We study the stability of a Bose-Fermi system loaded into an array of coupled one-dimensional (1D) ``tubes,'' where bosons and fermions experience different dimensions: Bosons are heavy and strongly localized in the 1D tubes, whereas fermions are light and can hop between the tubes. Using the ${}^{174}$Yb-${}^{6}$Li system as a reference, we obtain the equilibrium phase diagram. We find that, for both attractive and repulsive interspecies interaction, the exact treatment of 1D bosons via the Bethe ansatz implies that the transitions between pure fermion and any phase with a finite density of bosons can only be first order and never continuous, resulting in phase separation in density space. In contrast, the order of the transition between the pure boson and the mixed phase can either be second or first order depending on whether fermions are allowed to hop between the tubes or they also are strictly confined in 1D. We discuss the implications of our findings for current experiments on ${}^{174}$Yb-${}^{6}$Li mixtures as well as Fermi-Fermi mixtures of light and heavy atoms in a mixed-dimensional optical-lattice system.


Aim: Malnutrition in end-stage liver disease (ESLD) patients has been associated with various prognostic factors. However, its effect on nonconventional parameters is least studied. The present exploratory study analyzes the impact of malnutrition on quality of life (QoL) and performance status (PS) in ESLD. Methods: We recruited 54 adult ESLD patients. Nutrition status assessment was performed by different validated tools such as subjective global assessment (SGA), mid-upper arm circumference, triceps skinfold measurements, mid-arm muscle circumference, and body mass index (BMI) for ascites. QoL and PS were assessed by Short Form-36 Interview and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group-PS, respectively. Results: Malnutrition in patients ranged from 24.1% to 88.9% by various nutrition assessment techniques. ESLD patients showed lower levels of QoL and PS. SGA showed that malnourished patients had significantly lower PS grades than normal patients (P < 0.05). The Chi-square adjusted Z-scores showed that moderately malnourished patients had significantly higher PS-Grade-3 (capable of only limited self-care); further, severely malnourished patients had significantly higher PS-Grade-4 (completely disabled) (P < 0.004). Furthermore, malnutrition also showed lower QoL scores. After Bonferroni correction, SGA showed significantly lower emotional well-being scores of QoL in severely malnourished patients. BMI for ascites also showed significantly lower physical functioning and physical component summary scores of QoL among severely malnourished patients. Albumin level showed a significant positive correlation with emotional well-being of the patients.Conclusion: Hence, higher degree malnutrition among ESLD is associated with lower QoL and PS. The data addresses the need for planning nutrition interventions to ameliorate malnutrition in ESLD patients to improve QoL and PS for better prognosis.


The soybean protein fiber is a new textile material. Thanks to its fine denier, light specific gravity, high strength and silk-like luster,it has so excellent cashmere handle, silk softness and heat resistant properties that it has been called manmade cashmere and found wide application. In order to understand the relationship between the inner structure and the mechanical property and the effect of bleaching and dyeing to the soybean protein fibers,four mechanical models are chosen. The tensile and relaxation property of the soybean protein fibers are analyzed. The tensile and relaxation cures are fitted with the suitable model. It shows that the relaxation property of SPF is in accordance with the standard linear solid model. Estimates of the Hookean spring modulus at 8% and at 10% are different, so some structural modifications could be produced by the strain. Bleached fibers show a higher level of relaxation than raw fibers and dyed fibers. Bleaching has a remarkable influence on decreasing tenacity at break for each test modality. Knotted and looped modalities decrease fiber tenacity remarkably in all three samples.


We report on a diluted magnetic semiconductor based on the Sb2Te3 tetradymite structure doped with very low concentrations of vanadium ! 1‐3 at. %" . The anomalous transport behavior and robust magnetic hysteresis loops observed in magnetotransport and magnetic measurements are experimental manifestations of the ferromagnetic state in these materials. The p-d exchange between holes and vanadium 3d spins is estimated from the behavior of the magnetoresistance. A Curie temperature of at least 22 K is observed for Sb1.97V0.03Te3. This discovery offers possibilities for exploring magnetic properties of other tetradymite structure semiconductors doped with a wide range of 3d transition metals.


