Background The purpose of this study was to report early outcomes after patellar realignment surgery (PRS) was performed for patellar instability in children and adolescents. Methods The study cohort consisted of 23 patients (27 knees) who had PRS between March 1, 2000 and July 30, 2004, by a single surgeon, with a minimum 3-year follow-up and validated outcome measures. Preoperative diagnoses were dislocations in 22 knees and subluxations in 5 knees. The mean age was 14 years and 1 month. Results Postoperatively, 2 knees had possible recurrent dislocation/subluxation episodes; neither required surgery. Persistent patellofemoral mechanical symptoms have been reported in 10 knees. At a mean follow-up of 5 years and 1 month, the mean Lysholm score was 69.3 and the mean International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) score was 65.6. The mean Tegner activity level was 5.4. Patients reported improvement in knee function and pain in 26 of 28 knees (93%). Significant group differences were identified for age at surgery, preoperative diagnosis, and length of preoperative knee symptoms. The group with scores ≥70 were younger (13.1 vs. 14.9 y), were all patellar dislocators (vs. 66% in the <70 group), and with shorter length of symptoms (13 mo vs. 24 mo). In the ≥70 groups the Tegner activity levels were higher at 6.8 versus the <70 group at 4.3. Conclusions At a mean of 5 years after PRS, 93% of patients reported persistent improvement in knee function and pain, and recurrent patellar dislocation/subluxation episodes were infrequent (7%). Despite the low rate of postoperative patellar instability the patients' subjective opinion of knee function was less than expected (mean IKDC 65.5). Further investigation is warranted to identify causes for this suboptimal outcome at a mean of 5 years postoperatively. Clinical Relevance These data reinforce the recurring theme documented in other areas of orthopaedics of a disconnection between the "surgical" success (93% improved) and patient's subjective outcome (mean IKDC of 65.6). Level of Evidence Level III.


Ultrasonography using high-magnification, modern ultrasonographs enables information on intactness of pregnancy in early disturbed pregnancy. The ultrasound findings can be correlated with the clinical diagnoses, such as incomplete abortion. A final diagnosis, such as missed abortion, can frequently only be made after exact ultrasonographic investigation. The failure rate depends on the equipment and the experience of the investigator. Exact knowledge of the gestational age clearly influences the accuracy of an ultrasonographic diagnosis in early pregnancy. A gestational age earlier than the calculated one may be mistaken for a pregnancy that is no longer intact.


After a successful heart transplantation, fundamental keys to achieve good results in the long term are to establish immunosuppressive therapy in the postoperative period in an appropriate manner and to ensure continuity of follow-ups. Despite the fact that these stages are maintained perfectly, patients may face one or more rejection episodes. T-cellmediated acute cellular rejection of the cardiac allograft has well-established treatment algorithms, whereas antibody-mediated rejection (AMR) is challenging to diagnose, and its treatment varies between centers. Investigators reported that AMR is among the most important factors to improving long-term outcomes. Improved understanding of the roles of acute and chronic AMR has evolved in recent years following a major progress in the technical ability to detect and quantify recipient antihuman leukocyte antigen (HLA) antibody production. Recently, a study of the immunobiology of B cells and plasma cells that pertains to allograft rejection and tolerance has emerged. There are some questions regarding the classification of AMR, the diagnostic approaches, and the treatment strategies for managing. In this chapter, we are discuss the effector mechanisms that are used by antibodies to eliminate antigens and clinical experience about AMR and its treatment with a discussion about the latest articles.


One of the central normative questions regards a decision between conflicting moral values. A decision of this nature is often required in disciplines such as philosophy, economics and law. According to common terminology, a decision between conflicting values reflects a balance of values, considerations or interests. Several types of questions arise in this context. One category includes substantive questions: which values exist, which considerations should be derived from these values, what is the degree of importance of these considerations, and which principles should be established for deciding between conflicting considerations? Another category includes institutional questions: which individual or body should decide normative questions, and should the normative nature of the decision be manifest or concealed? This paper is an abstract of a book that considers general aspects concerning these questions.


Aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) enzymes are critical in the detoxification of endogenous and exogenous aldehydes. Our previous findings indicate that the ALDH3B1 enzyme is expressed in several mouse tissues and is catalytically active toward aldehydes derived from lipid peroxidation, suggesting a potential role against oxidative stress. The aim of this study was to elucidate by immunohistochemistry the tissue, cellular, and subcellular distribution of ALDH3B1 in normal human tissues and in tumors of human lung, colon, breast, and ovary. Our results indicate that ALDH3B1 is expressed in a tissue-specific manner and in a limited number of cell types, including hepatocytes, proximal convoluted tubule cells, cerebellar astrocytes, bronchiole ciliated cells, testis efferent ductule ciliated cells, and histiocytes. ALDH3B1 expression was upregulated in a high percentage of human tumors (lung > breast = ovarian > colon). Increased ALDH3B1 expression in tumor cells may confer a growth advantage or be the result of an induction mechanism mediated by increased oxidative stress. Subcellular localization of ALDH3B1 was predominantly cytosolic in tissues, with the exception of normal human lung and testis, in which localization appeared membrane-bound or membrane-associated. The specificity of ALDH3B1 distribution may prove to be directly related to the functional role of this enzyme in human tissues.


The paper offers an assessment of marginal external costs from car use in urban areas of Cyprus; these are the social costs generated by the use of cars other than those paid by car travellers themselves. On the basis of a European methodology and local traffic data, costs are computed for externalities such as congestion, accidents, noise, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and other social impacts. Results are in line with those for other similar European cities. Congestion represents the highest part of costs during most hours of the day, exceeding one Euro per kilometre during morning peak traffic. Accident costs prevail at night time. Impacts from noise, air pollution and climate change generate relatively low costs. External costs may be several times higher than private costs. Policy implications of these findings are discussed, with special emphasis on the importance of establishing an extensive public transportation infrastructure in Cypriot cities in order to tackle these externalities.


: Current methods used for the prevention of vein thrombosis were evaluated with the help of radioisotopic investigation in 175 patients, aged 40 to 74 years, after extensive abdominal surgery. Deep vein thrombosis of the lower limbs was detected by radioisotopic investigation in 6% of the patients after preventive treatment with low-dose heparin, in 14% after treatment with rheopolyglucin, and in 16% after sequential external intermittent pneumatic compression of the lower extremities, versus 26% in the group of patients who had received no special preventive treatment. As shown by the clinical pattern, most cases of thrombosis were asymptomatic. Hemorrhagic complications are extremely rare where preventive medication is used properly.


Meta-learning considers the problem of learning an efficient learning process that can leverage its past experience to accurately solve new tasks. However, the efficacy of meta-learning crucially depends on the distribution of tasks available for training, and this is often assumed to be known a priori or constructed from limited supervised datasets. In this work, we aim to provide task distributions for meta-learning by considering self-supervised tasks automatically proposed from unlabeled text, to enable large-scale meta-learning in NLP. We design multiple distributions of self-supervised tasks by considering important aspects of task diversity, difficulty, type, domain, and curriculum, and investigate how they affect meta-learning performance. Our analysis shows that all these factors meaningfully alter the task distribution, some inducing significant improvements in downstream few-shot accuracy of the meta-learned models. Empirically, results on 20 downstream tasks show significant improvements in few-shot learning – adding up to +4.2% absolute accuracy (on average) to the previous unsupervised meta-learning method, and perform comparably to supervised methods on the FewRel 2.0 benchmark.


Embedded dynamic random access memory (eDRAM) is becoming a popular choice for large cache applications due to its density, speed, and power benefits. One of the crucial challenges in eDRAM design is meeting the retention time specification. Due to implementation in logic process, usually eDRAM suffers from poor retention time compared to commodity DRAM. The retention time of eDRAM designed in scaled technologies not only depends on bitcell leakage but also on effects such as reference voltage variations, frequency-dependent writeback voltage, and various pattern-dependent coupling noise. Under the strict frequency and power budgets, these second-order mechanisms start playing a major role in determining the array retention time. Designing eDRAM array for certain retention time requires detailed modeling and understanding of the noise sources and variations. This paper investigates these components and provides a model of eDRAM retention time. Our results in 22 nm predictive technology shows that retention time can be impacted by as much as 10-16 × if the noise and variations are not contained in the design.


Tissue culture rabies vaccine has been used for subcutaneous immunization of 158 subjects according to official instructions and also for intramuscular immunization of 128 subjects according to a short schedule with booster inoculations. All 286 subjects were either bitten or contaminated with saliva of rabid animals or animals suspected of having rabies. The 1168 serum samples were tested by neutralization test (NT) in mice, by radial haemolysis (RH) and by indirect haemagglutination (IHA). The highest, earliest and longest active post-vaccination immunity was registered after the most intensive subcutaneous vaccination course at a dose of 5 ml for 25 days with 3 booster inoculations. Subcutaneous inoculation of 3 ml vaccine for 12 days (36 ml) failed to produce a satisfactory elevation of antibody titre. After 2 to 4 booster inoculations, however, a satisfactory level of antibody was observed. The tissue culture vaccine was shown to have good prospects for clinical vaccination by intramuscular route. On intramuscular vaccination at 1.5 ml for 9 days with 6 booster inoculations on days 16, 23, 30, 37, 67 and 97 (initial vaccine volume 45 ml) the mean geometric antibody titres (MGT) reached 93, 160, 322 and 165 on days 30, 60, 90 and 112, respectively. The economically efficient and rapid IHA and RH tests were confirmed to be specific and suitable for titration of antirabies antibody.


