Ongoing research in development of design philosophies for earthquake resistant
structures over the past few decades were initially based on strength and elastic
analysis. Later, design ph
ilosophies recognized that deformation is main parameter
to consider in design following nonlinear analysis.
The maximum design lateral
force, for a particular earthquake, acting on structures having multiple natural time
periods obtained from inelastic r
esponse spectrum. Scenario earthquakes
characterize the spatio
-
temporal evolution of rupture, which when solved together
with the elastodynamic equations can give the acceleration time
-
history at any point
on the surface.
For any tectonic regime, based on
past seismicity, a seismogenic
depth could be defined based on the depth below which no occurrence of
earthquakes was observed in the past.
Fixing a certain magnitude, we prescribe the
slip on a vertical fault based on statistical relations that exist in
literature and
simulate ground motion. The prescribed slip is varied to start from 3 km deep all the
way to 43 km in intervals of 10 km.
Using the simulated ground motion, we
compute the fundamental entity of earthquake engineering: the response spectrum
for all five cases.
Earthquake resistant design of structures is mostly done to allow
for large inelastic deformations, giving ductile detailing.
Choosing ductility values
of 2, 4, 6 and 8, this paper describes dependency of elastic and inelastic horizo
ntal
spectral acceleration on seismogenic depth, by considering kinematic rupture
description an earthquake of Mw 6.5 on vertical strike slip fault
.


Asking which sets are fixed-parameter tractable for a given parameterization constitutes much of the current research in parameterized complexity theory. This approach faces some of the core difficulties in complexity theory. By focussing instead on the parameterizations that make a given set fixed-parameter tractable, we circumvent these difficulties. We isolate parameterizations as independent measures of complexity and study their underlying algebraic structure. Thus we are able to compare parameterizations, which establishes a hierarchy of complexity that is much stronger than that present in typical parameterized algorithms races. Among other results, we find that no practically fixed-parameter tractable sets have optimal parameterizations.


A Mw 3.1 earthquake occurred in Lake Ontario along the United States–Canada border, about 30 km south from Port Hope, Ontario, Canada, on 4 August 2004. Despite its small size, the shock was very well recorded by broadband seismographic stations deployed in recent years in Ontario, Canada, and in New York State. More than 40 broadband stations at local and regional ranges provided high - quality digital data. Waveform data analysis constrained the source at a depth of 4 (±2) km, which places the shock in the shallow Precambrian basement beneath Paleozoic platform deposits. Th e source mechanism from the regional waveform inversion for the double-couple moment tensor is predominantly strike - slip faulting. A NS striking (8°) nodal plane dipping to the east (dip = 59°) is the likely fault plane which represents right-lateral strike-slip motion. Th e subhorizontal P- axis orientation (trend = 234° and plunge = 12°) is consistent with the maximum horizontal compressional stress ( S Hmax) direction in eastern North America. Although the 4 August 2004 event is a small shock and has the seismic moment of M = 4.45 (±2.30) × 1013 Nm, it is the largest instrumentally recorded earthquake that has occurred in Lake Ontario. This and other significant earthquakes in the region suggest a broad-scale strike - slip faulting stress regime with a shallow seismogenic layer in the Erie–Ontario Lowlands region. The shallow focal depths of earthquakes in the region increase the risk of higher ground shaking compared to other seismic zones in northeastern North America with a deeper seismogenic layer.


Real-world relational data sets, such as social networks, often involve measurements over time. We propose a Bayesian nonparametric latent feature model for such data, where the latent features for each actor in the network evolve according to a Markov process, extending recent work on similar models for static networks. We show how the number of features and their trajectories for each actor can be inferred simultaneously and demonstrate the utility of this model on prediction tasks using synthetic and real-world data.


The modelling or prediction of complex geospatial phenomena (like formation of geo-hazards) is one of the most important tasks for geoscientists. But in practice it faces various difficulties, caused mainly by the complexity of relationships between the phenomena itself and the controlling parameters, as well by limitations of our knowledge about the nature of physical/ mathematical relationships and by restrictions regarding accuracy and availability of data. In this situation methods of artificial intelligence, like artificial neural networks (ANN) offer a meaningful alternative modelling approach compared to the exact mathematical modelling. In the past, the application of ANN technologies in geosciences was primarily limited due to difficulties to integrate it into geo-data processing algorithms. In consideration of this background, the software advangeo® was developed to provide a normal GIS user with a powerful tool to use ANNs for prediction mapping and data preparation within his standard ESRI ArcGIS environment. In many case studies, such as land use planning, geo-hazards analysis and prevention, mineral potential mapping, agriculture & forestry advangeo® has shown its capabilities and strengths. The approach is able to add considerable value to existing data.


In a previous paper, we reported that at 4°C, a cooperative binding of concanavalin A to rat thymocytes is observed which corresponds to a modification of the membrane leading to the recruitment of receptors and their immobilization. In this paper, we report that both phenomena are modulated at 4°C by drugs such as colchicine and cytochalasin B; cooperative binding of concanavalin A, which reflects receptor recruitment is only slightly modified by each drug alone. When the two drugs are used simultaneously, the binding of concanavalin A to rat thymocytes at low concentrations of the lectin is decreased, while at high concentrations it remains unchanged. The binding of succinyl-concanavalin A to drug-treated cells is lowered at all concentrations of lectin. Also, we have studied the effects of colchicine and cytochalacine B on the binding of horseradish peroxidase to cell-bound concanavalin A, or succinyl-concanavalin A. We have found a decreased amount of horseradish peroxidase binding to concanavalin A bound to cells treated with colchicine or cytochalasine B. In the presence of the two drugs the decrease of peroxidase binding suggested a synergistic action of colchicine and cytochalasin B.


Objective: To evaluate the bone mineral density (BMD) and the biochemical markers of bone turnover in non-cirrhotic chronic hepatitis B patients. Material and Methods: We compared 18-65 years old non-cirrhotic chronic hepatitis B patients and healthy controls for BMD and biochemical markers of bone turnover. BMD was measured at the lumbar spine and the left hip using DXA. Results: There were 31 hepatitis B patients (19 males, 12 females) and 72 healthy controls (56 males, 16 females) in the study. Their mean age was 37.4 ± 10.0 years in the study group and 38.5 ± 7.1 years in the controls. There were no differences between the two groups for the mean BMD levels and T scores. However, left hip BMD and T scores were significantly lower in male patients with chronic hepatitis B infection when compared to males in the control group. Serum calcium, phosphate, osteocalcine, intact parathyroid hormone, deoxypyridinoline and 25-hydroxycholecalciferol levels did not differ between the groups. Conclusion: In our study, left hip BMD and T scores were found to be significantly lower in the male patients with chronic hepatitis B infection when compared to males in the control group, however a significant difference was not detected when all cases were compared with the control group. Therefore, we suppose that further studies on a larger population are needed in this issue.


To the Editor.— In the discussion of the increase of suicide rates in various countries, reference was made to the hypothesis that part of the variance in the increase might be attributable to an increasing suicide risk of successive birth cohorts, in particular among men. Increased suicide rates in all age groups among successive birth cohorts were first reported in Canada. 1 Then, the same phenomenon, in reduced magnitude, was found in the United States. 2 Boyd, 3 however, pointed out that this finding might be due to an artifact created by different diagnostic criteria and a changing stability of the classification of suicides over time. Thus, Murphy 4 has commented "that it will be of interest to learn what the experience has been in other countries over the same time period." Meanwhile, similar results have been reported in Australia 5 that are significant only for the age groups from


Purpose of the Study: The purpose of the study was to investigate results of selective laser trabeculoplasty (SLT) performed directly on the sclera without a gonioscopy lens. Design: Interventional case series, prospective, randomized, masked, controlled clinical trial. Methods: Setting: Meir Medical Center, Kfar-Saba, Israel. Study population: Adults with uncontrolled primary open angle or pseudoexfoliation glaucoma randomized into 2 groups. Intervention: The controls underwent conventional SLT with 100 spots delivered using a gonioscopy lens for 360 degrees of the trabecular meshwork. The study group underwent irradiation using the same parameters with the laser applications administered on the perilimbal sclera. Study visits: 1 hour, 1, 7, 30, 60, 180, and 365 days postprocedure. Main Outcome Measures: Intraocular pressure (IOP) and side effects. Results: Thirty adults were randomized into 2 groups. The mean (±SD) pretreatment IOP was 20.21±3.19 mm Hg for the study group (n=14) and 21.14±2.98 mm Hg for the controls (n=14; P =0.43), dropping to 15.50±3.77 and 15.00±4.08 mm Hg (P =0.74) after 6 months and to 16.00±3.31 and 14.00±2.45 mm Hg (P =0.22) after 12 months. The average IOP reduction after 6 and 12 months was 23.4% and 20.83% for the study group and 27.1% and 33.77% for the controls (P=0.528). Success (a decrease of ≥15% at 6 months with no additional medications, laser, or glaucoma surgery) was achieved in 12 (85.7%) study patients and 9 (69.2%) controls (P=0.385). Complications were mild and transient (n=30), although significantly higher in the controls (n=15; P <0.0001). Conclusions: SLT applied directly to the perilimbal sclera may be as efficacious as the conventional procedure for 1 year.


Executive summary The tire industry has been facing many challenges to better meet the expectations of the marketplace. One of these challenges is to produce a tire which is consistent in performance throughout its service life. There are extensive technological programs in progress by both suppliers and manufacturers in the rubber industry to address this critical issue. For a number of years, there have been many approaches developed to address the heat resistance issue. However, most of these approaches did not meet the cost/performance requirement the industry was looking for. The classical method of reducing sulfur content in the crosslinks through the use of the more efficient vulcanization systems would provide a stable vulcanizate upon aging. However, there is trade-off in dynamic properties such as fatigue and tear. The effect of anaerobic and aerobic aging on compound properties has generated much interest and resulted in the continuous search for solutions to this important industry need. This paper gives a review of the work done at Flexsys to address these issues.


