The study aimed at investigating the factors influencing the choice of career of undergraduates in Covenant University. The study was conducted using descriptive survey research design. A sample of 400 first to third year students was randomly selected from the four colleges of the University. The data for this study was collected using questionnaire titled Career Choice Questionnaire (CCQ) which explored the psycho-social factors that influenced students' career choices. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Result shows that parents greatly influence their children's choices of career and that students' academic attainments/performances at secondary school level
influenced their choices of career. The secondary school environment was another factor that influences students' choices of career. Other factors are personal interest and advancement of science and technology. However, gender was found not to have a significant influence on the students' career choices. The study concludes that students' choice of career is influenced by parents/guardians, their school environment, academic performance among others. Based on the
findings, it was recommended that parents/guardians should be properly oriented on the extent they should be involved in the career choices and decision of their wards. In addition, secondary school teachers, principals, school counsellors and other stakeholders in the educational system should provide students with appropriate experiences that expand their exploration processes and a wide range of career information on all the available careers to enable them explore, and make informed career choices.


Purpose: In this paper, we assess the role of knowledge management (KM) practices as a key antecedent of KM performance. Also, we examine how Information technology (IT) infrastructure is used as a driver of KM performance, organizational performance and innovation. In addition, the effects of IT infrastructure can be indirect. Specifically, we show that KM performance is a mediator between organizational performance and innovation.Design/methodology/approach: Applying a variance-based structural equation modelling (PLS), we have carried out a study among a sample of 82 Andalusian technology-intensive innovative companies.Findings: First, KM practices and IT infrastructure are significant antecedents of KM performance. Second, KM performance has a direct influence on business performance and innovation outcomes. Third, IT infrastructure does not have a direct influence on business performance and innovation outcomes, but does have a significant indirect effect on them via KM performance.Practical implications: This research provides insights for why some firms may not be realizing benefits from investing in IT infrastructure. KM performance is strongly needed for the successful implementation of IT infrastructure in the organizations.Originality/value: The findings are important for practitioners and researchers because this study makes a contribution to the literature in KM by supporting the perspective that the business and organizational performance are function of the KM performance, a complementary resource through the value of IT infrastructure is enhanced.


This paper presents a new efficient technique for large-scale structure from motion from unordered data sets. We avoid costly computation of all pairwise matches and geometries by sampling pairs of images using the pairwise similarity scores based on the detected occurrences of visual words leading to a significant speedup. Furthermore, atomic 3D models reconstructed from camera triplets are used as the seeds which form the final large-scale 3D model when merged together. Using three views instead of two allows us to reveal most of the outliers of pairwise geometries at an early stage of the process hindering them from derogating the quality of the resulting 3D structure at later stages. The accuracy of the proposed technique is shown on a set of 64 images where the result of the exhaustive technique is known. Scalability is demonstrated on a landmark reconstruction from hundreds of images.


Scientific claims in biomedical research are typically derived from statistical analyses. However, misuse or misunderstanding of statistical procedures and results permeate the biomedical literature, affecting the validity of those claims. One approach journals have taken to address this issue is to enlist expert statistical reviewers. How many journals do this, how statistical review is incorporated, and how its value is perceived by editors is of interest. Here we report an expanded version of a survey conducted more than 20 years ago by Goodman and colleagues (1998) with the intention of characterizing contemporary statistical review policies at leading biomedical journals. We received eligible responses from 107 of 364 (28%) journals surveyed, across 57 fields, mostly from editors in chief. 34% (36/107) rarely or never use specialized statistical review, 34% (36/107) used it for 10–50% of their articles and 23% used it for all articles. These numbers have changed little since 1998 in spite of dramatically increased concern about research validity. The vast majority of editors regarded statistical review as having substantial incremental value beyond regular peer review and expressed comparatively little concern about the potential increase in reviewing time, cost, and difficulty identifying suitable statistical reviewers. Improved statistical education of researchers and different ways of employing statistical expertise are needed. Several proposals are discussed.


Background Studies evaluating the impact of passive cost visibility tools on antibiotic prescribing are lacking. Objective The objective of this study was to evaluate whether the implementation of a passive antibiotic cost visibility tool would impact antibiotic prescribing and decrease antibiotic spending. Methods An efficiency and effectiveness initiative (EEI) was implemented in October 2012. To support the EEI, an antibiotic cost visibility tool was created in June 2013 displaying the relative cost of antibiotics. Using an observational study of interrupted time series design, 3 time frames were studied: pre EEI, post EEI, and post cost visibility tool implementation. The primary outcome was antibiotic cost per 1,000 patient days. Secondary outcomes included case mix index (CMI)-adjusted antibiotic cost per 1,000 patient days and utilization of the cost visibility tool. Results Initiation of the EEI was associated with a $4,675 decrease in antibiotic cost per 1,000 patient days (P = .003), and costs continued to decrease in the months following EEI (P = .009). After implementation of the cost visibility tool, costs remained stable (P = .844). Despite CMI increasing over time, adjustment for CMI had no impact on the directionality or statistical significance of the results. Conclusion Our study demonstrated a significant and sustained decrease in antibiotic cost per 1,000 patient days when focused medication cost reduction efforts were implemented, but passive cost visibility tool implementation was not associated with additional cost reduction. Antibiotic cost visibility tools may be of most benefit when prior medication cost reduction efforts are lacking or when an active intervention is incorporated.


With the increase of data collected and computation power available, modern recommender systems are ever facing new challenges. While complex models are developed in academia, industry practice seems to focus on relatively simple techniques that can deal with the magnitude of data and the need to distribute the computation. The first workshop on large-scale recommender systems (LSRS) is a meeting place for industry and academia to discuss the current and future challenges of applied large-scale recommender systems.


Objective: Although many investigators have studied mood disorders following myocardial infarction, the prevalence, severity, and persistence of depression have been disputed, and standard rating scales and criteria for depressive disorders have infrequently been utilized. The authors' goal was to determine how frequently depressive disorders occur after myocardial infarction, and to investigate predisposing factors for such disorders. Method: Structured clinical interviews were administered to 129 inpatients within ten days of myocardial infarction. Patients were also evaluated using standardized rating scales for depression, social function, cognition, and physical impairment. DSM-III diagnoses were derived from the structured interview. Results: Major depressive syndromes were present in 19 percent (n = 25) of the patients and were associated with prior history of mood disorder, female sex, large infarcts, and functional physical impairment. Conclusion: Major depression is common in the acute post-myocardial infarction period. Such disorders confer significant psychiatric morbidity and, if sustained, require psychiatric intervention.


Research focusing on biodiversity responses to the interactions of ecosystem size and anthropogenic stressors are based mainly on correlative gradient studies, and may therefore confound size-stress relationships due to spatial context and differences in local habitat features across ecosystems. We investigated how local factors related to anthropogenic stressors ( e.g., eutrophication) interact with ecosystem size to influence species diversity. In this study, constructed lake mesocosms (with two contrasting volumes: 1020 (shallow mesocosms) and 2150 (deep mesocosms) litres) were used to simulate ecosystems of different size and manipulated nutrient levels to simulate mesotrophic and hypertrophic conditions. Using a factorial design, we assessed how the interaction between ecosystem size and nutrients influences phytoplankton diversity. We assessed community metrics (richness, diversity, evenness and total biovolumes) and multivariate community structure over a growing season (May to early November 2011). Different community structures were found between deep and shallow mescosoms with nutrient enrichment: Cyanobacteria dominated in the deep and Charophyta in the shallow mesocosms. In contrast, phytoplankton communities were more similar to each other in the low nutrient treatments; only Chlorophyta had generally a higher biovolume in the shallow compared to the deep mesocosms. These results suggest that ecosystem size is not only a determinant of species diversity, but that it can mediate the influence of anthropogenic effects on biodiversity. Such interactions increase the uncertainty of global change outcomes, and should therefore not be ignored in risk/impact assessment and management.


The enduring ability of the name of Christopher Marlowe to generate speculation and controversy regardless of the exiguity of the materials at our disposal never ceases to astonish. The temptation to try to extrapolate Marlowe's artistic intentions not only from the text of his plays and poems, but from the little that is known about his dramatic career, continues to lead those who write about his life down blind alleys. This tendency to make use of what I like to describe as the 'must-have' theory of biography, according to which Marlowe must have thought this or must have known that, is widespread. A few years ago, I attempted to demonstrate how little we know for certain about Marlowe's life. Since the publication of Constructing Christopher Marlowe in 2000, however, several further attempts to explain what happened in the weeks leading up to Marlowe's death in Deptford on 30 May 1593 have been published. While M. J. Trow and Taliesin Trow suggest that he was simply the victim of an Elizabethan contract killing, David Riggs insists that Elizabeth I personally gave the order for Marlowe to be murdered.4 In the 'Revised Edition' of his conspiracy thesis, The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe, Charles Nicholl follows Professor Riggs in suspecting government complicity in Marlowe's death.


This article explores alternative cultures of diplomacy that have been neglected in diplomatic studies and global politics. It is concerned firstly with the human dimension of diplomacy, that is to say, the interpersonal dealings of the homo sapiens, or the experimental and experiential diplomacy of everyday life. It is concerned secondly with the spiritual and transformative potential of diplomacy, a form of diplomacy that engages in heterology to revisit and rearticulate homology, whose mission is not only, not just, the knowledge and control of the Other but fundamentally the knowledge of the Self and this knowledge of the Self as a more reflective means of dealing with and transforming relations with Others. The article examines three specific functions of homo-diplomacy: reverse accreditation, introspective negotiation, and gnostic discourse.