Steel-concrete composite plates are formed using steel plates connected to a concrete slabs by means of welded stud shear connectors. The flexibility of connection between the steel plates and concrete gives rise to interface slip and additional deflection. An analytical model considering slip effect for composite plate is presented in this paper. Analytical solutions for deformation of composite plate under lateral load and elastic critical buckling load of composite plate under axial compressive load are deserved. The model and the solutions are then validated by means of finite element analysis. According to the parametric study, when impact factor greater than 5, the critical buckling load of simply composite plate is close to the superposition of the critical buckling loads of steel and concrete slabs and the interaction of both slabs can be ignored.


In this article, I call for enlarging the conceptual terrain for viewing local biological expressions of illness. To date, a specific DNA sequence pattern, called "the Senegalese sickle cell haplotype," has enjoyed extraordinary purchase on explanations for why Senegalese people may live with a "milder" form of sickle cell anemia when compared with other African populations. I argue, however, that "mild sickle cell" in Senegal emerges as a lived construct through a constitutive bond of biology, economy, and kinship. I show how patients' enactments of biological difference are situated within larger informal economies and North–South donor priorities for health. In the absence of state funding to address patients' needs, Senegalese sicklers create networks of care, health, and normalcy by drawing on Wolof idioms of "shared blood" that come to life in ways beyond metaphor. Their biosocial kinships result in therapeutic economies that restructure valuations of sickle cell despite serious medical constraints in this global context.


Precise and large torque generation, back drivability, low output impedance, and compactness of hardware are important requirements for human assistive robots. In this paper, a compact rotary series elastic actuator (cRSEA) is designed considering these requirements. To magnify the torque generated by an electric motor in the limited space of the compact device, a worm gear is utilized. However, the actual torque amplification ratio provided by the worm gear is different from the nominal speed reduction ratio due to friction, which makes the controller design challenging. In this paper, the friction effect is considered in the model of cRSEA, and a robust control algorithm is designed to precisely control the torque output in the presence of nonlinearities such as the friction. The mechanical design and dynamic model of the proposed device and the design of a robust control algorithm are discussed, and actuation performance is verified by experiments. Experimental results with a human subject are also presented to show the performance of the cRSEA while interacting with humans.


Response to variations in nutrient inputs to the southern estuary of river Göta älv on the Swedish west-coast is investigated by means of estuarine nutrient and chlorophyll (Chl-a) data from 1990–05. The estuary receives nutrients from the river, and from the Gothenburg Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP). Since 1972, when the WWTP was built, the estuary has experienced more than 50 % decrease of phosphorus inputs, and about 20% decrease of nitrogen inputs. Estuarine concentrations of phosphate and total phosphorus (TP) and, more recently ammonium and total nitrogen (TN) have decreased substantially. Early reductions of phosphorus also gave a downward trend in Chl-a, while effects of recent reductions of nitrogen in the WWTP have been obscured by the larger and more variable water and nitrogen fluxes from the river. Today, annual inputs from the WWTP are 1200 tons TN and 50 tons TP, compared to river inputs of 5000 tons TN (now decreasing) and 100 tons TP. The estuarine phosphorus budget is dominated by the inflow of Kattegat waters (≈300 tons TP). Estuarine Chl-a decreased during the latest 4-y period (2002–05), compared to preceding periods, mainly because of a substantial decrease in river discharge and river nitrogen load. Lower discharge makes nutrient poor Kattegat waters (with lower Chl-a) more frequent in the estuary. However, lower nitrogen inputs, including those from the WWTP also contribute to this decrease. The importance of initial mixing of waste water is highlighted.


Tea Party activists have declared that the central goal of their movement is to return the federal government to constitutional principles. The sudden prominence and power of the Tea Party movement calls for an examination of its constitutional vision. Describing that vision presents a challenge, however, because Tea Party supporters do not invoke the Constitution as a text in need of interpretation but instead as a repository of what they consider the nation's fundamental and unchallengeable values. This essay examines the Tea Party's vision of the Constitution in light of THE FIVE THOUSAND YEAR LEAP and THE MAKING OF AMERICA, two books written by W. Cleon Skousen in the 1980s that have been enthusiastically embraced by the Tea Party movement. Tea Party supporters have made the books best sellers, and Tea Party groups extensively use the books to educate their members about the Founding Fathers' plan for the nation. The books, however, are decidedly strange sources to inspire a contemporary political movement. They are products of the paranoid edges of the radical right wing of the Cold War era, and their main thrust is that Founding Fathers were devout Christians who discovered certain ancient principles of government that provide the only hope to save the United States from international communism. The Tea Party movement has embraced Skousen's books because the movement shares with Skousen what can best be characterized as a fundamentalist vision of the Constitution. Like religious fundamentalist movements, the Tea Party movement arises in opposition to modern developments that supporters believe conflict with foundational principles. Like fundamentalist movements, the Tea Party movement reaches back to a mythic past, the foundation of the nation, to identify the fundamental principles they espouse, principles that believers perceive to be under attack – belief in God, individualism, limited government, the free market, and the sanctity of private property. To Tea Party supporters, adherence to the fundamental principles they project onto the Constitution serves to divide true believers in the constitutional faith from "anti-Americans" who would compromise or subvert the nation's fundamental principles.


Multi-issue negotiations are a central part of many coordination challenges, and thus represent an important research topic. Almost all previous work in this area has assumed that negotiation issues are independent, but this is rarely the case in real-world contexts. Our work focuses on negotiation with interdependent issues and, therefore, nonlinear (multi-optimum) agent utility functions. Since the utility functions are typically very complex, the challenge becomes finding high-quality negotiation outcomes without making unrealistic demands concerning how much agents reveal about their utilities. Since negotiations often involve more than two parties, the approach should also be scalable. In this paper, we propose a novel protocol for addressing these challenges, wherein agents approach agreements by iteratively narrowing the space of possible agreements. In the early stages, agents submit rough bids representing promising regions from their utility functions. In later stages, they submit increasingly narrow bids for the subset of those regions that the negotiating parties all liked. We show that our method outperforms existing methods in large nonlinear utility spaces, and is computationally feasible for negotiations with as many as ten agents.


In this study, treatability of olive mill wastewater which had previously been treated physico-chemically together with domestic wastewater has been investigated using respirometric method. Olive mill wastewater (OMW) samples have been taken from a factory which produces olive oil with continuous method in Bursa. Acid cracking and physico-chemical treatability studies of the OMW have been carried out; a variety of coagulants with different dosages have been tested to achieve maximum removals of COD, SS and phenol. At 8000 mg/L alum concentration; 69% COD, 74% phenol and 87% SS whereas at 8000 mg/L ferric(III) chloride concentration; 80% COD, 79% phenol and 91% SS and whereas at 6000 mg/L Ca(OH) 2 concentration; 80% COD, 85% phe-nol and 86% SS removals were achieved. When OMW was mixed with activated sludge (SS= 3200 mg/L) at 1/1 (V/V), 1/2 (V/V) and 2/1 (V/V) ratios, decreases in respiration activity of 67%, 79% and 75% have respectively been observed. Among the three, only for the 1/2 (V/V) ratio of OMW/AS mixture in which OMW had previously been treated by lime, alum and ferric (III) chloride showed increases in respiration activities of 81%, 9% and 25%, respectively. Therefore, it can be said that OMW which was previously treated chemically with lime, alum and ferric (III) chloride, can be co-treated with domestic wastewater at a 1/2 (V/V) ratio. Among the three chemicals, lime could be preferred due to better removal efficiencies of COD, SS and phenol and lower cost.


The study looked into the risks associated with extreme climate events in the case of a semi-urban fishing community surrounding Laguna Lake in the Philippines. A survey was undertaken to determine the economic effects (loss of assets, foregone income, and changes in consumption patterns) of strong typhoons and torrential rains on fishing households. Vulnerability, estimated as the perceived probability of lower consumption after flooding or typhoons, was used to assess the economic impact on households. Household characteristics, including social capital, that may influence consumption vulnerability, were analyzed using a binary probit regression model. Social capital, a multi-dimensional concept consisting of social networks and skills possessed and used by household members to facilitate actions, was modeled using four indicators – two associational (membership in a formal organization and usefulness of informal social networks) and two behavioral (trust and cooperativeness). Regression results revealed that fishing income and household size significantly affect vulnerability. The higher the fish catch and the smaller the household, the less vulnerable is the household to strong storms and torrential rains. Social capital indicators do not significantly affect consumption vulnerability of households.


Tonic gonadotrophin secretion throughout the menstrual cycle is regulated by the negative‐feedback actions of ovarian oestradiol (E2) and progesterone. Although kisspeptin neurones in the arcuate nucleus (ARC) of the hypothalamus appear to play a major role in mediating these feedback actions of the steroids in nonprimate species, this issue has been less well studied in the monkey. In the present study, we used immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridisation to examine kisspeptin and KISS1 expression, respectively, in the mediobasal hypothalamus (MBH) of adult ovariectomised (OVX) rhesus monkeys. We also examined kisspeptin expression in the MBH of ovarian intact females, and the effect of E2, progesterone and E2 + progesterone replacement on KISS1 expression in OVX animals. Kisspeptin or KISS1 expressing neurones and pronounced kisspeptin fibres were readily identified throughout the ARC of ovariectomised monkeys but, on the other hand, in intact animals, kisspeptin cell bodies were small in size and number and only fine fibres were observed. Replacement of OVX monkeys with physiological levels of E2, either alone or with luteal phase levels of progesterone, abolished KISS1 expression in the ARC. Interestingly, progesterone replacement alone for 14 days also resulted in a significant down‐regulation of KISS1 expression. These findings support the view that, in primates, as in rodents and sheep, kisspeptin signalling in ARC neurones appears to play an important role in mediating the negative‐feedback action of E2 on gonadotrophin secretion, and also indicate the need to study further their regulation by progesterone.


