The societies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) contain many and diverse rural cultures which present myriad opportunities for small-scale, high income, locally controlled tourism generation. The negative impact of political and economic change has often been significant in the region's rural areas. But with spatially and structurally dynamic mix of mass and specialist markets to target, there are increasing opportunities for rural attractions to act as a basic resource for tourism organized and sustained through locally owned small enterprises.


Even as African women use family planning more and bear fewer children the continents youthful population will fuel the continents growth for many decades to come. Africas population of 967 million is projected to grow to 1.9 billion by 2050 according to the 2008 Africa Population Data Sheet produced by the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) and the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC). The report highlights the regional differences within Africa especially between sub-Saharan and Northern Africa. Contraceptive use has increased fastest in Northern and Southern Africa and as a result the number of children the average woman in those regions has during her lifetime has dropped from nearly six children in the early 1980s to around three in 2005. This has slowed population growth in those regions. In most Eastern Western and Middle African countries however use of family planning remains low and fertility rates have dropped little with women averaging between five and six children. Educational attainment considered an important element in reducing poverty has increased in many countries especially at the primary level. But fewer than 75 percent of primary school-age children were enrolled in primary school in Chad Ethiopia Nigeria and several other countries. African countries have made less progress getting children to advance to secondary school. For all of sub-Saharan Africa the average net enrollment for secondary school is 28 percent.


BACKGROUND AND METHODS
Prevailing hypotheses about the causes of ovarian carcinogenesis predict that women with a history of multiple births (twins, triplets, etc.) should be at increased risk of epithelial ovarian cancer. However, the scant available evidence suggests that they may actually be at lower risk. To resolve this issue, we pooled data from eight studies involving 2859 parous women with epithelial ovarian cancer (case patients) and 7434 parous women without ovarian cancer (control women). In addition to assessing their history of multiple births (and the sex of the children, where available), we obtained information on age, parity, oral contraceptive use, and other reproductive factors for each woman. Details of tumor histology were available for all case patients. We estimated the relative risks of various histologic types of ovarian cancers associated with multiple births by using multivariable logistic regression analysis, adjusting for matching and confounding variables.

RESULTS
Among these parous women, 73 case patients (2. 6%) and 257 control women (3.5%) had a history of multiple births. The adjusted summary odds ratio (OR) for developing all types of epithelial ovarian cancer that are associated with multiple births was 0.81 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.61-1.08). We found no evidence that risks associated with multiple births differed among women with borderline or invasive tumors and among women with same-sex and opposite-sex offspring from multiple births. The risk reductions appeared specific for nonmucinous tumors (n = 2453; summary adjusted OR = 0.71 [95% CI = 0.52-0.98]); in contrast, associations with mucinous tumors (n = 406) were heterogeneous across studies.

CONCLUSIONS
Parous women with nonmucinous ovarian cancer are no more likely to have a history of multiple births than other parous women, counter to the predictions of current hypotheses for causes of ovarian cancer.


MAUP (modifiable areal unit problem) is a fundamental problem for spatial data management and analysis. As an instantiation of MAUP in online transportation platforms, region generation (i.e., specifying the areal unit for service operations) is the first and vital step for supporting spatiotemporal transportation services such as ride-sharing and freight transport. Most existing region generation methods are manually specified (e.g., fixed-size grids), suffering from poor spatial semantic meaning and inflexibility to meet service operation requirements. In this paper, we propose RegionGen, a data-driven region generation framework that can specify regions with key characteristics (e.g., good spatial semantic meaning and predictability) by modeling region generation as a multi-objective optimization problem. First, to obtain good spatial semantic meaning, RegionGen segments the whole city into atomic spatial elements based on road networks and obstacles (e.g., rivers). Then, it clusters the atomic spatial elements into regions by maximizing various operation characteristics, which is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem. For this optimization problem, we propose a multi-objective co-optimization algorithm. Extensive experiments verify that RegionGen can generate more suitable regions than traditional methods for spatiotemporal service management.


In order to ensure its absolute authority, the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal (1946-1948), the Japanese counterpart of the Nuremberg Trial, adopted a three-tier structure for its interpreting: Japanese nationals interpreted the proceedings, second-generation Japanese-Americans monitored the interpreting, and Caucasian U.S. military officers arbitrated the disputes. The first extensive study on the subject in English, this book explores the historical and political contexts of the trial as well as the social and cultural backgrounds of the linguists through trial transcripts in English and Japanese, archival documents and recordings, and interviews with those who were involved in the interpreting. In addition to a detailed account of the interpreting, the book examines the reasons for the three-tier system, how the interpreting procedures were established over the course of the trial, and the unique difficulties faced by the Japanese-American monitors. This original case study of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal illuminates how complex issues such as trust, power, control and race affect interpreting at international tribunals in times of conflict.


The fisheries data supplied to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) by national agencies have served as the primary tool for many global and regional studies. However, it is recognised that these data are incomplete and often underestimate actual catches, particularly for small-scale fisheries. This study reconstructed total marine fisheries catches from 1950 to 2005 for Mozambique and the United Republic of Tanzania, by applying an established catch reconstruction approach utilising all available quantitative and qualitative data, combined with assumption-based estimations and interpolations. Since the 1950s, Mozambique has reported primarily industrial catches and has substantially under-reported the country's small-scale fishing sector due to lack of resources and civil war. In Tanzania, Zanzibar's recorded fisheries statistics prior to 2000 are absent from Tanzania's marine fisheries catches reported to FAO, and total mainland catches are at least one-third larger than officially reported. Based on our reconstruction, since 2000, Mozambique caught between 150 000 and 172 000 t y−1, while the United Republic of Tanzania caught at least 95 000 t y−1. For the period 1950–2005, reconstructed total marine catches were 6.2 and 1.7 times greater than data supplied to FAO by Mozambique and Tanzania respectively. The reliance on incomplete and substantially under-reported national data puts authorities under serious risk of over-licensing fishing access and mismanaging marine ecosystems and national food security.


Bio-based polymers and fillers draw a significant interest. Focus of this work is to use ground pistachio shell as alternative filler in a model natural rubber/styrene–butadiene rubber-based conveyor belt compound. Compounds were prepared using a laboratory two-roll mill by partial replacing of carbon black with pistachio shell. Cure characteristics, mechanical, thermal, morphological, and abrasion properties of pistachio shell containing vulcanizates have been studied. Increasing pistachio shell loading causes lower cure extent and lower tensile strength. However, abrasion resistance is significantly improved by incorporation of pistachio shell. Benefits of using pistachio shell as filler may include producing low price, environmentally friendly, and high abrasion resistant vulcanizates when some loses in tensile properties can be tolerated. POLYM. COMPOS., 35:245–252, 2014. © 2013 Society of Plastics Engineers


Chemokines play important roles in atherosclerotic vascular disease. Expressed by not only cells of the vessel wall but also emigrated leukocytes, chemokines were initially discovered to direct leukocytes to sites of inflammation. However, chemokines can also exert multiple functions beyond cell recruitment. Here, we discuss novel and recently emerging aspects of chemokines and their involvement in atherosclerosis. While reviewing newly identified roles of chemokines and their receptors in monocyte and neutrophil recruitment during atherogenesis and atheroregression, we also revisit homeostatic functions of chemokines, including their roles in cell homeostasis and foam cell formation. The functional diversity of chemokines in atherosclerosis warrants a clear-cut mechanistic dissection and stage-specific assessment to better appreciate the full scope of their actions in vascular inflammation and to identify pathways that harbor the potential for a therapeutic targeting of chemokines in atherosclerosis.


Mahkota dewa fruit pulp (Phaleria macrocarpa, PMp) is often used as a medicinal raw material in Indonesia. The texture of the P. macrocarpa fruit is hard due to high lignin and cellulose contents and it often inhibits an extraction process of secondary metabolism. This study is conducted to get optimum extraction condition by using the ionic liquid-microwave assisted extraction (IL-MAE) method, assessing the effect of pretreatment with urea and the antioxidant activity of PMp. Solvent [BMIM]BF4 has been chosen for extraction by varying three parameters: solvent concentration, extraction time, and solvent–sample ratio. The optimum condition was determined based on total phenolic content (TPC; milligram equivalent to quercetin as reference), antioxidant activity assay has been carried out using the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) method, and selectivity to extract polar compound was carried out using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) method. The optimum extraction condition has been achieved at run 11 with the condition: 10% microwave power, using [BMIM]BF4 (2.5 M) as a solvent, using 0.01 M KH2PO4 as a salt solution, 2.5 minutes extraction time, solvent: sample ratio (17.5: 1), resulting TPC value of 191.72 ± 1.27 mgGAE/g powder, and DPPH radical-scavenging activity of 12.1 ± 0.003%. The IL-MAE method can extract the marker of phenolic compounds (quercetin, mahkoside, benzophenone, and mangiferin) and showed selectivity in extracting polar compound than conventional methods. Pretreatment using 8% urea for 12 hours produced no significant difference in TPC values from the IL-MAE method at optimum conditions. The IL-MAE method gives the highest TPC and superior antioxidant activity in PMp extraction.


Neuroimaging has become increasingly important in the clinical assessment and diagnosis of dementia. Structural imaging with MRI and functional imaging techniques, such as positron emission tomography and single photon emission CT, increasingly are used to aid in the differential diagnosis and early detection of dementia. Imaging techniques also can track disease progression over time and may be useful to monitor treatment effects. The most important development in the field over the past decade is the ability to image amyloid in the brain. This technique will revolutionize patient management and care.