Thank you for downloading conformal invariance and critical phenomena. Maybe you have knowledge that, people have look hundreds times for their chosen books like this conformal invariance and critical phenomena, but end up in malicious downloads. Rather than enjoying a good book with a cup of coffee in the afternoon, instead they are facing with some infectious bugs inside their laptop. conformal invariance and critical phenomena is available in our book collection an online access to it is set as public so you can download it instantly. Our books collection hosts in multiple countries, allowing you to get the most less latency time to download any of our books like this one. Merely said, the conformal invariance and critical phenomena is universally compatible with any devices to read.


Disputes and lawsuits are quite common in business and are often a source of significant liabilities. We conjecture that measurement challenges and lack of adequate analysis tools have greatly inhibited the ability of the General Counsel's offices in selecting the best mode for the resolution (i.e. litigation vs. out-of-court settlement) of business conflicts and disputes. Easily quantified direct costs (e.g., out-of-pocket expenses related to pursuing and defending against litigation) tend to be considered, whereas the more difficult-to-quantify indirect risks and costs (e.g., damaged relationships with customers and potential alliance partners, including reputational harm) which may be quite significant, tend to be ignored. We also hypothesize that the benefits of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) strategies may have been muted because of the failure to assess the real magnitude of not-easily-quantified indirect risks and costs. We propose two Decision Support Systems (DSSs), one for a macro-level analysis and one for a micro-level (i.e. case by case analysis), to alleviate the measurement and analysis problem. In the proposed DSSs, the underlying decision engine makes use of operations research tools such as decision trees, logic modeling, Monte-Carlo Markov-Chain (MCMC) and fuzzy logic simulations. By providing the means to gather decision-relevant information, especially on difficult-to-measure soft costs, we have attempted to reduce the "decision making risk" for the General Counsel's offices. In the process, we have also furnished some ways to reach more informed assessments to support litigation risk management strategies and decisions.


The kinetic process of liquid-liquid phase separation in the undercooled Ni-20at%Pb hypermonotectic alloy melts was analyzed theoretically. The results showed that liquid-liquid separation could not be inhibited due to smaller nucleation barrier and bigger nucleation rate of Pb-rich droplets. In the course of liquid-liquid phase separation, the volume fraction of Pb-rich droplets was thought as a function of time or temperature. At a certain cooling rate, the volume fraction was mainly controlled by the undercooling of Ni-Pb hypermonotectic melts. Based on the above results, a homogeneous solidification criterion for the undercooled Ni-20at%Pb hypermonotectic alloy melts was developed. Such a criterion predicted that the homogeneous microstructure could be obtained at the undercooling 263K, and the experimental results accorded with the predicting ones on the whole.


Art, Architecture and Aesthetics: Evelyn Waugh and the Visual Arts Rebecca Louise Moore MA (KCL) This thesis explores Evelyn Waugh's aesthetic sensibilities through his written and visual art works in relation to the disciplines of art and architecture. A significant creative tension in his work derives from an adherence to contradictory theories of the source of artistic accomplishment. He was torn between the idea of the artist channelling an intrinsically mystical energy, as experienced by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and the idea of skill arising from discipline and craftsmanship as defined by Roger Fry. These impulses I define as 'romantic' and 'rational', relating respectively to questions of spirit and inspiration, and to the representation of the secular, and objective representation. Waugh's visual art is not widely recognised or studied. I have had unprecedented access to all known letters, diaries, and artwork. Thus my first chapter offers new insights into his early writing process, suggesting how the construction of the visual image became an integral element of his writing. The second chapter discusses Waugh's art collection, which included Pre-Raphaelite works and Victorian narrative paintings. The tension between the romantic and rational remains but manifests itself in collecting, rather than creation. Completing the picture are Waugh's theories on architecture. He uses architectural symbolism to gain narrative distance from his subjects, reflecting the impulse behind his emotionless book illustrations. From 1930 Waugh sought shelter from what he considered chaotic egalitarianism, within the seemingly permanent walls of the aristocratic country house. After the Second World War, however, his only refuge was his Catholic faith, itself threatened by Vatican II's liturgical reforms, removing the vital element of privacy Waugh always sought, and destroying the link between priest and craftsman. Retreating into his work, he combined again the romantic and rational sides of his aesthetic ideology in the notion of pious creation.


