Parasitism is a life strategy that has repeatedly evolved within the Florideophyceae. Historically, the terms adelphoparasite and alloparasite have been used to distinguish parasites based on the relative phylogenetic relationship of host and parasite. However, analyses using molecular phylogenetics indicate that nearly all red algal parasites infect within their taxonomic family, and a range of relationships exist between host and parasite. To date, all investigated adelphoparasites have lost their plastid, and instead, incorporate a host derived plastid when packaging spores. In contrast, a highly reduced plastid lacking photosynthesis genes was sequenced from the alloparasite Choreocolax polysiphoniae. Here we present the complete Harveyella mirabilis plastid genome, which has also lost genes involved in photosynthesis, and a partial plastid genome from Leachiella pacifica. The H. mirabilis plastid shares more synteny with free-living red algal plastids than that of C. polysiphoniae. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrates that C. polysiphoniae, H. mirabilis, and L. pacifica form a robustly supported clade of parasites, which retain their own plastid genomes, within the Rhodomelaceae. We therefore transfer all three genera from the exclusively parasitic family, Choreocolacaceae, to the Rhodomelaceae. Additionally, we recommend applying the terms archaeplastic parasites (formerly alloparasites), and neoplastic parasites (formerly adelphoparasites) to distinguish red algal parasites using a biological framework rather than taxonomic affiliation with their hosts.


The data descriptions of the units are called "symbolic" when they are more complex than standard ones due to the fact that they contain internal variation and are structured. Symbolic data arise from many sources, for instance in order to summarise huge Relational Data Bases by their underlying concepts. "Extracting knowledge" means getting explanatory results, that why, "symbolic objects" are introduced and studied in this paper. They model concepts and constitute an explanatory output for data analysis. Moreover they can be used in order to define queries of a Relational Data Base and propagate concepts between Data Bases. We define "Symbolic Data Analysis" (SDA) as the extension of standard Data Analysis to symbolic data tables as input in order to find symbolic objects as output. Any SDA is based on four spaces: the space of individuals , the space of concepts, the space of descriptions modeling individuals or classes of individuals, the space of symbolic objects modeling concepts. Based on these four spaces, new problems appear such as the quality, robustness and reliability of the approximation of a concept by a symbolic object, the symbolic description of a class, the consensus between symbolic descriptions etc.. In this paper we give an overview on recent development in SDA. We present some tools and methods of SDA and introduce the SODAS software prototype (issued from the work of 17 teams of nine countries involved in an European project of EUROSTAT) .


As a special kind of grinding, honing is a typical low speed precision machining process, which is of low grinding speed, little grinding heat and little thermal-residual deformation of workpiece, suitable for precision machining of holes in the precision couples of internal-combustion engine. Experimental investigation on effects of process parameters on honing efficiency of small holes was put forward in this paper to obtain economical machining efficiency. Circumferential speed, reciprocate speed and working pressure of honing stone are the key factors which affect the machining efficiency and quality of honing. Taking it as a case study the honing of the small middle hole of the valve seat of balancing valve couples of internal combustion engines, honing experiments were carried out in this paper to investigate the relationships of material removing rate in rough honing versus circumferential speed, reciprocate speed and working pressure in honing of small holes. The results show that in honing of small holes the material removal rate in rough honing increases with circumferential speed, reciprocate speed and reticulate cross-angle increasing but decreases when the two speeds exceed certain critical values, and the surface quality in finishing honing is improved by increasing circumferential speed.


Abstract : The automatic nervous system is made up of two subsystems: the parasympathetic (PNS) and the sympathetic (SNS). The balance between these systems regulates bodily functioning during routine (PNS-dominant) and crisis (SNS-dominant) situations. It also controls visual accommodation for near (PNS-dominant) and far (SNS-dominant) focus. The balance between these physiological systems has been linked to individual differences in personality characteristics, especially introversion (PNS-dominant) and extraversion (SNS-dominant). Since the balance mediates accommodation, the similar personality differences between near- and far-sighted individuals may be related to the more general parasympathetic-sympathetic balance rather than being related solely to the visual capability difference. The relationships among autonomic balance (as measured by a battery of four physiological tests modified from Wenger and Ellington, 1943, and by a technique introduced by Porges, 1976), refractive error (measured by dark focus, near and far points using a polarized vernier optometer), and introversion - extraversion (Eysenck Personality Inventory introversion - extraversion scale core) were investigated.


Objective: We analyzed pure-tone and speech audiometric results from a prospective trial of anti-inflammatory treatment of subjects with active autoimmune inner ear disease (AIED).We sought to characterize the pattern and size of the treatment effect as reflected in clinical audiometry and to identify audiometric predictors of response to steroid treatment of AIED. Subjects: Adult participants demonstrated clinically established criteria for AIED (n = 116). Eligibility required audiometric evidence of active AIED as indicated by idiopathic sensorineural hearing loss with threshold elevations within 3 months of enrollment. Methods: We evaluated audiometric changes after 4 weeks of treatment with pharmacologic doses (60 mg/day) of prednisone. We examined the relationship between audiometric pure-tone thresholds at baseline and changes in word intelligibility score (WIS) using parametric and nonparametric analyses. Magnitudes of change were assessed using independent or paired t-tests. Separate analyses were performed on subgroups that did or did not show improved WIS score with steroid treatment. Results: Overall mean pure-tone averages improved from baseline to closeout of prednisone treatment in better hearing ears from 52.4 to 48.3 dB (p < .0001). Mean WIS improved in the better ear from 71.4% to 78.1% (p < .0001). Of pure-tone measures, only the six-tone average showed significant correlation with both the absolute improvements in WIS and with the percentage change in WIS after treatment. Individual frequencies at baseline showed no significant relationship with changes in WIS score after treatment. In 69 (59.5%) of 116 subjects, WIS improved (range, 2-80%) in the better ear. In these subjects, the baseline pure-tone thresholds and pure-tone averages correlated significantly and positively with improvement in WIS. Conclusions: Steroid treatment in AIED-mediated hearing loss produce variable but significant hearing gains. Neither a focal, cochleotopic region of greatest vulnerability to AIED nor frequency-specific amenability to treatment were evident. We did observe that analysis of predictors and the degree of treatment effect vary with different approaches to measuring change in the WIS. Depending on the approach adopted, the size of the treatment effect may be greatest across intermediate hearing levels at baseline. These observations offer an audiometric database that may enable greater precision in judging clinically meaningful parameters for future studies of AIED treatment and other interventions for sensorineural hearing loss.


This study, which was funded jointly by Wrexham Temperance Hall Trust, Wrexham Council Supporting People team and Wrexham and Flintshire Community Safety Office, explores patterns and profiles of homeless people with complex needs in Wrexham, North Wales.
The study draws primarily on the perceptions of a sample of providers of a wide range of services catering to the homeless in Wrexham, and on the perceptions of a sample of homeless people (including those who occupy supported accommodation). The aim of the study was to elicit key issues surrounding homelessness in Wrexham from the perspectives of these two groups. The presentation of key issues, in user accounts, is enhanced by the inclusion of five vignettes which tell abbreviated stories of a selection of some of the study's participants.
In addition to service provider and user perceptions, the report presents statistical data from a range of services catering to the needs of homeless people in Wrexham. While these data do not provide a complete picture, nor are they comparable in that different agencies do not collect the same type of data in the same way, they do highlight some important issues for services and their users.
Finally, a literature review on homelessness, which focusses primarily upon the UK and on Wales in particular, provides context to some of the report findings.


We consider a multi-source delivery system, where Raptor coding at sources and linear network coding in overlay nodes work in concert for efficient data delivery in networks with diversity. Such a combination permits to increase throughput and loss resiliency in multicast scenarios with possibly multiple sources. The network coding operations however change the degree distribution in the set of packets that reach the receivers, so that the low complexity decoding benefits of Raptor codes are unfortunately diminished. We propose in this paper to change the degree distribution at encoder, in such a way that the degree distribution after network coding operations recovers a form that leads to low complexity decoding. We first analyze how the degree distribution of the encoded symbols is altered by network coding operations and losses in a regular network. Then we formulate a geometric optimization problem in order to compute the best degree distribution for encoding at sources, such that the decoding complexity is low and close to Raptor decoders' performance. Simulations show that it is possible to maintain the low complexity decoding performance of Raptor codes even after linear network coding operations, as long as the coding at sources is adapted to the network characteristics.


We investigate a disordered single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) in an effective-medium supercell approximation (EMSCA). The first type of disorder that we consider is the presence of vacancies. Our results show that the vacancies induce some bound states on their neighbor host sites, leading to the creation of a band around the Fermi energy in the SWCNT average density of states. The second type of disorder considered is a substitutional BcbNcnC1˛cb˛cn alloy due to its applications in hetrojunctions. We found that for a fixed boron (nitrogen) concentration, by increasing the nitrogen (boron) concentration the averaged semiconducting gap Eg decreases and disappears at a critical concentration. A consequence of our results for nanoelectronic devices is that by changing the boron (nitrogen) concentration, one can make a semiconductor SWCNT with a predetermined energy gap.


