seizure from two hospitals over a two-year period was performed; resulting in 152 visits recorded in this study.  Data collected included demographic information, relevant seizure or past medical history (PMH), diagnostics performed in the ED, and the admission status of the patient along with the total charges per encounter.  Data was analyzed descriptively and with logistic regression analysis.

Results
The results yielded by this study were generally in-line with the results of similar studies, indicating a higher relative rate of ED seizure visits for males, people of Black race, and infant and toddler populations. A high proportion of Medicaid/Medicare coverage and indiscernible employment status for most patients were also noted.  Observed differences in average cost among patients with and without epilepsy and male versus female patients were not shown to be statistically significant.  However, the increased likelihood of admission with increasing age was shown to be significant with an average age difference between admitted and discharged populations of approximately 10 years (p= 0.003).

Conclusions
The data provided here is not sufficient to examine the complex relationship between seizures, epilepsy, and costs among various other patient factors.  Further study is necessary to minimize direct and indirect costs of seizures.

Acknowledgments
This project was funded, in part, with support from the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute funded, in part by UL1TR002529 from the National Institutes of Health. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.


PURPOSE
To determine whether computed tomography (CT) can help predict which patients will require surgical or bronchoscopic intervention during healing of bronchial anastomotic dehiscence after lung transplantation.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The authors followed up 25 bronchoscopically proved dehiscent anastomoses through healing in 19 patients who underwent lung transplantation. CT findings were correlated with bronchoscopic results and clinical outcome.

RESULTS
A bronchial defect and extraluminal air were initially present at CT in all 25 dehiscent anastomoses. Of 12 bronchial defects less than or equal to 4 mm, only one required intervention during healing (P < .05). Of 12 bronchial defects greater than 4 mm, six required intervention during healing. Eight of nine dehiscences with a tiny or small amount of extraluminal air healed with conservative treatment. Of 16 dehiscences associated with a moderate to large amount of extraluminal air, nine were treated conservatively and six required therapeutic intervention. Three healing anastomoses required bronchial stent placement. One patient died in the perioperative period.

CONCLUSION
In patients with small dehiscences ( < 4mm) and patients with a tiny or small amount of extraluminal air, the anastomosis tends to heal without sequela. When patients have larger amounts of extraluminal air or larger ( > 4mm) dehiscences at presentation, CT cannot help predict which patients will require intervention.


This chapter contains eight clinical vivas on the subject of head and neck surgical oncology. This will provide candidates sitting the vivas component of the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery FRCS examination with practical knowledge in the assessment and treatment of cancer presenting in the head, face, and neck region. It will also provide insight for clinicians in allied specialties, such as otolaryngology and plastic surgery, in how to engage in a debate with a senior clinician in the contemporary management of such complex cases.


The present paper describes the construction and first empirical application of the SUSTRUS model (the name of the model refers to "Sustainable Russia"). This model will be the main result of the same-named EU funded project. The SUSTRUS model belongs to the group of regional CGE models, applied to analyze policies with a strong social, economic and environmental dimension. The SUSTRUS model can be used to assist policy makers in their choice of medium and long-term sustainability policies, for the implementation of the EU strategy for sustainable development in Russia as well as an efficient incorporation of the sustainability goals into the existing Russian policy tools on regional and federal levels. The SUSRUS model is constructed as a regional model on federal level, where regions are linked by interregional trade flows, a federal government level and migration. This paper will relate on the calibration of the database for the model and the addition of innovative elements in the model, necessary to model the link between the environmental, social, economic and international modules. The main data sources for the model are the public databases of Rosstat and the micro-level household data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS). Calibration of the model database was performed by a flexible cross-entropy minimization sub model and standard applied general equilibrium techniques. The general structure of the model will be discussed, focusing on the innovative features of the model and the link between the environmental and economic modules. The application of the model will be shown by a simulation exercise and a presentation of the main results.


Background: Endotracheal extubation is a painful and stressful procedure. The authors hypothesized that the prophylactic use of remifentanil would attenuate the pain intensity and stress responses resulting from extubation in neurosurgical patients. Materials and Methods: In this prospective, randomized, double-blinded, controlled trial, 160 patients with planned delay extubation after elective intracranial operation were randomized 1:1 to receive either remifentanil or normal saline (control) before their extubation. The dose regime of remifentanil was a bolus of 0.5 &mgr;g/kg over 1 minute, followed by a continuous infusion of 0.05 &mgr;g/kg/min for 20 minutes. The primary outcome was the incidence of severe pain during the periextubation period. Secondary outcomes included changes in the pain intensity and vital signs, failing to pass an extubation evaluation after the study drug infusion, severe adverse events, postextubation complications, and clinical outcomes. Results: Two patients in the remifentanil group did not pass the extubation evaluation. The incidence of severe pain during the periextubation period was significantly lower in the remifentanil group compared with the control group (25.0% vs. 41.3%, P=0.029). Compared with the control group, the visual analog scale in the remifentanil group was significantly lower after the bolus of remifentanil (12±18 vs. 25±27, P=0.001) and immediately after extubation (19±25 vs. 34±30, P=0.001). There were no significant differences in the vital signs immediately after extubation between the 2 groups (P>0.05). Conclusions: The prophylactic use of remifentanil decreases the incidence of severe pain. Our preliminary findings merit a larger trial to clarify the effect of the prophylactic use of remifentanil on clinical outcomes and adverse events.


There is a potential misunderstanding implicit in the title 'History of technology in the teaching of history' which I would like to clear up at the outset. It could be i n ferred that I am postulating an essential link between two parts of an equation, as though the teaching of history were incomplete without the history of technology. This is not the case. The relationship between the histo r y of technology and the teaching of history, though useful, is not a necessary one, and to dec l are or even imply that it is so would overstate the argument . Clio the Muse is a willing servant, always ready to meet the requests of historians for particular types of historical interpretation so that the study of history has come to assume many different forms. Of these, the history of technology is a comparative newcomer seeki n g to estab l ish itself amongst the range of historical disciplines, and althoug . '1 there are important perspectives which it can bring to the study and teaching of hi s to r y, it would be wildly presumptuous to claim that it is indispensable. Many traditional historians would dismiss any such claim out of hand, and they are not likely to be impressed by the modest plea that I wish to present. Nevertheless, to carry any conviction, it is important that the case should be presented and open for consideration by those teachers of history who are least likely to be sympathetic to the history of technology.


Glycine is an important inhibitory neurotransmitter in the spinal cord, but it also acts as a coagonist at the glycine site of N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptors to potentiate nociceptive transmission. However, little is known about how increased nociceptive inflow alters synaptic glycine release in the spinal dorsal horn and its functional significance. In this study, we performed whole-cell recordings in rat lamina II neurons to record glycinergic spontaneous inhibitory postsynaptic currents (sIPSCs). The transient receptor potential vanilloid receptor 1 agonist capsaicin caused a prolonged increase in the frequency of sIPSCs in 17 of 25 (68%) neurons tested. The potentiating effect of capsaicin on sIPSCs was blocked by ionotropic glutamate receptor antagonists or tetrodotoxin in most lamina II neurons examined. In contrast, the P2X agonist αβ-methylene-ATP increased sIPSCs in only two of 16 (12.5%) neurons. The glutamate transporter inhibitor l-trans-pyrrolidine-2,4-dicarboxylic acid either increased or reduced the basal frequency of sIPSCs but did not significantly alter the potentiating effect of capsaicin on sIPSCs. Furthermore, the groups II and III metabotropic glutamate receptor antagonists had no significant effect on the capsaicin-induced increase in the sIPSC frequency. Although capsaicin reduced the amplitude of evoked excitatory postsynaptic currents at high stimulation currents, it did not change the ratio of α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid/NMDA currents. This study provides the important new information that increased nociceptive inflow augments synaptic glycine release to spinal dorsal horn neurons through endogenous glutamate release. Potentiation of inhibitory glycinergic tone by stimulation of nociceptive primary afferents may function as a negative feedback mechanism to attenuate nociceptive transmission at the spinal level.