Abstract Context Both type 1 diabetes (T1D) and type 2 diabetes (T2D) have significant genetic contributions to risk and understanding their overlap can offer clinical insight. Objective We examined whether a T1D polygenic score (PS) was associated with a diagnosis of T2D in the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) consortium. Methods We constructed a T1D PS using 79 known single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with T1D risk. We analyzed 13 792 T2D cases and 14 169 controls from CHARGE cohorts to determine the association between the T1D PS and T2D prevalence. We validated findings in an independent sample of 2256 T2D cases and 27 052 controls from the Mass General Brigham Biobank (MGB Biobank). As secondary analyses in 5228 T2D cases from CHARGE, we used multivariable regression models to assess the association of the T1D PS with clinical outcomes associated with T1D. Results The T1D PS was not associated with T2D both in CHARGE (P = .15) and in the MGB Biobank (P = .87). The partitioned human leukocyte antigens only PS was associated with T2D in CHARGE (OR 1.02 per 1 SD increase in PS, 95% CI 1.01-1.03, P = .006) but not in the MGB Biobank. The T1D PS was weakly associated with insulin use (OR 1.007, 95% CI 1.001-1.012, P = .03) in CHARGE T2D cases but not with other outcomes. Conclusion In large biobank samples, a common variant PS for T1D was not consistently associated with prevalent T2D. However, possible heterogeneity in T2D cannot be ruled out and future studies are needed do subphenotyping.


This paper considers the impact of taxation policy on market work. On the basis of the evidence, we find that a 10 percentage point rise in the tax wedge will reduce overall labour input provided via the market by around 2 per cent of the population of working age. The tax wedge is the sum of the payroll, income and consumption tax rates. This only explains a minority of the market work differentials across count ries. Much of the remainder is probably down to the differences in the social security systems supporting the unemployed, the sick and disabled and the early retired. JEL Classification: H2, J2


Between July 1982 and April 1984, 22 patients underwent cardiac transplantations at the Texas Heart Institute with a cumulative follow-up of 188 patient-months (mean of 8.6 months and a range of 0.5 to 21). The actuarial survival rate at 20 months was 72%. Strict selection criteria for potential recipients and donors, optimal perioperative management, which includes endomyocardial biopsy, and most important the introduction of cyclosporine are the major factors that led to these increasing survival rates. The high incidence of cyclosporine-related complications, especially hypertension and myocardial fibrosis, will require long-term evaluation to adequately assess the therapeutic effectiveness of this new immunosuppressive agent.


Based on a new materialist analysis of "vibrant matter" to understand the liveliness of sexual objects in toy-based sexual play, in this article I investigate the politics of thinking digital technologies as operating partly beyond human forms of agency and control. I use as my core examples privacy breaches and data leaks in the world of networked sex toys – such as a vibrator which allegedly audio recorded its clients' play sessions without express permission – to engage with questions of intimacy and privacy in digital networks of humans and nonhumans. In particular, the discussion focuses on the consequences of new forms of publicness for how we can understand sexual intimacy and sexual play. What does it mean to have an intimate moment when connected to a device, a medium and a network that is by definition public, corporate and leaky? And how could we imagine other ways of being sexually intimate and exposed – yet safe – in public digital networks? Drawing on discussions of queer intimacy, sexual consent and queer BDSM, I suggest that current understandings of privacy and sensitive data (as per GDPR) may need unconventional sources to further ways of knowing what consent might mean, and how it feels.


