Determining how antibodies interact with the spike (S) protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is critical for combating COVID-19. Structural studies typically employ simplified, truncated constructs that may not fully recapitulate the behavior of the original complexes. Here, we combine two single particle mass analysis techniques (mass photometry and charge-detection mass spectrometry) to enable the measurement of full IgG binding to the trimeric SARS-CoV-2 S ectodomain. Our experiments reveal that antibodies targeting the S-trimer typically prefer stoichiometries lower than the symmetry-predicted 3:1 binding. We determine that this behavior arises from the interplay of steric clashes and avidity effects that are not reflected in common antibody constructs (i.e., Fabs). Surprisingly, these substoichiometric complexes are fully effective at blocking ACE2 binding despite containing free receptor binding sites. Our results highlight the importance of studying antibody/antigen interactions using complete, multimeric constructs and showcase the utility of single particle mass analyses in unraveling these complex interactions.


Corporate fiduciary duty standards are at an all time low.Normative justifications offered to support lax corporate fiduciary duty standards, however, are weak. The justifications fail adequately to provide a persuasive reason for abandoning the economic principle widely applied in society, which is to hold actors accountable for the economic loss caused by their actions. Such accountability is thought to provide an incentive for efficient conduct.This paper offers a critical analysis of two arguments for allowing corporate managers to act without accountability for the full economic loss caused by their mismanagement. The two arguments have been largely unchallenged and today garner broad support from influential quarters.One argument is that corporate managers should not be accountable for a lack of due care in their decisions, and the justification for this position is a claim that eliminating the duty of care obligation provides an incentive for managers to take value creating risks on behalf of the company and its shareholders. The second argument is that corporate managers should be free to allocate and re-allocate unlimited amounts of corporate wealth among various corporate stakeholders, and this position is justified by a claim that such a rule provides an incentive for the investment of efficient levels of firm specific capital by the corporate stakeholders who provide monetary and human capital to corporations.The normative justifications offered in support of these arguments depend on multiple, essential factual assumptions that not only are unproven empirically but also are counterintuitive and seem to get only more factually improbable when unpacked and analyzed closely. In short, these factual assumptions – which heretofore appear largely to have been accepted without question or analysis – amount to a thin reed and do not meet the burden that should be required of those who propose abandoning or broadly limiting corporate managerial accountability.A strong version of corporate fiduciary duties provides an economic incentive for efficient and fair outcomes.


The1 application of voltammetric methods to the
determination of some compounds of environmental1 importance is described. In addition, a comparison of
electrochemical (EC) detection and ultraviolet (UV)
detection for the quantification of phenolic compounds in
beers following separation by high performance liquid
chromatography is also illustrated.

A field study is described in which differential
pulse anodicj stripping voltammetry (DPASV) at a mercury
I film electrode (MFE) was used to measure the levels of
dissolved cadmium, lead and copper in the Irish Sea.
Difficulties encountered with DPASV measurements in rough
weather suggest that the method is not suitable for field
analyses. In contrast, cold vapour atomic absorption
spectroscopyl is Ideally suited to the quantification of
mercury In field analyses.

A speciation scheme was developed to separately
measure inorganic, dimethyl- and trimethyl-lead species in
mixtures. Quantification was carried out using DPASV. By
using a plating potential of -1.2V the three lead species
are simultaneously measured. When the plating potential is decreased to -0.6V only inorganic and dimethyl-lead are
measured. On addition of a complexing agent and using the
latter plating potential, dimethyllead can be measured in
the presence of inorganic lead.

The HPLC method used for the separation of
phenolic compounds is a modification of a previously
described method. A comparison was made between a UV
detector and an EC detector in series. In general, the EC
detector offered lower limits of detection for most of the
phenolic compounds studied. Analysis of beers indicated
that EC detection was more suitable than UV detection with
respect to sensitivity and selectivity.


Abstract Pityriasis rosea is a common, acute, self-limited papulosquamous eruption of possible viral aetiology. The aim of this study was to describe the profile of pityriasis rosea seen at a referral skin centre in Singapore. A retrospective chart review was conducted of all the patients with a diagnosis of pityriasis rosea seen during 1996. There were 368 patients; their ages ranged from 9 months to 82 years with a peak in the 20 to 29 years age group. There were slightly more males (1.2:1). The clinic incidence was 6.5 per 1000 cases. No ethnic predilection was noted and cases were seen evenly throughout the year. About a quarter of the patients gave a history of a viral infection shortly before or during the occurrence of the rash. Most cases had a typical truncal distribution. The herald patch was observed in 63 patients (17%). Inverse distribution involving mainly the extremities were seen in 22 cases (6%) and eczematised lesions were noted in 20 cases (5.4%). The two main differential diagnoses considered were tinea infection and secondary syphilis. A fungal scrape and a rapid plasma reagin test were done in 58 and 59 patients, respectively, and the results were negative. Treatment was symptomatic and consisted of topical steroids and antihistamines. Thirty patients (8%) were given oral prednisolone for extensive eruptions. The pattern of pityriasis rosea in Singapore is similar to that reported in other countries except for a male predominance and absence of monthly variation. A lower incidence and an older group of patients were also seen in our series as compared to African patients.


Summary: This article is about good governance, as presented in the 2001 EC White Paper, in relation to environmental legal policy making in Europe. First a concise analysis is made of the concept of good governance. Then, in a ``tour d'horizon'', environmental policy programmes, legal cornerstones and instruments are described on the basis of the five main principles of good governance: openness; participation; accountability; effectiveness; and coherence. This overview illustrates the move toward good governance, fitting with the wording of the fifth Environmental Action Programme of 1993: ``Whereas previous environmental measures tended to be prescriptive in character with an emphasis on the `thou shalt not' approach, the new strategy leans more towards a `let's work together' approach.'' However, much is yet to be done, if a true shift in governance is to be brought about. A further analysis is therefore made of the possibilities of enhancing the concept of good environmental governance under the future European Constitution. Major improvements are within grasp if there is a willingness to place a ``clean'' Europe for citizens before the single market, introduce basic citizens' rights on basic environmental standards, further support for environmental NGO's and allow for more competition between Member States.


The wealth of observations now available from multiple spacecraft in orbit around Mars and rovers/landers on the surface provides information on several aspects of the atmosphere, although they are restricted in space and time. Most of the observational datasets are largely complementary, so an efficient method to combine them in a physically consistent way will lead to more constrained studies of the evolution of the global martian atmosphere. Data assimilation is one such method, combining multiple retrievals with a Mars Global Circulation Model (GCM) while accounting for errors in both sources of information and producing an optimal representation of the evolving martian surface and atmosphere. Data assimilation is a powerful tool in that multiple parameters each observed independently by different instruments (e.g. water vapour, ozone, carbon monoxide, dust opacity, temperature) are all realistically constrained and physically consistent at the same time, and unobserved parameters can also be influenced by assimilated data (e.g. water vapour assimilation will impact on the water ice distribution). It also allows for study of atmospheric features that change significantly between observations and identifying processes that lead to the observed changes.

Data assimilation studies are prevalent on Earth and are becoming more mainstream for Mars, with several different Mars GCMs now capable of assimilating retrievals using different assimilation schemes. The Open University (OU) ExoMars modelling group Mars GCM has been combined with several retrieval datasets via data assimilation to study features of the ozone, carbon monoxide, water and dust cycles alongside dynamical features such as the polar vortices, surface warming during a global dust storm and planetary waves. OpenMARS (Open access to Mars Assimilated Remote Soundings), a publicly available global reanalysis dataset from 1999-2015, was also created using the OU assimilation system.

This talk will give a brief overview of the benefits and limitations of data assimilation for Mars, and will demonstrate how combining retrievals of different atmospheric parameters with a Mars GCM via data assimilation leads to a better constrained analysis of the martian atmosphere than is possible with retrievals or GCMs alone.


The worldwide prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus has reached epidemic proportions. The so-called traditional risk factors cannot fully explain the excessive cardiovascular disease risk of type 2 diabetic patients. Numerous studies indicate that postprandial metabolic derangements, most notably hyperglycaemia and hypertriglyceridaemia, which are exaggerated and prolonged in type 2 diabetes, are important cardiovascular disease risk factors since they induce oxidative stress and endothelial dysfunctions. This review discusses the current evidence showing that postprandial dysmetabolism may indeed constitute an important cardiovascular disease risk factor as well as the mechanisms underlying this association. Finally, some possible therapeutic options and recommendations for future research are discussed.


Use of information technologies in hospital has gained increased attention due to their potential to enhance efficiency and hence reduce costs and increase access. Information systems research has found complex dynamics related to IT impacts. In this research we examine how different patterns in the IT Architecture of hospitals differently impact hospital efficiency. Specifically, we examine three facets of a hospitals IT architecture: IT Architecture Spread (ITAS), IT Architecture Longevity (ITAL), and IT Architecture Domain (ITAD). Two dimensions of a hospital's IT Architecture are : IT Architecture Spread (ITAS) , which refers to the breadth of digitization of hospital work processes, and IT Architecture Longevity (ITAL) , which refers to the maturity of the technology portfolio implemented in a hospital. The impacts of these two dimensions are assessed across the two domains of hospitals work– clinical and business – which are referred to as IT architecture domain (ITAD) . Besides the linear impacts of ITAS and ITAL we also examine their non-linear interactive impacts on hospital efficiency. Utilizing archival data on 287 Californian hospitals, our results demonstrate that the enterprise IT architectures in clinical and business domains may have significantly distinct effects on efficiency. More importantly, our research points to how the two dimensions of IT architecture can explain distinct pathways in the impacts of IT on the performance of healthcare firms.