ABSTRACT The architecture of the cephalic lateral line canal system, with distinct lines for the supraorbital, infraorbital and mandibular canals, is highly conserved among fish species. Because these canals lie on a cranial platform, the sensory input they receive is expected to change based on how flow interacts with the head and how the canal pores are spatially distributed. In this study, we explored how head width, a trait that can vary greatly between species and across ontogeny, affects flow sensing. We inserted pressure sensors into physical fish head models of varying widths (narrow, intermediate and wide) and placed these models in steady and vortical flows. We measured sensory performance in terms of detecting flow parameters (flow speed, vortex shedding frequency and cylinder diameter), sensitivity (change in pressure gradient as a function of flow speed) and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR; strength of vortex shedding frequency with respect to background). Our results show that in all model heads the amount of hydrodynamic information was maximized at the anterior region regardless of what metric we used to evaluate the sensory performance. In addition, we discovered that all model heads had the highest SNR for vortices at the intermediate flow speeds but that each head width passively optimized the SNR for different sized vortices, which may have implications for refuge and prey seeking. Our results provide insight into the sensory ecology of fishes and have implications for the design of autonomous underwater vehicles. Summary: Fish head width, which varies widely across species, influences how the lateral line canal system can sense both steady and vortical flows.


A 48-year-old man presented with haematemesis and was found to have Menetrier's disease. Three and a half years later early gastric cancer was detected at routine follow-up endoscopy. This is the first report of the development of early gastric cancer during follow-up in a case of Menetrier's disease. It is probable that patients with Menetrier's disease are at increased risk of gastric cancer, and should have regular endoscopic follow-up with gastric biopsy.


Functional response studies in the IV and V nymphal instars and the adult males and females of Rhynocoris kumarii Ambrose and Livingstone and R. marginatus (Fabricius) to the larvae of Euproctis fraterna (Moore) revealed similar Holling's type II curvilinear responses. The life stages of both R. kumarii and R. marginatus responded to the increasing prey density by killing more number of prey than prey killed at lower prey densities and exhibited the searching time decreased as the prey density was increased. The predation rate showed a steep rise from 1 to 16 prey densities. The maximum predations presented by 'k' values were always found restricted to the higher prey density. Attack ratios decreased as the prey density was increased. Negative correlations were obtained between the prey density and the handling and recovery times of the predator and the searching time. Though a curvilinear type II relationships were found between the number of prey killed and the prey density in both normal and Synergy-505 exposed life stages of R. marginatus, Synergy-505 reduced functional response parameters such as number of prey killed, attack rate and searching time, and prolonged handling and recovery times. The toxicological impacts were greater among the nymphal instar's than the adults. Among adult males were affected more than the females.


Designing and exploring efficient and stable non-noble bifunctional catalysts by nanostructure modification and chemical composition tuning for water splitting is of critical importance for sustainable resources. Herein, pure phase nickel molybdenum phosphide (NiMoP2) nanowires on carbon cloth are successfully synthesized through a simple and highly reproducible in situ P/O exchange process. Such a NiMoP2 nanowire catalyst requires low overpotentials of 199 and 330 mV to obtain a high current density of 100 mA cm−2 towards the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER), respectively, and is among the most active HER and OER electrocatalysts yet reported. The bifunctional NiMoP2 is used as both anode and cathode catalysts in a two-electrode water electrolysis configuration, which delivers a current density of 10 mA cm−2 under a potential of 1.67 V. Furthermore, the overall water-splitting of the bifunctional NiMoP2 nanowire catalyst is further driven by a dry battery with a nominal voltage of 1.5 V which exhibits excellent performance and durability in a strong alkaline electrolyte.


PURPOSE
We describe the natural history of post-void residual (PVR) and voided volume (VV) in men.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A random sample of community dwelling men (529 men 40 to 79 years old) were followed with a sonographic PVR and VV every 2 years for up to 12 years (median 5 examinations). Men were censored at the time of treatment for a prostate condition.

RESULTS
The median annual change (slope) for PVR was 2.2% (p=0.03) and for VV was -2.1% (p <0.0001). There was considerable variability in PVR slopes (25th percentile -11%, 75th percentile 18%). A rapid increase in PVR slope (greater than 80th percentile) was more likely in men with a baseline American Urological Association Symptom Index greater than 7 (age adjusted odds ratio [OR]1.6, 95% CI 1.0 to 2.5). There was less variability in VV slopes (25th percentile -8.0%, 75th percentile 3.1%). A rapid decrease in VV slope (less than 20th percentile) was more likely in men with baseline age 70 to 79 years than 40 to 49 years (OR 3.9, 95% CI 2.1 to 7.2) and in men with a baseline PVR greater than 50 ml (age adjusted OR 2.1, 95% CI 1.2 to 3.6).

CONCLUSIONS
Although it is highly variable, there is progressive bladder dysfunction in community dwelling men as they age. In addition, signs and symptoms attributed to benign prostatic hyperplasia were modest predictors of the development of bladder dysfunction. A baseline increased PVR predicted a rapid decrease in VV, consistent with a bladder outlet obstruction contributing to the development of detrusor overactivity and decreased bladder compliance.


Chlorinated solvents have been used extensively in industry and are common groundwater contaminants. Their limited aqueous solubility often leads to the presence of dense non-aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) source zones, where the distribution of DNAPL is controlled by both the fluid properties and the geologic environment. Recent advances in the development of a site investigation 'toolbox' has significantly enhanced our ability to characterise the spatial architecture of DNAPL in both sedimentary and fractured bedrock environments. A range of site investigation tools is presented, based on the principle of combined lines of evidence and the premise that a single technique is not available to fully delineate DNAPL distribution in the subsurface. Key to this strategy is the selection of technologies with multi-ple scales of measurement and data quality, of which there are two main categories. The first category provides qualitative, dense spatial data, often with higher detection limits over a preset value. These methods are generally of lower cost, produce vertical profiles of real-time data and are primarily used to identify site areas that require further investigation. Examples of such "decision quality" methods are laser-induced fluorescence profiling and membrane interface probing. These first category methods produce qualitative data that are used to guide the sampling strategy for the application of the second category of technologies that are typically com-pound-specific and generate quantitative, precise data that have low detection limits. These second category methods tend to be higher cost with longer turnaround times that preclude on-site decision making, hence applying them to quantify, rather than produce a conceptual model, facilitates a key cost saving. Examples include the use of fully cored boreholes (and associated subsampling) and high resolution multilevel well completions. Where these two categories of measurement technologies are used in tandem, a more complete and accurate dataset is achieved and additional site mobilizations are limited. Chlorinated solvents (PCE, TCE and TCA) are expected to be present as Dense Non Aqueous Phase Liquid (DNAPL) in the chalk aquifer at the site Naverland in Albertslund. The behavior of DNAPLs in fractured media, in particular chalk, is poorly understood and characterization is a difficult task. There is a need for a high vertical resolution with respect to contaminant distribution in a difficult media to access. A new characterization method namely FACT FLUTe®, combining an activated carbon strip and a NAPL FLUTe Liner®, was one of several characterization methods which were tested at the Naverland site and compared in terms of their applicability for DNAPL characterization in the chalk aquifer. The scope of the MSc thesis was to evaluate the applicability of the carbon strip through laboratory testing and application of laboratory results to field data from the site.


A number of potentially super-hard materials were examined using ab-initio methods. Low Gibbs free energy polymorphs of diamond-like materials for y = 0 to 7 in the stoichiometric type C8-y By, were identified at absolute zero of temperature. These were proposed as possible super-hard materials with useful applications. The materials with y = 0 to 3, that is, diamond (C), cubic C7B (c-C7B), rhombohedral C3B (r-C3B) and orthorhombic C5B3 (o-C5B3) were found to be dynamically and mechanically stable. A diamond standard was used as a stable comparison. Results of their bulk modulus calculations suggest that these materials were potentially super-hard in character. Systematic trends were established, the hardness was observed to reduce with increasing boron content. The materials under study were all determined as being brittle with diamond being the most brittle, C3B and C5B3 are the least brittle with B/G values of 1.32. Of the materials studied, diamond was determined to have the lowest degree of elastic anisotropy with a Universal Elastic Anisotropy Index of only 0.041 while C5B3 had the highest anisotropy of 1.160, making it the most susceptible to micro-cracks. Our electronic band structure studies of c-C7B, which was predicted to be the hardest in the C8-y By system after diamond, showed that the top of the valence band was about 1.7 eV above the Fermi level with a band gap between the valence and conduction bands, making c-C7B a hole-type conductor having a likely increase in conductivity with increased applied hydrostatic pressure.

 Key words: Phase stability, elastic anisotropy, ultra-hard material.


The conventional tube extrusion process has been substituted by porthole die extrusion due to relevant advantages in terms of productivity and quality. However, the porthole die has a complex geometry to be effectively designed; consequently, several studies can be found out in the technical literature based on experimental and finite element analyses of the process. From this point of view, while the experimental investigations entail cost and time increasing, due to the die building complexity, finite element techniques present some drawbacks such as the difficulty to simulate material joining and the loss of accuracy due to the heavy mesh distortion and related remeshing. Therefore, the introduction of new numerical techniques for the analyses of this process could have positive effects. In this paper, the Natural Element Method (NEM) together to the alpha shapes and some extra numerical procedures are used in the simulation of tube extrusion, focusing the attention on the simulation of the welding line in a fully 3D analysis. The obtained results are compared with the finite element and experimental ones, measuring the accuracy of the proposed methodology.


Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is one of the major causes of visual impairment and blindness across the world. It is usually found in patients who suffer from diabetes for a long period. The major focus of this work is to derive optimal representation of retinal images that further helps to improve the performance of DR recognition models. To extract optimal representation, features extracted from multiple pre-trained ConvNet models are blended using proposed multi-modal fusion module. These final representations are used to train a Deep Neural Network (DNN) used for DR identification and severity level prediction. As each ConvNet extracts different features, fusing them using 1D pooling and cross pooling leads to better representation than using features extracted from a single ConvNet. Experimental studies on benchmark Kaggle APTOS 2019 contest dataset reveals that the model trained on proposed blended feature representations is superior to the existing methods. In addition, we notice that cross average pooling based fusion of features from Xception and VGG16 is the most appropriate for DR recognition. With the proposed model, we achieve an accuracy of 97.41%, and a kappa statistic of 94.82 for DR identification and an accuracy of 81.7% and a kappa statistic of 71.1% for severity level prediction. Another interesting observation is that DNN with dropout at input layer converges more quickly when trained using blended features, compared to the same model trained using uni-modal deep features.


Innovative test rigs were presented. It enables: assessment of efficiency of automatic identification systems in logistics and carrying out further scientific works concerning implementation of EAN and RFID technology in agro-food engineering. The test rigs was verified by laboratory means through execution of the function of receiving goods for storage with the use of devices applied in EAN and RFID technologies. Based on the tests, it was stated that RFID has considerably higher speed of identification than EAN. Moreover, RFID technology is dedicated where simultaneous identification of various codes is expected. Both technologies enable execution of the automatized process of storing and distribution of agri-food goods, additionally RFID enables introduction of data to the code during the logistic process.


In 2015 the American Association of College & Research Libraries jettisoned its long-standing set of Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education and adopted the richer, more flexible Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Composed of core concepts rather than prescriptive objectives, the Framework more closely mirrors the complexity of the rapidly evolving academic environment and encourages engagement on the part of students. However, many instruction librarians find that the Frame's flexibility also poses pedagogical challenges. The authors describe how instruction librarians at one university library have adapted and used a popular mnemonic device when presenting the Frames, thus promoting greater student reflection and interaction.


BACKGROUND/AIMS
Severe acute pancreatitis usually requires intensive management of cardiovascular, pulmonary, renal, and septic complications. Many scoring systems are used in determining the outcomes. The aim of the study was to evaluate the role of three scoring systems, i.e. Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation, Sequential Organ Failure Assessment, and modified Ranson's criteria, in predicting mortality rate in patients with severe acute pancreatitis as well as other factors influencingmortality in patients admitted to intensive care unit.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Charts of 43 patients hospitalized in intensive care unit with severe acute pancreatitis were screened retrospectively. Four patients were excluded. Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II, Sequential Organ Failure Assessment and modified Ranson's scores were calculated on admission, and Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score was recorded on weekly intervals during the intensive care unit stay.

RESULTS
Thirty-nine patients were included in the study (65% male, mean age: 61 years). The intensive care unit mortality was 64% and hospital mortality was 71%. Sequential Organ Failure Assessment scores correlated significantly with mortality. All patients with Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score ≥11 at any time during intensive care unit stay had higher mortality (80% sensitivity, 79% specificity, ROC=0,837). Although Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II is used to estimate mortality prognosis, we could not find any statistically significant association between Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II scores and mortality.

CONCLUSION
Various scoring systems are used to determine the prognosis of severe acute pancreatitis. In this group of patients, higher Sequential Organ Failure Assessment scores predict higher intensive care unit/hospital mortality.


A novel human CC chemokine consisting of 78 amino acids and having a molecular mass of 8,778.3 daltons (VVIPSPCCMF FVSKRIPENR VVSYQLSSRS TCLKAGVIFT TKKGQQ SCGD PKQEWVQRYM KNLDAKQKKA SPRARAVA) was isolated together with three minor COOH-terminally truncated variants with 73, 75, and 76 residues. The new chemokine was termed eotaxin-2 because it is functionally very similar to eotaxin. In terms of structure, however, eotaxin and eotaxin-2 are rather distant, they share only 39% identical amino acids and differ almost completely in the NH2-terminal region. Eotaxin-2 induced chemotaxis of eosinophils as well as basophils, with a typically bimodal concentration dependence, and the release of histamine and leukotriene C4 from basophils that had been primed with IL-3. In all assays, eotaxin-2 had the same efficacy as eotaxin, but was somewhat less potent. The migration and the release responses were abrogated in the presence of a monoclonal antibody that selectively blocks the eotaxin receptor, CCR3, indicating that eotaxin-2, like eotaxin, acts exclusively via CCR3. Receptor usage was also studied in desensitization experiments by measuring [Ca2+]i changes in eosinophils. Complete cross-desensitization was observed between eotaxin-2, eotaxin and MCP-4 confirming activation via CCR3. No Ca2+ mobilization was obtained in neutrophils, monocytes and lymphocytes, in agreement with the lack of chemotactic responsiveness. Intradermal injection of eotaxin-2 in a rhesus monkey (100 or 1,000 pmol per site) induced a marked local infiltration of eosinophils, which was most pronounced in the vicinity of postcapillary venules and was comparable to the effect of eotaxin.


Type B aortic dissection (AD) is a potentially fatal disease with poor long-term outcome. In the modern endovascular era, thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR) is considered the treatment of choice in complicated acute type B AD, whereas uncomplicated acute type B AD has traditionally been managed non-operatively (1). Approximately 30% of type B AD patients present with ischemia or rupture and represent a subgroup with significant in-hospital mortality (1). Indications for endovascular intervention include persistent or recurrent pain, uncontrolled hypertension despite full medication, early aortic expansion, malperfusion, and signs of rupture (hemothorax, increasing periaortic and mediastinal hematoma) (1). Those with an uncomplicated acute type B AD are treated with optimal medical therapy and life-long periodical imaging surveillance. The latter is crucial to detect significant late aneurysmal dilatation, which then needs to be addressed by endovascular procedures or open surgery. Given the disappointing long-term results with optimal medical therapy and the emerging data regarding the efficacy of TEVAR in remodeling the dissected aorta, many investigators now suggest a more aggressive strategy of TEVAR at the initial hospitalization for the treatment of patients with acute uncomplicated type B AD. However, quality evidence is lacking.


This thesis is a critical reflection on a number of my public works in the academic arena, from my musical background and in my role as a strategic leader in two business schools. Using a combination of evocative and analytical autoethnography, I critically reflect on my roles as jazz musician and management educator and discuss how two bodies of knowledge have informed each other over the course of my career.

At the core of my works as a management educator, is the application of the jazz metaphor – largely in the strategic marketing management discipline (see my published works in this space – Dennis and Macaulay (2003), Dennis and Macaulay (2007) and Dennis (2015). Over the course of my career, though, my application of the jazz metaphor has pervaded other aspects of leadership and management discourse, including entrepreneurship, general leadership and strategic management in the broadest sense. The expansion of my application of the jazz metaphor has, in part, been informed by the workshops I have delivered to organisations over the years and, of course, my students (particularly MBAs) who have brought their experience and thoughts and allowed me to broaden my thinking beyond strategic marketing discourse.

Throughout this piece, I will switch lenses from my experience on the band stand, to my work in the classroom, through to my work as a senior leader. Over the course of the last twelve months, I have learned a great deal about myself and, of course my professional practice, as both a jazz musician and management educator, thanks to this Professional Doctorate.

First, I have realised that I have always had a deep inherent dissonance about the nature of management education that stems back to my days as an undergraduate marketing student. It was at this point – particularly at the time of researching for my dissertation, I began to see the limitations of marketing discourse when applied to the arts, specifically jazz music. Arguably, I started experimenting with the jazz and marketing theme as an undergraduate, albeit in a superficial manner.

Subsequently, then, as I developed my skills as an improviser under the guidance of jazz trumpeter - Gerard Presencer – and began playing some high-profile gigs, I began thinking about how jazz can inform (initially) marketing discourse, but as my career developed, I have broadened my outlook and indeed the application of jazz to the wider field of management. I no longer think of myself as a marketer, instead, I am a management educator – in part informed by six years in strategic leadership positions in two business schools.

Throughout this thesis, I will discuss how iconic trumpeter and thought-leader – Miles Davis – has and continues to be a major influence on my professional practice. This context statement examines how his musicianship and creativity has inspired a body of my public works – from metaphor, to leadership, to challenging the art vs. commerce debate. Additionally, I will critically reflect on my work to bring the 'art' back into marketing through the creation of Art and the Market (formally Arts Marketing: An International Journal), which has assisted in bringing together a global community of practice for the arts marketing community. The creation of the journal is an important piece in my career to date, and although I feel I did this perhaps too early in my career, it has none the less been an important contribution to arts marketing discourse.