Organizational renewal requires that a firm's top managers make timely adjustments in their mental models following significant changes in the environment. Our initial propositions about the difference between renewal and decline focused on whether similar organizations in similar contexts differ in their ability to recognize significant changes in their environments. Analysis of longitudinal data from a matched pair of U.S. railroads suggested, however, that renewal hinges not so much on noticing new conditions, but on being able to link environmental change to corporate strategy and to modify that linkage over time. In the successful company we studied organizational renewal is a continuous process of first and second order changes in cognitive maps.


Small business failure has been the subject of considerable research effort (Beaver, 1966: Berryman, 1983: Holmes, 1988: Bickerdyke, 2000). Peel and Wilson (1996) found that there was a substantial amount of both theoretical and empirical small business research relating to credit management and its relationship to the failure of small businesses. However, there does not seem to be much research that focuses on sorting out the relationships among the many measures of credit management that have been used by these researchers. This paper describes an exploratory investigation of the relationships among a set of items used to measure the management of credit in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The data was obtained from a survey of SMEs located on the Mid North Coast of NSW, conducted in 2000. The relationships among the items were initially examined using correlation analysis and the high number of correlations among the items then led to the testing of latent variable models to see if the items were in fact reflective traits of higher order factors. Future analysis will examine the variables using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to validate the identifiable models then examine the relationships among the variables discussed in this paper and other demographic items that were used in the survey. The findings reported in this paper describe only the first part of the analysis planned for this study.


Magnetorheological (MR) and electrorheological (ER) materials show variations in their rheological properties when subjected to varying magnetic and electric fields, respectively. They have quick time response, in the order of milliseconds, and thus are potentially applicable to structures and devices when a tunable system response is required. When incorporated into an adaptive structural system, they can yield higher variations in the dynamic response of the structure. This study presents a detailed analysis of vibration control capabilities of adaptive structures based on MR and ER materials, and compares their vibration minimization rates, time responses and energy consumption rates. Homogeneous one-dimensional MR and ER adaptive beam configurations were considered. A structural dynamic modeling approach was discussed and vibration characteristics of MR and ER adaptive beams were predicted for different magnetic and electric field levels. In addition to the model predictions, actual MR and ER adaptive beams were fabricated and tested. Both studies illustrated the vibration minimization capabilities of the MR and ER adaptive beams at different rates and environmental conditions. The relative performances of both MR and ER adaptive beams were discussed in detail and their advantages and disadvantages were listed.


Naturally occurring luminance distributions are approximately 1/f in their spatial and temporal amplitude spectra. By systematically varying the spatio-temporal profile of broadband noise stimuli, we demonstrate that humans invariably overestimate the proportion of high spatial and temporal frequency energy. Critically, we find that that the strength of this bias is of a magnitude that predicts a perceptually equalized response to the spatio-temporal fall off in the natural amplitude spectrum. This interpretation is supported by our finding that the magnitude of this transient response bias, while evident across a broad range of narrowband spatial frequencies (0.25-8 cycles/deg), decreases above 2 cycles/deg, which itself compensates for the increase in temporal frequency energy previously observed at high spatial frequencies as a consequence of small fixational eye movements (M. Rucci, R. Iovin, M. Poletti, & F. Santini, 2007). Additional temporal masking and adaptation experiments reveal a transiently biased asymmetry. Whereas temporal frequencies >4 Hz mask and adapt 1- and 15-Hz targets, lower masking and adaptation frequencies have much less effect on sensitivity to 15-Hz compared with 1-Hz targets. These results imply that the visual system over-represents its transient input to an extent that predicts an equalized temporal channel response to the low-frequency-biased structure of natural scenes.