ABSTRACT SABR for lung tumors is defined by use of accurate radiotherapy delivery, and high radiation doses delivered in 8 or fewer fractions. In patients who are unfit to undergo surgery, or who refuse an operation, ESMO guidelines recommend SABR as the treatment of choice, with a biological dose of at least 100 Gy delivered to the encompassing isodose [Vansteenkiste J, 2013]. Dose fractionation schedules are often 'risk adapted', which implies use of a lower radiation doses/ fraction for tumors abutting normal organs such as the chest wall or hilar blood vessels. Toxicity after SABR is uncommon, with radiation pneumonitis, chest wall pain and rib fractures being reported in 10% of fewer of patients in most series [Senan S, 2014]. Loss of lung function after SABR is limited, even in patients with poor pulmonary function [Guckenberger M, 2012; Stanic S, 2014]. However, patients with pre-existing interstitial lung disease have a higher incidence of symptomatic and fatal radiation pneumonitis [Senan S, 2014]. Evidence in support of the use of SABR in early-stage NSCLC comes mainly from population studies [Haasbeek CJ, 2012; Shirvani SM, 2012]. Data from two prospective randomized studies comparing SABR to conventionally-fractionated radiotherapy are awaited, but access to short, outpatient SABR treatment has reduced the rates of non-treatment in elderly patients. In patients who are at high-risk for surgical complications, as well as those at high risk for competing causes of mortality, the advantages of SABR are sufficiently evident as to merit informing all patients of this option [Palma D, 2013]. Three prospective randomized trials that compared SABR and surgery in operable cases have closed prematurely. The available data from 9 comparative effectiveness studies comparing SABR and surgery range from match-pair and propensity scoring analyses, Markov modeling, systematic reviews and retrospective series. Such data must be critically evaluated in the light of their strengths and weakness. Disclosure: S. Senan has received speakers honoraria and research support from Varian Medical Systems.


In this paper we show that, in the process of estimating the natural rate of interest and the potential level of output, together, the algorithmic techniques alongside the natural and unavoidable expert judgment tend – with a high likelihood – to generate systematic biases of estimates. We formulate the following hypothesis: (i) during downturns, the final values of the natural interest rate and of the potential output level are highly likely to be overestimated by integrating algorithmic extraction and the results yielded by the anchoring heuristic; (ii) during boom periods and especially in times of financial bubbles, the final values are highly likely to be overestimated by integrating algorithmic extractions with the results yielded by employing the representativeness heuristic. Shifting from optimism to pessimism and vice versa plays a key role in the selection of heuristics. The overestimation thus generated can be a serious obstacle to the proper conduct of monetary policy. For Romania, the hypothesis is confirmed. In the period from 2005 to 2010, the potential level of output and the natural rate were systematically overestimated during both the upturn of the business cycle and the recession, as well as during the recovery phase.


Kinking of endotracheal tube (ETT) is not an infrequent problem during general anesthesia. However, failure to secure free airway following airway obstruction due to kinking of endotracheal tube or other tube problems may lead to lethality instead of lifesaving. We describe a case of unexpected kinking of ETT intraorally while craniotomy was underway. The kink might result from over-bending of the softening tube in the oral cavity due to oral temperature and neck flexion. Early detection and immediate management of the ETT kinking may reduce the possibility of morbidity and mortality in anesthesia. It could be more difficult to carry out reintubation in such an awful situation when the operation was proceeding. In this case report we would like to highlight how to accurately and quickly diagnose and manage the ETT kinking intraorally while craniotomy was in process under anesthesia. Emphasis is also laid on the importance of properly positioning of the head and neck prior to any operation especially in craniotomy. Besides, the flexometallic (FM) or armoured endotracheal tubes may be good substitutes for the polyvinyl chloride (PVC) ones in preventing the ETT kinking during general anesthesia.


Abstract:Camilo Torres is widely known among Colombian left-wing political groups, student circles, and is a necessary reference for any edited volume about Marxism in Latin America; his image has become little more than a relic in the altar of the idealized Latin American Revolutionary sixties. In this article, I will come back to the texts of Camilo Torres to explore how he depicted a revolutionary change in Colombia that consisted in creating an expansive present of collective antagonism against a power-sharing bi-partisan government called El Frente Nacional. In 1964, Torres formed a political platform named El Frente Unido, which intended to boycott the presidential election through what he called an "active practice of abstention." This social and political movement was an instance of convergence where different sectors of the Colombian population congregated to make explicit their collective frustrations towards the established political order. El Frente Unido, I argue, was a nodal point where a myriad of hopes in a future change converged into a force to resist and reshape the political system from the inside, by insisting on the need to bring forth a new time based on popular revolt. I read Camilo Torres's writings about El Frente Unido as messages, one might say open letters, to different parts of the population. The calling also the texts of speeches delivered front of the most important unions of Colombia. These letters and speeches, I argue, are part of Camilo Torres's attempt to rally the Colombian population, through a message grounded in a certain vision of universality that insisted upon a non-hierarchical political organization as the basis for conceiving a new future. Torres's texts, therefore, constitute a theoretical approach to the temporal character of a revolutionary change. They elicit the extent to which the political arena emerges out of a series of ruptures within the present state of affairs, and, at the same time, they assert the importance of collective movements in terms of the future of revolutions.


Professor Numa P. Markee is Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (United States) where he teaches courses in Conversation Analysis, Second Language Acquisition, Task Based Language Teaching and in Language Program Administration. His principal research interests are in the area of ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis applied to Second Language Acquisition (CA-for-SLA), Discursive Psychology, socially distributed cognition, classroom research, the uses of technology in applied linguistics research and ESL teaching, and the management of curricular innovation. In addition to numerous journal articles and book chapters on CA-for-SLA – the main topic of the present interview – Prof. Markee has also published a book Conversation Analysis (2000). The interview took place in January 2012 on the occasion of a series of conferences and workshops on Conversation Analysis carried out by Prof. Markee at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (Spain) within the MA programme in Research on Language and Literature Education and as guest of the research group GREIP.


The Gram-negative outer-membrane envelops the bacterium and functions as a permeability barrier against antibiotics, detergents, and environmental stresses. Some virulence factors serve to maintain the integrity of the outer membrane, including DolP (formerly YraP) a protein of unresolved structure and function. Here, we reveal DolP is a lipoprotein functionally conserved amongst Gram-negative bacteria and that loss of DolP increases membrane fluidity. We present the NMR solution structure for Escherichia coli DolP, which is composed of two BON domains that form an interconnected opposing pair. The C-terminal BON domain binds anionic phospholipids through an extensive membrane:protein interface. This interaction is essential for DolP function and is required for sub-cellular localisation of the protein to the cell division site, providing evidence of subcellular localisation of these phospholipids within the outer membrane. The structure of DolP provides a new target for developing therapies that disrupt the integrity of the bacterial cell envelope.


The authors conducted formative research (a) to identify stakeholders' concerns related to typhoid fever and the need for disease information and (b) to develop a communication strategy to inform stakeholders and address their concerns and motivate for support of a school-based vaccination program in Pakistan. Data were collected during interactive and semi-structured focus group discussions and interviews, followed by a qualitative analysis and multidisciplinary consultative process to identify an effective social mobilization strategy comprised of relevant media channels and messages. The authors conducted 14 focus group discussions with the parents of school-aged children and their teachers, and 13 individual interviews with school, religious, and political leaders. Parents thought that typhoid fever was a dangerous disease, but were unsure of their children's risk. They were interested in vaccination and were comfortable with a school-based vaccination if conducted under the supervision of trained and qualified staff. Teachers and leaders needed information on typhoid fever, the vaccine, procedures, and sponsors of the vaccination program. Meetings were considered the best form of information dissemination, followed by printed materials and mass media. This study shows how qualitative research findings can be translated into an effective social mobilization and communication approach. The findings of the research indicated the importance of increasing awareness of typhoid fever and the benefits of vaccination against the disease. Identification and dissemination of relevant, community-based disease and vaccination information will increase demand and use of vaccination.


Lots of debates has been risen up about the genetic rapport among species of Apiaceae family. Till now there is no quite suitable contemporary categorization at hand. This study aimed at sequencing the 18S ribosomal RNA gene (ITS gene) in three plants in this family, namely; Apium graveolens, Petroselinum crispum and Coriandrum sativum. This is to see if there is any genetic variation among them. Briefly, the plants were collected and their DNA was extracted, exposed to PCR amplification and Sangar sequencing to determine the genetic sequence of the 18S rRNA gene of each specie and compare it with a reference gene from the gene bank. The results showed that the gene was 99% identical with that of the standard of the gene bank for each of the Coriandrum sativum and Apium graveolens. While the percentage was100 % for Petroselinum crispum. This suggests that the mentioned gene was identical in the three species and excludes the incidence of any significant variation within this gene.


Complex systems, realized by integration of several components or subsystems, pose specific problems to simulation environments. It is, in fact, desirable to simulate the complex system altogether, and not component by component, since the operation of the single part depends on the surrounding system and an early verification can prevent damages and save time for modifications. The availability of detailed and validated models of the single parts is therefore critical. This task may be difficult to achieve. In fact, in industrial applications, where a system can be a mix of different devices produced by different manufacturers, the physical device may not be accessible to the modeler for proprietary or safety concerns. Starting from this point, the idea of creating a virtual environment able to test the real single component remotely, employing simulators with remote signal processing capability, has been considered. A methodology for remote model validation is presented. The effectiveness of the approach is experimentally verified locally and remotely. For the remote testing, in particular, the physical device under test is located at the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, and the Virtual Test Bed model is located at the University of South Carolina.


