Background and Aims Autoimmune dysfunction has been described in patients with Noonan Syndrome (NS). Till date, 9 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and NS have been reported. However, exact relationship between SLE and NS is not known. Methods To describe the clinical presentation of a child with SLE and NS. Results A 10-years-old boy presented with fever, gradually progressive dyspnoea, pain in bilateral elbow and knee joints for 8 months. His past and family history was normal. Weight and height were <−3 z-score for his age. He had a long face with relatively large ears, down slanting palpebral fissure and livedo reticularis over lower limbs. Grade III ejection systolic murmur was present at pulmonary area along with loud second heart sound. He had hypertonia with brisk deep tendon reflexes in bilateral lower limbs, bilateral ankle clonus and extensor plantar response. Investigations revealed anaemia, thrombocytopenia, leucopenia, elevated acute phase reactants and aPTT prolongation. His antinuclear antibody was positive by indirect immunofluorescence (4+ homogenous), anti-double stranded deoxyribonucleic acid was elevated and direct coomb test and lupus anticoagulant were positive along with low serum complement 3 level. Echocardiography revealed mitral valve prolapse and mitral regurgitation. Magnetic resonance imaging of brain revealed chronic lacunar infarct in medial aspect of right thalamus. A diagnosis of SLE, APLA and NS was made and treatment with oral prednisolone, hydroxychloroquine, acetyl salicylate and low molecular weight heparin was initiated. Conclusions Autoimmune conditions including SLE are being increasingly described in patients with NS requiring close monitoring and long term follow up.


De Clèrambault's syndrome (or erotomania) consists in a delusional conviction, by the patient, in which someone of higher social status has fallen in love with him or her. Sexual privation can be an important psychodynamic factor on the development of this condition, but organic factors related to its genesis continue on investigation. This study revises the most important aspects that the literature brings us about this disease and its causes. The databases MEDLINE and LILACS have been consulted, and the most appropriate articles were examined. It is established that erotomania is not much found in the scientific literature, and, probably, it isn't as rare as it has been proposed. The major part of its etiologic explanation is based on psychodynamic factors, without, however, confirmed relation of cause with its clinic presentation. The progress in the neurobiologic researches will improve, perhaps, the accuracy of diagnose and treatment of these patients.


The lumpy zone in a blast furnace is composed of piles formed naturally during burden charging. The properties of this zone have significant effects on the blast furnace operation, including heat and mass transfer, chemical reactions and gas flow. The properties of the layers mainly include the angle of repose and porosity distribution. This paper introduces two methods, the Discharging Method and the Lifting Method, to study the influence of the packing method on the angle of repose of the pile. The relationships of the angle of repose and porosity with physical parameters are also investigated. The porosity distribution in the bottom of a pile shows a decreasing trend from the region below the apex to the center. The coordination number of the particles is employed to explain this change. The maximum of the frequency distribution of it was found to show a negative correlation to the static friction coefficient, but becomes insensitive to the parameter as the static friction coefficient increases above 0.6.


Urban areas have particular sensitivities to climate change, and therefore adaptation to a warming planet represents a challenging new issue for urban policy makers in both the developed and developing world. Further to climate mitigation strategies implemented in various cities over the past 20 years, more recent efforts of urban management have also included actions taken to adapt to increasing temperatures, sea level and extreme events. Through the examination and comparison of seven cities, this paper identifies the various levels of administrative adaptation planning, the tools and information used in making policy choices, and the roles of governance and finance in urban adaptation to climate change. Lessons learned from these seven cases are presented to better inform the next generation of cities adapting to climate change.


Active faults in the upper crust can either slide steadily by aseismic creep, or abruptly causing earthquakes. Creep relaxes the stress and prevents large earthquakes from occurring. Identifying the mechanisms controlling creep, and their evolution with time and depth, represents a major challenge for predicting the behavior of active faults. Based on microstructural studies of rock samples collected from the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (California), we propose that pressure solution creep, a pervasive deformation mechanism, can account for aseismic creep. Experimental data on minerals such as quartz and calcite are used to demonstrate that such creep mechanism can accommodate the documented 20 mm/yr aseismic displacement rate of the San Andreas fault creeping zone. We show how the interaction between fracturing and sealing controls the pressure solution rate, and discuss how such a stress-driven mass transfer process is localized along some segments of the fault.


Combined therapy with plasmosorption has been performed in 22 patients aged 18-65 years suffering from different variants of psoriasis diagnosed 5 to 24 years before. Stable remission was achieved in 16 patients who exhibited normalization of peripheral blood characteristics including total protein and protein plasma fractions, lowering of CIC and middle molecular peptides concentration. The response was also obtained in severe psoriasis (psoriatic erythrodermia and arthropathic psoriasis). 11 patients remained in remission for at least 1 year. Due to plasmosorption the hospital stay of the patients reduced. Plasmosorption promoted detoxication, recovery of hepatic protein-synthetizing function, enhancement of plasma albumin detoxication ability.


This study contributes to the field of films for social change by exploring the production process of participatory film-making for social change, whereby explicit claims of community empowerment, participation and social change are the very justification of the production. To do so, it investigates the definitions and production processes of community art, participatory video and mediated participation. Using 'practice as research' as a key method of enquiry, we examine three film practices to explore aspects of professionalism. The objective of this examination is to elucidate the process of community member participation in collaboration with film-makers, facilitators and action researchers. People participate in film production processes by contributing to the script, acting, location scouting or any other activity at any stage of the film production. In examining this collaborative process, we focus on dilemmas encountered in relation to integrating participatory qualities and artistic qualities in a work of overall interdisciplinary and professional quality. The material used for the enquiry consists of participatory observations, scripts, films, course materials, audience observations, evaluation forms and in-depth interviews collected over the years in different projects. The analysis of the material indicates that the film-makers deal with dilemmas regarding the balance of the film's participatory and artistic qualities and the production process. The expectations of the film-making community regarding the process, the resulting film and the related audience influence the balance between the participatory quality of the process and the artistic quality of the film. Finding a balance between participatory quality and artistic quality is a challenge, and in practice the stakeholders involved experience tensions in a continuous process of negotiation. This article demonstrates the tensions and illustrates the continuous process of negotiation between the (roles of) film-makers, facilitators, action researchers and community members.


This work studies the relation between emotions and music, the place that emotive properties occupy in it. I hold that music expressiveness cannot be explained appealing to what listeners or composers feel, but just to what we can find in the music-work. We hear emotions in music due to its power to exhibit the outer appearance of them, when they are expressed in ordinary life. But they supervene upon formal-structural musical features and the challenge is to explain how it happens and in virtue of which combinations we hear a music passage with a particular expressive character. I contend that detecting the relation of emotive properties of music with other phenomenal features, can contribute to understand how they work.On the other hand, I explain that music moves, but not necessarily to affective states related to the heard properties. Music is the intentional object of very deep ?aesthetic emotions?; but it also may elicit in us other non-full-blooded emotional affective states as mirroring responses to dynamic and feeling properties we perceive in music.


Two sets of additive parameters used previously for the calculation of C-13 chemical shifts of mono and poly six-membered cycloalkanes were applied for the prediction of N-15 chemical shifts of some methyl piperidine derivatives. These sets are based on 2 principles: the p-character (substituents electronic effect) of the atom under consideration and the steric effect that reflects the spatial arrangement of the molecule. An additional parameter, namely the ring angle of the studied atom, was added to the other parameters to define the structural distortion that is due to large steric interactions. The p-character in set (1) is represented by the number of carbon atoms; primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary types at a -position to the nitrogen, while in set (2) it is introduced as the partial electronic charge. The steric effect is expressed in terms of the actual number of the interacting proton-proton and/or proton-lone pairs in both sets. Quantum mechanical and regression analysis methods were employed for this investigation. The results showed that both sets were good for the prediction of N-15 chemical shifts. The parameters of set (2) were more consistent with the theory of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy; therefore, they are considered for further research. The study also included derivation of a common set of parameters for the calculation of C-13 and N-15 chemical shifts of cyclic systems. The derived parameters were tested by the estimation of the chemical shifts of other systems. Deviations were observed only in positions that were involved in large steric interactions.


In solution-state NMR spectroscopy, dynamic processes can be probed provided the nuclear relaxation rate constant does not exceed the rate constant of the process. Phenomena occurring on a time scale longer than the spin-lattice relaxation time constant, T1, were not amenable to study by conventional NMR. The discovery of long-lived nuclear spin states (LLS) in 2004, by M. Levitt, M. Carravetta and O. W. Johannessen, showed that lifetimes of magnetization can be much higher than T1. LLS experiments can be performed either in zero or in high magnetic fields for scalar-coupled proton spin pairs. This thesis contributes methods for exciting and preserving LLS in high field for a wide class of molecules, including sugars, amino acids and nucleotides. Slow diffusion has been measured for a mixture of molecules having different NMR parameters using LLS. Conformational exchange could also be followed by exchange spectroscopy in BPTI. Recently, LLS have been observed in highly mobile parts (Gly-75 and 76) of Ubiquitin. Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP) is one of the methods to overcome the inherent low sensitivity of NMR spectroscopy. We have conceived an experiment to preserve DNP enhanced magnetization by conversion into LLS. A way of improving resolution and sensitivity of NMR has been designed by creation of long-lived coherences (LLC) in biomolecules.