This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of different levels of apple pulp and multi-enzyme on performance, egg traits and blood metabolites of native laying hens. In this experiment, 240 Azerbaijan province native laying hens aged from 28 to 40 weeks old were used in eight treatments and three replicates (10 birds per replicate) in a (4 × 2) factorial arrangement in a completely randomized design. The hens were fed apple pulp at 0, 5, 10 and 15% with two levels (0 and 0.05%) of multi-enzyme. The results showed that apple pulp or multi-enzyme and their combination significantly affected the performance, egg traits, blood biochemical parameters and immunity cells of native laying hens (p<0.05). Multi-enzyme improved the amounts of egg weight, mass and production percentage. Inclusion apple pulp at 10% did not show any adverse effects on performance compared to the control. However, at 15%, egg weight and egg production percentage were reduced and the feed conversion ratio was increased. In the interaction effects, 10% of apple pulp with multi-enzyme showed positive effects compared to other treatments. Multi-enzyme increased the percentage of albumin, while it decreased the egg yolk percentage and egg specific gravity. In the combined treatments, albumin percentage was increased when apple pulp was used at 10%. On the other hand, inclusion of multi-enzyme in diets significantly reduced serum total protein and glucose, while by inclusion 10% resulted in a decrease in uric acid and an increase in blood glucose. The combined treatment showed the best effect on blood uric acid. In 10% of apple pulp group, the amount of heterophile and heterophile to lymphocyte ratio was increased. In conclusion, inclusion of 10% apple pulp and 0.05% multi-enzyme improved laying hens' performance, egg traits and blood parameters with no adverse effects.


This paper applied the Taguchi approach to investigate the effects of polishing parameters to obtain the optimal processing conditions for CoCr alloy polishing using a multiaxis CNC controlled corrective polishing machine. The polishing medium used was 1m diamond paste with a Microcloth(polishing cloth). Surface finish parameter Sa was chosen as the criterion for process optimization. The experimental results indicate that the optimal polishing conditions for CoCr alloy polishing is 50 precess angle, 800 rpm head speed, 0.2mm tool offset and 1.5 bar tool pressure. With this optimal condition, a confirmatory experiment was conducted. The surface roughness Sa reduced from an initial 24nm to 7nm and reduction ratio was 70.8% which was very close to the estimated ratio of 64%.


Methods: The study comprised IAA fetuses examined only by 2D echocardiography from 1994 to 2003, and those identified by 2D echocardiography and examined by 4D US with B-flow and STIC from January 2004 to July 2008 at 2 referral centers for congenital heart defects (CHD). Postnatal follow-up was available in all cases. Karyotyping and FISH for microdeletion 22q11.2 were performed in all cases. Results: 22 cases of isolated IAA (15 type B and 7 type A, 7 and 3 of which, respectively, underwent B-flow and STIC) were detected among 2520 cases of fetal CHD. In 7 of the 15 type B cases, a right subclavian artery arose anomalously (ARSA). 2D US failed to distinguish the type of IAA in only 2 cases and the ARSA in 5 of the 7 cases. B-flow and STIC successfully identified IAA types in all 10 cases examined and clearly visualized the ARSA, including cervical ones. FISH detected microdeletion in 10/15 type B cases and an unusual association with type A in 1 of the 7 cases. Fetal/neonatal outcome included: 8 terminations of pregnancy, 1 intrauterine death and 4 postoperative deaths in the neonatal period, and 9 neonates were alive after surgery at a mean follow-up time of 58 months. Conclusions: Our results confirm the feasibility of prenatal characterization of IAA and its different types based on 2D examination, albeit with some limitations in the thorough assessment. 4D US with B-flow and STIC can facilitate the detailed examination of the anatomical features of IAA types, including visualization of the neck vessels, thus supplying additional information with respect to 2D US. Our data indicate that types A and B are distinct, there being a close association of microdeletion only with IAA type B.