Much research has been done on the cues differentiating the three Korean stops in word initial position. This paper focused on a more neglected area: the acoustic cues differentiating the medial tense and lax unaspirated stops. Four adult Korean native speakers, two males and two females, pronounced 16 minimal pairs containing these stops. The average duration of vowels before lax stops is 93 ms longer than before their tense counterparts (143 ms for lax versus 50 ms for tense). In addition, the average duration of the stop closure of tense stops is 178 ms longer than that of lax stops (74 ms for lax versus 252 ms for tense). These durational differences are so large that they may be phonologically determined, not phonetically. Moreover, vowel duration may vary with the speaker's sex. Female speakers have much shorter vowel duration before the lax stops. The quality of voicing, tense or lax, is also a cue to these two stop types, as it is in initial position, but the relative duration of the stops and of ...


Purpose
This study aims to identify the intentions of immigrant entrepreneurs to start new projects by investigating the role of influence of institutional support, social context, cultural intelligence, self-efficacy, optimizing personality traits and hierarchy legitimacy on intentions to start new ventures. In addition, the strength of the relationship for such factors and intentions to start new ventures was determined through the moderator role of easy access to venture capital.

Design/methodology/approach
To this end, this study complements the academic literature by integrating the structural equation modeling (SEM) and multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques. Thus, the MCDM (i.e. analytic hierarchy process and vlsekriterijumska optimizcija i kaompromisno resenje [VIKOR]) is an effective approach to solving the problem of complexity and evaluation (i.e. multiple evaluation criteria, important criteria and data variation). Hence, to complete the strategic guideline solution, this study uses a survey for collecting data from 202 immigrants in Malaysia, Pakistan, Nigeria and Singapore.

Findings
The results from SEM prove several critical factors of immigrants' entrepreneurs. These factors of immigrants' entrepreneurs can be vital for academics and host countries. By focusing on these aspects and by developing some personality traits (such as self-efficacy and optimal personality traits), these factors can contribute a good deal to increasing the capabilities of immigrant's entrepreneurs toward entrepreneurial intentions. In the validation, the statistical objective method indicates that the immigrants' prioritizations in all countries are supported by the systematic ranking. Thus, entrepreneurial intentions for immigrants can pursue the order proven by the VIKOR results.

Research limitations/implications
This study has some significant practical and theoretical implications. Practically, the study findings will enable managers to develop strategies to support immigrants for entrepreneurial intentions to start new ventures.

Originality/value
The novelty of the context under given circumstances of global environment adds to the originality of this study. Several previous studies have also emphasized the need for this type of study in other contexts. The findings can call managers' attention toward a critical issue of immigrants' entrepreneurial intentions to start new ventures.


Geomorphologic dispersion relates to the fraction of the variance of residence time distributions that can be directly linked to the heterogeneity of the paths available to hydrologic runoff of a river basin in response to suitable rainfall pulses. It thus defines the dispersive characters of geomorphological origin. Hillslope transport processes and systematic variations of advective processes in the channel network define a kinematic component of dispersion. Here we suggest that channel‐borne kinematic effects are likely to be clouded by hillslope dispersion in a surprisingly wide spectrum of basin scales. We find that the signatures of hillslope transport on travel time distributions do not fade away rapidly with the size of the catchment (i.e., when the basin scale becomes much greater than the mean hillslope size), in particular because of their major impact on the skewness of the travel time distribution. We suggest that an appropriate description of hillslope‐channel transitions entails a combination of geomorphic and kinematic effects which plays a decisive role in shaping the main characters of the hydrologic response in cases of practical interest.


The mechanism of the tryptophan synthase alpha(2)beta(2) complex from Salmonella typhimurium is explored by determining the effects of pH, of temperature, and of isotopic substitution on the pyridoxal phosphate-dependent reaction of L-serine with indole to form L-tryptophan. The pH dependence of the kinetic parameters indicates that three ionizing groups are involved in substrate binding and catalysis with pK(a)1 = 6.5, pK(a)2 = 7.3, and pK(a)3 = 8.2-9. A significant primary isotope effect (approximately 3.5) on V and V/K is observed at low pH (pH 7), but not at high pH (pH 9), indicating that the base that accepts the alpha-proton (betaLys-87) is protonated at low pH, slowing the abstraction of the alpha-proton and making this step at least partially rate-limiting. pK(a)2 is assigned to betaLys-87 on the basis of the kinetic isotope effect results and of the observation that the competitive inhibitors glycine and oxindolyl-L-alanine display single pK(i) values of 7.3. The residue with this pK(a) (betaLys-87) must be unprotonated for binding glycine or oxindolyl-L-alanine, and, by inference, L-serine. Investigations of the temperature dependence of the pK(a) values support the assignment of pK(a)2 to betaLys-87 and suggest that the ionizing residue with pK(a)1 could be a carboxylate, possibly betaAsp-305, and that the residue associated with a conformational change at pK(a)3 may be betaLys-167. The occurrence of a closed to open conformational conversion at high pH is supported by investigations of the effects of pH on reaction specificity and on the equilibrium distribution of enzyme-substrate intermediates.


Outbreaks of salmonellosis and recalls of low-moisture foods including extruded products highlight the need for the food and feed industries to validate their extrusion processes to ensure the destruction of pathogenic microorganisms. Response surface methodology was employed to study the effect of moisture and temperature on inactivation by extrusion of Enterococcus faecium NRRL B-2354 in a carbohydrate-protein mix. A balanced carbohydrate-protein mix was formulated to different combinations of moisture contents, ranging from 24.9 to 31.1%, and each was inoculated with a pure culture of E. faecium to a final level of 5 log CFU/g. Each mix of various moistures was then extruded in a pilot scale extruder at different temperatures (ranging from 67.5 to 85°C). After the extruder was allowed to equilibrate for 10 min, samples were collected in sterile bags, cooled in dry ice, and stored at 4°C prior to analysis. E. faecium was enumerated with tryptic soy agar and membrane Enterococcus media, followed by incubation at 35°C for 48 h. Each extrusion was repeated twice, with the central point of the design being repeated four times. From each extrusion, three subsamples were collected for microbial counts and moisture determination. Based on the results, the response surface model was y = 185.04 - 3.11X(1) - 4.23X(2) + 0.02X(1)(2) - 0.004X(1)X(2) + 0.08X(2)(2), with a good fit (R(2) = 0.92), which demonstrated the effects of moisture and temperature on the inactivation of E. faecium during extrusion. According to the response surface analysis, the greatest reduction of E. faecium for the inoculation levels studied here (about 5 log) in a carbohydrate-protein meal would occur at the temperature of 81.1°C and moisture content of 28.1%. Other temperature and moisture combinations needed to achieve specific log reductions were plotted in a three-dimensional response surface graph.


: It is known that corrosion inhibitors and coatings are the best choices to use in oil refinery; therefore, we suggested using both inhibitors and coating to get more efficiency for corrosion control. Polypyrrole coating (PPy) without and with doping by anodic inhibitors were investigated to protect the tank from corrosion in light naphtha unit at Al-Dura refinery. Polypyrrole coating was deposited as nanofibers by electropolymerization using cyclic voltammetry method. Doped polypyrrole coating was applied by adding anodic inhibitor represented by chromate, phosphate and molybdate in acidic electrolyte. The coated layers were examined by SEM/EDS, FTIR and AFM. These examinations showed that coating layers were as nanofibers on carbon steel surface with average roughness in nanoscale as follow: 24.2 nm for PO 4≡ /PPy, 108 nm for PPy, 122 nm for B 4 O 7= /PPy and 139 nm for MoO 4= /PPy coating. Corrosion measurements were investigated by Potentiostat in oil medium at 60 o C which represent the average temperature of light naphtha unit; the results showed that the highest protection efficiency was 78.34% in the presence of PO 4≡ /PPy coating and the others were 77.85% for PPy, 72.64% for B 4 O 7= /PPy and 68.83% for MoO 4= /PPy coating. The presence of inhibitor within the structure of polypyrrole coating leads to repairing the defects that may be produced by corrosion process and then the protection will take a long time to be destroyed. The protection by inhibitor doped PPy suggesting reduce the ionic conductivity of coating film especially in the presence of phosphate anions, where the porosity percents was 0.00025 for PO 4≡ /PPy compared with other coatings (0.04794 for PPy, 0.00043 for B 4 O 7= /PPy, and 0.13083 for MoO 4= /PPy).


In this paper, we propose a variation-based method to linearize the nonlinear dynamics of robotic systems, whose configuration spaces contain the manifolds S and SO(3), along dynamically-feasible reference trajectories. The proposed variation-based linearization results in an implicitly time-varying linear system, representing the error dynamics, that is globally valid. We illustrate this method through three different systems, a 3D pendulum, a spherical pendulum, and a quadrotor with a suspended load, whose dynamics evolve on SO(3), S, and SE(3) × S respectively. We show that for these systems, the resulting time-varying linear system obtained as the linearization about a reference trajectory is controllable for all possible reference trajectories. Finally, a Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR)-based controller is designed to attenuate the error so as to locally exponentially stabilize tracking of a reference trajectory for the nonlinear system. Several simulations results are provided to validate the effectiveness of this method.