PURPOSE
To assess whether transplantation of intact sheets of fetal retina with retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) into a retina with photoreceptor degeneration restores visually evoked responses.

METHODS
Sheets of fetal retina with RPE were transplanted into the subretinal space of Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) rats at 37 to 69 days of age. Sixty-three days to 10 months after transplantation, multiunit visual responses were recorded in the superior colliculus (SC) of transplanted rats, age-matched untransplanted rats, and rats with sham surgery.

RESULTS
In 19 of 29 RCS rats with transplants, visually evoked responses were recorded from and restricted to a small area of the SC that corresponds topographically to the portion of the retina in which the transplant was placed. Outside of this area, no visual responses were evoked. Visually evoked responses were never recorded in age-matched, nontransplanted RCS rats. Visually evoked responses were recorded in 6 of 13 RCS rats with sham surgery, but these responses were significantly different from responses in rats with transplants.

CONCLUSIONS
These results demonstrate that this transplantation technique restores visually evoked responses in the brain. Although the underlying mechanism is unknown, we propose that the central visual response results from increased synaptic efficacy within the host retina. If it can be established that functional connections between the transplant and the host retina produce the effect, then it would indicate that the technique could be explored as a therapeutic strategy in some diseases of retinal degeneration.


Fique is a biodegradable natural fiber derived from the Colombian Agavaceae family, originating in tropical America and traditionally used for the manufacture of packaging and cordages. Today, however, new uses are being developed. To meet the need for new good-quality, sustainable, low-cost construction materials for social housing, construction materials have been produced that combine different kinds of natural fibers, including fique, to improve their strength and physical properties. To assess these potential new construction materials made with fique fiber, we have characterized samples of different grammages and thicknesses manufactured using short fique fibers extracted from long fibers. We have measured the sound absorption coefficient at normal incidence in an impedance tube, air flow resistivity, and thermal conductivity as a function of grammage.


Korea is a top player in emerging digital technologies, with an outstanding digital infrastructure and a dynamic ICT sector. The COVID-19 outbreak highlighted the importance of digitalisation to contain the spread of the virus, by allowing quick testing and tracing of infected people, and spurred the development of the "untact economy". Remote access both facilitated physical distancing and mitigated the economic impact of the crisis by enabling more people to continue working. Digital technologies offer opportunities to raise firms' productivity and the population's well-being. However, wide productivity gaps between large firms and SMEs and between manufacturing and services weigh on economy-wide productivity, which is far below the OECD average. A wide skills gap between youth and older generations prevents an increasing share of the population from taking part in and enjoying the benefits from a digitalised economy. This paper suggests ways to narrow the digital divide by enhancing the diffusion of digital technologies among firms and among individuals. Increased participation in quality ICT education and training for students, teachers, SME workers and older people is key to address the lack of adequate skills and awareness of digital benefits or dangers (online security, cyberbullying, addiction). Promoting innovation networks between SMEs, academia and large firms through vouchers or platforms can support SMEs' R&D and commercialisation of innovative goods and services. Waiving stringent regulations through regulatory sandboxes can help identify and alter regulations that hinder the adoption and diffusion of digital technologies.


Symptom Validity Tests (SVTs) are designed to detect suboptimal effort during nemopsychological testing. A majority of SVTs, including the Medical Symptom Validity Test (MSVT), employ memory test formats and are designed for use among patient groups where memory complaints are prominent. In contrast, the Word Reading Test (WRT) is designed to assess effort specific to reading, a common complaint among patients undergoing neuropsychological evaluation for academic purposes. The WRT and the MSVTwere administered as part of cognitive evaluations at a university doctoral clinical psychology training and research clinic. Of the 30 cases analyzed, six (20%) failed either the WRT, the MSVT, or both. The present study supports a "general-global" hypothesis of effort. Clinical implications of the findings are discussed .


Frequently, civil plaintiff trial attorneys want to test how different demands made in closing argument impact case outcomes. They worry that in admitted liability cases (where only damages are at issue) that asking for too much money could isolate jurors. And they worry that in cases in which liability is also at issue, asking for too much money could cause jurors to flip their votes on liability. Simultaneously, critics of juries worry about almost the precise opposite issue, arguing that jurors are excessively malleable and are therefore prone to anchoring and runaway juries. These concerns implicate anchoring, where most of the literature predicts that jurors will respond positively to ever increasing demands. And they implicate fusion effects which teach that liability and damages interact.
This paper examines both phenomena, relying on a unique set of data drawn from studies conducted on real cases for real attorneys. This paper provides fresh insight into the interplay of damage demands and liability rates by relying on case expected value – the average award of jurors who find liability reduced by the liability rate. The data suggests that when expected case value is compared to the amount demanded, total case returns are defined an inverted u-curve. This curve is produced both because of decreased anchor saliency and by negative fusion effects on liability.
At a practical level for attorneys, this suggests that there is a proverbial "sweet spot" for demands where the maximum anchoring effect is obtained without unacceptable levels of negative fusion effects. And at a policy level, the data suggests that jurors impose outer bounds on demands – suggesting the fear of runaway juries is overblown. Indeed, there appears to be a natural circumscription of damage awards in jury trials.


This paper examines, within the Vietnamese context, the role of relative deprivation, as proposed by Stark (1984) and Stark and Taylor (1989, 1991), in the dynamics of internal migration. The conventional wisdom in the economics of migration literature, such as the model of Harris and Todaro (1970), holds that as the rural-urban income gap widens, the influx of migrants from rural to urban areas increases until equilibrium is reached. The absolute income gap is of the utmost importance in the decision-making process concerning migration in that model. On the other hand, Stark (1984) hypothesizes that household members undertake migration not necessarily to increase the household's absolute income but rather to improve the household's position (in terms of relative deprivation) with respect to a specific reference group.


Coal ash is widely used in construction of embankments and fills. Compacted coal ash fills are likely to undergo collapse on inundation due to rise of water table or infiltration of rainwater. This paper brings out various factors influencing collapse potential of coal ash. Single oedometer and double oedometer collapse tests and plate load collapse tests were carried out on compacted fly ash (FA), bottom ash (BA), and mixture of fly ash and bottom ash in equal proportion (FA50 + BA50). The results reveal that fly ash is susceptible to collapse, while bottom ash and FA50 + BA50 show negligible collapse. However, a plate load collapse test conducted on compacted ash bed of FA50 + BA50 shows large settlement of plate on inundation. This suggests that the use of the results of single oedometer collapse tests can help estimate only that component of settlement of footing or test plate that is due to compression of the test bed on inundation, and not the total settlement that is due to both collapse compression and shear deformation of the loaded bed.


On-farm adoption of agricultural conservation practices or management alternatives depends on conservation ethic, social pressure, regulatory attention, and perceived impact on yield and economic return. Although agro-economic and environmental impacts are assumed to conflict, little research has been conducted to address potential tradeoffs and provide a scientific basis for decision-making. Thus, this 16-year evaluation of adaptive nutrient management was conducted in the Texas Blackland Prairies ecoregion on six fields with structural conservation practices already in place. Each field was randomly selected to receive either commercial fertilizer or poultry litter at rates of 4.5 to 13.4 Mg ha−1. Two major nutrient management adaptations were made (i.e., soil test nitrogen [N] rate recommendations in 2009, and reduction of fallow period length and cover cropping during prolonged fallow periods in 2013). Important results included (1) soil test recommendations that consider historical crop yields reduced N application 25% to 38% for low rates of poultry litter, but did not reduce profits; (2) interannual variability of economic and weather conditions contributed to the lack of statistically significant differences in profit, although profit reduction for high nutrient rate treatments was clear; and (3) litter application, especially at rates in excess of crop phosphorus (P) needs, also increased runoff P losses by 1 to 1.4 kg ha−1 indicating the need for careful management of organic nutrient sources. Results of this long-term study showed that maintaining or increasing economic return does not have to be sacrificed to improve environmental impacts, which is an important consideration as producers make on-farm management decisions.


In Australia, an evidence gap exists for governments and policymakers about what it means when the cultures of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are included in public policies.  Specifically, when the cultures of Indigenous Australians have been incorporated in a public health policy like the Australian Government's National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan 2013-2023 (Health Plan), how do policymakers implement - enable, embed, and enact - cultures?  More disturbing is the non-recognition of Indigenous culture's innate relationship to the knowledges held by Indigenous Australians.  In recognition of the importance of Indigenous cultures to the health and wellbeing of Indigenous Australians, the centrality of culture in the Health Plan represents the first national Indigenous public policy that reflects its relevance.  This research protocol describes a public policy qualitative research study that aims to address this evidence gap by using the Health Plan as a case study.


Application of control theory to auction networks is important since it offers computationally efficient solutions to otherwise intractable problems. It is also of great significance due to the widespread use of auctions for resource allocation, e.g. in online advertising. But controlling agents in many large auction networks is challenging because of an uncertain and discontinuous plant. In this paper we utilize bid randomization to make the plant effectively continuous and present novel theoretical results for how to estimate the plant gain given a model uncertainty of the competitive landscape.