A simple and practical semi-empirical formula for the calculation of the Mean Specific Kinetic Energy (MSKE) of a soccer player over a match is developed based on the statistical analysis of the detailed records of the time courses of locations of all players for a single match. This formula is further supported by additional tests and some theoretical analysis. The formula is then applied to five matches. This formula can be used not only to compare different players, but also to compare different teams, to see how active and how energetic they are during a match. This formula can also be used to test whether there is a significant effect of a training program on the kinetic energy of players of a team. Key Words: Soccer; Energy; Statistics; Training


With the increasing complexity of today's high speed electrical interfaces, electrical analysis of these interfaces is becoming exponentially complicated. Careful choice of channel design parameters for electrical modeling and analysis is becoming critical. Often, the electrical design space is too large for a full factorial analysis. Complex interfaces with large design spaces also make traditional techniques like Monte Carlo methods very time-consuming. Although faster statistical sampling methods such as Design of Experiments (DOE) can be very efficient, these methods are efficient only for linear or weakly non-linear design spaces. This paper compares DOE techniques with evolutionary algorithms for electrical design space exploration. Genetic Algorithms and Swarm Intelligence are discussed as evolutionary algorithms in this paper. The proposed approaches can be applied for high speed multi-drop interfaces like DDR2 and DDR3 and serial point-point interfaces like PCIe and Gigabit Ethernet. In this paper, serial and multi-drop test cases were analyzed to compare the performance of DOE and evolutionary techniques.


Background In the throwing shoulder, repetitive motion increases proximal humerus and glenoid retroversion. However, clinical factors that affect this adaptation are poorly understood. Objective Evaluate and compare the degree of glenoid retroversion of the throwing and non-throwing shoulders of elite baseball players, and clarify their correlations with clinical factors such as age, position, or period of playing baseball. Design Retrospective study. The subject group in this study consisted of 291 elite baseball players over 13 yrs who visited our clinic for medical check and performed bilateral shoulder three-dimensional computed tomography from December 2011 to December 2014. We reviewed player's hand dominance, age at pitching onset, number of years of playing baseball, position, and demographic data (height, weight). Patients (or Participants) 291 elite baseball players. Players were subdivided into different age groups (juvenile: 13–15, B adolescent: 16–18, youth: 19–25) and their position groups. Methods We measured glenoid version of both throwing and non-throwing shoulders by modified method of Friedman's using developed 3D analysis software. Main Outcome Measurements Each subject underwent three-dimensional (3D) CT, which include bilateral scapulas and proximal humeri. We developed the 3D analysis software to quantitatively measure the glenoid version angle. Results The average glenoid retroversion was significantly larger in the throwing than the non-throwing shoulder. The glenoid retroversion of the non-throwing shoulder became smaller in older age groups (Pearson correlation with age: −0.125; p=0.034). Also, glenoid retroversion of the non-throwing shoulder decreased gradually in proportion to period of playing. The difference between the throwing and non-throwing shoulder became larger in older age groups (correlation with age: 0.121; p=0.039). The difference in retroversion of both shoulders was positively correlated with age and period of playing. Similarly, height and weight also showed significant results (correlation with height: 0.116; p=0.048, with weight: 0.144; p=0.014). But, the glenoid retroversion of throwing shoulder had no statistically significant tendency (p>0.05). There was no difference in glenoid retroversion between different player positions (p>0.05). Conclusions In throwing athletes, glenoid retroversion of the non-throwing shoulder decreased with age, displaying a similar natural course as by normal development. Glenoid retroversion of the throwing shoulder showed no tendency to change and it seems likely that the developmental anteversion course is offset by the retroversion force of the throwing mechanism. The difference between shoulders increases with the age and the duration of the period of playing baseball.


Objective: to evaluate the nutritional status and estimate body composition of Indian children from Xingu National Park (XNP), rain forest Amazon region, by using anthropometry and bioelectrical impedance (BI) tests. Methods: one hundred and sixty-four Indian children (89 girls and 75 boys) of unknown age were evaluated by means of anthropometry and bioelectrical impedance. Weight and height were used to calculate z-score for weight-for-height (W/H) index. Two equations based on the resistance values obtained from the bioelectrical impedance were used to determine body composition. The values obtained were compared to standard reference. Results: z-score median for weigh-for-height index was 0.59 (boys) and 0.46 (girls) (P=0.27), respectively. Among the children studied only 1.8% showed z-score W/H 2 SD. Mean resistance values were 625.4+/-79.2 Ohms (girls) and 588.8+/-68.9 Ohms (boys) (P<0.01). The percentage of body composition values obtained for girls were 14.2% fat mass (FM) and 85.8% fat-free mass (FFM), and 11.7% (FM) and 88.3% (FFM). The values for the boys were 14.9% (FM) and 85.1% (FFM), and 10.3% (FM) and 89.7% (FFM). Conclusions: there were low rates of obesity and malnutrition, what leads us to believe that the nutritional status among the Indian children from XNP has been kept in good standard along the last three decades, even under some degree of the Western culture influence. The Indians' body composition enhanced the good nutritional status among the studied population. BI played an important role in the estimation of body composition in this field study.


Magnesium alloys have become of interest as promising light metals for various applications. Regardless of their good properties, however, Mg alloys cannot be processed through press-forming because of seizing on the surface of the material. In order to prevent the seizing, we coated diamondlike carbon (DLC) on Mg alloy sheets to reduce the surface friction using low-temperature plasma. We analyzed the surface properties with cross-cut test, friction test, deep drawing along with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopic observation. DLC has the nature of low friction, which could reduce the friction coefficient of the surface, but it was found that the adhesivity between DLC and Mg alloy sheet was not strong enough. Therefore, silicon interlayer was formed with tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) by plasma between Mg alloy sheet and DLC. The coated DLC on the silicon interlayer in some conditions exhibited very tight and patterned shape, which fairly improved the adhesivity and sustained lower friction. The formability of Mg alloy sheet by deep drawing was also improved.


Face recognition is emerging as one of the popular field in the biometric research. It is used in various surveillance systems for the security purpose as it doesn't need object comparison. The main advantage of using face recognition system is its uniqueness and acceptance over other biometric systems. Though this system is considered to be accurate but the detection of the face is a difficult process due to the high degree of variability in faces. Face recognition is a section of pattern recognition in which human visual perception is saved in the computer. Many researchers are working on this field for many of the years, many algorithms and techniques are developed to update the traditional systems. Some of the techniques that are common these days are PCA, LDA, and Gabor etc. But these approaches individually are not that much efficient in some of the cases. In this research work a new approach is proposed, in which the main concentration is to extract the features with the PCA and LDA techniques as well as the combined systems. This is a much better approach to work with, as suggested from the literature and also more successful for the large dataset. After combining both of the feature extraction, finally the classification will be done and the performance will be evaluated.


Many intranasal sinus surgical procedures can be undertaken using the endoscope which provides the surgeon with a clear and well illuminated field of vision, and the ability to inspect recesses with angled distal lenses. Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery (FESS) distinguishes the Messerklinger technique, which aims at restoring the natural mucociliary clearance mechanism, drainage and aeration of the sinuses by a minimally invasive anterior-to-posterior technique, from more conventional and radical posterior-to-anterior endoscopic sinus surgery. Hopkins improved the endoscope by replacing lenses with solid rods and fibreoptic illumination, and aided by improved techniques in computer assisted tomography, this has allowed more precise preoperative diagnosis. Meticulous postoperative management, may be the key to the success of endoscopic sinus surgery. Very encouraging results have been reported by many authors. With adequate training and cadaver dissection, endoscopic procedures should not be associated with a higher incidence of complications than ethmoidal surgery by other routes.


Exploring the role of the professional doctorate as a vehicle for development of research practice within the context of CPD in Ireland State driven priorities and agendas have emerged in recent years as significant forces in the field of educational research and further professional learning. The arrival of the Teaching Council in 2006 and the rapid encroachment of performativity and competency based models in undergraduate teacher education programmes (where traditionally there has been much greater levels of state involvement), has led to a concern that these will supplant traditional university priorities in the domain of doctoral education in the field of education in Ireland. This is in contrast to the historical situation in which much educational research and higher professional studies were ad hoc and individualistic, based on committed, but eclectic personal inquiry.The introduction of the professional doctorate in 2004 in the Republic of Ireland is a new phenomenon and whilst much has been written on the rise (and supposed fall) of this kind of programme in other advanced capitalist societies, it has been greeted with much enthusiasm. The TCD course was designed to provide practitioners with a teaching and learning model which has at its core an enabling critical pedagogy concerned with building research capacity in Ireland in the context of the tensions of professional, university and state agendas. Drawing on data collected from students involved in the programme since its inception in 2005, our intention in this paper is to critically discuss this course in relation to the emergence of the students as reflexively oriented researchers. Our central argument in this paper is that for doctoral level work to have personal and professional impact, it needs to be set in a culture of critical co-enquiry within a non-teleological structure. More specifically, it has aimed to provide a context in which students can develop the skills, knowledge and understanding in order to be both critical 'producers' and 'consumers' of research. This emphasis on criticality is seen as being essential for 'growth' in becoming an educational researcher.


Hybrid laser-rotating arc welding (HLRAW) process was designed by combining the laser beam welding (LBW) process with the rotating gas metal arc welding (RGMAW) process. In this study, comparing with conventional HLAW, weld bead characteristics as a function of the various process parameters were evaluated for HLRAW. Moreover, welding phenomena were analyzed by high speed monitoring with laser illumination. The arc rotation enhances the weld pool motion, therefore it reduces the undercut formation which is one of most critical weld defects in the conventional laser-arc hybrid welding.