The duodenums of opossums and cats were cut into strips 2 mm wide and 2-2.5 cm long. Strips cut in the direction of the oral-caudal axis were called longitudinal strips, and those cut at 90 degrees to that axis were called circular strips. Each muscle strip was stimulated with trains of electrical rectangular pulses (10 Hz, 50-70 V, 0.5 ms). In the longitudinal strips, electrical field stimulation caused contraction, and this contraction was abolished by atropine, 10(-7) M. In the circular strips, electrical field stimulation caused relaxation. This relaxation was abolished by tetrodotoxin, 10(-7) M, but it was not affected by antagonists to adrenergic and cholinergic transmission, nor by some gastrointestinal hormones. Reserpinization of the opossums or alteration of the frequencies of electrical field stimulation from 0.1-50 Hz did not affect or alter the relaxation of the circular strips or the contraction of the longitudinal strips. These findings suggest that the longitudinal muscle is dominated by an excitatory cholinergic innervation, and the circular muscle is dominated by a nonadrenergic, noncholinergic inhibitory innervation.


In previous work, we studied the compensation of modal dispersion in multimode fiber (MMF) using several different configurations of optical systems that can control the amplitude, phase and polarization of the launched field. In that work, we assumed knowledge of a fiber's principal modes (PMs) and their group delays (GDs), enabling us to compute the optimal settings of the optical system. In practice, however, we do not have prior knowledge of the PMs and their GDs. In this paper, for three of the configurations, we propose algorithms for setting the optical system adaptively, based upon measurements of the eye opening. We present simulations showing that in the absence of noise, the performance of the adaptive solution approaches that of the optimal solution, and characterizing the algorithms' convergence speed and tolerance to noise. We present experiments using a particular configuration and adaptive algorithm, demonstrating their effectiveness in 10-Gb/s transmission through up to 2000 m of 50-μ m-core graded-index MMF.


In this thesis, we have discussed fuzzy sets, some properties and operations of fuzzy sets. t-norms and its generators are discussed briefly. Fuzzy numbers, types of fuzzy numbers, operations of fuzzy numbers and extension principle are also discussed. Elementary operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) on L-R fuzzy numbers are presented with examples. Finally, we have presented exact calculation formulas for a t-norm-based addition of L-R fuzzy intervals. We have reviewed some research papers with proper references.


Because retrotransposons are the major component of plant genomes, analysis of the target site selection of retrotransposons is important for understanding the structure and evolution of plant genomes. Here, we examined the target site specificity of the rice retrotransposon Tos17, which can be activated by tissue culture. We have produced 47,196 Tos17-induced insertion mutants of rice. This mutant population carries ∼500,000 insertions. We analyzed >42,000 flanking sequences of newly transposed Tos17 copies from 4316 mutant lines. More than 20,000 unique loci were assigned on the rice genomic sequence. Analysis of these sequences showed that insertion events are three times more frequent in genic regions than in intergenic regions. Consistent with this result, Tos17 was shown to prefer gene-dense regions over centromeric heterochromatin regions. Analysis of insertion target sequences revealed a palindromic consensus sequence, ANGTT-TSD-AACNT, flanking the 5-bp target site duplication. Although insertion targets are distributed throughout the chromosomes, they tend to cluster, and 76% of the clusters are located in genic regions. The mechanisms of target site selection by Tos17, the utility of the mutant lines, and the knockout gene database are discussed.


Forty-seven recipients of renal allografts have been studied at varying intervals of up to five years after transplantation. Renal artery bruit occurred in eight of 16 patients observed over the first two post-transplant months and disappeared spontaneously in four of these. The disappearance of the bruit was associated with poor renal function. Renal bruits were audible in 10 patients examined more than two months after transplantation; nine of these were hypertensive and of six in whom arteriography was performed five were shown to have stenosis of the allograft artery. By contrast only eight of 37 patients without abdominal bruit were hypertensive, and arteriography in 10 normotensive patients without bruit showed no stenosis. It is concluded that while a renal artery bruit during the first two months after transplantation may be a marker of good renal blood flow at the time, its presence suggests a poor long-term prognosis since persistence of the murmur indicates that significant stenosis of the allograft artery is likely, while its disappearance is associated with poor renal function.


Bioflavonoids have a variety of biological effects in various mammalian cell systems both in vitro and in vivo. There are very few reports on their pharmacokinetics following administration in pure forms. Bioflavonoids have been implicated in quit a few drug interactions. These interactions seem to Involve Cytochrome P450 and/or P-glycoprotein. In this review the available details on pharmacokinetics of various bioflavonoids in animals and human and the influence on Cytochrome P450 and P-glycoprotein have been presented. Further, the pharmacokinetic parameters like Cmax Tmax T1/2 and AUC of bioflavonoids and the effect of dose on these parameters have been discussed. The available information on bioflavonoids biotransformations, such as methylation, sulfo-or glucuro-conjugations by different transferases in liver, has been reported. Different metabolites of quercetin (a widely investigated molecule), their metabolic pathways, clearance and volume of distribution of different bioflavonoids have been cited. Bioflavonoids have been reported to Interact with cytochrome P450 lsozymes particularly with 3A4 series and therefore, may alter the disposition of the concurrently administered drugs. P-glycoprotein, an important membrane protein, is produced as a result of mdr1 gene expression and is responsible for development of cytotoxic drug resistance in cancer. It has been reported that P-glycoprotein activity seems to be modulated by bioflavonoids. The reports on modulation of P-glycoprotein by bioflavonoids using cell line models have been reviewed and presented.


An enzyme immunoassay is described which quantitates antibodies to Neisseria meningitidis serogroup A capsular polysaccharide in human sera. Modifications of a previously developed two-day assay by Carlone et al. were made to permit analysis in one day and to be compatible with automation. The allowable variations in assay conditions and the areas in which stringent control must be maintained for consistent assay performance are described. Antigen-coating parameters, the kinetics of primary and secondary antibody incubation steps, the buffer compositions, including detergents, serum requirements, and the need for blocking steps were examined. Our modified one-day assay showed excellent agreement with the standardized method of Carlone, with a correlation coefficient between the two methods of 0.989. This assay is adaptable within a permissible range of parameters thus facilitating the implementation of the standardized assay. This will maximize the consistency of results from serum analysis for conjugate vaccine trials related to serotype A Neisseria meningitidis.


This is a case study presentation of working through music therapy with a 66 year-old lady (L)who has been living with motor neuron disease (MND) for 5 years. At the start of the therapy sessions she had already reached the stage of tetra paresis and was increasingly concerned about her deteriorating speech and breathing and felt hopeless as well as helpless. Searches reveal very little of the potential role of music therapy in MND – this presentation will open up the possibility of working through music in several different ways with people who live with this progressive life-limiting condition. As a former healthcare professional with 20 years experience of working with people with MND, L is uniquely placed to comment on the benefits of music therapy on all aspects of her life – physiological, psychological, emotional, social and spiritual. She felt her voice control improved through singing and she was able to reduce night time panic about her breathing by using musical relaxation techniques. L will describe in her own words the subsequent far-reaching effects of the music therapy sessions. DVD clips and audio recordings will provide evidence of her musical creativity – she had never composed music before but over a 6 month period was able to write a significant amount of choral music. The initial motivation was to leave a legacy for the family at her funeral – what resulted was a joyful service of thanksgiving with her family and friends in which everyone heard the beautiful music she had written. Through her powerful and moving testimony in words and music she shows how someone living with a condition that often seems overwhelmingly hopeless can experience great joy and creativity and reclaim a sense of purpose and achievement.


The first COVID-19 confirmed case is reported in Wuhan, China and spread across the globe with unprecedented impact on humanity. Since this pandemic requires pervasive diagnosis, it is significant to develop smart, fast and efficient detection technique. To this end, we developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine to classify the lung inflammation level (mild, progressive, severe stage) of the COVID-19 confirmed patient. In particular, the developed model consists of two phases; in the first phase, we calculate the volume and density of lesions and opacities of the CT images of the confirmed COVID-19 patient using Morphological approaches. In the second phase, the second phase classifies the pneumonia level of the confirmed COVID-19 patient. To achieve precise classification of lung inflammation, we use modified Convolution Neural Network (CNN) and k-Nearest Neighbor (kNN). The result of the experiments show that the utilized models can provide the accuracy up to 95.65\% and 91.304 \% of CNN and kNN respectively.


Recent studies have shown that the use of native plants by landscape architects and contractors in the southeastern United States has increased as has the clientele interest level in native plants. Recommendations to increase the use of native species by the landscape industry in this region include increasing the number of nurseries carrying native plants and the quantities and species currently available. To understand how green industry professionals view the opportunities and constraints of the current southeastern United States native plant market and to synthesize the connections between landscape architect's demands and the supplies of the nursery industry in this region, a questionnaire was developed and e-mailed to southeastern U.S. wholesale and retail nurseries in six states. The survey included questions regarding nursery stock, demand, and species sold. A total of 129 responses were received, and they revealed that while there is a perceived increase in customer interest in native plants, market demand and enhanced public education play a key role in further development of this growing market.


Minimizing the sensing activity during the pre-attack phase while meeting the performance requirements is critical for reducing the operational costs of chemical sensor networks. In this paper, we present a formal problem formulation for this optimization problem, and propose a decentralized, dynamic sensor activation protocol for meeting this goal. We analyze the behavior of the activation protocol using an epidemiology-based approach and derive analytical expressions for the system performance metrics, namely, operational cost, detection delay, probability of false alarms and probability of detection. We analyze the interdependency between the performance metrics.