Urban China has undergone seismic change in its physical and socioeconomic landscape over the last four decades. Urban life in Mao's China was simply an extension of the regime's faith in the superiority of teleological planning, and Chinese cities were given a central role in the socialist industrialization programme. All aspects of urban existence were organized along the imperative of production. Urban architectural landscapes were characterized by buildings of monotonous design and prosaic outlook. The ethos of egalitarianism inherent in Soviet practices and the functionality logic of Le Corbusier's modernist principles of design determined the allocation of space. Scarcity was permanent, with the rationing system effectively restricting personal consumption to subsistence level, lest excessive personal indulgence misappropriate resources for unproductive purposes and thus decelerate the pace of the industrialization programme. Urban life was in general highly organized, disciplined and mundane, with expression of individuality severely circumscribed by politics and material conditions. Yet most urban dwellers probably felt blessed with their 'privilege' of residing in the cities, aware as they were of the deprivation and desperation of the Chinese peasantry. The concomitant operation of centralized control over employment through the work unit system (danwei) and the unified job allocation arrangement, and the effective regulation of personal movement through the residential permit system (hukou), powerfully sustained the impermeability of the rural-urban divide.


The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the great lockdown caused macroeconomic variables to display complex patterns that hardly follow any historical behavior. In the context of Bayesian VARs, an off-the-shelf exercise demonstrates how a very low number of extreme pandemic observations bias the estimated persistence of the variables, affecting forecasts and giving a myopic view of the economic effects after a structural shock. I propose an easy and straightforward solution to deal with these extreme episodes, as an extension of the Minnesota Prior with dummy observations by allowing for time dummies. The Pandemic Priors succeed in recovering these historical relationships and the proper identification and propagation of structural shocks.


The purpose of this paper is to explore the information seeking behaviour of scholars working at Shaqra University in both Arabic and English languages; to investigate if there are differences in the way scholars seek information while using different languages; to identify challenges while seeking information and to describe the approaches followed by the scholars to seek information. The study deployed a quasi-experimental approach. The sample of the study consisted of 20 participants who are affiliated to Shaqra University. Each participant was asked to solve five tasks, which were designed to capture participants' information seeking behaviour. Think aloud protocol was also used to gather more data from the participants to enrich the collected data and to fully understand scholars' behavior. The study found that the participants' information seeking consists of four main stages: identifying the information needs, selecting the keywords, examining the results and filtering the results. The data revealed that there is no difference between information seeking in Arabic and English languages. However, participants who are from a non-Arabic background were more accustomed to searching information in the English language. There are few studies investigating information seeking behavior of Arabic language speakers. Additionally, fewer studies have tried to explore differences in information seeking behavior while using different languages. The value of the current study lies in being the first study that focuses on investigating information seeking behavior at Shaqra University. Additionally, it is one of a few studies that examine cross-language information seeking practices of Arabic language speakers and the obstacles that face them.


This paper is an extension of the book of reference [1] below. QCD Lagrangian is derived from the same equations of motion for quarks used to construct the equations of motion for mesons and baryons in the scalar strong interaction hadron theory that accounts for many basic low energy data not covered by QCD. At high energies, the energetic quarks in a hadron can be far from each other and approximately free. Each quark is associated with a vector in an internal space characterizing its mass and charge. These spaces are interchangeable and provide a new symmetry equivalent to color symmetry in QCD. A quark in a meson has two "colors" and in a baryon three "colors"; the β function of QCD is 61%-92% greater in high energy interactions leading to baryons than that to mesons. This function enters the measurable running coupling constant and this prediction is testable against experiment. QCD, successful at high energies, is thus reconciled with the scalar strong interaction hadron theory and both complement each other.


The present paper, contributing to solving two different problems related both to the chemical industry and
the environment, is a feasibility study on the utilization of the deinking sludge (the most important waste
from papermaking) as a raw material for fiber-cement manufacture, in which asbestos has been recently
replaced by other fibers because of the hazard it induces. The results obtained show that the use of deinking
sludge as a source of cellulose in fiber-cement manufacture is feasible and could improve product strength, if
5% of the virgin fibers are replaced by fibers and fines from the deinking sludge. It is also possible to replace
up to 10% of the virgin fibers, with no loss in product strength. These results, if confirmed on a mill scale,
would improve the economy of the process, as due to lower waste costs.


Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of "things," connected via Internet, to collect and exchange data. These "things" can be sensors, actuators, smartphones, wearables, computers, or any object that is interconnected to provide specific services. Similarly, wireless sensor network (WSN), as a part of IoT, forwards the gathered data after sensing any event. The scalability and heterogeneity of IoT offer limited protection and is prone to diverse attacks, including WSN-inherited attacks. Moreover, IPv6 routing protocol for low power and lossy networks (RPL), a de facto routing protocol for IoT networks, also suffers from certain vulnerabilities based on its features and functionalities. Researchers have proposed various mitigation mechanisms for secure networks and routing in IoT. Recently, trust-based approaches have gained tremendous interest from the research community to embed security in IoT networks and routing protocols. In the existing literature, several trust models have been introduced according to the security needs of the IoT system, such as SecTrust, DCTM-IoT, CTRUST, etc. In this research, security issues and requirements of IoT networks and RPL routing protocol are studied with respect to various attacks, such as Blackhole, Spoofing, Rank, etc. Additionally, various mitigation methods and significance of trust models in IoT for secure routing are analyzed. Further, trust metrics in IoT environments, including the open issues and research challenges, as well as the implication of trust as a security paradigm in IoT networks and routing protocols are discussed.


Economic literature has been eloquent in acknowledging the significant contribution of service and trade in services to economic growth. However, such studies fail to provide a workable definition of services and their trade, keeping apart the measurement of the same. Such an approach, consequently, has limited the understanding of the economic dynamics of services and trade in services. This in turn has restricted the development of a database that can capture the full essence of services and trade in services. Further, with the evolution of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), the demand for statistics on mode-wise trade of GATS has further compounded the problems of statistics on services and their trade. Since liberalisation of the service sector is an important segment of modern day globalisation, maintaining statistics on GATS mode-wise trade in services will be imperative for any country. It not only facilitates an understanding of the comparative advantage of a country in a specific service trade and negotiation strategies of its partner countries, but also to set its own negotiation strategies for a multilateral trade platform. It is in this context that this paper illuminates the need for data, gaps and revisions required in the existing data in order to capture the GATS mode-wise trade in services. In addition, the paper highlights the multilateral and regional attempts to maintain statistics in line with GATS.


Sampling musical instruments are a powerful resource for virtual environment sound generators. Samplers provide real‐time multi‐channel playback of digitized audio signals such as individual musical instrument notes or sound effects, under control of real‐time user input devices, such as a music keyboard or computer. Samplers also transform the sound through pitch shifting, time‐varying amplitude modification (enveloping), filtering, and looping or repeating a section of the sound to create an indefinite sustain from a short representative segment. Interactive simulators can exploit these transformations; pitch shifting can simulate Doppler shift for moving sound sources, and simple models of spatialization can be implemented using amplitude and time delay panning and low‐pass filtering. Sampling is analogous to image processing in computer graphics; digitizing and processing of real images (or sounds) may be faster than developing a synthetic model, if the model is even feasible. Sampling and its extensi...


Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder affecting approximately 1% of the world's population. Although the aetiology of schizophrenia is complex and multifactorial, with estimated heritabilities as high as 80%, genetic factors are the most compelling. Childhood-onset schizophrenia (COS), defined as onset of schizophrenia before the age of 13 years, is a rare and malignant form of the illness that may have more salient genetic influence. The first known case of paternal segmental uniparental isodisomy (iUPD) on 5q32-qter in a patient with COS is described, which adds to the previously known high rates of chromosomal abnormalities reported in this sample. iUPD is a rare genetic condition in which the offspring receives two chromosomal homologues from one parent. Segmental UPD is defined as UPD on a portion of a chromosome with biparental inheritance seen in the rest of the homologous pair. Complications owing to this abnormality may arise from malfunctioning imprinted genes or homozygosity of recessive disease-causing mutations. This aberration became apparent during whole-genomic screening of a COS cohort and is of particular interest because 5q has been implicated in schizophrenia by several genomewide linkage studies and positive gene associations. This report, therefore, presents more evidence that schizophrenia susceptibility gene, or genes, may be found on distal 5q.


This study investigated the use of class C fly ash (FA) as a precursor for alkali-activated mortar (AAM) for 3D-printed concrete (3DPC). AAMs with different water-to-FA (W/FA), alkaline activator-to-FA (Alk/FA), and sodium silicate-to-sodium hydroxide (SS/SH) ratios were examined to develop mixtures that can be tailored for different structural applications of 3DPC. The fresh properties, including extrudability and buildability, were evaluated through the open time (OT) and immediate deformation tests, respectively. Different cycle times (CTs) were applied to achieve a strain limit state necessary to maintain the printed shape. The strength of AAMs in different directions at different CTs was examined. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was carried out on AAM specimens having different CTs for a better understanding of the bond area. OTs ranging from 2.5 min to 31 min and axial strains ranging from 0.17% to 11.2% were achieved depending on the proportions of the AAMs and CT, which offers flexibility in optimizing the speed of printing and strength of concrete for different projects. The 3DPC specimens displayed anisotropic behavior compared with full-height specimens, where the compressive strength of full-height specimens was higher by 0.2% to 18% and 0.9% to 28% than 3DPC specimens when tested parallel and normal to the printing directions, respectively. SEM images and line scan indicated an approximately even intensity of the element concentration at the interfacial zones of AAMs having short CTs, which explained the relatively high compressive strength of those specimens. For AAMs having long CTs, there was a significant change in the intensity of the element concentration at the interfacial bond zone, and voids were observed resulting in low compressive strength of those specimens.