From the turn of the 21st century until his death in 200 Jeremy Blake worked at the convergence of animation, digital technology and painting, synthesizing them through the use of cinematic strategies. This article discusses the debt Blake's early abstract works owe to the experimental animated films of the Visual Music artists and American post-war Color Field painters. During this period, Blake applied his exceptional facility with emerging animation software to sequential figure/ground abstractions based on literary narrative structures. Subsequently, Blake shifted from `time-based painting' to richly textured non-narrative biographical sketches created in collaboration with maverick protagonists in contemporary popular music. The visuality of Blake's hallucinatory moving images intensified emotionally as new digital software became available. The deep hybridity of his visual compositions, transmitted through constant fades and overlays of photo-based images and abstracted color patches, doodles and animation characters, create a richly textured bridge between subjective consciousness and the world of appearances.


In a quantum mechanical treatment of gauge theories (including general relativity), one is led to consider a certain completion, A/G, of the space A/G of gauge equivalent connections. This space serves as the quantum configuration space, or, as the space of all Euclidean histories over which one must integrate in the quantum theory. A/G is a very large space and serves as a " universal home " for measures in theories in which the Wilson loop observables are well-defined. In this paper, A/G is considered as the 1 projective limit of a projective family of compact Hausdorff manifolds, labelled by graphs (which can be regarded as " floating lattices " in the physics terminology). Using this characterization, differential geometry is developed through algebraic methods. In particular, we are able to introduce the following notions on A/G: differential forms, exterior derivatives, volume forms, vector fields and Lie brackets between them, divergence of a vector field with respect to a volume form, Laplacians and associated heat kernels and heat kernel measures. Thus, although A/G is very large, it is small enough to be mathematically interesting and physically useful. A key feature of this approach is that it does not require a background metric. The geometrical framework is therefore well-suited for diffeomorphism invariant theories such as quantum general relativity.


Between 1980 and 1987, 12 systematic surveys were made on a population of 254,979 people, of whom 236,868 were actually examined (92.61%). 422 suspected cases were identified i.e. a global detection rate of 1.66% of which only 241 reported to Aïn-Chock Hospital for further tests (55%). Out of these 241 suspected cases, 217 proved as having leprosy, i.e. a 90% correlation between the clinical suspicion and the biological identification. The 181 suspected cases who never reported to the hospital and the 16 leprosy patients whom we lost sight of constitute as a whole 46.68% of the suspected cases first identified. This shows an obvious lack of coordination between the local Authority and the medical service. The 185 confirmed cases of leprosy are shown in the table below and compared with those of the Central Statistical Office.


Independent component analysis (ICA) attempts to separate independent components present in the mixture signals. Several criteria have been suggested for ICA in the past, including kurtosis and negentropy. Kurtosis suffers from a drawback of being outlier sensitive. As a remedy, we propose robust ICA (RICA), which employs appropriate robust estimators. In this paper, we compare the robustness properties of RICA with kurtosis- and negentropy-based ICA. Since robust estimators are insensitive to outliers in contrast to maximum likelihood estimates (MLE), we demonstrate that in the presence of outliers, RICA works better than kurtosis- and negentropy-based ICA


There are times when Computer Graphics is required to be succinct and simple. Carefully chosen simplified and static images can portray a narration of a story as effectively as 3D photo-realistic continuous graphics. In this paper we present an automatic system which transforms continuous graphics originating from real 3D virtualworld interactions into a sequence of comics images. The system traces events during the interaction and then analyzes and breaks them into scenes. Based on user defined parameters of point-ofview and story granularity it chooses specific time-frames to create static images, renders them, and applies post-processing to reduce their cluttering. The system utilizes the same principal of intelligent reduction of details in both temporal and spatial domains for choosing important events and depicting them visually. The end result is a sequence of comics images which summarize the main happenings and present them in a coherent, concise and visually pleasing manner.