There are a number of conclusions that I have drawn from this reflective exercise. First, I have come to learn that I have only scratched the surface of the application of the jazz metaphor in a business context and I have identified directions for future academic research that will inform my pedagogical practice and my jazz workshops. Second, and largely from my work as Associate Dean, I have broken out of the marketing silo and I now see myself as a management educator. I discuss some of the criticisms and limitations of management education in this thesis and I also reflect on the challenges in my role as Associate Dean and how these have enhanced my practice – academically and pedagogically. I better understand the interdisciplinary, the multidisciplinary and even the transdisciplinary nature of management education and I continue to champion this with my work in curriculum design – most recently developing a new MBA that is very much interdisciplinary in nature.

This deep critical reflection has also enhanced my understanding of improvisation and I feel I have a deeper understanding of how I play the trumpet and my approach to improvisation. My playing, I feel, has also positively benefitted as a result. The public works connected to this context statement are eclectic and a mixture of academic publications, musical performances/recordings, video footage of my jazz workshops, examples of curriculum design I have developed, with the occasional email to Miles Davis asking for his advice on matters connected to my professional practice. His inspirational reply is the perfect conclusion to the thesis.


We develop a model of competitive intertemporal emissions trading under uncertainty with supply-side controls. We introduce two sources of bounded rationality on the part of regulated firms: myopia and limited sophistication in understanding the interplay between their decisions in equilibrium and the control-driven supply shifts over time. We tailor the model to the EU-ETS, calibrate the market's interest rate, myopia and marginal abatement cost to match observed price and banking paths over 2008-2017, and highlight the key role of myopia in the price dynamics. We use our calibrated model to assess the recent market reform, essentially the market stability reserve (MSR). We find that the MSR always reduces the cumulated cap (even without cancellations) and raises the permit price. The MSR acts a temporary patch curbing past excess supply but displays limited responsiveness to future permit demand shocks (e.g. recession, renewable deployment). We also show how MSR performances depend greatly on the firms' types and degrees of myopia and sophistication, and compare them with those of a soft price collar.


With the improving of reservoir development level, reservoir geologic research urgently need some new and practical technical methods to describe reservoir more accurately and meticulous. The three-dimensional geological modeling exactly is one of the main aspects to resolve the problem. Take the Chang109 block of Changchunling oilfield for an example. Using Petrel, which is multi-disciplinary and synthetical software for researching reservoir and to establish a 3D geological model as the outstanding characteristic, to build the reservoir model displaying geological information system. That, including the structure model, the sedimentary facies model and the property model, will provide reliable basis potential finding and well placement.


Ecological networks comprised of diverse species interacting within habitats describe iconic self-organized complex systems. Their nodes are dynamic, highly heterogeneous and constantly evolving in response to their changing environment. Yet, these ungoverned highly diverse and complex ecological networks remain remarkably robust despite catastrophes that destroy huge fractions of the nodes and cause permanent alterations of the environment. Recent work to model these system employs network informatics, visualizations, and high performance computing simulations. Exploring these models demands that the parameters are both fit using rigorous informatics and also varied in innumerable combinations using efficient and powerful computer architectures. This presentation will describe the mechanics of this endeavor as well as several of the most interesting research results including the robustness enhancing roles of network architecture and organism's size and behavioral nonlinearities as well as network effects of species' loss and invasions. A particular future for such endeavors will also described with special attention to implications for general network science.


In recent years, synthetic nanomaterials have begun to be produced and used in increasingly larger volumes. These materials may cause new or increased risks to the environment, but no harmonized methods for structured assessment of their environmental risks exist. The main aim of this thesis is to contribute to the development of emission and exposure assessment methods, and thus also risk assessment methods, for nanomaterials. The second aim is to apply developed methods to specific nanomaterials. The nanomaterials assessed were titanium dioxide nanoparticles, silver nanoparticles, and graphene.

Starting from the two methods of risk assessment of chemicals and substance flow analysis, three different methods were outlined. The first method is called particle flow analysis, and can be used to assess current and future potential particle number-based emissions of nanoparticles. The second method is an exposure model for nanoparticles based on colloidal stability. This method can be used to derive particle number-based predicted environmental concentrations of nanoparticles. The third method is exposure modeling of nanomaterials based on partitioning factors, a method that can be used to derive mass-based predicted environmental concentrations.

By applying the particle flow analysis method, it was shown that antibacterial clothing is a large source of particle number-based emissions of silver nanoparticles, and could become an even larger source. Applying the same method to titanium dioxide nanoparticles showed that both the currently highest, and potentially also the future highest, particle number-based emissions come from sunscreen. By applying the exposure method based on partitioning factors, it was shown that if the silver content of antibacterial clothing is as high as some measurements have indicated, there is considerable risk of high silver levels in wastewater treatment sludge and in agricultural land if the sludge is applied as fertilizer. A review of risk-related properties of graphene showed that the risk-related data is very scarce, but what is available gives reason for concern in relation to high potential emissions, high persistence, hydrophobicity, and considerable toxicity. The developed methods, case study results, and some reflections and suggestions for future research together constitute contributions to emission assessment, exposure assessment, and risk assessment of nanomaterials.


O6-Methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) is a DNA repair protein that removes alkyl-adducts from the O6-guanine in DNA and is a crucial defense against O6-alkylating agent-induced cytotoxicity. We demonstrated here that two camptothecin (CPT)-resistant cell lines (CPT30 and KB100) were more sensitive to N,N′-bis(2-chloroethyl)-N-nitrosurea (BCNU) than their parental cells. Enhanced sensitivity to BCNU in these two CPT-resistant cells involved transcriptional repression of the MGMT gene. The mechanism of MGMT gene down-regulation in CPT-resistant cells was not through gene abnormality, mRNA stability, and CpG island hypermethylation. However, the high level of methyl-CpG-binding protein 2 (MeCP2) and dimethylation of H3K9 in the promoter region were found in CPT30 and KB100 cells. Furthermore, increased MeCP2 binding on MGMT promoter was also found to be correlated with MGMT gene-silencing in short-term CPT treatment; thus, enhanced BCNU sensitivity was found in CPT-treated cells. Taken together, we suggest that CPT is able to suppress the transcription of the MGMT gene through recruiting of MeCP2 and H3K9 dimethylation, thus causing a synergistic interaction with BCNU. These findings provide a possible explanation regarding why the combination of CPT and BCNU results in a better objective response than single-use alone. In addition, this study supports a new indication for treating patients who are receiving refractory CPT derivatives with BCNU.


Shifting cultivation is a farming system in which farmers cultivate through a movement of activity from a place to another in the secondary or primary forest. Wemale tribe in the Inamosol District of West Seram Regency are able to open forest area about 0.2 – 1.0 hectare in each year for practing the shifting cultivation. To understand how Wemale tribe practiced the shifting cultivation, a research has been conducted with the main objevtive to know the factors that determined the variation of the land size of the shifting cultivation. The method used in the research was by interview and direct observation in the field. The results of the research indicated that variation of land size of the shifting culvation that was practiced by the Wemale tribe were the number of household labors and the number of children in the household that were still active in the process of education


Enhanced motor corticospinal excitability (MCE) in passive action observation is thought to signify covert motor resonance with the actions seen. Actions performed by others are an important social stimulus and thus, motor resonance is prevalent during social interaction. However, most studies employ simple/short snippets of recorded movements devoid of any real-life social context, which has recently been criticized for lacking ecological validity. Here, we investigated whether the co-presence of the actor and the spectator has an impact on motor resonance by comparing novices' MCE for the finger (FDI) and the arm (ECR) with single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation when watching five-minute solos of ballet dance, Bharatanatyam (Indian dance) and an acting control condition either live or on video. We found that (1) MCE measured in the arm muscle was significantly enhanced in the live compared to the video condition, (2) differences across performances were only evident in the live condition, and (3) our novices reported enjoying the live presentations significantly more. We suggest that novice spectators' MCE is susceptible to the performers' live presence.


The study investigated the relationship between the Big Three Personality factors (Extroversion, Neuroticism and Psychoticism) and Revenue Trainee's Job Performance. The Alpha coefficients for the Extroversion subscale (= 0.37) and the Psychoticsm subscale (=0.47) were, however, found to be below the conventional standard of 0.70 and no further analysis was performed on them. Only the Neuroticism subscale had a reliable Alpha coefficient of 0.78. Specifically then, the study assessed the link between neuroticism and job performance in its two forms, namely, task and contextual performance. One hundred and ninety three revenue trainees whose age ranged from.... to ... ... and a mean age of 24.90 (n=71 females and n=122 males) participated in the first session of the study but owing to the reduced response rate by mentors (60.10%), one hundred and sixteen revenue trainees with a mean age 25.29 (n= 46 females and n=70 males) candidates eventually participated in both sessions of the study. Data collected were analyzed using the Pearson Correlation. A positive correlation was found between high emotional stability and contextual performance (r= 0.247) and low negative correlation was found between emotional stability and task performance (r=-0.009). One Way Analysis of Variance indicated that (i) emotional stability had no statistically significant influence on task performance (F=.008, p>.927). This means there was no significant difference on the task performance of revenue trainees with low and high emotional stability, (iii) emotional stability had a statistically significant influence on contextual job performance (F=7.401, p .110) suggesting that there was no significant difference on the overall job performance of revenue trainees with low and high emotional stability. This study partially confirmed previous research studies and replication of the study with personality instruments with revised reliability levels should assist to ascertain the authenticity of the above findings.