Applying learning techniques to acquire action models is an area of intense research interest. Most previous works in this area have assumed that there is a significant amount of training data available in a planning domain of interest, which we call target domain, where action models are to be learned. However, it is often difficult to acquire sufficient training data to ensure that the learned action models are of high quality. In this paper, we develop a novel approach to learning action models with limited training data in the target domain by transferring knowledge from related auxiliary or source domains. We assume that the action models in the source domains have already been created before, and seek to transfer as much of the the available information from the source domains as possible to help our learning task. We first exploit a Web searching method to bridge the target and source domains, such that transferrable knowledge from source domains is identified. We then encode the transferred knowledge together with the available data from the target domain as constraints in a maximum satisfiability problem, and solve these constraints using a weighted MAX-SAT solver. We finally transform the solutions thus obtained into high-quality target-domain action models. We empirically show that our transfer-learning based framework is effective in several domains, including the International Planning Competition (IPC) domains and some synthetic domains.


In a novel generation and detection configuration of terahertz (THz) radiation, we investigate experimentally and numerically the properties of sub-cycle THz pulses in the near field. It is found that the sub-cycle THz pulses experience significant spectral and temporal deformation in the near-field zone. The variations of both the pulse waveform and spectral distribution of the THz electric field are clearly observed in our experiments when the spot size of source is changed. Numerical simulations based on Gaussian distribution are performed to explain the details of the data and lead to an excellent agreement with the experimental results.


Members of the glucan synthase-like (GSL) family are believed to be involved in synthesis of the cell-wall component callose in specialized locations throughout the plant. We identified two members of the Arabidopsis GSL gene family, GSL8 and GSL10, that are independently required for male gametophyte development and plant growth. Analysis of gsl8 and gsl10 mutant pollen during development revealed specific malfunctions associated with asymmetric microspore division. GSL8 and GSL10 are not essential for normal microspore growth and polarity, but play a role in entry of microspores into mitosis. Impaired function of GSL10 also leads to perturbation of microspore division symmetry, irregular callose deposition and failure of generative-cell engulfment by the cytoplasm of the vegetative cell. Silencing of GSL8 or GSL10 in transgenic lines expressing gene-specific dsRNAi constructs resulted in a dwarfed growth habit, thereby revealing additional and independent wild-type gene functions for normal plant growth.


Technology inevitably evolves and develops rapidly in the modern era, industries and professions continue to strive in integrating, adapting and utilising these advancements to improve, optimise and improve the process of design to manufacture to the user experience.  Although disruptive at first causing a reluctance of technological adoption within a workplace and ultimately progression of an industry, the eventual impact and benefits noticeably outweigh the initial time and cost within industry adoption, adaptation and development. Architecture and design is not immune to this phenomenon; from computational 2D and 3D modeling, BIM and cloud based data to physical prototyping with 3D printing, laser cutting and automated CNC routing, these are a few select examples that has forced the industry of design to rethink processes, possibilities and realistic opportunities where none existed prior.  One such system that fits into this category is the advent of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. The numerous possibilities to which these visually and spatially immersive systems opportune for immense innovation often lacks direction or an ultimate goal thus rendering this piece of software to often be little more than a visualisation tool.  This thesis recognises the unique position that VR allows and seeks to interrogate and deconstruct current, traditional design processes to better utilise VR in aiding and reinforcing the idea of partial testing of ideas and concepts throughout the design cycle. Different sciences such as psychology, processes and automation from computational design and considerations within software development will be employed and injected into the broader architectural context in which this research presides. In addition to the VR headset, external hardware that better capture human metrics such as EEG, eye tracking, GSR will be considered to developed a seamless tool and workflow that allows us, as designers to better interrogate clients behaviour within our designed digital representations which leads to validations, evaluations and criticisms of our actions within the architectural realm.


One of the significant tasks in data-driven fault diagnosis methods is to configure a good feature set involving statistical parameters. However, statistical parameters are often incapable of representing the dynamic behavior of planetary gearboxes under variable operating conditions. Although the use of deep learning algorithms to find a good set of features for fault diagnosis has somewhat improved diagnostic performance, the lack of domain knowledge incorporated into deep learning algorithms has limited further improvement. Accordingly, this paper developed a variant of deep residual networks (DRNs), the so-called deep residual networks with dynamically weighted wavelet coefficients (DRN+DWWC) to improve diagnostic performance, which takes a series of sets of wavelet packet coefficients on various frequency bands as an input. Further, the fact that no general consensus has been reached as to which frequency band contains the most intrinsic information about a planetary gearbox's health status calls for "dynamic weighting layers" in the DRN+DWWC and the role of the layers is to dynamically adjust a weight applied to each set of wavelet packet coefficients to find a discriminative set of features that will be further used for planetary gearbox fault diagnosis.


Given a compact semialgebraic set S of R^n and a polynomial map f from R^n to R^m, we consider the problem of approximating the image set F = f(S) in R^m. This includes in particular the projection of S on R^m for n greater than m. Assuming that F is included in a set B which is "simple'' (e.g. a box or a ball), we provide two methods to compute certified outer approximations of F. Method 1 exploits the fact that F can be defined with an existential quantifier, while Method 2 computes approximations of the support of image measures.The two methods output a sequence of superlevel sets defined with a single polynomial that yield explicit outer approximations of F. Finding the coefficients of this polynomial boils down to computing an optimal solution of a convex semidefinite program. We provide guarantees of strong convergence to F in L^1 norm on B, when the degree of the polynomial approximation tends to infinity. Several examples of applications are provided, together with numerical experiments.


Twenty-four of 576 consecutive patients with spinal cord injuries developed acute gastroduodenal ulceration and hemorrhage. Twenty-two were males and two were females: 88% were 12 to 25 years old. Seventeen patients sustained injuries to the spinal cord in sports and recreation related activities. Twenty-three patients had lesions of the spinal cord above the sympathetic outflow. Twenty patients developed gastroduodenal perforation or bleeding within 4 weeks following the injury. Ten patients developed perforation of gastric or duodenal ulcer and "shoulder tip" pain was a symptom of perforation in six patients. Six patients of seven who had gastroscopy and upper GI series were found at laparotomy to have ulcers. Gastric (nine) and duodenal (seven) ulcers were evenly distributed. There were no deaths due to gastroduodenal hemorrhage in the present series. A single cause for the pathogenesis of gastroduodenal ulceration and hemorrhage cannot be pinpointed. However, ischemia of gastric mucosa produced in various ways and altered equilibrium between the parasympathetic and sympathetic neural pathways following trauma to the spinal cord seem to be important in initiating the process.


In this paper the advantages of using differential cascode voltage switch pass gate (DCVSPG) logic with regard to standard CMOS for subthreshold operation are presented. The two families are compared in terms of their performance and energy-delay-product (EDP) figures. Multiple gates were simulated using 0.18 mum standard CMOS technology. Simulation results show that DCVSPG NAND2 gate has 71%, DCVSPG NOR2 gate has 82% and DCVSPG full adder has 66% EDP savings over the CMOS counterparts


In this paper, we develop new acceptance sampling plans based on truncated life tests for the Akash distribution. With various values of the Akash distribution parameter, the minimum sample sizes required to assert the specified mean life are obtained, also the operating characteristic function values and producer's risk of the proposed sampling plan are presented. The results are illustrated by different examples for different values of the sampling plans. A real data of 20 small electric carts is used to illustrate the power of the new sampling plans. The results revealed that the suggested acceptance sampling plan is useful for researchers and engineering in producing lots.