Abstract The amount of land in urban and other special uses increased more than 50 percent since the 1960s in the South. Rural land converted to urban uses is directly related to increases in population in the South. Urban land-use coefficients were estimated to provide a measure of the amount of land converted to urban uses per person added to the population base. These coefficients indicate that from 1974 to 1987 two-thirds to three fourths of an acre of land was converted to urban uses for each person added to the population base. At this rate, about 12.6 million acres are expected to be converted to urban use in the South during the next two decades.


In this paper, we seek to understand how politicians use images to express ideological rhetoric through Facebook images posted by members of the U.S. House and Senate. In the era of social media, politics has become saturated with imagery, a potent and emotionally salient form of political rhetoric which has been used by politicians and political organizations to influence public sentiment and voting behavior for well over a century. To date, however, little is known about how images are used as political rhetoric. Using deep learning techniques to automatically predict Republican or Democratic party affiliation solely from the Facebook photographs of the members of the 114th U.S. Congress, we demonstrate that predicted class probabilities from our model function as an accurate proxy of the political ideology of images along a left–right (liberal–conservative) dimension. After controlling for the gender and race of politicians, our method achieves an accuracy of 59.28% from single photographs and 82.35% when aggregating scores from multiple photographs (up to 150) of the same person. To better understand image content distinguishing liberal from conservative images, we also perform in-depth content analyses of the photographs. Our findings suggest that conservatives tend to use more images supporting status quo political institutions and hierarchy maintenance, featuring individuals from dominant social groups, and displaying greater happiness than liberals.


Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) is a multi-organ disorder that rarely involves the hypothalamic-pituitary region (HPR). HPR-LCH presents with severe progressive pituitary dysfunction and its prognosis is poor. The definitive diagnosis of LCH is considerably difficult and complicated owing to the occurrence of several diseases with similar manifestations in the HPR and its location in the deepest portion of the anterior skull base, in close proximity to important normal structures, severely limiting the size of the biopsy specimen. Chemotherapy is the established treatment modality for LCH; hence, timely and accurate diagnosis of LCH is essential for early therapeutic intervention. We retrospectively reviewed clinical features and biopsy procedures in four patients with HPR-LCH (all female, 28-44 years old) from 2009 to 2020. Maximum diameter of supra-sellar lesions was 23-35 mm and 2 cases had skip lesions. All patients demonstrated central diabetes insipidus, hyper-prolactinemia, and severe anterior pituitary dysfunction. Two of the patients had progressive disease. Furthermore, four patients presented body weight gain, two visual disturbance, and two impaired consciousness. The duration from onset to diagnosis of LCH was 3 to 10 (average 7.25) years. In total, eight operations were performed until final diagnosis. The percentage of correct diagnosis by biopsy was 50% (4/8). Clinical features of HPR-LCH are very similar to those of other HPR diseases, and their symptoms are progressive and irreversible. Clinicians should consider repeated biopsy with a more aggressive approach if the lesion is refractory to steroid therapy, in order to ensure accurate diagnosis and appropriate treatment.


Aim This study aims to improve our understanding of the late Cenozoic history of Australian rain forest and sclerophyll biomes by presenting a detailed pollen record demonstrating the floristic composition and orbital-scale patterns of change in forest communities of upland south-eastern Australia, during the Early Pleistocene. The record is examined in order to shed light on the nature of the transition from rain forest-dominated 'Tertiary' Australian vegetation to opencanopied 'Quaternary' vegetation. Location Stony Creek Basin (144.13� E, 37.35� S, 550 m a.s.l), a small, infilled palaeolake in the western uplands of Victoria, Australia. Methods A c. 40-m-long sediment core was recovered from the infilled palaeolake. Palynology was used to produce a record of changing vegetation through time. Multivariate analyses provided a basis for interpreting the composition of rain forest and sclerophyll forest communities and for identifying changes in these communities over successive insolation cycles. Results Early Pleistocene upland south-eastern Australian vegetation was characterized by orbital-scale, cyclic alternation between rain forest and sclerophyll forests. Individual intervals of forest development underwent patterns of sequential taxon expansion that recurred in successive vegetation cycles. Diverse rain forests included a number of angiosperm and gymnosperm taxa now extinct regionally to globally. Sclerophyll forests were also diverse, and occurred under warm and wet climate conditions. Main conclusions The Stony Creek Basin record demonstrates that as recently as c. 1.5 Ma diverse rain forests persisted in southern Australia beyond the modern continental range of rain forest. The importance of conifers in these rain forests emphasizes that they have no modern Australian analogue. Alternation in dominance between these forests and diverse, sclerophyllous open canopied forests was apparently driven by changes in seasonality, and may have been promoted by fire.


Nonlinear optical molecules can be vacuum deposited into uniform thin films using thermal evaporation. Alignment order can be achieved during thin film deposition by an in-plane electrical field poling using electrodes patterned on the substrate. Electro-optic (EO) coefficients, r33 and r13 are independently measured using Young's interferometry technique. Thin-films of N-benzyl-2-methyl-4-nitroaniline (BNA) can exhibit an EO coefficient, r33, comparable to that of BNA single crystals. EO coefficients of BNA at different poling fields, wavelengths, and frequencies are investigated.


In the past, efficient parallel algorithms have always been developed specifically for the successive generations of parallel systems (vector machines, shared-memory machines , distributed-memory machines, etc.). Today, due to many reasons, such as the inherent heterogeneity, the diversity , and the continuous evolution of the existing parallel execution supports, it is very hard to solve efficiently a target problem by using a single algorithm or to write portable programs that perform well on any computational supports. Toward this goal, we propose a generic framework based on communication models and adaptive approaches in order to adaptively model performances on grid computing environments. We apply this methodology on collective communication operations and show, by achieving experiments on a real platform, that the framework provides significant performances while determining the best combination model-algorithm depending on the problem and architecture parameters .


Malaria in south east London is under-notified, and a previous local study has described how available data can underestimate the incidence. An active surveillance system was established and data on malaria cases diagnosed between the 1st January and 31st December 2000 were gathered from local laboratories, the Malaria Reference Laboratory (MRL) and a neighbouring health authority. In total 320 cases were identified in local residents (42.33 per 100,000). Of these 320, 293 were laboratory confirmed (38.75 per 100,000) and there were 47 notifications on clinical suspicion. Only 6.8% (20) laboratory-confirmed cases were formally notified. Males of African descent aged 25-39 years who travelled to West Africa were most affected, and 92.5% of the cases were of P. falciparum infection. The surveillance programme confirmed that formal malaria notifications are unreliable. The most important group of residents for targeted health intervention are members of ethnic minority groups, born in endemic areas and travelling to their countries of origin to visit family or friends.


From the invention of imperial authority along the North-West Frontier of British India, subjects were divided between the "civilized" inhabitants populating the cultivated plains and the "wild tribes" living in the hills. The problem of governing this latter group, the "independent tribes," proved a vexed one for the British Raj. The mechanism developed by imperial administrators to manage the frontier inhabitants was the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), first promulgated in 1872 and still in effect today. The FCR was designed to exclude the Frontier's inhabitants from the colonial judiciary, and more broadly the colonial sphere, encapsulating them in their own colonially sanctioned "tradition." Exploring the use of the FCR as an instrument of governance from its first inception into the twentieth century, this article argues that it was key to shaping the nature of frontier rule, which in turn shaped the very nature of the colonial state itself.


Nosema ceranae, a newly introduced parasite of the honey bee, Apis mellifera, is contributing to worldwide colony losses. Other Nosema species, such as N. apis, tend to be associated with increased defecation and spread via a fecal-oral pathway, but because N. ceranae does not induce defecation, it may instead be spread via an oral-oral pathway. Cages that separated older infected bees from young uninfected bees were used to test whether N. ceranae can be spread during food exchange. When cages were separated by one screen, food could be passed between the older bees and the young bees, but when separated by two screens, food could not be passed between the two cages. Young uninfected bees were also kept isolated in cages, as a solitary control. After 4 days of exposure to the older bees, and 10 days to incubate infections, young bees were more likely to be infected in the 1-Screen Test treatment vs. the 2-Screen Test treatment (P = 0.0097). Young bees fed by older bees showed a 13-fold increase in mean infection level relative to young bees not fed by older bees (1-Screen Test 40.8%; 2-Screen Test 3.4%; Solo Control 2.8%). Although fecal-oral transmission is still possible in this experimental design, oral-oral infectivity could help explain the rapid spread of N. ceranae worldwide.