Researches in both, academia and industry are investigating optical loss channels in OLED layered systems by means of optical simulation tools in order to derive promising concepts for a further enhancement of the overall device performance. Besides other factors, the prospects of success of such optimization strategies rely severely on the credibility of the optical input data. The present thesis provides a guideline to measure the active optical properties of OLED emitter materials in situ by radiation pattern analyses. Reliable and widely applicable methods are introduced to determine the internal electroluminescence spectrum, the profile of the emission zone, the dipole emitter orientation, and the internal luminescence quantum efficiency of emissive materials from the optical far field emission of OLEDs in electrical operation. The proposed characterization procedures are applied to sets of OLEDs containing both, fluorescent polymeric materials as well as phosphorescent small-molecular emitters, respectively. On the one hand, quite expected results are obtained. On the other hand, several novel and truly surprising results are found. Most importantly, this thesis contains the first report of a non-isotropic, mainly parallel emitter orientation in a phosphorescent small-molecular guest-host system (Ir(MDQ)2(acac) in a-NPD). Due to the latter result, emitter orientation based optimization of phosphorescent OLEDs seems to be within reach. Since parallel dipoles emit preferably into air, the utilization of smart emissive materials with advantageous molecular orientation is capable to boost the efficiency of phosphorescent OLEDs by 50%. Materials design, the influence of the matrix material and the substrate, as well as film deposition conditions are just a few parameters that need to be studied further in order to exploit the huge potential of the dipole emitter orientation in phosphorescent OLEDs.


Fifty alcoholic drunken drivers receiving treatment as part of a suspended sentence were studied to assess the efficacy of compulsory treatment. Twenty-six showed improvement in drinking behaviour, 12 did not co-operate and were referred back to court, 7 were re-arrested on further charges of drunken driving and 4 were committed to long-term rehabilitation centres (1 patient died too early to allow for adequate follow-up). The results compare favourably with improvement in alcoholics treated voluntarily. When regarded as their own controls, patients who had previously been arrested for drunken driving but had not been referred for treatment showed considerable improvement in their behaviour, as did patients who had had previous unsuccessful voluntary treatment. This programme appears to be worth while, at least for the duration of the suspended sentence. It also encourages early identification of alcoholics and their referral for treatment.


This richly documented book examines the attempts of the French Surrealist artist Andre Masson (1896--1987) to define "self" in his art in the period between the early 1920s and 1940, the most fruitful period of classic Surrealism, culminating in the emergence of existentialism. Through a close reading of Masson's paintings, drawings, and writings, Clark Poling explores the ways in which the artist figured the self--as fragmented, dissolved, merged with other selves and with the natural environment, and, ultimately, reconstituted and consolidated. Masson's work, Poling argues, reveals his involvement with modern conceptions of the self that he absorbed from Nietzsche and the Surrealist writers, as well as from other sources in philosophy, psychology, psychoanalysis and ethnography. He traces Masson's articulation of these ideas in paintings and graphic works, using his correspondence from the Surrealist period and his many subsequent writings as supporting evidence.


This paper provides a speculative discussion on what quasi-experimental designs might be useful in various aspects of HIV/AIDS research. The first author's expertise is in research design, not HIV, while the second author has been active in HIV prevention research. It is hoped that it may help the HIV/AIDS research community in discovering and inventing an expanded range of possibilities for valid causal inference.


This article is devoted to development, adaptation and approbation of the methodology for analysis and assessment of an inclusive educational space in a higher education institution which implements education for students with limited health abilities. Relevance of the topic is determined by the importance of implementation of effective inclusive education to ensure sustainable development of society. The validity of data presented in the research is provided by the representativeness of sample and the use of such methods of data processing and analysis as factor analysis, cluster analysis, and classification tree analysis. The five factor structure of the researched phenomenon presented in the research allows analysing the inclusive educational space at a higher education institution from different points of view. The formation of homogeneous clusters in the space of identified clusters will make it possible developing targeted programs for working with teachers and other participants of the educational process in the higher education institution, which will help to create a high-quality inclusive educational environment in the higher education institution and increase the effectiveness of inclusive education.


Sir .—The widespread use of dipsticks such as the Ames N-Multistix-SG strip (Miles Laboratories, Elkhart, Ind) has some built-in problems as well as a form of medical laboratory absurdity. Comments have been made in the more general literature, but to date we have not read a comment in a pediatric journal. I refer specifically to the use of the term specific gravity that one reads from these strips. The measurement of specific gravity in urine has been used in clinical medicine for a number of years with known advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is that in the absence of albumin and glucose, the specific gravity has a nearly linear correspondence to osmolality over the range of interest to the clinician. This correlation enables one to detect the ability of the kidney to concentrate and dilute, which is a sensitive measure of renal function. This usefulness is lost if there is


People tend to recall more personal events from adolescence and early adulthood than from other lifetime periods. Most evidence suggests that differential encoding causes this reminiscence bump. However, the question why personal events are encoded better in those periods is still unanswered. To shed more light on this discussion, we examined memory for public events. Since it is often impossible to ascertain that queried events are equally difficult, we circumvented the issue of equivalence by calculating deviation scores for each trial. We found that participants more frequently answered questions correctly about events that occurred in the period in which they were between 10 and 25 years old. Furthermore, we found that the reminiscence bump was more pronounced for cued recall than for recognition. We argue that these results support the biological account that events are stored better, because the memory system is working more efficiently during adolescence and early adulthood. These results do not falsify the other accounts for differential encoding, because they are not mutually exclusive.


In this paper, we will give a simple symmetric random walk analogue of Levy's Theorem. We will take a new definition of a local time of the simple symmetric random walk. We apply a discrete Ito formula to some absolute value like function to obtain a discrete Tanaka formula. Results in this paper rely upon a discrete Skorokhod reflection argument. This random walk analogue of Levy's theorem was already obtained by G.Simons((14)) but it is still worth noting because we will use a discrete stochastic analysis to obtain it and this method is applicable to other research. We note some connection with previous results by Csaki, Revesz, Csorg˝ o and Szabados. Finally we observe that the discrete Levy transformation in the present version is not ergodic. Lastly we give a Levy's theorem for simple nonsymmetric random walk using a discrete bang-bang process.


Myelotoxicity parameters were monitored in female B6C3F1 mice exposed to 0, 1, 5, and 10% of a chemical mixture stock in drinking water for 2.5 to 31.5 weeks. The mixture consisted of 25 groundwater contaminants frequently found near toxic waste dumps, as determined by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) surveys. Water consumption, body and organ weights, and hematological and histopathological examinations were conducted. No animals developed overt signs of toxicity after 2.5 weeks of treatment. No significant effect on bone marrow cellularity was observed after 2.5, 15.5, or 31.5 weeks of exposure; however, mice exposed to 5% or higher concentrations of the chemical mixture stock solution for 15.5 weeks showed significant suppression of granulocyte-macrophage progenitor cells (CFU-GM) and erythroid precursors (CFU-E) with no changes in body weight, histopathological or hematological parameters. Decreases occurred in erythrocyte mean corpuscular volume of mice exposed to a 10% solution for 15.5 weeks and to 5 and 10% solutions following 31.5 weeks of treatment. In addition, dose-related decreases were found in body, liver, and thymus weights in the 5 and 10% solutions exposure groups after 31.5 weeks. These results suggest that bone marrow may be a sensitive indicator for long-term, low-level exposure of multiple chemicals in mice. Furthermore, long-term exposure to highly contaminated groundwater may present a subtle risk to the hematopoietic system.


Combined cooling, heating and power (CCHP) is getting more attention for its energy saving. There has been a large number of researchers focus on the system configuration and operating strategies. However, the analysis of the whole process of the system from planning to design and running is relatively few. This paper based on an actual project in China, which has been running for two winters. Based on the background, planning, design and operating of the project, this paper comparing the load results between design and running stages, and it is found that the cooling and heating load in the running time is much smaller than the designed load. But the performance of CCHP is indeed better than the other conventional systems in the same building load situation. Finally, this paper proposed some suggestions for the future CCHP projects in the different stages.


SUMMARY The autolysis of Aspergillusflavus subjected to a combined action of a continuous flow of air and mechanical agitation has been studied. We have obtained a degree of autolysis amounting to 85 yo. The total loss of nitrogen in autolysing mycelium of A. flavus reached 82 yo, whereas the loss of phosphorus was 90% from the beginning of autolysis. Total carbohydrates were reduced from 524 mg./sample, at o day, to 119 mg./sample by the 16th day of autolysis, which represents a loss of 77 %. Glucose was the only sugar found in significant amount in autolysing mycelium of A. jlavus, being 96% the total loss. The concentration of mannitol decreased to nearly a third at the end of the log phase. The disappearance of this substance during pre-autolysis and autolysis amounted to 97'7% with respect to the maximum weight present at the 8th day of incubation. Fourteen different free amino acids were identified in the mycelium of Aspergillusflavus during the pre-autolytic and autolytic stages of growth. These amino acids increased their content between the 4th and the 6th days of incubation, to the highest concentration observed. Seventy-nine per cent of this maximum amount disappeared by the end of the log phase, whereas 78 % of the remainder disappeared from mycelium during autolysis (16 days). From the total amount of bound amino acids in mycelium of A. JEavus it seemed that the make-up of the mycelial protein does not undergo great changes in the interval between pre-autolysis and the initiation of the autolytic phase of growth.