Propylsulfonic acid-functionalized periodic mesoporous benzenesilica (Ph-PMO-SO3H, 1) has been shown to be exceptional solid catalysts in the acid-catalyzed condensation of indole on benzaldehyde. The reasons for this distinct behavior are so far not completely understood. Here, we present a study involving the combination of advanced high-resolution solid state magic-angle spinning (MAS) NMR characterization with the results of the application of hydrated and dehydrated 1 with different acid loadings in the acid-catalyzed condensation of indole on benzaldehyde attempting an explanation of the higher performance of these materials when compared with the conventional solid catalysts. 1H MAS NMR investigations show the displacement of the propylsulfonic –SO3H protons to higher 1H chemical shifts with increase of the sulfonic acid strength suggesting the formation of hydrogen bonds involving neighboring –SO3H groups. The acid strength of 1 is lowered by the presence of water. At low sulfonic acid loading the catalytic activity is surprisingly high and independent of the water presence. The 2D 1H–1H recoupling MAS NMR experiments indicate that the phenyl rings may protect the acidic sites against water solvation, thus affording a plausible explanation for the negligible effect of water on the catalytic activity of 1 with low acid loading. For a proton loading higher than 0.40 mmol g−1, we observed a linear relationship between the catalyst TOF and the chemical shift value of the –SO3H proton, thus showing that solid 1H NMR appears to be a convenient tool to predict the catalytic activity of 1 in water.


The survival and growth of tumor cells in a foreign environment is considered a rate-limiting step during metastasis. To identify genes that may be essential for this process, we isolated highly metastatic variants from a poorly metastatic human melanoma cell line and performed expression analyses of metastases and primary tumors from these cells. GPR56 is among the genes markedly downregulated in the metastatic variants. We show that overexpression of GPR56 suppresses tumor growth and metastasis, whereas reduced expression of GPR56 enhances tumor progression. Levels of GPR56 do not correlate with growth rate in vitro, suggesting that GPR56 may mediate growth suppression by interaction with a component in the tumor microenvironment in vivo. We show that GPR56 binds specifically to tissue transglutaminase, TG2, a widespread component of tissue and tumor stroma previously implicated as an inhibitor of tumor progression. We discuss the mechanisms whereby GPR56-TG2 interactions may suppress tumor growth and metastasis.


For a long time, prison privatization has been experimented on a supranational level mainly from the Common Law Countries which have given a fluctuating evaluation of its possible positive effects. Today, many of such Countries, due to the failures attributable to the strong influence of the profit dynamics regulating the functions performed by private partners, have proposed to come back to a State-managed enforcement system. As a consequence of the first experience of privatization in Italy, the Authors, through a critical analysis of international experiences, focus their attention on features that, although delegated to third parties, could still ensure an enforcement of the sentencing system in accordance with the principles laid down by the national prison laws and regulations, aware that the chronic lack of resources for the prison building could look at the flow of capitals from the private sector as a positive resource.


When designing 3DICs there are five major issues that differ from 2D that must receive special attention: power delivery, thermal density, design for test, clock tree design and floorplanning. Power delivery in 3D must receive special attention as 3D designs have larger supply currents flowing through the package power delivery pins, along with a longer power delivery path than in comparable 2D system. Thermal density is an issue as 3D integrated chips will have more heat density and less capacity to remove heat than a comparable 2D chip. 3D clock tree distribution is much more difficult than in 2D because the most commonly used methodologies and design tools are geared towards 2D designs and process variation between the different tiers makes it harder to keep skew, jitter and power consumption down. Design for test is harder in 3D because 3D vias provide another point of failure and post fabrication repairs such as Focused Ion Beam are more difficult to perform in 3D. Finally, floorplanning is drastically different in 3D than in 2D, and the four aforementioned issues must all be taken into account during 3D floorplanning. In this paper, all five design issues are explored in the context of a high-resolution memory-on-logic Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) processor. The SAR processor is chosen specifically as it requires a significant amount of memory bandwidth that is best met with the high I/O bandwidth afforded by a 3D process. The issues are examined in the context of two implementations for two different 3D integration processes. The first implementation was done in MIT Lincoln Laboratory's 3D FDSOI 1.5 V three tier process and is currently in fabrication. The second design is currently in the design stage, and will be fabricated in two tiers of Chartered Semiconductor's 130 nm process 3D integrated with two tiers of high bandwidth DRAM using Tezzaron Semiconductor's vertical interconnection technology.


I consider science education to be critically important to both science and the world, and I shall frequently address this topic on this page. Let9s start with a big-picture view. The scientific enterprise has greatly advanced our understanding of the natural world and has thereby enabled the creation of countless medicines and useful devices. It has also led to behaviors that have improved lives. The public appreciates these practical benefits of science, and science and scientists are generally respected, even by those who are not familiar with how science works or what exactly it has discovered.


BACKGROUND
The importance of plasma levels of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) RNA in pregnant women in relation to the other factors known to influence the risk of transmission of infection to their infants is incompletely defined. We studied the relation of maternal plasma HIV-1 RNA levels to the risk of perinatal transmission and the timing of transmission.

METHODS
We measured plasma HIV-1 RNA serially in 552 women with HIV-1 infection who had singleton pregnancies. The status of infection in their infants was assessed by culture of blood and further classified as early (if a culture of blood obtained within the first two days of life was positive) or late (if a culture of blood obtained in the first seven days of life was negative but subsequent cultures were positive). The rates of transmission at various levels of maternal plasma HIV-1 RNA were analyzed by tests for trend, with adjustment for covariates by stratification and logistic regression.

RESULTS
Increasing geometric mean levels of plasma HIV-1 RNA were associated with increasing rates of transmission: the rate was 0 percent among women with less than 1000 copies per milliliter (0 of 57), 16.6 percent among women with 1000 to 10,000 copies per milliliter (32 of 193), 21.3 percent among women with 10,001 to 50,000 copies per milliliter (39 of 183), 30.9 percent among women with 50,001 to 100,000 copies per milliliter (17 of 55), and 40.6 percent among women with more than 100,000 copies per milliliter (26 of 64) (P<0.001). The treatment status of one woman was unknown. The highest rate of transmission was among women whose plasma HIV-1 RNA levels exceeded 100,000 copies per milliliter and who had not received zidovudine (19 of 30 women, 63.3 percent). Neither higher HIV-1 RNA levels early in pregnancy nor higher levels late in pregnancy were associated with the timing of infection in the infants.

CONCLUSIONS
In pregnant women with HIV-1 infection the level of plasma HIV-1 RNA predicts the risk but not the timing of transmission of HIV-1 to their infants.


The MET protooncogene encodes a transmembrane tyrosine kinase identified as the receptor of a polypeptide known as hepatocyte growth factor/scatter factor. We performed PCR-based single-strand conformational polymorphism and sequencing analysis of the tyrosine kinase domain of the MET gene (exon 15–19) in 75 primary liver cancers. Three missense mutations were detected exclusively in 10 childhood hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs), while no mutations were detected in 16 adult HCCs, 21 cholangiocarcinomas, or 28 hepatoblastomas. The extremely short incubation period from hepatitis B virus infection to the genesis of childhood HCC as compared with the adult HCC suggests that there may be an additional mechanism that accelerates the carcinogenesis of childhood HCC. Our results indicate that mutations of the tyrosine kinase domain of the MET gene may be involved in the acceleration of the carcinogenesis in childhood HCC.


Compared to binary PbSe or PbS nanocrystals (NCs), ternary PbSe1−xSx alloyed NCs have unique electronic and optical properties such as high quantum efficiency, narrow band edge, and fast response time, and are widely used in infrared optoelectronic devices. In this work, high-quality composition-tunable monodisperse ternary PbSe1−xSx alloyed NCs were synthesized by employing cation exchange from host CdSe1−xSx alloyed NCs, which were pre-fabricated by using cadmium oxide, myristic acid and 1-octadecene (ODE) solutions of selenium/sulphur powders (Se/S-ODE), excluding toxic phosphine-containing solvents. The alloyed nature of PbSe1−xSx NCs was confirmed using powder X-ray diffraction (XRD). XRD patterns and field emission transmission electron microscopy (FETEM) images demonstrated that the average diameters of the resulting PbSe1−xSx alloyed NCs were not more than 5 nm, and ultraviolet-visible-near infrared (UV-vis-NIR) absorption spectra indicated that the NC size, hence the band gap, bared a linear relationship with the first absorption peak position. The temporal evolution of the absorption spectra revealed that the PbSe1−xSx alloyed NCs were air-stable due to the hybrid surface passivation of Cl− and Cd2+. X-ray fluorescence results indicated that slight stoichiometric deviations of PbSe1−xSx NCs occurred but never exceeded 15% of the expected composition, based on the amount of introduced hosts.