Abstract It is critical that organizations deliver timely, effective communication about potential risks and life-saving information. The National Weather Service (NWS) developed a suite of messages known as "experimental graphic products" to be automatically distributed through their local official Twitter accounts at the onset of fast-moving, severe weather events such as tornadoes. However, recent research has suggested messages need to be carefully constructed for audiences to place attention to the content, remember the content, and later act in response to the content. The purpose of this study is to explore what people recall of the NWS Twitter message. We used an online survey instrument, distributed via Qualtrics, to investigate participant responses to three open-ended questions about the message. We performed a quantitative analysis to summarize the frequency of message features recorded by participants, and a qualitative analysis to identify themes that provide a deeper description of what was recalled. We found that participants encoded the hazard type, the time the message was sent and would expire, and the types of impacts that might occur. Graphic design cues elicited attention as they "stood out" to the participants. When asked about importance and what they would tell others, respondents described protective action, indicating participants may have activated prior knowledge of the threat, as it was not included in the message. Risk, disaster, and science communicators can draw guidance about communicating during a disaster. It provides a lens for researching message construction, and the importance of communicating protective action guidance during severe weather events.


First observation of the decay B0s→D¯¯¯0ϕ is reported using pp collision data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb−1, collected by the LHCb experiment at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. The significance of the signal is 6.5 standard deviations. The branching fraction is measured relative to that of the decay B0s→D¯¯¯0K¯¯¯⁎0 to be B(B0s→D¯¯¯0ϕ)B(B0s→D¯¯¯0K¯¯¯⁎0)=0.069±0.013 (stat)±0.007 (syst). The first measurement of the ratio of branching fractions for the decays B0s→D¯¯¯0K¯¯¯⁎0 and B0→D¯¯¯0K⁎0 is found to be B(B0s→D¯¯¯0K¯¯¯⁎0)B(B0→D¯¯¯0K⁎0)=7.8±0.7 (stat)±0.3 (syst)±0.6 (fs/fd), where the last uncertainty is due to the ratio of the B0s and B0 fragmentation fractions.


error for English L2 learners at all levels, which signals the need for a central focus on establishing form-meaningconnections. A wise strategy would be the application of deliberate simplification of the linguistic material only torectify it at later stages. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the ways to benefit from the distance as ametaphorical link between the past and present for its facilitation effect on learning the present, past and presentperfect tenses. The distance was elaborated numerically and visually but the elaboration was kept to be minimum.The links were created between the visual and numerical cues and the target forms through shared partial similaritiesto help associate the temporal meanings with the auxiliary forms of 'be' and 'do', and the inflection markers of '-ed'and -s.In a nonequivalent comparison-group design, ANCOVA and Kruskas-Wallis revealed the experimental group'ssignificantly better performance in tense-aspect distinctions as regards temporal meanings. The results haveimplications for both temporal and nontemporal meanings (e.g. temporal, social or psychological distances). Beingvisual and numerical, cues can be universally applied to diverse contexts.


Background: CAFs (cancer-associated fibroblasts) and tumor-associated p-EMT (partial epithelial mesenchymal transition) cells coexist and contribute to the formation of epithelial tumors like OSCC (oral squamous cell carcinoma). In oral cancer, Wnt signaling pathway contributes to the tumor progression, invasion and metastasis. Here we deeply analyzed Wnt signaling pathway using our previous single-cell RNA-seq data of CAFs and p-EMT tumor cells in OSCC by computational methods.

Material and methods: Integrated single-cell RNA sequencing data of OSCC CAF and p-EMT clusters were obtained from our previous study. These cells were from samples being primary tumor, oral cavity location, metastasis information and then analyzed by R, Python to investigate the gene expression, cell-cell communication, gen set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and overall survival analysis across metastasis conditions regarding Wnt signaling pathway.

Results: Genes related to Wnt signaling pathway upregulated in CAFs and p-EMT cancer cells, especially under metastasis condition including WNT2, WNT5A, FZD1-4, ROR2 in CAFs, and WNT7B, FZD2/5/6 in p-EMT cells. Cell-cell interaction analysis and GSEA in CAFs and p-EMT tumor cells highlighted non-canonical Wnt signaling pathway in CAFs and canonical Wnt signaling pathway in p-EMT tumor cells. CTHRC1 and SFRP2 were suggested as biomarkers in Wnt signaling pathway of CAFs from the gene expression, GSEA and overall survival analysis.

Conclusion: Our study found CTHRC1 and SFRP2 as biomarkers for HSCC and OSCC prognosis belong to CAFs of TME. It might pave the way for targetable treatment based on WNT ligand-receptor interaction and Wnt signaling modulation in OSCC CAFs based on metastatic status.


The electromechanical response of a polyurethane elastomer was investigated at room temperature and in the temperature range near its glass transition. It was found that the Maxwell stress contribution to the strain response can be significant at temperatures higher than the glass transition temperature. In addition, the material exhibits a very high electrostrictive coefficient Q, about two orders of magnitude higher than that of polyvinylidene fluoride. It was also found that in a polymeric material, the chain segment motions can be divided into those related to the polarization response and those related to the mechanical response and the overlap between the two yields the electromechanical response of the material. In general, the activation energies for different types of motion can be different, resulting in different relaxation times in the dielectric, the elastic compliance, and the electrostrictive data, as observed in the polyurethane elastomer investigated. The experimental results indicate that at the temperatures investigated, the activation energy for the mechanical related segment motions is higher than that of nonmechanical related segment motions.


Purpose of review To better understand the established associations between hypocalcaemia and clinical outcomes, we synopsize the mechanisms involved in hypocalcaemia in the critically ill. We also provide an overview of the current evidence on managing hypocalcaemia in critical illness. Recent findings Hypocalcaemia is reported to occur in 55–85% of ICU patients. It appears to be associated with poor outcomes. It appears to be associated with poor outcomes, but it may be a marker rather than a direct cause of disease severity. The recommendations to correct calcium in major bleeding are found on weak evidence and require further exploration by a randomized controlled trial (RCT). Calcium administration in cardiac arrest has shown no benefit and may provoke harm. In addition, no RCT has assessed the risks and benefits of calcium supplementation in critically ill hypocalcemic patients. Several recent studies conclude that it may even harm septic ICU patients. These observations are supported by evidence that septic patients using calcium channel blockers may have better outcomes. Summary Hypocalcaemia is common in critically ill patients. Direct evidence that calcium supplementation improves their outcomes is lacking, and there is even some indication that it may be detrimental. Prospective studies are required to elucidate the risks and benefits, and the pathophysiological mechanisms involved.


Compressed sensing (CS) theory specifies a new signal acquisition approach, po- tentially allowing the acquisition of signals at a much lower data rate than the Nyquist sampling rate. In CS, the signal is not directly acquired but reconstructed from a few measurements. One of the key problems in CS is how to recover the original signal from measurements in the presence of noise. This dissertation addresses signal reconstruction problems in CS. First, a feedback structure and signal recovery algorithm, orthogonal pruning pursuit (OPP), is proposed to exploit the prior knowledge to reconstruct the signal in the noise-free situation. To handle the noise, a noise-aware signal reconstruction algorithm based on Bayesian Compressed Sensing (BCS) is developed. Moreover, a novel Turbo Bayesian Compressed Sensing (TBCS) algorithm is developed for joint signal reconstruction by exploiting both spatial and temporal redundancy. Then, the TBCS algorithm is applied to a UWB positioning system for achieving mm-accuracy with low sampling rate ADCs. Finally, hardware implementation of BCS signal reconstruction on FPGAs and GPUs is investigated. Implementation on GPUs and FPGAs of parallel Cholesky decomposition, which is a key component of BCS, is explored. Simulation results on software and hardware have demonstrated that OPP and TBCS outperform previous approaches, with UWB positioning accuracy improved by 12.8x. The accelerated computation helps enable real-time application of this work.


Group convolutional neural networks (G-CNNs) have been shown to increase parameter efficiency and model accuracy by incorporating geometric inductive biases. In this work, we investigate the properties of representations learned by regular G-CNNs, and show considerable parameter redundancy in group convolution kernels. This finding motivates further weight-tying by sharing convolution kernels over subgroups. To this end, we introduce convolution kernels that are separable over the subgroup and channel dimensions. In order to obtain equivariance to arbitrary affine Lie groups we provide a continuous parameterisation of separable convolution kernels. We evaluate our approach across several vision datasets, and show that our weight sharing leads to improved performance and computational efficiency. In many settings, separable G-CNNs outperform their nonseparable counterpart, while only using a fraction of their training time. In addition, thanks to the increase in computational efficiency, we are able to implement G-CNNs equivariant to the Sim(2) group; the group of dilations, rotations and translations of the plane. Sim(2) -equivariance further improves performance on all tasks considered, and achieves state-of-the-art performance on rotated MNIST.


Diapause, a stage-specific developmental arrest, is widely exploited by insects to bridge unfavorable seasons. Considerable progress has been made in understanding the ecology, physiology and evolutionary implications of insect diapause, yet intriguing questions remain. A more complete understanding of diapause processes on Earth requires a better geographic spread of investigations, including more work in the tropics and at high latitudes. Questions surrounding energy management and trade-offs between diapause and non-diapause remain understudied. We know little about how maternal effects direct the diapause response, and regulators of prolonged diapause are also poorly understood. Numerous factors that were recently linked to diapause are still waiting to be placed in the regulatory network leading from photoreception to engagement of the diapause program. These factors include epigenetic processes and small noncoding RNAs, and emerging data also suggest a role for the microbiome in diapause regulation. Another intriguing feature of diapause is the complexity of the response, resulting in a diverse suite of responses that comprise the diapause syndrome. Select transcription factors likely serve as master switches turning on these diverse responses, but we are far from understanding the full complexity. The richness of species displaying diapause offers a platform for seeking common components of a 'diapause toolbox'. Across latitudes, during invasion events and in a changing climate, diapause offers grand opportunities to probe evolutionary change and speciation. At a practical level, diapause responses can be manipulated for insect control and long-term storage. Diapausing insects also contain a treasure trove of pharmacological compounds and offer promising models for human health.