Aim Patellar tendon (PT) strap is commonly used for jumper's knee to alleviate pain during jumping activities in sports.1 But it is still unclear whether PT strap can affect the jumping performance or not. This study is intended to clarify the PT strap effects on maximal jump height and EMG onset timing difference during squat jump. Materials/methods 5 male athlete participants attended to the study. 3 squat jumps were performed with and without PT strap and the highest jump trial was chosen for analysis. Squat jump was studied as jumping and falling activity. EMG electrodes were placed over the area of greatest muscle bulk of vastus medialis (VM), rectus femoris (RF) and vastus lateralis (VL) muscles of right knee in order to collect EMG data. 5 reflective markers were attached to heel, toe, ankle, knee and hip to determine the start and finish of the movement and to analyse the kinematics of the movement. Maximal and basal EMG data and also EMG data during jump activity were collected with pre-amplified, single differential EMG electrodes at 1000 Hz. (DE-2.1, DelsysInc., Boston, MA). Maximal voluntary isometric contraction EMG data was used for normalisation of the EMG activity.The jumping performance were captured at 500 Hz. (PhotronSA3 Camera, Japan). EMG data were preamplified (1*) distal to the surface electrodes, band-pass filtered between 20 and 250 Hz, full wave rectified and low pass-filtered at 50 Hz (sixth-order Butterworth filter). The image datas were also low pass-filtered at 50 Hz (sixth-order Butterworth filter). Peak EMG value, EMG onset timing difference and maximal jump height calculations were compared. Independent samples t-test was applied for two conditions (with strap and without strap). Results There were no significant differences between maximal jump heights of the participants' w/wo strap (44.39 ± 6.26, 44.53 ± 5.31 in order). Peak EMG activity was similar for two conditions during jump and fall activity (Figure 1). Patellar tendon strap did not show a significant delay on the onset of the quadriceps muscles (Figure 2). Discussion Earl et al.2 reported a significant decreased quadriceps EMG activity during lateral step down exercise when using a knee brace. However, in our study there was no statistical alteration for quadriceps muscle EMGs during squat jump also for jump and fall phase.Also strapping improved VM-VL onset timing difference, during squat activity but not significantly.Strapping and taping decreases patellofemoral pain by altering VM-VL EMG delay in symptomatic patients.3 The squat jump activity needs high motor unit recruitment and elicits higher normalised peak EMG activity when compared with lateral step down. The higher EMG need for quadriceps muscle during squat jump may hinder the suppression of the brace for quadriceps EMG peak activity. Also in healthy subjects, there may be no delay between VM-VL EMG activity and no symptoms and due to that, there may be no significant improvement for onset timing difference during strapping condition. Conclusion According to this preliminary study, PT strap did not affect jump height and EMG activity during jump and fall activities. References deVries A, Zwerver j, Diercks R, et al. Effect of patellar strap and sports tape on pain in patellar tendinopathy: A randomised control trial. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2015 Sep 17. doi: 10.1111/sms.12556. Earl JE, Piazza SJ, Hertel J. The Protonics Knee Brace Unloads the Quadriceps Muscle in Healthy Subjects. J Athl Train 2004;39:44–49 Mostamand J, Bader DL, Hudson Z. The effect of patellar taping on EMG activity of vasti muscles during squatting in individuals with patellofemoral syndrome. J Sports Sci 2011;29:197–205. Abstract O-37 Figure 1 The normalised peak EMG values were similar for jump and fall conditions w/wo strap durig squat jump. VM: Vastus medialis, RF: Rectus femoris, VL: Vastus lateralis. WOS: Without strap, WS: With strap. Abstract O-37 Figure 2 The onset timing difference for quadriceps muscle. There was no significant alteration for quadriceps muscles onset timing difference for both conditions during jump and fall duration. VM: Vastus medialis, RF: Rectus femoris, VL: Vastus lateralis. WOS: Without strap, WS: With strap.


Many applications such as video and audio can tolerate loss. When the network layer provides a best-effort service such as on the Internet, the loss rate of the underlying network service may be higher than an application's tolerance for loss. This paper analytically studies retransmission-based partially reliable transport (layer protocol) service. Results show that a partially reliable transport service provides increasingly higher throughput and lower delay than a reliable transport service as an application's loss tolerance increases and as the underlying network service gets more lossy. Also, to some degree, a partially reliable transport service eases the negative effects of ack losses on throughput. Three cost functions associated with the reliability level that a system can support are introduced. These cost functions help demonstrate the penalty when a transport service does not support the ideal reliability level for an application. Results show that the use of a reliable transport service when an application only needs a partially reliable transport service can cause considerable throughput drops and delay increases in lossy networks. On the other hand, at high loss rates, an unreliable transport service is unable to respect an application's loss tolerance. Thus, in lossy environments, a partially reliable transport service is necessary to avoid the extra cost of a reliable transport service, and, at the same time, to guarantee the minimal reliability that an application requires.


This work aims at the economic evaluation of a semi-underground pumped hydro storage power plant erected in an abandoned open-pit mine. For the exploratory model-based analysis, we develop and apply both a simple deterministic and a stochastic net present value (NPV) approach, the latter of which uses a Monte Carlo simulation to account for revenue uncertainty from electricity price fluctuations. The analytical framework developed is applied to two promising sites in the Rheinland region in Germany, Hambach and Inden, making reasonable parameter value assumptions and considering and ignoring the lengthy duration of lower reservoir flooding. The investor's value-at-risk is computed for alternative performance indicators (NPV, net cash recovery, profit-to-investment ratio, and specific production costs) to compare the different outcomes in terms of the project's financial risk distribution. Calculations show that a semi-underground pumped hydro storage power plant in an abandoned open-pit mine can be constructed at reasonably low investment costs and operated at low specific production costs. However, because the investment has to be made long before the pit lake is (naturally) flooded—a process that for realistic flow rates may take up to 20 years—the project is highly uneconomical and would require substantial subsidies, as compared to a situation where flooding happens immediately.


The amount of data within the Linking Open Data (LOD) cloud is steadily increasing and resembles a rich source of information. Since Context-aware Services (CAS) can highly benefit from background information, e.g., about the environment of a user, it makes sense to leverage that enormous amount of data already present in the LOD cloud to enhance the quality of these services. Within this work, the applicability of the LOD cloud as provider for contextual information to enrich CAS is investigated. For this purpose, non-functional criteria of discoverability and availability are analyzed, followed by a presentation of an overview of the different domains covered by the LOD cloud. In order to ease the process of finding a dataset that matches the information needs of a developer of a CAS, techniques for retrieving contents of LOD datasets are discussed and different approaches to condense the dataset to its most important concepts are shown.


From the Publisher:

In the second edition of MySQL Paul DuBois provides an updated, comprehensive guide to one of the most popular relational database systems.

MySQL is the most popular open source database server in the world, with more than 2 million installations and customers including Yahoo!, MP3.com, Motorola, and NASA.

MySQL 4.0, now generally available, is a long-awaited update to the database management system that has many new features, including a new table definition file format, enhanced replication, and more functions for a full text search.

Instead of giving readers merely an overview of MySQL 4.0, DuBois continues to include the most sought-after answers to the questions he hears most often from the community.


BACKGROUND
Adolescent depression is both common and burdensome, and while evidence-based strategies have been developed to prevent adolescent depression, participation in such interventions remains extremely low, with less than 3% of at-risk individuals participating. To promote participation in evidence-based preventive strategies, a rigorous marketing strategy is needed to translate research into practice.

OBJECTIVE
To develop and pilot a rigorous marketing strategy for engaging at-risk individuals with an Internet-based depression prevention intervention in primary care targeting key attitudes and beliefs.

METHOD
A marketing design group was constituted to develop a marketing strategy based on the principles of targeting, positioning/competitor analysis, decision analysis, and promotion/distribution and incorporating contemporary models of behavior change. We evaluated the formative quality of the intervention and observed the fielding experience for prevention using a pilot study (observational) design.

RESULTS
The marketing plan focused on "resiliency building" rather than "depression intervention" and was relayed by office staff and the Internet site. Twelve practices successfully implemented the intervention and recruited a diverse sample of adolescents with > 30% of all those with positive screens and > 80% of those eligible after phone assessment enrolling in the study with a cost of $58 per enrollee. Adolescent motivation for depression prevention (1-10 scale) increased from a baseline mean value of 7.45 (SD = 2.05) to 8.07 poststudy (SD = 1.33) (P = .048).

CONCLUSIONS
Marketing strategies for preventive interventions for mental disorders can be developed and successfully introduced and marketed in primary care.


ABSTRACT Historically, the European Commission has followed an expert-based depoliticized route to gain attention for policy issues and the credibility to deal with them. Given growing politicization, we ask whether the Commission might increasingly seek citizens' views and whether there is patterned variation. We provide the first mapping of special Eurobarometers, the massive instrument for issue-specific public opinion. We found a steep increase and a curvilinear pattern: public opinion is rarely invited in areas of exclusive European Union competencies and exclusive national competencies. Most special Eurobarometers focus on shared competencies. Citizens are almost never asked about expenditure programmes and never on immigration. There is large variation across the Directorates General, which is only weakly related to the amount of planned legislation and the number of expert committees. Business-oriented Directorates General are much less likely to seek public opinion. These results open up promising avenues for research on agenda-setting strategies at times of politicization.


AbstractThe University of ManchesterAlexandra MitchellDoctor of Philosophy (PhD)Middle-Class Masculinity in Clubs and Associations: Manchester and Liverpool, 1800-1914.12 December 2011This thesis argues that clubs and associations provided a major arena for masculine social life in the period from 1800 to 1914. Using a range of sources from life writings and administrative records to photographs, drawings and buildings, the thesis presents a detailed picture of club life in the two provincial cities of Manchester and Liverpool. Examining the ways in which middle-class men wrote about associational culture, decorated their club houses and behaved in the company of other club men, the work highlights the complex and varied roles clubs and associations played in shaping masculinities. Club culture offered men the opportunity for homosocial friendship and fellowship, a respite from work but also access to business networks and political contacts. Above all, associational life allowed middle-class men to express their different tastes and identities, highlighting the diversity of masculine cultures in nineteenth-century provincial cities. The thesis explores the ways in which masculinity was constructed as a relationship between men in the context of the club, and reveals how the identity of the club man intertwined with his role at work and in the family. It argues that the function of the club shifted over the course of the male lifecycle, determined by a man?s position as the head of a household and business. However masculine behaviour within the all-male association was also governed by its own codes of self-control; club life had no place for those men who drank too much, or failed in business. The buildings of nineteenth-century provincial club houses form an important part of this study. The work shows how the interiors of club buildings were decorated and arranged as a significant setting for male social life, and functioned as places where men could articulate and express their different identities via activities such as dining and smoking. The thesis also reveals how the architectural styles of the club buildings functioned as an outward expression of middle-class identity. By unpacking the different social, political and cultural influences which shaped the appearance of these institutions, it is argued that middle-class masculine culture in Manchester and Liverpool was diverse, fiercely independent and distinctive from the metropolis. Clubs and associations were not simply peripheral spheres for masculine social life, but major arenas in their own right.