Farmers' supply responsiveness planting rice in Jambi Province was estimated using Meta- Profit analysis function. The objective of study is to analyze rice farmers' supply response. Research was conducted in Jambi Province in the year of 2010. Result showed that farmers' profit planting rice increased because its price increased. Furthermore, its share decreased when its labour wage increased. This implied to farmers to plant rice because rice was relatively more profitable than other plants. The result showed that farmers tended to pushed risk in planting decision. As expected that irrigation index was also the important significant factor. Following it found that its profit planting rice increased in wet season. This results were consistent with the fact that the water availability was important factor to plant rice. The consistency of previous result, it found that profit to plant rice was the positive determination with irrigation index. This implied that government policy in agriculture had positive impact on technological adoption. The analysis production function suggested that labour and fertilizer elasticities higher than zero significantly. Production rice elasticity by considering the number of labour used was a little bit lower than fertilizer. As expected, it found that rice production elasticity by considering irrigation index was bigger than zero significantly.


The availability of a GPS network of 10-20 km mean size, provides good topographical support for the measurement of ground displacements, even at a local scale such as a landslide. In particular, a series of multitemporal kinematic or rapid-static GPS acquisitions of a landslide allows a good characterization of its displacements if the measurements are referred to a GPS reference network. Nevertheless, a wider network formed by stations located at long distances, for example at several tens of kilometers, characterized by large spacing, can lead to results affected by high noise, degrading the accuracy of final point positions. In order to obtain an adequate GPS reference network, some virtual reference stations (VRSs) can be introduced, even if a network refinement based on VRS cannot reach the same accuracy of a real local network. Some experiments, including measurements on a real landslide, have been performed in order to evaluate the performance of this technique. The results point out that the standard deviation of the obtained solutions is about two or three times larger than those which can be reached using a real local network.


Electrodeposition of Al, which requires the use of a nonaqueous bath, is usually performed under an inert atmosphere of argon or nitrogen in a closed system, typically using a glove box, to protect the bath from hydrolysis. These operating conditions reduce productivity and increase Al electrodeposition process costs, thereby hindering industrialization. As described in this report, we demonstrate the electrodeposition of Al in dry air using dimethyl sulfone - AlCl 3 - based baths. By obviating a closed system, this method can facilitate the industrialization of Al elec trodeposition processes. Cyclic voltammetry, X - ray diffraction, and elemental analysis have confirmed Al metal electrodeposition in dry air. Hydrogen evolution was observed during electrodeposition in dry air, revealing that the current efficiency for the Al electrodeposition process was lower in dry air than in argon, although it remained higher than 90 %. The poor appearance of the Al coating electrodeposited in dry air was resolved using an additive. Stability of the bath in dry air for over a month was confirmed.


Existing image restoration methods mostly leverage the posterior distribution of natural images. However, they often assume known degradation and also require supervised training, which restricts their adaptation to complex real applications. In this work, we propose the Generative Diffusion Prior (GDP) to effectively model the posterior distributions in an unsupervised sampling manner. GDP utilizes a pre-train denoising diffusion generative model (DDPM) for solving linear inverse, non-linear, or blind problems. Specifically, GDP systematically explores a protocol of conditional guidance, which is verified more practical than the commonly used guidance way. Furthermore, GDP is strength at optimizing the parameters of degradation model during the denoising process, achieving blind image restoration. Besides, we devise hierarchical guidance and patch-based methods, enabling the GDP to generate images of arbitrary resolutions. Experimentally, we demonstrate GDP's versatility on several image datasets for linear problems, such as super-resolution, deblurring, inpainting, and colorization, as well as non-linear and blind issues, such as low-light enhancement and HDR image recovery. GDP outperforms the current leading unsupervised methods on the diverse benchmarks in reconstruction quality and perceptual quality. Moreover, GDP also generalizes well for natural images or synthesized images with arbitrary sizes from various tasks out of the distribution of the ImageNet training set. The project page is available at https://generativediffusionprior.github.io/


BackgroundSalmonella is one of the most concerned pathogenic bacterium worldwide. In our previous experiments, cinnamaldehyde showed prominent antibacterial effects on Salmonella Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium), indicating that it could be developed as a novel therapeutic drugs for Salmonella.ResultsIn this assay, the mechanism of cinnamaldehyde inhibiting S. Typhimurium was investigated. We studied the antibacterial mechanism of cinnamaldehyde using isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ) with two-dimensional liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (2D-LC-MS/MS), combining with bioinformatics. There were 2,212 proteins detected by iTRAQ, of which 73 proteins were up-regulated, and 82 of proteins were down-regulated. The differently expressed proteins were connected with 10 cellular components, 9 molecular functions and 13 biological processes as well as 57 Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways. There were some differently expressed proteins involved into biosynthesis and metabolism of amino, redox reaction, energy metabolism, toxins and drug-resistance. Cinnamaldehyde may have the potential to become a novel drug for Salmonella infection.ConclusionsBased on the iTRAQ technology, this paper explores the mechanism of cinnamaldehyde on Salmonella typhimurium at the protein level, digs the target of action, lays a theoretical foundation for further exploration, and provides new ideas for the clinical use and development of cinnamaldehyde.Therefore, cinnamaldehyde may have the potential to be used combined with antibiotics.


The effects of thermally accelerated ageing in irradiated and unirradiated 1310 nm InGaAsP edge-emitting lasers and InGaAs p-i-n photodiodes are presented. 40 lasers (20 irradiated) and 30 photodiodes (19 irradiated) were aged for 4000 hours at 80/spl deg/C. Periodic measurements were made of laser threshold and efficiency, and p-i-n leakage current and photocurrent. There were no sudden failures and there was very little wearout related degradation in either unirradiated or irradiated sample groups. The results suggest that the tested devices have a sufficiently long lifetime to operate for at least 10 years inside the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment despite being exposed to a harsh radiation environment.


Do firm managers invest the savings from tax avoidance in positive net present value projects that enhance future profitability or divert them towards perquisite consumption, rent extraction, and value destroying projects? We indirectly investigate this question by testing whether tax avoidance moderates the association between current and future profitability. Consistent with the negative implications of tax avoidance (e.g. rent extraction) we document that, on average, the main components of current profitability: margins, utilization of assets and operating liability leverage, result in lower future profitability for tax aggressive firms as compared to firms that are not tax aggressive. Further, the negative effect of lower margins is more robust and persistent than the impact of inefficient asset utilization and operating liability leverage. These results persist in various contexts that mitigate or exacerbate rent extraction, such as the existence of foreign operations, better governance structure, more transparency, industry leadership position, and across corporate life cycle stages.


Linear structural equation models represent direct causal effects as directed edges and confounding factors as bidirected edges. An open problem is to identify the causal parameters from correlations between the nodes. We investigate models, whose directed component forms a tree, and show that there, besides classical instrumental variables, missing cycles of bidirected edges can be used to identify the model. They can yield systems of quadratic equations that we explicitly solve to obtain one or two solutions for the causal parameters of adjacent directed edges. We show how multiple missing cycles can be combined to obtain a unique solution. This results in an algorithm that can identify instances that previously required approaches based on Gr\"obner bases, which have doubly-exponential time complexity in the number of structural parameters.


The foundation of successful business relies on recognition and positive experience among customers. The article examines theory of the brand and how well it is recognized in the Latvian spice market, focusing on the Tex Mex production. The research in this field is important as the Latvian spice market is still growing and many different brands are offered by various manufacturers therefore the competition is tough and it is important to strengthen the market space of Tex Mex spices. Moreover, there is an increase in the European spice market, therefore the research results are important for the European spice market in general. The purpose is to examine theoretical aspects of the brand and to evaluate the Tex Mex products' brand recognition in Latvia. The research novelty lays in the fact that a survey of 1011 Latvian residents is used, by analyzing their habits in Latvian spice market and, expecially the Tex Mex products. The paper contains following research methods: theory analyses; document analyses and analysis of a survey involving A 1011 Latvian residents - 454 females and 557 males, age group 15-74. The key results of the research: compared to the previous year, customers' attitude to the products of the brand Santa Maria Tex Mex has increased and currently Santa Maria is the market leader in Latvian Tex Mex products. At the same time more than half of Latvia's people have never purchased Tex Mex products.To promote the visibility of the Tex Mex products, product tastings should be chosen as they provide further information to consumers.


Good corporate governance has long been proclaimed by the government and there are organizations that have become regulators. For good governance at universities or colleges, Minister of Education and Culture Muhammad Nuh started it in 2012. With the good university governance implemented in universities, it can have an impact on the performance of the relevant universities. This study aims to knows the implications of good governance based on the principles of Law No. 12 of 2012 about Higher Education on the performance of universities in Surabaya. The research approach is quantitative research. The number of respondents in the study amounted to 70 people from 7 (seven) universities in Surabaya. Data collection method uses a questionnaire. Statistical testing includes testing validity and reliability and testing hypotheses. Hypothesis testing using multiple linear regression. The results of this study indicate that transparency and non-profit influence the performance of the university. While accountability, quality assurance, and efficiencies do not affect the performance of the university. The results of this study are expected to be a view for regulators in order to clarify mechanisms and measurements for good governance at universities or colleges,


The paper investigates those aspects of economic transformation and long-term economic development where financial institutions can and should make a contribution. It also investigates the financial services industry as a sector and tries to point out the conditions which can enable financial firms to perform these tasks properly. Banks, or any other financial firms, will become competitive and innovative only if the market conditions force them to do so. On the other hand, they will be unable to compete if they themselves do not have proper access to resources, production technologies and the appropriate infrastructure, and a supportive legal environment to carry out the necessary product and technology innovation.