ABSTRACT Hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infected patients undergoing liver transplantation universally experience rapid reinfection of their new liver graft. Current treatment protocols do not prevent graft reinfection and, in addition, an accelerated disease progression is observed. In the present study, we have evaluated a novel strategy to prevent HCV infection using a lectin, griffithsin (GRFT) that specifically binds N-linked high-mannose oligosaccharides that are present on the viral envelope. The antiviral effect of GRFT was evaluated in vitro using the HCV pseudoparticle (HCVpp) and HCV cell culture (HCVcc) systems. We show here that preincubation of HCVpp and HCVcc with GRFT prevents infection of Huh-7 hepatoma cells. Furthermore, GRFT interferes with direct cell-to-cell transmission of HCV. GRFT acts at an early phase of the viral life cycle by interfering in a genotype-independent fashion with the interaction between the viral envelope proteins and the viral receptor CD81. The capacity of GRFT to prevent infection in vivo was evaluated using uPA+/+-SCID mice (uPA stands for urokinase-type plasminogen activator) that harbor human primary hepatocytes in their liver (chimeric mice). In this proof-of-concept trial, we demonstrated that GRFT can mitigate HCV infection of chimeric mice. Treated animals that did become infected demonstrated a considerable delay in the kinetics of the viral infection. Our data demonstrate that GRFT can prevent HCV infection in vitro and mitigate HCV infection in vivo. GRFT treatment of chronically infected HCV patients undergoing liver transplantation may be a suitable strategy to prevent infection of the liver allograft.


We investigated the effect of social networking (SN) on academic achievement of dental students at Jazan University, Saudi Arabia. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed during the 2015/16 academic year to all dental students and data were analysed by SPSS version 21. There were 348 participants (70% response rate) and 53% were male. Fifty-one percent of participants reported that they studied just before examinations, and 51% scored 3.5-4.5 Grade Point Average (GPA) in the last semester. Up to 98% of the participants reported using their smartphones/ computers for SN, with 93% doing so on a daily basis, and 66% reported SN during lectures, laboratories and clinics. Fifty-seven percent thought that SN affected their study negatively, and 65% thought that their GPA would improve if they stopped or reduced SN. Students who spent more hours each day on SN had lower GPA scores. SN negatively affected the academic achievement of dental students. Further evaluation and tailored educational programmes are needed to increase students' awareness about the negative effects of SN.


We present an array of 128times128 highly miniaturized SPAD (single-photon avalanche diodes) pixels with a bank of 32 time-to-digital converters (TDCs) on chip. A decoder selects a 128-pixel row. Every group of 4 pixels in the row shares a TDC based on an event-driven mechanism. As a result, row-wise parallel acquisition is obtained with a low number of TDCs. Because of the outstanding timing precision of SPADs and an optimized TDC design, a typical resolution of 97 ps is achieved within a range of 100 ns (10 b) at a maximum rate of 10 MS/s per TDC. The TDC bank exhibits a DNL of 0.08LSB and an INL of 1.89LSB.


Plant disease is an ongoing challenge for smallholder farmers, which threatens income and food security. The recent revolution in smartphone penetration and computer vision models has created an opportunity for image classification in agriculture. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are considered state-of-the-art in image recognition and offer the ability to provide a prompt and definite diagnosis. In this paper, the performance of a pre-trained CNN model in detecting crop disease is investigated. The developed model is deployed as a web application and is capable of recognizing plant diseases out of healthy leaf tissue. A dataset containing leaf images; captured in a controlled environment, is established for training and validating the model. Validation results show that the proposed method can achieve an accuracy of 90% and an F1 score of greater than 92%. This demonstrates the technical feasibility of CNNs in classifying plant diseases and presents a path towards AI solutions for small holder farmers.


Population growth in urban areas tends to be faster than in rural areas; it is due to various factors. Population growth has increased housing demand. The need for housing should be filled with the provision of land and houses. The most common problems in urban housing provision are less urban land available for housing and higher the price. It is happening in cities of West Sumatra, changed of agricultural land (rice field) into housing although the Government of the Republic of Indonesia has issued Act No.26 / 2007 on Spatial Planning, which sets the land allotment for spatial in Indonesia. Supporting this, in the year 2009, the Indonesian government issued, Indonesian Act No. 41/ 2009 on Sustainable Land Farming Protection, concerning on sustainable land for food agriculture, that agricultural land must be maintained in order to produce agricultural products. This paper describes to what extent of the conversion of agriculture land into housing in the last five years in several regions in West Sumatra, Indonesia. Illustrate the process of transferring land functions (from rice filed to housing), which is permitted by government regulations. This study shows that there has been a relatively significant change in the function of a rice field in urban areas. The lack of government records on land use change needs to be an important note. A legal product is governing the conversion of agricultural land, Law enforcement of spatial use rules, detailed spatial plan, reliable maps as a reference (Spatial Planning) in determining the land use of the proposed location for the house to be built, should be of particular concern by the government. It is necessary to coordinate and integrate housing and agricultural planning so that housing construction can meet the needs of the house, on the other hand, the need for rice product can be produced without having to reduce agricultural land.


Introduction: Patient education has evolved in recent years to be an important component of overall patient management. The WWW may provide the appropriate media for meeting the increasing expectations of patient education in nuclear medicine. Research Question: Does the WWW have a role to play in nuclear medicine patient education? Methodology: A questionnaire was designed to determine patient demographics, patient Internet connectivity and the level of satisfaction with current patient education. A total of 491 patients at a private, hospital based nuclear medicine department volunteered to complete the questionnaire. Results: The mean age of the study population was 60.4 years. Only 12 per cent of patients indicated that they had direct access to the Internet and this correlated closely with age. 37.7 per cent of patients indicated that they would use the WWW to obtain pre test patient information if it were available online. Only 42 per cent of patients indicated that they had received pre test patient information prior to their appointment of which 82 per cent were satisfied when information was received. Conclusion: While patients indicated general dissatisfaction with current practices in patient education and were enthusiastic to embrace the WWW as a media for improving it, the role of the WWW in patient education is currently limited by the level of Internet connectivity of the typical nuclear medicine patient. (author abstract)


The aim of the present master's thesis is to develop a control logic for an existing regenerative damper to be used on commercial automotive suspensions. In a conventional suspension, the excitation due the unevenness of the road profile causes the kinetic energy to be stored in a spring. Then, the energy is released in the external environment by means of a damper, which dissipates it in the form of heat. In consideration of the current, growing concern for pollution and fuel consumption reduction even the kinetic energy released by a passive suspension is worth to be recovered. For this reason, car manufacturers are encouraging the development of regenerative suspension systems, which can convert the dynamic oscillation into electric power to be stored in the battery or to be used to actively control the suspension itself. This thesis deals with a suspension system equipped with a motor-pump group that exploits the oil flow caused by the piston moving in its tube to start a hydraulic pump. In turn, the pump movement drives an electric machine. Since the electric machine can be used both as a generator and as a motor, the system can both provide additional energy to the vehicle battery and use the electric power to force the piston movement. In particular, acting on the motor current it is possible to set the damping coefficient in order to adapt in real-time to the road roughness profile. First, the classical control strategies for active suspensions – Skyhook and Groundhook control – have been implemented on the regenerative system. The obtained results are consistent with the expected ones, although not optimal in terms of energy harvesting. For this reason a novel strategy based on the Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) is developed. This control logic has to define the optimal damping to maximize the conversion efficiency, defined as the ratio between harvested power and dissipated one. To this end the algorithm introduced in this work exploits a hill-climb approach: It verifies the sign of the gradient of the optimized variable and acts on the command variable accordingly to find a local maximum. This logic is already employed in other energy harvesters such as photovoltaic panels and wind turbine generators. However, the implementation in automotive suspensions introduces additional challenges due to the impulsive nature of the road roughness and the relatively faster dynamics. The MPPT logic is first developed on a quarter-car model defined in the state space and then implemented and verified on a full-vehicle model. Numerical simulations through different road profiles demonstrate that the proposed technique is able to track the optimal efficiency of the regenerative suspension with adequate consistency.


The problem of classification of 2 × 2 indefinite Hermitian matrices over orders in Clifford algebras is considered. The unit groups of these matrices are analogous to maximal arithmetic Fuchsian subgroups of PSL(2, o) where o is an order in a quadratic number field


The essence of this work is to show students how to reduce landfill dumps in onshore drilling and cementing operations by close looped monitoring of additives. While liquid additives are used in offshore & international cementing operations, land-based operations use a bulk-drybatch-mixed process. Additives control cement volumetric yield, thickening time, compressive strength, free water, rheology, and fluid loss control. Computerized closed-loop control of liquid additives 1) allow unused, uncontaminated cement to be hauled off location after an operation, 2) promote environmental responsibility by reducing the volume of waste cement hauled to a landfill, and 3) provide better quality control of slurries pumped "on-the-fly" due to better distribution of additives in the slurry and tighter computerized tolerances. Students are challenged to always work towards environmentally friendly processes and use of flow regime equations to vary viscosity. Laboratory tests are carried out to verify the predictions made through the regime equations. Surface slurries utilizing liquid sodium silicate in API Class C Cement were designed to meet or exceed Texas Railroad Commission Rule 13 requirements for "zone of critical cement" "extended cement" systems. Slurries were tested for thickening time, free water, compressive strength, and rheology for various combinations of weight, water, yield, additive concentration, and adherence to TRRC (Texas Railroad Commission) Rule 13 specifications.