Reports of a handful of tragic cyberbullying cases, where assumed victims have committed suicide, have revealed that purported cyberbullying attacks are sometimes actually created by the victim himself or herself (using a fake name or posting anonymously). This phenomenon has been named self-cyberbullying, fictitious cyberbullying, digital self-harm, or digital Munchausen. To date, only a few studies have examined this phenomenon to a limited extent. Via a qualitative and quantitative survey, this study further explored forms, motives, contents, means, platforms, and pretended identities of fictitious online victimization in adolescents. In addition, in order to support future research on this topic, first steps were taken to develop and validate an index to assess fictitious online victimization. Positive correlations were found with traditional and cyberbullying and self-harm and negative correlations with self-esteem, subjective well-being, and life satisfaction. These results add to our understanding of the phenomenon and may lay the groundwork for future studies.


The purpose of this study was to perform the psychometric characteristics of type-D personality scale and comparision type-D personality among males and females in an Iranian normal population. The method used in the population was survey; containing 1348 students from universities . Of them, 400 participants with master's degree were randomly selected based on the Cocheran's formula (259 males and 141 females).The data collection tool was type-D personality scale. The results showed that the type-D personality scale had suitable reliability and ten items had acceptable validity in the normal community. Therefore, according to the results, only ten of its items can be used in Iranian community. In addition to these findings, this study showed that type-D personality rate and the negative affect were significantly higher in males than in females.


Although much attention has been paid to Changhsingian brachiopods in South China, there are only two Chinese studies, published in 1979 and 1990, on Changhsingian brachiopods from the south‐eastern part of South China. Based on systematically collected fossil material, this paper describes and quantitatively analyses a Changhsingian brachiopod fauna from the Luokeng Formation at the Hongtian section, Fujian Province, south‐eastern China, for the first time. Of the brachiopods (30 species in 19 genera) described and illustrated, Cathaysia yongdingensis Liao and an endemic genus of South China (Qinglongia) are reported in English for the first time. Two new species, Neochonetes (Sommeriella) longa and Neochonetes (Sommeriella) transversa, are also proposed. The Hongtian fauna is mainly composed of Cathaysia (29.4%), Neochonetes (19.3%), Linoproductus (13.5%), and Orthothetina (11.7%), and is correlated with the brachiopod fauna from the lower part of the Luokeng Formation in Fujian Province. Based on new and previously published quantitative data, we suggest that the Cathaysia–Neochonetes–Orthothetina Assemblage should represent the early Changhsingian brachiopod fauna in the shallow‐water clastic shelf of Fujian Province. After comparing this fauna with contemporaneous brachiopod fauna from the shallow‐water clastic shelf in the Yangtze area, we find that Neochonetes is a common genus in both areas, but that Fusichonetes is predominant in the Yangtze, while Cathaysia–Orthothetina are the additional main genera in south‐western China.


The 21st century is rapidly approaching. We as health care professionals realize the ever increasing demands made by managed health care systems, third party payers and patients wanting assurances that services provided are of proven value and "cost effective". Nowhere is this more evident than in the field of Tinnitology, especially for patients suffering from tinnitus of the severe disabling type. We have not yet met the challenge. The need for standards and the use of outcome measures is urgent. The need for valid and objective measures as well as subjective measures is well recognized. We must respond by developing an acceptable group of outcome standards for tinnitus to satisfy the demands of managed health care, patients and to improve communication among health care professionals.


Retinyl palmitate and β-carotene from red palm oil (RPO-β-carotene) can be used as sources to fortify vegetable oil. The present study tested three types of bulk palm cooking oil with a peroxide value (PV) of 0, ±4, and ±8 mEq O2kg-1 which each was fortified with retinyl palmitate or RPO-β-carotene alone and combination of both fortificants. The stability of the fortificants in oil samples during storage was investigated. A kinetic analysis of oxidation reaction in fortified palm cooking oil stored in tightly closed amber vials in the dark at different temperatures (60±5, 75±5, and 90±5 °C) was conducted, and then PV, vitamin A concentration and their change rate of reaction in the oils were measured. It reveals that initial PV and mixture of retinyl palmitate and RPO-β-carotene in fortified oil affected the oil stability. Higher initial PV of oil increased the reaction rate constant of peroxide formation and degradation of vitamin A activity during storage. Oxidation reactions of oil samples fortified with the mixtures of retinyl palmitate and RPO-β-carotene was faster than that fortified with retinyl palmitate or RPO-β-carotene only. Our research suggests that applying single fortificant of retinyl palmitate or RPO-β-carotene in oil is more stable than that fortified with combination of both fortificants.


A conceptual distinction is drawn between indicators, which serve to define latent variables, and outcomes, which do not. However, commonly used frequentist and Bayesian estimation procedures do not honor this distinction. They allow the outcomes to influence the latent variables and the measurement model parameters for the indicators, rendering the latent variables subject to interpretational confounding. Modified Bayesian procedures that preclude this are advanced, along with procedures for conducting diagnostic model-data fit analyses. These are studied in a simulation, where they outperform existing strategies, and illustrated with an example.


The WTO TRIPS Agreement has imposed unprecedented burdens on countries in the developing world. In the public health arena, its high protection and enforcement standards have not only greatly jeopardized access to medicines—at both the domestic and international levels—but have also eroded the policy space and flexibilities developing countries need to devise solutions for public health challenges.

Although many developing and least developed countries continue to struggle with the high and arguably inappropriate TRIPS standards, large or populous emerging economies, such as Brazil, China, India, South Africa, and Thailand, have managed to adapt the TRIPS Agreement with some success. As economic and technological conditions improved, these emerging economies began to secure even greater benefits from the TRIPS-based intellectual property system, thereby initiating a self-reinforcing virtuous cycle.

Of all emerging economies, no country provides a better illustration for a complete transformation of its intellectual property system and pharmaceutical landscape than China. This chapter therefore aims to document the country's journey from its struggle with the TRIPS Agreement to its recent surge in the global pharmaceutical arena. It begins by recounting China's initial reluctance to introduce high and externally driven intellectual property standards, including the TRIPS standards that were introduced before and shortly after the country's accession to the WTO. The chapter then discusses China's innovative turn, which began in the mid-2000s when its leaders made a major policy push toward the development of independent innovation. The chapter further examines the recently proposed amendments to Chinese patent law and pharmaceutical regulations. It concludes with five distinct lessons that China's TRIPS experience has provided for the debate on the TRIPS Agreement and access to medicines.


The development of summarization research has been significantly hampered by the costly acquisition of reference summaries. This paper proposes an effective way to automatically collect large scales of news-related multi-document summaries with reference to social media's reactions. We utilize two types of social labels in tweets, i.e., hashtags and hyper-links. Hashtags are used to cluster documents into different topic sets. Also, a tweet with a hyper-link often highlights certain key points of the corresponding document. We synthesize a linked document cluster to form a reference summary which can cover most key points. To this aim, we adopt the ROUGE metrics to measure the coverage ratio, and develop an Integer Linear Programming solution to discover the sentence set reaching the upper bound of ROUGE. Since we allow summary sentences to be selected from both documents and high-quality tweets, the generated reference summaries could be abstractive. Both informativeness and readability of the collected summaries are verified by manual judgment. In addition, we train a Support Vector Regression summarizer on DUC generic multi-document summarization benchmarks. With the collected data as extra training resource, the performance of the summarizer improves a lot on all the test sets. We release this dataset for further research.


The lack of reliable data for ground solar irradiance (direct normal and global irradiance) is a major obstacle for the development of adequate policies to promote and take advantage of existing solar technologies. Although the radiation that reaches the outer layers of the atmosphere is well defined and can be easily calculated, the solar irradiance that reaches the ground level where solar collectors (thermal and photovoltaic) operate depends strongly on localized and complex atmospheric conditions. These effects are particularly strong on the Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI). Because cloud cover corresponds to the strongest effect on ground insolation, no statistical method that ignores micro-scale (< 2 km) or mesogamma scale (2–20 km) weather systems can succeed in estimating real-time and/or forecasting solar power availability. In this regard, mass deployment of ground measurement points is often necessary for precise solar irradiance mapping. However, a significant problem of this approach is that the instrumentation necessary for gathering high quality ground data on solar irradiance in general, and DNI in particular is expensive, so deploying it in large scale requires a non-trivial investment. In order to tackle this problem, our work proposes a Solar Dome Instrument (SDI), a novel lowcost solar irradiance measurement device constructed using commercial off-the-shelf components that provides global irradiance (GHI), diffuse irradiance (DHI) and DNI. The SDI hardware and software provides GHI readings with less than 3% NRMSE and DNI readings with less than 7% NRMSE compared to the traditional, more expensive solar irradiance instrumentation such as NIP/PSP solar tracker and MFR7 radiometer, while reducing the sensor acquisition cost at least 20 to 30 times and further reducing maintenance and operational costs.


IEEE 1451 standard has been proposed to provide a common communication interface and transducer electric data sheet format for wired and wireless distributed applications in smart transducers (sensors and actuators). Currently, a unified Web service for IEEE 1451 smart transducers is a must. However, ensuring the security of web-services-based communications for IEEE 1451 smart transducers is an unsolved problem. In this paper, we proposed a cross-layer security mechanism that deals with the requirements of authentication, integrity, confidentiality, and availability across the communication process in IEEE 1451 smart transducers. The scheme contains three cross-layer components logically, including XML Encryption and Signature, SOAP Security Extension, and Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Security Checking. The former two components satisfy the requirements of confidentiality, availability, integrity, authentication, nonrepudiation, and freshness. The third component satisfies the requirement of availability, which can protect the system against denial-of-service (DoS) attack. The three cross-layer security components are integrated seamlessly in our scheme. To evaluate the overhead, we perform tests to evaluate the effect of message size on the performance of the access inquiry web service. The result supports the usefulness and feasibility of our scheme.