We have investigated the formation of globular cluster (GC) systems in the fiducial semi-analytic model of galaxy formation of Cole et al., by assuming that GCs are formed at high-redshift (z > 5) in proto-galactic fragments, and during the subsequent gas-rich merging of these fragments. Under these assumptions we have simulated the GC systems of 450 elliptical galaxies, and find that the majority (93 %) are intrinsically bimodal in metallicity. We find that, in the mean, the metal-rich GC sub-populations are younger than the metal-poor GC sub-populations, with ages of 9 Gyr and 12 Gyr respectively, and that the mean ages of the metal-rich GCs are dependent upon host galaxy luminosity and environment (halo circular velocity), whereas the metalpoor GCs are not. We find that the continued gaseous merging of the proto-galactic fragments leads to significant age-structure amongst the metal-rich GCs. These GCs exhibit a large age-range (5 to 12 Gyr), which increases for low-luminosity galaxies, and for galaxies in low circular velocity haloes. Moreover, the metal-rich GCs associated with low-luminosity field and/or group ellipticals, are ∼ 2 Gyr younger than the metalrich GCs in luminous cluster ellipticals. We find the total GC populations scale with host galaxy luminosity as NGC ∝ L 1.25 V,gal, a result in agreement with observations of luminous elliptical galaxies. This scaling is due to a systematic increase in the M/L ratios of the galaxy haloes with luminosity for LV,gal > L∗ galaxies in the model. A comparison between the luminosity growth of the model ellipticals and their GC formation indicates that mergers do not significantly effect SN at z < 2. We find the mean colours of the both the metal-rich and metal-poor GCs exhibit only a weak dependence upon host galaxy luminosity, a result consistent with contemporary observations. We conclude that gaseous merging, the bulk of which occurs at 1 ≤ z ≤ 4 in our ΛCDM model, leads to the formation of the metal-rich peak of the GC systems of elliptical galaxies. We suggest that the formation and subsequent truncation of the metal-poor GCs in the proto-galactic fragments is closely related to the star formation rate in these fragments, which may have been significantly higher at very early times.


Background and Purpose— Initial National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score is highly predictive of outcome after ischemic stroke. We examined whether grouping strokes by presence of individual NIHSS symptoms could provide prognostic information additional or alternative to the NIHSS total score. Methods— Ischemic strokes from the Greater Cincinnati Northern Kentucky Stroke Study in 2005 were used to develop the model. Latent class analysis was implemented to form groups of patients with similar retrospective NIHSS (rNIHSS) item responses. Profile group was then used as an independent predictor of discharge modified Rankin and mortality, using logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards model. Results— A total of 2112 stroke patients were identified in 2005. Six distinct profiles were characterized. Consistent with the profile patterns, the median rNIHSS total score decreased from profile A "most severe" (median [interquartile range], 20 [15–25]) to profile F "mild" (1[1–2]). Two profiles falling between these extremes, C and D, both had median rNIHSS total score of 5, but different survival rates. Compared with A, C was associated with 59% risk reduction for death, whereas D with 70%. C patients were more likely to have decreased level of consciousness and abnormal language, whereas D patients were more likely to have abnormal right arm and right leg motor function. Conclusions— Six rNIHSS profiles were identifiable using latent class analysis. In particular, 2 symptom profiles with identical median rNIHSSS were observed with widely disparate outcomes, which may prove useful both clinically and for research studies as an enhancement to the overall NIHSS score.


Sepsis and antimicrobial stewardship programmes coexist in tension, as they can appear to have apparently opposing messages around antimicrobial prescribing. In the era of increasing antimicrobial resistance (AMR), there is a need for greater alignment between sepsis and antimicrobial stewardship governance and management programmes. Antimicrobial therapy is an essential part of sepsis management with a focus on time-dependent recognition and resuscitation pathways.1 Sepsis is a clinical diagnosis, and delay to first-dose antimicrobial is associated with increasing mortality.1 To avoid potential unintended consequences from inappropriate antimicrobial prescribing, including increased AMR and healthcare-associated infections such as Clostridioides difficile infection, antimicrobial stewardship strategies including de-escalation protocols and stopping antimicrobials in non-infective cases should be a fundamental component of sepsis quality improvement initiatives.2 Perceived tensions remain, however, between managing sepsis and effective antimicrobial stewardship, and these perceptions are likely to be heightened by media reporting of the issues.3 The purpose of this viewpoint is to discuss these tensions, and suggest that a change in mindset is required with an integrated understanding of sepsis and AMR as two sides of the same coin.

Media framing of sepsis and AMR has been identified as influencing public expectation of antimicrobial prescribing as well as health professionals' perceptions of optimal prescribing strategies. Sepsis media reports tend to use well-recognised triggers that increase public interest. These include emotive personal narratives that commonly centre on young patients, and which identify immediate solutions that are within the power of individual health professionals and the public (eg, increased awareness/recognition). In contrast, AMR is framed as a vague threat affecting future patients and involving multiple actors, often under the 'One Health' umbrella.4 Individual responsibility is diffused by presenting AMR as a global responsibility, which shares conceptual features with a 'problem of many hands',5 6 and the types …


This study examines the problem to select the most appealing investment destination among the EU countries for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows after the financial crisis in 2008. From the outbreak of the crisis to the recovery period, the need for companies to increase profits brings about the demand for market expansion and cheap resources.At this point, FDI as an important element of economic development in a global world requires deeper investigation. In this analysis, its indicators such as macroeconomic conditions, shares of markets in GDP and its growth rate, conditions of labour, natural and capital resources, availability of infrastructure and allocated time for doing business provide a general evaluation about all investment destinations in the EU. However, this general evaluation case is a question of a multi-criteria decision-making problem. The VIKOR (Vise Kriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje) algorithm is used in order to increase the reliability of evaluation. For, most crucially, unlike other multi-criteria decision making methods, the VIKOR method calculates the acceptable advantage and the acceptable stability of the countries under all the criteria after proposing a compromising solution.This study intends to introduce VIKOR as a newly developed multi-criteria decision-making method by using FDI indicators for ranking suitable investment destinations and reaching the best one for a four-year time period between 2010 - 2013.


We describe and discuss the applications of a logic programming language called Lygon. This language is based on linear logic, a logic designed with bounded resources in mind. Linear logic may be thought of as a generalisation of classical logic, and as a result Lygon contains various features which do not exist in (pure) Prolog, whilst maintaining all the features of (pure) Prolog. In this paper we describe various applications of this language, which include graph problems, and problems involving states and actions. In logic programming languages based on classical logic, it is possible to write elegant solutions for problems over acyclic graphs. By making use of properties of linear logic, it is possible to write similarly elegant solutions for cyclic graphs as well. As linear logic enables changes of state to be neatly expressed, it is straightforward to give Lygon solutions to problems such as the Yale shooting problem and the blocks world, and we give example solutions to


Pollutants posing health risks to human health and to the aquatic environment often occur in drinking and surface waters, as a result of disinfection practices, agricultural and industrial activities, wastewater discharges. Toxic pollutants belong to different chemical categories, including chlorination by-products, volatile and semivolatile organic compounds, insecticides (organochlorine and organophosphorous), herbicides (triazines and substituted ureas), metals and organotin compounds. Optimization of different analytical methods needed for their laboratory determination is necessary, since most of these pollutants have toxic effects when they are present even at trace concentrations in water. The investigation described here includes optimization of analytical methods applied in the Water and Air Quality Laboratory of the University of the Aegean for determination of 130 toxic pollutants in water, by means of gas chromatography with ECD, NPD, FPD and MS detection, Purge and Trap concentration, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with Diode Array Detection (DAD) and atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS). The methods described were selected for application to surface water and drinking water samples from Greece, after experimental modifications which resulted in the best analytical performance achievable with the particular instrumentation, expressed by the calculated recoveries and detection limits.


Understanding and controlling the interaction between nanoparticles and cell nuclei is critical to the development of the biomedical applications such as gene delivery, cellular imaging, and tumor therapy. Recent years have witnessed growing evidence that the size, shape, and the grafting density of the karyopherins ligands of nanoparticles provide a significant influence on the uptake mechanism of nanoparticles into cells; however, there is a lack of investigation into how these physical factors play a role in cellular nuclear uptake and how the nanoparticle enters the nucleus. Here we build a computational framework to parametrically evaluate the effects of the size, shape, and the grafting density of the karyopherins ligands of designed nanoparticles on their transport through the nuclear pore complex of a cell nucleus, so as to provide a novel scheme for nanoparticle design and precise nucleus-targeted therapy. Simulation results indicate that smaller spherical nanoparticles need to overcome a lower energy barrier than larger ones, and also that nanoparticles with large grafting density exhibited greatly altered dynamics during the active transport process. Moreover, we observed that the shape and morphology of nanoparticles unambiguously determined their nuclear uptake pathways. Nuclear uptake is determined by an intricate interplay between physicochemical particle properties and nucleus properties. Our work provides a systematic understanding for nuclear uptake of nanoparticles, viruses, and bacteria, and opens up a controllable design strategy for manipulating nanoparticle-nucleus interaction, with numerous applications in medicine, bio-imaging, and bio-sensing.


In everyday life, close relationship partners enact behaviors through which they may influence each other. To understand how these exchanges affect partners, previous research has emphasized the enactors' reports, the receivers' perceptions, or the congruence of the two. We developed a strategy based on classic signal detection theory that combined elements from these three approaches in a naturalistic daily experience study. Members of 58 heterosexual dating couples reported daily on their own behaviors and their perceptions of their partners' behaviors. Results showed that an enactor's beliefs about his or her behavior and the perceiver's interpretation combined to affect daily mood and relationship satisfaction. However, different patterns of results emerged for positive and negative behaviors, such that the enactor's perspective accounted for independent effects of negative behaviors. Results show the value of simultaneously considering the perspective of both parties in social interaction.