The objective of this paper is to present a Generalised Positive Mathematical Programming model suitable for the estimation of variable cost of production associated with different farm activities. This work present, discuss and demonstrates that the Generalised PMP model is a useful theoretical framework for the representation of farm choice, including for the description of costs related to the production function chosen by each entrepreneur. For this characteristics the model can be used for the farms belonging the FADN sample providing a powerful tools for researcher that would like to know variable costs of production for agricultural activities or estimate the impact of agricultural policy and market reform at regional and sectorial level. The main feature of the generalised PMP model is its independence from any "external" information, included the support value of the GME parameters and the abandon of the "tautology" problem always present in the standard PMP models. The paper also present the results of the cost estimation process and validate it comparing the observed variable cost with the estimated variable cost related to a sample of 738 farms belonging the FADN data base of three Italian regions.


Growth and decomposition of Sphagnum controls turnover of a large global store of soil organic carbon. We investigated variation in morphological and physiological traits of Sphagnum shoots, and related this variation to canopy variables relevant to peatland carbon cycling. We sampled Sphagnum along a bog plateau-swamp forest gradient and measured a suite of shoot traits and canopy variables. Major axes of variation were identified using principal component analysis and correlated with canopy variables such as growth, biomass and decomposition. We also examined scaling of shoot traits with one another and with canopy variables. Two distinct tradeoffs in shoot traits emerged. From dry to wet habitats, individual metabolic rates and capitulum size increased while numerical density decreased, leading to faster growth and elongation on an individual basis. From treed to open habitats, photosynthetic efficiency decreased and photosynthetic biomass increased, driving faster growth on an area basis and slower litter mass loss. The tradeoffs identified have important implications for peatlands undergoing climate-related changes in water and light availability. Sphagnum trait comparisons, combined with scaling analyses, offer a promising approach to understanding and predicting the effects of environmental change on peatland carbon cycling.


The secondary structure of guanine‐rich oligodeoxynucleotides has been investigated with fluorescent probes. Intramolecular folding of a telomeric oligonucleotide into a quadruplex led to fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) between a donor (fluorescein) and an acceptor (tetramethylrhodamine) covalently attached to the 5′ and 3′ ends of the DNA, respectively. Depending on oligonucleotide length, quenching efficiency varied between 0.45 and 0.72 at 20 °C. The conjugation of the dyes to the oligonucleotide had a limited, but significant, influence on the thermodynamics of G‐quartet formation. Intramolecular folding was demonstrated from the concentration independence of fluorescence resonance energy transfer over a wide concentration range. Folding of the oligonucleotide was confirmed by UV absorption, UV melting, and circular dichroism experiments. The folding of the G‐quartet could be followed at concentrations as low as 100 pM. Fluorescence resonance energy transfer can thus be used to reveal the formation of multistranded DNA structures.


Acroptilon repens of the family Asteraceae L., is a rhizomatous perennial, extends from Turkey throughout Central Asia to China. A. repens is a major weed in vineyards, orchards and meadows in Central Turkey. Our aim was to describe the population density of A. repens patches in Central of Turkey. The patch experiment was conducted in 15 undisturbed meadows in 2003. Six 1 m 2 plots were placed in each patch, 2 in the centre (C), 2 halfway between the centre and the edge (M), and 2 at the edge of each patch (E). Twenty capitula were randomly selected from each plot to record the number of healthy and undeveloped seeds as well as the number of seeds damaged by herbivores. Population density of A. repens was recorded in August when the plant was mature. Mean shoot density of the 15 A. repens patches in 2003 was 12.14 m -2 . The capitula density per shoot ranged 4.20- 229.60 plant -1 . The relationship between mean number of capitula per shoot and shoot density in A. repens were found negative correlation. The number of seeds per capitula of A. repens was on average 52.36 and ranged from 12.06-24.31.


The predictability of the atmosphere usually is quantified by the error doubling time or the limit of predictability. These measures are times when small errors double on average or reach a certain threshold value respectively. In this article we analyse the error doubling time in the Lorenz Model. We want to demonstrate, that averaged measures of predictability are not necessarily typical measures for the system. Predictability is a variable and it is an important task to identify which initial states lead to enhanced, or reduced, predictability


Plants serve as host to numerous microorganisms. The members of these microbial communities interact among each other and with the plant, and there is increasing evidence to suggest that the microbial community may promote plant growth, improve drought tolerance, facilitate pathogen defense and even assist in environmental remediation. Therefore, it is important to better understand the mechanisms that influence the composition and structure of microbial communities, and what role the host may play in the recruitment and control of its microbiome. In particular, there is a growing body of research to suggest that plant defense systems not only provide a layer of protection against pathogens but may also actively manage the composition of the overall microbiome. In this review, we provide an overview of the current research into mechanisms employed by the plant host to select for and control its microbiome. We specifically review recent research that expands upon the role of keystone microbial species, phytohormones, and abiotic stress, and in how they relate to plant driven dynamic microbial structuring.


The red blood cell parasite 'Candidatus Mycoplasma haemolamae', formerly Eperythrozoon, is known to be widespread in South American camelids in the USA, causing anaemia in affected animals. Up to now, haemotrophic mycoplasmas were not observed in South American camelids in Europe; however, they were known in a herd of alpacas in Switzerland and to identify them as 'Candidatus M. haemolamae'. Possible ways of transmission are discussed.


Introduction Deterioration in muscle strength and tendon stiffness in the elderly has been associated with modified motor task execution and reduced walking performance (Beijersbergen et al. 2013, Ageing Res Rev 12: 618-627; Reeves et al. 2009, J Electromyogr Kinesiol 19: 57-68). Using resistance training to counteract these degradations improves muscle function, and results in more effective and safer gait in the elderly (Karamanidis et al. 2014, PLoS One 9, e99330). In particular, the triceps surae (TS) muscle-tendon unit (MTU) properties have been proven to be important determinants for the walk-to-run transition velocity (Neptune & Sasaki 2005, J Exp Biol 208, 799–808), which emphasizes the relevant role of intrinsic MTU properties in gait performance. The objective of the current study was to examine if the enhanced capacities of the TS MTU mechanical and morphological properties as a result of training would improve gait velocity in the elderly. Methods Thirty-four female adults (60-75y) were recruited for either a long-term (1.5 years; n=12) experimental group or a control group (no physical exercise intervention; n=13). The experimental group underwent a 1.5 years high AT strain cyclic loading exercise intervention, previously shown to increase muscle strength and tendon stiffness (Arampatzis et al. 2007, J Exp Biol 210, 2743-2753). Maximal walking velocity, defined as walking with a double support phase, was analyzed using a motion capture system (120Hz; Vicon Motion Systems, Oxford, UK) and two force plates (60 x 40 cm, 1080 Hz; Kistler, Winterthur, CH). TS MTU mechanical properties were assessed using simultaneous dynamometry and ultrasonography (Esaote MyLab Five; Esaote Biomedica, Genoa, IT). TS morphological properties were examined in an unloaded prone position by using ultrasonography. A linear regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between TS MTU properties and maximal walking velocity, and a two-way repeated measures ANOVA was used to identify potential differences between values at baseline, after 14 weeks and after 1.5 years of exercise intervention. Results Using all the participating subjects (n=34), a significant correlation was found between the TS MTU mechanical and morphological properties and maximal gait velocity (0.40 < r < 0.64; P < 0.05). The experimental group showed higher TS muscle strength, tendon stiffness, and higher soleus and gastrocnemius medialis muscle thickness and pennation angle after 14 weeks of exercise intervention in comparison to baseline (P < 0.05). Continuing the exercise intervention until 1.5 years resulted in no further significant increment in the analyzed parameters. However, while no significant changes in the calculated maximal gait velocity were identified after 14 weeks of the exercise intervention, there was a significant (P < 0.05) 6% increase in the maximal gait velocity after continuing the exercise intervention for 1.5 years in comparison to the baseline values. The control group showed no statistically significant differences in TS MTU mechanical and morphological properties or in the maximal gait velocity at the 14 weeks and 1.5 years measurement time points relative to baseline. Discussion The current study supports previous forward simulation models (Neptune & Sasaki 2005) showing that TS MTU properties are significant determinants of gait performance. However, it seems that 14 weeks of physical exercise intervention is not sufficient to fully utilize the changes in TS MTU properties during walking at maximal velocities. When considering the differences in maximal walking velocity between younger and older adults from the literature (younger approximately 10% faster; Bierbaum et al. 2011, J Biomech 44: 1921–1926), then the current observed changes (6% increase in maximal walking velocity) in the analysed older female adults after 1.5 years of exercise may be functionally relevant. The maintenance of the TS MTU capacities despite continuing the physical exercise intervention until 1.5 years indicate that neuronal components were responsible for the observed changes in the maximal walking velocity. Additionally, possible exercise-induced alterations in locomotion mechanics will be discussed. Literature 1. Beijersbergen et al. 2013, Ageing Res Rev 12: 618-627. 2. Reeves ND et al (2009). J Electromyogr Kinesiol. 19(2), e57-68. 3. Karamanidis K et al (2014). PLoS One 9(6), e99330. 4. Neptune RR & Sasaki K (2005). J Exp Biol 208,799–808. 5. Arampatzis A, Karamanidis K, Albracht K (2007). J Exp Biol 210(15), 2743-53. 6. Bierbaum et al. 2011, J Biomech 44, 1921–1926.


In social bookmarking systems users describe bookmarks by keywords called tags. The structure behind these social systems, called folksonomies, can be viewed as a tripartite hypergraph of user, tag and resource nodes. This underlying network shows specific structural properties that explain its growth and the possibility of serendipitous exploration. Search engines filter the vast information of the web. Queries describe a user's information need. In response to the displayed results of the search engine, users click on the links of the result page as they expect the answer to be of relevance. The clickdata can be represented as a folksonomy in which queries are descriptions of clicked URLs. This poster analyzes the topological characteristics of the resulting tripartite hypergraph of queries, users and bookmarks of two query logs and compares it two a snapshot of the folksonomy del.icio.us.