Frictional hysteresis loops are measured with a pico-slider on typical desktop media to illustrate the bridged state with a chemisorbed perfluoropolyether lubricant. Our new molecular adhesion model calculates the mean spacing and bridge stiffness from the experimental friction force, surface topography, and dispersive surface energy. An increase in friction force with increasing pressure is consistent with molecular bond orientation by the adhesion stress


"The views on Spanish mass emigration between 1880 and 1916 in different contemporary written sources and laws are analyzed here. Generally speaking, the issue of mass migration is encompassed within the broader concept of Spanish decline and is consequently perceived as another expression of this decline. Unlike Italian mass emigration, the emigration of Spaniards is considered basically a negative phenomenon." (SUMMARY IN ENG)


Rapid technological advances and commercialisation within the emerging field of nanotechnology will challenge traditional regulatory regimes. Yet while the promising nanotechnology phenomenon has attracted extensive scientific and commercial interest, there has been only limited debate on the associated regulatory and legal aspects. This paper examines the current domestic and international regulatory frameworks into which nanotechnology is now being thrust. Using the context of the world's leading public sector investors, the United States and Japan, as well as Australia and the United Kingdom, the effectiveness of these regulatory frameworks is investigated. The paper argues that current national frameworks relevant for nanotechnology contain visible gaps. Furthermore, these regulatory fissures are magnified at the international level. As an example, the paper examines the role of the World Trade Organisation's Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement and its applicability as one important regulatory mechanism in the commercialisation of nanotechnology. This paper concludes that if we can now learn from past regulatory successes and failures, nanotechnology offers a unique opportunity to re-evaluate the efficacy of current regulatory regimes, thereby circumventing some of the primary regulatory difficulties experienced with earlier technological advances.


Use this guide to find Social Work related resources at the library and online as well as library services offered to SVSU students, faculty and staff.


Using a sample of over 25,000 spectroscopically confirmed quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we show how quasar variability in the rest-frame optical/UV regime depends on rest-frame time lag, luminosity, rest wavelength, redshift, the presence of radio and X-ray emission, and the presence of broad absorption line systems. Imaging photometry is compared with three-band spectrophotometry obtained at later epochs spanning time lags up to about 2 yr. The large sample size and wide range of parameter values allow the dependence of variability to be isolated as a function of many independent parameters. The time dependence of variability (the structure function) is well fitted by a single power law with an index γ = 0.246 ± 0.008, on timescales from days to years. There is an anticorrelation of variability amplitude with rest wavelength—e.g., quasars are about twice as variable at 1000 Å as at 6000 Å—and quasars are systematically bluer when brighter at all redshifts. There is a strong anticorrelation of variability with quasar luminosity—variability amplitude decreases by a factor of about 4 when luminosity increases by a factor of 100. There is also a significant positive correlation of variability amplitude with redshift, indicating evolution of the quasar population or the variability mechanism. We parameterize all of these relationships. Quasars with ROSAT All-Sky Survey X-ray detections are significantly more variable (at optical/UV wavelengths) than those without, and radio-loud quasars are marginally more variable than their radio-quiet counterparts. We find no significant difference in the variability of quasars with and without broad absorption line troughs. Currently, no models of quasar variability address more than a few of these relationships. Models involving multiple discrete events or gravitational microlensing are unlikely by themselves to account for the data. So-called accretion disk instability models are promising, but more quantitative predictions are needed.


The table shows the origins of our 495 sources. Twenty three per cent of the sources were known to us or were recommended by colleagues when we approached them by email, which took little time. Electronic searching, including developing and refining search strategies and adapting these to different databases, took about two weeks of specialist librarian time and yielded only about a quarter of the sources—an average of one useful paper every 40 minutes of searching. It took a month to hand search a total of 271 journalyears, from which we extracted only 24 papers that made the final report—an average of one paper per nine hours of searching. Overall, the greatest yield was from pursuing selected references of references. It was impossible to isolate the time spent on reference tracking since this was done in parallel with the critical appraisal of each paper. Electronic citation tracking of selected papers took around a day in total and uncovered many important, recent sources, including five systematic reviews (three of which were not identified by any other method) and 12% of all empirical studies—around one useful paper for every 15 minutes of searching. Five papers came our way by chance, including a major systematic review that was passed to one of us in a coffee queue by someone who did not know about this research.


Software quality measurement is closely connected with process and product. With measurement and analysis on software process data, improvement and control on software can be achieved. Effective process performance model plays key role in understanding and controlling. Introduction of GQM model into software measurement process can achieve controllability and testability of software process. GQM uses organization target as measurement index to achieve measurement of software process quantitative. The core idea of CMM/CMMI is to build fact-based management and CMM/CMMI software process management is built on the basis of software measurement. Combining with CMM/CMMI measurement idea, GQM model was expanded to achieve a kind of improved process performance model.


Empirical relationships between forest stand variables, such as age and crown closure, and spectral response measured by the Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) satellite sensor have long been suggested as an information source to support forest inventories in many regions of the world. Using regression and correlation techniques, the authors have identified the form and strength of these empirical relationships for a sample of forest stands near Fort Simpson, Northwest Territories. Models were strongest for pioneer forest species such as jack pine and trembling aspen as these relationships were characterized by reasonably consistent changes in stand structure and composition. White spruce, a secondary successional species, produced the statistically weakest models from Landsat TM spectral response patterns for all stand variables with the exception of crown closure. The authors attribute the differences in model strength to variable trends in stem growth and stand structural changes caused by differing successional pathways for white spruce stands in this region.


Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection remains a major public health problem particularly in Asia and Pacific that belongs to hepatitis B endemic regions. With high genetic diversity of the entire genome, this DNA virus has been classified into eight genotypes, genotype A to H, and recently two new genotypes, I and J, has been found in Asia. Interestingly, distribution of HBV genetic diversity is geographically specific worldwide. Further, distribution of HBV genetic diversity in Indonesia is associated and follows the ethnic background and geography of host. The distribution of HBV genotype B and C in Indonesia has been suggested co-migrated with the peopling of the Indonesian archipelago in the past. Internal viral genomic evolution including inter-strain recombination and pressure by host immune response has been suggested to give strong contribution in the genetic diversity of HBV. Thus, HBV genetic diversity is partly due to virus-host interactions and partly due to parallel evolution in geographically distinct areas. Some of these variations have significant impact to public health and clinical settings. Mutations within Hepatitis B surface Antigen (HBsAg) particularly in the 'a' determinant may cause HBsAg undetectable by commercially available assays. These mutations give significant impact to antigenic index and tertiary structure prediction that might cause failure of HBsAg detection. The occurrence of such mutations is partly the background of occult hepatitis B, and could mislead the diagnosis and disease management. It may have significant implication to public health, particularly in the detection failure of HBV in blood donors. With this alarming data, national policy for screening blood donors on HBsAg detection should be reviewed. Further, this situation reiterates medical professionals to be more careful in giving blood and or blood products. Therefore, HBV genetic diversity is of medical and public health concern. In addition, HBV genetic diversity information can be used in tracing human migration particularly in Asia-Pacific. It can be concluded that the knowledge in HBV genetic diversity is important for understanding the pathogenesis of HBV infection and the related host immune system, providing important contribution to hepatitis B molecular epidemiology, with implication in reducing subsequent morbidity and mortality. This HBV diversity data can be used as important information that is ethnically specific for the development of diagnostic tools and vaccines. In parallel, the knowledge of HBV genomic variety can be integrated and linked to non-clinical purposes in linguistic, human genetic and archeological perspectives in the efforts to maximize human health


The review presents the history of establishing cardiac rehabilitation for patients who have had acute myocardial infarction, acute coronary conditions, cardiac and vascular surgery, and intravascular interventions. Stages and physiological basis of this treatment are described.


Purpose
This paper aims to analyse the key trends in oil delivery and production and evaluate the capacities of crude oil transportation systems in the Western European region.

Design/methodology/approach
To meet these goals, qualitative data analysis was used to assess the contribution of countries in the region to the total crude oil production and delivery, the changes in concentration of crude oil deliveries and refineries' capacities, the capabilities of the regional crude oil transportation system and the trends in crude oil supplies and processing from 2005 to 2015.

Findings
The study established that from 2013 to 2015 oil supply to the region's refineries increased and generated additional stress on the transportation and refining infrastructure.

Research limitations/implications
This study examined the aggregate values of crude oil production, crude oil deliveries and refining capacities. In practice, different refineries are set to process certain types of crude oil. It is possible to use the described approach with a certain crude oil grade.

Practical implications
When developing the programmes for crude oil supply to refineries, it is vital to take into account the capacities of refineries and the capabilities of the crude oil transportation systems.

Originality/value
The study suggests that the region's infrastructure has the necessary reserves to operate for the next few years without additional investments.


Stewart platform-based Parallel Kinematic Machines (PKM) have been extensively studied by researchers due to their inherent finer control characteristics. This has opened its potential deployment opportunities in versatile critical applications like the medical field, engineering machines, space research, electronic chip manufacturing, automobile manufacturing, etc. All these precise, complicated, and repeatable motion applications require micro and nano-scale movement control in 3D space; a 6-DOF PKM can take this challenge smartly. For this, the PKM must be more accurate than the desired application accuracy level and thus proper calibration for a PKM robot is essential. Forward kinematics-based calibration for such hexapod machines becomes unnecessarily complex and inverse kinematics complete this task with much ease. To analyze different techniques, an external instrument-based, constraint-based, and auto or self-calibration-based approaches have been used for calibration. This survey has been done by reviewing these key methodologies, their outcome, and important points related to inverse kinematic-based PKM calibrations in general. It is observed in this study that the researchers focused on improving the accuracy of the platform position and orientation considering the errors contributed by a single source or multiple sources. The error sources considered are mainly structural, in some cases, environmental factors are also considered, however, these calibrations are done under no-load conditions. This study aims to understand the current state of the art in this field and to expand the scope for other researchers in further exploration in a specific area.