Abstract. The land-surface parameters required as input to a GCM grid box (typically a few degrees) are often set to be those of the dominant vegetation type within the grid box. This paper discusses the use and effect of aggregation rules for specifying effective values of these land cover parameters by taking into account the relative proportion of each land-cover type within each individual grid box. Global land-cover classification data at 1 km resolution were used to define Biosphere Atmosphere Transfer Scheme (BATS) specific aggregate (using aggregation rules) land-cover parameters. Comparison of the values of the aggregate parameters and those defined using the single dominant vegetation type (default parameters) shows significant differences in some regions, particularly in the semi-desert and in forested regions, e.g. the Sahara Desert and the tropical forest of South America. These two different sets of parameters were used as input data for two 10-year simulations of the NCAR CCM3 model coupled to the BATS land-surface scheme. Statistical analyses comparing the results of the two model runs showed that the resulting effects on the land-surface diagnostics are significant only in specific regions. For example, the sensible heat flux in the Sahara Desert calculated for the aggregate parameter run increased due to the marked increase in the minimum stomatal resistance and the decrease in fractional vegetation cover in the aggregate parameters over the default parameters. The modelled global precipitation and surface air temperature fields were compared to observations: there is a general improvement in the performance of the aggregate parameter run over the default parameter run in areas where the differences between the aggregate and default parameter run are significant. However, most of the difference between the modelled and observed fields is attributable to other model deficiencies. It can be concluded that the use of aggregation rules to derive land-surface parameters results in significant changes in modelled climate and in some improvements in the land-surface diagnostics in selected regions. There is also some evidence that there is a response in the global circulation pattern, which is a focus of further work.


Edible films based on whey protein isolate and sodium caseinate were prepared by uniform design method. Glycerol has been incorporated into the edible films as a plasticizer. For all types of films, the influences of components and forming temperature on film properties, such as mechanical properties, water solubility, optical properties, gas and water vapor permeability were investigated. The results suggested that glycerol was the most important factor influencing all the properties of edible composite protein films. However, both increases of sodium caseinate concentration and glycerol content contributed to decrease the barrier properties of gas and water vapor. Among the films studied, group D (prepared with 5% whey protein isolate, 2% sodium caseinate, 50% glycerol at the temperature of 50 °C) showed moderate mechanical properties, optical properties, water solubility and maximum barrier properties of gas and water vapor, with tensile strength=5.85MPa, elongation=101.20%, transparency=91.4%, gas permeability rate=49.92cm3 m-2 d-1 0.1MPa-1 and water vapor permeability of 0.128×10-11 g m-1 s-1 Pa-1, 0.260×10-11 g m-1 s-1 Pa-1, 0.513×10-11 g m-1 s-1 Pa-1, 1.252×10-11 g m-1 s-1 Pa-1 at the RH gradient of 10-40%, 10-50%, 10-60%, 10-70%, respectively.


Modern mobile device screen sizes vary significantly, from watches to phones to tablets. Android in particular has supported varying screen sizes since 2009, and is currently being installed on large format touch displays over eight feet diagonally. These extreme variations present significant challenges to app developers who desire to support all devices within a single application. Squid is a handwriting, note-taking application with well over two million installations and a 4.2+ star rating in Google Play. Although originally designed for tablets, we have adapted Squid to run effectively on phones and more recently large format displays. In this paper we report on UI/UX challenges that we faced and decisions made to overcome them.


Multifocal fibrosclerosis denotes a combination of similar fibrous disorders occurring at different anatomical sites. We encountered a 53-year-old male patient with orbital pseudotumor, chronic paranasal sinusitis, fibrous nodules of the lungs, intracranial pachymeningitis, and panhypopituitarism with central diabetes insipidus (DI) as a possible manifestation of multifocal fibrosclerosis. It has been reported that intracranial pachymeningitis or orbital pseudotumor associated with multifocal fibrosclerosis could invade the sella turcica causing a variety of anterior and/or posterior pituitary dysfunctions. In our case, intracranial pachymeningitis apparently involved the pituitary stalk and gland. Isolated gonadotropin deficiency, in addition to central DI, preceded panhypopituitarism. Although panhypopituitarism with central DI due to multifocal fibrosclerosis is quite rare and only one case has ever been reported, this systemic fibrotic disorder can be a possible cause of panhypopituitarism with central DI.


Cooling towers are commonly significant contributors to the overall noise emitted by power generation facilities. Because power generation facilities are often required to meet strict environmental noise criteria, predicting the potential noise impact of the cooling tower during the design of the facility is important in developing noise mitigation strategies. The prediction technique must accurately simulate the noise radiation pattern associated with the cooling tower. The main components of noise associated with mechanical draft cooling towers generally include the water falling over the fill media, the operation of the fan units, and the operation of the circulating water pumps. This paper summarizes a study of cooling tower noise modeling techniques frequently used to simulate sound propagation. The noise emitted from a mechanical draft cooling tower is modeled by various directional point source configurations to account for each noise component. Additionally, the noise barrier effect of the cooling...


The block economic value (BEV) of a single-metal deposit is calculated based on the metal content and the related costs. The common methods available for calculating BEV are just based upon the profitable elements, and the effects of undesirable elements on BEV are not considered. However, in multi-element deposits, the effects of other elements existing in the blocks on BEV should be considered with the purpose of optimizing the blending. These elements and blending methods have considerable effects on the quality of the final product. In this paper, a new approach is introduced to determine BEV in multi-element deposit with two types of profitable and penalty elements by considering the effect of blending on BEV. Consequently, the ultimate pit limits (UPLs) will be determined based on these conditions. The developed model is tested in the Gol-e-Gohar No.2 iron-ore mine, and the mine UPLs is determined. The results obtained showed that the mineable reserve of the pit increased by 3% when the effects of both types of elements are considered. In order to investigate the effect of grade uncertainty on BEV, twenty realizations of the ore block are generated using the sequential Gaussian simulation approach. The UPLs of all the realizations are determined using the developed BEV-calculation method, and the pit limits with different probabilities of occurrence are determined. The total mineable reserve varied between 20,380 and 46,410 million tons. The exploitation of mine should start with the smallest pit (100% probability). The largest pit should be considered as a guide for surface-facility locating.


We study defect modes of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice with a localized defect within the framework of the one-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equation. It is shown that for a significant range of parameters the defect modes can be accurately described by an expansion over Wannier functions, whose envelope is governed by the coupled nonlinear Schr\"odinger equations with a $\ensuremath{\delta}$ impurity. The stability of the defect modes is verified by direct numerical simulations of the underlying Gross-Pitaevskii equation with a periodic and defect potentials. We also discuss possibilities of driving defect modes through the lattice and suggest ideas for their experimental generation.


The magnetic field dependences of the frequencies of standing spin-wave modes in a tangentially magnetized array of thin rectangular permalloy dots (800 × 550 nm) were measured experimentally by a Brillouin light scattering technique and calculated theoretically using an approximate size-dependent quantization of the spin-wavevector components in the dipole-exchange dispersion equation for spin waves propagating in a continuous magnetic film. It was found that the inhomogeneous internal bias magnetic field of the dot has a strong influence on the profiles of the lowest spin-wave standing modes. In addition, the dynamic magnetization distributions found for both longitudinally and transversely magnetized long magnetic stripes gives a good approximation for mode distributions in a rectangular dot magnetized along one of its in-plane sides. An approximate analytic theory of exchange-dominated spin-wave modes, strongly localized along the dot edge that is perpendicular to the bias magnetic field, is developed. A good quantitative agreement with the results of the BLS experiment is found.


A method to derive weights to be used in distance-based multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) source localization algorithms under scarce information is discussed. In particular, a family of weighing function is derived with basis on small-scale statistics and the parameter that drives the choice of a particular weighing function out of such a family is optimized with basis on an information-theoretical criterion. It is found that, under the condition of scarce information, the proposed weighing strategy outperforms the alternative of utilizing an approximation of the maximum-likelihood (ML) weighing strategy.


Statelessness in Thailand is primarily framed first and foremost as an issue of legibility to the state, with an assumption that once a stateless person is 'properly seen', due recognition will follow. This article builds on a growing body of literature that examines the limits of evidentiary approach and the burden of proving citizenship as experienced by many stateless persons around the world. I use the anthropological framework of 'state illegibility' to encapsulate the systemic violence and burden placed on stateless persons by the state's opaqueness and inscrutable, contradictory and unpredictable bureaucratic practices. Through three ethnographic accounts in Thailand, I interrogate various forms of state illegibility and their implications. I argue that by not recognising state illegibility, statelessness risks being reduced to an individualised legal status issue, rather than being acknowledged as a symptom of systemic discrimination.


In this paper we outline the history of institutionalizing pre-service teacher education in Egypt , and then examine efforts in the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s to reform faculties of education. We document previous criticisms of and proposed changes in teacher preparation programs, but note that concerted reform efforts occurred only after the Egyptian government in the 1990s focused on improving educational quality, including teacher preparation, and the World Bank and USAID also put the issue pre-service teacher education on their agendas – and committed funds for this purpose. We also describe how the proposed reforms of policy and practice (e.g., improving assessments of entrants and graduates, increasing a focus on practice versus theory in coursework, expanding the amount of time devoted to field experiences, and organizing "induction" programs to support and guide new teachers) reflected global teacher education reform discourses characteristic of the 1990s and 2000s. However, rather than treating globalization as a process without real actors, we trace how these ideas were promoted by many Egyptians and non-Egyptians (e.g., faculty of education staff and Ministry of Higher Education personnel, but also World Bank staff, USAID personnel, and members of the two international organization-funded project teams). In examining the planning and implementation of two internationally funded faculty of education reform projects, we explore the interplay between and among local and global actors and identify individual and organizational factors that enabled or constrained these efforts to achieve significant and sustainable improvements in the quality of pre-service teacher education in Egypt .