Septic shock is a major medical problem with high morbidity and mortality and incompletely understood biology. Availability of genome-wide expression data from different studies on septic shock empowers the quest for hitherto unidentified pathways by integration and meta-analysis of multiple data sets. Electronic search was performed on medical literature and gene expression databases. Selection of studies was based on the organism (human subjects), tissue of origin (circulating leukocytes) and the platform technology (gene expression microarray). Gene-level meta-analysis was conducted on the six selected studies to identify the genes consistently differentially expressed in septic shock. These genes were then subjected to pathway analysis. The identified up-regulated pathway hsa04380 (Osteoclast Differentiation) was validated in an independent cohort of patients. A simplified model was generated showing the major gene-modules dysregulated in SS.


Karl Mannheim is not only an exemplary Central European
intellectual and hybrid border crosser; he also developed a
variety of sociological concepts, such as world-view,
generation and intelligentsia, which are particularly useful to
describe the role of intellectuals and the crisis of liberalism
in Central Europe in the first half of the 20th century - and
maybe even the crisis Europe is facing today. Born into a
Jewish-bourgeois family in Budapest in 1893, Mannheim studied
in Hungary, Germany and France. In 1919, after the conservative
counter-revolution in Hungary, Mannheim left for Germany, where
he obtained his habilitation in Heidelberg in 1926 and became a
salaried professor in Frankfurt in 1930. Only three years
later, in 1933, he was forced to leave Nazi Germany for London,
where he died prematurely in 1947 at the age of 53. This essay
not only portrays Mannheim as a border crosser, but also
problematizes the concept of Central Europe as an intellectual
and cultural space.


Abstract In 2003, the university-based Program on Work and Health in Central America, SALTRA, was launched to build national and regional capacities in occupational safety and health with the goal of preventing and reducing poverty in Central America. SALTRA has implemented 20 projects including action projects in priority sectors (e.g., construction, sugarcane, hospitals, migrant coffee workers); strengthening of surveillance (occupational health profiles, carcinogenic exposures, fatal injuries and pesticides); a participatory model for training and risk monitoring by workers; building occupational health capacity for professionals, employers, and workers, with collaborating networks between the countries; strengthening of universities in work, environment, and health; studies of serious occupational and environmental situations; communication channels; and continued efforts to raise political awareness. SALTRA has placed issues of workers' health on political, business, and academic agendas throughout the region and has laid the foundations for achieving substantial future improvements in health conditions of all workers in the region. External evaluators envisioned SALTRA as an innovative development model.


Background: A vast majority of Breast Cancer patients delay treatment due to fear of Mutilation from Surgery and consequent Chemotherapy and radiation. This leads to a lower level of Survival rates. Laser technology now has advanced to a level where no mutilation is required to destroy the Breast tumor. Laser technology is one of the thermoablation techniques used for destroying Soft Tissue tumours. Laser is now USFDA approved for destruction of Breast Tumours. It is also CE approved for Destruction of Breast Cancer.
Aim: Laser Ablation is used as method to destroy cancer cells and its effects noted over period of time to compare with today's standard therapy.
Methods: 9 patients over last five years have been followed post Laser Ablation of breast carcinoma and their QLQ-C30 studied. All patients selected had a Biopsy done to confirm the diagnosis along with solography and. PET  scan All patients selected were found to test negative for distant mets on PET scan. Patients were in stages of stage 1.5to 4 cms in size on Sonography. 2 patents had double tumors n breast all selecte patients were ER/PR positive and 2 patients were HER2 negative. Methods used were Sonographer localization of tumour and consequent laserisation of tumour with an adequate margin. Post laserisation patients were placed on Hormonal treatment. Patients were followed up with monthly Sonography and, FNAC nd PET scan.
Results: The Sonography findings showed a gradual decrease in size of lesion upto 1 year . 2 patients developed Liquifactive necrosis and abscess which was evacuated on OPD basis. All patients have been found to have had a total resolution of the tumour within 6t to 8 months and no distant metastasis have been observed  on PET scan after  a period of 2 years.  All patients were happy with the results and no one had any arm swelling or side effects of Drugs
Conclusion:
laser ablation is a viable alternative for patients not willing for a mutilating surgery. In years to come it may emerge as a Gold standard in Treatment of Breast Cancer. Further studies are required to state it as a better alternative to surgery.


: This article gives a general overview of present local health systems and their possible future. It reviews the background that led the countries of the Americas to make plans to transform their national health systems and points out the key role played by local health systems in this undertaking. In addition to summarizing the basic conditions necessary for setting up a local health system, the authors define these local systems as instruments for decentralization of the State and the expression of democratic action. They consider it an imperative for the 1990s to ensure that the services are improved in terms of equity and quality, democratization and social participation, economic and social development and transformation, and efficiency and use of appropriate technology. Stress is placed on the comprehensive concept of health, well-being, and development, as well as on health promotion by the population itself, while taking into account the responsibilities that correspond to national sector agencies and to local communities.


Two iron-based platinum group metal-free catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) were synthesized from novel and low cost organic precursors named niclosamide and ricobendazole. These catalysts have been characterized, incorporated in a gas diffusional electrode and tested in "clean" conditions as well as in operating microbial fuel cell (MFC) for 32 days. Both catalysts demonstrated unprecedented performance yielding a power density 25% higher than that of platinum (Pt) and roughly 100% higher than activated carbon (AC) used as a control. Durability tests were performed and showed that Pt-based cathodes lost their activity within the first week of operation, reaching the level of the supporting AC-based electrode. Fe–ricobendazole, however, demonstrated the highest performance during the long-term study with a power density of 195 ± 7 μW cm−2 (day 2) that slightly decreased to 186 ± 9 μW cm−2 at day 29. Fe–niclosamide also outperformed Pt and AC but the power density roughly decreased with 20% for the 32 days of the study. Accelerated poisoning test using S2− as pollutant showed high losses in activity for Pt. Fe–niclosamide suffered higher losses compared to Fe–ricobendazole. Importantly, Fe–ricobendazole represents a 55-fold cost reduction compared to platinum.


We evaluate the ability of future data sets to discriminate among different quintessence dark energy models. This approach gives an alternative (and complementary) measure for assessing the impact of future experiments, as compared with the large body of literature that compares experiments in abstract parameter spaces (such as the well-known w{sub 0}-w{sub a} parameters) and more recent work that evaluates the constraining power of experiments on individual parameter spaces of specific quintessence models. We use the Dark Energy Task Force (DETF) models of future data sets and compare the discriminative power of experiments designated by the DETF as stages 2, 3, and 4 (denoting increasing capabilities). Our work reveals a minimal increase in discriminating power when comparing stage 3 to stage 2, but a very striking increase in discriminating power when going to stage 4 (including the possibility of completely eliminating some quintessence models). We also see evidence that even modest improvements over DETF stage 4 (which many believe are realistic) could result in even more dramatic discriminating power among quintessence dark energy models. We develop and demonstrate the technique of using the independently measured modes of the equation of state (derived from principle component analysis) as a common parametermore » space in which to compare the different quintessence models, and we argue that this technique is a powerful one. We use the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson, exponential, Albrecht-Skordis, and inverse tracker (or inverse power law) quintessence models for this work. One of our main results is that the goal of discriminating among these models sets a concrete measure on the capabilities of future dark energy experiments. Experiments have to be somewhat better than DETF stage 4 simulated experiments to fully meet this goal.« less


This article studies the dance poetics and politics of Christians in contemporary Kinshasa. For Kinois (inhabitants of Kinshasa), dance is one of the most important technologies to get in touch with an invisible Other, the divine or the occult. In sermons, and other modes of instruction, spiritual leaders inform their followers about the morality of songs and dances. These discourses reflect pentecostal thought, and trace back the purity of specific body movements to the choreography's source of inspiration. As the specific movements of so-called sacred dances borrow from a wide array of cultural worlds, ranging from traditional ritual dances and popular urban dance to biblical tales, the religious leaders state that not just the body movements, but also the space where people dance and the accompanying songs, define the Christian or pagan identity of the dancer. Therefore, both the reflections upon dance movements and the dance events within these churches will be discussed as moments in the construction of a Christian community.


Presents a review of 200 references in content-based image retrieval. The paper starts with discussing the working conditions of content-based retrieval: patterns of use, types of pictures, the role of semantics, and the sensory gap. Subsequent sections discuss computational steps for image retrieval systems. Step one of the review is image processing for retrieval sorted by color, texture, and local geometry. Features for retrieval are discussed next, sorted by: accumulative and global features, salient points, object and shape features, signs, and structural combinations thereof. Similarity of pictures and objects in pictures is reviewed for each of the feature types, in close connection to the types and means of feedback the user of the systems is capable of giving by interaction. We briefly discuss aspects of system engineering: databases, system architecture, and evaluation. In the concluding section, we present our view on: the driving force of the field, the heritage from computer vision, the influence on computer vision, the role of similarity and of interaction, the need for databases, the problem of evaluation, and the role of the semantic gap.