The negative chronotropic response of the heart to parasympathetic stimulation is mediated via the interaction of M(2) muscarinic receptors, Galpha(i2) and the G-protein coupled inward rectifying K(+) channel, GIRK1. Here TGFbeta(1) is shown to decrease the expression of Galpha(i2) in cultured chick atrial cells in parallel with attenuation of the negative chronotropic response to parasympathetic stimulation. The response to the acetylcholine analogue, carbamylcholine, decreased from a 95+/-2% (+/-SEM, n=8) inhibition of beat rate in control cells to 18+/-2% (+/-SEM,n =8) in TGFbeta(1) treated cells. Data support the conclusion that TGFbeta regulation of Galpha(i2) expression was mediated via an effect on Ras. TGFbeta(1) inhibited Galpha(i2) promoter activity by 56+/-6% (+/-SEM, n=4) compared to control. A dominant activating Ras mutant reversed the effect of TGFbeta on Galpha(i2) expression and stimulated Galpha(i2) promoter activity 1.7 fold above control. A dominant negative Ras mutant mimicked the effect of TGFbeta(1) on Galpha(i2) promoter activity. TGFbeta had no effect on the ratio of GDP/GTP bound Ras, but markedly decreased the level of membrane associated Ras and increased the level of cytoplasmic Ras compared to control. Furthermore, farnesol, a precursor to farnesylpyrophosphate, the substrate for the farnesylation of Ras, not only reversed TGFbeta(1) inhibition of Ras localization to the membrane, but also reversed TGFbeta(1) inhibition of Galpha(i2)promoter activity. FTI-277, a specific inhibitor of the farnesylation of Ras, mimicked the effect of TGFbeta(1) on Ras localization and Galpha(i2) promoter activity. These data suggest a novel relationship between TGFbeta signaling, regulation of Ras function and the autonomic response of the heart.


When the Callide Valley closer settlement scheme was opened in central Queensland in 1927 its design was based on a gendered rural ideal. A farming man was to be hard-working, stoic and tough, able to withstand the unpredictable climate and environmental conditions to tame the land, build the new nation and provide for his family; acts by which he could construct and demonstrate his settler masculinity, while cultivating the land. Through an analysis of settler correspondence to a Queensland government enquiry in 1934, this article problematises the myths of masculinity in this rural community to explore the emotional and mental strain on male settlers when the environment posed limits to settler economic and agricultural success.


As virtual and mixed reality (VR/MR) technology moves steadily towards general availability accessible descriptions of the surrounding theory is desirable. An initial focus on high-level concepts can provide common language for diverse teams, including artists, designers and engineers, helping them to quickly get a sense of basic principles and gain a familiarity with related research for further study. The concepts of synchronized reality and grounded simulation are introduced as helpful starting points for thinking about the design and development of mixed reality systems with optimal presence. This paper provides case studies where recent commercial VR applications are analyzed with the proposed principles in mind, in an attempt to illustrate to developers how to think about design of mixed reality games for optimal presence.


Food quality is an important consideration in the foraging strategy of all animals, including herbivores. Those that can detect and assess the nutritional value of plants from afar, using senses such as smell and sight, can forage more efficiently than those that must assess food quality by taste alone. Selective foraging not only affects herbivore fitness but can influence the structure and composition of plant communities, yet little is known about how olfactory and visual cues help herbivores to find preferred plants. We tested the ability of a free-ranging, generalist mammalian browser, the swamp wallaby Wallabia bicolor, to use olfactory and visual plant cues to find and/or browse differentially on Eucalyptus pilularis seedlings grown under different nutrient conditions. Low-nutrient seedlings differed from high-nutrient seedlings, having lighter coloured leaves, red stems and lower biomass and nitrogen content. In the absence of visual cues, wallabies used odour to differentiate vials containing cut seedlings. They visited and investigated patches with high-nutrient seedling odour most, followed by patches with low-nutrient seedling odour, and patches with no added odour least. However, when visual and olfactory cues of seedlings were present, wallabies reversed their foraging response and were more likely to browse low- than high-nutrient seedlings. This browsing difference, in turn, disappeared when long-range visual cues were reduced by pinning seedlings horizontal to the ground. We suggest that visual cues overrode the effects of olfactory cues on browsing patterns of intact seedlings. Our study shows that herbivores can respond to odours of higher nutrient plants but in ecologically realistic scenarios they use a variety of visual and olfactory cues, with a context-dependent outcome that is not always selection of high nutrient food. Our results demonstrate the importance of testing the sensory abilities of herbivores in realistic multi-sensory settings to understand their function in selective foraging.


The extent of shrubland and young forest in the Northeast, USA, has declined rapidly since the mid-1900's. Accordingly, the abundance of wildlife that depends on young forest has also declined. For example, American woodcock (Scolopax minor), an upland shorebird species, require an appropriate spectrum and spatial configuration of young forest to thrive and their populations have declined significantly since at least 1968. Active forest management is required to conserve populations of American woodcock and other young forest wildlife, but the importance of young forest management to some aspects of the ecology of key wildlife are not fully understood. I investigated three aspects of American woodcock ecology in relation to young forest management in Rhode Island, USA. First, I monitored the daytime locations of radiomarked American woodcock to assess habitat selection at multiple scales in relation to young forest management. Second, I also monitored American woodcock movements between daytime and nighttime locations and quantified food availability and predator activity at these sites to test the foraging-benefit and predation-risk hypotheses that were proposed to explain American woodcock commuting behavior. Third, I compared landbird communities at managed forest openings used by breeding American woodcock and nearby random forest sites to determine whether American woodcock habitat management benefits non-target landbirds and so verifies adopting American woodcock as an umbrella species useful for conservation. Daytime habitat selected by American woodcock comprised areas of younger forest where the biomass of preferred food (i.e., earthworms [Haplotaxida]) was 1.7 – 3.1 times greater, and the density of shrub and sapling stems was two times greater, compared to random sites. American woodcock home ranges were typically <50 ha and encompassed wetland forests and deciduous or mixed upland forests on flatter slopes ≤1.5 km from streams, agricultural openings, upland young forests, and moist soils. Across Rhode Island, most forested land was in the low – moderate classes of relative probability of use, but young forest management in key areas effectively increased relative use. I illustrated how land managers can use resource selection functions to predict the response of American woodcock to young forest management and so maximize conservation benefits. All of the American woodcock I monitored commuted between dense forest stands and forest openings during the day and night, respectively. I found no support for the foraging-benefit hypothesis because individuals moved from daytime locations where earthworms were 3 – 4 times more abundant to nighttime locations where preferred food was scarce. Soil moisture content was greater at daytime than nighttime locations which may explain why earthworms were more prevalent at those sites. In contrast, I found support for the predation-risk hypothesis because individuals moved from daytime locations where mammalian predators were more active to nighttime locations where mammalian predators were less active. Thus, American woodcock commuted between daytime and nighttime locations to avoid predators and not to feed. Maintaining forest openings is an important part of American woodcock habitat management so that individuals can eat by day and stay safe by night. I identified 38 – 51 bird species during 10-minute point counts at American woodcock singing grounds and random forest sites, and 62 – 73% of the more frequently occurring species were more common at American woodcock singing grounds. On average, 55% of the more common species at American woodcock singing grounds were of high regional or local conservation priority. Young forest species such as prairie warbler (Setophaga discolor) and gray catbird (Dumetella carolinensis) were more abundant at American woodcock singing grounds and scarce or absent at random forest sites while the opposite was true for more mature forest species such as ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapilla) and red-eyed vireo (Vireo olivaceus). Moreover, the total number of birds (all species combined) and diversity of birds were ≥1.5 times greater at American woodcock singing grounds than random forest sites. Critical breeding sites for American woodcock can be managed by clearcutting ≥2-ha patches of older secondary forest and many other young forest bird species of conservation priority inhabit these managed areas. Thus, the American woodcock can serve as an effective umbrella species for young forest birds in the Northeast, USA, but complementary umbrella species such as the ovenbird should be considered to aid in the conservation of more mature forest birds.