The objective of this work is to track the amount of metal complexes distributed in the extraction cell, collection vial, and tubing used in supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) systems after progressive removal of metal ions in supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2). Sodium diethyldithiocarbamate (NaDDC) and dibutylammonium dibutyldithiocarbamate (DBDC) ligands were used to form complexes with Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn and CO_2/5% methanol as a supercritical fluid. The mass balance of metal complexes were obtained before and after extraction, and metals in different locations in the system were flushed out using an organic solvent and nitric acid (HNO_3). These results infer that the stability constant (β) of the metal-ligand complex has a strong correlation with SFE. Because of the composition of the stainless-steel cell, Fe, Cr, and Ni or other trace elements in the cell might interfere with the mass balance of metal complexes in SFE due to an exchange mechanism taking place between the cell and the sample.


We would like to respond to the letter from Drs Foster and Clowes (Anaesthesia 1991; 4 6 701). For brevity, in our previous letter (Anaesthesia 1991, 46: 234) we did not expand on this case; however, we would state that, apart from airway management, this case was carried out in our normal way. It is our practice to extubate patients' tracheas when they are stable. In our unit the median duration of ventilation is 60 minutes and the median time to extubation 2 hours. Seventy-two percent of patients are self-ventilating at 2 hours, and 53% have been extubated by this time. We are fortune that in our unit, the cardiac recovery ward is part of the operating theatres and one or more of the authors are immediately available for postsurgical management. Whilst we too would not defend the use of the laryngeal mask airway in an ITU where staff are unfamiliar with it, we would like to point out that tracheostomy prior to sternotomy and cardiopulmonary bypass with heparinisation is not without complication, and should not be undertaken lightly. The long-term complication of mediastinal sepsis associated with early tracheostomy is also well recognised. As in all instances, the anaesthesic technique used must depend on the patient, personnel, and facilities available.


: Turcot syndrome is an association of primary neuroepithelial tumors of the central nervous system with adenomatous polyposis coli. It is a genetic disorder, with two forms; In type I, glioblastomas are usually associated with hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPC or Lynch). In Type II, medulloblastomas are often associated with familial adenomatous polyposis coli (classical or attenuated). This patient had a medulloblastoma at seven years of age, then 20 years later developed a meningioma which recurred several times. At 36 years old he presented with anemia after digestive bleeding, and an adenomatous polyposis coli with high grade dysplasia was found at colonoscopy. As far as we know, this is the first case of Turcot syndrome described in our country.


This paper proposes a new degree computationless modified Euclid (DCME) algorithm and its dedicated architecture for Reed-Solomon (RS) decoder. This architecture has low hardware complexity compared with conventional modified Euclid (ME) architectures, since it can completely remove the degree computation and comparison circuits. The architecture employing a systolic array requires only the latency of 2t clock cycles to solve the key equation without initial latency. In addition, the DCME architecture using 3t+2 basic cells has regularity and scalability since it uses only one processing element. Hence, the proposed DCME architecture provides the short latency and low-cost RS decoding. The DCME architecture has been synthesized using the 0.25-mum Faraday CMOS standard cell library and operates at 200 MHz. The gate count of the DCME architecture is 21 760. Hence, the RS decoder using the proposed DCME architecture can reduce the total gate count by at least 23% and the total latency to at least 10% compared with conventional ME decoders


Accommodative blurring of distance visual acuity is a common problem among young patients being treated for glaucoma with pilocarpine. A single case is reported in which a clip-on prescription was given to alleviate such problems. The development of accommodative blur following instillation of pilocarpine is monitored. The dioptric changes required to restore distance acuity to 20/20 are also monitored.


While study abroad homestays are often credited with providing opportunities for language and cultural learning, at times they can be characterized by communicative, cross-cultural, or interpersonal discord. In documenting these conflicts and their consequences, research to date has relied largely on students' self-reports, often focusing on their negative effect on students' orientations to learning. Grounded in Vygotskian sociocultural theory, this study adopts a longitudinal approach to the multimodal, multisensory process of learning table etiquette in Chinese homestays, including the perspectives of both hosts and students. Analysis of communicative interactions, photographs, diaries, and interviews reveals that the hosts directed students' attention to their inadequate etiquette at mealtimes through contextualized directives and accusations. These face-threatening acts stipulated dos and don'ts while also ultimately cultivating some habits of virtuous eating. Over time, face-threatening acts became repertoires of communicative resources invoked by students to control their social and mental activity. The findings suggest that students and hosts can collaboratively resolve homestay problems, transforming them into opportunities for learning.


The thermal and electrical performance of the solar photovoltaic (PV) panel of a solar photovoltaic thermal (PVT) air system is determined experimentally in the present work. For this purpose, a data acquisition system was developed indigenously using ATMEL MEGA 2560 and ATMEL 328 microcontrollers. The parameters measured were PV panel surface temperature, inlet and outlet air temperatures, PV current, and voltage. The parameters were also compared with those of a reference PV system to demonstrate the effect of cooling of PV panel on its electrical power output. The experiments were performed in the locality of Tiruchirappalli, Tamilnadu, India (11 deg N latitude, 79 deg E longitude) and the working of the PV data acquisition was tested for a period of 3 months from February to April 2017. The results indicate acceptable working of the indigenously developed PV/PVT data acquisition system.


Using comprehensive data on the Danish population, this paper examines the determinants of entrepreneurs' choices of where to locate their new ventures. Our findings suggest that entrepreneurs place much more emphasis on being close to family and friends than on regional characteristics that might influence the performance of their ventures when deciding where to locate those businesses. Two factors could explain our findings: On the one hand, entrepreneurs may simply value proximity to family and friends. On the other hand, these relationships may help them to assemble the assets and to recruit the personnel that they need to succeed in their ventures. Our results suggest that the former plays the greater role in entrepreneurs' location choices. European Management Review (2009) 6, 172–181. doi:10.1057/emr.2009.14


The mass deployment of gas masks to an entire population, which occurred in Israel prior to the Persian Gulf crisis and their use in early 1991, were phenomena without precedent. In addition to the historical significance, there were considerable health and psychological ramifications. This research examines the experiences of the Israeli public during the Gulf war using a qualitative methodological approach, narrative analysis. Interviews of a convenience sample of 60 patients attending primary care clinics were audio-recorded by three family physicians using an open-ended interview guide. Encounters took place at sites located in the north, south and centre of the country during the period of Iraqi missile attacks. Patients' stories were analysed using a multistep narrative analysis protocol. Seventy per cent of subjects reported deleterious health effects related to the missile attacks or civil defence measures, mainly psychological and neurological complaints, sleep disorders, gastrointestinal and respiratory symptoms. Recurrent themes and metaphors in the narratives most often focused on the difference of this war to others, the central involvement of the family, concern for children and identification and connection to the nation. The Scud missile attacks combined with the civil defence measures had significant impact on the population, as manifested in subjects' stories, symptoms, symbols and behaviour. Narrative analysis provided an efficient method to capture the rich texture of patients' experiences.


PURPOSE
The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effects of thione and phosphate functional monomers on bond strength and durability of a methacrylic resin luting agent joined to silver-palladium based alloy and titanium.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Disk specimens of two different sizes (10 mm and 8 mm in diameter by 2.5 mm thickness) were prepared from silver-palladium-copper-gold (Ag-Pd-Cu-Au) alloy and titanium. The specimens were ground with abrasive paper, and divided into four groups based on the following conditions: 1) unprimed control; 2) priming with Alloy Primer (thione and phosphate); 3) priming with Estenia Opaque Primer (phosphate); and 4) priming with VPrimer (thione). The disks were bonded with tri-n-butylborane (TBB)-initiated resin, and shear bond strengths were determined both before and after thermocycling.

RESULTS
The Alloy Primer and V-Primer agents containing a triazine dithione monomer (VTD) bonded the Ag-Pd-Cu-Au alloy, whereas the Alloy Primer and Estenia Opaque Primer agents containing a hydrophobic phosphate monomer (MDP) bonded titanium. The reduction in bond strength after 20,000 thermocycles was not remarkable for the two groups (Alloy Primer and Ag-Pd-Cu-Au alloy; V-Primer and Ag-Pd-Cu-Au alloy).

CONCLUSION
The thione monomer was effective in bonding the Ag-Pd-Cu-Au alloy, whereas the phosphate monomer was useful for bonding titanium. The thione did not interfere with the bonding of MDP to titanium, and MDP did not negatively affect bonding of VTD to the Ag-Pd-Cu-Au alloy. The combinations of two thione primers and the Ag-Pd-Cu- Au alloy exhibited the best adhesive performance within the limitations of the current experiment.


We study robust reinforcement learning (RL) with the goal of determining a well-performing policy that is robust against model mismatch between the training simulator and the testing environment. Previous policy-based robust RL algorithms mainly focus on the tabular setting under uncertainty sets that facilitate robust policy evaluation, but are no longer tractable when the number of states scales up. To this end, we propose two novel uncertainty set formulations, one based on double sampling and the other on an integral probability metric. Both make large-scale robust RL tractable even when one only has access to a simulator. We propose a robust natural actor-critic (RNAC) approach that incorporates the new uncertainty sets and employs function approximation. We provide finite-time convergence guarantees for the proposed RNAC algorithm to the optimal robust policy within the function approximation error. Finally, we demonstrate the robust performance of the policy learned by our proposed RNAC approach in multiple MuJoCo environments and a real-world TurtleBot navigation task.