EDITOR,-Tom Sensky and Jose Catalan discuss the possible limitations of using patient based outcome measures in clinical assessment and care.' They highlight an interesting issue-namely, the possible confounding effects of depression and psychiatric symptoms on health assessment questionnaires. Though we also advocate caution in interpreting scores from instruments such as the SF-36 questionnaire and the Nottingham health profile, we do not endorse the view that "invalid results are more likely from patients with serious physical illness than from patients drawn from general practice lists." The basis for this assertion seems to be twofold. On one hand, Sensky and Catalan claim that clinical variables do not always correlate with patients' assessments, and, on the other hand, they say that chronic illness can adversely affect mental health and consequently colours the judgments patients make of their illness. We suggest that the weak association of clinical variables with subjective health in, for example, rheumatoid arthritis is no surprise. Laboratory measures are viewed as little more than a guide to the disease process by the medical profession and are known to be only weakly associated with the disease's impact on daily function. Secondly, the impact of depression on responses to health assessment questionnaires is well understood by researchers.2 Given that these questionnaires are intended as measures of subjective wellbeing, it is nonsense for Sensky and Catalan to criticise them for showing an independent psychosocial effect. We would no more recommend the sole use of subjective health measures than we would the sole use of laboratory tests-they are intended not to replace traditional clinical measures but to supplement them so as to give a more global picture of patients' health. The decision on the allocation of resources, from psychiatric services to adaptations in a person's home, is better informed by such wider assessment.


Objective: This study aimed to evaluate correlations, if any, between the ADC (Apparent Diffusion Coefficient) measurements in MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and SUV max (Standardized Uptake Value) in 18F-FDG PET/CT in patients with nasopharyngeal cancers and to investigate whether DWMRI (Diffusion Weighted MRI) can be an alternative to 18F-FDG PET/CT in the evaluation of the response to treatment and prognosis in those patients.
Methods: This study was performed between January 2015 and February 2016 at Inonu University Medical Faculty, Department of Radiology on 22 patients who were diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer by histopathological evaluation at Department of Pathology of the same faculty. Diffusion weighted images were obtained using 1.5 T MRI in all patients. 18F-FDG PET/CT images were obtained approximately 1-2 weeks after the diffusion-weighted images.
Results: Two groups were created according to the histological subtypes as keratinized (n: 8) and nonkeratinized (n:14) among the 22 cases with a definitive histopathological diagnosis of nasopharyngeal cancer. No statistical difference was found between the groups in terms of SUVmax, SUVmean and ADC mean values (p>0.05). ADC mean values measured in patients with nasopharyngeal cancer were statistically significantly and negatively correlated with SUV max (r=-0.619, p<0.001) and SUV mean values (r=-0.677, p<0.001).
Conclusion: Even though there are anatomic and patient-related limitations of the DW-MRI in nasopharyngeal cancers, we suggest that it may be a complementary and alternative method of 18F-FDG PET/CT in the evaluation of treatment response and prognosis detection in nasopharyngeal cancers.


Consumers, in most cases, consider dark green and broad leaves as good or healthy quality leafy vegetables safe for human consumption, unfortunately most of these vegetables may be cultivated in soil rich in heavy metals from sewage. This study investigated the health risks of heavy metal build-up in vegetables Talinum triangulare grown on sewage dump site. Soil samples were collected at 15 cm with the aid of soil auger and vegetable samples were collected from sewage dumpsite and other samples from a farm where there were no sewage dumpsite served as control. The soil samples were collected at random to have a represented sample and analyzed for Physicochemical properties, pH, Total Nitrogen, Total phosphorus, Organic matter, total organic Carbon, and Exchangeable cations (K+, Mg+ and Na+) using a standard method and concentrations of the Heavy metals both in soils and vegetables, Cr, Zn, Pb, Cu, and Ni were analyze using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS). The health risk from the consumption of these vegetables was calculated using standard methods and formula. The result showed a significant (p<0.05) increase in physicochemical properties for sewage soil, over the control. The pH of the Dump site and Control site were 5.19 and 6.95, respectively. The mean concentrations of metals (Cr, Zn, Pb, Cu, Ni) in the dump soil were 2.05, 1.03, 0.61,
0.58 and 0.42 mg/kg and in the control with no dump were 0.67, 0.07, 0.06, 0.20 and 0.24 mg/kg respectively.
The mean values recorded were below the maximum permissible limit of metal in the soil by (WHO/FAO)
with Cr (100), Zn (300), Pb (50), Cu (100) and Ni (50 mg/kg). The levels of Cr, Zn, Pb, Cu, and Ni in sewage
dump Talinum triangulare were 2.04, 0.33, 0.37, 0.34, and 0.20 mg/kg and the control site were 0.01, 0.05,
0.00, 0.17, and 0.11 mg/kg respectively. However, the levels of Cr and Pb in the vegetable were above the
levels recommended by WHO/FAO of Cr (0.3), Zn (27.3), Pb (0.3), Cu (3.0) and Ni (1.63 mg/kg) while Zn,
Cu, and Ni were below the permissible limit for metals in vegetables. The values were all significant (p<0.05)
compare to the controls samples for both vegetable and soil. The bioaccumulation factor showed that the
vegetable exclude the element from soil. The HQ and HI shows that there is no harmful effect since the
values obtain were less than >1. But continuous consumption can accumulate in the food chain especially
for children. This study conclude that vegetables grown on sewage dumpsites are capable of accumulating
high levels of heavy metals from contaminated and polluted soils with deleterious health effects.


Human health monitoring, disease diagnosis and therapeutics rely on the detection of biomolecules. In this regard, Synthetic Biology approaches based on tailored molecular receptors and actuators can create powerful biosensing platforms. To achieve an optimal biosensor, the composition of such receptor/actuator scaffolds requires both careful design and thorough screening. Thus, my PhD studies focused on construction principles that render modular fusion proteins powerful biosensors.
Central to the functionality of fusion proteins are the domain-connecting peptidic linkers. While the importance of linkers is known, methods to systematically screen the underlying amino acid space are scarce. Therefore, a novel DNA assembly method was devised that enables straightforward cloning of large and diverse linker libraries. By applying the strategy to synthetic protein switches, I identified multiple potent ligand-responsive proteases.
The importance of linkers was further assessed by investigating the behavior of nanopore scaffolds based on the β-barrel transmembrane protein FhuA ΔcΔ5L. The linker between the transmembrane domain and engineered terminal receptor tags emerged as a crucial parameter, impacting both open probability and intermolecular interaction ability of the nanopore in artificial lipid bilayers. An engineered ΔcΔ5L variant could irreversibly catch a second fusion protein while embedded into the bilayer, demonstrating biosensing at the single molecule level.
While biological nanopores are highly specific, their lack of stability complicates their use in application-oriented biosensors. Considering this, a strategy to stably immobilize fusion protein receptors in solid-state nanopores was developed in collaboration with Ivana Duznovic from the Materials analysis group. Highly specific nanobodies attached to conical nanopores in track-etched poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) membranes allowed sensitive discrimination of analytes by current-voltage (I-V) measurements. The developed nanobody-nanopore platform constitutes a highly modular biosensing system and can potentially be combined with lab-on-chip devices.
In the first chapter, I embed my dissertation in the context of Synthetic Biology and Nanosensors while outlining the content of the following chapters. The second chapter describes the development of a cloning strategy for protein linkers and its application to synthetic protein switches. The third chapter deals with the biological nanopore scaffold ΔcΔ5L, while the fourth chapter describes the development of solid-state nanopore biosensing platform.


OBJECTIVES
Our understanding of the use of emergency departments (EDs) and physician offices for the management of dental problems is limited. We undertook this study to examine whether there are differences in their use by low-income White and minority adults as compared with higher-income adults.

METHODS
Participantsincluded White, Black, and Hispanic adults who had experi enced a dental problem during the previous 12 months and who visited a physician, ED, or dentist for treatment. We selected a stratified random sample of 27,002 Maryland households with listed telephones to screen for eligibility. We identified 1,387 households with an eligible adult, selected 423 for interviews, and completed interviews with 401 (94.8%).

RESULTS
To restore correct proportionality to the sample, and to adjust for nonresponse and the distribution of demographic characteristics, weights were created for use in the analyses. Only 7.1 percent of respondents contacted an ED, while 14.3 percent contacted a physician and 90.2 percent a dentist. The vast majority of respondents who contacted an ED (96.0%) or a physician (92.2%) also contacted a dentist. Lower-income respondents were more likely to seek care from an ED, while higher-income respondents were more likely to seek care from a dentist. Over whelmingly, respondents visiting EDs (89.4%) and physicians (51.7%) were instructed to see a dentist or given prescriptions/samples. Treatment provided by EDs, physicians, and dentists was not associated with the respondent's income or race/ethnicity.

CONCLUSIONS
Respondents visiting EDs and physicians typically did not receive definitive care and subsequently visited a dentist for treatment.


This briefing provides the legal background understanding in respect of securities which are held through banks and other intermediaries necessary to access the highly complex area of cross-border securities law which is in between commercial-, insolvency- and property law. It also describes adjacent legislation and neighbouring international initiatives. As the relevant laws are heavily fragmented, the holding and transfer of such securities as well as the exercise of investor rights is cumbersome and sometimes legally uncertain. Lastly, the main mechanisms of the envisaged legislation are presented. Throughout the text, a number of crucial issues are explained that had been discussed controversially in the past.