In educational settings, leadership flexibility and mobility is essential factor for leadership readiness. This incorporates both factors concerning the situational needs and followership situational readiness. Leadership in education require multi facet dimensional approaches that enables the educational leaders to fill in the gaps and reduces the mismatch between the situational need, individuals teachers demands and students development. In educational settings, leadership is distributed and is everywhere that enables the educational leaders to remain proactively ready to meet all kinds of situational variations existing within and outside the educational settings. This paper produce insight for educational leadership readiness for flexibility and mobility to fill in the gaps to enrich situational leadership theory. Situational leadership theory, maintains 4 different behavioral pattern considering followers readiness of maturity level. This paper provides the 4 dimensional leadership behavioral pattern incorporating both the situational need and follower's readiness which offers 16 different leadership situational behavioral pattern in tuned with different variations in situations and followership offering the holistic realm of leadership readiness for flexibility and mobility. The 4 dimension of situational leadership enables the leaders to exhibits various different behavioral pattern at various situational leadership styles intertwined with the follower's readiness behavioral pattern connecting the leadership elasticity and producing leadership equilibrium of high and low on task and relations. Leadership readiness for flexibility and mobility is essential to contribute the multi facet dimensional approaches of leadership. This promotes leadership elasticity and equilibrium to address the contextual immediate variations.


This study investigated the effect of blended learning on novices' understandings of the introductory programming. A quasi-experimental design with participants of preservice computer and instructional technologies teachers, one control group (CG, N =64) and one experimental group (EG, N=61) who received the course 11 weeks. While face-to-face courses were taught face-to-face in classroom and in lab, blended courses were conducted in synchronous and asynchronous settings and also in lab sessions. The pretest, posttest and delayed tests were used to collect data. The participants in two groups were separated into three categories (poor, average and good) according to the pretest results. The results of the study showed that blended and face-to-face courses have statistically similar effects on academic achievements among the three categories. However the delayed test results showed that, face-to-face courses were more effective on permanence than blended courses. Thus, considering the main goal of the introductory programming courses as enhancing students in the second category progress into the third, the organization of blended courses had to be revisited. Nevertheless, this study supported the idea that "Crucial challenges may exist on teaching some subjects via blended learning, which include intensive cognitive processes and some new approaches are needed to enhance permanence".


Resilience became an important term in the language of many disciplines, although there is no commonly accepted definition that is used across all disciplines. There exist a lot of factors studied for their involvement in the economic resilience of companies under market disruption (in crisis). But the employees' creative involvement and wellbeing degree were paid less attention. Our study targeted the relationships between such social dimensions and firm resilience for 18 clothing-related small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from Romania (Moldova region). Case selection was via theoretical sampling. To be specific to our choice of the variable to denote 'health' of business systems the Altman's Zscore was taken into consideration. We aimed to find the eventual correlations between the Z-score transition profiles and employees' creative involvement and wellbeing score for selected firms, having a predominantly or final 'health' status, during 2009-2013. The most important finding of our study is represented by the strong correlation between the 'healthy' Z-score transition profiles of the companies and the real employees' creative involvement in company's production management and their wellbeing degree. The employees' involvement in companies' governance might represent the basis for building up the organizational resilience.


The genus Cyrtogrammomma Pocock, 1895 was proposed based on specimen samples from Monte Roraima, Guyana, and allocated in the family Barychelidae. However, the most recent cladistic analysis transferred Cyrtogrammomma to Theraphosidae. Herein, we amended the diagnosis and description of C. monticola, providing a redescription of the male, and new illustrations, including the description of a new cuticular structure consisting of thick and stiff setae on dorsal metatarsi I and II of females. Moreover, we diagnose, describe and illustrate a new species of Cyrtogrammomma from northeastern Brazil: C. frevo sp. nov. In addition, we provide an identification key, new distribution records of the genus in the states of Alagoas, Bahia, Pará, and Pernambuco, in Brazil, and the first record for the genus in caves.


Scattering of SH wave by an elastic half space with a circular cavity and a crack in any position and direction is studied with Green's function, complex function and multi-polar coordinate method. First, a suitable Green's function is constructed, which is the fundamental solution of the displacement field for a half space with a circular cavity impacted by an out-plane harmonic line source loading at an arbitrary point in half space. Then a crack in any position and direction is constructed by means of crack-division in half space. Finally the displacement field and stress field are established in the case of coexistence of circular cavity and crack, and the expression of dynamic stress intensity factor (DSIF) at the tip of crack is given. According to numerical examples, the influences of different parameters on DSIF are discussed.


The leitmotif underpinning this paper is the affordances of third-generation and nascent fourth-generation Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as a research lens, when analyzing complex systems such as teacher professional development. The context is a design-based research study on short learning programmes (SLP?s) for science teachers. The SLP?s focus on teacher professional development to contextualize science curriculum themes through the infusion of indigenous knowledge. In the SLP?s inquiry learning, cooperative learning and self-directed learning are emphasized. The data showed that, although the teachers benefited from the SLP?s, and were both more capable and enthusiastic to engage in transformed teaching practices after the intervention, transfer of the newly acquired knowledge and skills to the classroom did not take place in many cases. This lead to the formulation of the research question underpinning this paper: how can the impact and sustainability of well-designed SLP?s be ensured? Third-generation CHAT provided insights into the tensions that negatively impacted on the realization of the activity system?s ?object?. The ?contradiction of control?- a phrase referring to the fact that different stakeholders had different views and impact on the object- prompted the authors to start planning the implementation of Change Laboratories, and the utilization of fourth-generation Cultural-Historical Activity Theory. For example, many teachers indicated that the expectations of principals and parents that they should ?teach to the test? incited them to fall back on transmission-mode approaches, at the expense of the more learner-centered approaches that they were introduced to during the SLP?s. Change Laboratories provide a space where all stakeholders engage in expansive learning, and attempt to come to a shared understanding of the object. By shifting the gaze to fourth generation CHAT, where all stakeholders are seen as different activity systems, researchers might gain insight in how tensions that corrode the realization of the object could be reduced. The paper concludes by providing a number of design principles for such Change Laboratories, such as that the elements of cooperative learning should be guiding the discourse.


Few papers have studied internal audit outsourcing in general, and significantly fewer have limited their analysis to small organizations. This study examines the association between small organizations' propensity to outsource internal audit activities and (1) audit committee involvement, (2) organizational financial health, and (3) need for expertise. Prior studies find mixed evidence when analyzing both large and small organizations concurrently. This study utilizes the Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation 2015 Common Body of Knowledge (CBOK) survey results data from chief audit executives (CAEs) of small organizations (<500 employees) based in seven Anglo-culture countries. We find significant associations between both audit committee involvement and organization financial health and internal audit outsourcing in small organizations.


This study is focused on the analysis of indoor conditions for a new commercial building that will be constructed in an East-European country. Based on the initial HVAC design parameters the surface of the building was divided in thermal zones that were studied using dynamic simulations. The article provides interesting insights of the building indoor conditions (summer/winter comfort), humidity, air temperature, mean operative temperature and energy consumption using hourly climate data. A dynamic variation of the PMV (Predicted Mean Vote Index) was obtained for different thermal zones of the building (retails stores, mall circulation, corridors) and in most of the cases the acceptable values of ±0.5 are exceeded Among the most important energy efficiency measures it is mentioned a decrease of the heating set point temperature, increase of the walls and roof thermal resistance and the use of a heat recovery on the ventilation system. In this work it is demonstrated how simple measures can enhance the indoor conditions and reduce the energy consumption for this kind of construction.


By using .NET platform and open source Sharpmap technology, a short-range and nowcasting operation system was established for Qinghai. Many kinds of data were integrated in this system, which get from air sounding, satellite, T213 numerical predicting products, doppler radar, lightning position system and automatic weather stations. The system with the functions of ensemble prediction and data retrieval and display, can meet the demand of short-range and nowcasting weather forecast, enhance efficiency of forecaster and provide a support for disaster prevention and mitigation in Qinghai.