Historically genotypic variation has been detected at the phenotypic level, at the metabolic level, and at the protein chemistry level. Advances in technology have allowed its direct visualisation at the level of DNA variation. Nevertheless, there is still an enormous interest in phenotypic, metabolic and protein property variability, since such variation gives insights into potential functionally important differences conferred by genetic variation. High-throughput transcriptomics and proteomics applied to different individuals drawn from a population has the potential to identify the functional consequences of genetic variability, in terms of either differences in expression of mRNA or in terms of differences in the quantities, pI(s) or molecular weight(s) of an expressed protein. Family studies can define the genetic component of such variation (segregation analysis) and with the genotyping of well-spaced markers can map the causative factors to broad chromosomal regions (linkage analysis). Association studies in the variant proteins have the greatest power to confirm the presence of cis-acting genetic variants. The most powerful study designs may combine elements of both family and association studies applied to proteomic and transcriptomic analyses. Such studies may provide appreciable advances in our understanding of the genetic aetiology of complex disorders.


Currently available Flow-Cytometry Software (FCS) analysis platforms are computationally efficient and user-friendly, but may lack the functionality of single-plot, multi-parametric data visualisation. Methods to overcome this include gating techniques and/or dimensionality reduction. However, these strategies make Flow-Cytometry (FC) data analysis more time- and labour-intensive; profound errors can also result from incorrect FCS use. We have developed PolarFCS, a software tool capable of single-plot, multi-parametric data visualisation. Unlike traditional clinical FC plots, which typically operate directly on a data-set to produce single-parameter FC histograms or two-parameter orthogonal scatter plots, PolarFCS operates on the flow-parameter calculated centre of mass of each event in the data-set, and presents these as a dot-plot. We compare PolarFCS to our traditional clinical FCS workflow, using a selection of clinical plasma cell FC data. Multiple flow plots and gating strategies are required in the traditional software to isolate neoplastic populations. In PolarFCS, however, positional re-arrangement and scaling of the poles can be used to quickly isolate a population of interest. We also compare both approaches in a case of Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) assessment, and again, the versatility of the polar adjustment and parameter scaling allowable with PolarFCS is demonstrated. PolarFCS employs strategies that allow more accurate, standardised and detailed FC data analysis compared to traditional FCS platforms. Visualisation of multiple parameters in a single plot is an effective and invaluable feature that many other platforms currently do not offer. Availability: PolarFCS can be downloaded at https://github.com/etiennemahe/PolarFCS


The effect of dexamethasone on the HL-60 human promyelocytic leukemia cell line was studied using a radioligand-binding assay for a chemotactic peptide receptor that is found on the surface of mature polymorphonuclear leukocytes. When dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is added to cultures, HL-60 cells undergo morphological and functional differentiation over a period of 6 to 7 days. Differentiation is accompanied by increased binding of the synthetic N-formylated chemotactic peptide N-formylmethionylleucyl[3H]phenylalanine. Binding of N-formylmethionylleucyl[3H]phenylalanine to cells induced to differentiate with DMSO was temperature dependent, specific, saturable, of high affinity, reversible, and proportional to cell number. Dexamethasone increased the number of N-formylated chemotactic peptide receptors in cultures of differentiating HL-60 cells without affecting the affinity of the receptors for the tritiated peptide. This steroid response was dose dependent, proportional in magnitude to glucocorticoid activity, and abolished by cycloheximide. Dexamethasone had little effect on N-formylmethionylleucyl[3H]phenylalanine binding unless DMSO was also present in culture or the cells were first induced by DMSO to differentiate. These results suggest that the glucocorticoid stimulated increase in number of N-formylated chemotactic peptide receptors was mediated by the high-affinity glucocorticoid receptor, involved protein synthesis, and was apparently dependent on differentiation.


Zeolite (clinoptilolite) is mainly natural volcanic porous tuff and it has strong absorption ability, large specific surface area and lightness. The concrete has been produced using in the rate of 0, 5, 10 and 15% zeolite as an aggregate in the concrete. In the mixing, water to cement ratio was kept at 0.50. The thermo-mechanical properties of the concrete have been measured. It has been found that thermal conductivity has decreased with the zeolite in concrete but compressive strength increased with the increasing zeolite rate in the concrete.

 Key words: Zeolite, thermo-mechanical properties, lightweight concrete.


Despite recent advances in immunotherapy and molecularly targeted therapies for advanced melanoma, early detection remains the most effective means of preventing death from melanoma. In 2015, an estimated 73 000 new cases of invasive melanoma will be diagnosed in the United States, and approximately 9900 people will die of the disease.1 To date, early-detection efforts for melanoma in the United States have relied on self-detection and opportunistic screening. The recent experience in Germany suggests a role for organized population-based screening to reduce melanoma mortality. The Skin Cancer Research to Provide Evidence for Effectiveness of Screening program in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, was associated with a 40% decrease in melanoma mortality.2,3 In comparison, mortality in nearby Denmark and the rest of Germany changed very little during the same period (2000-2009). If reduction in melanoma mortality is sustained in the current program for the rest of Germany, then the benefit of organized screening in reducing mortality will have been replicated on a large scale.


Due to increasing concerns related to mitigating climate change, emphasis has been placed on the more-rapid deployment of lower-inertia Distributed Generation (DG), with various technological diversifications in the power system network. The increasing use of lower-inertia DGs in power systems has recently produced challenges in the protection of the DG, especially in Loss of Main protection (LOM). From the literature review, it was found that the most commonly-used protection method against LOM is Rate of Change of Frequency (ROCOF), due to its simplicity during installation, quick response and low cost. However, ROCOF relays are known to suffer from sensitivity problems such as nuisance tripping and mal-operation, caused by system-wide disturbances. Thus the motivation of this thesis is to propose an improved ROCOF protection with interlocking techniques for both high-inertia and low-inertia DGs, to
ensure high levels of protection sensitivity and stability. The techniques are based on two methods as follows; Method 1: Utilizing Rate of Change of Frequency (ROCOF) as main detection and Rate of Change of Power (ROCOP;dp⁄dt) as an interlocking function for high-inertia types of DGs such as Synchronous Generators (SG) or Induction Machine generators, and Method 2: Utilizing Rate of Change of Frequency (ROCOF) as the main detection and Voltage Unbalance (VU) as an interlock function for lowinertia type DGs such as Photovoltaics (PV) and wind generators. Initially ROCOF alone was simulated and studied in simple study networks using PSCAD/EMTDC. The results show that it is difficult to achieve the correct balance between the required sensitivity and stability under various conditions of LOM and non-LOM events. The setting of the ROCOF relay is always a balancing exercise between sensitivity and stability. An improved ROCOF with ROCOP interlocking technique was then developed and tested using practical networks with SG. The results confirm that the proposed technique works effectively, and significantly reduces false operation of ROCOF relays during network disruptions. Next, the simulation of an improved ROCOF relay with VU interlock was conducted for a network with PV generators. The results indicate that the proposed method is capable of providing more stable operation during LOM conditions and non-LOM events. Finally, simulation was conducted for ROCOF with interlocking techniques for feeders with SG and PV. The results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method even in conditions where there is a mixture of DGs connected to the same feeder. For these reasons, it is considered that the objective of this research activity has been achieved, and it has been shown that the proposed technique offers an improvement over existing techniques. Main contribution of the thesis is to develop an improved ROCOF with interlocking techniques to deal with both high and low inertial generations. The performance of the proposed improved ROCOF methods with interlocking techniques has been proved through simulations and analysis under both faults and disturbance conditions.


While the debate over the optimal currency system continues to pour lots of ink, reality is that pegged exchange rates regimes remain the most adopted worldwide during and after the Gold Bullion Standard period. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) indicates that up to the mid-1970s, 87 percent of emerging economies had a particular type of fixed exchange rate. Following the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates dating back to the 1970s, larger economies began to float their currencies and were followed by some emerging markets. However, according to Reinhart and Rogoff (2004) who developed a new system of classifying currency regimes, 59% of the 153 countries under consideration in their model had in fact a type of peg such as de facto or crawling during the post 1980s era.


In this paper, we shall analyse the concept of Money. Presently money is viewed as Record-of-Value i.e. money is used to capture value created in any activity. We start by defining money. Then we discuss the way energy is spent in creating value is measured using money. We also assess the uses of money by viewing it as a Record-of-Value entity. We discuss about the parallel economy which impacts mainstream economy in various ways. Economic Entropy is then defined and discussed. An equation that relates Economic Entropy, value based money and other economic parameters is proposed. The various advantages of viewing money as a Record-of-Entropy are debated. Finally, the paper concludes as to which concept is best suited to present day and future economic scenarios.