Few studies have examined how diverse populations interpret warning labels. This study examined interpretations of 9 graphic cigarette warning labels (image plus text) proposed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration among a convenience sample of youth (ages 13–17) and adults (18+) across the United States. Participants (N = 1,571) completed a cross-sectional survey. Participants were asked to select 1 of 3 plausible interpretations (1 preferred vs. 2 alternative) created by the research team about the particular consequence of smoking addressed in each warning label. Participants also rated each label for novelty, counterarguing, perceived effectiveness, and harm. Smokers reported their thoughts of quitting, self-efficacy, and motivation to quit. Although at least 70% of the sample chose the preferred interpretation for 7 of 9 labels, only 13% of participants chose all 9 preferred interpretations. The odds of selecting the preferred interpretation were lower among African Americans, among those with less education, and for labels perceived as being more novel. Smokers reported greater counterarguing and less perceived effectiveness and harms than nonsmokers, but results were not consistent across all labels and interpretations. The alternative interpretations of cigarette warning labels were associated with lower perceived effectiveness and lower perceived harms of smoking, both of which are important for motivating quit attempts.


Physics outreach programs provide a critical context for informal experiences that promote the transition from new student to contributing physicist. Prior studies have suggested a positive link between participation in informal physics outreach programs and the development of a student's physics identity. In this study, we adopt a student-focused investigation to explore the effects of informal programs on dimensions of physics identity, sense of community, 21st century skill development, and motivation. We employed a mixed methods study combining a survey instrument (117 responses) and interviews (35) with current and former undergraduate and graduate students who participated in five programs through a physics and astronomy department at a large landgrant university. To examine interviews, we employed a framework based on situated learning theory, transformative learning theory, and the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity. Our findings, based on self-reported data, show that students who facilitated informal physics programs positively developed their physics identity, experienced increased sense of belonging to the physics community, and developed 21st century career skills. Specifically, students reported positive benefits to their communication, teamwork and networking, and design skills. The benefits of these programs can be achieved by departments of any size without significant commitment of funds or changes to curriculum.


Toxoplasma gondii is a ubiquitous coccidian protozoan that can infect a wide range of warm-blooded animals, including humans. For immunocompetent humans it is a well-adapted parasite that usually causes asymptomatic infection. However, in congenitally infected infants and immunocompromised patients it can cause a serious life threatening disease. The aim of this study was to determine the levels of anti-toxoplasma antibodies among residents of the South Backa District, Serbia. During the period from January 2014 to December 2018, sera from 11,288 persons from South Backa District were tested on the presence of IgM and IgG antibodies against Toxoplasma gondii, using ELISA test (Euroimmun, Lübeck, Germany). The testing was performed on the automatic device Euroimmun Analyzer I-2P. The avidity of IgG WNV antibodies was determined for IgG positive sera using commercial avidity test (Euroimmun, Lübeck, Germany). In total, out of 11,288 patients who were tested for toxoplasma antibodies, the results were positive for 2,513 (22.26%). In 2014 seropositivity for Toxoplasma gondii was 25.78% (464/1800), in 2015 it was 23.30% (400/1717), in 2016 it amounted 20.99% (474/2258), in 2017 it was 21.47% (529/2464) and in 2018 seropositivity was 20.96% (639/3049). Seropositivity of 26.53% (390/1470) was found in males and it amounted 21.62% (2123/9818) in females. Possible recent infection within the last 12 months was found in 1.70% (192/11288) patients. Possible acute infection or false - positive IgM result was detected in 1.31% (148/11288) patients. Past infection was found in 2173/11288 (19.25%) patients. Equivocal results were found in 1.48% of samples (167/11288). The lowest frequency of anti-toxoplasma antibodies was detected in pre-school children 13.07% (97/742) and the highest in persons older than 65 years 60.18% (65/108). Comparing the results of the research done from 2014 to 2018 with the data from 1989, a significant decline of seroprevalence in general population and women of generative age was found.


Nowadays, switched reluctance machines (SRM) are gaining interest in the scientific community due to the advantages they offer. The SRM offers an overall efficiency similar to an induction motor of the same rating, since the friction and windage losses are comparable. Many researches have been done on SRMs, their related systems and challenges. This paper reviews the SRM structures, their advantages and disadvantages. Various SRM topologies are studied and their merits and limits are given. Additionally, the most common control strategies for SRM drives are categorized, which is followed by a summary of the researches on challenges in torque and vibration reduction.


Objectives: Rhabdomyoma is the most common type of cardiac tumor in fetuses and is often associated with tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) with neurologic sequelae. The purpose of this study is to investigate short-term and long-term outcome of fetal cardiac rhabdomyoma. Methods: We analyzed the clinical characteristics of 23 cases prenatally diagnosed with cardiac rhabomyomas on fetal echocardiography at Asan Medical Center between January 1998 and December 2009. We performed postnatal workup including brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), echocardiography, abdominal ultrasonography and molecular genetic analysis to confirm the presence of cardiac rhabdomyomas associated with or without TSC. Results: Among 23 cases, 17 cases (74%) had available outcome and 6 cases (26%) were lost to follow-up. 1) The survival rate was 100% (17/17). 2) Among 17 cases, while spontaneous tumor regression occurred in 11 cases (65%), no change in tumor size and number was observed in the remaining 6 cases (35%). 3) There was no evidence of long-term cardiac dysfunction due to remnant rhabdomyomas, regardless of tumor size. 4) TSC was revealed in 9 patients (53%), of whom four (44%) showed neurodevelopmental morbidities. 5) Among 4 patients with neurologic impairment, three (75%) had TSC gene (TSC1/TSC2) mutation. 6) Seven (78%) of 9 TSC cases were non-familial. Conclusions: The overall outcome of isolated cardiac rhabdomyomas was favorable. We suggest that systematic evaluation of TSC be performed even in cases of cardiac rhabdomyomas without family history of TSC. Molecular diagnosis of TSC1 and TSC 2 might be helpful in predicting short-term and long-term neurodevelopmental outcome.


Background and Aims: Outbreaks of severe and chronic tick-borne diseases (TBDs) are on the rise. This is through the transmission of infectious disease agents to humans during tick feeding. The transmission rate and extent of microbial exchange, however, vary based on the tick microbiome composition. While select microbes are determined to be members of the normal tick microbiome and others are clearly recognized mammalian and/or avian pathogens, the status of many other members of the tick microbiota with respect to human and alternate host pathogenesis remains unclear. Moreover, the species-level 16S microbiome of prominent TBD vectors, including Ixodes pacificus, have not been extensively studied. To elucidate the I. pacificus microbiome composition, we performed a pan-domain species-specific characterization of the bacterial microbiome on adult I. pacificus ticks collected from two regional parks within Western California. Our methods provide for characterizing nuances within cohort microbiomes and their relationships to geo-locale of origin, surrounding fauna, and prevalences of known and suspected pathogens in relation to current TBD epidemiological zones. Methods: Ninety-two adult I. pacificus bacterial microbiomes were characterized using a high-fidelity, pan-domain, species-specific, full-length 16S rRNA amplification method using circular consensus sequencing performed on the Pacific Biosciences Sequel platform. Data analyses were performed with the MCSMRT data analysis package and database. Results: The species-specific I. pacificus microbiome composition illustrates a complex assortment of microflora, including over 900 eubacterial species with high taxonomic diversity, which was revealed to vary by sex and geo-locale, though the use of full-length 16S gene sequencing. The TBD-associated pathogens, such as Borrelia burgdorferi, Anaplasma phagocytophilum, and Rickettsia monacensis, were identified along with a host of bacteria previously unassociated with ticks. Conclusion: Species-level taxonomic classification of the I. pacificus microbiome revealed that full-length bacterial 16S gene sequencing is required for the granularity to elucidate the microbial diversity within and among ticks based on geo-locale.


Stability and Optimization of Flexible Space Structures S.J. Britvec 2012-12-06 The aim of this book is to present up-to-date methodologies in the analysis and optimization of the elastic stability of lightweight statically determinate, and indeterminate, space structures made of flexible members which are highly stiff when loaded centrally at the nodes. These are flat and curved space pinconnected open or enveloped lattices and reticulated shells which, due to their high loadbearing capacity to weight ratios, are gaining in importance in aerospace and other fields. They are utilized, for example, in space stations, as support structures for large radio-telescopes and for other equipment on earth and in outer space, as roof structures for the coverage and enclosure of large areas on earth and as underwater shelltype structures enveloped by a cover-shell capable of withstanding high hydrostatic pressures. • Space structures of this type are generally subjected to considerable internal axial loads in the flexible members and they fail through the loss of global statical stability, usually precipitated by the intrinsic small imperfections at finite near-critical elastic deformations and not primarily by the the break-down of the material of which they are made, as is the case in conventional systems. Thus, the criterion in the design of such structures calls for eliminating or isolating the onset of the elastic dynamic collapse thereby increasing their safe stability limit. • Standard finite element methods, as they are employed by most users today, are totally inadequate for such analyses since they do not account for the choice of the branching paths in the loading process of the structure nor for the existence of the relevant collapse modes. • These aspects are novel and they are presented here for the first time in comprehensive book form.


