Grassian, Esther S.; Kaplowitz, Joan R. Information Literacy Instruction: Theory and Practice. New York, NY: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2009. 412 pp. 80.00 USD. ISBN-13: 978-1555706661. ∞ Instruction librarians have been working hard to find ways to deliver more effective instruction sessions since the days of bibliographic instruction, and as such have become pioneers of information literacy evolution. Through the years, countless information literacy instruction publications have appeared in the form of articles, books, etc., and Information Literacy Instruction: Theory and Practice is no exception. The book is divided into five themed sections and seventeen chapters. Part one covers the background and history of information literacy. The introduction examines the librarian's role in information literacy instruction and how the characteristics of students and the classroom have changed in terms of technology use by both students and instruction librarians. This section also looks at the history of the definition of information literacy from the 1960s, when information literacy was called bibliographic instruction, to the 1980s when Patricia S. Breivik first came up with the definition of information literacy which was later endorsed by the American Library Association. Part two looks at information literacy instruction building blocks covering learning theories. Chapter three provides a basic overview of the concepts, terminology and prominent figures in the areas of psychological learning theories. As information literacy is concerned with students' critical thinking and active learning skills, chapter six defines critical thinking and how these skills can be applied to student learning. This chapter also looks at the history and definition of active learning and provides tips on when, where and how active learning can be applied to information literacy instruction. Some useful active learning techniques which librarians can apply in the classroom, such as role playing and scavenger hunts, have been provided. While Parts one and two look at the theoretical aspects of information literacy, parts three and four cover practical aspects such as planning, development and delivery of information literacy instruction. The authors describe the planning stages in chapter seven as recognizing the learner's need, analyzing the situation, developing goals, designing assessment methods, implementing the plan and reviewing assessment data. The 'Instructional Menu', which is chapter eight, looks at different forms of instruction, i.e., synchronous or asynchronous, remote or face-to-face, paper and online instruction. The authors also give advice on when to use which form of instruction, and points to consider when making your decision, including time, budget, staffing etc. As effective teaching cannot occur without some form of assessment, the most important chapter in this section is chapter eleven which is about assessment. This chapter has a detailed section on why librarians should include assessment in their instruction while the rest of the chapter covers different levels and types of assessment tools. …


This paper describes a low-power write scheme which reduces SRAM power by 90% by using seven-transistor sense-amplifying memory cells. By reducing the bitline swing to V/sub DD//6 and amplifying the voltage swing by a sense-amplifier structure in a memory cell, the charging and discharging component of the power of the bit/data lines is reduced. A 64-kb test chip has been fabricated and correct read/write operation has been verified. It is also shown that the scheme can also have the capability of leakage power reduction with small modifications. Achievable leakage power reduction is estimated to be two orders of magnitude from SPICE simulation results.


Susceptibility of Borrelia burgdorferi Morphological Forms to Chemical Antimicrobials Ann-Aubrey Kaiwilani Reid Department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology Master of Science Borrelia burgdorferi is the etiological agent of Lyme disease. Not much is known about the susceptibility of this organism to chemical disinfection. Current antimicrobial susceptibility test methods, such as those published by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), usually require assessment of the number of colony forming units (cfu) of growing organisms on plates following exposure to an agent. For fast-growing organisms, plates are ready for counting 1-2 days post plating, while several weeks may be needed for slower growing organisms. Spirochetes, like B. burgdorferi are difficult to grow on solid media and typically require long incubation periods, sometimes up to several weeks, to generate visible colonies. These issues make B. burgdorferi cfu assessment by plate counting difficult and unreliable. Furthermore, Borrelia have a demonstrated capacity for pleomorphic forms, and can exist in spirochete, round body, or biofilm forms, depending on culture conditions. Plate counts, by nature, do not allow for assessment of morphological form changes. Additionally, the susceptibility of B. burgdorferi pleomorphic forms to chemical disinfectants has not been tested. In this study, we used the SYBR GREEN I/Propidium Iodide (SG I/PI) viability assay to rapidly estimate the percent kill of B. burgdorferi pleomorphic forms to chemical disinfection. Planktonic spirochete populations in 30-second treated samples showed viability percent values of: >95% for Hanks balanced salt solution (HBSS), ~60% for distilled deionized H2O (dd H2O), <5% for ACS 200, and 1% for 1% glutaraldehyde (GTA). Solutions containing 70% ethanol (ETH) and 1% hypochlorite (HC) showed no viable spirochetes following treatment. The percent of live round body cells following different treatments were: >99% for HBSS and <25% for dd H2O. ACS 200, 1% GTA, and 70% ETH treatments resulted in <1% live round body forms, whereas HC showed no live round cell forms. The susceptibility of B. burgdorferi biofilms to various treatments was also assayed using a SG I/PI viability stain after 30-minute contact times. The percent of viable organisms (green) in the treated biofilms was estimated by microscopic observations. HBSS controls showed >98% of bacteria in the biofilm were alive, while treated biofilms showed the following percent viabilities: ACS 200 ~2%, 1% HC <1%, 5% HC <1%, 1% GTA ~10%, 70% ETH ~ 2%, and dd H2O ~40%. These techniques merged standardized assessment of antimicrobial activity in liquid culture using an ASTM-type kill-time procedure with viability techniques used in antibiotic susceptibility testing to rapidly evaluate the percent kill of B. burgdorferi pleomorphic forms in vitro following disinfectant exposure. These results showed that B. burgdorferi biofilm forms are orders of magnitude more resistant to chemical disinfection than other morphological forms of this organism.


Systemic to pulmonary artery collaterals (SPCs) are ubiquitous in single ventricle physiology, being found in nearly two-thirds of patients after a bidirectional Glenn operation and in approximately half of patients after a Fontan operation.1 They arise most commonly from the subclavian artery or one of its branches and supply systemic arterial blood to the distal pulmonary vasculature. The risk factors and pathogenic mechanisms that lead to the formation of SPCs remain poorly characterized, but chronic hypoxaemia, diminished pulmonary blood flow, surgical scarring, branch pulmonary artery stenosis, inflammation and abnormal flow patterns in the pulmonary arteries have all been hypothesised to contribute to their formation, although these hypotheses remain largely untested.

In theory, SPCs may have beneficial effects in single ventricle physiology. By providing additional pulmonary blood flow, SPCs may promote pulmonary artery growth and improve systemic oxygen saturation. They may also prevent the formation of pulmonary arteriovenous malformations by supplying 'hepatic factor'. However, more attention is usually focused on the potential harmful consequences of SPC flow including ventricular dilation, recirculation of oxygenated blood to the lungs resulting in ineffective pulmonary blood flow, energy losses related to competing sources of pulmonary blood flow and, rarely, erosion into a bronchus resulting in life-threatening haemoptysis. These physiological abnormalities have been hypothesised to contribute to adverse clinical outcomes. Excessive SPC flow is thought to contribute to increased pleural drainage after a Fontan operation, which can prolong recovery in the postoperative period. In the longer term, persistent SPC flow has been implicated in the pathogenesis of ventricular dysfunction, heart failure and protein-losing enteropathy. However, most of these hypotheses have not been tested and the few data that exist are contradictory. For example, two similar studies that sought to investigate if increased SPC flow was associated …


Mathematical optimization algorithms are ubiquitous in computational science and engineering where the objective function of the optimization problem involves a complicated computer model predicting relevant phenomena of a scientific or engineering system of interest. Therefore, in this area of mathematical software, it is indispensable to combine software for optimization with software for simulation, typically developed independently of each other by members of separate scientific communities. From a software engineering point of view, the situation becomes even more challenging when the simulation software is developed using a parallel programming paradigm without taking into consideration that it will be executed within an optimization context. The EFCOSS environment alleviates some of the problems by serving as an interfacing layer between optimization software and simulation software. In this paper, we show the software design of those parts of EFCOSS that are relevant to the integration of a simulation software involving different parallel programming paradigms. The parallel programming paradigms supported by EFCOSS include MPI for distributed memory and OpenMP for shared memory. In addition, the simulation software can be executed on a remote parallel computer.


ABSTRACT Interleukin-34 (IL-34) is a recently discovered cytokine that promotes tissue macrophage maturation and differentiation. We previously found that 1α,25-Dihydroxyvitamin D3 up-regulated IL-34 expression in SH-SY5Y neural cells. However, whether microRNA regulates IL-34 expression is not completely clear. By using on-line TargetScan and MiRanda software, we found that there was only one conserved microRNA-31 (miR-31) binding site in the 3ʹ untranslated region (3ʹUTR) of IL-34 mRNA. Intriguingly, using qPCR we demonstrated that miR-31 levels were negatively correlated to IL-34 mRNA levels in different cell lines. By examining the effect of miR-31 on IL-34 3ʹ UTR reporter luciferase activity and on IL-34 mRNA and argonaute RISC catalytic component 2 (AGO2) binding, it was found that miR-31 bound directly to IL-34 3ʹUTR and regulated the post-transcriptional expression of IL-34 in MGC-803 cells. Moreover, a miR-31 mimic significantly reduced IL-34 expression levels while a miR-31 inhibitor up-regulated IL-34 expression in KYSE-45 and HT-29 cells. Taken together, these results show that miR-31 negatively regulates IL-34 expression by directly binding to the IL-34 3ʹ UTR in vitro.


Quantum cryptography and key exchange is an important and challenging topic for cybersecurity and information assurance students, and one that is difficult to teach without an appropriate demonstration platform. In this paper, we describe the background of quantum key exchange (QKE) theory, modern implementations of QKE, and the role it plays in classical, symmetric key cryptography. We present a QKE simulator that can be used by educators to aid in the teaching of quantum key exchange concepts and processes. The simulator provides a hands-on learning mechanism with which the participants interact. It is designed to be engaging and practical for students to use by supporting the ability to walk through phases of quantum key exchange, pausing at each step, to facilitate discussion and comprehension of this complex security topic.