This paper addressed the current gaps of the health and safety protocols followed by the health workers and other front-line workers in conducting disinfection of self and personal protective equipment (PPE) after using it. The current disinfection system disinfects surfaces, water, air, materials, utensils, rooms, compartments, foods and other already came in various ways. Some of these include gas disinfecting, alcohol, chlorine, bleach, detergents, steams, hot water, hot gas, chemicals, UV rays and more in which according to them, still poses risk among health workers and front-line workers not during the duty but on the doping and donning of the PPE. The researchers used the Agile Scrum methodology of software development; thus, user stories were collected during stakeholders' meeting. The meeting includes the researchers, RHU personnel and the front-liners. This allows all the concerned individuals and agencies to express their concern and needs during the donning and doffing process. After the meeting, the researchers decided to develop Hygeia, a system of interconnected electronic devices that aims to automate the disinfection of booths using UVC light as disinfectant. It used the concept of IOT which Arduino Microcontroller, Raspberry Pi, Sensors, Motors, Relay, Switches, Pumps and Water Valves were used to deliver its specified functions. Daily standup meetings were conducted in order to monitor the progress of the project and if it meets the needs of the client before delivering the fully potential product. Keywords: Micro-controllers, Internet of Things, Ultraviolet C, CoVid Response


ABSTRACT In 1900, Greek sponge divers discovered an ancient Greek treasure in the waters of the Aegean island of Antikythera: a device with gears dubbed the Antikythera Mechanism. Scientists studied it for almost a century and eventually declared it the most advanced machine preserved from the ancient world. This device predicted solar and lunar eclipses and harmonized the Greeks' sacrifices to their gods with their Panhellenic games and agriculture. This geared computer from the 2nd century BCE is now said to mirror the philosophy of Aristotle and the science of Archimedes. It was the product of an advanced Greek technological infrastructure that early Christians destroyed.


Students in two classes--human behavior and interior design--collaborated to design and build learning and play areas for child care facilities. They based their designs on the developmental needs of preschool children. This approach to learning focuses on the process of design and its social relevance. When children tram the cornell Nursery School entered the college's design workshop studio last fall, they were awe-struck by the colorful and inventive furniture and thought-provoking games and activities they found. Designed and constructed exclusively for young children by the students of Professors Paul Eshelman and Gary Evans, the learning and play activity centers transformed the studio into not only mini-playgrounds but also a real-world testing ground. As the children played, the students saw for themselves exactly what worked and what didn't in the designs they'd jointly researched, developed, and created during the semester. The student project was the result of a collaboration between Eshelman and Evans, both faculty in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis, that began in earnest five years ago. At that time they were approached by Shared Journeys, a New York City-based nonprofit organization dedicated to the care and needs of people suffering from Alzheimer's disease and those who care for them: The organization's founders, Joe Duggan and Eric Clay '81, sought Eshelman's and Evans' respective expertise in interior design and environmental psychology to help them realize their goal of building a residential facility where Alzheimer's patients and their caregivers could live together in an environment sensitive to their special needs. The professors had already been discussing the possibility of forging a teaching partnership, and now they had a purpose--a client with a specific need. A client or someone in need of the knowledge students are learning is central to Evans' philosophy of education and to Eshelman's philosophy of design. Evans believes that students are more highly motivated to learn by intrinsic rather than extrinsic forces and that a client such as Shared Journeys can provide that intrinsic motivation. With years of design experience, Eshelman believes that design can and should be innovative rather than driven by production. "Design has traditionally been based on technological advances in materials and in aesthetic exploration, through which designers explore different styles and forms," Eshelman says. "A more socially relevant type of design is based on innovation that grows out of gaining an understanding of users' needs and letting that understanding evolve into different forms that you never would have arrived at had you not paid attention to those needs." Students in Evans' class Environmental and Social Behavior study issues of human behavior relative to the environment across the life span, and during the first year of the collaboration both they and students in Eshelman's design studio course researched Alzheimer's disease and the behaviors the disease generates in its victims. Evans' students served as the primary information gatherers, and they researched and prepared the developmental guidelines that Eshelman's students followed in developing their designs. As a team, they successfully created bathrooms, kitchens, and corridors tailored to the specific needs of people suffering from Alzheimer's. After the first year's success, Shared Journeys continued their involvement with the Evans-Eshelman collaboration, but expanded their role from client to facilitator finding clients with a need and linking them with Eshelman and Evans and their students. Over the next three years the process of collaboration was refined and the roles of all involved more clearly defined. Eshelman and Evans, recognizing that their students were not used to working in team environments, worked to foster team spirit in their classes and focus on the process of creation rather than on the product. …


Recent studies demonstrate that the Hadley Circu- lation has intensified and expanded for the past three decades, which has important implications for subtropical societies and may lead to profound changes in global climate. How- ever, the robustness of this intensification and expansion that should be considered when interpreting long-term changes of the Hadley Circulation is still a matter of debate. It also remains largely unknown how the Hadley Circulation has evolved over longer periods. Here, we present long-term vari- ability of the Hadley Circulation using the 20th Century Re- analysis. It shows a slight strengthening and widening of the Hadley Circulation since the late 1970s, which is not in- consistent with recent assessments. However, over centennial timescales (1871-2008), the Hadley Circulation shows a ten- dency towards a more intense and narrower state. More im- portantly, the width of the Hadley Circulation might have not yet completed a life-cycle since 1871. The strength and width of the Hadley Circulation during the late 19th to early 20th century show strong natural variability, exceeding variability that coincides with global warming in recent decades. These findings raise the question of whether the recent change in the Hadley Circulation is primarily attributed to greenhouse warming or to a long-period oscillation of the Hadley Circu- lation - substantially longer than that observed in previous studies.


Introduction: Medication non-adherence is prevalent in Parkinson's disease (PD). However, factors associated with non-adherence are unknown. Despite interventions to improve medication adherence being investigated in long-term conditions, few studies have focused on PD. Adherence Therapy (AT) is a novel, patient-centred approach to maximising adherence that has shown benefit in other chronic conditions.
Aim: To investigate the efficacy of AT for improving medication adherence and quality of Life (QoL) in people with PD.
Methods: To achieve the above aim I conducted a systematic review to identify factors associated with medication non-adherence, followed by a Cochrane systematic review on interventions for improving medication adherence in PD. I then tested the efficacy of AT in PD in a randomised controlled trial (RCT). Semistructured interviews were used to explore patients' experiences of receiving AT.
Results: Mood disorders, cognition, poor symptom control/QoL, younger age/longer disease duration, regimen complexity/polypharmacy, risk taking behaviours, poor knowledge of PD/education, lack of spouse/partner, low income, desire to maintain employment and gender were identified as factors associated with non-adherence in PD. Only one study previously investigated an intervention (didactic educational material) for improving medication adherence in PD, according to my Cochrane systematic review.
Seventy-six patients and 46 spouse/carers completed the RCT (CAAT-PARK). At week-12 follow-up the active treatment group significantly improved in adherence and QoL compared to the treatment as usual group. Thematic analysis of interviews from 10 patients and 3 spouse/carers suggested that positive effects and attributes of AT may be important for the success of AT. Furthermore, the findings suggested that the mechanism of AT may be bi-directional and associated with improved confidence and self-efficacy.
Conclusions: Adherence Therapy improved medication adherence and QoL in PD. A larger pragmatic trial to test the efficacy and cost effectiveness of Adherence Therapy with a control group placebo intervention is required. ISRCTN07830951


Aim. (1) To investigate clinical characteristics of primary care patients with arterial hypertension (AH), according to the achievement of target blood pressure (BP) levels; (2) to assess the effectiveness of therapeutic measures aimed at achieving target BP and maintaining its long-term control. Material and methods. This retrospective analysis included the data from ambulatory medical records of 5558 AH patients, who attended primary care centres in 2007. Clinical characteristics were compared in patients with achieved vs. non-achieved target BP levels. According to the national AH guidelines (2004), the completeness of examination, pharmaceutical therapy tactics, and frequency of the follow-up were assessed in both groups. Results. Based on the 2007 data, target BP levels were maintained in 28% of AH patients. Mean BP level was 144/87 mm Hg. Patients with optimal BP levels, compared to their peers with inadequate BP control, had significantly (p<0,001) higher prevalence of angina pectoris (40,4% vs. 30,1%, respectively) or previous myocardial infarction (19,4% vs. 8,4%), as well as higher frequency of lipid profile assessment, creatinine measurement, and echocardiography. Mean number of prescribed antihypertensive medications was 2,08 vs. 1,60, respectively. Mean number of clinical visits per year was 4,07 vs. 2,99, while mean interval between the visits reached 72,3 vs. 62,7 days, respectively. Regardless of the target BP achievement, the quality of diagnostic and therapeutic management did not comply with the recommended standards. Conclusion. Patients with optimal BP control were characterised by a more severe clinical course, as well as by a wider scope and higher frequency of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. At the primary care level, the quality of AH diagnostics and treatment did not comply with the recommended standards; therefore, mean BP levels in the AH Register sample were higher than the target ones.


Entanglement plays a critical role in determining the dynamic properties of polymer systems, e.g., resulting in slip links and pulley effects for achieving large deformation and high strength. Although it has been studied for decades, the mechanics of entanglements for stiffness-toughness conflict is not well understood. In this study, topological knot theory incorporating an extended tube model is proposed to understand the entanglements in a slide-ring (SR) gel, which slips over a long distance to achieve large deformation and high toughness via the pulley effect. Based on topological knot theory, the sliding behavior and pulley effect of entanglements among molecular chains and cross-linked rings are thoroughly investigated. Based on rubber elasticity theory, a free-energy function is formulated to describe mechanical toughening and slipping of topological knots, while the SR gel retains the same binding energy. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed model is verified using both finite element analysis and experimental results reported in the literature.