World population is growing rapidly and so is the need for more food, fibre and shelter. In most developing countries, where this population growth is taking place, there is very limited room for expanding agriculture as both land and water resources are already under pressure and getting scarce. Added to this is the problem of land degradation which is going on at an alarming rate in both developed and developing countries. Soil erosion is a major form of land degradation worldwide, which not only threatens the sustainable development of agricultural lands, but is also causing a production decline from lands already in use in many parts of the world. Soil erosion studies have gone to many phases during the past decade and are still evolving. Scientists have made significant achievements in understanding the processes involved in land degradation and have developed management tools and techniques to minimize erosion on all forms of land uses, however the fight is far from over. The situation is particularly bad in developing countries where the lack of infrastructure, knowledge and financial resources on the one hand, and the need for more agricultural produce on the other, is forcing farmers, land managers and even scientists to rely on imported technologies, which more often than not are un-suitable and do not produce the expected outcome. This paper reviews the past scientific achievements and discusses the future direction that land and water degradation and management need to take to meet the new challenges in both developed and developing countries. Examples of Australian experiences and successes in land and water management are given and their relevance to Iran's condition is discussed. A case study exemplifying the need for integrated approach to river and catchment management in Iran is also given.


After the end of World War II, the Polish authorities had to face post-war reconstruction, integrate the country's economic development within new borders, but also solve problems inherited from the Second Polish Republic: leveling civilization differences between individual regions. These issues were reflected in the plans to modernize the country, promoted by the communists. These plans contained elements of the pre-war modernization concept, but these visions were fundamentally different. The need for industrialization of backward areas proclaimed by the communist authorities was associated with political and social goals. The elimination of regional differences through balanced economic development was combined with the expansion of the working class and the elimination or marginalization of layers considered "capitalist". Additional elements, in fact playing a very large role, were the adoption of the Soviet model of modernization, which was associated with greater or lesser subordination of Moscow's goals and fulfillment of economic tasks resulting from belonging to the CMEA. The problem of sustainable development of the country was particularly strongly emphasized to half of l.50. While the country managed to integrate within the new borders, the investment policy did not reduce regional disparities. The location of new industrial plants led to disharmony in the development of Poland. The problem was also not solved in the following years. The reason was: failure of a centrally controlled economy, dominance of obsolete technologies, cyclical breakdowns in the economy, leading to socio-political crises.Keywords: Sustainable development, modernization, centrally controlled economy, investment policy, socialism


Cesarean Section Scar Ectopic Pregnancy (CSEP) is a rare but serious condition in which the embryo implants within the myometrium of a previous C-section scar. This can lead to maternal complications such as abnormal placentation, hemorrhage, or death due to uterine rupture. Despite these grave consequences, a standardized treatment protocol has not yet been established. The data remains limited given the rarity of the occurrence. This case report describes a patient who was diagnosed with a CSEP at 7 weeks gestation. She was successfully treated with a combination of systemic methotrexate, intra-gestational sac potassium chloride (KCl) instillation, and transvaginal aspiration of the gestational sac. This report adds to the growing body of literature on safe and effective treatments for CSEP.


Heterogeneity, distribution, mobility, all these factors induce changes in the way of conceiving services. Dynamicity and service virtualization are key needs. Service composition was established to be a first promising answer. Henceforth, in previous work, we proposed to combine different service components to create a Virtual Private Service Network (VPSN) providing a personalized global service. In this paper, we address the self-maintenance of these overlay service networks by proposing the use of Virtual Service Communities (VSCs) constituted of functionally equivalent service elements with differentiated levels of QoS. These VSCs are self-organized by using a peer-to-peer (P2P) approach. Our purpose is to proactively maintain the end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) to meet the service level agreement. automatic actions are started following QoS degradation in order to achieve autonomous management. A case study is described in order to illustrate our proposition and an implementation is presented to validate it.


Fibrobacteres, Chlorobi, and Bacteroidetes (FCB group) comprise three main bacterial phyla recognized on the basis of 16S rRNA trees. Presently, there are no distinctive biochemical or molecular characteristics known that can distinguish these bacteria from other bacterial phyla. The relationship of these bacteria to other phyla is also not known. This review describes many signatures, consisting of defined and conserved inserts in widely distributed proteins, that provide distinctive molecular markers for these groups of bacteria. These signatures serve to clarify the evolutionary relationship between members of the FCB group, and to other bacterial phyla. A 4 aa insert in DNA Gyrase B (GyrB) and a 45 aa insert in the SecA proteins are uniquely shared by various Bacteroidetes species. The insert in GyrB is present in all Bacteroidetes species (>100) covering different orders and families, indicating that it is a distinctive characteristic of the group. Three signatures consisting of an 18 aa insert in ATPase α-subunit, an 8–9 aa insert in the FtsK protein and a 1 aa insert in the UvrB protein are commonly shared only by the Bacteroidetes and Chlorobi homologs providing evidence that these two groups are specifically related to each other. Two additional inserts in the RNA polymerase β′-subunit (5–7 aa) and Serine hydroxymethyl-transferase (14–16 aa), which are commonly present in various Bacteroidetes, Chlorobi, and Fibrobacteres homologs, but not any other bacteria, provide evidence that these groups shared a common ancestor exclusive of all other bacteria. The FCB groups of bacteria are indicated to have diverged from this common ancestor in the following order: Fibrobacteres → Chlorobi → Bacteriodetes. The inferences from signature sequences are strongly supported by phylogenetic analyses. These observations suggest that the FCB groups of bacteria should be placed in a single phylum rather than three distinct phyla. Signature sequences in a number of other proteins provide evidence that the FCB group of bacteria diverged at a similar time as the Chlamydiae group, and that the Spirochetes and Aquificales groups are its closest relatives.


The efficiency of shelterwood cutting in providing natural regeneration of bottomland oaks (Quercus spp.) is well documented. Typically, assuming environmental conditions are satisfactory, research projects yield adequate regeneration levels for targeted oak species. However, skepticism is often encountered when promoting the method for commercial operations in landowner management practices. Much of this hesitancy results from observing insufficient levels of oak regeneration after application of poor management technique. This study assesses viability of the system when established under operational constraints. A post-regenerationcut bottomland hardwood stand was selected near Starkville, MS, to evaluate second-year oak regeneration response. This partial harvest study area was embedded inside a larger commercial harvesting operation. No special provisions for research were employed. Initial stand age was 86 years, the overstory was dominated by oak species, initial stand basal area (BA) was 115 square feet per acre, and residual post-harvest BA was 48 square feet per acre. Midstory injection was performed 1 year prior to regeneration cutting in an attempt to limit resprout potential of shade-tolerant species. Little research evaluating regeneration response at ground location in relation to crown location has been performed in bottomland hardwood systems. Consequently, three ground locations were selected based upon crown radius for evaluating regeneration response. These locations were half of crown radius, straddling dripline, and 25 feet outside dripline. Year two regeneration results for eight oak species are presented.


Abstract Frames have been used to capture significant signal characteristics, provide numerical stability of reconstruction, and enhance resilience to additive noise. This paper places frames in a new setting, where some of the elements are deleted. Since proper subsets of frames are sometimes themselves frames, a quantized frame expansion can be a useful representation even when some transform coefficients are lost in transmission. This yields robustness to losses in packet networks such as the Internet. With a simple model for quantization error, it is shown that a normalized frame minimizes mean-squared error if and only if it is tight. With one coefficient erased, a tight frame is again optimal among normalized frames, both in average and worst-case scenarios. For more erasures, a general analysis indicates some optimal designs. Being left with a tight frame after erasures minimizes distortion, but considering also the transmission rate and possible erasure events complicates optimizations greatly.


In today's learning approaches for engineering students, practical courses frequently complement traditional theoretical lectures. This practical element allows an early perspective into the real world of engineering, augments student motivation, and enables students to acquire soft skills early. This paper aims to demonstrate the usage of one of the ergonomics risk assessment (ERA) apps that has been learned in the class; which can also be used as an assessment aid in student's practical sessions in the workplace. This apps has been evaluated for its effectiveness by a group of students in the classroom setting prior to be used in the actual workplace. Evaluation results show that this learning aid improves student's communication skills and assists companies to improve their working conditions. Based on the effectiveness assessment, students find that this apps is really useful for their assessment as it provides fast calculation on the results and can store it in the drive. Based on the practical session in the workplace, the findings from the ERA apps show that the current working condition in this study is under medium ergonomic risk exposure level. Therefore, there is a need to improve the working condition by considering improvement on the workplace environment as well as interaction between worker and tools for maintenance. This app is indeed beneficial for practical engineering students as a peer learning process and for industry in terms of work place improvements. In conclusion, this paper describes how this risk assessment app helps induce student to think as an actual engineer and also to solve real-world tasks with limited resources.