The V&A has the greatest collection of maiolica in the world. This long awaited study explores the significance of these fascinating objects in the art and social history of the Italian Renaissance. This book traces the use of Maiolica objects in the Renaissance, from birth through courtship and marriage rituals to death, and gives an engaging insight into the life of noble families in this period. New photography shows the dazzling palette of colours which has not faded over time, that was used to decorate these objects, and emphasizes why these objects were prized in the Renaissance and remain so popular with today's collectors. Italian Renaissance Maiolica also includes illustrations from Piccolpasso's sixteenth-century manuscript Three books of the Potter's Art, an incomparable source on maiolica, to illustrate how these highly valued objects were made.


To maintain cell homeostasis, protein recycling through intracellular membrane fusion is an important cellular process. Both Vps1 and Ypt6 have been implicated in protein recycling from the endosome to the trans-Golgi Network (TGN). SNARE proteins are thought to be the key regulator in this membrane fusion mediated protein recycling mechanism. I studied membrane fusion events by incorporating purified proteins into liposomes. A series of data suggest that high concentration of SNARE proteins inhibits fusion unlike the opposite popular notion. Also, the data suggests that Vps1 acts on membrane fusion dynamics in a manner that lower concentrations of Vps1 enhance fusion in compared to its higher concentration counterpart. Moreover, it was found that Vps1's GTPase activity seems to be inadequate to enhance fusion. Finally, the data suggests that Vps1 and Ypt6 do not act in a synergistic mode despite both of them possessing GTPase activity.


Suppression of the reaction between molten Ti and the investment material could limit the formation of the alpha-case layer, which influences the mechanical properties of the casting. This study investigated the influence of the investment material on the composition of the alpha-case layer and the corrosion behavior of Ti castings prepared in Al2O3-based molds by plasma arc melting. The micro-Vickers hardness of the castings was evaluated both on the surface and in the matrix. The corrosion behavior was investigated in 1M HCl solution by electrochemical tests. The results show that the alpha-case layers formed when using Al2O35Ti molds are thinner than those formed when using Al2O3 molds, because the reaction with the molten metal is suppressed. Further, Al2O35Ti molds produce castings with better corrosion behavior, although this behavior is still poorer than that of pure Ti. Thus the corrosion behavior of Ti castings is affected by the composition of the alpha-case layer. [doi:10.2320/matertrans.ME201310]


Introduction and Objectives: A current challenge in prostate cancer (PCa) research is how to treat metastatic patients that have relapsed after androgen deprivation therapy. The PI3K/AKT pathway is frequently activated during PCa progression, with PTEN loss or mutation reported in up to 60% of advanced tumors, making it an interesting target for therapy. Recent reports have suggested a potential cross-talk between PI3K/AKT and androgen receptor (AR) pathway (1, 2). The present study aimed to assess the efficacy of combination therapy in PTEN-positive and PTEN-negative PCa models in vitro and in vivo and elucidate the mechanisms of interaction between both pathways. Material and Methods: The PI3K beta/delta inhibitor AZD8186 and AKT inhibitor AZD5363 were supplied by AstraZeneca (Macclesfield, UK). Growth response was tested in PTEN-positive (DU145 and VCAP) and PTEN-negative (LNCaP, PC346C, PC346Flu1 and PC346DCC) PCa cell lines by MTT assay. As response biomarkers, PI3K/AKT downstream targets phospho-AKT, phospho-PRAS40 and phospho-GSK3 were analyzed by western blotting. AR pathway activity was assessed by quantitative RT-PCR against AR, PSA, and TMPRSS2. Efficacy of both compounds was also tested in vivo in the PTEN-negative PC346C subcutaneous xenograft in combination with surgical castration. Results: AZD8186 and AZD5363 inhibited growth of all the PTEN-negative cell lines (LNCaP, PC346C, PC346Flu1, and PC346DCC) at nanomolar concentrations, while PTEN-positive cells were less sensitive (VCAP) or resistant (DU145). A dose dependent decrease in phosphorylation of AKT and its downstream targets was observed after treatment with AZD8186, which correlated with inhibition of cell growth. AZD5363 treatment resulted in increased AKT phosphorylation, as this compound stabilizes AKT in an inactive hyperphosphorylated state. Both AZD8186 and AZD5363 significantly inhibited in vivo growth of PC346C xenograft compared to that of placebo treated controls (respectively, 66% and 60% tumor growth inhibition after 28 days of treatment). Androgen depletion strongly increased the sensitivity to the PI3K/AKT inhibitors both in vitro and in vivo, with complete abrogation of tumor growth in castrated tumor-bearing mice. Additionally, up-regulation of AR signaling was observed after inhibition of the PI3K/AKT pathway, further lending support for cross-talk between both pathways. Conclusions: In conclusion, AZD8186 and AZD5363 efficiently targeted PI3K/AKT pathway and inhibited the growth of PTEN-negative PCa models in vitro and in vivo, particularly in combination with androgen depletion. These data suggest cross-talk between PI3K/AKT and AR pathways and indicate that for optimal antitumor efficacy inhibition of both pathways is required. The functional mechanisms underlying this cross-talk are the focus of our current research. Citation Information: Mol Cancer Ther 2013;12(11 Suppl):B185. Citation Format: Rute Marques, Ashraf Aghai, Debra Stuurman, Corrina de Ridder, Agnes Boer, Sander Hoeben, Jan Trapman, Wytske M. van Weerden. High efficacy of combination therapy of PI3K/AKT inhibitors with androgen deprivation in prostate cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics; 2013 Oct 19-23; Boston, MA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Ther 2013;12(11 Suppl):Abstract nr B185.


An efficient and coordinated oculomotor control is vital in the classroom environment. It allows pupils to perform rapid, accurate saccades during reading, scanning a page and exploring a scene or the surrounding space. Further this control facilitates accurate smooth pursuits to follow the teacher's movements through a variety of teaching routines, and playground activities such as children running or balls rolling. Hence, eye movement deficits or difficulties have the potential to impact children's development and learning significantly. This review outlines the importance of appropriate eye movement control in children, and describes the typical characteristics of fixational, saccadic and smooth pursuit eye movements, and their development during childhood to achieve adult values. Following this, an introduction to the different eye movement characteristics found in children with learning difficulties is presented, in order to raise optometrists' awareness of the increased risk of eye movement deficits in populations with atypical or different development. The article also describes and discusses the clinical techniques currently available to evaluate fixations, saccades and smooth pursuits in optometric practice, and provides some recommendations to support optometrists when assessing eye movements in children. Finally, the potential contribution of eye-tracking technologies for clinical practice is presented, and their technologies' limitations and current challenges are discussed.


The article reviews two non-conventional electrochemical methods - elimination polarography (EP) and elimination voltammetry with linear scan (EVLS). The two methods enable elimination of selected particular currents, contributing to the measured total current. The most frequently eliminated particular currents are the charging current (Ic), the diffusion current (Id), and the kinetic current (Ik). In EP, eliminated currents are expressed as I = const.tx, and elimination is achieved by a function obtained by linear combination of the direct current and its time derivative and/or time integral. In EVLS, eliminated currents are expressed as I = const.vx, and elimination is achieved by a function obtained by linear combination of total currents measured at different scan rates . The theory of EP and EVLS has been verified experimentally. In comparison with d.c. polarography and linear sweep voltammetry, both elimination methods have the following advantages: (a) an expanded available electrode potential range, (b) increased current sensitivity and (c) improved signal resolution. In EVLS, (b) and (c) result from the fact that the elimination of Ic and Ik currents decreases the irreversible current width and increases the peak height. This effect is particularly pronounced in the case of an adsorbed substance. Application of EP and EVLS enables detection of minor electrode processes overlapped by a major one, such as desorption process during reduction, or the formation of associates which influence the process of hydrogen evolution. In addition, both methods improve the sensitivity of determination of electroactive substances, and may contribute to solving problems associated with complex electrode processes.


BACKGROUND
The Parenting for Lifelong Health for Young Children (PLH-YC) programme aims to reduce violence against children and child behaviour problems among families in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Although the programme has been tested in four randomised controlled trials and delivered in over 25 countries, there are gaps in understanding regarding the programme's implementation fidelity and, more generally, concerning the implementation fidelity of parenting programmes in LMICs.