The design of real-time monitoring system of air quality is disccussed. The use of virtual instruments can reduce hardware designs. The real-time monitor, the display of curve and data are based on virtual instrument development platform LabVIEW. The use of wireless transceiver can get rid of space limitation and physical wiring, and curve fitting technology is used to achieve error correction and analysis, improve accuracy of the systematic sampling. This system has changed the trandi-tional methods, made the decetion system modular, intelligent, systematic and real time.


Bayesian statistics offers a normative description for how a person should combine their original beliefs (i.e., their priors) in light of new evidence (i.e., the likelihood). Previous research suggests that people tend to under-weight both their prior (base rate neglect) and the likelihood (conservatism), although this varies by individual and situation. Yet this work generally elicits people's knowledge as single point estimates (e.g., x has 5% probability of occurring) rather than as a full distribution. Here we demonstrate the utility of eliciting and fitting full distributions when studying these questions. Across three experiments, we found substantial variation in the extent to which people showed base rate neglect and conservatism, which our method allowed us to measure for the first time simultaneously at the level of the individual. We found that while most people tended to disregard the base rate, they did so less when the prior was made explicit. Although many individuals were conservative, there was no apparent systematic relationship between base rate neglect and conservatism within individuals. We suggest that this method shows great potential for studying human probabilistic reasoning.


In order to investigate the influence of the defective piles with stem shrinkage on the working behavior of pile foundations under vertical loadings, a numerical model was set up for the analysis of pile foundations. A series of contrastive analyses were made to a group piled foundations including a pile with defect of stem shrinkage in a shallow or a deeper depth and a pile foundation with normal piles with a three dimensional nonlinear finite-infinite element method. The basic working behavior of the pile foundation with a defective pile of stem shrinkage was initially revealed by the results of the analyses; and the basic rules of the affects of pile stem shrinkage defect on the distribution of axial forces among piles and the bending moments in pile caps were obtained. The results of this research are not only helpful for the understanding and rational judgment of the working mechanism, but also of practical importance in the assessment of the bearing behavior of pile foundations including defective piles with stem shrinkage and in the structural designs of piles and pile caps.


Business apps support the digitalization of business operations by utilizing the potential of ubiquitous mobile devices. Whereas many frameworks for programming cross-platform apps exist, few modeling approaches focus on platform-agnostic representations of mobile apps. In addition, development is mainly executed by software developers, while domain experts are rarely involved in the actual app creation. The MAML framework is proposed as model-driven approach also targeting non-technical users. Data, views, business logic, and user interactions are jointly modeled from a process perspective using a graphical domain-specific language. An inference mechanism is presented to merge partial data models into a global specification. Through model transformations, apps are then automatically generated for multiple platforms without writing code manually.


The demand response (DR) program is a promising way to increase the ability to balance both supply and demand, optimizing the economic efficiency of the overall system. This study focuses on the DR participation strategy in terms of aggregators who offer appropriate DR programs to customers with flexible loads. DR aggregators engage in the electricity market according to customer behavior and must make decisions that increase the profits of both DR aggregators and customers. Customers use the DR program model, which sends its demand reduction capabilities to a DR aggregator that bids aggregate demand reduction to the electricity market. DR aggregators not only determine the optimal rate of incentives to present to the customers but can also serve customers and formulate an optimal energy storage system (ESS) operation to reduce their demands. This study formalized the problem as a Markov decision process (MDP) and used the reinforcement learning (RL) framework. In the RL framework, the DR aggregator and each customer are allocated to each agent, and the agents interact with the environment and are trained to make an optimal decision. The proposed method was validated using actual industrial and commercial customer demand profiles and market price profiles in South Korea. Simulation results demonstrated that the proposed method could optimize decisions from the perspective of the DR aggregator.


Objective To examine the biochemical and histopathological renal effects of ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury using a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm (RAAA) model in rats and to investigate the potential protective effects of whortleberry (Vaccinium myrtillus). Methods Thirty-two male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly assigned into four groups - control, sham (I/R+glycerol), I/R, and I/R+whortleberry. Midline laparotomy alone was performed in the control group. Atraumatic abdominal clamps were attached under anesthesia to the abdominal aorta beneath the level of the renal artery in the groups subjected to I/R. Sixty-minute reperfusion was established one hour after ischemia. The sham group received five intraperitoneal doses of glycerol five days before I/R. The I/R+whortleberry group received a single intraperitoneal 50 mg/kg dose diluted with saline solution five days before I/R. All animals were finally euthanized by cervical dislocation following 60-min reperfusion. Results Increases were observed in malondialdehyde (MDA) levels and tubular necrosis scores (TNS) in thin kidney tissues and in numbers of apoptotic renal tubule cells, together with a decrease in glutathione (GSH) levels, in sham and I/R groups. In contrast, we observed a decrease in MDA levels, TNS, and numbers of apoptotic renal tubule cells, and an increase in GSH levels with whortleberry treatment compared to the I/R group. Conclusion Our findings suggest that whortleberry may be effective against acute kidney injury by reducing oxidative stress and apoptosis.


Capacitors are used to provide reactive power compensation in distribution networks and are widely used to reduce power loss, improve voltage profile and increase system capacity. The benefits of reactive power compensation depend greatly on the placement and size of the added capacitors. Presently, the capacitor placement problem is widely solved by using evolutionary programming methods. In this paper, an improved harmony search (IHS) algorithm is applied to solve the optimal capacitor placement problem. The performance of the proposed IHS algorithm is validated on the 9-bus distribution system. The obtained capacitor placement results using the IHS algorithm are compared with the particle swarm optimization and the traditional harmony search algorithm.


Left ventricular systolic dysfunction without overt symptoms of heart failure is a common problem, with a prevalence of ranging from 0.9% to 20.8% in the general population depending on the definition of left ventricular systolic dysfunction and age group studied.1–4 The morbidity and mortality of this condition remain significant. In the SOLVD (Studies Of Left Ventricular Dysfunction) prevention trial, 30% of untreated participants progressed to clinical heart failure and experienced a high mortality rate.5 Although medical treatment reduces mortality, heart failure hospitalizations, and improves adverse remodeling,6,7 better strategies for monitoring and guiding treatment are necessary. The need for more effective methods of risk stratification is heightened by the observation that the natural history of nonischemic dilated cardiomyopathy (NIDCM) is highly variable.8 Methods to identify subgroups of patients with NIDCM who are at higher risk of adverse outcomes, especially sudden cardiac death and heart failure hospitalization, may help allocate potentially costly therapy to those who would benefit the most or to target yet unproven therapies to those most likely to benefit. Beyond medical treatments, evidence on the appropriate use of invasive strategies such as novel instruments to monitor hemodynamic status in this patient population is limited. Detection of fibrosis by late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) imaging by cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) is a promising tool for the risk stratification in this patient population. Fibrosis reduces left ventricular compliance, affects adverse remodeling, and creates a substrate for re-entry ventricular tachycardia. Therefore, the presence of myocardial LGE would provide a logical risk marker for future adverse events relating to either mechanical pump function impairment or ventricular dysrhythmias.

Article see p 448

In this issue of Circulation: Heart Failure , Masci et al …


Introduction: Pharmacist led health education programs have been initiated to improve Blood Pressure (BP) control in the community and patients' knowledge on a disease and therapy, lifestyle changes and medication adherence among hypertensive patients. This study aimed to evaluate pharmacist led health education program among hypertensive patients, in local community-based setting, by assessing the changes in blood pressure control, beliefs about medicine, antihypertensive medications adherence and quality use of medication. Methods: This study was prospective convenient sampling, with communitybased health education study involving 45 participants at the Community Service Hall in Bukit Mertajam, Penang, Malaysia. Participants received health education program over 4 months period: Introduction of hypertension, pharmacological management of hypertension, quality use of medication and diet and lifestyle changes. Outcomes included the changes Blood Pressure (BP) level, Malaysian Medication Adherence Assessment (MALMAS), Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ) and Quality Use of Medication (QUM). Results: Both systolic BP (146.6 ± 11.1 mmHg, P<0.001) and diastolic BP (87.6 ± 9.6 mmHg, P=0.002) decreased significantly after the 2-months intervention. Systolic BP was successfully reduced significantly to 140.1 ± 10.7 mmHg (P<0.001) after the 4-months intervention. Medication adherents increased significantly from baseline (29.3%) to 2-months interventions (58.5%, P=0.005) and 4-months interventions (70.7%, P<0.001). Significant improvement was also noticed in BMQ and QUM. Conclusion: Pharmacist led health education program has significantly desirable effects on improvement of blood pressure, better beliefs about medicine, improvement of medication adherence and better rational use of medication


Pharmaceutical supplies their product throughout rural Bangladesh. However collecting orders for product is very difficult, as the infrastructure does not allow easy communication. If order information or information regarding consumption of Pharmaceutical product was available, it would make order and delivery management system easier. To have an Improved Order Management and Delivery of Medicines of Pharmaceuticals We need an effective data collection from all parts of Bangladesh. The recent growth of mobile phones and infrastructure allows us to use this technology not only as data collection devise but also as a limited output device. This thesis explores how text messaging can solve the problems of data collection and dissemination throughout rural Bangladesh. Using this system product manufacture and distribution can be made more effective and less costly in terms of expired medicine, extra production run and distribution cost.