The block copolymer of PSt-b-POEOMA with the end of -COOH functional group has been synthesized by reversible addition fragmentation chain-transfer (RAFT) using S,S′-Bis(α,α′-dimethyl-α′′-acetic acid)-trithiocarbonate (BDATC) as a chain transfer agent. The architectures of the copolymers were confirmed by FT-IR and 1HNMR spectra. GPC analysis was used to estimate the molecular weight and the molecular weight distribution of the copolymers. Meanwhile, The nanostructures of the block copolymers PSt-b-POEOMA micelles formed in aqueous solution were observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and dynamic light scattering (DLS).


AIMS
To help refine the definition and diagnosis of gambling disorders, we investigated the distribution among US gamblers of the 10 DSM-IV criteria for Pathological Gambling.

DESIGN
We drew data from two stratified random surveys (n = 2417, n= 530) of gambling behavior and consequences among community-based samples of US adults. A fully structured questionnaire, administered by trained lay interviewers, screened for the life-time prevalence of problem and Pathological Gambling. Per DSM-IV definitions, anyone meeting five or more of 10 itemized criteria was considered a pathological gambler. We analyzed these criteria among all gamblers who met one or more criteria (n = 399).

FINDINGS
Most gamblers who met only one or two criteria reported 'chasing their losses'. At subclinical levels (three to four criteria), gamblers also reported elevated rates of gambling-related fantasy: lying, gambling to escape and preoccupation. Pathological gamblers with five to seven criteria reported marked elevations of loss of control, withdrawal symptoms and tolerance (internalizing dimensions of dependence); risking their social relationships and needing to be bailed out financially (externalizing dimensions). Most of the highest-level pathological gamblers (eight to 10 criteria) reported committing illegal acts to support gambling.

CONCLUSION
Dependence in a biobehavioral sense appears to be a hallmark of Pathological Gambling, but it marks only one threshold in a qualitative hierarchy of disorders beginning with a common subclinical behavior, 'chasing'. Epidemiological assessments and future DSM revisions might consider explicit recognition of a problem gambling disorder, identifying people presenting some cognitive symptoms of Pathological Gambling but not clear signs of dependence. Pathological gamblers in turn appear to have two distinct levels of severity.


The physical and electrical properties of natural rocks, namely limestone, sandstone, amphibolite, arkose, schist, granite, basalt, and concrete were investigated in order to characterize the relationships between these properties. The measurements were conducted on 96 cylindrical specimens of limestone, sandstone, amphibolite, arkose, schist, granite, basalt, and 14 cubic concrete samples. Strong correlations between ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV), uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), electrical resistivity, and chargeability were confirmed. High correlation coefficients were observed among the properties, varying between 0.53 and 0.92 for all the rocks and concrete. Test results show the following relations among the corresponding parameters: the UPV increases with the increase in UCS, resistivity decreases with the decrease in chargeability for all rocks and concrete, and the electrical resistivities of rock and concrete decrease with the increase in chargeability.


An outbreak of American cutaneous leishmaniasis (ACL) was detected in the village of Canoa in 1993. A prospective observational study was outlined to determine the frequency rates and to clinically characterize the disease. A total of 555 people were followed up. There were 29 cases of ACL, 11 cases of probably previous ACL (scars) and 529 healthy individuals. Of these 529 individuals, 65 had a positive Montenegro reaction without any present or past evidence of leishmaniasis. The prevalence of ACL during the two years was 5.2% (29/555). The leishmania involved was Leishmania braziliensis and the vector, Lutzomyia intermedia. Evidence of infection was detected in dogs and horses. The high frequency of the disease among children under ten years, the similar sex distribution of cases and a component of familial aggregation suggest a peri- or intra-domiciliary transmission.


Background and Objective: Nowadays, information technology, has affected the production, distribution, and use of knowledge-based processes . Among other things, the Internet of Things as a network of objects connected to each other can bring new capacities in all fields. The aim of the present research is to examine the opportunities and challenges that the Internet of Things can have in relation to the higher education system. The concept of connecting devices and objects to each other is a new development on the Internet; anything anywhere can connect to the Internet and be "smart". Connected devices can communicate with each other and share information, then this information can be processed and lead to making decisions. This concept is called the "Internet of Things (IOT)." The wide range of applications of IOT has enabled educational environments at all levels to benefit from it. In terms of the role of IoT in higher education, this domain includes energy storage, monitoring the health and safety of students, optimizing the physical envriornment of the campus and classrooms, as well as enabling students to attend remotely. The main point that seems to differentiate IOT from other past technologies is that older methods cover a limited range of areas of higher education. With the use of various IOT tools, all these tools and facilities can be made intelligent and use for educational, research and service providing purposes. The aim of this study is to investigate the role and function of the IOT in the processes of knowledge production, transmission and application in higher education system. Methods: For this purpose, the systematic approach and the Chelkland SSM method were used. By refer to several internal and external scientific information databases, 25 related articles were identified. Then, without any sampling, all of these articles were studied by the researchers and their contents are divided into four categories: the introduction of the internet of things, the role of the internet of things in educational functions, the opportunities of the internet of things for higher education and the challenges of the internet of things in higher education, and they were organized in the dimensions of the input, process and output of the higher education system. Findings: The findings of the research indicate that the internet of things, by providing advanced information services, provides a flexible and measurable system for academic community that can be used to personalize training and reinforcement of learning, better management of educational processes, and more effective logistic management etc. The use of the internet of things will also challenge higher education, which violation of privacy, security issues, and rising costs are some of these challenges. Conclusion: In the present study, an attempt was made to introduce IOT and its opportunities and challenges for higher education system by reviewing the related literature. IOT is a technology that covers a wide range of applications in the university, from classrooms to laboratories, colleges and parking lots, and more. Within the system, IOT can be used to support the higher education chain and facilitate communication between input, output, and the process, and facilitate monitoring , control, and management of the university's system. In other words, the IOT operates communication center for the university system. In the dimension of higher education and university process, the IOT can be effective in student interaction and participation, evaluation, mental and physical health, classroom management, satisfaction, attendance, time saving as well as faculty management, energy saving, information searching, improving security in the university environment, providing real learning, personal growth and development for both the university instructors and the students, and so on. Of course, as mentioned, the use of this technology has cetain challenges. These challenges include security and privacy risks, high costs, connection to the Internet, scalability, self-organization and acceptance, etce. But despite this, experts generally see the future of this technology as more practical and important than it is now.


This paper investigates the phenomenon of mode-switching, or a quasi-synchronous shift of linguistic mode by a speaker in interaction. Video recordings of three World of Warcraft players are analyzed to determine the motivations for mode-switching. Ultimately, the driving force for mode-switches is a shifting participation framework; speakers use a mode which corresponds to the intended audience for their talk. Each mode has certain of topics which are appropriate for the audience present in that mode, and speakers shift between the modes seamlessly in interaction to address each of these sets of participants. The norms for the uses of modes must be learned by speakers and deployed properly in order for a speaker to be considered a competent member of the community. Mode-switching is compared to the processes of code-switching and style-shifting and is found to have numerous similarities, suggesting that the three phenomena are variations of a larger process of variety-changing.


We introduce the time-dependent variational Monte Carlo method for continuous-space Bose gases. Our
approach is based on the systematic expansion of the many-body wave function in terms of multibody
correlations and is essentially exact up to adaptive truncation. The method is benchmarked by comparison
to an exact Bethe ansatz or existing numerical results for the integrable Lieb-Liniger model. We first show
that the many-body wave function achieves high precision for ground-state properties, including energy
and first-order as well as second-order correlation functions. Then, we study the out-of-equilibrium, unitary
dynamics induced by a quantum quench in the interaction strength. Our time-dependent variational
Monte Carlo results are benchmarked by comparison to exact Bethe ansatz results available for a small
number of particles, and are also compared to quench action results available for noninteracting initial
states. Moreover, our approach allows us to study large particle numbers and general quench protocols,
previously inaccessible beyond the mean-field level. Our results suggest that it is possible to find correlated
initial states for which the long-term dynamics of local density fluctuations is close to the predictions of a
simple Boltzmann ensemble.


Background and aims Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a heterogeneous disorder with diverse manifestations and serologic features. The purpose is to categorise SLE patients into similar initial characteristics. Methods Hierarchical cluster analysis approached to 389 SLE patients and 10 laboratory values. Laboratory values were transformed into Z-score for hierarchical clustering. Ward's method as agglomeration method was a criterion applied with spearman correlation as distance metric. Clinical characteristics among clusters were examined by ANOVA with Tukey and Fisher's exact test. To find each SLE cluster using initial laboratory, linear discriminant analysis was applied. Results Three clusters were revealed by initial laboratory data; Cluster 1 had higher anti-dsDNA antibody, ANA titer and ESR, and low complements, lymphocyte, haemoglobin and platelet counts, Cluster 2 had lower anti-dsDNA antibody, ANA titer and ESR, and Cluster 3 had lower anti-dsDNA antibody titer, WBC and lymphocyte counts, and higher ANA titer. As a result from analysing cumulative manifestations and treatment, Cluster 1 showed more frequent malar rash, alopecia and renal disease with higher SLEDAI, and more use of cyclophosphamide and azathioprine. Also, oral ulcer was developed frequently in Cluster 2. During disease duration, total and mean corticosteroids and the number of flare were higher in Cluster 1. Conclusions With initial laboratory values, SLE patients could be divided 3 clusters. Each Cluster showed different characteristics in clinical manifestations and treatment patterns. This predictive model considered disease severity had 84.6% of total predictability.


Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs) are among the most serious public health problems in Europe representing the most frequent adverse event during care delivery. Despite their limitations, point prevalence surveys of HAIs are often preferred to prospective surveillance, since they provide a feasible estimate when resources are limited.
 The aim of this study was to analyze the results of a six-years point prevalence survey of HAIs in a teaching acute care hospital in Italy and to investigate the main risk factors of HAIs in the acute-care hospital. A point prevalence survey to detect HAIs was carried out in Gemelli Hospital during the last 6 years, from 2013 to 2018. Inpatients of any age in Gemelli Hospital were eligible for inclusion. Patients in outpatient areas were excluded. HAIs were identified according to diagnosis guideline from ECDC in 2011. Statistically significant differences were tested through t-test and Chi-square test. Multi-variate analysis was performed to evaluate the impact of regressor factors for predict HAI's prevalence. The statistical significance level was set at p < 0.05. The point prevalence ranged from 3,16% in 2017 to 6,64% in 2013. Pneumonia and surgical site infections (SSI) were the most frequent HAIs during the 6 years, with a rate of 27,31% and 26,20% respectively of all HAIs. The multiple logistic regression showed that length of stay at the moment of detection, urinary catheter, CVC and antibiotic therapy are useful to meaningfully predict HAI prevalence, with a regression coefficient (adjusted R2) of 0.2780.
 Thanks to proper hospital policies, the point prevalence of HAIs does not seem to increase through the years, even though it is still too early to draw any conclusions. Pneumonia and SSI represented each one more than a quarter of all the HAIs, as reported also in literature. There is a strong association between length of stay at the moment of detection and HAIs but it is hard to understand which one is the cause of the other.

 Point prevalence from 2013 to 2018 seems to be stable. An accurate incidence survey is needed in order to identify the main risk factors of HAI and to realize more specific hospital programmes. Length of stay at the moment of detection is useful to meaningfully predict HAIs prevalence although the cause-and-effect relationship is still not clear.


Increasing scarcity of freshwater resources and space especially in urban areas is driving many into using marginal quality water and poor quality soil for agriculture and related activities. The usage of treated or untreated sewage to land for irrigation and fertilisation of crops is known as sewage irrigation. In the present investigation an attempt was made to study the effect of sewage water on red amaranth (Amaranthus tricolor, Willd.) since it is one of the most widely consumed leafy vegetable. Amaranthus tricolor, Willd. was grown under laboratory conditions using sewage water, where in one set of the plant was subjected to sewage irrigation and the other set was subjected to potable water. The plants were harvested after 14 days, 21 days and 28 days, they were further analysed for various morphological and physio-chemical parameters. The plants of Amaranthus tricolor, Willd. were also analysed for the heavy metals lead, copper and Cadmium at every harvest (14 days, 21 days and 28 days). The samples was collected from central form area, Primises Tamil Nadu Agricultural University during January to March 2012 year. The morphological characteristics such as root length, shoot length, size of the lamina, length of the internode, fresh weight and dry weight were found to be higher in plants irrigated with potable water. Considering the nutritive value, it was found that the vitamin C content, protein content and iron content was more in the plants irrigated with sewage water. Lead content was found to be much higher in the plants irrigated with sewage water as compared to the plants irrigated with potable water. The highest lead content recorded was 0.120 mg/kg. The copper content of the plants irrigated with sewage water was lower than the permissible values for copper in food (40 mg/kg) as recommended by the FAO/WHO (2001). Cadmium was found only at the early immature stage of 7 days in the range of 0.06 – 0.19mg/kg which is lower than the permissible values for cadmium in food (0.2mg/kg). Although the nutritive value of plants irrigated with sewage water is high, it is not advisable to consume these plants due to the high heavy metal content.


The aim of this article is to present a new online image analysis based method for monitoring the Crystal Size Distribution (CSD) during batch solution crystallization processes. An in-situ imaging probe allows real time acquisition of 2D images of particles during the batch process. From these images, restoration and segmentation algorithms are performed in order to identify the particles. Thereafter, mathematical morphology enables to get geometrical and morphological particle measurements. Therefore, the CSD can be deduced all along the time of the crystallization process (until moderate solid concentration).


The research was a content analysis of sermons in Family TV. The specific objectives of the research were to establish the percentage of direct biblical references in the Family TV sermons and consistency of the preaching to the references given. The research looked at the first quarter of year 2009. The sample of sermons to be studied was obtained through stratified random sampling (Claire S. et al. 1976). The programmes to be studied were recorded directly from the TV as they were received. Quantitative time measurement was done with an inbuilt computer TV tuner, digital timer and other scores were made by observation and inference.. Weekly Programme line ups of the station in the newspapers served as guides of the programmes coming on air. Only 9% of the sermons were local. Equally, only one out o ften preachers was local. Thirty three percent the local sermons were preached by foreign preachers. The local TV preachers were predominantly family members, just as in the American Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) which seems to be a trend setter for the Kenyan TV church. All the sermons had a length of between twenty and thirty minutes. This is the standard sermon length for churches who consider the congregation attention span to be in the range of 20 to 30 minutes (Rev George Wanjau, 2008). Other churches consider other things when setting the length of the sermon, like the leading of the Holy Spirit (Pastor Keith Underhill, 2009; John Jim, 2008; Robin, 2008). The preachers were predominantly male and John Hagee preached more often than any other preacher. Joyce Mayer was the most frequent female preacher. All the preachers were charismatic, with no preacher from the mainline churches like Anglican, Presbyterian or Catholic. So, the agenda setters and behaviour cultivators in the TV church in Kenya today are the charismatic churches. Time spent on direct Bible reading ranged from zero percent to 17% of the whole sermon duration. Twenty percent of the sermons had no bible reading. However, all xiii the sermons were consistent with the Bible readings or quotations given. In 20% of the sermons, the preachers tried to fit the bible quotation into the sermon rather than have the bible passage lead the sermon. It is generally felt that such discrepancies may lead to regarding the Bible with less seriousness as a sacred text in Christian television communication. There was no systematic way of presenting the bible references and biblle passages. Some references were given orally only while others were given both orally and visually by projection. Equally, some of the bible passages were just read, quoted or paraphrased, while others were given both orally and visually by projection. The station has no established systematic way of presenting the references and Bible passages through multimedia to get the various media to suppliment each other. Some preachers had ingenious ways of getting the congregation to read the bible along with them like, waiting for the congregation to get to the references this was done in 20% of the sermons, asking the congregation to read aloud along with them th is was done in 20% of the sermons. This ingenuity should be encouraged so as to cultivate a bible reading culture in the audience. As opposed to the popularist belief that most of the themes in the charismatic church today are on prosperity (Saturday Nation, 11th Oct., 2008) only 40% of the sermons had prosperity themes. The remaining 60% had themes on other different and diverse issues which were all spiritual such as, 'Christian battles' and 'the sword of the spirit'.


This article aims to explore an under-researched area of the entanglements between festivals and individual/collective identities by focusing on the material culture of festival fandoms. We start by conceptualizing festival fandoms as communities of people who attend the same festival or a similar festival type on a repeated basis. Our research focuses on how these recurrent festival attendees materially express their belonging to such communities, and how they claim being a fan as part of their identity. The core of the article starts with three conceptual sections. There, we discuss the existing literature in different related areas of research, which we link together utilizing Bourdieu's forms of capital. First, we look through the theoretical lens of social capital at how various types of festivals foster identity communities and contribute to their visibility. Second, we explore the function of festival merchandising from the perspective of both event managers and festival attendees within economic capital frameworks. And third, we explain that fans use derived products to mark their status and belonging to a community of taste as related to cultural capital conceptualizations. The following sections of the article are based on auto-ethnographic approaches. Through reminiscence and in-depth interviews with each other, we recount personal narratives of reflective practice and situate our lived experiences within the aforementioned conceptual contexts. As a conclusion, we state that investigating the material cultures of festival fandoms has the potential to contribute to future evolutions of event management.


Objectives: to evaluate the quality of prescriptions' filling in Independencia's District public health facilities in the department of Lima as a barrier to provide pharmaceutical care to patients. Materials and methods: It was carried out a cross-sectional study with prescriptions from the outpatients pharmacies of all the Independencia's District health facilities (11). During the month of November 2013, 384 prescriptions that have been assisted in October were randomly selected of each of the health facilities. Results: 384 prescriptions were randomly selected of each of the 11 health facilities which represented a whole of 4224 prescriptions. 24% of the prescriptions recorded the patient's weight (IC: 22,76%-25,30%); 34,2% included the diagnosis (IC: 32,80%35,62%); 93,7% included drugs expressed in INN (IC: 93,00-94,41%). Furthermore, only 11,3 mentioned the route of administration (IC: 10,40%-12,28%) and 41,4 pointed out the frequency (IC: 39,94%-42,88%). The length of treatment was missing in 32% of the evaluated prescriptions (IC: 66,62%-69,41%) and only 5,7 included the expiration date (IC: 5,00%-6,41%). These errors are barriers for the pharmaceutical care due to the fact that they make difficult the detection of problems related to drugs; on the other hand, they limit the information that can be given to a patient about the use of his/her drugs. Conclusion: Innovative strategies are needed in order to improve prescriptions so that they are not a barrier any more for the detection, solution and prevention of problems related to drugs.


Learning is a lifelong process. In education process every child requires happy learning. We know that all the children are not happy at learning due to different reasons. Those reasons may be due to physical factors, home environment, school environment, psychological factors, poor memory skills etc. With inspiring quotation from Stephen Hawking, Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change. However difficult life may seem, there is always something we can do and succeed at. So learner's difficulties in education can solve through counseling. By knowing their strengths and weakness, counseling will help and can bring the change in their knowledge. Any learner with difficulties in education may change their attitude towards their studies by motivating and make them too confident in their academic achievement by inspiring stories of successful persons. This change is possible and to make them a successful learners in their education by counseling.