In a recent paper Abrahams & Wickham showed how to exactly solve the diffraction problem for two parallel semi-infinite plates that are arranged to form a duct. The edges of the plates are misaligned so that the geometry is asymmetric with respect to the central line of the duct. In this paper we examine in detail the effect of this asymmetry on the field radiated from the duct when a fundamental travelling mode is excited within it, and the scattered field when a plane wave is excited at infinity. To evaluate the field in either case it is first necessary to solve the integral equations derived in our paper. Here we show how this is effected using the expansion theorem also enunciated in that paper. This solution is then used to calculate a number of physically interesting quantities such as the variation of the energy capture by the duct (when irradiated by an incident plane wave) as the stagger is increased and the asymmetric radiation pattern from an incident duct mode. The numerical computations are checked using an energy balance argument and, finally, a simple heuristic approximation is given for the scattering problem that in many situations accurately reproduces the essential physical characteristics of the solution.


Market-purchased, week-old, dairy bred calves entering a commercial calf-rearing unit were blood sampled at six-week intervals until three months old. Viral infections were monitored by ELISA for antibodies to bovine herpesvirus 1, bovine respiratory syncytial virus, parainfluenzavirus-3, bovine adenovirus subgroup 1 and bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV). The immunoperoxidase test was used to detect BVDV in serum. The total immunoglobulin concentration in the initial blood sample was measured by the zinc sulphate turbidity test. The relationship between clinical respiratory disease, viral seroconversion and the initial concentration of serum immunoglobulin was investigated by the use of the relative risk statistic, Fisher's exact test, chi 2 techniques and the correlation coefficient. Treatment rates for respiratory disease of 45 per cent were observed during the first period of the study and 19 per cent during the second period. During the first period there was a significant positive association between clinical respiratory disease and seroconversion for all the viruses except parainfluenzavirus-3 and BVDV but in the second period there was no such relationship. Similarly, in the first period, but not in the second, there was a significant negative association between clinical respiratory disease and both antiviral immunoglobulin as measured by ELISA and total immunoglobulin as measured by the zinc sulphate turbidity test. Two of the 536 calves that survived to three months of age were found to be persistently infected with BVDV.


Although the unsupervised discovery and localization of common objects from within a set of images has received considerable attention, the difficulty of this task means that current methods are not sufficiently accurate. This paper describes an unsupervised method that more accurately discovers and localizes common particular objects within a set of images. First, our method constructs a match graph that precisely represents the relationship among particular object proposals extracted from images. The match graph necessarily contains communities, i.e., subgraphs where object proposals with identical subjects are densely connected by edges, indicating matches between local image features in the proposals. Our method determines the common particular objects by scoring the object proposals using a novel node centrality measure for graphs with a community structure, which we call the restrained random-walk centrality. Experiments demonstrate that our method is considerably more accurate than previous approaches on a particular object image set.


NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase 1 (NQO1) is a cytosolic protein that catalyzes metabolic detoxification of quinones and protects cells against redox cycling and oxidative stress. NQO1-null mice deficient in NQO1 protein showed increased sensitivity to 7,12-dimethylbenz(a)anthracene- and benzo(a)pyrene-induced skin carcinogenesis. In the present studies, we show that benzo(a)pyrene metabolite benzo(a)pyrene-trans-7,8-dihydrodiol-9,10-epoxide and not benzo(a)pyrene quinones contributed to increased benzo(a) pyrene-induced skin tumors in NQO1-null mice. An analysis of untreated skin revealed an altered intracellular redox state due to accumulation of NADH and reduced levels of NAD/NADH in NQO1-null mice as compared with wild-type mice. Treatment with benzo(a)pyrene failed to significantly increase p53 and apoptosis in the skin of NQO1-null mice when compared with wild-type mice. These results led to the conclusion that altered intracellular redox state along with lack of induction of p53 and decreased apoptosis plays a significant role in increased sensitivity of NQO1-null mice to benzo(a)pyrene-induced skin cancer.


BACKGROUND
Neonatal cerebral imaging is a sensitive technique for evaluating brain injury in the neonatal period. When performing computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging, sedation is needed to prevent motion artifacts. However, general anesthesia in neonates carries significant risks and requires a complex logistic approach that often limits the use of these modalities. The development of infant immobilizers now enables imaging without general anesthesia and significantly increases clinical and research investigational opportunities.

OBJECTIVES
To assess the efficacy of the infant immobilizer instead of general anesthesia for infants undergoing imaging.

METHODS
The study group comprised all infants born over a 1 year period at Soroka University Medical Center who required imaging such as MRI, CT or bone scans. A MedVac Vacuum Splint infant immobilizer was used in all infants to prevent motion during imaging. The success rate of a single scan and the need for general anesthesia were assessed.

RESULTS
Forty infants were examined during 1 year. The studies included 15 CT scans, 25 MRIs and 1 bone scan. The infants' gestational age at birth was 27-40 weeks and the examinations were performed at ages ranging from delivery to 6 months old. All imaging was successful and none of the infants required general anesthesia.

CONCLUSIONS
An infant immobilizer should be used for imaging of newborns. Since this method carries a low risk and has a high success rate, general anesthesia in newborns is justified only when this non-invasive procedure fails.


Minute adenocarcinoma in a multi-focal biopsy (no less than 12 posts) on the prostate was detected in 12.62% of 507 cases of adenocarcinoma. Radical retropubic prostatectomy was carried out in 12 out of 64 (18.75%) patients with minute adenocarcinoma in a multi-focal biopsy. Latent prostate cancer was detected in 5 out of 12 surgical patients (42+28%: p=0.95). Out of 64 cases of minute adenocarcinoma in a biopsy, the expected number of latent prostate cancers was 27. Our data may be used in search for and investigation of clinico-morphologica criteria of detecting latent prostate cancer prior to therapy.


Federated learning (FL) has enabled training models collaboratively from multiple data owning parties without sharing their data. Given the privacy regulations of patient's healthcare data, learning-based systems in healthcare can greatly benefit from privacy-preserving FL approaches. However, typical model aggregation methods in FL are sensitive to local model updates, which may lead to failure in learning a robust and accurate global model. In this work, we implement and evaluate different robust aggregation methods in FL applied to healthcare data. Furthermore, we show that such methods can detect and discard faulty or malicious local clients during training. We run two sets of experiments using two real-world healthcare datasets for training medical diagnosis classification tasks. Each dataset is used to simulate the performance of three different robust FL aggregation strategies when facing different poisoning attacks. The results show that privacy preserving methods can be successfully applied alongside Byzantine-robust aggregation techniques. We observed in particular how using differential privacy (DP) did not significantly impact the final learning convergence of the different aggregation strategies.


Abstract Among the methods that have been devised to test physical parameterizations used in general circulation models, one of the most promising involves the use of field data together with single-column models (SCMs) and/or cloud ensemble models. Here the authors briefly discuss the data requirements of such models and then give several examples of their use. Emphasis is on parameterizations of convection and cloud amount.


A sizable proportion of patients with pericardial effusion (PE) are asymptomatic, and PE constitutes an incidental and unexpected finding on roentgenogram or echocardiogram performed for other reasons. Here we report a patient where the increasingly severe chronic PE causes not hemodynamic problems rather than indirect accumulation space symptoms due to the accumulation of fluid and the gradual growth of the pericardial sac in the chest cavity. A pleuropericardial window completely released these symptoms. The needs of new guidelines on the management of chronic PE should be stressed.


Background: Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is the most aggressive form of lung cancer. The chemotherapy regimens and their efficacy in practice are seldom reported. We aimed to investigate treatment patterns and survival outcomes of patients with SCLC in Taiwan. Methods: Patients newly diagnosed with SCLC from 2011 to 2015 were identified from the Cancer Registry database. Their clinical characteristics, treatment regimens, and survival status were obtained from National Health Insurance Research database. The Kaplan–Meier method and Cox-proportional hazard model were used to analyze the survival outcomes. Results: Among a total of 2707 patients enrolled, 439 were in the limited stage (LS, 16.22%) and 2268 were in the extensive stage of the disease (ES, 83.78%). The median age was 66 and the majority were male (90.36%). The first-line regimen used for the patients was etoposide/cisplatin-based treatment, followed by etoposide/carboplatin-based regimen, and etoposide only. The median overall survival (OS) was 16.92 months (95% confidence interval [CI] 15.31–18.92) and 8.71 months (95% CI 8.38–9.07) in LS and ES patients, respectively. Chemotherapy regimen, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status, and history of radiotherapy were significant factors associated with OS. On the other hand, the major second-line treatment was a topotecan-based regimen (68.3%). However, this showed inferior survival outcome compared to etoposide-based regimen (5.09 months [95% CI 4.76–5.62] versus 8.77 months [95% CI 6.31–11.89], p < 0.001). Conclusion: Etoposide is the preferred and superior first-line chemotherapy regimen in combination with platinum, and an alternative choice of second-line regimen for Taiwanese patients with SCLC.