Continuing experience of placental villitis of unknown aetiology: harbinger of serious disease? G. Altshuler. Departments of Paediatrics and Pathology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital, and Department of Pathology, Cincinnati General Hospital, University of Cincinnati Medical Center, Ohio. The recognized causes of chronic intrauterine infections are toxoplasmosis, rubella, cytomegalovirus, herpesvirus, and syphilis. Accumulated experience of the placental pathology of these infections indicates that each causes characteristic morphological abnormalities. In addition the ability to stain spirochaetes and to identify cytomeglovirus inclusions or toxoplasma cysts enables specific diagnoses to be made. The importance of certain villitis lesions whose aetiology has not been determined has recently been emphasized (Altshuler, 1973). These lesions are morphologically indistinguishable from rubella placentitis. They are focal and are variably proliferative, necrotizing, evanescent, or of reparative, granulomatous appearance. Occasionally an associated basal villitis features lymphoplasmacytic infiltrates. The incidence in our random routine placental examinations is 6%. It is higher in placentas of 'at risk' neonates, whose abnormalities have included prematurity, smallness for gestational age, hepatitis, cataracts, hydrocephalus, myelomeningocele, cardiac malformations, and recurrent reproductive failure. Investigations of over 80 cases, which included many serological and cultural studies, and occasional liver biopsy and necropsy examinations, failed to show that the observed placental villitis was due to any of the above-mentioned causes of chronic intrauterine infection.


Understanding the regulation of appetite and energy expenditure mechanisms is essential for the health and disease. The recognition that the distribution of these regulatory mechanisms plays a central role in the pathogenesis of obesity and associated metabolic syndrome is not new, and it is even more interesting to understand what happens in an obese patient in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). This review focuses on the catabolic role of orexin, which paradoxically coexists with its anabolic feeding-inducing role. The goal of this review is to provide insight into the biological mechanism governing orexin's role in energy expenditure, discuss its significance in the context of ICU. Mammals possess a specialized tissue termed Brown Adipose Tissue (BAT) that expends calories to counteract hypothermia. The ability to enhance energy expenditure by manipulating BAT activity is attractive from a therapeutic standpoint, in light of the discovery of metabolically active BAT in adult humans. The finding of a relationship between BAT and orexins levels suggests new research on the possible roles of orexins in many anomalies of energy expenditure, including those of obese patients in the ICU.


Six healthy young male M.I.T. students participated in a metabolic study to assess the capacity of a soy protein concentrate (STAPRO-3200) to serve as the sole source of dietary protein for long-term maintenance of protein nutritional status. Following an initial 9-day period, during which the subjects received an egg-protein, formula diet supplying 1.5 g protein per kilogram per day, the soy protein was given at a level of 0.8 g protein (N X 6.25) per kilogram per day for 82 days. Throughout, nitrogen balances were measured, and at intervals of 3 to 4 weeks, blood chemistries were determined, and evaluations of physical performance were undertaken. In addition measurements were made of zinc absorption and balance and of iron absorption, with the aid of 70Zn and 58Fe. Mean nitrogen balances were slightly positive for all subjects and the protein source was judged to support adequately maintenance of protein nutritional status, confirmed by the absence of changes in relevant blood parameters and maintenance of performance in the exercise tests. Mean zinc absorption was 23% of intake and did not change during the 82-day soy period and crude zinc balances remained slightly positive throughout. Iron intake was solely from the soy concentrate, and each meal was supplemented with ascorbic acid. Iron absorption was highly variable between and within subjects, as determined by the stable isotope balance procedure. Associated with the withdrawal of blood for purposes of monitoring the subjects, serum ferritin declined indicating a reduction in iron stores. These blood changes were used to approximate iron absorption and it was estimated to be 16%. It is concluded that well-processed soy concentrate can serve as the sole source of nitrogen and essential amino acids for long-term maintenance in adult humans.


A big problem in intensive care units (ICU) is caused by antibiotic resistant bacterial nosocomial infections. Acinetobacter are among the most challenging bacterial pathogens and to help in formulating antibiotic policy for better management of patients with bacterial diseases. The data showed that 93.3% of bacterial isolates were resistant to ampicillin while 80% and 66.7% of bacterial isolates were resistant to ceftazidime and sulphamethoxazole/trimethoprim, respectively. Identification of multi-resistant isolates according to morphological and biochemical characteristics, Acinetobacter baumannii found to be the most frequent pathogen representing 66.7% followed by Acinetobacter calcoaceticus and Acinetobacter lwoffii with 20% and 13.3% percentages, respectively. The main objective of this study was studying the susceptibility of multi-drug resistant isolates to different ten essential oils derived from different parts of ten medicinal plant species traditionally used in Egyptian folk medicine. The essential oils of Clove, Thyme and Rosemary were the most active oils respectively. Followed by Marjoram, Black seed, Lemon grass, Fennel, Pepper mint, Chamomile and Anise respectively. The identification of the most frequent and multi-drug resistant Acinetobacter baumannii isolate (5) was confirmed by using 16S Ribosomal Ribonucleic Acid (rRNA) gene.


Fine wood particles (sawdust and chip screenings) and wood chips made of Scots pine were impregnated with kraft pulping liquor and the results were compared. The effect of removing the smallest fractions from the fine wood particles was also studied. The fine wood particles differed significantly from the chips. Some differences were observed even between sawdust and chip screenings but the removal of the smallest fractions had only minor effects on the impregnation. Pine chip screenings generated residual liquors with lower EA than sawdust in the beginning of the impregnation but with higher EA sorption and consumption. In addition, pine chip screenings produced lower impregnation yields than sawdust, indicated by lower residual liquor dry solids and TOC contents. Pine chips again generated residual liquors with higher EA than fine wood particles and the EA sorption and consumption were substantially lower.


The authors believe that the rating agency reforms underway in Europe and the United States, as well as at the agencies themselves, are steps in the right direction but do not go far enough to ensure accuracy and timeliness of ratings. Most importantly, they fail to address the conflict-ridden rating agency compensation system. The authors believe that credibility of ratings cannot be restored until rating agencies are paid not by the sell side or the buy side, but by both the buy side and the sell side, via a transaction charge on new issues and secondary market trades. Their proposal is to pay for ratings via an industry fund such as has been operated for over two decades by the U.S. Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB), albeit on a smaller scale and for a more limited purpose, for the benefit of the municipal securities markets. Carefully structured, such a compensation system would give rating agencies more appropriate incentives to produce more accurate and timely ratings that can hold up through both up and down markets.


This study targets assembly industry, which deals with varying businesses that require any product assembly. It reflects on the challenges of the current production lines at assembly industry regarding the trends of both the consumer and the industrial developments on technology investigated which aspects can be improved or re-designed under the given delimitations. Moreover further consideration is done on human operators' role in the assembly line and their future role in correlation with their current challenges and expectations. Results and further analysis are done from the drift of the R&D on future assembly environment by considering interconnected software-hardware-human sides of the interaction, the change in the balance of products and also to point out new areas of research to Marketing and R&D Departments.


When analyzing situations in which multiple people are experiencing emotions together—whether the emotions are positive or negative and whether the situations are online or offline—we are intuitively drawn to the emotions of each individual in the situation. However, this type of analysis often seems incomplete. In many of the cases in which people experience emotions together, there appear to be emergent macrolevel affective processes that cannot be readily captured at the individual level. In this article, we examine these macrolevel affective phenomena, which are termed collective emotions. We open with a general review of research on collective psychological processes. We then define collective emotions and discuss their key features. Next, we focus our attention on the emergent properties of collective emotions and map them using three dimensions: quality, magnitude, and time course. Finally, we discuss pressing open questions and future directions for research on collective emotions.


Controlling bias in training datasets is vital for ensuring equal treatment, or parity, between different groups in downstream applications. A naive solution is to transform the data so that it is statistically independent of group membership, but this may throw away too much information when a reasonable compromise between fairness and accuracy is desired. Another common approach is to limit the ability of a particular adversary who seeks to maximize parity. Unfortunately, representations produced by adversarial approaches may still retain biases as their efficacy is tied to the complexity of the adversary used during training. To this end, we theoretically establish that by limiting the mutual information between representations and protected attributes, we can assuredly control the parity of any downstream classifier. We demonstrate an effective method for controlling parity through mutual information based on contrastive information estimators and show that they outperform approaches that rely on variational bounds based on complex generative models. We test our approach on UCI Adult and Heritage Health datasets and demonstrate that our approach provides more informative representations across a range of desired parity thresholds while providing strong theoretical guarantees on the parity of any downstream algorithm.


In most institutions of higher education, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has evolved into a professional field that has multiple perspectives (Johns, 2002), multi-disciplinary approaches (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998), and sound research-based pedagogy (Belcher & Braine, 1995). pecifically, ESP practitioners take into account the needs of clients to develop academic courses through professional partnerships with the various stakeholders (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998). The authors would like to share one such experience at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) in designing, delivering and evaluating a writing course using the portfolio approach, which was specially tailored to the needs of its science students in the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. The presentation will cover the course of events chronologically from the preliminary discussions between the subject specialists and language experts to negotiate course objectives, the development of the syllabus based on these mutually-agreed goals, the delivery and fine-tuning of the course to the final stage of evaluating the curriculum taking into consideration feedback from tutors and students. The focus will be on the key developments and resulting decisions on matters such as content, approach, structure and assessment of the writing course that lead to a win-win outcome through a collegial partnership between the
subject specialists and language experts.