In our publications, we have shown both from measurements and computer modeling that the specific absorption rate (SAR) reduces by 10%–15% for every millimeter separation of the cell phone on account of rapidly diminishing EM fields in the near-field region of the cell phone antenna. This rapid reduction of SAR depending on the antenna and its location on the handset has been shown, both computationally and experimentally, regardless of the phantom model such as a flat phantom suggested for SAR compliance testing of devices in contact with the body, for a sphere phantom, and for head-shaped models used for SAR compliance testing of cell phones. Unfortunately, our observations in the past were based on SARs of only three cell phones. Expecting that the SARs for cell phones may exceed the safety limits for body contact, cell phone manufacturers have started to recommend that the devices can be used at 5–25 mm from the body even though it is difficult to see how to maintain this distance correctly under mobile conditions. The National Agency ANFR of France recently released the cell phone SAR test data for 450 cell phones that measure 10-g SARs reducing by 10%–30% for each millimeter distal placement from the planar body phantom. Their data corroborate our findings that most cell phones will exceed the safety guidelines when held against the body by factors of 1.6–3.7 times for the European/ICNIRP standard or by factors as high as 11 if 1-g SAR values were to be measured as required by the U.S. FCC.


Model-based reinforcement learning (RL) enjoys several benefits, such as data-efficiency and planning, by learning a model of the environment's dynamics. However, learning a global model that can generalize across different dynamics is a challenging task. To tackle this problem, we decompose the task of learning a global dynamics model into two stages: (a) learning a context latent vector that captures the local dynamics, then (b) predicting the next state conditioned on it. In order to encode dynamics-specific information into the context latent vector, we introduce a novel loss function that encourages the context latent vector to be useful for predicting both forward and backward dynamics. The proposed method achieves superior generalization ability across various simulated robotics and control tasks, compared to existing RL schemes.


A central feature of the European Water Framework Directive are the reference conditions. The ecological quality status is determined by calculating the distance between the present situation and the reference conditions. To describe reference conditions the natural variation of biota in pristine water bodies should be measured. Because pristine water bodies are not present in the Netherlands anymore, water bodies (springs, streams, rivers and oxbow lakes) in central Poland were investigated. Macrophytes and macroinvertebrates were sampled and environmental variables were measured. The water bodies appeared to have a high biodiversity and a good ecological quality. They contain a high number of rare macroinvertebrate species. There are only few species that can not occur in the Netherlands, but their abundances were low. The Polish water bodies are suitable to describe reference conditions for similar Dutch water types. The data resulting from this project can be used to update the descriptions of reference conditions in the `Handboek Natuurdoeltypen?or to develop the descriptions for the Water Framework Directive types.


We explore the relationships between causal rules and counterfactuals, as well as their relative representation capabilities, in the logical framework of the causal calculus. It will be shown that, though counterfactuals are readily definable on the basis of causal rules, the reverse reduction is achievable only up to a certain logical threshold (basic equivalence). As a result, we will argue that counterfactuals cannot distinguish causal theories that justify different claims of actual causation, which could be seen as the main source of the problem of 'structural equivalents' in counterfactual approaches to causation. This will lead us to a general conclusion about the primary role of causal rules in representing causation.


Background: Schwannomas are benign and slow growing tumors that arise from the Schwann cells which ensheath the axons of peripheral nerve, cranial nerve and autonomic nervous system. A schwannoma of facial nerve may originate from extra or intra cranial segments of the nerve. Most of the facial nerve schwannomas originate from intra-tympanic region. In decreasing order of their frequency, schwannomas were found along the tympanic, mastoid (vertical), labrynthine and meatal segments of the facial nerve. It is an extremely rare entity as malignant degeneration of schwannomas is not frequent. A high level of clinical suspicion with detailed neuro-otological and radiological studies play important role in preoperative diagnosis of schwannomas.
Case presentation: We reported a case of 35-year-old male with progressive right sided facial asymmetry, sudden onset hearing loss and non-pulsatile tinnitus in right ear. The patient's presentation and diagnostic examinations helped us to reach a provisional diagnosis though final diagnosis was done on the basis of histopathological examination of the excised tumor which was suggestive of facial nerve schwannoma.
Conclusion: The rare and inconsistent clinical presentation and radiological pattern of facial schwannoma often leads to a delayed and indefinite diagnosis. The critical step in management of diverse lesion is diagnosis for the management of facial schwannoma. This report is about a challenging case of facial nerve schwannoma in intra-tympanic region which was diagnosed and managed in our institution.


The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will be the largest radio telescope in the world, with an aperture of up to one million square metres, due to be operational by 2022 at a cost estimated at 1.5 billion euros (2007). Designing a flexible instrument such as the SKA is a long-term task and requires a systems approach with inputs from both engineering and science specialists. Cost and performance modelling, and subsequent optimisation, is central to building the radio telescope. Curtin is taking a lead role in this process, and we present here a customdeveloped systems engineering tool that is being used in the design phase of the SKA. We outline how such a tool is being used to illuminate the performance and cost trade-offs required for this complex mega-science project reliant on emerging technologies to achieve its scientific goals. We also present some simple design decisions resulting from these trade-offs, saving hundreds of millions of euros.


The authors describe the novel spectral nested dissection (SND) algorithm, a novel algorithm for computing orderings appropriate for parallel factorization of sparse, symmetric matrices. The algorithm makes use of spectral properties of the Laplacian matrix associated with the given matrix to compute separators. The authors evaluate the quality of the spectral orderings with respect to several measures: fill, elimination tree height, height and weight balances of elimination trees, and clique tree heights. They use some very large structural analysis problems as test cases and demonstrate on these real applications that spectral orderings compare quite favorably with commonly used orderings, outperforming them by a wide margin for some of these measures. The only disadvantage of SND is its relatively long execution time.<<ETX>>


Adhesive properties of a cellulolytic, nitrogen-fixing bacterium isolated from a marine shipworm by Waterbury et al. (J. B. Waterbury, C. B. Calloway, and R. D. Turner, Science 221:1401-1403, 1983) are described. 35S-labeled cells of the shipworm bacterium bound preferentially to Whatman no. 1 cellulose filter paper, compared with its binding to other cellulose substrata or substrata lacking cellulose. The ability of the bacteria to bind to Whatman no. 1 filter paper was significantly reduced by glutaraldehyde or heat treatment of cells. Pretreatment of cells with azide, valinomycin, gramicidin-D, bis-hexafluoroacetylacetone (1799), or carbonyl cyanide-p-trifluoromethoxyphenylhydrazone inhibited adhesion activity. Cells pretreated with pronase or trypsin also exhibited reduced binding activity, but chymotrypsin and peptidase had no effect on adhesion activity. Cellodextrins and methyl cellulose 15 inhibited the adhesion of shipworm bacteria to filter paper, whereas glucose, cellobiose, and soluble carboxymethyl cellulose had no significant effect. The divalent cation chelators EDTA and EGTA [ethylene glycol-bis(β-aminoethyl ether)-N,N,N′N′-tetraacetic acid] had little or no effect on adhesive properties of shipworm bacteria. Also, preabsorbing the substratum with extracellular endoglucanase isolated from the shipworm bacterium or 1% bovine serum albumin had no apparent effect on bacterial binding. Low concentrations (0.01%) of sodium dodecyl sulfate solubilized a fraction from whole cells, which appeared to be involved in cellular binding activity. After removal of sodium dodecyl sulfate, several proteins in this fraction associated with intact cells. These cells exhibited up to 50% enhanced binding to filter paper in comparison to cells which had not been exposed to the sodium dodecyl sulfate-solubilized fraction.


Background: Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) has a major impact at the primary care level and there is a need to evaluate whether the diagnosis and therapeutic management of GERD in Europe needs to be improved. Methods: This project was designed to test the hypothesis that a new primary care management strategy would improve outcomes for patients with GERD, compared with usual care, in Europe. The analysis pools five separate cluster-randomized studies conducted in Austria, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden. These studies used a strategy based on the self-administered GerdQ questionnaire to stratify adult patients with symptoms of heartburn or regurgitation according to the frequency and impact of symptoms. A score of ≥8 indicates a high probability of suffering GERD. Patients with a GerdQ impact score ≤2 were treated with generic proton-pump inhibitors according to local guidance, and patients with an impact score ≥3 were treated with esomeprazole 40 mg once daily. Results: In total, 2400 patients were enrolled across the five studies. The protocols were modified by individual countries according to their local guidelines/requirements. In Norway, the new management strategy was compared with traditional routine endoscopy and 24-hour pH-metry, and encompassed proton-pump inhibitor reimbursement restrictions. Outcome measures differed by country, but included control of GERD symptoms, self-rated health status and work productivity, treatment changes, specialist referrals and physician adherence. GERD-related use of healthcare resources was also evaluated. Conclusion: The pooled analysis will determine whether a locally adapted primary care management strategy for GERD, using GerdQ as a patient-tailored diagnostic and therapeutic evaluation tool, is beneficial compared with usual care across five countries with different standard approaches to GERD management and control.


TESTUDINUM by MELISSA LEE PIRCHIO (Under the Direction of Adrian Burd) ABSTRACT I developed a spatially explicit model of Thalassia testudinum growth and vegetative propagation in Florida Bay. Thalassia is an ecologically important species in terms of primary production and habitat complexity; however, losses occur on many spatial scales, ranging from several meters to hundreds of kilometers. Recovery of disturbed meadows is primarily through vegetative elongation of the rhizomes. After 5-year simulations, the model produced annual maximum and minimum above-ground biomass values similar to those measured at monitoring locations within Florida Bay. Additionally, the model illustrated seagrass re-growth into bare patches and propagation away from vegetated patches into bare areas. The results suggest that considering the spatial dimension of seagrass growth can give modelers and those using the models more insight into the dynamics of vegetative propagation. Through sensitivity analysis of model output, I determined further research is needed on two important components of the plants: phosphorus uptake kinetics and resource allocation.