An eigenvalue method is developed for analyzing periodic structure in speech. Signals are analyzed by a matrix diagonalization reminiscent of methods for principal component analysis (PCA) and independent component analysis (ICA). Our method--called periodic component analysis (πCA)--uses constructive interference to enhance periodic components of the frequency spectrum and destructive interference to cancel noise. The front end emulates important aspects of auditory processing, such as cochlear filtering, nonlinear compression, and insensitivity to phase, with the aim of approaching the robustness of human listeners. The method avoids the inefficiencies of autocorrelation at the pitch period: it does not require long delay lines, and it correlates signals at a clock rate on the order of the actual pitch, as opposed to the original sampling rate. We derive its cost function and present some experimental results.


Viral marketing has attracted considerable concerns in recent years due to its novel idea of leveraging the social network to propagate the awareness of products. Specifically, viral marketing is to first target a limited number of users (seeds) in the social network by providing incentives, and these targeted users would then initiate the process of awareness spread by propagating the information to their friends via their social relationships. Extensive studies have been conducted for maximizing the awareness spread given the number of seeds. However, all of them fail to consider the common scenario of viral marketing where companies hope to use as few seeds as possible yet influencing at least a certain number of users. In this paper, we propose a new problem, called J-MIN-Seed, whose objective is to minimize the number of seeds while at least J users are influenced. J-MIN-Seed, unfortunately, is proved to be NP-hard in this work. In such case, we develop a greedy algorithm that can provide error guarantees for J-MIN-Seed. Furthermore, for the problem setting where J is equal to the number of all users in the social network, denoted by Full-Coverage, we design other efficient algorithms. Extensive experiments were conducted on real datasets to verify our algorithm.


We report the electrically pumped wavelength-tunable ultraviolet random lasing from Mg(x)Zn(1-x)O films with different bandgap energies, which act as the semiconductor components in metal-insulator- semiconductor (MIS) structures fabricated on Si substrates. When the metal (Au herein) gates of the MIS structures are applied with sufficiently high positive voltages, random lasing from the Mg(x)Zn(1-x)O films occurs, featuring a series of narrow spikes in the emitted spectra. Overall, the central wavelength of the random lasing spectrum is tuned from approximately 377 to 352 nm with the increase of x value in Mg(x)Zn(1-x)O from 0 to 0.35. The mechanism for the electrically pumped random lasing has been tentatively elucidated taking into account both the multiple optical scattering and the optical gain proceeding in the Mg(x)Zn(1-x)O films.


The relationship between sleep and cognition has long been recognized, with slow‐wave sleep thought to play a critical role in long‐term memory consolidation. Recent research has presented the possibility that non‐invasive acoustic stimulation during sleep could enhance memory consolidation. Herein, we report a random‐effects model meta‐analysis examining the impact of this intervention on memory and sleep architecture in healthy adults. Sixteen studies were identified through a systematic search. We found a medium significant effect of acoustic stimulation on memory task performance (g = 0.68, p = .031) in young adults <35 years of age, but no statistically significant effect in adults >35 years of age (g = −0.83, p = .223). In young adults, there was a large statistically significant effect for declarative memory tasks (g = 0.87, p = .014) but no effect for non‐declarative tasks (g = −0.25, p = .357). There were no statistically significant differences in polysomnography‐derived sleep architecture values between sham and stimulation conditions in either young or older adults. Based on these results, it appears that acoustic stimulation during sleep may only be an effective intervention for declarative memory consolidation in young adults. However, the small number of studies in this area, their small sample sizes, the short‐term nature of most investigations and the high between‐studies heterogeneity highlight a need for high‐powered and long‐term experiments to better elucidate, and subsequently maximise, any potential benefits of this novel approach.


The paper proposes a new approach for characterization and classification of voltage sags and for the assessment of sag influence on sensitive equipment. The existing classifications of voltage sags mainly use the method of symmetrical components and describe voltage sags in terms of magnitude and duration. It has been recognized though, that the other sag characteristic may influence sensitive equipment operation. In this paper, the approach based on Odq-components method (Park's transformation) is used for sag description and equipment sensitivity assessment. This approach enables to represent voltage sags as a function of time, magnitude, instant of fault initiation and phase-angle jump at the same time or as a function of more than two characteristics simultaneously. Furthermore, this new representation of voltage sags facilitates the investigation of equipment sensitivity to phase-angle jump, moment of fault initiation and to any combination of these and other sag characteristics.


Retrospective study of 17 patients (30 eyes) with diffuse retinal epitheliopathy followed for at least 5 years. The study is based on clinical data, ophthalmoscopic findings and fluorescein angiograms. The patients (16 men and 1 woman) are all caucasian with a mean age of 43 years. The disease is bilateral in 13 patients. We report an association with systemic corticosteroid treatment after kidney transplantation in 10 cases. Nine patients have arterial hypertension. Two patients are diabetic and 2 present high level of psychological stress. After a mean follow-up of 12 years, a loss of vision of at least 3 lines is noted in 17 eyes. The decrease in vision is related to an enlargement of the pigment epithelium atrophy to the fovea (15 eyes) or with permanent retrofoveolar serous detachment (2 eyes).


Cardiac hypertrophy often develops to compensate for hemodynamic overload and is associated with heart failure. Recent studies have revealed that overexpression and PKA-mediated phosphorylation of heat shock protein 20 (HSP20) at Ser16 can attenuate hypertrophic growth of cardiomyocytes and trigger cardioprotective functions following sustained β-adrenergic stimulation (Fan et al., 2004, 2005, 2006). However, the molecular mechanism of HSP20 induced cardioprotection remains to be fully elucidated. In order to gain insight into the protective mode of action of HSP20, I attempted to (1) investigate the spatiotemporal control of PKA-mediated phosphorylation of HSP20, as well as (2) identifying novel protein binding partners for HSP20 utilising cutting edge ProtoArray technology.

Initially, I set up an in vitro hypertrophy model using sustained isoprenaline (ISO)-stimulated neonatal rat cardiomyocytes. Cell size, protein synthesis and fetal gene expression were assessed as parameters of hypertrophic growth. In the first section of my studies, members of the cAMP-specific PDE4 family were shown to form signalling complexes with HSP20, and that the PKA-mediated phosphorylation of HSP20 could be modulated by PDE4. Based on peptide array data, a cell-permeable peptide 'bs906' was developed to inhibit the interaction of PDE4 with HSP20. Interestingly, the disruption of the PDE4-HSP20 complex was shown to induce PKA-mediated phosphorylation of HSP20 and trigger cardioprotection against the hypertrophic response measured in neonatal cardiomyocytes upon chronic β-adrenergic stimulation.

In the second part of my studies, protein kinase D1 (PKD1) was identified as one interacting partner that robustly associated with HSP20. This interaction was confirmed by biochemical and immunocytochemical means. Using similar approaches to those used for the PDE4-HSP20 interaction, a cell-permeable peptide 'HJL09' was generated to promote disruption of the PKD1-HSP20 complex. Experimentation using the peptide concluded that the disruption of the PKD1-HSP20 complex reduced HSP20 phosphorylation and attenuated the hypertrophic response in cultured cardiomyocytes as shown by reduced increases in cell size, protein content and actin reorganisation. In undertaking this work, I also defined a novel PKD phosphorylation site (Ser16) on HSP20 that conforms to the PKD phosphorylation motif of RxxS (also a PKA site). My biochemical data suggested that PKD1 may regulate the cardioprotective function of HSP20 via phosphorylation at Ser16. In situ proximity ligation assay (PLA) further revealed a role of HSP20 as 'molecular escort' in targeting the nuclear translocation of PKD1. This function, in part, may be responsible for the induction of fetal gene reexpression as selective disruption of PKD1-HSP20 complex using 'HJL09' hindered the nuclear influx of the complex, thereby attenuating hypertrophic signalling.

In summary, these studies describe some exciting findings which provide further insight into novel signalling mechanism of cardiac hypertrophy in neonatal rat cardiomyocytes. I have shown that PKA and PKD1 exhibiting opposite functions despite sharing the phosphorylation site on HSP20. In this regard, HSP20 functions as a molecular nexus for the opposing actions of the PKA and PKD1 signalling pathways in hypertrophy, suggesting that crosstalk may occur between anti-hypertrophic and pro-hypertrophic pathways. The identification and characterisation of these complexes should help to build a better understanding of the hypertrophic signalling pathway, and may provide novel therapeutic strategies for the treatment of cardiac hypertrophy.


Abstract : Preliminary results are presented on the development of an adaptive neural network based control algorithm to enhance aircraft engine performance. This work builds upon a previous National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) effort known as Performance Seeking Control (PSC). PSC is an adaptive control algorithm which contains a model of the aircraft's propulsion system which is updated on-line to match the operation of the aircraft's actual propulsion system. Information from the on-line model is used to adapt the control system during flight to allow optimal operation of the aircraft's propulsion system (inlet, engine, and nozzle) to improve aircraft engine performance without compromising reliability or operability. Performance Seeking Control has been shown to yield reductions in fuel flow, increases in thrust, and reductions in engine fan turbine inlet temperature. The neural network based adaptive control, like PSC, will contain a model of the propulsion system which will be used to calculate optimal control commands on-line. Hopes are that it will be able to provide some additional benefits above and beyond those of PSC. The PSC algorithm is computationally intensive, it is valid only at near steady-state flight conditions, and it has no way to adapt or learn on-line. These increases are being addressed in the development of the optimal neural controller. Specialized neural network processing hardware is being developed to run the software, the algorithm will be valid at steady-state and transient conditions, and will take advantage of the on-line learning capability of neural networks. Future plans include testing the neural network software and hardware prototype against an aircraft engine simulation. In this paper the proposed neural network software and hardware is described and preliminary neural network training results are presented.