BACKGROUND
Heart failure with normal left ventricular ejection fraction (HFNEF) accounts for about one third of all heart failure patients with considerable mortality. The metabolic syndrome (MS) is a risk factor for diastolic dysfunction and HFNEF. We hypothesized that modifying metabolic burden by exercise training and weight loss might improve left ventricular diastolic function, heart failure symptoms and rehospitalization rate.

METHODS AND RESULTS
Forty patients with HFNEF, MS and prediabetes were enrolled in this prospective study. Echocardiography and cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) were done at baseline and after 3 months lifestyle modification (LSM). NT-pro BNP and adiponectin were determined at baseline as both peptidehormones play a crucial role in MS and heart failure. After discharge a 3-month LSM program with the aim of weight reduction by diet and exercise was started. After the intervention period a weight reduction of ≥ 2% was defined as successful LSM (group A = 23 patients), while a weight reduction < 2% was classified as unsuccessful LSM (group B = 17 patients). At baseline NT-pro BNP (424 ± 381 versus 121 ± 99 pg/ml, P < 0.01) and adiponectin (10.1 ± 6.2 versus 4.6-2.0 µg/ml, P < 0.01) were higher in group A than in group B. After 3 months of LSM, CPET showed a significant improve- ment of VO2 peak (P < 0.01), EqCO2 (P < 0.001), O2-pulse (P = 0.02) and VE / VCO2 slope (P = 0.01) in group A. After one year of follow-up a modest but significant reduction of left atrial size and mitral flow to mitral annulus velocity ratio E/E' was seen in group A. LSM resulted in significant improvement of NYHA status (P = 0.03) and higher freedom of rehospitalization (P = 0.04) in group A.

CONCLUSION
Successful lifestyle modification in obese, prediabetic patients with HFNEF improves diastolic left ventricular function and cardiopulmonary exercise capacity. As these measures result in improved NYHA status and less hospitalization, LSM might be a promising approach to prevent chronic diastolic heart failure.


Ground penetrating radar (GPR) exploits changes in permittivity within sediments to image sedimentary structures and stratigraphy and has been shown to work very well in aeolian sands. This approach has proved highly valuable in studies of aeolian sedimentary structures and has resulted in new models of dune development. When combined with high resolution optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating, GPR has also provided new insights into long-term (decades to millennia) dune dynamics. Full realization of the potential of GPR to determine dune evolution and dynamics is however hampered by the complexity of visualizing and quantitatively analyzing sedimentary structures and deposits in three dimensions. We report here new approaches to using GPR in a 3-D immersive visualization environment using newly developed visualization tools that will allow the user to view sedimentary structures from the inside and interactively analyze sedimentary structures and measure key properties such as thickness of units, as well as strike and dip of beds and bounding surfaces. The visualizations are being conducted using the CAVE™/FLEX™ four-sided immersive display in the Center for Advanced Visualization, Computation and Modeling (CAVCaM) at the Desert Research Institute (DRI). We started by using Vis5D, which was developed at the University of Wisconsin primarily for the interactive visualization of three-dimensional volumetric data, but have subsequently moved on to using Toirt Samhlaigh, a real-time volume renderer developed at DRI.


P-splines are a popular approach for fitting nonlinear effects of continuous covariates in semiparametric regression models. Recently, a Bayesian version for P-splines has been developed on the basis of Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation techniques for inference. In this work we adopt and generalize the concept of Bayesian contour probabilities to additive models with Gaussian or multicategorical responses. More specifically, we aim at computing the maximum credible level (sometimes called Bayesian p-value) for which a particular parameter vector of interest lies within the corresponding highest posterior density (HPD) region. We are particularly interested in parameter vectors that correspond to a constant, linear or more generally a polynomial fit. As an alternative to HPD regions simultaneous credible intervals could be used to define pseudo contour probabilities. Efficient algorithms for computing contour and pseudo contour probabilities are developed. The performance of the approach is assessed through simulation studies. Two applications on the determinants of undernutrition in developing countries and the health status of trees show how contour probabilities may be used in practice to assist the analyst in the model building process.


In 2015, Reddit closed several subreddits-foremost among them r/fatpeoplehate and r/CoonTown-due to violations of Reddit's anti-harassment policy. However, the effectiveness of banning as a moderation approach remains unclear: banning might diminish hateful behavior, or it may relocate such behavior to different parts of the site. We study the ban of r/fatpeoplehate and r/CoonTown in terms of its effect on both participating users and affected subreddits. Working from over 100M Reddit posts and comments, we generate hate speech lexicons to examine variations in hate speech usage via causal inference methods. We find that the ban worked for Reddit. More accounts than expected discontinued using the site; those that stayed drastically decreased their hate speech usage-by at least 80%. Though many subreddits saw an influx of r/fatpeoplehate and r/CoonTown "migrants," those subreddits saw no significant changes in hate speech usage. In other words, other subreddits did not inherit the problem. We conclude by reflecting on the apparent success of the ban, discussing implications for online moderation, Reddit and internet communities more broadly.


In my article, I discuss a peculiar connection between the persisting ideas about magic in the Western world and Ursula Le Guin's magical world in the Earthsea universe and its evolution over the decades. For centuries in the Western European culture, magic has been a subject for an ongoing debate vacillating between the total rejection of this part of human spiritual life or reluctant acceptance of it. There is also some internal hierarchy of types of magic revealed in the dichotomy "magic versus witchcraft". Encyclopaedia Britannica describes magic and witchcraft as two separate phenomena, connected yet distinctively different. The former is an umbrella term for everything that is or might be perceived as magical. Yet, in the Western world, the concept of magic has strong connections with Western esoteric tradition and is quite often designated as "learned magic" implying hard learning and intellectual practices, in particular knowledge of ancient and secret languages. Moreover, learned magic had been an exclusively male occupation for centuries and, to some extent, complied with the dominant Christian worldview. Witchcraft, on the other hand, does not normally demand much learning; however, practitioners are expected to have an inborn or acquired ability to work magic. In the context of Western culture, witchcraft has predominantly been a female practise and, until recently, stigmatized as demonic. There is also a third branch of magic designated by J. R. R. Tolkien in his seminal essay "On Fairy-Stories" as Faërie – the magic of non-human magical creatures as there natural ability, which is the strongest of all magical types and does not seem to have any limitations. Once people used to believe in this magic in real life, now it has found its refuge in fiction retaining its power over readers' minds. There is a remarkable coincidence with the described magical hierarchy in Le Guin's stories about the Earthsea. Male magic is taught at the school of Roke, demanding not only special abilities but also considerable intellectual input, and is based on the knowledge of an ancient language. Female magic is considered weak, unlearned and even unnatural ("weak as a woman's magic, wicked as a woman's magic"). There is also the magic of dragons as mighty magical/Faërian creatures. Le Guin starts her Earthsea series in quite a patriarchal mode of magicity. In the original trilogy, she keeps to this strategy though strong and powerfully magical yet marginalized female characters such as Serret sometimes appear on the pages of the three novels. The original trilogy (1968-1972) was written in the time when men still dominated the genre, and magical ideas in fiction predominantly followed the "patriarchal pattern" with male wizards/ mages helping a hero and female witches/enchantresses represented as seductresses or embodiment of evil. However, in Tehanu (1990), which was written in the postmodern era, begins a revision of the magical ideas in the Earthsea universe, which is continued in the collection of the short stories Tales from Earthsea (most of the stories were written in the late 90s and after 2000) and in the last book On the other wind (2001). In these later stories, there are glimpses into the true history of magic in Earthsea revealing the importance of women in establishing the magical lore; the emphasis is put on the necessity to re-unite human magic again allowing both men and women to study magic at the school of Roke. Faërian dragon magic proves to be the strongest and, after having accomplished its ends, seems to remove to the Western parts of the world, as it is so peculiar for Faerie (the western location of the Celtic Otherworld or Tolkien's Undying Lands as examples). The evolution of magical ideas in the Earthsea stories over several decades of XX and XXI centuries reflects not only the dynamics of Le Guin's notion of magicity but also the turn in the estimation of magical phenomena which took place during the same period (marked by the appearance of such new academic field of research as Western Esotericism or reevaluation of the history of witchcraft in the West). All this, once again, reveals Le Guin's remarkable sensitivity to cultural shifts. Additional


Due to limited Li resources, sodium-ion batteries (NIBs) have become promising candidates for application in large-scale energy storage systems, and the development of high-performance anode materials for NIBs has become particularly urgent. Moreover, sodium-ion capacitors (NICs), which combine the characteristics of batteries and capacitors, have attracted significant research interest due to their high energy and power density. Herein, we report the design of efficient hydrothermal routes for synthesizing interlaced Sb2O3 nanosheets and Sb2S3 micro-nanospheres, grown on carbon fiber cloth, referred to as SO/CFC and SS/CFC, respectively, which were then used as flexible electrodes for NIBs and NICs devices. For NIBs applications, the SO/CFC electrodes exhibit a high stable capacity of 514 mA h g−1 after 500 cycles at 0.5 A g−1. The SS/CFC electrodes also display a stable capacity of 736 mA h g−1 after 650 cycles at 0.5 A g−1 and the high-rate capability can reach a high current density of 15 A g−1. Importantly, the flexible NIC device based on SO/CFC or SS/CFC as the anode and carbon fibers as the cathode was demonstrated, which manifests high power density and energy density, as well as significantly superior cycle stability.