Substation cyber assets are mission critical for protection and control of substations. Managing and ensuring their secure operation is of paramount importance. A known vulnerability is hidden failures which are responsible for about 10% of misoperations and their detrimental effects on system reliability. The paper presents an integrated centralized substation protection approach that is based on the recently developed setting-less relays which are integrated into a centralized substation protection scheme with the following features: (a) fast, dependable and secure protection of each substation protection zone by a settingless relay, (b) supervision of each settingless relay by validating relay input data by a substation wide state estimator, (c) self-healing against hidden failures by detecting and identifying compromised data and replacing them with estimated values, thus ensuring that the settingless relays will always operate on validated data. The paper provides a summary review of the settingless protective relay and introduces the Integrated Centralized Substation Protection Scheme (ICSP) which uses the data from all settingless relays in the substation to perform a substation wide state estimation. The state estimator uses a hypothesis testing algorithm to determine whether (a) data are valid with no faults or hidden failures, (b) data are valid and a fault exists in the system, or (c) some data are invalid due to hidden failures. In the last case, the state estimator uses the substation state and model to replace the compromised data with estimated values and thus enabling self-immunization against hidden failures. A byproduct of the method is the substation state estimate which is transmitted to the control center where it is used with the state from all substations to synthesize the system wide state estimate and model. Architectural issues are addressed as well as migration issues of existing systems into the proposed ICSP. Key Words— setting-less relay, centralized substation protection, dynamic state estimation, hidden failures Glossary: MU: Merging Unit, LN: Logical Node, ICSP: Integrated Centralized Substation Protection


In this work, we present results on the study of bonding and concentration of carbon in 4H-SiC MOS structure by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The XPS spectra were fitted by several Gaussian lineshape functions. It is found that the so-called carbon clusters (C-C bonds) appear at the interface of SiO2/SiC, but are not seen in the oxide bulk. However, there are still some SiOxCy and Si-C bonds inside the oxide and the integrated area ratio of SiOxCy/Si-C bonds increases when further away from the SiO2/SiC interface. These observations can be interpreted in terms of the dynamic oxidation process that transforms Si-C bonds into SiOxCy bonds, which are then further oxidized to form SiO2 bonds.


A new class of 5-(1-azido-2-haloethyl)-2'-deoxyuridines 3a-c was synthesized by the regiospecific addition of XN3 (X = I, Br, Cl) to the vinyl substituent of 5-vinyl-2'-deoxyuridine. Treatment of the 5-(1-azido-2-iodoethyl) compound (3a) with H2 and 10% Pd/C yielded the 5-(1-azidoethyl) (4) and 5-(1-aminoethyl) (5) derivatives of 2'-deoxyuridine. A similar hydrogenation of 5-(1-methoxy-2-iodoethyl)-2'-deoxyuridine (1f) afforded the 5-(1-methoxyethyl) analog 6. The 5-(1-azido-2-haloethyl)-2'-deoxyuridines 3a-c exhibited in vitro antiviral activity against HSV-1, HSV-2, VZV, and EBV, but they were inactive against HCMV. In this group of compounds, the activity order was Cl > or = I > Br against HSV-1 and Br > or = Cl > I against HSV-2. A halogen atom in the 5-(1-azido-2-haloethyl) moiety 3a-c is an essential requirement since the 5-(1-azidoethyl) analog 4 was inactive, except for weak antiviral activity against VZV. Although the 5-(1-aminoethyl)-2'-deoxyuridine.HI (5) was inactive against HSV-1 and HSV-2, the 5-(1-methoxyethyl) compound 6 was equiactive to 5-ethyl-2'-deoxyuridine (EDU) against both HSV-1 and HSV-2 and 7-fold and 12-fold less active against HCMV relative to EDU and ganciclovir, respectively. All compounds investigated (3-6) exhibited low host cell cytotoxicity (IC50 > 118 microM) and inhibited cell proliferation only at high concentrations (IC50 > 76 microM).


Introduction.The article deals with the problem of forced labor in Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Despite the existence of profound scientific publications devoted to this problem in Russia and abroad, it still needs to be developed. The article emphasizes the urgency of its research in historical, anthropological and humanities perspective, because personal experience of those who survived after forced labor in Nazi Germany, must be stored in collective memory and comprehended by subsequent generations.

Methods and materials. Digital Humanities based on the method of oral history allows to solve this problem. The article presents two options of practical implementation of the issue: the online archive of the interview Forced Labor in 1939-1945. Memories and history and related online platform Learning based on interviews. Forced labor in 1939-1945. The archive includes about 600 narrative biographical interviews with victims of Nazi forced labor in 26 countries. The site accompanying the archive is now available in English, German, Russian and Czech. The second project is based on six specially selected interviews from the archive. Broad source base and nationally-oriented concept of forced labor in Nazi Germany, presented on the platform, create the historical context necessary for using this resource primarily in the secondary educational system of the Russian Federation.

Analysis and results. The article shows the possibility of using archive-interviews in science and education, and emphasizes that traditional and new methods of historical research can complement each other. The article emphasizes that biographical films created on the basis of interviews can make the memory of forced labor in Nazi Germany, first of all, of "eastern workers" and Soviet prisoners of war more visible in Russian cultural memory. Contribution of authors to writing an article. Characteristics of peculiarity of oral historical sources, online collections of interviews, compensation payments are given by D. Thousendfreund. Analytics of the project "Forced Labor 1939-1945. Memoirs and History "and online platform" Learning based on interviews. Forced labor 1939-1945", as well as conclusions are prepared by N.P. Timofeev. Introduction, problem historiography and general editing of the article belong to T.V. Evdokimova.


Objectives: The aim of the study is to determine the correlation of prenatal stomach position (SP) and presence of pulmonary hypertension (PH) in fetuses with left-sided congenital diaphragmatic hernia (LCDH). Methods: Fetuses with isolated LCDH (2007-2018) were evaluated from 19 weeks' gestational age (GA) onwards. SP was assessed on stored 2D ultrasound (US) data and scored 1-4 (grade 1: abdominal; grade 2: anterior in chest; grade 3: mid to posterior in the chest and grade 4: retrocardiac) in accordance to the grading system proposed by Cordier et al. Primary outcome was pulmonary hypertension (PH). Secondary analysis included the predictive value of SP together with the combination of observed-to-expected lung-to-head ratio (O/E LHR) and prenatal liver position for PH and the postnatal defect size. Results: 87 fetuses with LCDH were eligible for inclusion of which the SP could be graded for 46 fetuses at 20 weeks' GA (US1) and 72 fetuses at 30 weeks' GA (US2). At US2, 15 fetuses (21%) showed a grade 1, 17 (24%) a grade 2, 38 (53%) a grade 3 and 2 (2%) a grade 4 SP. Postnatally, 61 (70%) infants met the criteria for PH diagnosed by echocardiogram, whilst 26 (30%) of infants showed clinical symptoms requiring treatment. Need for treatment of PH was significantly different amongst SP grades both at US1 (p < 0.01) and US2 (p = 0.04) GA. SP grade 2 at US1 was predictive for the need for treatment of PH (p = 0.01), whereas other grades were not. Multivariable regression analysis showed that the addition of O/E LHR and liver position was not relevant in the association between SP grade and need for treatment of PH (p = 0.78). In addition, the postnatal defect size was significantly larger amongst groups with higher SP grades at US1 (p = 0.03) and US2 (p = 0.02). Conclusions: The grade of stomach position in LCDH fetuses can be used to predict necessity of treatment of PH. In addition, the postnatal defect size is positively correlated to SP grade.


Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the parenting image of modern Korean society through modern novels published during in the stage of modern change in Korea. Method: The data were analyzed through latent content analysis. Modern Korean novels (N=138) written during the Korean modernization stage were chosen for analysis. Five categories and seventeen meaningful sub-categories were drawn out from 636 significant sentences. Results: The parenting images expressed in modern Korean society were as follows: From the category of [Devotional love], 5 sub-categories were drawn: Hedgehog's love, Lavish love, Sacrificial care, Exertion of the mind, and Prayer for the future of their children. From the category of [Stern father and affectionate mother], 3 sub-categories were drawn: Stern and Strict father, Tender and loving mother, and Strong maternal love. From the category of [Enthusiasm for their children's education], 3 sub-categories were drawn: Sense of duty to provide good education for their children, Zeal for their children's education, and Satisfaction with their hard-working children. From the category of [The head of family], 3 sub-categories were drawn: Person who has the right to make decisions, Reliable protector, and Object of filial devotion. From the category of [sexual discrimination], 3 sub-categories were drawn: Preference and favoritism to sons, Attaching importance to education of sons, Regarding daughters as those who help support the family. Conclusions: The results of this study will help to improve the basic understanding the parenting image and parent-child relationship in present day Korea.


A Review of:
Gonzalez-Alcaide, Gregorio, Lourdes Castello-Cogolles, Carolina Navarro-Molina, et al. "Library and Information Science Research Areas: Analysis of Journal Articles in LISA." Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 59.1 (2008): 150-4.

Objective – To provide an updated categorization of Library and Information Science (LIS) publications and to identify trends in LIS research.

Design – Bibliometric study.

Setting – The Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA) database via the CSA Illumina interface.

Subjects – 11,273 item records published from 2004-2005 and indexed in LISA.

Methods – First, a search was set up to retrieve all records from 2004-2005, limited to peer review items (called "arbitrated works" by the authors (150)) and excluding book reviews. Second, thematic descriptor terms used for the records were identified. Frequency counts for descriptor term occurrence were compiled using Microsoft Access and Pajek software programs. From the results of this search, the top terms were analyzed using the Kamada-Kawai algorithm in order to eliminate descriptor term co-occurrence frequencies under 30. A cluster analysis was used to depict thematic foci for the remaining records, providing a co-word network that visually identified topic areas of most frequent publication. Conclusions were drawn from these findings, and recommendations for further research were provided.

Main Results – The authors identified 18 "thematic research core fields" (152) clustered around three large categories, "World Wide Web", "Education", and "Libraries", plus 12 additional peripheral categories, and provided a schematic of field interrelationships.