This thesis aims to answer a number of basic questions about microcontroller development:• What's the potential for writing more efficient program code and is it worth the effort? How could it be done?Could the presumed trade-off between code space and development time be overcome?• Which microcontroller hardware architecture should you choose?• Which IDE (development ecosystem) should you choose?This is an investigation of the above, using separate sets of incremental code changes (improvements) to a simple serial port communication test program. Two generations of Atmel 8-bit AVR microcontrollers (ATmega and ATxmega) and two conceptually different IDEs (BASCOM-AVR and Atmel Studio 6.1) are chosen for the comparison.The benefits of producing smaller and/or faster code is the ability to use smaller (cheaper) devices and reduce power consumption. A number of techniques for manual program optimization are used and presented, showing that it's the developer skills and the IDE driver library concept and quality that mainly affect code quality and development time, rather than high code quality and low development time being mutually exclusive.The investigation shows that the complexity costs incurred by using memory-wise bigger and more powerful devices with more features and peripheral module instances are surprisingly big. This is mostly seen in the IV table space (many and advanced peripherals), ISR prologue and epilogue (memory size above 64k words), and program code size (configuration and initialization of peripherals).The 8-bit AVR limitation of having only three memory pointers is found to have consequences for the programming model, making it important to avoid keeping several concurrent memory pointers, so that the compiler doesn't have to move register data around. This means that the ATxmega probably can't reap the full benefit of its uniform peripheral module memory layout and the ensuing struct-based addressing model.The test results show that a mixed addressing model should be used for 8-bit AVR ATxmega, in which "static" (absolute) addressing is better at one (serial port) instance, at three or more the "structs and pointers" addressing is preferable, and at two it's a draw. This fact is not dependent on the three pointer limitation, but is likely to be strengthened by it.As a mixed addressing model is necessary for efficient programming, it is clear that the driver library must reflect this, either via alternative implementations or by specifying "interfaces" that the (custom) driver must implement if abstraction to higher-level application code is desired. A GUI-based tool for driver code generation based on developer input is therefore suggested.The translation from peripheral instance number to base address so far used by BASCOM-AVR for ATxmega is expensive, which resulted in a suggestion for a HW-based look-up table that would generally reduce both code size and clock cycle count and possibly enable a common accessing model for ATmega, ATxmega, and ARM.In the IDE evaluation, both alternatives were very appreciated. BASCOM-AVR is found to be a fine productivityenhancement tool due to its large number of built-in commands for the most commonly used peripherals. Atmel Studio 6.1 suffers greatly in this area from its ill-favored ASF driver library. For developers familiar with the AVRs, the powerful avrgcc optimizing compiler and integrated debugger still make it worthwhile adapting application note code and datasheet information, at a significant development time penalty compared to BASCOM-AVR.Regarding ATmega vs. ATxmega, it was decided that both have its place, due to differences in feature sets and number of peripheral instances. ATxmega seems more competitively priced compared to ATmega, but incurs a complexity cost in terms of code size and clock cycles. When it's a draw, ATmega should be chosen.


It is a well-known fact that many inorganic species that may be present as a component of a complex aqueous waste can have an adverse effect upon the set of cements and subsequent properties of a final waste form product. Chemical species such as sulfates, aluminates, borates, phosphates, and zinc, to name a few, especially when present in combination, can result in false sets, flash sets, and expansive mineral phases along with many other unwanted changes in physical properties. Generally, the approach is to adjust the type of additives present in a waste form formulation to compensate or sometimes to rely upon raw waste dilution to minimize of mitigate potential problems. Another approach which is discussed in this paper, in addition to a comprehensive literature review, is based upon an understanding of the chemistry of the waste solution and its components: that is, the authors rely upon pretreatment of the waste solution to prevent interactions during or after solidification. Various types of precipitation options are available for the removal of certain waste species, or they may simply alter them to a stable, more insoluble form. Undesirable reactions in the cementitious solid phase, as well as some of the various wastemore » pretreatment options which are available, are discussed.« less


Burden of Illness among Elderly Individuals with Parkinson's disease Sandipan Bhattacharjee, B. Pharm., M.S. Parkinson"s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease affecting an estimated one million individuals in the United States (U.S.) and five million individuals globally. With increasing age, the prevalence of PD also increases. Challenges of PD include high economic burden of formal care, informal caregiving burden, and also management of a chronic illness (e.g. type 2 diabetes mellitus) in the presence of PD. The purpose of this study was to use observational data from real-world settings to provide a comprehensive view of the burden of illness among elderly individuals with PD by assessing the formal economic burden, informal caregiving burden and the state of management of chronic illness with complexity (CIC) in the presence of two debilitating conditions (PD and type 2 diabetes mellitus). This study used a triangulation approach by using three different datasets: (i) National Medicare 5% sample claims database to evaluate the formal economic burden; (ii) the National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC) data to assess the informal caregiver burden; and (iii) the nationwide claims database of Humana Medicare Advantage Part D enrollees to evaluate the state of management of chronic illness with complexity. The specific aims of the three studies were: (1) among elderly Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 or older, estimate excess home healthcare use and expenditures among individuals with PD compared to individuals without PD and analyze predisposing, enabling, need factors, personal health behaviors, and external environment associated with excess home healthcare use and expenditures among individuals with PD; (2) assess the informal caregiver burden and estimate costs associated with informal caregiving burden among caregivers providing care to elderly individuals; and (3) assess process, and intermediate clinical outcomes of diabetes care among individuals with chronic illness with complexity defined as cooccurring PD and diabetes. From the results of the first study, we found that elderly Medicare beneficiaries with PD had significantly higher home healthcare use and expenditures compared to those without PD. The differences in home healthcare use and expenditures among elderly Medicare beneficiaries with and without PD were mainly explained by personal health behaviors such as baseline resource use and need factors such as physical and mental health conditions. In terms of the economic burden of informal caregiving, we did not observe a significant difference in informal caregiving costs between caregivers of elderly individuals with and without PD, despite the costs of informal caregiving for elderly individuals with PD being 1.27 times higher than those without PD. Individuals with CIC were less likely to achieve American Diabetes Association recommended annual HbA1c and lipid testing goals compared to those without CIC (T2DM without PD). However, individuals with CIC achieved glycemic and lipid control outcomes. Thus, these findings taken together underscore the advantage of using an integrated delivery system with better care coordination and providing "holistic care approach." As majority of elderly individuals with PD are community-dwelling, novel intervention techniques are needed to be developed to reduce the informal caregiving burden.


ABSTRACT We compared the influences of grazing by the bacterivorous nanoflagellate Poterioochromonas sp. strain DS on ultramicrobacterial Actinobacteria affiliated with the Luna-2 cluster and ultramicrobacterial Betaproteobacteria of the species Polynucleobacter cosmopolitanus. These bacteria were almost identical in size (<0.1 μm3) and shape. Predation on a Polynucleobacter strain resulted in a reduction of >86% relative to the initial bacterial cell numbers within 20 days, while in comparable predation experiments with nine actinobacterial strains, no significant decrease of cell numbers by predation was observed over the period of ≥39 days. The differences in predation mortality between the actinobacterial strains and the Polynucleobacter strain clearly demonstrated size-independent grazing resistance for the investigated Actinobacteria. Importantly, this size-independent grazing resistance is shared by all nine investigated Luna-2 strains and thus represents a group-specific trait. We investigated if an S-layer, previously observed in an ultrastructure study, was responsible for the grazing resistance of these strains. Experiments aiming for removal of the S-layer or modification of cell surface proteins of one of the grazing-resistant strains by treatment with lithium chloride, EDTA, or formaldehyde resulted in 4.2- to 5.2-fold higher grazing rates in comparison to the levels for untreated cells. These results indicate the protective role of a proteinaceous cell surface structure in the size-independent grazing resistance of the actinobacterial Luna-2 strains, which can be regarded as a group-specific trait.


Escherichia coli strains with deletions in att lambda region were obtained. The comparison of the extent of deletions with the sensitivity of the corresponding mutant clones to phage Mu showed that the gene controlling the sensitivity of E. coli K-12 to the phage Mu is located in nad A-gal region of the bacterial chromosome. It is shown that the resistance of E. coli strains which had lost the region of bacterial chromosome between nad A gene and genes of gal-operon have adsorption character. Deletion of the nad A-gal region does not affect the adsorption of other phages (lambda, P1 and T4). Thus, the gene, located in this region, is responsible for the specific adsorption of the phage Mu.


In recent years, there has been increasing interest in finding naturally occurring antioxidants from plants for use in food and medicinal materials to replace synthetic antioxidants since such antioxidants are being restricted due to their side effects like carcinogenicity. The aim of this work was to examine the in vitro antioxidant activity of Laurus nobilis and Emex spinosus leaves and to isolate and structurally elucidate the active compounds in those leaves. The aqueous ethanolic extracts (70%) of Laurus nobilis and Emex spinosus leaves exhibited free radical scavenging action against 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH). Their concentrations of 50% inhibition (IC50) were 25.3 and 20.73 μg/mL, respectively. Activity-guided separation of these extracts using a combination of different chromatographic methods (TLC and column chromatography) resulted in the isolation of five chromatographically pure compounds (three from Laurus nobilis and two from Emex spinosus leaves). Spectroscopic methods ( 1 H, 13 C-NMR, UV and MS) and chemical methods (detection tests and acidic hydrolysis) revealed the isolated antioxidant compounds to be flavonoid substances that were identified as kaempferol, kaempferol- 3-rhamnopyranosi de, and kaempferol-3,7- dirhamnopyranoside from Laurus nobilis extract and luteolin and rutin from Emex spinosus extract. The five flavonoids had varying ability to inhibit DPPH radicals (IC50 from 4 to 35.8 μg/mL). Luteolin and rutin had strong scavenging action with an IC50 of 4 and 4.6 μg/mL, respectively, and this action was stronger than that of synthetic antioxidant BHA, i.e., butylated hydroxyanisole (IC50 = 5.6 μg/mL).