PUHTEET 2 and 3 projects focused on study of thin film coatings (sol-gel and ALD-based) which are aimed to provide additional value for different metal materials and products. The aim was to gain the long term corrosion and wear resistance, anti-scratch and easy-to-clean properties as well as take into account the decorative aspects. In addition, the suitability of the sol-gel coatings for roll-to-roll (R2R) coating of metallic coils was investigated. Furthermore, novel surface pre-treatments (PET-electric disharhage, atmospheric plasma, and dry ice cleaning) to be used for cleaning of metallic substrates prior deposition of sol-gel coating were studied. Coating development concentrated on the influence of inorganic (e.g. SiO2, Al2O3, ZrO2) and organic (e.g. vinyl, acryl, metacryl and epoxy) components to desired properties of the coatings. Also, the effectivity of the corrosion inhibitors and influence on different dyeing agents were investigated. The effect of different curing methods and processes for sol-gel based coatings were investigated as well as industrial scale and industrial environment coating procedures. A novel pre-treatment method (electropolishing with electric discharge method, PET) using environmentally ammonium sulphate based electrolytes was investigated and it was found to be feasible also in continuous process for metal coils. Dry ice (solid CO2) cleaning was also studied as a pre-treatment method for a reel-to-reel coating of metal coils. It was found that the dry ice treatment produces sufficient surface quality for further surface coating with sol-gel coatings and good adhesion of the coating, especially when used with copper based materials which are sensitive for oxidation after a traditional surface pre-treatment. A novel forming method (Incremental Sheet Forming) was used for moulding of sol-gel coated metal sheets to investigate the behaviour of the coatings and influence of forming parameters. Sol-gel coated metal sheets could be formed with this method and the coatings resisted forming in some level though the forming parameters and properties of the coatings had very strong effect on degradation of the coating. Environmental aspects of the sol-gel coatings were investigated. It was verified that all the coatings used in the project fulfilled the demands concerning volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions set by the directive 2004/42/EC. The long-term corrosion resistance and dirt repellancy of the coated materials were investigated with the field corrosion tests on an isle located in the Gulf of Finland. The duration of the tests was around 550 days. Only the thickest coatings (ca. 30–50 μm) were still protecting the base material after this environmental exposure. Thinner sol-gel coatings with a thickness of sub-micrometer to couple of micrometers or ALD/TiO2-coatings with a thickness of couple of tens or hundreds of nanometers could not fully protect the base material, especially if the base


Glass-ceramics materials share many properties with both glass and more traditional crystalline ceramics. It is formed as a glass, and then made to crystallize partly by heat treatment. . Bioactive glass-ceramics describes the beneficial or adverse effects of glass-ceramic with living tissue , when placed in body.
Bioactive glasses and glass-ceramics are more and more studied because of their surface chemical reactivity when in contact with body fluids [1–3]; by a complex mechanism of ions leaching and partial dissolution of the glass surface, the precipitation of bone-like apatite from the solution provides a strong chemical bonding with tissues. Since bioactive glasses and glass-ceramic are brittle materials, they are especially used in the field of small bone defects reconstruction, or as coatings on inert substrates for load-bearing prostheses.
Since the discovery of bioglass by Hench et al. [4] in the early 1970s, various types of ceramic, glass and glass–ceramic have been proposed and used as bone replacement biomaterials [5-7]. Specifically, these biomaterials have found clinical applications as coating for prostheses, bone filler, vertebral substitution and, in a porous form, as bone substitutes [8-15]. Most of them are based on the SiO2–P2O5–CaO–Na2O system. Bonding between bioactive glass or glass–ceramic and the surrounding tissues takes place through the formation of a hydroxyapatite layer, which is very similar to the mineral phase of bone. When the bioactive glass is placed in contact with physiological fluids, this layer is formed through a complex ion-exchange mechanism with the surrounding fluids, known as bioactivity.
This biologically-active layer of hydroxyapatite can form on the surface of glasses having a wide compositional range, and is considered as self by the surrounding living tissue; its presence is widely recognized to be a sufficient requirement for the implant to chemically bond with the living bone. Kokubo et al. [16] proposed the Tris-buffered simulated body fluid (SBF) for the in vitro study of bioactive glass and glass–ceramic, since its ion concentration is almost equal to that of human blood plasma. Since then, in vitro tests in SBF have been widely used as preliminary tests on new candidate materials showing bioactive properties. The ion leaching phenomenon involves the exchange of monovalent cations from the glass, such as Na+ or K+, with H3O+ from the solution, and thus causes an increase in the pH of the solution. It is known that osteoblasts prefer a slightly alkaline medium [17, 18], but it is also known that severe changes in pH can inhibit osteoblast activity and cause cell necrosis or apoptosis [19-21].
Different bioactive glass and glass ceramics have been synthesized in order to get desired mechanical, chemical properties by obtaining required microstructure. Some of common components used are Na2O, CaO, P2O5, SiO2 for synthesis of 45S5 and S53P4. In addition to these above components, varying composition of K2O, MgO , B2O3 are used to get 13-93, 3-04, 18-04, 23-04. There are some other glass and glass ceramics which also include ZnO, Ag and Al2O3.
In current study of bioactive glass ceramic we are using rice husk ash as raw material for synthesis of silica, which is amorphous in nature. It is cheap, easily available source with high content of silica


ABSTRACT Capsule: Local micro-climate, as well as habitat, influences the abundance of birds within dynamically changing upland habitats. Aims: To identify the relative importance of near-ground temperature (as an index of climate at a scale typical of the territory of breeding passerines) and habitat for some breeding birds in upland Scotland where land uses and habitats are changing. Methods: Timed point counts sampled breeding birds within the marginal uplands of Scotland in habitats at successional stages between pasture and shrubland. Habitat composition and ambient temperatures were recorded at the same sampling points. Generalized linear mixed models were used to assess associations of bird abundance, species richness and species diversity with habitat and ambient near-ground temperature. Results: Species richness increased with mean temperature, was greatest within areas of shrubland and was lowest in open habitats. Different species showed individual associations with temperature and habitat. Species predominantly associated with shrubland tended to have a negative association with temperature. Conclusions: Understanding the habitat and climatic niche requirements of different species will facilitate appropriate land management to be targeted within appropriate climatic patches. For example, open habitats suitable for Whinchats Saxicola rubetra should be within warmer climate patches (typically lower elevation or southern aspects) while shrublands can support Willow Warblers Phylloscopus trochilus at cooler elevations and aspects. Management that delivers a mosaic of habitats, spanning areas of climatic heterogeneity should enhance the diversity of birds supported in the upland margins and potentially their resilience to changing environmental conditions.


The current research was implemented to study the practical unloading stress path that the slope mass experienced during the excavation process, which is very important in the stress and strain numerical analysis. Series of unloading tests were carried out under different confining pressure. During the test process, the minor principal stress was kept decreasing, while the major principal stress was kept unchanged to simulate the stress path in some locations of the soil slope, such as at the top of the slope. The corresponding conventional triaxial compression tests were also carried out as comparison. It is shown that there are many differences between the unloading and loading tests. Through analyzing, the tests results could be applied in the development of unloading constitutive models of excavation soil mass. Also, such unloading tests data are valuable in calibration and verification of the current existing popularly used models.


Abstract Increase in survival of spinal cord injured (SCI) women, society's acceptance that their lives should be similar to those of non-disabled women and their better general health are increasing the number of SCI women who become pregnant and will be delivered of a child. Vaginal delivery is preferred. Any SCI woman whose level is at T6 or higher is at risk for acute autonomic hyperreflexia as a result of uterine contractions. If induction is with Pitocin/Oxytocin, the risk is even greater. Communication with the woman's obstetrician is essential. The patient should be provided with a packet of information to share with the obstetrician. This should be followed with a phone call from the SCI physician to the obstetrician. Effective management includes epidural anesthesia; vacuum extraction is helpful in the expulsion stage. Episiotomy is usually not needed since the pelvic floor is relaxed. In addition, there is an increased incidence of dehiscence since SCI women should be mobilized early and need to transfer in and out of a wheelchair. Blood pressure needs to be taken during the peak of contraction. This needs to be compared to prenatal blood pressures. If prenatal blood pressure is 80/60 or 90/60 but during contraction is 130/80 with a pounding headache, that indicates autonomic hyperreflexia which is an indication for epidural anesthesia. With improvement of acute care and more effective rehabilitation, pregnancy and delivery in spinal cord injured (SCI) women will occur more frequently. No one has any great experience with this situation and most articles report only a few cases. Even the report by Goller and Paeslack4 dealt with 175 cases from 42 centers in 24 countries. Most women were paraplegic and several who were injured early in their pregnancy had abnormal babies (possibly due to x-rays taken for spinal injury). Our spinal cord injury staff were pleased when we had two tetraplegic patients who were pregnant. It helped confirm our belief that life and its functions continue after paralysis. Staff members were involved in prenatal care, were present during delivery and were involved with postnatal care. Even more important is the fact that rehabilitation from the start was oriented with child care in mind. Occupational therapists used their skills and imagination to develop a program for newborn baby care by the tetraplegic mother.


One approach to fabricate shallow junctions made of B-doped Si is to deposit B on Si, followed by knocking the B into the Si substrate with Si ions. Conventional belief is that the higher the implantation energy, the deeper the recoil profile. While this is true for low-energy incident ions, we show here that the situation is reversed for incident Si ions of higher energy due to the fact that recoil probability at a given angle is a strong function of the energy of the primary projectile. Our experiments show that 500 keV high-energy recoil implantation produces a shallower B profile than lower-energy implantation such as 10 and 50 keV. The secondary ion mass spectrometry analysis shows that the distribution of recoiled B atoms scattered by the energetic Si ions agrees with that calculated on the basis of interatomic potential suggested by W. D. Wilson, L. G. Haagmark, and J. P. Biersack [Phys. Rev. B 15, 2458 (1977)]. Sub-100 nm p+/n junctions have been realized with a 500 keV Si ion beam.