Conclusion – Domains of greatest focus for research "continue to be of practical and applied nature," (153) but include increased emphasis on the World Wide Web and communications technologies, as well as on user studies. A table of the most frequently occurring areas of research along with their top three descriptor terms is provided (Table 1, 152) (e.g., "World Wide Web" as the top area of research, with "online information retrieval" (268 occurrences), "searching" (132 occurrences), and "web sites" (115 occurrences)).


An experiment was conducted to determine the additivity of apparent and true ileal amino acid digestibility values in soybean meal (SBM), sunflower meal (SFM), and meat and bone meal (MBM). A total of 63 individually caged 5-wk-old broilers were assigned to seven groups and given semi-purified diets containing SBM, SFM, MBM, and their combinations. True digestibilities were estimated by using the homoarginine in guanidinated proteins as the marker. Additivity was tested by comparing the differences between the observed digestibilities of ingredient combinations and the predicted values from measurements with individual ingredients. In general, for both apparent and true digestibilities, there were no significant differences (P > 0.05) between the observed and predicted values in ingredient combinations. The only exception was SBM + MBM combination, in which the observed values for apparent digestibilities of aspartic acid, serine, glutamic acid, isoleucine, and tyrosine were significantly higher (P < 0.05) than the predicted values. Overall, the present results indicate that amino acid digestibility values are additive and that digestible amino acid supply in a complete diet can be predicted from amino acid digestibilities of individual ingredients.


Active data warehousing has emerged as an alternative to conventional warehousing practices in order to meet the high demand of applications for up-to-date information. In a nutshell, an active warehouse is refreshed online and thus achieves a higher consistency between the stored information and the latest data updates. The need for online warehouse refreshment introduces several challenges in the implementation of data warehouse transformations, with respect to their execution time and their overhead to the warehouse processes. In this paper, we focus on a frequently encountered operation in this context, namely, the join of a fast stream 5" of source updates with a disk-based relation R, under the constraint of limited memory. This operation lies at the core of several common transformations such as surrogate key assignment, duplicate detection, or identification of newly inserted tuples. We propose a specialized join algorithm, termed mesh join (MESHJOIN), which compensates for the difference in the access cost of the two join inputs by 1) relying entirely on fast sequential scans of R and 2) sharing the I/O cost of accessing R across multiple tuples of 5". We detail the MESHJOIN algorithm and develop a systematic cost model that enables the tuning of MESHJOIN for two objectives: maximizing throughput under a specific memory budget or minimizing memory consumption for a specific throughput. We present an experimental study that validates the performance of MESHJOIN on synthetic and real-life data. Our results verify the scalability of MESHJOIN to fast streams and large relations and demonstrate its numerous advantages over existing join algorithms.


Although provider backbone bridging is sometimes cast as an alternative technology to MPLS for Ethernet transport, the fact is that both technologies can be leveraged to complement one another in a service provider network. This provides the network operator with the best of what each technology has to offer in terms of scalability, manageability, cost, and flexible support for services. An example of the two technologies working in unison is provider backbone bridging interoperating with H-VPLS over networks with an MPLS core. The combined infrastructure leverages the strengths of Ethernet and MPLS with the added advantage of addressing the major shortcomings of standard H-VPLS.


This paper introduces parallelization strategies for the Non-Uniform FFT (NUFFT) data translation on multicore architectures. The NUFFT enables the use of the celebrated FFT with un-equally spaced data in numerous situations in signal and image processing as well as in scientific computing. The critical extension lies at the translation of non-equally spaced or non-uniformly sampled data onto an equally spaced Cartesian grid or vice versa. The data translation can be made sufficiently accurate, with the arithmetic complexity linearly proportional to the size of the data ensemble. For large NUFFTs, however, the data translation is found substantially dominant in computation time on modern computers while it is expected to be dominated by the FFT. In order to match the FFT performance achieved by FFTW, data locality and parallelism in the data translation must be explored and exploited as well. We are concerned with two fundamental issues. First, the data translation can be described as a matrix-vector multiplication with a matrix of irregular sparsity. This is beyond the effective scope of the conventional tiling and parallelization schemes applied by a compiler for performance improvement on computation with dense matrices. Secondly, multicore processors exist and emerge in many different configurations, and are expected to evolve further in architectural variety. This may mean the end of performance tuning on a single type of architecture. In this paper, we introduce an automation tool that takes two specifications as input, one on an application-specific data translation algorithm, the other on a target multicore processor architecture. The tool generates a parallel code that explores the data locality and parallelism by utilizing both geometric structures in data translation and the processor-memory configurations in the target architecture. We present preliminary experimental results on both a simulator and a commercial multicore machine. The results show that our parallelization strategy brings significant performance improvement for the NUFFT data translation by efficiently exploiting the data locality and concurrency in the application.


This thesis investigates the Co-operative Model Town Society Lahore; a town covering an area of around 2000 acres developed in the 1920's in the (then) suburbs of Lahore, capital of Punjab province in British India. The Town is a remarkable interpretation of Ebenezer Howard's Garden City ideals and the
co-operative principles. However, the real significance of the town is it being a unique example of a co-operative garden town built by the local Indian bourgeois, majority of whom were forced to migrate due to the disturbances that followed after the declaration of independence to India and Pakistan in
1947. Despite the admiration and significance of the Town in the realm of pre and post-Independence Lahore, very little has been documented about it. Its formal documented history is non-existent while its original built environment, an excellent example to illustrate late-colonial architecture in the region, is
diminishing rapidly due to negligence and reconstructions.

The aim of this research is the documentation of history, urban form, social character and architecture of the pre-independence Model Town. Consequently, through an analysis of its built environment this study intends to develop an insight into the colonizer-colonized cultural transfers, in particular, to the transformation of British town planning ideas in the colonies
due to their interpretation by the local Indians under the influence of prevalent religious, cultural and social practices.

The research was conducted by the process of historical construction, whereby evidences from the documents and the built environment have been used collectively to develop the historiography of the town. The selection of primary material has been based on its availability as the documentary
evidences are scattered across Pakistan, India and the UK. The built environment has been documented using the official drawings as well as onsite surveys and measurements where the original drawings are unavailable.

The Town has been analysed in a comparative setting with respect to contemporary urban, architectural and social trends and practices prevalent locally ( both by the colonial rulers and the colonized natives) as well as global movements, especially Western ideologies and perspectives and their retrospect local adaptations.

The documentation and analysis were used as a ground for four interpretative conclusions. The first conclusion elaborates on the need of urban historiography in Pakistan. The second conclusion interprets the Model Town in the realm of twentieth century urban planning in the region. The third conclusion elaborates on the colonial architectural styles. The fourth
conclusion gives an insight into the Model Town with reference to western styled 'Indian' nationalism.


In this paper, the process parameter effects on the thermal characteristics in powder-bed electron beam additive manufacturing (EBAM) using Ti-6Al-4V powder were investigated. The machine-specific setting, called "speed function" (SF) index that controls the beam speed and the beam current during a build, was utilized to evaluate the beam scanning speed effects. EBAM parts were fabricated using different levels of SF index (20 to 65) and build surface morphology and part microstructures were examined. A near infrared (NIR) thermal imager was used for temperatures measurements during the EBAM process. In addition, a thermal model previously developed was employed for temperature predictions and comparison with the experimental results.The major results are summarized as follows. The SF index noticeably affects the thermal characteristics in EBAM, e.g., a melt pool length of 1.72 mm vs. 1.26 mm for SF20 and SF65, respectively, at the 24.43 mm build height. This is because the higher the speed function index, the higher the beam speed, which reduces the energy density input and results in a lower process temperature. For the surface conditions and part microstructures, in general, a higher SF index tends to produce parts of rougher surfaces with more residual porosity features and large β grain columnar widths.Copyright © 2014 by ASME


In the field of energy supply, various innovative technologies such as fuel cells, photovoltaics and biomass digestion exist as potentially sustainable alternatives. However, many of these new technologies only cover small percentages of the overall energy supply. A better understanding of the determinants of innovations is thus crucial for their timely diffusion and a subsequent transformation of the energy sector towards more sustainable technologies. To examine the complex dynamics of technological change, the concept of technological innovation systems (TIS) represents a fruitful approach. TIS studies focus on the interplay of actors, networks and institutions and reveal systemic blocking or enhancing mechanisms that impact the generation, utilization and diffusion of new technologies.

In this stream of literature, agency and the structural build-up of TIS have not been a focus point, despite their significance for innovation processes. This dissertation explores the relationships between the strategic moves of actors and the development of new technological fields. To address this question, we draw on ideas and concepts from the strategic management and entrepreneurship literature and combine them with the innovation systems perspective. In particular we focus on resources and their role in innovation system-building. The empirical field of inquiry is the innovation system on stationary fuel cells in Germany. Through in-depth interviews with key informants directly involved in system-building, we studied the strategies of firms and formal networks in the field. The field of stationary fuel cells in Germany represents a very interesting case, as the technology is not only important for the development of a smart energy system but also indicative of many technological and organizational problems currently faced by (energy) innovations as they progress from prototypes to a mass market. Our analysis revealed how key actors and networks strategically influenced the emergence of the TIS and shaped the structures of the new field. They created technological standards, lobbied for public support programs, set up commonly available training modules, created value chains and increased public awareness of fuel cells. These structures represent assets that are of strategic value for firms interested in the novel technology. We conceptualize them as system resources. Our research shows that some specific actors, which we refer to as system builders, have continuously pushed the development of collective resources at the network and system level. Network resources such as joint knowledge, reputation, power and governance structures, in addition to the aforementioned system resources, are strategically developed and deployed to influence and control the development of the innovation system as a whole.