© 1998 Canadian Medical Association (text and abstract/résumé) Osteopenia is responsible for substantial comorbidity in patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and is an important factor in the surgical management of joint disease. In animal models of bone loss stimulated by inflammatory arthritis, increased bone remodelling and altered microstructure of bone have been documented. The subchondral bone plate near the joint surface is narrow and perforated by vascular inflammatory invasion, and in the shaft the thin cortices are weakened by giant resorption defects. Biomechanical tests and a mathematical model of bone strength suggest that cortical defects, much larger than those found in normal osteonal remodelling, are principally responsible for the experimentally observed loss of strength. Similarly, these defects may explain the increased femoral fracture risk in rheumatoid arthritis. The osteoclast, the cell resorbing bone, is demonstrated in increased number and activity in rheumatoid arthritis and in animal models. Bisphosphonates, drugs that inhibit osteoclast function, have been shown experimentally to reduce both focal and generalized osteopenia and to prevent loss of bone strength. Bisphosphonates also protect articular cartilage from damage characteristic of inflammatory arthritis. The mechanism of chondroprotection may be prevention of subchondral bone resorption by the osteoclast and also an altered distribution of bone marrow cells. Thus, bisphosphonates, currently in clinical use for other bone metabolic diseases, appear to have potential as prophylaxis and treatment for osteopenia and joint damage in inflammatory arthritis.


Human peripheral blood lymphocytes have been sensitized in vitro to influenza virus antigen. After an induction period of 4–14 days, cytotoxic cells which lyse autologous influenza virus‐infected lymphoid cells could be demonstrated. The cytotoxic cell is a T lymphocyte which shows specificity for sensitizing influenza virus type A or B. It cannot distinguish between major subtypes of influenza A virus. The use of virus‐infected normal lymphoid cells as target cells overcame the difficulties of nonspecific killing encountered with some transformed cells.


Molecular dynamics simulations under different conditions and rotational isomeric states calculations are performed to understand the local and global conformational properties of the bacterial polyester poly(3-hydroxy-5,8-decadienoate). The rotational isomeric state model is incorporated with Monte Carlo simulations to calculate the dimensions and the characteristic ratio of the infinitely long chain. These calculations, performed in a vacuum, predict a Gaussian distribution for the end-to-end vector with a nonzero mean and a value of 5.5 for the characteristic ratio. Molecular dynamics simulations predict the characteristic ratio of the single chain in good solvent as 23. The role of temperature on the overall dimensions and on the distribution of dihedral angles is discussed. Radii of gyration and helix formation propensities at different temperatures and in different media are compared. The chain in solution is found to have the largest persistence length with the highest helical persistence. Results are compared with experimental and theoretical studies conducted on poly(3-hydroxybutyrate), which has the same backbone structure but a different type of side chain.


Existing research has identified feelings of responsibility as having major motivational implications for a person's actions. A person identifying as being responsible for a certain task will perceive themselves as self-determined and thus invest considerable effort in the task. Despite being conceptualised as an individual's sense of internal obligation, responsibility in everyday contexts is often attributed by and to other people. Different perspectives on responsibility may, however, not always overlap, especially in the school context where tasks and liabilities often remain ill-defined. This paper thus presents a framework of responsibility in the school context which assumes teachers, students and parents to share a certain number of microsystems which may (indirectly) influence one another. In order to test the usefulness of the proposed framework, a series of studies were conducted collecting data on teachers', students' and parents' views of their own and one another's responsibility in the school context. 4339 statements were assigned to categories representing different parts of the framework and reveal its usefulness for describing the complexity of responsibility attributions and its influences in the school context. Findings show the framework will be helpful to embrace existing research and develop questions for further research that address central educational issues such as student and teacher motivation, teacher burnout as well as prerequisites for students' high or low achievement.


Support in R for state space estimation via Kalman filtering was limited to one package, until fairly recently. In the last five years, the situation has changed with no less than four additional packages offering general implementations of the Kalman filter, including in some cases smoothing, simulation smoothing and other functionality. This paper reviews some of the offerings in R to help the prospective user to make an informed choice.


Coding is essential in all communications and in all multi-operation devices, and errors do occur. For error control, the method in vogue is to use code words with redundant digits. The number of redundant digits is determined based on two things − the number of messages and the kind of errors that need to be controlled. For efficient coding the redundant digits have to be kept to the minimum. In this paper we introduce the idea of limited error patters while using the code alphabet { } 0,1, 2,..., 1 ,mod , q Z q q = − when q > 3. We define limitations of the errors in a position by substitution of the character there by a specified number of other characters, rather than by any other character. This is not possible through Hamming approach, because there a character in an error could be substituted by any other of the q–1 characters. The firm mathematical base is provided by use of a metric from the class of S-K metrics, Hamming metric being one of these. The paper gives upper bounds on the codeword lengths for various kinds of "random limited error patterns". Examples and discussion bring out the tremendous improvement and generalization of Rao Hamming bound.


High-performance nitrogen-doped carbon-supported nanoparticulate transition-metal catalysts (M–N–C-X) are urgently desired in a diverse range of application fields for their very low-cost and abundant reserves compared with precious-metal-based catalysts. However, a general and simple method that can simultaneously manipulate the morphology of the carbon support material and the particle size of supported metal nanoparticles is still a formidable challenge. In this context, we report a versatile and simple approach for the synthesis of M–N–C–X via the utilization of metal (Fe and Co)–phenolic (tannic acid) complexes and dicyandiamide as renewable feedstocks. Specifically, by simply manipulating the addition content of the metal precursor, one-dimensional (1D) metal nanoparticles encapsulated in nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes (M–N–CNTs), two-dimensional (2D) hierarchically porous nitrogen-doped carbon-supported metal nanoparticles (2D-M–N–C), and three-dimensional (3D) metal nanoparticles encapsulated in nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes in situ grown on hierarchically porous carbon sheets (M–N–CNTs/NC) can be synthesized, along with the variation of the metal particle size from dozens of nanometers to sub-nanometers. By utilizing the chemical conversion of p-nitrophenol to p-aminophenol in a NaBH4 aqueous solution as a model reaction system, Co–N–C-0.5 showed the highest catalytic performance, with a mass-normalized rate constant of 578 min−1 g −1L. Such a performance was achieved because the 2D hierarchically porous carbon sheets provided sufficient active sites and fast mass transportation, and the particle size and exposed content of cobalt nanoparticles were balanced. Owing to the outstanding chelating and complexing ability of tannic acid, this method is potentially amenable to obtain M–N–C-X by using other metal precursors. This synthetic methodology can provide inspiration for further development of high performance supported metal catalysts.


We present range encoding with no expansion (RENÉ)— a novel encoding scheme for short ranges on Ternary content addressable memory (TCAM), which, unlike previous solutions, does not impose row expansion, and uses bits proportionally to the maximal range length. We provide theoretical analysis to show that our encoding is the closest to the lower bound of number of bits used. In addition, we show several applications of our technique in the field of packet classification, and also, how the same technique could be used to efficiently solve other hard problems, such as the nearest-neighbor search problem and its variants. We show that using TCAM, one could solve such problems in much higher rates than previously suggested solutions, and outperform known lower bounds in traditional memory models. We show by experiments that the translation process of RENÉ on switch hardware induces only a negligible 2.5% latency overhead. Our nearest neighbor implementation on a TCAM device provides search rates that are up to four orders of magnitude higher than previous best prior-art solutions.


This study applies generational cohort theory, as well as uses and gratifications theory, to investigate the media program preferences of China's Generation X (Gen X) consumers. Using syndicated data from a large random sample of urban Chinese consumers, we find that the Gen X cohort consumers, compared with their preceding generational cohorts, tend to pay more attention to entertainment-based media programs such as television drama series and radio pop music, and shun information-based topics such as news or business reports. Furthermore, while cohort effects on preferences for media program types exist, the effects are less pronounced in more developed regions in China. Compared with their counterparts in Xi'an, a less developed city, Gen X consumers living in Guangzhou, a more developed city, are more attentive to information-based programs on television and in newspapers, and show less preference for entertainment-based content.


The review summarizes recent data on the structural and functional organization and regulation mechanisms of Na+ transport in epithelial systems. The review is focused on the structure, function, regulation and pathology of epithelial Na+ channels, which are critical for Na+ homeostasis maintenance and blood pressure control.


What is the activating force that organizes economic affairs? The social side of human nature means that competition alone is not sufficient because competition is the expression of human individuality. Cooperation, which gives expression to human sociality, is the other one. Reality provides many examples indicating that people are more cooperative than is assumed in the standard self-interest model. In the last twenty years the academic view has changed about whether we should compete or cooperate for the higher competitiveness. In the eighties they supported the opinion that the competition is the only way to achieve success in business. Later on the argument started on competition vs. cooperation, and they realized that in some situation the competition, while in others the cooperation is efficient. In the same period the two definitions have changed as well. Different writers defined competition and cooperation variously according to their research' approach. The study examined competition and cooperation separately, but there exist a new notion, according to which different independent partners can cooperate and compete at the same time with each other. So the opposite approaches can be fused, that is coopetition. Coopetition is a very popular solution for the present complex problems. But according to the everyday people it is not sure, that "working with the enemy†can run.