It is well recognised today that improving the investment climate fosters productive private investment and is the key to sustainable growth. However, the question remains whether an improvement in the investment climate would benefit the poor. In this thesis, I focus in particular on two institutions of prime importance for small informal entrepreneurs in developing countries who lack bargaining power and resources: the courts to enforce contracts and the financial markets to get access to credit. Chapter 2 examines how the case pendency rate in state courts in India affects the contracting behaviour of small non-agricultural informal firms. My estimates suggest that a slow judiciary implies more breaches of contract, discourages firms from undertaking relationship-specific investments, impedes the access of firms to formal financial institutions, and favours inefficient dynasties. This chapter leaves an important question open. Chapter 3 examines the reasons as to why the judiciary is so congested in India. I find that amendments increasing the number or complexity of procedures to be followed by the Courts and that the ambiguity in the Code of Civil Procedure increase the expected duration of a trial in High Courts. Using the spatial and temporal variation in the enactment of amendments and occurrence of conflicting decisions as instrumental variables for the expected duration of a trial in High Court, I am then able to measure the impact of judiciary's speed on credit markets, agricultural development and manufacturing performance. Another key feature of a good investment climate is the access to credit markets. Chapter 4 assesses how an improvement in the access to finance through microfinance can benefit the poor directly. Using the technique of matching, this chapter shows a positive effect of microfinance on the expenditure per capita, the supply of labour, the level of enrolment in school of boys and girls. For instance, participants spend 3% more on average than non-participants. Interestingly, participants do not spend more than non-participants in treatment villages. This seems to indicate positive externalities.


Schematic representation of the flow of nitrogen through the ecosystem. The importance of bacteria in the cycle is immediately recognized as being a key element in the cycle, providing different forms of nitrogen compounds assailable by higher organisms. The nitrogen cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which nitrogen is converted into multiple chemical forms as it circulates among atmosphere, terrestrial, and marine ecosystems. The conversion of nitrogen can be carried out through both biological and physical processes. Important processes in the nitrogen cycle include fixation, ammonification, nitrification, and denitrification. The majority of Earth's atmosphere (78%) is atmosphere nitrogen, making it the largest source of nitrogen. However, atmospheric nitrogen has limited availability for biological use, leading to a scarcity of usable nitrogen in many types of ecosystems.


A flexible modular and hierarchical structure is presented to reduce computational effort in designing optimal nonblocking supervisors for discrete-event systems (DES). The structure organizes the system into modular subsystems that embody internal interacting dependencies. Verification and coordination among modular subsystems are achieved through their model abstractions. Sufficient conditions are presented to guarantee that these coordinators and modular supervisors result in optimal nonblocking control. A medium-sized example demonstrates the computational advantage of our approach


The mechanism by which FFA metabolism inhibits intracellular insulin-mediated muscle glucose metabolism in normal humans is unknown. We used the leg balance technique with muscle biopsies to determine how experimental maintenance of FFA during hyperinsulinemia alters muscle glucose uptake, oxidation, glycolysis, storage, pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH), or glycogen synthase (GS). 10 healthy volunteers had two euglycemic insulin clamp experiments. On one occasion, FFA were maintained by lipid emulsion infusion; on the other, FFA were allowed to fall. Leg FFA uptake was monitored with [9,10-3H]-palmitate. Maintenance of FFA during hyperinsulinemia decreased muscle glucose uptake (1.57 +/- 0.31 vs 2.44 +/- 0.39 mumol/min per 100 ml tissue, P < 0.01), leg respiratory quotient (0.86 +/- 0.02 vs 0.93 +/- 0.02, P < 0.05), contribution of glucose to leg oxygen consumption (53 +/- 6 vs 76 +/- 8%, P < 0.05), and PDH activity (0.328 +/- 0.053 vs 0.662 +/- 0.176 nmol/min per mg, P < 0.05). Leg lactate balance was increased. The greatest effect of FFA replacement was reduced muscle glucose storage (0.36 +/- 0.20 vs 1.24 +/- 0.25 mumol/min per 100 ml, P < 0.01), accompanied by decreased GS fractional velocity (0.129 +/- 0.26 vs 0.169 +/- 0.033, P < 0.01). These results confirm in human skeletal muscle the existence of competition between glucose and FFA as oxidative fuels, mediated by suppression of PDH. Maintenance of FFA levels during hyperinsulinemia most strikingly inhibited leg muscle glucose storage, accompanied by decreased GS activity.


The voice of youth has not been taken into account in the conceptualization of empowerment and related research. The contents of this article contribute to the study of spaces and key moments in the process of youth empowerment through first-person experi¬ences of 890 young. A quantitative approach will be used in order to consider the contribu¬tion of specific ambits of everyday life to capacity development and its application. Personal experiences perceived by youth as highly empowering are identified, and the relationship between empowerment and different life stages is studied. The findings suggest that the spac¬es generating more youth empowerment are formal and non-formal education settings and work environment. The importance of emancipation and life experiences entailing personal overcoming is also illustrated. In essence, the outcomes provide evidence and contribute to the debate and reflection of youth empowerment so as to promote future research and im¬prove youth work interventions, as well as the design and implementation of youth policies


PLI (professional liability insurance) is currently the main method used to control construction practice risk and is an important economic measure of construction industry governance. Few literatures have analyzed the sustainability of the liability insurance market. In particular, the research on the sustainability of the PLI market in the construction industry is still blank. The sustainability of the market can be identified with the equilibrium of the system over a certain period of time. From the perspective of cooperation benefits, this paper adopts evolutionary game theory (EGT) to analyze the evolutionary trends of stakeholders' behaviors and their evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) in the PLI market of the construction industry. A case study from the history of the US PLI market evolution over nearly 100 years is taken to illustrate the stakeholder game and interpret the market evolution path, and several typical stages of the development of the US PLI market are explored. Some factors that can cause a shift in equilibrium are found. The results show that the change in the legal environment will directly affect the payoffs of the stakeholders, cause market imbalance, and trigger crisis. These findings will help out the government to regulate the market in a timely manner by improving external factors, such as by building a sound credit system and ensuring the stability of the legal system. In an equilibrium state, competitive markets can eliminate individuals with high accident rates and companies with high operating costs. Moreover, these findings will also set a base for future researches to investigate the role of insurance market and legal environment in depth while providing the intensive critical factors towards sustainable construction industry.


The structure of headache in adolescents with autonomic dystonia syndrome is shown (types, features of the course, concomitant manifestations and relationship with other factors). 167 respondents from 12 to 18 years old were under observation. The patients did not have any rude specialists in neurological or somatic disorders, and the corresponding ones were not observed. Among the surveyed persons, the majority of respondents experience headache (HD) at least once a month and more often, but only 53.3% of them complained of HD, which indicates a subjective perception of this ailment and adds additional complexity in its analysis and assessment. The provocateurs of HD are mental stress, stress, physical activity. In the study of HD syndrome in adolescents with autonomic dystonia syndrome, gender differences were determined.


disease (CD), the most predominant manifestations of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), are accelerating major health problems. Although the aetiology of IBD remains elusive, a great deal of work has been carried out in successfully identifying some of the pathological and clinical profiles that are perturbed in these patients. This has led to the description of some of the molecular mechanisms that may underlie the idiopathic inflammation encountered in IBD. More recently, gene families and clusters which may be implicated in the onset of IBD, albeit in a limited manner, have been discovered. Cytokines such as interleukin (IL)-1, IL-6, tumour necrosis factor α (TNF-α), and interferon γ among others, have been shown to maintain the highly chronic inflamed state of the bowel, if not actually causing the onset of this condition. Hence one (major) effort to uncouple the vicious circle and to combat this disease has been to eliminate or diminish the effects of these cytokines. The use of molecules blocking cytokine receptor interactions, by disrupting the means of cytokine activity (for example, inhibiting nuclear factor κB using antisense molecules), is well documented. Taken together, there is an increasing demand to further understand the signalling mechanisms of various cytokines. In most instances, the mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) family of enzymes are involved in transducing the cytokine signal within the epithelial cell of the gut mucosa. These enzymes are predominantly serine/threonine kinases and are activated via phosphorylation of these moieties in a well regulated cascade, leading to activation of specific transcription factors and subsequent target genes. Nevertheless, a linear cascade of kinase activation appears unlikely as other "peripheral" effectors most likely will also be induced and should therefore be included in any therapeutic regime directed towards cytokine signalling pathways. A number of such anti-inflammatory therapies undergoing pharmacological and preclinical studies have targeted numerous serine/threonine kinases. Of these kinases, activation of p38 MAPK by a plethora of extracellular stimuli, including cellular stress, osmotic shock, and proinflammatory cytokines, is well documented. A number of p38 kinase inhibitors have been identified, including a dominant negative p38 molecule, but harnessing use of small molecule inhibitors appears to be the most promising in the present clinical setting. Initially identified as an inhibitor of cytokine release (for example, TNF), the pyridinilimidazole compound SB203580 was later identified as an inhibitor of p38 kinase activity. This and other p38 inhibitors (for example, CNI-1493, ML3163) have been previously shown to be efficient in reducing the severity of inflammatory disease, including endotoxin induced mortality and collagen induced arthritis in mouse models. In this issue of Gut, ten Hove and colleagues have queried the efficacy of this compound in blocking trinitrobenzene sulphonic acid (TNBS) induced colitis [see page 507]. The results, although not entirely unexpected, have posed some interesting questions regarding p38 function, especially in IBD. Briefly, limited reduction in IL-12 cytokine production was observed, with no discernible loss of TNF expression in colon homogenates. Furthermore, in SB 203580 treated TNBS mice, wasting was more significant but colonic weight was higher despite a decrease in cell numbers in colonic lymph nodes compared with controls. Thus one of the observed effects may be to intervene on cell fate, be it to stop cell growth or induce apoptosis. Hence in this instance it appears that although some of the inflammatory agents are affected, thus in part abrogating the inflammatory process, it is not sufficient to completely ameliorate inflammation by p38 inactivation. A number of explanations for the lack in efficacy have been suggested. One explanation assumes that "disease" initiating signalling pathways, bypassing the p38 block, precede p38 activation. Another invokes the function of upstream activators which can regulate inflammation in a p38 independent manner in TNBS induced colitis. The precise nature of colitis induction by TNBS is unknown and thus other "inflammatory pathways" could also be activated by such an agent. To date, at least five isoforms of p38, two of which are ubiquitous, have been identified. Although regarded as a selective inhibitor of p38, extensive studies have not revealed a pan isoform inhibition through SB 203580. Hence some of the effects seen in this study may be due to the nature of the inhibitor, primarily those pertaining to antiproliferation and cell cycle regulation. The results presented by ten Hove et al are therefore of general interest and increased research activity in this area is certainly much needed. One other alternative explanation is the less studied role of p38 induced downregulation of signalling. In the absence of an active p38 MAPK, negative feedback regulation of inflammatory signalling may well be hampered. In these instances, not only intercellular (as discussed by ten Hove and colleagues) but also intracellular cross talk may be affected. At present the nature of the latter remains to be elucidated but given the importance of switch off mechanisms, this field of enquiry will no doubt receive warranted attention in the near future. IBD being multifactorial speaks for a complexity that transcends the perturbation of just one (p38) among many kinases. Hence in the gut, merely inactivating p38 may not be sufficient to ameliorate the inflammatory process. Alternatively, p38 may still have a kinase independent role (as postulated for Jak2), involved in recruitment and structural modification. This function may contribute to the enhanced severity of the disease in this study as p38 itself is still phosphorylated. The work presented by ten Howe et al in this issue of Gut illuminates the complexity of signalling mechanisms that must be unravelled before we can obtain a coherent picture of diseases such as IBD. Having acquired this information, but only then, can the development of new drugs be expected. Until then the question as to whether deactivating p38 suffices in ameliorating (TNBS induced) colitis remains to be answered.