Based on the most recent curriculum guidelines of the IGDA, updated in 2008, "Introduction to Game Development, Second Edition" surveys all aspects of the theory and practice of game development, design, and production. Divided into seven independent parts: Critical Game Studies, Game Design, Game Programming (Languages and Architecture), Game Programming Mathematics, Collision Detection, and Physics), Game Programming (Graphics, Animation, Artificial Intelligence, Audio, and Networking), Audio Visual Design and Production, and Game Production and the Business of Games, it features contributions from twenty seven of the leading game developers, programmers, and designers. A must-have resource for anyone looking to understand the entire game development process, the accompanying CD-ROM includes tutorials, animations, images, demos, source code, and PowerPoint lecture slides that reinforce the concepts presented in the book. Benefits: Fully revised to match the current curriculum guidelines created by the IGDA and for current technology. Includes contributions from numerous game industry leaders. The accompany CD-ROM features all source code and images used in the book as wel as tutorials and slides to reinforce concepts learned.


Abstract A bathymetric transect ranging from coral habitats down to a 1500-m-deep basin in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden allows us to test the sensitivity of taphofacies to depth and sediment grain size in a tropical to subtropical carbonate basin, to partition variation in brachiopod preservation into extrinsic (environmental) and intrinsic (shell-specific) components, and to quantify residual variation that remains unexplained by such components. Factoring out environmental effects, thin-shelled, organic-poor rhynchonellids are more affected by fragmentation and fine-scale surface alteration and degrade rapidly compared to the more frequently bioeroded, organic-rich terebratulids. The negative role of shell organic content is overridden by shell thickness, and preservation rates of organic-rich brachiopods are enhanced by syndepositional cement precipitation. Environmental trends in preservation are confounded by shell-specific factors that account for 16% of variation in preservation: the amounts of multivariate variation explained by environment increase from 29% using combined brachiopod preservation to 46% using terebratulid preservation. Environmental sensitivity of taphofacies is driven by present-day variation in environment but also by past Pleistocene conditions. First, reduction in fragmentation, encrustation, and bioerosion is consistent with a decrease in light penetration and primary productivity. Second, brachiopods are coated with aragonite cement in basinal sites with lithified oozes and microbial carbonates that originated during the last glacial maximum when syndepositional aragonite cementation was favored by high temperature and salinity, and thus can be affected by millennial-scale time averaging. Skeletal preservation rates are thus not in steady state over the duration of time averaging, and the bathymetric reduction in alteration is partly related to past conditions amenable to cement precipitation.


This article introduces one of the largest rock art sites found in the central Dakhleh Oasis. Firstly, an overview of all the panels with petroglyphs is provided and the images briefly described. The panels' description contains basic information on their location and visibility, motifs and their compositional aspects, and chronology. This is followed by a brief summary of the presented data and a discussion situating the site in the broader context of Dakhleh and the surrounding Western Desert. Particular motifs and their arrangements, like a herd of giraffes, are further briefly discussed, and parallels from the Dakhleh region and the Nile valley cited in order to compare the CO178 rock art.


Computations were performed to study three-dimensional turbulent flow and heat transfer in a rotating smooth and 45° ribbed rectangular channels for which heat transfer data were available. The channel aspect ratio (AR) is 4:1, the rib height-to-hydraulic diameter ratio (e/Dh ) is 0.078 and the rib-pitch-to-height ratio (P/e) is 10. The rotation number and inlet coolant-to-wall density ratios, Δρ/ρ, were varied from 0.0 to 0.28 and from 0.122 to 0.40, respectively, while the Reynolds number was fixed at 10,000. Also, two channel orientations (β − 90° and 135° from the rotation direction) were investigated with focus on the high rotation and high density ratios effects on the heat transfer characteristics of the 135° orientation. These results show that, for high rotation and high density ratio, the rotation induced secondary flow overpowered the rib induced secondary flow and thus change significantly the heat transfer characteristics compared to the low rotation low density ratio case. A multi-block Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) method was employed in conjunction with a near-wall second-moment turbulence closure. In the present method, the convective transport equations for momentum, energy, and turbulence quantities are solved in curvilinear, body-fitted coordinates using the finite-analytic method.Copyright © 2002 by ASME


The 2001 foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreak con stituted the biggest crisis ever to affect the UK farming system; it was one of the worst epidemics of its kind in the world. Farmers and rural communities were disrupted and traumatized as FMD spread rapidly through the whole of the country. The crisis unfolded as a series of information and communication problems, primarily from government to farmers, with consequences for action in a time of crisis. Farmers needed information at the different stages of the crisis to inform them about the various processes and procedures that had to be carried out once a farm had been infected, and information on the complex system of bio security measures introduced by the government. As these measures were implemented to control the spread of the disease, the places where farmers usually met to communicate and exchange information either shut down or became in accessible. There were many gaps in the information needed; there was not enough information; it conflicted with earlier information or information from other sources; and it was disseminated and received too late for the required purpose. The paper explores the role of rumour and gossip as a means of conveying information between the various actors during the crisis. During the FMD crisis there was much confusion and distrust, which provided the right kind of setting for rumour and gossip to flourish. Rumour and gossip took on new dimensions and played an important role in the exchange and transfer of information about events and also in people's behaviour and activities. As farmers were isolated, unable to meet, much of their information came third- and fourth-hand via informal channels of gossip and rumour. This study used a mixed method approach of semi-structured interviews with members of farming house-holds. It concludes with suggestions as to what various actors, including libraries, in similar crisis situations could learn from this study by examining how lessons learned concerning the role of gossip and rumour in the FMD crisis may be applied to other crises, particularly the current H1N1 virus (swine flu) pandemic.


Background: We used British national survey data to test specific hypotheses that mood instability (1) is associated with psychosis and individual psychotic phenomena, (2) predicts the later emergence of auditory hallucinations and paranoid ideation, and (3) mediates the link between child sexual abuse and psychosis. Methods: We analyzed data from the 2000 and 2007 UK national surveys of psychiatric morbidity (N = 8580 and 7403, respectively). The 2000 survey included an 18-month follow-up of a subsample (N = 2406). Mood instability was assessed from the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II (SCID-II) questionnaire. Our dependent variables comprised auditory hallucinations, paranoid ideation, the presence of psychosis overall, and a 15-item paranoia scale. Results: Mood instability was strongly associated in cross-sectional analyses with psychosis (2000: OR: 7.5; 95% CI: I 4.1–13.8; 2007: OR: 21.4; CI: 9.7–41.2), paranoid ideation (2000: OR: 4.7; CI: 4.1–5.4; 2007: OR: 5.7; CI: 4.9–6.7), auditory hallucinations (2000: OR: 3.4; CI: 2.6–4.4; 2007: OR 3.5; CI: 2.7–4.7), and paranoia total score (2000: Coefficient: 3.6; CI: 3.3–3.9), remaining so after adjustment for current mood state. Baseline mood instability significantly predicted 18-month inceptions of paranoid ideation (OR: 2.3; CI: 1.6–3.3) and of auditory hallucinations (OR: 2.6; CI: 1.5–4.4). Finally, it mediated a third of the total association of child sexual abuse with psychosis and persecutory ideation and a quarter of that with auditory hallucinations. Conclusions: Mood instability is a prominent feature of psychotic experience and may have a role in its genesis. Targeting mood instability could lead to innovative treatments for psychosis.


Device-to-device (D2D)-enabled cloud radio access networks (C-RANs) are potential solutions for further improving spectral efficiency (SE) and decreasing latency by allowing direct communication between two users. However, due to the need to acquire global channel state information (CSI) and to execute centralized algorithms, heavy burdens are placed on the fronthaul and the baseband unit (BBU) pool. To alleviate these burdens, a distributed approach to mode selection and resource allocation for potential D2D pairs under pre-determined resource allocation of C-RAN users is proposed, in which pairs of users are endowed with decision-making capabilities. The proposed procedure is divided into three stages: communication mode and subchannel selection, utility value determination, and reinforcement-learning-based strategy update. The core idea is that the D2D pairs self-optimize the mode selection and resource allocation without global CSI under several practical constraints. Simulation results show that enabling D2D can significantly improve SE for C-RANs. Furthermore, the impacts of the fronthaul capacity, the centralized signal processing capability of the BBU pool, and the distance between the D2D transmitter and the remote radio head are demonstrated and analyzed.


Hierarchical B pictures are devised to achieve temporal scalability in the scalable extension of H.264/AVC (SVC) which is under standardization. The fine-granular SNR scalability (FGS) can be provided by progressive refinement (PR) slices in SVC. In this paper, we firstly investigate error propagation in the case of discarding PR slices and obtain a rate difference distortion optimization criterion to improve coding efficiency of base layer. Then we consider the full rate case and propose a rate distortion slope criterion to enhance FGS coding efficiency at high rate. Finally the criterion to boost coding efficiency in the whole range of FGS rate is derived by combing the criterions derived previously. The proposed method is compared to the approach in SVC test model and up to 0.3dB coding gains are achieved.


This final work in John Lent's series of bibliographies on comic art gathers together an astounding array of citations on American comic books and comic strips. Included in this volume are citations regarding anthologies and reprints; criticism and reviews; exhibitions, festivals, and awards; scholarship and theory; and the business, artistic, cultural, legal, technical, and technological aspects of American comics. Author John Lent has used all manner of methods to gather the citations, searching library and online databases, contacting scholars and other professionals, attending conferences and festivals, and scanning hundreds of periodicals. He has gone to great length to categorize the citations in an easy-to-use, scholarly fashion, and in the process, has helped to establish the field of comic art as an important part of social science and humanities research. The ten volumes in this series, covering all regions of the world, constitute the largest printed bibliography of comic art in the world, and serve as the beacon guiding the burgeoning fields of animation, comics, and cartooning. They are the definitive works on comic art research, and are exhaustive in their inclusiveness, covering all types of publications (academic, trade, popular, fan, etc.) from all over the world. Also included in these books are citations to systematically-researched academic exercises, as well as more ephemeral sources such as fanzines, press articles, and fugitive materials (conference papers, unpublished documents, etc.), attesting to Lent's belief that all pieces of information are vital in a new field of study such as comic art.