This paper presents a continuous-flow cell screening device to isolate and separate microalgae cells (Chlamydomonas reinhardtii) based on lipid content using high frequency (50 MHz) dielectrophoresis. This device enables screening of microalgae due to the balance between lateral DEP forces relative to hydrodynamic forces. Positive DEP force along with amplitude-modulated electric field exerted on the cells flowing over the planar interdigitated electrodes, manipulated low-lipid cell trajectories in a zigzag pattern. Theoretical modelling confirmed cell trajectories during sorting. Separation quantification and sensitivity analysis were conducted with time-course experiments and collected samples were analysed by flow cytometry. Experimental testing with nitrogen starved dw15-1 (high-lipid, HL) and pgd1 mutant (low-lipid, LL) strains were carried out at different time periods, and clear separation of the two populations was achieved. Experimental results demonstrated that three populations were produced during nitrogen starvation: HL, LL and low-chlorophyll (LC) populations. Presence of the LC population can affect the binary separation performance. The continuous-flow micro-separator can separate 74% of the HL and 75% of the LL out of the starting sample using a 50 MHz, 30 voltages peak-to-peak AC electric field at Day 6 of the nitrogen starvation. The separation occurred between LL (low-lipid: 86.1% at Outlet # 1) and LC (88.8% at Outlet # 2) at Day 9 of the nitrogen starvation. This device can be used for onsite monitoring; therefore, it has the potential to reduce biofuel production costs


Atmospheric phase contribution significantly influences co-seismic surface deformation estimates from repeat pass Differential Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (DInSAR). Present study investigates the contribution of the atmosphere in co-seismic deformation estimation associated with the 20 April 2013 Lushan (China) earthquake. The Lushan Earthquake occurred in the south-western segment of the Longmenshan fault zone, on the eastern margin of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Using pre- and postearthquake Radarsat-2 interferometric pair, the co-seismic deformation of the Lushan earthquake has been estimated. The tropospheric phase delay component has been estimated using tropospheric models in conjunction with surface temperature and pressure data from MODIS atmospheric products. The ionospheric phase component has been computed using the Total Electron Content (TEC) data. The net atmospheric path addition in the study area varies from 3.022 m to 4.621 m for the pre-earthquake SAR acquisition and from 2.687 m to 4.199 m for the post-event data acquisition. Comparison of the Line of Sight (LOS) displacement values computed using un-corrected and corrected interferometric data shows that the atmospheric phase component has introduced considerable contribution in the LOS displacement values. The uncorrected LOS displacement values vary from 0.902 m to −0.157 m where as those from the phase-corrected interferometric data are in the range of 0.052 m and −0.062 m. The corrected LOS displacement values show close agreement to a few GPS based co-seismic surface deformation components from published literature. Thus removal of atmospheric phase contribution is a necessary step in using repeat pass DInSAR for co-seismic surface deformation estimation.


A single-stage vapor compression refrigeration system becomes inefficient and impractical when the temperature lift between the evaporator and the condenser becomes large. Under the high-temperature lift, different losses in the system increase, and more refrigerant vapor is formed at the end of the throttling process. The authors have attempted to analyze a vapor compression refrigeration system with a dedicated subcooler for high-temperature lift applications using R134a in the main cycle and four low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants in the subcooler cycle. The modeling of the proposed system has been carried out in Engineering Equation Solver (EES) considering the energy, exergy, and economic aspects for the simulation of the system. The predicted results show that the use of the proposed system is more beneficial from both performance and economic point of view for high-temperature lift. Nearly 27% improvement in both energetic and exergetic performances are noted whereas cost is reduced by 2% when the proposed system is used instead of a typical refrigeration system. Finally, the present investigation concludes that the use of refrigerant R1234ze is much efficient than the other investigated refrigerants due to its low GWP and compressor discharge temperature, in spite of achieving better thermo-economic performances using R152a as subcooler refrigerant.


The present study investigated the effects of language experience on the perceptual learning induced by either brief exposure to or more intensive training with time-compressed speech. Native (n = 30) and nonnative (n = 30) listeners were each divided to three groups with different experiences with time-compressed speech: A trained group who trained on the semantic verification of time-compressed sentences for three sessions, an exposure group briefly exposed to 20 time-compressed sentences, and a group of naive listeners. Recognition was assessed with three sets of time-compressed sentences intended to evaluate exposure-induced and training-induced learning as well as across-token and across-talker generalization. Learning profiles differed between native and nonnative listeners. Exposure had a weaker effect in nonnative than in native listeners. Furthermore, native and nonnative trained listeners significantly outperformed their untrained counterparts when tested with sentences taken from the training set. However, only trained native listeners outperformed naive native listeners when tested with new sentences. These findings suggest that the perceptual learning of speech is sensitive to linguistic experience. That rapid learning is weaker in nonnative listeners is consistent with their difficulties in real-life conditions. Furthermore, nonnative listeners may require longer periods of practice to achieve native-like learning outcomes.


The North and the global South are separated not only by the Equator, but also by an abyssal thinking, as emphasized by the author Portuguese Boaventura de Sousa Santos, which presents the Modern Western Thought as responsible for making invisible, non-existent, the knowledge produced and practiced by humans in the global South, while the North is global hegemonic in its being, being and doing in the world. However, the South epistemologies exist and can help you understand how to practice co-presence, until now denied by abyssal thinking that makes the hegemonic global North. So, open up possibilities for exploring parallel understanding epistemologies North of Brazil, located in the global South, since the existence of abyssal thinking global instigates us to also discuss the hypothesis of a thought abysmal environmental Brazil, definer a line; 'this side of the line' is the Southeast and 'across the line' is the North of Brazil, in which context the North represents all other regions, except the Southeast. Epistemologies of southeastern Brazil are assumed hegemonic, but need to be deconstructed to the revelations engendered research on the epistemologies of the North Country, thereby reconstruct a Brazilian thought, where North, South, Southeast, Northeast and Midwest recognize physical geography and politics of Brazil, without forgetting that the human being in any geographical locations and under different political contexts are diverse, complex, and this has to be knowledge and expertise, and must take up counter-hegemonic, while there is no hegemony . The beginning of the reconstruction process is understanding how the sociology of absences makes this all that was made invisible by the logic and methods of production of non existence and presents the ecology of knowledge as an antidote to the production of absences, because that will represent the ecology superstructure built this new thinking replacement of abyssal thinking of Southeastern Brazil hegemonic. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to explore the possibilities of epistemologies of Northern Brazil for the construction of Brazilian thought.


Three kinds of fracture specimens are tested under different constraint conditions. One is 3PB(Three Point Bending) specimen, another is CCT(Center Cracked Tension) specimen, and the third one is called CCB(Center Cracked Bending) specimen. By the SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) observation, it is shown that the roughness of fracture surface is different from each other largely. They are the effect of constraint condition. The dimple fracture process is simulated by the finite element method using Gurson's constitutive equation, and the crack tip stress fields are obtained. The distributions of stress triaxiality components are qualitatively agree with the experimental results. The J-R curves obtained also qualitatively agree with those of experiments, and the fracture surface roughness is well simulated.


The case reports of 40 patients with obstructive esophageal cancer treated with electrofulguration (EF) or neodymium (Nd)-YAG laser were reviewed. Surgery was contraindicated because of advanced carcinoma (17 patients), recurrence after resection (13 patients), recurrence after irradiation (four patients), and poor medical condition (four). Two patients refused surgery. There were 31 men and four women; mean age was 62 years. There were 31 adenocarcinomas, eight squamous cell carcinomas, and one metastatic breast carcinoma. Tumor locations were lower esophagus in 35 patients, middle esophagus in three, and cervical esophagus in two. Thirty-five patients had obstructions; two, bleeding, and three, both. None of the patients could swallow solids. A total of 255 treatments were given (mean, 6.6 per patient). The mean number of Nd-YAG treatments was 1.9; for EF, 1.3. All 40 patients tolerated solid food after treatment and the esophagus remained open from three to 14 weeks. Mean survival from first treatment was 11 months; from diagnosis, 17 months. Both techniques were safe and effective.


A satisfactory method has been developed for measuring the attenuation of brightness contrast by the atmosphere along horizontal paths for the visible region of the spectrum. The method consists of the measurement of the apparent brightness of "black" and "white" test objects (referred to hereafter as targets) located at different distances from a photoelectric telephotometer. The method is being used in an ONR sponsored research program at the University of Texas. In this program seven pairs of "black" and "white" targets are being used. These are rectangular in shape and subtend practically the same angle with respect to the telephotometer. The targets range in size from 0.65×1.30 ft. to 33×66 ft. These are located approximately along a horizontal line running nearly due East starting at a point located about eight miles east of Austin, Texas, and cover a range of nearly 9 miles in the vicinity of the Colorado River. This location of the target range provides a means of making atmospheric attenuation measurements for different azimuth angles between the path of observation and the position of the sun. In addition, the location is such that fogs and dust haze occur fairly frequently as well as a highly clear atmosphere. The data obtained during the first year of operation indicate that, for "white light," the brightness contrast is exponentially attenuated and that the attenuation coefficient is surprisingly insensitive to the naturally occurring local variations in illumination along the observation path.


: Mutations in the tumour-suppressor gene p53 are the most frequent molecular alterations detected in human tumours. p53 protein, which has been called "guardian of the genome", seems to play a key role in cellular DNA repair. Loss of p53 protein function by genetic mutation thereby makes the cell vulnerable to DNA damage, and disposes it to malignant transformation. In different human tumour types the prognostic relevance of p53 alterations is quite variable: While there is evidence of poor prognosis in breast cancer carrying p53 alterations, no such prognostic correlation could be found in low grade astrocytic gliomas. In both tumour types p53 mutations are equally frequent. Malignant transformation is considered a multistep process, and p53 mutations occur at different positions in this cascade in different tumour types. While p53 mutations seem to be an early event in astrocytic gliomas, they affect e.g. colon tumours rather late, during malignant progression from adenoma to carcinoma. These observations underscore the biological importance of p53 mutations in human tumour formation, even if the simple investigation for a prognostic relevance may lead to different results in tumours of different tissues.