AIMS
This study aims to address these gaps by examining the psychometric properties of the PLH-YC-Facilitator Assessment Tool (FAT) - an observational tool used to measure the competent adherence of PLH-YC facilitators. Examining the psychometric properties of the FAT is important in order to determine whether there is an association between facilitator competent adherence and programme outcomes and, if correlated, to improve facilitator performance. It is also important to develop the implementation literature among parenting interventions in LMICs.

METHODS
The study examined the content validity, intra-rater reliability, and inter-rater reliability of the FAT. Revision of the tool was based on consultation with programme trainers, experts, and assessors. A training curriculum and assessment manual was created. Assessors were trained in Southeastern Europe and their assessments of facilitator delivery were analysed as part of a large-scale factorial experiment (N=79 facilitators).

RESULTS
The content validity process with PLH-YC trainers, experts, and assessors resulted in substantial improvements to the tool. Analyses of percentage agreements and intra-class correlations found that, even with practical challenges, assessments were completed with adequate yet not strong intra- and inter-rater reliability.

CONCLUSIONS
This study contributes to the literature on the implementation of parenting programmes in LMICs. The study found that the FAT appears to capture its intended constructs and can be used with an acceptable degree of consistency. Further research on the tool's reliability and validity - specifically, its internal consistency, construct validity, and predictive validity - is recommended.


The characteristics of phosphorus (P) sorption/desorption of artificially synthesized iron oxides (ferrihydrate, goethite and hematite) and the relationship between P adsorption saturation of ferrihydrate and P uptake by rice were studied. The results obtained from experiments showed that P adsorption properties of three synthetic iron oxides could be described by the Langumir equation with a correlation coefficient ¿0.9 at 1 % significant level. It was found by comparing Qm (maximum quantity of adsorption), K (adsorption constant) and MBC (maximum buffing capacity) of three synthetic iron oxides that ferrihydrate (amorphous) was much larger than crystalline iron oxides (goethite and hematite) in both intensity and capacity of P adsorption. Phosphorus adsorbed by ferrihydrate was much more difficult to be desorbed than that absorbed by goethite and hematite. It could be found from P desorption curves that the corresponding quantities of P adsorbed by ferrihydrate, goethite and hematite for desorbed P reaching to 0.1 mg g−1 were 28, 2.5 and 1.4 mg g−1, respectively. However, when P desorption curves were changed to plot saturation of P adsorption (adsorbed P/Qm*100) with P desorbed it was found that the corresponding saturation of P adsorption of three kinds of iron oxides for desorbed P reaching to 0.1 mg g−1 was all about 70 %. This suggested that P adsorption saturation may be used as an integrative index for estimating the intensity and capacity of P adsorptiondesorption in soils or iron oxides. A bioassay using rice indicated that P uptake by rice was significantly correlated to the saturation of P adsorbed by ferrihydrate and 50% of P adsorption saturation could be used as a critical index for diagnosing status of P supplied by ferrihydrate-bonded P at the tillering stage of rice.


Summary The performance of a mobile network is considered in the context of the given parameters QoS (Quality of Service). A method of organizing a distributed control system based on agent-based technology. Based on the principles of technology overlay set of agents together in a distributed system of traffic engineering Modern computer systems are characterized by a sharp increase in traffic volume and the wide use of applications running in real-time multimedia applications, multicast applications. In this case there is a steady increase in the share multimedia traffic [1, 2, 3]. Each type of traffic has its own requirements for quality of service (QoS) [4]. Unlike the multimedia traffic data is transmitted, usually with non-uniform flux density, in batches, and arrive at unpredictable intervals. In this connection, the bandwidth used for multimedia traffic, should be protected from data traffic, and vice versa. One of the main objectives of the operation management of computer networks in the transmission of multimedia traffic is to organize an effective system of information delivery, which becomes especially important in distributed systems [5]. This task is carried out using the procedure of constructing the traffic (TE Traffic Engineering) [6], whose main purpose is to provide a uniform network load. That is its main difference from the problem of optimal routing.


: The paper deals with two demographic characteristics of 6 villages in the Archangelsk Region of the RSFSR (river Peosa region) significant from the genetical standpoint. These data were obtained by means of the examination of 843 persons (75,07% of the total number of inhabitants) and of the analysis of complete list of inhabitants permanently living in the villages studied. The proportion of the reproductivity age class was 28.94%, the numbers of men and woman among them being about equal. The average number of children per family in families that have already completed their reproductive period was 3.87, the variance being 4.51 (the data obtained on the basis of examination of over 90 families). The average age of marriage was established to be about 24 years, the duration of each generation being about 32 years. The average index of endogamy per village was observed to be 58.40%, the contribution of the gametes of the preceding generation per village being 72.86%. The migrational influx of gametes from other localities per total of 6 villages was 2.52%. It was shown by the comparison of the character of migrations with mathematical models that the matrix migrational model is the most adequate one.


Since 1950 when Bricker first described the construction of the ileal conduit, this procedure has become a standard method of urinary diversion after pelvic exenteration. Recently, increasing interest in continent diversions has resulted in the development of several new procedures, using both small bowel and large bowel to produce and internal urinary reservoir. Such reservoirs still maintain a urinary stoma which requires periodic catheterization for emptying. With the development of the Kock low-pressure urinary reservoir, it has now become possible to re-establish the continuity of the urinary system by anastomosing this internal reservoir to the posterior urethra. This procedure utilizes the distal urethral sphincter as a continence mechanism and allows functional bladder emptying without a stoma. An antireflex valve is constructed to protect the kidneys. The authors report their experience with 20 such diversions, describing the operative technique, detailing the perioperative complications and providing urodynamic evidence of restored bladder function.


Tuberculosis (TB) is a re‐emerging disease that is considered a major human health priority as well as an important disease of livestock. TB is also a zoonosis, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis and M. bovis, the human and bovine causative agents, respectively, are very closely related. Protection against TB is essentially achieved through vaccination with the Bacille Calmetle‐Guerin (BCG) strain of M. bovis. Protection is, however, incomplete, and novel improved vaccines are currently under investigation. Production of protective antigens in transgenic plants, or "pharming," is a promising emerging approach, and a zoonosis‐like TB is a good model for investigating the potential of this approach. Pharma‐Planta, a European Commission‐funded project and consortium, was set up to address this topic, within which a component is aimed at assessing the production efficacy and stability of the TB antigens in different compartments of the plant cell. This article is meant to introduce this promising approach for veterinary medicine by describing the ongoing project and its specific genetic engineering strategy.


Treated bentonite-rich soils used as liner materials in landfills may provide an effective solution to the problems of increased void ratios upon swelling at reduced suction as well as desiccation cracking when suction is increased during desaturation. Accordingly, this study provides an understanding of the evolution of void ratio of the mixed materials during swelling at three different suction levels upon saturation as well as the soil water retention (SWR) during desaturation. For the treatment process, low quantity of cement binder whose production leverages raw material resources with efficient dry-process kilns and the benefit of lower energy consumption were used. Results indicated increased mixed soils' strength irrespective of increased fines content due to thixotropy. The mixed soils exhibited almost equal values of void ratios at different hydration stages, suggesting that slightly reduced expansion mostly affects the subsequent phases of moisture ingress at full saturation compared to the natural soils. Lower values of void ratio obtained at full saturation also suggests possible reduced infiltration of water into landfills. The observed increased moisture retention within the osmotic suction zone and a decrease in the same as the fines content increased in the mixed soils can aid contaminant encapsulation while also reducing desiccation cracking. The findings of this research are intended to serve as a benchmark for further studies using other sustainable materials for treatment of mixed soils.