Industry is seeking to benefit from the advantages of integrating IoT solutions in daily operation to achieve smart manufacturing as well as smart maintenance. As a matter of fact, maintenance cost is already a big part of the budget. Despite the integration of IoT in industry, cost remains high due to the complexity of the developed solutions. In this paper we are proposing an IoT-based failure prediction solution architected to reduce the cost of maintenance. Our proposal permits a highly accurate failure prediction that leads to an effective action when there is an actual need for it. Furthermore, we could lower the cost of the solution itself by optimizing the data transmission between the sensor-nodes and the server. We conducted a demonstration of the proposed analysis scheme and the system design consisting on recording the sound data of a DC-motor for about 23 minutes with the variation of speed to mimic some failure scenarios. We obtained results that confirmed the effectiveness of our solution in differentiating between the failures signs with no prior learning of the failures and in tracking the slight drift in the machine behavior. We were able to start predicting failures since day 1. The proposed system design permitted us to limit the payload of data packets which would reduce the cost of the sensor-node data transmission, the power consumption in the sensor node as well as the network traffic.


This paper proposes a method for reduction of cogging torque with reduced stator tooth width and bifurcated active surface area using finite element analysis. For the proposed changes in the motor design the variation in the flux density distribution in the air gap, cogging torque and reluctance torque ripple are determined. The variations in the torque developed by the motor, cogging torque, output power, losses and efficiency for different stator tooth shapes are recorded. From the present study it is observed that there is a significant reduction of cogging torque with reduced stator tooth width & bifurcated active surface area compared with a specified motor.


Background Clinical symptoms-based ADHD diagnosis is considered "subjective". Machine learning (ML) classifiers have been explored to develop objective diagnosis of ADHD using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) biomarkers. Methods We reviewed previous literature and developed ensemble classifiers using the ENIGMA-ADHD dataset, with the implementation of data balancing to control for age, sex, diagnostic groups, and sample sites and a held-out test set for independent evaluation. Results Our review showed that classification accuracies reported previously using cross-validation (CV) samples were inflated and did not generalize well to independent test samples. Our results showed a significant discrimination between ADHD and control samples for both adult and children, but the accuracies were modest (the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC): 66% and 67% respectively). We found that child samples were informative for predicting adult ADHD, and vice versa. The most important brain MRI structures for prediction were intracranial volume (ICV), followed by surface area and some subcortical volumes. The cortical thickness measurements were the least useful. Conclusions Although previous ML classification studies reported overly optimistic accuracies and suffered methodological limitations, our results suggest that clinically useful classification of ADHD may be possible with larger samples. In contrast to prior reports of ENIGMA-ADHD studies, our work finds ADHD-related sMRI differences in adults and shows that the brain differences between cases and controls seen in youth can be useful in discriminating adults with and without ADHD. This provides additional evidence for the continuity of ADHD's pathophysiology from childhood to adulthood.


The purpose of study was to investigate the influence of gender difference in academic performance of science subjects in mixed secondary school curriculum in Mangu division, Kiambu County, Kenya. Stakeholders of the education through the ministry of education have promoted secondary education performance to improve the overall livelihood of boys and girls. However, the efforts seem not to beer much fruit. This has called for carrying out this study. This study has four objectives ; to establish the relationship between boys' and girls' attitude towards science subjects and the academic performance, to establish if the teaching methodologies influence boys' and girls' performance in the science subjects, to establish the relationship of the difference in students' entry qualification and their performance in science subjects and to establish the relationship between mathematical performance of the students and performance in sciences on the influence of academic performance of science subjects in the secondary school curriculum in Mangu division, Kiambu county, Kenya. The study employed a descriptive survey design. The sample of the study was 235 drawn from 642 form four students. The study also used 19 practising science teachers sampled from 24 teachers and all the HODs in all the schools. The data was collected from the respondents using the questionnaires and interview schedules. Reliability of the instruments was measured using the slip-half technique while the instruments were reviewed by the professional peers and the supervisor to ensure validity. The data that was collected was edited, coded and analysed using SPSS. The data obtained was analysed using descriptive statistics. Tables were used to display this data. The study found out that availability and proper use of resources improves the performance in both genders. All the girls and boys who had better performance had a positive attitude towards the science subjects. The study established that the entry qualification greatly influences the academic performance in science subjects. The girls who had high qualification to the secondary schools perform better than the boys in the same schools. The relationship between the performances in mathematics is not to be neglected on the influence of the academic performance of boys and girls of science subjects. The students that conduct class experiments more frequently have a more positive attitude and they perform better in the science subjects. Recommendations and conclusion for further research has been made at the end of the study to guide the main stakeholders such as teachers, policy makers and trainers in the sciences.


The enantioselective hydrogenation of 3-aryl and 3-styryl-substituted-2H-1,4-benzoxazines was developed using the chiral cationic Ru(η6-cymene)(MsDPEN)(Ar2PO2) system in high yields with up to 99% ee. The counteranion was found to be critically important for the high enantioselectivity. Furthermore, the regioselectivity could be regulated by the counteranion of the catalyst in the asymmetric hydrogenation of 3-styryl-2H-1,4-benzoxazines.


Although DC electrical resistivity imaging is widely applied to dike investigation, either rapid 2D
or high-resolution 3D approaches fail to address actual needs. An intermediate electrical resistivity
imaging approach referred to as "3D–" is introduced in this paper. The methodology is based on
existing tools, and it offers useful and sufficiently reliable 3D images of the investigated structure
within a cost-effective and flexible procedure. The survey design, the model discretisation, and the
thorough integration of a priori information are the main phases of this procedure. To demonstrate
the benefits and limitations of this approach, it is applied to an existing stretch of embankment levee
along the Loire River. A numerical study was carried out both on synthetic and real data to assess
the 3D imaging capability of the approach and the influence of prior information on the inversion
outputs. The important role of a priori information is shown to be even more essential here. The
results demonstrate the efficiency and versatility of the 3D– approach for reliable and cost-effective
investigations of long dikes.


In the study, a novel fuzzy generalized predictive control (GPC) scheme is proposed for the stability control of nonlinear brushless DC motor (BLDCM). First, the fuzzy predictive model of BLDCM is presented via Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy model. Then, based on the controlled autoregressive moving average (CARMA) model transformed by Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy model of BLDCM, a new fuzzy GPC scheme for the nonlinear BLDCM is designed by combining fuzzy techniques and GPC theory, and the rigorous mathematical derivation is given. Finally, numerical simulations are implemented to verify the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed scheme. It also provides reference for other nonlinear even chaos control in actual project.


Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) dual-polarization data are shown to be effective for regional forest monitoring. To this scope, an automatic SAR image preprocessing procedure was developed using SRTM DEM and Landsat TM image for geocoding in rugged terrain and smooth terrain areas, respectively. An object-oriented forest and non-forest classif ication method was then proposed based on the HH (horizontal transmit and horizontal receive) to HV (horizontal transmit and vertical receive) polarization intensity ratio and HV images of ASAR data at single acquisition time in winter. The developed method was applied to forest and non-forest mapping in Northeast China. The overall accuracy, the user's accuracy and the producer's accuracy of forest were 83.7%, 85.6% and 75.7%, respectively. These results indicate that the proposed method is promising for operational forest mapping at regional scale.


Background: The management of localized prostate cancer in patients with large prostates is controversial. objectives: To investigate the impact of prostate weight on radical prostatectomy outcomes. Methods: The files of 244 patients who underwent radical prostatectomy were reviewed. Data were collected on patient and tumor characteristics and on oncological, urinary and erectile function outcomes. Results were compared between patients with prostates weighing ≤ 60 g or > 60 g. r esults: A prostate weight of > 60 g was documented in 25% of the patients. There was no difference in clinical stage distribution between patients with smaller and patients with larger prostates. Patients with a larger prostate were characterized preoperatively by higher levels of prostatespecific antigen (9 .8 vs. 7.3 ng/ml, P = 0.009), lower tumor grade (biopsy Gleason score ≤ 6: 77.6% vs. 90.2% P = 0.04), and a higher incidence of moderate-severe urinary symptoms (69.8 vs. 38.8%, P = 0.0003). Analysis of pathological stage distribution yielded a higher proportion of lower stage disease and a lower incidence of positive margins in the large-prostate group (11.7 vs. 25.8%, P = 0.024). There were no statistically significant between-group differences in the rate of persistent postoperative detectable PSA, biochemical recurrence, urinary incontinence and erectile function. conclusions: The outcomes of radical prostatectomy in patients with large prostate are favorable in terms of cancer characteristics despite their higher preoperative PSA levels, and comparable to that in patients with small prostate in terms of urinary continence and erectile function. Surgery may be particularly beneficial in patients with preoperative urinary symptoms. Hence, radical prostatectomy should not be discouraged as a treatment for localized prostate cancer in patients with sizeable prostates.


In acute experiments on anesthetized cats, changes of potentials and motility of the longitudinal and circular layers of the small intestine and stomach were studied in response to atropine administration before and after blocking of alpha--adrenoreceptors (dihydroergotamine, dihydroergotoxin, phentolamine, phenoxybenzamine). The effects of these drugs both on spontaneous and evoked (histamine, i. v., sucrose and NaCl into the gut lumen) motor activity were studied. The inhibitory action of atropine on intestinal motility was partially (in intact animals) or completely (on isolated intestinal segments) abolished after alpha-adrenoreceptor blocking. The mechanism of the atropine effect is discussed in the light of the data on M--cholinoreceptors in the sympathetic postganglionic axons.