This Article looks at the importance of teaching law graduates to be ethical lawyers. The author hypothesizes that the current versions of the ethical rules and the structure of law firms have the potential to encourage the professionalization of ethics rather than connecting all practitioners to the values of professional responsibility. This Article sets out the factors that contribute to the increased professionalization of professional responsibility in large law firms. These factors are the need for lawyers to always be accessible, the pressure to specialize in a specific field, and the complexity of the ethics rules as written. The author argues that as a whole the ethics rules need to be more accessible to the ordinary, non-expert practitioner, would be a valuable contribution. The three specific proposals are the creation of specialty-specific ethics education, acknowledge the contribution of the ethics specialists, and to draft the ethics rules differently. The goal of this new approach is to "de-professionalize" ethics and remind each lawyer of her obligation to be an ethical practitioner


In the majority of patients with breast cancer in the advanced stages, skeletal metastases are common, which may cause excruciating pain. Currently available drug treatments for relief of breast cancer-induced bone pain (BCIBP) include non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and strong opioid analgesics along with inhibitors of osteoclast activity such as bisphosphonates and monoclonal antibodies such as denosumab. However, these medications often lack efficacy and/or they may produce serious dose-limiting side effects. In the present study, we show that J-2156, a somatostatin receptor type 4 (SST4 receptor) selective agonist, reverses pain-like behaviors in a rat model of BCIBP induced by unilateral intra-tibial injection of Walker 256 breast cancer cells. Following intraperitoneal administration, the ED50 of J-2156 for the relief of mechanical allodynia and mechanical hyperalgesia in the ipsilateral hindpaws was 3.7 and 8.0 mg/kg, respectively. Importantly, the vast majority of somatosensory neurons in the dorsal root ganglia including small diameter C-fibers and medium-large diameter fibers, that play a crucial role in cancer pain hypersensitivities, expressed the SST4 receptor. J-2156 mediated pain relief in BCIBP-rats was confirmed by observations of a reduction in the levels of phosphorylated extracellular signal-regulated kinase (pERK), a protein essential for central sensitization and persistent pain, in the spinal dorsal horn. Our results demonstrate the potential of the SST4 receptor as a pharmacological target for relief of BCIBP and we anticipate the present work to be a starting point for further mechanism-based studies.


Aplastic crisis in sickle cell anaemia has been associated with infection by a serum parvovirus-like virus (SPLV). Reports of outbreaks of these crises in hereditary spherocytosis (HS) were investigated to see if the data were consistent with a single agent such as SPLV being their cause. The age distribution of the cases and the pattern of spread were compatible with an infectious aetiology. The symptoms and duration of the cases, and the intervals between them, were sufficiently uniform to indicate that they were caused wholly or predominantly by a single agent with an incubation period of about nine days. There were close similarities between these illnesses and recognised cases of SPLV infection. It is concluded that SPLV is probably the main cause of aplastic crisis in HS.


Palatal tremor (PT) is a rhythmic movement of the soft palate that often causes an ear click. PT can be symptomatic (SPT) or essential (EPT). The symptomatic form usually occurs in adults and the essential form mainly occurs in children. Several different treatments for EPT in children appear in the literature with variable reported efficacy. This report details four paediatric patients with EPT (three males, one female; mean age 6y 4mo [SD 6mo]; age at onset 6-7y) treated with piracetam (2-oxo-1-pyrrolidine acetamide). Piracetam was used to treat EPT because of its antimyoclonic properties. All children showed a good response to doses of 100 to 300mg/kg/day. EPT relapsed on withdrawal of piracetam and remitted on reintroduction. Piracetam's effect on EPT was sustained. It is concluded that piracetam is an effective drug for the treatment of EPT in children.


We report on Terahertz (THz) detectors based on III-V high-electron-mobility field-effect transistors (FET). The detection results from a rectification process that is still highly efficient far above frequencies where the transistor provides gain. Several detector layouts have been optimized for specific applications at room temperature: we show a broadband detector layout, where the rectifying FET is coupled to a broadband logarithmic-periodic antenna. Another layout is optimized for mixing of two orthogonal THz beams at 370 GHz or, alternatively, 570 GHz. A third version uses a large array of FETs with very low access resistance allowing for detection of very short high-power THz pulses. We reached a time resolution of 20 ps.


A numerical simulator for analysis of multispectral passive microwave mapping and retrieval is described. This simulator allows evaluation and optimization of satellite-based cloud and precipitation parameter retrieval algorithms. It contains three major components: the forward radiative transfer model, the sensor observation model, and the parameter retrieval algorithm. Simulated spaceborne observations of an oceanic tropical squall sampled at five stages in time are demonstrated for a simplified version of the proposed Earth Observation System (EOS) Multifrequency Imaging Microwave Radiometer (MIMR). The simulator uses a nonlinear statistical retrieval algorithm consisting of a Karhunen-Loeve (KL) transform, a projection operator, a nonlinear inverse mapping and a linear minimum mean-square error estimator. Retrievals of rain rate and integrated ice content are performed for each evolutionary frame at both full spatial resolution (1.5 km) and the degraded spatial resolution of a MIMR-class system. Results are presented for both KL-based and brightness temperature-based retrieval algorithms. It is found that the KL-based algorithm has a reduced complexity and performs better than the brightness temperature-based algorithm for degraded resolution imagery, especially for rain rate retrievals. In addition, rain rate retrievals are more affected by low image resolution than are integrated ice content retrievals. Retrieval accuracy of both rain and integrated ice is also found to depend on the evolutionary stage of the storm. >


The ability of predators to reduce prey populations is generally ascribed to the consumption of prey individuals. However, predators may also induce behavioral chang- es in prey individuals, which can reduce prey survival and reproduction. Pea aphid pop- ulations are impacted by a variety of predators, many of which induce escape responses in individual aphids. We created disturbance-only predators (surgically manipulated pred- ators that were unable to consume prey, but were still able to forage and interact with prey) and measured their ability to suppress aphid population growth over a six-day period. The greatest reduction in aphid population growth was caused by normal predators that were able to both consume and disturb aphids, but aphid population growth was also strongly reduced by nonconsumptive, disturbance-only predators. These field experiments are the first to show that predators reduce prey population growth partly through predator-induced changes in prey behavior, as well as through consumption of prey individuals.


INTRODUCTION: The question of whether the practice of professional supervision is effective, and how its effectiveness can be measured, has been debated by both social work and other professions. This study explored how practitioners, supervisors and managers in Aotearoa New Zealand currently evaluate the supervision they receive, provide and/or resource.  The study was interprofessional involving counsellors, mental health nurses, psychologists and social workers. This article focuses on the findings from the social work cohort. METHODS: Through an on-line Qualtrics survey participants were asked: 1) how they currently evaluated professional/clinical supervision; and 2) how they thought professional/clinical supervision could be evaluated. Data were extracted through the Qualtrics reporting functions and thematic analysis was used to identify themes. A total of 329 participants completed the survey of which 145 (44%) were social workers.  FINDINGS : A majority of the social work participants reported that they evaluated supervision in some form. No culture or policy emerged regarding supervision evaluation, but social workers expressed interest in training and resources to assist evaluation and some saw a supportive and endorsement role for the professional or regulatory bodies. An unexpected finding was reports of unsatisfactory and harmful supervision. CONCLUSION: Evaluation of supervision is an activity with which social workers engage, but further research is needed to explore how evaluation can be embedded in supervision practice. More critically, a broader audit is required to reconsider the definition and model of social work supervision in Aotearoa New Zealand and the environments within which supervision occurs.


Background: Tropical lowland rainforests are threatened by deforestation and degradation worldwide. Relatively little research has investigated the degradation of the forests of South-east Asia and its impact on biodiversity, and even less research has focused on the important peat swamp forests of Indonesia, which experienced major losses through severe fires in 2015. Methods: We acoustically sampled the avifauna of the Berbak National Park in 2013 in 12 sites split in three habitats: primary swamp forest, secondary swamp forest, and shrub swamp, respectively representing non-degraded, previously selectively logged, and burned habitats. We analysed the species richness, abundance, vocalisation activity, and community composition across acoustic counts, sites, feeding guilds and IUCN Red List categories. We also analysed community-weighted means of body mass, wing length, and distribution area. Results: The avifauna in the three habitats was remarkably similar in richness, abundance and vocalisation activity, and communities mainly differed due to a lower prevalence of understory insectivores (Old-World Babblers, Timaliidae) in shrub swamp. However primary forest retained twice as many conservation-worthy species as shrub swamp, which harboured heavier, probably more mobile species, with larger distributions than those of forest habitats. Conclusions: The National Park overall harboured higher bird abundances than nearby lowland rainforests. Protecting the remaining peat swamp forest in this little-known National Park should be a high conservation priority in the light of the current threats coming from wildlife trade, illegal logging, land use conversion, and man-made fires.


Access to credit significantly influences land leasing decisions, and thus ultimately has a significant implication on ensuring efficiency in agricultural production. This paper attempts to examine the instrumental role of credit in ensuring efficiency in the context of West Bengal agriculture by disaggregating the analysis for two mutually exclusive groups: bank customers and non-bank customers. Empirical analysis based on Stochastic Frontier Analysis confirms that farming households having access to formal credit are, in general, practicing cultivation more efficiently by channelizing credit in the utilization of agricultural inputs. In addition, contractual arrangements and operated farm size are found to be significant determinants of observed variation of technical efficiency estimates in case of bank customers. In the context of higher probability of access to credit in case of fixed rent tenants and large farmers, it can be argued that farmers having access to credit achieved a higher efficiency level by adopting the improved technology in agricultural production. Thus an access to institutional credit would provide an incentive to the farmers to adjust the operational land by the mechanism of tenurial contract so as to bring about efficiency in agricultural production.