Abstract In August and September of 1997, three 25-ton chemical explosions were detonated at nominal depths of 550, 300, and 50 m in boreholes at the former Soviet test site at Balapan, Kazakhstan. One objective of this experiment was to evaluate the effect of differing source depth on the regional wave field. Analysis of regional seismic phases lead to the observation that regional P/S wave amplitude ratios in the 1- to 5-Hz band increase as a function of source depth. However, at frequencies greater than about 5 Hz, the relative amplitudes of P and S waves remain approximately constant for the differing depth shots. Similarly, regional coda spectra are amplified in the 1- to 5-Hz band for the shallow shots. At local distances, Rg is the dominant seismic phase, with peak amplitudes in the 0.7- to 5-Hz range, and Rg is strongest for the shallower shots. Within the short distance spanned by the local stations ( Rg is rapidly attenuated, and the attenuation is accompanied by a significant shift in peak amplitude toward lower frequency. At regional distances, Rg is below the noise level. The coincident frequency band in which local Rg rapidly loses energy and regional S phases are amplified points toward Rg scattering as the dominant mechanism causing the discrepancies between P/S amplitude ratios in this study. These observations are particularly relevant to the understanding of physical processes affecting regional P/S discriminants and may lead to improvements in discriminant methods.


OBJECTIVE
This study aims to investigate the color stability of ceromer with different thicknesses and different types of resin adhesive materials after accelerated aging and provide references for clinical application and selections.

METHODS
Nine groups of experimental samples were used, and each group contained five samples. We made joint samples with ceromer having three different thicknesses (1.00, 0.75, 0.50 mm) combined with three different resin adhesive materials (RelyX Veneer, RelyX Unicem, Filtek Z350 Flow), respectively. All samples were placed into Xenon Lamp Aging Instrument to implement accelerated aging. Spectrophotometer was used to measure the lightness (L*), red green color value (a*), and blue yellow color value (b*) of all samples before and after accelerated aging. The change of lightness (ΔL), red green color value (Δa), blue yellow color value (Δb), and color variation (ΔE) were also calculated. We investigated the influence of ceromer veneer thicknesses and resin adhesive material types on color variation by two-factor analysis of variance.

RESULTS
The thickness and type factors showed significant influence on ΔE values, and exhibited interactions (P < 0.05). The ΔE values of all experimental groups were lower than 3.3. After the accelerated aging process, all L*, a*, and b* values of the experimental groups decreased and the ΔL values were lower than 2.0.

CONCLUSION
Ceromer veneer thickness and resin adhesive material types could affect the color stability of ceromer veneer and resin adhesive materials. The changes in lightness and color in ceromer veneer and resin adhesive materials are considered clinically acceptable after accelerated aging.


Background: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common sleep related disorder.
Objectives: To identify OSA, its risk factors and to study its association with fatigue and day time
sleepiness.
Methods: In-patients were interviewed using the STOP-BANG questionnaire, the Fatigue Severity
Scale questionnaire and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale. Height, weight and neck circumference of the
participants were measured using standard procedures.
Results: Of the total 296 participants, 10(3.4%) were known cases of OSA. Of the remaining 286
cases, 189(66.1%) were at low, 82(28.7%) were at intermediate and 15(5.2%) were at high risk of
OSA. Age >50 years (P<0.001), male gender (P<0.001) and family history of snoring (P=0.004)
among patients were associated with high risk/known status of OSA. Multiple morbidities were seen
among greater proportion of participants with higher risk/known status of OSA (P=0.024). Increased
body mass index (P=0.013) was associated with higher risk/known status of OSA. High risk/known
status of OSA was associated with significant levels of fatigue (P=0.001) and abnormal day time
sleepiness (P=0.006) among participants. Multivariate analysis of variables showed age, snoring,
witnessed stoppage of breathing, nasal congestion and hypertension as independent risk factors for
high risk/known status of OSA.
Conclusion: Several factors were identified to predict high risk/known status of OSA among
inpatients in this study. High risk/ known cases of OSA were found to suffer from multiple comorbidities,
significant levels of fatigue and abnormal day time sleepiness. Therefore, inpatients with
these associated risk factors need to be screened for OSA so as to ensure comprehensive case
management.


In her article La ilustración en la literatura infantil [The illustration in children's literature], a researcher, Ainara Erro, suggests that "illustrations can be evaluated from different perspectives, since pictorial trends of different periods, thought lines, theories of knowledge, etc. have been reflected in multiple illustrations in children's books." Thus painting and/or artistic experience perceived in the context of children's literature involves not only the method of preparation connected with it or pictorial forms that it is inclined to. It also transforms into a textual body, through which certain accumulations, condensations (according to Todorov) and aesthetic profiles are manifested and created. In children's literature, games that may be introduced through plastic art are becoming increasingly popular. In Rosana Faría's works, they constitute a double "correlated" element. A written text is not only a signifier, but it is transferred to another dimension filled with expression forms, thanks to using the language as "extrapolation" of the visual and for the visual. Pictorial art appears to be associated with not only what we see. For Faría, seeing color is not just a fact reflected in the onlooker's eye, and an artistic text does not contain one and the only form of transcending a western tendency of thinking, according to which painting exists only when it is seen. Thus, we may wonder how to paint colors as if we were blind, playing with other senses, tastes, smells, sounds or emotions. How to illustrate for those who cannot see, and bring those who can see to the world of the blind through images, or vice versa? How to discover colors without seeing them, using only a black color, how to make it unequivocal? Eventually, how can we feel and perceive the world around us through a tactile image that would be related to the nature? We will try to answer these questions through convex illustrations created by Venezuelan artist, Rosana Faría, in a book by Menena Cottin El libro negro de los colores [The Black Book of Colors]. It is interesting how a well-known illustrator has found an appropriate style, an appropriate visual language for this poetic work, how she has defined colors through other senses, and how she has met the challenge of illustrating colors without their plastic presence.


The potential for antimicrobial use (AMU) to lead to the development of antimicrobial resistant bacteria is an increasingly important priority in human and veterinary medicine. Accurate AMU quantification is essential to assessing the risk of antimicrobial resistance due to AMU. The quantification of AMU in production animals can be difficult, and feedlot beef cattle present a number of unique challenges. This paper presents selected parenteral data from western Canadian beef feedlots to illustrate variations in interpretation of AMU that can arise from the use of different metrics and standards. Specific examples presented compare the number of animal daily doses calculated from a given amount of antimicrobial drug (AMD) using actual and estimated weights of cattle at exposure, dose-based to weight-based indicators representing the same amount of antimicrobial, dose-based AMU indicators using different estimated durations of effect (DOE), and AMU indicators calculated using different standard weights of cattle at exposure. Changing these factors when calculating AMU indicators can have notable influences on the results obtained. Transparency about the methods used to calculate AMU indicators is critical to ensure that comparisons of use among different populations is meaningful and accurate.


Data privacy issues are increasingly becoming important for many applications. Protective individual privacy is a crucial downside. However, sensitive data will still be ill-used by approved users to compromise the privacy of shoppers. Traditionally, research in the database community in the area of data security can be broadly classified into access control research and data privacy research. Access Control Mechanisms (ACM) is used to ensure that only authorized information is available to users. Privacy Protection Mechanism (PPM) uses suppression and generalization of relational data to anonymize and satisfy privacy needs. Recent research studied the problem of publishing data in databases without revealing the sensitive information, moving to the privacy preserving paradigms of k-anonymity and L-diversity. K-anonymity protects against the identity of an individual's record. L-diversity, in addition to this, safeguards against the association of an individual with specific sensitive information. The aim of this paper is to provide better security and minimum level of precision to the obtained data, for that in this paper an accuracy constrained privacy preserving access control mechanism is implemented with additional constraint on each selection predicate called imprecision bounds. The accuracy constraints are satisfied for multiple roles. We propose heuristics for anonymization algorithms to show empirically that the proposed approach satisfies imprecision bounds for more permissions and has lower total imprecision than the current state of the art.


The conversation represented here originated in a special
 session at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies that
 dealt with the issue of the shifting role of scribes leading up to and following
 the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. The essays situate all
 scribal groups in relation to the nation's priestly tradition and circles,
 address diverse matters of socio-political agenda, and identify trends in the
 development of literary methodology. This conversation includes an introduction
 by the editor, and contributions by M. Leuchter, Jacob L. Wright, Jeffrey C.
 Geoghegan, and Lauren A. S. Monroe.