Introduction: routine rubella antibody screening is not done for antenatal mothers in community health clinics in Malaysia. However, congenital rubella syndrome has persisted with its associated health burden. Objectives: to determine the prevalence of rubella susceptibility among pregnant mothers and its associated risk factors. Methodology: a cross-sectional study was carried out in the Petaling district, Selangor, Malaysia, where 500 pregnant mothers were recruited, and face-to-face interviews were conducted. Rubella IgG tests were performed. Results: the prevalence of rubella susceptibility among pregnant mothers was 11.4%. Using logistic regression, a history of not having received rubella vaccination or having unknown rubella vaccination status was found to be a significant predictor for mothers to be rubella susceptible (odds ratio = 2.691; 95% confidence interval = 1.539-4.207). Conclusions: routine rubella IgG screening tests need to be offered to all antenatal mothers in view of the high prevale...


In this paper I critically explore the ideological underpinnings of pedagogical and political practices in UK Higher Education (HE). I first map out the political and pedagogical features of community psychology and then describe the Millennium Volunteers project at the University of Northumbria - a scheme that integrates voluntary placements into undergraduate degree programmes, reflecting on the political and pedagogical premises upon which it is based. I consider the political context and recent social policy trends in UK HE. Through exploring the ideological underbellies of community psychology and Millennium Volunteers I describe the tensions created once both are situated within a HE student's learning and a lecturer's teaching portfolio. I reflect on how each appears to share similar wish lists but conclude that a surface comparison of the pedagogical practices of each can leave unrecognized serious ideological, ethical and political differences that can cause disruption at the interfaces of staff, students and HE institutions. I recommend making the political and ideological assumptions behind pedagogical practices and education policy initiatives more transparent to both students and lecturers alike and outline the reasons for doing so. I conclude by reflecting on implications for the widening access agenda in the present political climate from the standpoint of a community psychologist.


Publicly available social media archives facilitate research in the social sciences and provide corpora for training and testing a wide range of machine learning and natural language processing methods. With respect to the recent outbreak of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), online discourse on Twitter reflects public opinion and perception related to the pandemic itself as well as mitigating measures and their societal impact. Understanding such discourse, its evolution, and interdependencies with real-world events or (mis)information can foster valuable insights. On the other hand, such corpora are crucial facilitators for computational methods addressing tasks such as sentiment analysis, event detection, or entity recognition. However, obtaining, archiving, and semantically annotating large amounts of tweets is costly. In this paper, we describe TweetsCOV19, a publicly available knowledge base of currently more than 8 million tweets, spanning October 2019 - April 2020. Metadata about the tweets as well as extracted entities, hashtags, user mentions, sentiments, and URLs are exposed using established RDF/S vocabularies, providing an unprecedented knowledge base for a range of knowledge discovery tasks. Next to a description of the dataset and its extraction and annotation process, we present an initial analysis and use cases of the corpus.


The experiments on anaesthetized dogs have shown that with artificial ventilation and open chest adrenalin in arrhythmogenic and nonarrythmogenic doses enhances glycogenolysis in the heart proportionally to the dose used Block of beta-adrenergic receptors by propranolol decreased the activation of glycogenolysis in the ischaemic zone and the frequency of ventricular fibrillation after occlusion of the coronary artery. Exhaustion of noradrenaline reserves by reserpin does not influence the intensity of glycogenolysis and the frequency of fibrillation in the acute period of myocardial infarction. It is believed that the activation of glycogenolysis in experimental myocardial infarction is related to the action of adrenalin.


For separated schemes of finite type over a field with an action of an affine group scheme of finite type, we construct the bi-graded equivariant connective K-theory mapping to the equivariant K-homology of Guillot and the equivariant algebraic Ktheory of Thomason. It has all the standard basic properties as the homotopy invariance and localization. We also get the equivariant version of the Brown-Gersten-Quillen spectral sequence and study its convergence.


Fetuses of pregnant mice exposed to whole body gamma-irradiation (400 rads) on the 12th gestational day were compared with control fetuses to assess the effect of radiation on palatogenesis. Experimental and control groups were sacrificed on day 18 of gestation. The fetuses were removed via laparotomy and counted to determine the litter size. Animals were decapitated and the maximum head height, width, and circumference recorded. For light microscopic examination of palatogenesis, heads were fixed in Bouin's solution and prepared for paraffin sectioning and staining with hematoxylin and eosin. A significant reduction in litter size (p < .0025) and head measurements (p < .005) of irradiated fetuses was observed when compared to those of the control group. Histologic examination of serial coronal sections demonstrated that 100% of the experimental fetuses had palatal clefts. It was concluded that gamma-rays have adverse effects on the litter size, head measurements, and palatal closure of mouse fetuses.


Recent studies have shown that only one in five Norwegian adults and elderly reach the national recommendation of 30 minutes of daily activity. Increasing the activity of the elderly is one of the main foci of Hagen Utvalget, a committee appointed by the Norwegian government to solve future challenges in care services. The report emphasizes on using technology to help solve such health problems. Using a sensor called the activPAL we are able to classify a patients activity into periods spent walking, standing and sedentary. Data gathered by the sensor is used to create visualizations illustrating the patients activity throughout a week. The question we aim to answer is: Which visualizations are most fitting to aid physiotherapists in interpreting and understanding accelerometer data from patients, in communication with patients and other healthcare workers? A prototype was created and reviewed in two focus groups with physiotherapists. The process was iterative and feedback from the first focus group was used to modify and improve the prototype before the second focus group. In addition to the prototype, scenarios for the use of the system and a set of functional and user experience requirements were created. The requirements and prototype form recommendations on how to create visualizations that aid physiotherapists in specific tasks. All of the participants of the focus groups were positive to the prototype presented and could see themselves using such a system in their work. The participants were also convinced that using such technology would improve the quality and effectiveness of their work.


Aerial surveys have been used in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, to count large ungulates since the late 1970s. After 1998, aerial line-transect sampling using fixed-wing aircraft and Distance analyses replaced the 'total' counting method. This paper investigates these methods and three sampling intensities for estimating the densities of nine large ungulate species in Kruger National Park. Estimates suitable for the detection of population trends and making management decisions were decided by examination of coefficients of variation (set <20%, a priori). Despite the likely violation of some key assumptions of Distance sampling methods, analyses gave population estimates with adequate coefficients of variation for monitoring trends in impala, giraffe, zebra, kudu, white rhinoceros, and elephant bull populations. Significant improvements in precision were obtained at higher sampling intensities for kudu, giraffe, bull elephants and white rhinoceros, but these species already had sufficiently precise population estimates for the detection of trends at the lowest sampling intensity (15%). The estimates for warthog, wildebeest and waterbuck populations were, however, insufficiently precise for assessing population trends. Increasing sampling intensity to 22% and higher did not significantly increase the precision of the Distance estimates for these species. Shortcomings in interpretation of the data caused by violations of critical assumptions of analyses are identified and discussed.