Data on immediate and delayed effects of cervical sympathectomy and stimulation of cervical postganglionic sympathetic fibers on cerebral circulation, hypothalamic neurosecretion and cerebral metabolism, are presented. Acute experiments in cats revealed adaptive function of cerebral vascular sympathetic innervation during rapid changes of arterial pressure. Data on the influence of basal vascular tone on post-desympathization circulatory effects were obtained. Long-lasting consequences of sympathetic stimulation (vasoconstriction and cerebral oedema) seem to depend on the activation of vasopressin secretion. Biochemical studies in rats revealed changes of (K+-Na+) ATPase activity, degree of oxidation and phosphorylation as well as dynamics of cAMP-cGMP and prostaglandin E, F2 alpha concentration in brain tissue in different period after cervical desympathization in conditions of normal cerebral blood supply and after circulatory cerebral hypoxia. The significance of sympathetic innervation for the adaptive and compensatory brain reactions to circulatory changes and damages is discussed.


This report is a terminal evaluation of a UN Environment-GEF project implemented between 2011 and 2017.The project's overall objective ["to assist Liberia to have a workable and transparent national biosafety system in line with its national development priorities and international obligations relative to Agenda 21, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety"]. The evaluation sought to assess project performance (in terms of relevance, effectiveness and efficiency), and determine outcomes and impacts (actual and potential) stemming from the project, including their sustainability. The evaluation has two primary purposes: (i) to provide evidence of results to meet accountability requirements, and (ii) to promote learning, feedback, and knowledge sharing through results and lessons learned among UN Environment, the GEF and their executing partner Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of Liberia and other relevant agencies of the project participating countries.


Management of energy consumption of nodes in ubicomp can be assisted by location-aware transmission strategies in MANETs [64]. It is hence understandable that several development in this field will follow in the future. Among the developments projected, some refined location-aware transmission protocols may be expected. Such transmission protocols will consider several criteria to achieve successful optimal transmission, one of which is distance coverage required and selection of that protocol which best suit that distance coverage. For advanced ubicomp environment refinements of transmission protocols is projected to be granulated at 10 m accuracy as available in Bluetooth. Hence, even for a ubicomp topography of 300 x 300 m, many different protocols adopted for different distance coverages will be available. To enable appropriate tuning of transmission in such a situation, it is desirable to know what the range of distance coverage that is being required for the CBR is and proactively activate the appropriate protocols. Such kinds of information will be based on known trends of occurrences of ranges for CBR in such topographies. Three previous studies [26-28] had been carried out over which results for this study is built over. This paper adds a fourth component derived from PPD [26] to the area of modelling for managing distance packets travel in ubicomp topography of varying node densities. Designers may use these results towards designing more successful proactive activations of appropriate transmission protocols in ubicomp. This research is a follow-up of several previous papers [1-28]. Key terms: UbicompUbiquitous Computing, MAUCMobile and Ubiquitous Computing, MANETMobile Adhoc Network, PPDPackets_Per_Distance, Max_CBR_DistMaximum CBR Distance, Min_CBR_DistMinimum_CBR_Distance, CBRConstant Bit Rate, R_CBR_Dist – Range_CBR_Distance. M. Kaleem GALAMALI, University of Technology Mauritius (student) Mauritius Assoc. Prof Nawaz Mohamudally University of Technology Mauritius, Mauritius


Osteosarcoma (OS) is a primary malignant tumour of bone occurring predominantly in children and young adults. Despite chemotherapy, relapse is common and mortality remains high. Non-transformed osteoblasts are highly sensitive to glucocorticoids, which reduce proliferation and induce apoptosis. Previously, we observed that OS cells, but not normal osteoblasts, express 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 2 (11β-HSD2). This enzyme inactivates cortisol (active) to cortisone (inactive) and expression of 11β-HSD2 renders OS cells resistant to glucocorticoids. By contrast, the related enzyme 11β-HSD1 converts cortisone to cortisol and reduces OS cell proliferation in vitro. Some synthetic glucocorticoids (e.g. dehydrodexamethasone (DHD), inactive counterpart of dexamethasone (DEX)) have been reported to be activated by 11β-HSD2. We therefore investigated expression and enzymatic activity of 11β-HSD isozymes in human OS tissue, determined whether 11β-HSD expression has prognostic value in the response to therapy, and evaluated the potential use of synthetic glucocorticoids to selectively target OS cells. OS samples expressed both 11β-HSD1 and 11β-HSD2. 11β-HSD1 expression in pretreatment biopsy specimens positively correlated with primary tumour size. Expression and activity of 11β-HSD1 in post-treatment biopsies were unrelated to the degree of tumour necrosis following chemotherapy. However, high 11β-HSD2 expression in post-treatment biopsies correlated with a poor response to therapy. OS cells that expressed 11β-HSD2 inactivated endogenous glucocorticoids; but these cells were also able to generate DEX from DHD. These results suggest that OS treatment response is related to 11β-HSD2 enzyme expression. Furthermore, OS cells expressing this enzyme could be targeted by treatment with synthetic glucocorticoids that are selectively reactivated by the enzyme.


A rare case of an atypical course of hemochromatosis in a woman at the age of 25 years is described; it was characterized by predominant lesions of the cardiac muscle, liver, pancreas, by phenomena of cardiovascular incompetence, by the absence of signs of melanodermia.


ARTICLE REVIEWED: Candel, I., Merckelbach, H., Loyen, S., & Reyskens, H. (2005). "I hit the Shift-key and then the computer crashed": Children and false admissions. Personality and Individual Differences, 38, 1381-1387. Although a confession is generally viewed as irrefutable evidence of one's guilt, research into the phenomenon of false confessions has revealed that, under a variety of circumstances, a questioner may elicit a false confession from a suspect. To date, the literature in this area has identified three specific types of false confessions. A voluntary false confession is one that is made of one's own accord, without any external pressure to do so. A coerced-compliant false confession, on the other hand, is when a suspect has been heavily pressured, often throughout a lengthy interrogation process, to confess guilt. In this case, although the suspect still believes in their innocence, he or she may confess as a way of avoiding other potentially negative consequences (such as a longer jail sentence should she or he be found guilty at trial) or to gain a reward. The third type of false confession, and one which has received much attention in recent years, is the coercedinternalised false confession. According to researchers, in this condition suspects may not only confess to crimes that they did not commit, but may come to believe that they actually did commit the crimes that they have confessed to. During the past decade, researchers have begun to make a concentrated attempt to identify the internal and external factors that increase the likelihood of obtaining a false, internalised confession. Interview techniques such as isolating the suspect, sitting close to the suspect while questioning them, and conducting lengthy interviews, have been found to increase the likelihood of eliciting a false confession. Researchers have been particularly interested in the personality characteristics of the suspect that may contribute to the likelihood of making a false confession. One factor that has received widespread attention is suggestibility, defined as the extent to which people are likely to accept messages communicated to them through questioning. This factor has been identified as one that may play a significant role in eliciting false confessions from children. In an effort to examine the role of suggestibility in eliciting false, internalised confessions from children, Candel, Merckelbach, Loyen, and Reyskens (2005) recruited 50 children aged six to nine completed a brief interview-style questionnaire and computer task. The goal of this study was to determine the extent to which children will falsely confess to causing a computer malfunction when accused by a researcher, and whether this relates to their level of suggestibility. Similar studies have been conducted with adult and adolescent participants, with the main difference being that older participants were presented with false evidence in addition to the accusation. In this study, the children were falsely accused, but no false evidence was presented. In order to accomplish this goal, each child attended two sessions with the researcher and answered a series of questions designed to measure suggestibility and to complete a computer task, during which the computer supposedly "crashed". Specifically, during the first session, each child completed the Dutch version of the Bonn Test of Statement Suggestibility (BTSS-NL). This measure consists of a brief narrative accompanied by four pictures, a ten-minute filler task (drawing a picture), and a set of 27 questions of three types: questions containing leading or misleading information, which comprise the Yield scale; questions that are immediately repeated after the participant has given an answer, implying that the initial response was incorrect (the Shift scale); and simple memory questions included in order to disguise the nature of the task. Suggestibility was measured by the participants' responses. …


The aim of this study was to compare ejaculates of Duroc and Pietrain boars in terms of sperm morphology characteristics. Analysis was performed on 116 ejaculates collected from 6 Duroc boars and 9 Pietrain boars. The boars selected for examination were young and at the beginning of their reproductive utilization. Ejaculates were collected at monthly intervals over the period of 10 months. Microscopic slides were prepared immediately after collection of ejaculates. The slides were examined to assess the frequency of morphological abnormalities. Moreover, morphometric measurements were taken from 15 randomly selected morphologically normal spermatozoa. Also, conventional evaluation of ejaculates was made following methods used at Polish sow insemination centres. Differences were found in the dimensions and shape between Duroc and Pietrain spermatozoa. Pietrain spermatozoa were characterised by significantly smaller head perimeter compared with Duroc (P ≤ 0.01). Moreover, Pietrain spermatozoa tails were by 0.8 μm longer (P ≤ 0.01), and their total sperm length was greater by 0.5 μm compared to Duroc (P ≤ 0.05) sperm. The volume of Duroc ejaculates was lower but their sperm concentration was greater. The results of the present study contribute to scientific progress as they demonstrate differences in sperm size between boars of different breeds, which may be reflected in different reproductive performances of the boars. Pigs, purebreed, ejaculate, morphometry