The queue-read, queue-write (QRQW) parallel random access machine (PRAM) model is a shared memory model which allows concurrent reading and writing with a time cost proportional to the contention. This is designed to modell currently available parallel machines more accurately than either the CRCW PRAM or EREW PRAM models. Many algorithmic results have been developed for the QRQW PRAM. However, the only lower bound results have been fairly simple reductions from lower bounds for other models, such as the EREW PRAM or the "few-write" CR.EW PRAM. Here we present a lower bound specific to the QRQW PRAM. This lower bound is on the probleim of Linear Approximate Compaction (LAC) , whose input consists of at most m marked items in an array of size n, and whose output consists oftlie m marked items in an array of size 0(m). There is an 0 e) expected time randomized algorithm for LA L on the QRQW PRAM. We prove a lower bound of C2 logloglogn This bound applies regardless of the number of processors and memory cells of the QRQW PRAM. The previous best Iower bound was R(log* n) time, taken from the known lower bound for LAC on the CRCW PRAM


Dopamine (DA) regulation of intracellular cyclic AMP formation in purified, intact striatal neurons in primary culture was examined. DA (EC50, 3 microM) and vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP; EC50, 10 nM) stimulated cyclic AMP formation by 2- and 5-fold, respectively. In the presence of 0.1 microM forskolin (which was virtually ineffective alone), neurohormone efficacy was augmented; potency was unaffected. In the presence of 0.1 microM SCH 23390, a selective D1 antagonist, the DA dose-response curve was shifted rightward in a competitive manner. At low concentrations (0.01-1.0 microM), however, DA inhibited basal cyclic AMP formation. The inhibitory effect, but not the shift of the dose-response curve, was blocked by 5 microM l-sulpiride, a selective D2 antagonist. At saturating concentrations of VIP (0.1-1.0 microM), no other neurohormone can further augment cyclic AMP formation. Under these conditions, increasing concentrations of DA resulted in a dose-dependent (IC50, 0.5 microM) inhibition of VIP-stimulated cyclic AMP synthesis. This effect was augmented in the presence of 0.1 microM SCH 23390 and blocked by 5 microM l-sulpiride. Sulpiride antagonism was stereospecific, with the l-isomer being 30-fold more potent than the d-isomer. The rank order of potency for a series of dopaminergic agonists and antagonists at the receptor mediating attenuation of cyclic AMP formation suggests that it is of the D2 type. Furthermore, both DA and Met-enkephalin inhibition of cyclic AMP formation is lost after exposure of striatal neurons to islet activator protein. These findings suggest that a D2 receptor mediates the inhibition of intracellular cyclic AMP formation by DA in striatal neurons in primary culture, and may do so by an interaction with the inhibitory guanine nucleotide regulatory protein of adenylate cyclase.


For many years, our understanding of what 'quality' and 'performance' mean in health services has been limited to analysing counts of how many patients are treated (admissions, patient visits), how quickly that is done (waiting times) and how often things go wrong (complications, re-admissions, deaths). All of these things are important, but they don't tell us about something of fundamental importance: how have those health services affected health ?

In 2009, the UK Department of Health introduced the routine collection of patient-reported outcome measures into the English NHS via the PROMs programme.1 2 In doing so, it became the first healthcare system in the world routinely to collect patients' self-reported health status in the context of normal health services delivery. The scheme initially focused on collecting these data before and after four elective surgical procedures, with plans to extend this across a number of other important areas, including chronic diseases. The PROMs programme should not be seen as part of the latest set of NHS 'reforms', because it predates them by some years. Instead, it should be viewed as the latest stage in an attempt to improve how the performance and quality of health services is measured and analysed. Rather than being a step in the dark, it might be better described as an attempt to cast some further light on important …


Evaluation of 62 pigmented skin tumors of unknown pathology showed that benign and malignant tumors can easily be separated. Benign skin tumors have many internal echoes whereas malignant melanomas show an almost echo-free structure. Superficial spreading melanomas (SSM) and very flat benign tumors were both recorded as thin echogenic layers. It is not possible to differentiate them by US. Real time US is a simple non stressful, reproducible procedure that should be established as a routine diagnostic tool in dermatology.


This article examines the wage gaps between immigrant and Portuguese workers using matched employer–employee data for the 2002–2008 period. We found that most of the wage gap is not due to the worst endowments of the immigrants but to differences in the returns to those characteristics and to the immigrant status effect. In particular, immigrants' education and foreign experience are significantly less valued in the Portuguese labour market. Overall, the wages of immigrants do not fully converge to those of comparable natives as domestic experience increases. The assimilation rates tend to be stronger in the first years after migration and for immigrants with higher levels of foreign experience. Total immigrants are a heterogeneous group of different nationalities, with immigrants from the EU15 and China starring as the two extreme cases.


For a long time now it has been widely understood within economics that under the capitalism of giant firms, corporations no longer compete primarily through price competition. They engage instead in what economists call "monopolistic competition." This consists chiefly of attempts to create monopoly positions for a particular brand, making it possible for corporations to charge more for the branded product while also expanding their market share. Competition is most intense in what Thorstein Veblen called the "production of salable appearances," involving advertising, frequent model changes, branding of products, and the like. Once this logic takes over in twentieth and now twenty-first century capitalism it is seemingly unstoppable. All human needs, relationships and fears, the deepest recesses of the human psyche, become mere means for the expansion of the commodity universe under the force of modem marketing. With the rise to prominence of modem marketing, commercialism—the translation of human relations into commodity relations—although a phenomenon intrinsic to capitalism, has expanded exponentially.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.


Edward Thomas was perhaps the most beguiling and influential of the war poets. This haunting account of his final five years follows him from his beloved English countryside to the battlefield in France where he lost his life. When he met the American poet Robert Frost in 1913, Thomas was tormented by feelings of failure in his work and in his marriage. With Frost's encouragement he began writing poem after poem as he finally found the expression for which he had spent his life searching. But the First World War put an ocean between them: Frost returned to New England while Thomas enlisted and went to fight in France. It is these roads taken-and not taken-that are at the heart of this unforgettable book, which culminates in Thomas's tragic death on Easter Monday, 1917. Now All Roads Lead to France encompasses an astonishingly creative moment in English literature, when London was a battleground for new, ambitious writing. A generation that included W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Frost, and Rupert Brooke was "making it new"-vehemently and pugnaciously-and this dazzling biography places Thomas firmly in their midst.


ABSTRACT This paper aims to describe the quality of play as offered by early childhood educators working with four-year-olds within an educational childcare service. It also aims to identify the correlation between the quality of play support and a child's cognitive, language and socio-emotional development. Finally, it focuses on the factors associated with the quality of play support provided by educational childcare centres and the characteristics of the educators involved. The sample included 170 educators working with four-year-olds. Results show that higher quality of play are linked with higher cognitive and language development. Other factors with a positive impact on play include: group of eight children, higher educator-to-child ratios, groups with male educators and groups whose personnel have followed more than 24 hours of in-service training and who express positive feelings towards their work. The discussion addresses the significance of these findings in childcare services.


We generalize the Gaussian mixture transition distribution (GMTD) model introduced by Le and co‐workers to the mixture autoregressive (MAR) model for the modelling of non‐linear time series. The models consist of a mixture of K stationary or non‐stationary AR components. The advantages of the MAR model over the GMTD model include a more full range of shape changing predictive distributions and the ability to handle cycles and conditional heteroscedasticity in the time series. The stationarity conditions and autocorrelation function are derived. The estimation is easily done via a simple EM algorithm and the model selection problem is addressed. The shape changing feature of the conditional distributions makes these models capable of modelling time series with multimodal conditional distributions and with heteroscedasticity. The models are applied to two real data sets and compared with other competing models. The MAR models appear to capture features of the data better than other competing models do.


The markhor (Capra falconeri) is endangered globally as well as in Pakistan. The Chitral district in Pakistan supports one of the largest populations of this species. The rural communities of the district have large holdings of livestock, which make up a significant part of their livelihood system. The domestic goat is the dominant livestock species, and a potential competitor with the markhor due to habitat overlap. The present study was conducted to examine the extent of food competition between the markhor and domestic goat in Chitral. A total of 120 pellets of the 2 species were collected during the spring and summer of 2009, and analyzed by microhistological technique. The results showed a complete overlap in diets of the 2 species during summer and moderate overlap during spring. The high overlap in diet indicates a severe level of competition in the spatially limited pastures of Chitral, and may reduce the growth, survival, and reproductive rates of markhor. This endangered species has a significant role in the local economy by generating revenue through trophy hunting programs. Thus its conservation ensures the well-being of rural communities, and could be achieved by eliminating competition with livestock, particularly in its core habitats.


Purpose

This paper aims to explore the attractiveness of Library and Information Science (LIS) careers to students and alumni and examine their decision-making process and perceptions of the field with an eye on discerning the best ways to build and develop the recruitment narrative.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors reached out to 57 LIS graduate programs in Canada and the USA accredited by the American Library Association through a Web-based survey; the questions presented a combination of multiple-choice, short-answer and open-ended questions and generated a wealth of quantitative and qualitative data.

Findings

The online survey has disclosed that students may not have an in-depth understanding of current trends, the diversity of LIS professions and the wider applications of their education. A significant disconnect exists in how the goals of LIS education are seen by certain groups of practitioners, students and faculty members.