TCP congestion control is based on an additive-increase/multiplicative-decrease (AIMD) probing paradigm aimed at adapting the sending rate of TCP data sources to match the Internet time- varying available bandwidth. Westwoodþ TCP has been recently proposed to improve the tracking of available bandwidth of classic TCP. It is based on an end-to-end estimate of the available bandwidth, which is obtained by properly counting and filtering the stream of acknowledgement packets. The estimate is used to adaptively decrease the congestion window and slow start threshold after congestion so that it can be said that Westwoodþ TCP substitutes the classic multiplicative decrease with an adaptive decrease paradigm. The authors propose a mathematical analysis of the additive-increase=adaptive-decrease (AIADD) paradigm to analyse the steady-state throughput provided by Westwoodþ TCP and investigate the intra-protocol fairness of the AIADD paradigm and the inter-protocol friendliness between AIADD and AIMD algorithms. It is shown that (i) both classic and Westwoodþ TCP provide a throughput that is proportional to 1= ffiffiffi p p , where p is the segment drop probability, that is they are friendly to each other; and (ii) the throughput of Westwoodþ TCP is proportional to 1= ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi p , where RTT is the round trip time, whereas the throughput of Reno TCP is proportional to 1=RTT, i.e. Westwoodþ TCP improves the intra-protocol fairness. Finally, Ns-2 simulations are reported in order to validate the mathematical model in the presence of a wide range of network loads, loss probabilities and round trip times.


PurposeThis paper problematizes TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures) reporting in a way that demonstrates areas where academic research can contribute towards realizing the transformative potential of this unique form of sustainability accounting in its early stages of development.Design/methodology/approachThe paper proposes a number of research agendas for impactful interdisciplinary research into new forms of corporate reporting of sustainability risks, opportunities and dependencies.FindingsThere are several major challenges that both reporting corporations and investors need to address in realizing the potential of TCFD style risks, opportunities and dependencies reporting. Key among these is developing new practices of climate-related scenario analysis and reporting.Practical implicationsThere is potential for many different academic research studies to provide solid evidence in helping improve the practical impact of TCFD style sustainability reporting. These impacts may assist in moving corporate policies and actions towards zero carbon.Originality/valueThis is the first agenda-setting paper that addresses the need for, and opportunities of, academic research into TCFD reporting and its potential to transform corporate accounting and reporting of sustainability.


Since the original description of frontotemporal dementia and parkinsonism linked to chromosome 17 (FTDP-17) during the Consensus Conference held in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1996, it has become apparent that this syndrome has worldwide distribution. More than 70 families have been described in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. The molecular genetic studies have identified 29 mutations outside and on exon 10 of tau gene. Here, we report the progress in clinical, genetic and pathological studies of FTDP-17 in Japan. There have been 15-separetely ascertained families described in Japan. These kindreds harbor following tau mutations: exon 10, exonic mutations, N 279 K, N 296 H, P 301 L and P 301 S; exon 10 5' splice-site mutations, S 305 N (-2), +11, and +12; exon 1, R 5 H mutation; exon 9, L 266 V mutation; and exon 13, R 406 W mutation. The phenotype of FTDP-17 kindreds varies significantly between families with different mutations and among the families carrying the same mutation. This variability is also seen in Japanese kindreds. Exon 10, P 301 L, +16 and N 279 K mutations are the most common but only P 301 L and N 279 K mutations have been described so far in Japan. On the other hand, R 5 H, N 296 H, +11, and +12 mutations have not been identified outside of Japan. Comparison of phenotypes of Japanese and non-Japanese families with P 301 S, P 301 L and R 406 W mutations uncovers significant differences in clinical presentations. It is difficult to compare pathology of Japanese and non-Japanese families on the basis of available medical literature but no apparent differences can be seen. Autopsies demonstrate the presence of neuronal and glial tau inclusions and ballooned neurons, frequently in the distribution seen in other sporadic tauopathies. A search for the common founder in Japanese families may be successfully performed. FTDP-17 families have been identified with increasing frequency in Japan. The discovery of tau mutations and the fact that they are responsible for the disease processes in the brain lead to the major advancement of our understanding of neurodegeneration. It is hoped that future studies of these families will also lead to finding the curative treatments for the tauopathies.


This paper employs adaptive filter algorithm for a sort of feedback systems called ANC (Active Noise Control). The applied system consists of an audio system including a microphone, a laud speaker, electrical components and acoustic path. An adaptive filter is installed in the path of feedback; as a result, the common methods fail to analyze how it operates. That is why this article uses "Frequency domain analysis" for the system, based on average and algorithm frequency domain along with causality. With such algorithms as sign-LMS, LMS and FX-LMS in use, the system is stable. The convergence conditions are derived and a bias expression of the weights for the latter problem is presented. The convergence condition and the bias are explicity give for simple examples and their validities are shown by some simulations.


The modern methodology of teaching Russian as a foreign language combines the effectiveness of education with the formation of a number of important competencies, the key role among which is played not only by linguistic or communicative competence but also by the culture-oriented one. Within the latter, it is possible to distinguish a linguistic and local history competence as a component of the most important socio-cultural competence. The question of methods, ways, and opportunities for learning a foreign language, including Russian, can be treated differently, but today one of the most effective methods in teaching Russian as a foreign language is the synthesis of two learning models "language as a purpose, culture as a means" and "culture as a purpose, language as a means", which will allow a foreign student to achieve the best results in mastering a foreign language and to plunge into a new cultural and language environment. As part of these two models of teaching Russian as a foreign language (hereinafter referred to as RFL), it is worth paying most attention to the technology of aspect-based learning in a particular language environment that surround a foreign student who masters the Russian language. This article attempts to present the practical side of the formation of linguistic and local history competence as a component of sociocultural competence in RFL classes. One of the possible ways of its formation in the framework of the development of the Russian language by foreign students in preparatory courses is the introduction to the language and culture through local history texts reflecting the historical and cultural heritage of the Republic of Tatarstan, which also includes the Yelabuzhsky District with its richest thousands of years of history.


A BN interphase has been deposited by infiltration of a Hi-Nicalon fibre tow in a Low Pressure Chemical Vapour Deposition reactor using a boron nitride molecular precursor: the tris(dimethylamino)borane (TDMAB), an halogen-free precursor. This precursor prevents fibre and CVD apparatus from chemical damage. Then SiC/BN/SiC 1D mini-composites were produced by classical CVD of SiC from hydrogen and methyltrichlorosilane mixture. The interphase composition was characterised using FT-IR and XPS analyses and the presence of carbon in the BN has be related to surface pollution and not from carbon bounded to the coating. The tensile properties of the mini-composites were tested with unload-reload cycles and have shown very good mechanical properties corresponding to a high interfacial shear stress. The observations of the interphase using TEM reveal that it is made of an anisotropic turbostratic BN. The fibre/matrix debounding, which occurs during mechanical loading, was shown to be located within the BN interphase.


The individual apparent motions of distant radio sources are believed to be caused by the effect of intrinsic structure variations of the active galactic nuclei (AGN). However, some cosmological models of the expanded Universe predict that systematic astrometric proper motions of distant quasars do not vanish as the radial distance from the observer to the quasar grows. These systematic effects can even increase with the distance, making it possible to measure them with high-precision astrometric techniques like VLBI. The Galactocentric acceleration of the Solar System barycenter may cause a secular aberration drift with a magnitude of 4 µas/yr. The Solar System motion relative to the cosmic microwave background produces an additional dipole effect, proportional to red shift. We analyzed geodetic VLBI data spanning from 1979 until 2009 to estimate the vector spherical harmonics in the expansion of the vector field of the proper motion of 687 radio sources. The dipole and quadrupole vector spherical harmonics were estimated with an accuracy of 1-5 µas/yr. We have shown that over the next decade the geodetic VLBI may approach the level of accuracy on which the cosmological models of the Universe could be tested. Hence, it is important to organize a dedicated observational program to increase the number of measured proper motions to 3000.


Alaska currently has a very cold Arctic and sub-Arctic environment, but due to global warming and a proposed increase of global temperatures of 5.4 ◦C by 2100 AD this is being threatened. We calculated if placing an insulating cube on Alaska in 2100 AD and using a refrigerator to cool it down to its 2019 AD temperatures was a viable solution to keeping Alaska cold. It was worked out it would need 1.1×1015 J of work in order to cool the interior of the cube. It was concluded the environmental damage and increased fossil fuel emissions are too great for this to be a option.


Thank you for giving me the opportunity to respond to the views expressed by Mr. Tate about an item concerning my work, which appeared in the Sunday New York Times of February 12th. Though I feel that I am doing a favour to Mr. Tate by taking him up on his criticisms, I am loath to refuse an argument even when it verges on the "ad hominem" category.


In some instances, it is inevitable that large amounts of potentially hazardous chemicals like chlorine gas are stored and used in facilities in densely populated areas. In such cases, all safety issues must be carefully considered. To reach this goal, it is important to have accurate information concerning chlorine gas behaviors and how it is dispersed in dense urban areas. Furthermore, maintaining adequate air movement and the ability to purge ambient from potential toxic and dangerous chemicals like chlorine gas could be helpful. These are among the most important actions to be taken toward the improvement of safety in a big metropolis like Tehran. This paper investigates and analyzes chlorine gas leakage scenarios, including its dispersion and natural air ventilation  effects on how it might be geographically spread in a city, using computational  fluid dynamic (CFD). Simulations of possible hazardous events and solutions for preventing or reducing their probability are presented to gain a better insight into the incidents. These investigations are done by considering hypothetical scenarios which consist of chlorine gas leakages from pipelines or storage tanks under different conditions. These CFD simulation results are used to investigate and analyze chlorine gas behaviors, dispersion, distribution, accumulation, and other possible hazards by means of a simplified CAD model of an urban area near a water-treatment facility. Possible hazards as well as some prevention and post incident solutions are also suggested.