In this work, we present a numerical model to solve the drift diffusion equations coupled with electromagnetic model, where all simulations codes are implemented using MATLAB code software. As first, we present a one-dimensional (1-D) PIN diode structure simulation achieved by solving the drift diffusion model (DDM). Backward Euler algorithm is used for the discretization of the proposed model. The aim is to accomplish time-domain integration. Also, finite different method (FDM) is considered to achieve space-Domain mesh. We introduced an iterative scheme to solve the obtained matrix systems, which combines the Gummel's iteration with an efficient direct numerical UMFPACK method. The obtained solutions of the proposed algorithm provide the time and space distribution of the unknown functions like electrostatic potential and carrier's concentration for the PIN diode. As second case, the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) technique is adopted to analyze the entire 3-D structure of the stripline circuit including the lumped element PIN diode. The microwave circuit is located in an unbounded medium, requiring absorbing boundaries to avoid nonphysical reflections. Active device results were presented and show a good agreement with other reference. Electromagnetic results are qualitatively in agreement with other results obtained using SILVACO-TCAD.


The ongoing accessibility of digital material is challenged by the constantly changing environment in which it exists. In particular, application profiles are threatened by a number of factors such as loss of context, social change and linguistic change. In this paper, we draw on observations taken from a number of application domains to build simple mathematical models for community growth and change, to explore the impact of community structure on the sustainability model required for application profiles over time. Finally, we discuss the use of similar models in evaluating application profile sustainability in general, and lessons to be drawn for DCMI.


Natural language explanation (NLE) models aim at explaining the decision-making process of a black box system via generating natural language sentences which are human-friendly, high-level and fine-grained. Current NLE models11Throughout this paper, we refer to NLE models as Natural Language Explanation models aimed for vision and vision-language tasks. explain the decision-making process of a vision or vision-language model (a.k.a., task model), e.g., a VQA model, via a language model (a.k.a., explanation model), e.g., GPT. Other than the additional memory resources and inference time required by the task model, the task and explanation models are completely independent, which disassociates the explanation from the reasoning process made to predict the answer. We introduce NLX-GPT, a general, compact and faithful language model that can simultaneously predict an answer and explain it. We first conduct pre-training on large scale data of image-caption pairs for general understanding of images, and then formulate the answer as a text prediction task along with the explanation. Without region proposals nor a task model, our resulting overall framework attains better evaluation scores, contains much less parameters and is 15× faster than the current SoA model. We then address the problem of evaluating the explanations which can be in many times generic, data-biased and can come in several forms. We therefore design 2 new evaluation measures: (1) explain-predict and (2) retrieval-based attack, a selfevaluation framework that requires no labels. Code is at: https://github.com/fawazsammani/nlxgpt.


In this paper, two problems related to the simulation of virtual environments for haptic systems are considered. The first problem is how to simulate, in discrete time and with low computational effort, dynamic systems in order to preserve their passivity properties. As a matter of fact, simulation of complex systems in real time may lead to undesired effects, like unstable behaviours of the haptic interface, if proper care is not given to the definition of the simulation algorithm. An algorithm is presented here able to maintain the passivity properties of the physical (simulated) system with a reduced computational complexity. The second problem discussed in this paper is the interconnection of algorithms running at different frequencies, i.e., the control algorithm of the haptic interface (running typically at high frequency) and the algorithm simulating the virtual environment (running at lower frequency). A proper software interface, able to connect these two algorithms in an energetic-consistent manner, is presented and discussed. The general framework of both these techniques is the passivity theory and the so-called port-Hamiltonian formalism.


Abstract : The dispute between at least six riparian nations over jurisdictional rights to large tracts of the South China Sea continues to reign as one of the most likely flashpoints in the Asia-Pacific theater. The intentions of the chief protagonist in the conflict, China, will in large measure determine whether this dilemma will be resolved peacefully or violently. Relying on three case studies that focus on China's takeover of the Paracel Islands in 1974, its occupation of six reefs in 1988, and subsequent reef-hopping incidents in 1992 and 1995, this study highlights the conditions under which China expanded its presence in the South China Sea. Based on emerging trends, this thesis asserts that resource competition will most likely spark future violence in the South China Sea, and that domestic pressures within China commit Beijing to a course of hard-shell revanchism. At the same time, regional sensitivities to Chinese 'hegemony' and the correlation of military forces that weakly favor China suggest China will strive to avoid or contain a conflict over the near term. By profiling the character and turning of past Chinese 'aggression' in the South China Sea, this thesis also exposes the stratagems by which Chinese armed forces have pursued national objectives in the region.


As a renewable alternative energy source, biomass is currently receiving serious attention as a means to meet energy demands. Palm kernel shell (PKS) has been selected from among other oil palm wastes for thermochemical conversion studies for the purpose of solid/liquid fuel production. In this study, the influence of the washing pretreatment process was observed by treating PKS feedstock with various types of washing medium to observe the impact of treated and untreated feedstock on pyrolysis yield and product characteristics. The washing mediums tested were reverse osmosis (RO), tap water and distilled water. Meanwhile, 5% dilute acetic acid and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) were prepared as mildly acidic and alkaline washing media, respectively. The highest percentage of ash reduction was clearly found in the treated PKS soaked in distilled water, reaching 43.05%. Untreated PKS was pyrolysed between 300°C to 500°C to observe the yield distribution of pyrolysis products, while treated PKS was pyrolysed at 400°C to investigate the influence of ash content on pyrolysis yields and product characteristics. Under the temperature profile, the highest yield of char was obtained at 300°C, amounting to approximately 54.40 wt%; meanwhile, the pyrolysis liquid yield reached its maximum at a temperature of 400°C but then decreased with further increases in temperature. For the treated PKS series, the highest char yield was produced from PKS treated with diluted alkaline, at 46.96 wt%, while the maximum yield of pyrolysis liquid was 46.01 wt% from PKS treated with diluted acid. The energy content in char was seen to increase as the ash content became lower. The presence of ash, which acts as a catalyst, promotes secondary reactions during pyrolysis and is thus considered a significant contributor to high water fractions in the organic liquid yield. Suggestions for improving the quality of pyrolysis products are also discussed in relation to this study.


Coarse Particles and Dust Storm Mortality In a paper titled "Episodes of High Coarse Partide Concentrations Are Not Associated with Increased Mortality," Schwartz et al. (1) concluded that "coarse particles from windblown dust are not associated with mortality risk." The authors seem to have overlooked the medical literature on the health effects of the historic U.S. dust storms of the dust bowl in 1935 (2-4). Brown et al. (2) reported that


Software Cost Estimation can be described as the process of predicting the most realistic effort required to complete a software project. Due to the strong relationship of accurate effort estimations with many crucial project management activities, the research community has been focused on the development and application of a vast variety of methods and models trying to improve the estimation procedure. From the diversity of methods emerged the need for comparisons to determine the best model. However, the inconsistent results brought to light significant doubts and uncertainty about the appropriateness of the comparison process in experimental studies. Overall, there exist several potential sources of bias that have to be considered in order to reinforce the confidence of experiments. In this paper, we propose a statistical framework based on a multiple comparisons algorithm in order to rank several cost estimation models, identifying those which have significant differences in accuracy, and clustering them in nonoverlapping groups. The proposed framework is applied in a large-scale setup of comparing 11 prediction models over six datasets. The results illustrate the benefits and the significant information obtained through the systematic comparison of alternative methods.


In an increasingly competitive marketplace system complexity continues to grow, but time-to-market and lifecycle are reducing. The purpose of fault diagnosis is the isolation of faults on defective systems, a task requiring a high skill set. This has driven the need for automated diagnostic tools. Over the last two decades, automated diagnosis has been an active research area, but the industrial acceptance of these techniques, particularly in cost-sensitive areas, has not been high. This paper reviews this research, primarily covering rule-based, model-based, and case-based approaches and applications. Future research directions are finally examined, with a concentration on issues, which may lead to a greater acceptance of automated diagnosis.


The habitats preferred by hominins and other species are an important theme in palaeoanthropology, and the 'mosaic habitat' (also referred to as habitat heterogeneity) has been a central concept in this regard for the last four decades. Here we explore the development of this concept – loosely defined as a range of different habitat types, such as woodlands, riverine forest and savannah within a limited spatial area – in studies of human evolution over the last 60 years or so. We outline the key developments that took place before and around the time when the term 'mosaic' came to wider palaeoanthropological attention. To achieve this, we used an analysis of the published literature, a study of illustrations of hominin evolution from 1925 onwards and an email survey of senior researchers in palaeoanthropology and related fields. We found that the term 'mosaic' starts to be applied in palaeoanthropological thinking during the 1970s due to the work of a number of researchers, including Karl Butzer and Glynn Isaac, with the earliest usage we have found of 'mosaic' in specific reference to hominin habitats being by Adriaan Kortlandt (1972). While we observe a steady increase in the numbers of publications reporting mosaic palaeohabitats, in keeping with the growing interest and specialisation in various methods of palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, we also note that there is a lack of critical studies that define this habitat, or examine the temporal and spatial scales associated with it. The general consensus within the field is that the concept now requires more detailed definition and study to evaluate its role in human evolution.


In this paper, we discuss the methodological framework used in an experimental evaluation study and present the implications drawn from the analysis of the information retrieval (IR) interaction for a user interface redesign of an on-line WWW-based IR system. The goal was to investigate if the current user interface to an on-line WWW-based IR system with real users with real information needs provided sufficient support in order to conduct an information-seeking task. For our study purpose, we used a set of data collection and analysis methods from the area of information science and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). We collected and analysed cognitive and statistical data using a combination of both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods such as questionnaires, open-ended questions and system log statistics. Variables and correlation between the variables were measured and requirement lists were elicited. Finally, the framework used, identified and recognised several important factors that need to be supported in the design of an user interface design. The framework also proves that an on-line based evaluation setting with real users and with real information seeking tasks is feasible.