Several countries in the Asia-Pacific region are experiencing demographic changes. Over 60 per cent of the world's youth live in Asia and the Pacific, which translates into more than 750 million young women and men aged 15 to 24 years. They represent a key asset for the countries of this region. Young people are a major human resource for development, key agents for social change and driving force for economic development and technological innovation. But harnessing these resources is a major challenge. The youth challenge is considered as the most critical of the 21st century's economic development challenge. In this context, this paper examines the labour market characteristics for adults and the entire population. Then it analyses challenges and opportunities in labour market for youth. Next, the paper discusses the existing and needed policies for taking care of the challenges in overall and youth labour markets. It also provides conclusions and recommendations. We also highlight the gender issues in the paper. The recommendations include direct policies such as active lbour market policies, social protection programmes, fair migration and indirect policies like pro employment macro policies. There are significant links between creating employment opportunities for the youth and enhancement of human development. Employment and livelihoods particularly productive youth employment has impact on most of the indicators of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They can reduce poverty, under nutrition, improve the education, health and gender equality.


To determine the influence of incubation time, diet, and particle size on Ca and P solubility in vitro, experimental diets were formulated to contain 0.89% Ca and 0.40% available P (positive control; PC) or 0.76% Ca and 0.27% available P (negative control; NC). The PC was supplemented with 0 or 1,000 phytase units (FTU) of microbial phytase/kg and the NC with 0, 1,000, or 5,000 FTU/kg diet of microbial phytase for a total of 5 experimental diets. In Exp. 1, diets were exposed to simulated gastric digestion containing HCl and pepsin for 42 min, or a small intestinal digestion phase containing NaHCO(3) and pancreatin for 60 min. In Exp. 2, diets were ground to pass a 1- or 2-mm screen and exposed to gastric digestion for 5, 10, or 20 min. Phosphorus and Ca solubility were similarly influenced by diet and digestion phase (Exp. 1), and there was no interaction. Phytase supplementation improved (P < 0.001) Ca and P solubility in both the PC and NC diets (Exp. 1) and increased P (P < 0.001) and Ca (P < 0.001) solubility in the gastric phase of the in vitro digestion model (Exp. 2). Phytase continued to release P in the gastric test over time, which resulted in a diet × time interaction (P < 0.05). Calcium solubility reached an asymptote at 5 min and both Ca and P solubility was reduced (P < 0.05) in diets ground to pass a 2 mm screen compared with diets ground to pass a 1-mm screen. In addition, P and Ca solubility did not change over time in diets not supplemented with phytase. In conclusion, phytase or particle size altered the kinetics of Ca and P release in a non-parallel fashion, which may be associated with the precipitation of Ca with phytate and the sequential dephosphorylation of phytate by a microbial 6-phytase. In the presence of phytase, considerable Ca and P hydrolysis occurred within 5 min of a simulated gastric digestion. However, the solubility of Ca and P reached a plateau in the gastric phase of digestion and no further improvements in solubility are apparent in the small intestine. Therefore, absorption of Ca and P may be complicated by conditions within the gastrointestinal tract, particle size, precipitation with anti-nutrients, and differential rates of delivery to the small intestine.


Background and Objective: While being diagnosed with breast cancer can cause psychological disturbances for patients and decrease their quality of life, resilience can evidently act as a protective factor. The purpose of the current study was to explore the relationship between anxiety, depression, and quality of life among women with breast cancer by considering the mediating role of resilience. Materials and Methods: In the present descriptive study, 92 female patients with breast cancer admitted in Seyedoshohada Hospital, Isfahan, were selected through convenience sampling. The participants filled out cancer patient Quality of life Questionnaire, Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale, and Block & Kremen Ego Resiliency Scale. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics including Pearson product -moment correlation and hierarchical regression analysis were used in SPSS (version 22) to analyze the data. Results: The mean of anxiety was 10.81±3.46, the mean of depression was 8.56±4.04, the mean of resilience was 45.57±8.89, and the mean of quality of life was 62.95±18.46. The results indicated that there wasa statistically significant relationship between these patients quality of life and their depression (r=-0.74, p less-than .001), anxiety (r=-0.60, p less-than .001), and resilience (r=0.45, p less-than .001). The hierarchical regression analysis results showed that resilience had a mediating role in the relationship between anxiety and depression, in one hand, and the quality of life, in the other hand, among these patients. Conclusion: Anxiety and depression can decrease breast cancer patients quality of life. However, resilience can moderate this effect. Hence, it seems along with medical treatments, appropriate psychological interventions by psychologists, nurses, and social workers for enhancing resilience can have a significant role in improving breast cancer patients quality of life. Key words: Breast cancer, Anxiety, Depression, Quality of life, Resilience, Isfahan Funding: This study did not have any funds. Conflict of interest: None declared. Ethical approval: The Ethics Committee of University of Kashan approved the study. How to cite this article: Sadoughi M, Mehrzad V, Mohammad Z. SalehiThe Relationship between Anxiety, Depression, and Quality of Life among Breast Cancer Patients in Seyedoshohada Hospital in Isfahan in 2016: The Mediating Role of Resilience. J Rafsanjan Univ Med Sci 2017; 16(5): 395-408. [Farsi]


The problem of multiuser detection in multipath CDMA channels with a receiver antenna array is considered. The optimal space-time multiuser receiver structure is first outlined, followed by linear space-time multiuser detection methods based on iterative interference cancellation. Blind adaptive space-time multiuser detection techniques are also developed. It is seen that the proposed multiuser space-time processing techniques offer substantial performance gains over the single-user-based methods, especially in a near-far situation.


This article addresses the contradictions associated with the access of new audiences to higher education in Brazil in the last decade, aiming to describe and characterize the expansion of the system. Advances and limitations can be identified, as there are democratization movements and changes in patterns of persistent inequality. The discussion is based on studies about educational stratification, drawing on a Bourdieusian framework, and uses secondary statistical data on higher education and other Brazilian social indicators, collected by official agencies. The analysis indicates the increase in access to higher education in terms of income and ethnic group, allowing for a broader access to academic cultural capital and labour opportunities. However, it reinforces the argument that inequalities associated with educational stratification still remain in Brazil. The inclusion of these new audiences in Brazilian higher education is marked by categories of differentiation, such as the nature of institutions and funding of higher education, types of degree, teaching modality and shift. With that, despite the advances towards massification and retreat on vertical stratification, the forms of horizontal stratification in Brazilian higher education are increasing.


The author describes methods for experimental testing of the ability of alcohol and drugs to induce pathological motivation. These methods are intended for testing barbiturates, tranquilizers, analgesics, hallucinogens and psychostimulants. As for ethanol, there is a possibility of screening "high risk groups".


Purpose The purpose of the study is to identify and discuss critical aspects of the academic/practitioner gap and suggest how to make marketing research more relevant. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses data from an earlier study of eight qualitative interviews conducted with B2B marketing practitioners and from an earlier quantitative study among 128 academics and 510 marketing research practitioners. The data are re-analyzed for this article. Findings – Results show that academics and practitioners agree that academic research should be of more practical value. However, their priorities differ. For academics publishing in refereed journals is the first priority and influencing practice is of much lower priority, while practitioners are not interested in the methodological and theoretical advances of marketing research; their priority is to satisfy day-to-day practical needs. Hence, practitioners have no interest in academic journals. The academic reward system tends to reinforce this divide since academic career progression depends substantially on the production of refereed journal articles. Research limitations/implications – Much prior consideration has been given to how academic journals can be made more relevant to practitioners, which is a desirable goal. However, a more fruitful approach for B2B academics would be to embrace new technologies such as blogging and social media in order to reach practitioners through their preferred channels. If greater relevance is to be achieved, then consideration needs to be given to the views of doctoral students, and to doctoral training processes in B2B marketing. Practical implications –The study provides academics with guidance concerning how marketing research can have a greater effect on the practice of marketing. Originality/value – The study contributes to the research base by identifying and discussing critical aspects of the academic/practitioner gap. The study also offers insights into how managerial relevance in marketing research can, practically, be improved.


A total of 13,066 first-lactation test-day records of 2,277 Valle del Belice ewes from 17 flocks were used to estimate genetic parameters for somatic cell scores (SCS) and milk production traits, using a repeatability test-day animal model. Heritability estimates were low and ranged from 0.09 to 0.14 for milk, fat, and protein yields, and contents. For SCS, the heritability of 0.14 was relatively high. The repeatabilities were moderate and ranged from 0.29 to 0.47 for milk production traits. The repeatability for SCS was 0.36. Flock-test-day explained a large proportion of the variation for milk production traits, but it did not have a big effect on SCS. The genetic correlations of fat and protein yields with fat and protein percentages were positive and high, indicating a strong association between these traits. The genetic correlations of milk production traits with SCS were positive and ranged from 0.16 to 0.31. The results showed that SCS is a heritable trait in Valle del Belice sheep and that single-trait selection for increased milk production will also increase SCS.


It has long been understood that it is proteins, expressed and post-translationally modified, that are the primary regulators of both the fate and the function of cells. The ability to measure differences in the expression of the constellation of unique protein forms (proteoforms) with complete molecular specificity has the potential to sharply improve the return on investment for mass spectrometry-based proteomics in translational research and clinical diagnostics.