Human endocrine thyroid epithelial cells have been described to produce cytokines in vitro. In order to determine whether they do so in vivo during thyroiditis. parallel studies on mRNA expression with a non‐radioactive in situ hybridization technique and immunohislochemical detection for the protein were performed on frozen sections of thyroid samples from autoimmune thyroiditis (Graves' disease and Hashimoto's thyroiditis), non‐toxic goitre and normal thyroid tissue. cDNA probes were sulphonated and their hybridization with mRN A was detected with a sulphonyl‐specific monoclonal antibody. This signal was amplified and visualized with the alkaline phosphatase anti‐alkaline phosphatase (APAAP) system. The protein products were detected with immuno‐purified rabbit F(ab′)2 antibody fragments recognizing recombinant human cytokines, visualized by the immuno‐peroxidase technique. Each sample was studied at the two levels. Both interleukin‐6 mRNA and protein were found in the endocrine cells. There was no obvious difference between autoimmune thyroiditis and non‐toxic goitre. However, normal thyroid epithelial cells produced less interleukin‐6. Interleukin‐1α mRNA and its protein were found in epithelial cells from Hashimoto's thyroiditis samples, but not in the others, except one Graves' disease sample, in which only mRNA was detected. Interleukin‐ 1β was not detected in these cells, its mRNA was only found in one of the Graves' disease samples. These cytokines were also detected in some infiltrating cells.


Purpose To evaluate clinical safety and efficacy of the angiostatic agent anecortave acetate for treatment of subfoveal choroidal neovascularization secondary to AMD. Methods 128 patients were randomized to placebo treatment or one of three anecortave acetate doses. Study medication was administered as a posterior juxtascleral injection onto the posterior scleral surface. Best-corrected logMAR vision was obtained at baseline and follow-up visits. Fluorescein angiograms were evaluated for eligibility before enrollment and posttreatment. Results Six months after a single treatment, visual acuity (mean change from baseline logMAR values) was significantly better (P = 0.003) after anecortave acetate 15 mg than placebo. More patients treated with anecortave acetate 15 mg than placebo maintained vision (88% versus 70%, P = 0.080), especially those with predominantly classic lesions (92% versus 65%, P = 0.021). Anecortave acetate 15 mg inhibited lesion growth significantly better than placebo (P = 0.001). Trends favoring the other doses over placebo were observed for vision preservation and lesion inhibition, but statistical significance was not achieved. The Independent Safety Committee overseeing this study identified no clinically relevant treatment-related changes. Conclusion Anecortave acetate 15 mg is safe and effective for preserving or improving vision and for inhibiting lesion growth in patients with subfoveal AMD.


Abstract This paper demonstrates that the empirical models developed for subcooled flow boiling in RELAP5/MOD2 at high pressures are not valid for applications at low pressures. Modifications carried out in RELAP5/MOD2 to include better correlations of the interphase heat transfer and mean bubble diameter, and the wall heat flux partition model are shown to yield substantial improvements in the predictions of the axial void fraction distribution. When compared against experimental data covering a wide range of heat fluxes and flow rates, predicted axial void fraction profiles follow closely the measured data. Predictions made by the default subcooled boiling model show, however, an unacceptable margin of error with the experimental data.


This paper presents a novel fuzzy neural network which consists of an antecedent network and a consequent network. The antecedent network matches the premises of the fuzzy rules and the consequent network implements the consequences of the rules. In the network learning and training phase, a concise and effective algorithm based on the fuzzy hierarchy error approach is proposed to update the parameters of the network. This algorithm is simple to implement and it does not require as many calculations as some other classic neural network learning algorithms. A model reference adaptive control structure incorporating the proposed fuzzy neural network is studied. Simulation results of a cart-pole balancing system demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.


Ever since it became apparent that terrestrial animals ranging over large continental areas generally showed a certain degree of gradual geographic variation, attention has been focused on the colour variation of the Jay, Garrulus glandarius, in Europe. Surely the Jays belong to those species of palearctic land birds in which the formation of geographical differences must be considered to be exceptionally favoured: HARTERT (1903—1922; including HARTERT & STEINBACHER 1932) recognized as many as 10 European races of the Jay by name, whereas Kleiner (1935—38) in his monographic treatment of the species numbered as many as 9 races in the same region. In several instances of the geographic variation of the Jay the differences are exceedingly striking, e.g. between the reddish brown Jays from Ireland and the dark grey ones from northern and central Europe. Still, the intergradations are so gradual and the individual variation is so unexpectedly large, that the application of subspecific names as a method of expressing geographical variation has proved to meet with serious difficulties. The resulting confusion of names for years has stressed geographical differences being of only minor importance and has obscured others meriting a closer attention. However, it was not at all for nomenclatorial purposes that this study was started, nor in order to propose a new arrangement of the geographic races of the Jay in Europa. That, in spite of this, these topics have been dealt with in one of the following chapters of this paper must be explained from the fact that the author failed to see a possibility to avoid them. The main purpose of this study was to investigate instances of "clinal variation", meaning the presence and the origin of geographical character gradients. "Character gradients in the frequencies or in the expression of variable characters" (DOBZHANSKY 1947, p. 67) occurring in continuous geographical areas have seriously attracted the attention of students of population genetics and of micro-evolution. Hence it seemed worth while to select a suitable subject for a comparison of local individual variation with geographical variation and to study the origin of the clines. This is what the author has tried to do in the course of the present study on Garrulus glandarius.


The pathogenesis of experimental cerebral malaria (ECM) is an immunologic process, mediated in part by Th1 CD4+ T cells. However, the role of the Th1 CD4+ T cell differentiation program on the ability to control parasitemia and susceptibility to ECM disease during blood stage malaria has never been assessed directly. Using the Plasmodium berghei ANKA murine model of ECM and mice deficient for the transcription factor T-bet (the master regulator of Th1 cells) on the susceptible C57BL/6 background, we demonstrate that although T-bet plays a role in the regulation of parasite burden, it also promotes the pathogenesis of ECM. T-bet−deficient (Tbx21−/−) mice had higher parasitemia than wild type controls did during the ECM phase of disease (17.7 ± 3.1% versus 10.9 ± 1.5%). In addition, although 100% (10/10) of wild type mice developed ECM by day 9 after infection, only 30% (3/10) of Tbx21−/− mice succumbed to disease during the cerebral phase of infection. Resistance to ECM in Tbx21−/− mice was associated with diminished numbers of IFN-γ–producing CD4+ T cells in the spleen and a lower accumulation of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in the brain. An augmented Th2 immune response characterized by enhanced production of activated GATA-3+ CD4+ T cells and elevated levels of the eotaxin, MCP-1, and G-CSF cytokines was observed in the absence of T-bet. Our results suggest that in virulent malarias, immune modulation or therapy resulting in an early shift toward a Th2 response may help to ameliorate the most severe consequences of malaria immunopathogenesis and the prospect of host survival.


In this paper ,the mine tunnels is regard as wave-guide which contains kinds of un-beneficial medium, we have study the formulas of electromagnetic waves propagation attenuation and roughness attenuation, the relations between propagation attenuation and roughness and frequency were simulated. The results show that the influence of propagation attenuation in lower frequency is more obvious, and roughness attenuation is increased rapidly as roughness of coal mine tunnels increasing. But tilted attenuation is stronger than roughness attenuation as propagation frequency increasing.


ABSTRACT This paper discusses the normativity of truth and logic. The paper has three objectives. First, I argue that logic is normative for thought in (at least) the sense of underwriting instrumental rationality. Logic is a good instrument for achieving truth, the goal of cognition. In recent work, Filippo Ferrari has argued that the normative nature of truth may vary across domains. My second aim is to extend this idea to logic, against the background of the idea that logic serves to underwrite instrumental rationality. The third objective is to further develop Ferrari's framework of normative alethic variability. I do so through a discussion of the normative problem of mixed compounds: the challenge of providing a principled account of the normativity of compounds with constituents whose respective normative profiles differ. I argue that the challenge can be met. Besides offering a solution to a major challenge, the response offered sheds new light on the normative variability framework: the truth of a single mixed compound may have different normative profiles across different 'disagreement-realizers'. This feature of the view is rooted in a key commitment of the normative variability framework – namely, that disagreement and alethic normativity are intimately connected.


The financial effect of the 2020 Covid pandemic in India has been generally problematic. India's development in the final quarter of the monetary year 2020 went down to 3.1% as per the Ministry of Statistics. The Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India said that this drop is essentially due to the Covid pandemic impact on the Indian economy. Outstandingly India had additionally been seeing a pre-pandemic log jam, and as indicated by the World Bank, the current pandemic has "amplified previous dangers to India's monetary standpoint".
The World Bank and rating offices had at first reconsidered India's development for FY 2021 with the least figures India has found in thirty years since India's financial advancement during the 1990 s. Nonetheless, after the declaration of the financial bundle in mid-May, India's GDP gauges were downsized considerably more to negative figures, flagging a profound downturn. (The appraisals of more than 30 nations have been downsized during this period.) On 26 May, CRISIL declared that this will maybe be India's most exceedingly awful downturn since autonomy. State Bank of India research appraises a constriction of over 40% in the GDP in Q1 The withdrawal won't be uniform, rather it will vary as indicated by different boundaries, for example, state and area. On 1st September 2020, the Ministry of Statistics delivered the GDP figures for Q1 (April to June) FY 21, which indicated a constriction of 24% when contrasted with a similar period the prior year.