Taking up Sergei Eisenstein's notion of plasmaticness or plasmaticity (Russian "plasmatichnost"), this paper tries to extend the polyformic and polymorphic capability of animation/drawing into the way we develop new vocabularies for a yet-unrefined subjectivity – its enunciations. As our living conditions with their forms-of-life have transformed in relation to the shifting sociopolitical realms under domineering capitalist systems (David Harvey, 2006), so have new narratives emerged to account for the lack of understanding, and attempt to understand, these all-encompassing shifts on a 'planetary' level. Planetary recognizes the unavoidable mutual relation between and affect of capitalist realities on living systems, including bodies, subjectivities, and materials in between organic and non-organic. Material agency is as such considered a condition for thinking a certain 'naturalness of images,' particularly when they appear to be 'alive,' that is when they appear to be in motion through time. Simply put, the 'complete naturalness of animation' aims to understand which images of living processes can emerge from animation practices that help us apprehend the complexity of vitality. Animation here becomes a composition of forces, a coded and homogenized translation of time, space and life, into an image that is essentially and ontologically vital.

Given the particular status of Japanese animation (its images and affects), arguably its very visibility or omnipresence in our living realities, can we perhaps propose an intrinsic link between its modalities and our senses of 'the living:' and more importantly, find a remedial quality inherent to its forms of new evocations of ecosophy's boundaries? How does this animation/animism appropriate Felix Guattari's (Machinic Eros, Writings on Japan, 2015) notes about images that throw us "into a universe without foreseeable ends, without the delimitations of identity" where "scenes of heterogeneous enunciation are determined by singular matters, of which no structural paradigm can deliver the key."

The presentation is informed by Erich Horl's Thousand Ecologies, previous explorations of fukeiron and the collective character of a landscaping of film, independent Japanese animation, Guattari's minor cinema – futuristic, non-representational, common places of discourse (Paolo Virno) and quests for experimental analytical models – a future form of text.


Abstract  Vascular rings are a relatively rare entity caused by abnormal development of the fetal aortic arches. Most patients with vascular rings present in infancy or early childhood with respiratory (inspiratory) symptoms. The treatment of patients with symptomatic vascular rings is generally straight‐forward, focusing on surgical division of the ring. The majority of patients are "cured" by this simple procedure. However, a small percentage of patients do not follow this typical course. The purpose of this manuscript is to review and discuss three patients who demonstrated unusual manifestations of vascular rings. Two patients required reoperation after double aortic arch repair and one had successful treatment of an aberrant right subclavian artery. (J Card Surg 2010;25:79‐83)


This study-in-progress examines the similarities and differences in organizational security norms between the banking industry in the United States and South Korea. Organizational security norms refers to appropriate actions related to information security safeguard. Drawing on the Competing Value Framework (CVF), Neo-Institutional Theory (NIT), and Hofstede's Cultural Framework, this study proposes an integrated theoretical framework to assess the impact of national culture, organizational culture, and industry on organizational security norms among the banking employees. In general, this study intends to contribute (1) a theoretical framework encompassing national, organizational and industry cultures, and (2) practical implications to improve information security safeguard in multiple cultural settings.


Adenosine deaminase (ADA) gene defects are among the most common causes of SCID. Restoration of purine metabolism and immune functions can be achieved by enzyme replacement therapy, or more effectively by bone marrow transplant or HSC gene therapy (HSC-GT). However, autoimmune complications and autoantibody production, including anti-nuclear antibodies (ANAs), frequently occur in ADA-SCID patients after treatment. To assess whether ADA deficiency affects the establishment of B cell tolerance, we tested the reactivity of recombinant antibodies isolated from single B cells of ADA-SCID patients before and after HSC-GT. We found that before HSC-GT, new emigrant/transitional and mature naive B cells from ADA-SCID patients contained more autoreactive and ANA-expressing clones, indicative of defective central and peripheral B cell tolerance checkpoints. We further observed impaired B cell receptor (BCR) and TLR functions in B cells after ADA inhibition, which may underlie the defects in B cell tolerance. Strikingly, after HSC-GT, ADA-SCID patients displayed quasi-normal early B cell tolerance checkpoints, as evidenced by restored removal of developing autoreactive and ANA-expressing B cells. Hence, ADA plays an essential role in controlling autoreactive B cell counterselection by regulating BCR and TLR functions.


The objective of this series of studies was to investigate the effects of inflammatory diseases occurring before breeding on the developmental biology and reproductive responses in dairy cows. Data from 5 studies were used to investigate different questions associating health status before breeding and reproductive responses. Health information for all studies was composed of the incidence of retained fetal membranes, metritis, mastitis, lameness, and respiratory and digestive problems from parturition until the day of breeding. Retained placenta and metritis were grouped as uterine disease (UTD). Mastitis, lameness, digestive and respiratory problems were grouped as nonuterine diseases (NUTD). Study 1 evaluated the effect of disease before artificial insemination (AI), anovulation before synchronization of the estrous cycle, and low body condition score at AI on pregnancy per AI, as well as their potential interactions or additive effects. Study 2 investigated the effect of site of inflammation (UTD vs. NUTD) and time of occurrence relative to preantral or antral stages of ovulatory follicle development, and the effect of UTD and NUTD on fertility responses of cows bred by AI or by embryo transfer. Study 3 evaluated the effect of disease on fertilization and embryonic development to the morula stage. Study 4 evaluated the effect of disease on preimplantation conceptus development as well as secretion of IFN-τ and transcriptome. Study 5 investigated the effect of diseases before AI on the transcript expression of interferon-stimulated genes in peripheral blood leukocytes during peri-implantation stages of conceptus development after first AI postpartum. Altogether, these studies demonstrated that inflammatory disease before breeding reduced fertilization of oocytes and development to morula, and impaired early conceptus development to elongation stages and secretion of IFN-τ in the uterine lumen. Diseases caused inflammation-like changes in transcriptome of conceptus cells, increased risk of pregnancy loss, and reduced pregnancy or calving per breeding. Moreover, the effects on reproduction were independent of cyclic status before synchronization of the estrous cycle and body condition score at breeding, which all had additive negative effects on fertility of dairy cows. Occurrence of disease at preantral or at antral stages of ovulatory follicle development had similar detrimental effects on pregnancy results. The carryover effects of diseases on developmental biology might last longer than 4 mo. Reduced oocyte competence is a likely reason for carryover effects of diseases on developmental biology, but impaired uterine environment was also shown to be involved.


We report on the modeling, growth, processing, characterization and integration in a gas detection setup of side wall corrugated distributed feed-back antimonide diode lasers emitting at 2.28 and 2.67 μm. The laser structures were grown by molecular beam epitaxy on GaSb substrate. Ridge lasers were fabricated from the grown wafers according to the following process: a second order Bragg grating was defined on the sides of the ridges by interferometric lithography, optical lithography and etched in a Cl-based inductively coupled plasma reactor. The devices exhibit a power reaching 40 mW, a side mode suppression ratio better than 28 dB and a tuning range of 3 nm at room temperature. One of these devices was successfully integrated in a tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy setup, thus demonstrating that they are suitable for gas analysis.


This paper describes a simulation environment, called Prosim, which permits a user to define components, subsystems, and their interconnections to analyse a statistical process control (SPC) system. The components and systems are defined and analysed interactively. A library of standard SPC objects containing models for the Xbar, range, exponential weighted moving average, pchart and other SPC techniques have been created which help define the control application. The PC-based tool is tested on theoretical, and real data, and is useful for the design and trouble shooting of a manufacturing system. It is also an effective teaching


Stressful events frequently comprise both neutral and emotionally arousing information, yet the impact of stress on emotional and neutral events is still not fully understood. The hippocampus and frontal cortex have dense concentrations of receptors for stress hormones, such as cortisol, which at high levels can impair performance on hippocampally dependent memory tasks. Yet, the same stress hormones can facilitate memory for emotional information, which involves interactions between the hippocampus and amygdala. Here, we induced psychosocial stress prior to encoding and examined its long-term effects on memory for emotional and neutral episodes. The stress manipulation disrupted long-term memory for a neutral episode, but facilitated long-term memory for an equivalent emotional episode compared with a control condition. The stress manipulation also increased salivary cortisol, catecholamines as indicated by the presence of alpha-amylase, heart rate, and subjectively reported stress. Stressed subjects reported more false memories than nonstressed control subjects, and these false memories correlated positively with cortisol levels, providing evidence for a relationship between stress and false memory formation. Our results demonstrate that stress, when administered prior to encoding, produces different patterns of long-term remembering for neutral and emotional episodes. These differences likely emerge from differential actions of stress hormones on memory-relevant regions of the brain.


In his last years Georg Friedrich Händel suffered from a loss of sight not definitely to be defined. Based on primary sources, this disease, often mentioned in his biographies, is described and analysed. Altogether, Händel's eye-disease can be best interpreted as a central vascular disorder with degeneration of retina or with ischemic changes in the corresponding nuclei or tractus, complicated by a simple senile or post-traumatic cataract. Händel's profile of risk factors points most probably to a vascular degeneration of macula or a damage of choroidal vessels. Händel's eye-disease must be seen in relation to his cerebro-vascular disorder. His most probable strokes as well as his loss of sight were of vital importance in his biography, as is reflected even by his compositions. However, both disorders did not fundamentally influence his creativity. Only in a few compositions a reference to the loss of sight can be found. Apart from changes in concert-practising during his last years Händel's eye-disease, however, had no direct effect on his musical work.