Background: Chronic inflammation is associated with accelerated atherosclerosis, endothelial dysfunction and with early cardiovascular disease. Rhinitis and nasal polyps are inflammatory diseases and the local inflammation is often associated with systemic events that they see as a primary cause the endothelial dysfunction. Studies have shown a higher incidence of cardiovascular events such as stroke, intermittent claudication and myocardial infarction in patients with polyposis and/or rhinitis, but studies that have focused on myocardial injury are few and showed echocardiography as a subclinical deficiency of the right longitudinal functions in patients with nasal polyposis.
Methods and Results: Flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD), common carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT), echocardiographic parameters of left and right ventricular (LV and RV) function were studied in 44 subjects and compared with 42 subjects in the control group. Out of 44 patients, 35 had an allergic component and had mean values of FMD significantly lower (6.62 vs. 17.7, p=0.00), higher IMT even if they were normal values (0.68 mm vs. 0.61 mm, p=0.0429), a tricuspid Tei Index higher than the control group (1.28 vs. 0.44, p=0.0002).
Comparing patients suffering from polyposis with the control group, lower FMD values appeared (6.98 vs. 19.41, p=0.0017). The cIMT and Tei index were higher in patients with polyposis compared to patients with rhinitis but without polyposis (0.62 mm vs. 0.73 mm, p=0.0224; 0.74 vs. 1.68, p=0.0015).
Conclusions: The mechanisms responsible for accelerated atherosclerosis in patients with inflammatory diseases of the nasal cavity are related to the high degree of local inflammation which then becomes systemic inflammation. This leads to endothelial dysfunction through multiple mechanisms and still under study and it leads to a subclinical damage to the endothelium.


The current study aims to investigate how pair work influences language learning in EFL lessons, in particular in a South Korean college. Specifically, the study addresses: (i) how learners interact with their partner in language learning activities, (ii) how they perceive their peer interaction, and (iii) how the interactive process of accomplishing the activities relates to language learning opportunities. Therefore, the study plan was to explore the type of peer interaction, learners' perception of the interaction, and the relationship between the interaction and language learning opportunities. This study was classroom-based. Research was conducted in three EFL classroom settings in a Korean college where my own English courses were held for a period of seven weeks. Twelve learners (i.e. six pairs) participated in the study. Seven different activities related to the course syllabus were used as the main data collection instrument to record the processes of peer interaction undergone by learners while accomplishing the activities. Data for the study came from transcripts of audio-recorded pair talk as the participants completed seven different activities, from observation notes, and from a series of interviews such as individual post-activity interviews including stimulated recall and final interviews. What the findings of this study suggest is that learners need to have a willingness to collaboratively engage with their partner because language development seen as the internalisation of socially co-constructed or mutually accepted knowledge has more opportunities to occur in pair interaction with a collaborative orientation such as collaborative type and expert/novice type. Therefore, the important element that influences language learning is not pair work per se but engaging with a partner in collaborative type and expert/novice types of pair interaction that embody a collaborative orientation. These are more likely to lead to the development of socially co-constructed and mutually accepted language knowledge.


Lysosomal storage diseases (LSD) are inherited metabolic diseases caused due to deficiency of lysosomal enzymes, essential for the normal development of the brain and other organs. Approximately two-thirds of the patients suffering from LSD exhibit neurological deficits and impose an escalating challenge to the medical and scientific field. The advent of iPSC technology has aided researchers in efficiently generating functional neuronal and non-neuronal cells through directed differentiation protocols, as well as in decoding the cellular, subcellular and molecular defects associated with LSDs using two-dimensional cultures and cerebral organoid models. This review highlights the information assembled from patient-derived iPSCs on neurodevelopmental and neuropathological defects identified in LSDs. Multiple studies have identified neural progenitor cell migration and differentiation defects, substrate accumulation, axon growth and myelination defects, impaired calcium homeostasis and altered electrophysiological properties, using patient-derived iPSCs. In addition, these studies have also uncovered defective lysosomes, mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi complex, autophagy and vesicle trafficking and signaling pathways, oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, blood brain barrier dysfunction, neurodegeneration, gliosis, altered transcriptomes in LSDs. The review also discusses the therapeutic applications such as drug discovery, repurposing of drugs, synergistic effects of drugs, targeted molecular therapies, gene therapy, and transplantation applications of mutation corrected lines identified using patient-derived iPSCs for different LSDs.


Mothers of premature infants have difficulty maintaining their milk supply as a result of the separation that occurs between the mother and the baby. The hypothesis in the present investigation is that use of a bilateral (simultaneous) breast pumping system will increase the volume of milk expressed in these mothers. Thirty-two breastfeeding mothers of premature infants were randomly assigned to either the control (single) or the experimental (bilateral) breast pump group. Mothers pumped at least four times a day. Data collection included a daily milk production log, weekly serum prolactin levels, and a weekly State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). Participation lasted from four to six weeks. Data analysis included average STAI scores; average prolactin levels; and weekly averages for number of pumping sessions, hours of pumping, and milk production in milliliters. The two groups did not differ on several demographic characteristics, STAI scores, prolactin levels, number of pumping sessions per week, or weekly milk production. The amount of time spent pumping, however, was statistically less for mothers who used the bilateral pump (7.6 +/- 3.0 hours/week) versus those who used the single pump (11.1 +/- 3.1 hours/week) (p = .003). Although use of either the single pump or the bilateral electric pump resulted in similar milk production, the bilateral pump significantly reduced the time invested in pumping. Health professionals should advocate use of the bilateral pump for mothers of premature infants. Additional studies are needed to determine strategies for increasing milk production in this population.


Modern mathematics owes a big debt to India's contribution s to the subject. Of particular importance is the decimal, place value number system that appeared in India during the Vedic period or soon after, circa 1300 BC to 300 AD, and made its way to Europe during the Middle Ages. That period of time in India also produced a heady mixture of poetic works: poems, songs, grand epics, biographies and books of instruction in verse covering millions of pages. Mathematical ideas are interwoven into the metaphysical, religious and aesthetic fabric of many of these works. This article brings a selection of poems from that time period that provides a taste of ancient India's mathematical preoccupations in their cultural and esthetic context. They also highlight India's mathematical accomplishments of the period, and uncover instances where seeds of future mathematical concepts made their first appearance. The concluding remarks touch lightly on current Indian-inspired uses of mathematical poetry as a pedagogical tool.


isolated and cultured, and its proteome were comparatively analysed with normal control by 2-DE. Results showed that the proliferation of VSMCs from SHR be more sensitive to insulin stimulation than that VSMCs from WKY. The detectable spots ranged from 537 to 608 on the gels in VSMCs of SHR, and 413631 spots in VSMCs of WKY. The different expressed protein spots in VSMCs of SHR were then isolated and measured by MALDI-TOF-MS. A total of 18 spots showed a sharp clear spectrum, and 13 spots matched with the known proteins from database. These proteins were mainly involved in cytoskeleton, glycometabolism and post-translational processes. Among these proteins, OPN and matrix gla protein were up-regulated expression proteins, whiled a-SM actin was downregulated. Furthermore, these preliminarily identified proteins confirmed by RT-PCR and western blotting analysis were coincident with the changes in 2-DE check. In addition, the cytoskeleton changes and migration rate of VSMCs from SHR treated by insulin increased significantly. The results showed that insulin plays a crucial role in activating proliferation and migration of VSMCs, by regulating the phenotype switch of VSMCs.


The practice of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Byelorussia defending and realising social rights of the citizens is analysed in the article. The idea is raised, that the legal act which is recognized as unconstitutional by the decision of the Constitutional Court can be in force yet, but no longer than 18 months (the reference to the practice of the Constitutional Court of Austria is given). Although under the provissions of the Constitution of Byelorussia citizens have no right to apply with complaints to the Constitutional Court, but the Constitutional Court, based on the right on the Byelorussian citizens to apply to any kind of the institution of the state and to get the motivated answer, investigates such complaints of the citizens and with the conclusions, which have the compulsory character for the institutions of the state, adopts the recommendatory decisions in which the legal arguments are stressed. The institutions of the State must examine these arguments which are disclosed in the decisions of the Constitutional Court. So, the power of the arguments of the act of the Constitutional Court, but not it's legal power takes an effect.


Purpose
A posterior staphyloma has been reported to be present in some eyes with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), and the purpose of this study was to determine the macular curvature of non-highly myopic RP eyes.

Methods
This was a retrospective, observational study. The medical charts of the right eyes of 143 patients with RP and 60 controls whose axial length ranged from 21.5 mm to 26.0 mm were reviewed. The mean curvature of Bruch's membrane within 6 mm of the central macula obtained from the horizontal optical coherence tomographic images were evaluated as the mean macular curvature index (MMCI). The relationships between the MMCI and other clinical factors were assessed.

Results
The mean MMCI of RP patients (-13.73 ± 9.63 × 10-5 μm-1) was significantly lower than that of the controls (-6.63 ± 5.63 × 10-5 μm-1). This indicated a deeper concave shape of the macula in RP eyes (P < 0.001). The MMCI was significantly correlated with the age (r = 0.20; P = 0.016) and the axial length (r = -0.24; P = 0.004). Further analysis suggested a nonlinear effect of the ellipsoid zone width on the macular curvature in the RP eyes.

Conclusions
There is a high incidence of steeper macular curvatures even in non-highly myopic RP eyes, and the steepness was also affected by the degree of photoreceptor degeneration.


This paper proposed a novel noncontact technology of operation-state monitoring based on magnetic-field sensing for high-voltage transmission lines, which can simultaneously measure both electrical and spatial parameters in real time. This technology was derived from research on the magnetic-field distribution at the ground level when the transmission lines operate in different states, including sagging, galloping, and current imbalance. Two typical models of high-voltage three-phase transmission lines were simulated, and the resulting magnetic fields were calculated. The correlation between the magnetic-field variations and the operation states were analyzed. Based on such correlation, a source reconstruction method was developed to reconstruct the spatial and electrical parameters from the magnetic field emanated by the overhead transmission lines. The reconstruction results for the 500-kV and 220-kV transmission lines verify the feasibility and practicality of this novel noncontact transmission-line monitoring technology based on magnetic-field sensing.