Originality/value

Creating a program narrative for the purposes of recruitment and retention, departments should not only capitalize on the reach of the internet and the experiences of successful practitioners. They should also ensure that faculty know their students' personal backgrounds, that students empathize with demands of contemporary academia and that a promotional message connects pragmatic educational goals to broader social applications. By exposing and embracing the complexity of LIS education and practice, the paper chooses a discursive path to start a conversation among major stakeholders.


Dental plaque, biofilms of microorganisms on tooth surface, plays an important role in the development of caries and periodontal disease. Our aim was to test in vitro antibacterial activity of some herbal extracts against Actinomyces viscosus, Streptococcus mutans,Streptococcus sobrinus, Lactobacillus fermentum, Lactobacillus casei and Eikenellacorrodens. Hydro alcoholic (50:50) extracts of 6 plants were taken using succilate method, then 4 dilutions of extracts (20, 40, 80, and 100% w/v, mg/ml) were put on blood agar media and cultured with one of the bacteria using 4 mm paper discs. Antimicrobial activities of these extracts were examined by disc diffusion method and mean of diameters of inhibition zone of each bacterium in different dilutions was reported. (P<0.05) hydro alcoholic extracts of Punica granatum and Trigonella foenum-graceum had strong antibacterial activity respectively, and their antibacterial activities were significantly less than Chlorhexidine and more than Irsha and Miswak. The hydro alcoholic extracts ofScrophularia striata and Fumaria parviflora showed less antibacterial activity in comparison with the first two and it was significantly less than Chlorhexidine and Miswak and more than Irsha. Carthamus tinctorius had the weakest antibacterial activity. We recommend more studies to demonstrate practical approaches of using natural materials on the oral biofilms.

 Key words: Herbal extracts, antibacterial, dental plaque, chlorhexidine, essential oils.


ABSTRACT This paper explores students' ability to analyse and interpret empirical data as inadequate data analysis skills and understandings may contribute to the renowned disappointing outcomes of practical work in secondary school physics. Selected competences, derived from a collection of leading curricula, are explored through interviews and practical tasks, each consisting of three probes. The 51 students, aged 15 and commencing post-compulsory science education in the Netherlands, were able to carry out basic skills such as collecting data and representing these. In interpreting the data in terms of the investigated phenomenon or situation however, performance was weak. Students often appeared to be unable to identify the crucial features of a given graph. Conclusions based on the data were often tautological or superficial, lacking salient features. Students failed to infer implications from the data, to interpret data at a higher level of abstraction, or to specify limitations to the validity of the analysis or conclusions. The findings imply that the students' understanding of data-analysis should be developed further before they can engage successfully in more 'open' practical work. The study offers a collection of activities that may help to address the situation, suggesting a baseline for guided development of data analysis abilities.


Shocks to global interest rates or risk cause capital outflows for countries outside the core of the global financial system. These outflows lead to downward pressure on exchange rates and financial sector stress, in addition to having general contractionary effects. To defend the exchange rate, the appropriate internal response is a fiscal/monetary contraction. To maintain full employment and financial stability, the appropriate internal response is fiscal/monetary expansion. The contradiction in these policy responses implies policymakers prioritize hitting either internal or external targets after these shocks; but how do they decide? Using a fixed effects model and data from 100 emerging market and developing economies from 1990 to 2012, we show that the relative sensitivity of interest groups to these policy responses influences which response occurs. We find some evidence that this effect is stronger in the presence of more political-institutional constraints. Using a strategic probit model, we also find some evidence that this policy response influences the relative likelihood of banking crises versus currency crashes after these global shocks.


Phytochemical screening was carried out on aqueous leaf extracts of Hybanthus-enneaspermus [HE], Oldenlandia Carymbosa L [OL] and Paquetina-nigricense [PN], while antimicrobial screening was carried out on both methanolic and aqueous leaf extracts of the two plants. The result revealed the presence of Alkaloids [Flavonoids, Cyanogenic-glycosides among others], Tannin and reducing substances. The antimicrobial results showed that methanolic and aqueous leaf extract of OL possessed antimicrobial and antifungal activity as it inhibited B. subtilis, Proteus, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus albus and Candida. The methanolic and aqueous leaf extracts of PN, on the other hand also have similar effects like OL but at a different concentration. In addition, the antimicrobial activity of the two plants extracts decreases with increasing shelf life. The plants are usually used for several reasons in antenatal care by   Traditional Birth attendants in South west Nigeria.


OBJECTIVE
To determine whether blue-on-yellow perimetry reveals progression of glaucomatous damage before it is evident with standard white-on-white perimetry.

DESIGN
A Humphrey field analyzer (Humphrey Instruments, San Leandro, Calif) was modified to perform blue-on-yellow perimetry to isolate and measure the sensitivity of short wavelength-sensitive mechanisms. Participants were tested annually with standard white-on-white automated perimetry and blue-on-yellow automated perimetry for 5 years.

PATIENTS
Sixteen patients with early glaucomatous visual field loss in one or both eyes and 62 age-matched normal control subjects.

RESULTS
At baseline, 25 (78.1%) of the 32 eyes exhibited larger deficits with blue-on-yellow perimetry, five (15.6%) had equivalent loss with both tests, and two (6.3%) had larger deficits with standard white-on-white perimetry. Seven (21.9%) of the 32 eyes demonstrated evidence of progressive visual field loss with standard white-on-white perimetry in 5 years, while the other 25 eyes (78.1%) were relatively stable. Deficits with blue-on-yellow perimetry were twice as large as deficits with white-on-white perimetry in the stable group and were three to four times as large in the group with progressive field loss.

CONCLUSIONS
Blue-on-yellow perimetry is effective in predicting which patients with early glaucomatous visual field loss are most likely to have progressive loss. The rate of progressive loss is greater with blue-on-yellow perimetry than with standard white-on-white perimetry.


The stopping power of a metal for a slow structureless impurity varies linearly with projectile velocity. We show that the coefficient of this linear behavior (friction coefficient) is determined exactly in a static ensemble Kohn-Sham scheme, by extension of the Shifted Fermi Surface procedure originally derived for an homogeneous jellium. We prove that the friction coefficient is determined only by local characteristics of the system. The error incurred when adding a spurious non-local contribution is illustrated for a simple 1D model.


This paper uses theoretical insights from Pierre Nora and Peter Burke to examine the construction of an historical vision of the Reformation. It argues that the hitherto under-explored historical literature of the seventeenth century, which stressed the order and completion of reform, throws into relief the disorderly afterlife of the sources for English Reformation history. The clergy of the Church of England worked assiduously to preserve the historically tangible records of their Church, yet also struggled to contain to body of knowledge which in the seventeenth century could be used to subvert that institution. The Reformation remained a subject for active investigation during the seventeenth century. Historians attempted to outdo each other in discoveries of rare documents, a competition especially entered into by Gilbert Burnet, Thomas Tenison and Anthony Harmer. Yet while the archives were plundered for new discoveries, it is striking that the historical texts which embodied the results of this research became increasingly uniform in their import and emphasis, so much so that by the end of the seventeenth century historians and editors were assembling seamless narratives of reform from different historians. This paper makes sense of how the uniformity and order found in seventeenth-century historical literature contrasts with ecclesiastical controversies surrounding the acquisition and editing of historical sources.


There are two main challenges in simulating bi-manual dental operations with six-degrees-of-freedom (6-DoF) haptic rendering. One is to simulate large deformation and force response of a tongue under multi-region contacts with a dental mirror, and the other is to simulate the force response when a dental probe inserts into a narrow periodontal pocket, which leads to simultaneous contacts of different types between the probe and both rigid and deformable objects (i.e., a rigid tooth and its surrounding deformable gingiva), which we call hybrid contacts, as well as frequent contact switches. In this paper, we address both challenges. We first introduce a novel method for modeling deformation based on a sphere-tree representation of deformable objects. A configuration-based constrained optimization method is utilized for determining the six-dimensional configuration of the graphic tool and the contact force/torque. This approach conducts collision detection, deformation computation, and tool configuration optimization very efficiently, avoids inter-penetration, and maintains stability of haptic display without using virtual coupling. To simulate the force response due to fine manipulation of the probe inside a narrow periodontal pocket, we propose an efficient method to simulate the local deformation of the gingiva and stable haptic feedback under frequent contact switches. Simulations on typical dental operations were carried out to validate the efficiency and stability of our approach.


One of the most ambitious goals of synthetic biology is to construct cell-like systems of minimal complexity for understanding fundamental aspects of biology – as the origin of life problem, for example –. In our research group, we focus on understanding how primitive cells originated from non-living components by combining liposome technology and biomolecular systems. In this project, we have investigated the origin of primitive metabolism-supporting cells via the construction of experimental models. By a careful study of lipid vesicle populations, prepared in the presence of several types of solutes, we have reported the coexistence of empty and super-filled lipid vesicles. The large number of experiments and the many different tested conditions strongly suggest that our observations are general and correspond to a spontaneous pathway for concentrating solute molecules inside (a small number of) vesicles. The lipid shell plays an active role recruiting molecules in the vesicle lumen, so that critical concentration thresholds to trigger biochemical reactions in a microenvironment are easily reached. A simple enzymatic reaction is facilitated inside a liposome water pool as opposed to bulk or other vesicles. We have also conducted experiments by forming liposomes in a diluted solution of a protein synthesis minimal kit observing that the reaction did not work efficiently in bulk due to the macromolecules' dilution; however, a certain number of liposomes could efficiently entrap all 80 macromolecules needed for the desired reaction in a sufficient number of copies. Our results indicate that unsolved problems in origin of life scenarios, like the issue of low solute concentration and the low membrane permeability, could have been solved by the reported spontaneous entrapment and self-concentration of molecules in cell-like particles.