OBJECTIVE-To evaluate skeletal characteristics of pelvic limbs with and without cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) deficiency in Labrador Retrievers. ANIMALS-30 adult purebred Labrador Retrievers. PROCEDURES-Pelvic limbs (n = 28) of 14 dogs without CCL deficiency were classified as control limbs, whereas the limbs of 16 dogs with CCL deficiency were considered affected by (18 limbs) or predisposed to (10 contralateral limbs of dogs with 1 affected limb) CCL deficiency. Skeletal characteristics were evaluated via physical examination, radiography, and computed tomography. Radiographic and computed tomographic variables were compared among limb groups by use of a mixed-model ANOVA. RESULTS-The tibial plateau slope was steeper in CCL-deficient limbs but not in predisposed limbs, compared with the slope in control limbs. The angle between diaphyseal and proximal tibial axes was increased in both CCL-deficient and predisposed limbs. The relative width of the proximal portion of the tibia and the inclination of the patellar ligament did not differ among limb groups. The overall and distal femoral anteversion angles were greater in CCL-deficient and predisposed limbs, whereas the femoral condyle trochanteric angle was decreased in those limb groups, compared with findings in control limbs. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE-Cranial angulation of the proximal portion of the tibia, excessive steepness of the tibial plateau, and distal femoral torsion appeared more likely to be associated with CCL deficiency than femoral angulation, tibial torsion, intercondylar notch stenosis, and increased inclination of the patellar ligament.


STUDY OBJECTIVES
Restless legs syndrome (RLS) prevalence estimates range from 0% to 52% in Parkinson disease (PD), but the causal relationship between the two disorders is still debated. The present study aims to evaluate RLS prevalence in de novo PD subjects, its incidence during the first 4 years from diagnosis, and possible relationships with clinical, laboratory, and neuroradiological data.

METHODS
One hundred nine newly diagnosed, drug-naïve PD subjects were evaluated at the time of PD diagnosis, and after 2- and 4-years. RLS diagnosis was performed with the RLS Diagnostic Index at each visit. Motor features, additional non-motor symptoms (NMS), and concomitant dopaminergic and nondopaminergic treatments were also gathered. Moreover, at baseline, 65 subjects were randomly selected to undergo a FP-CIT SPECT to study dopamine transporter availability.

RESULTS
RLS prevalence rose from 4.6% at baseline evaluation to 6.5% after 2 years and to 16.3% after 4 years (P = 0.007). A multinomial logistic stepwise regression model selected NMS Questionnaire items more likely to be associated with RLS at diagnosis (insomnia, OR = 15.555; P = 0.040) and with occurrence of RLS during follow-up (dizziness, OR = 1.153; P = 0.022; and daytime sleepiness; OR = 9.557; P = 0.001), as compared to patients without RLS. Older age was more likely associated to increased RLS occurrence during follow-up in a random effect logistic regression model (OR = 1.187; P = 0.036). A multinomial logistic stepwise model found increased dopaminergic transporter availability of affected caudate and putamen to be more likely associated with RLS presence at diagnosis (n = 5; OR = 75.711; P = 0.077), and RLS occurrence during follow-up (n = 16; OR = 12.004; P = 0.059), respectively, as compared to patients without RLS (n = 88).

CONCLUSIONS
RLS is present since PD diagnosis, and increases in prevalence during the course of PD. PD subjects with RLS have higher age at PD onset, more preserved dopaminergic pathways, and worse sleep and cardiovascular disturbances.


Rats were exposed to 290 or 495 ppm methyl bromide gas for 6 h/day, 3 times/wk for 4 to 8 wk. Creatine kinase (CK), aspartate aminotransferase (ASAT), and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activities and bromide ion concentrations were measured in eight regions of the brain. Methyl bromide gas inhibited CK activities in all regions of the brain, though the inhibition tended to be smallest in the cerebellum (hemisphere and vermis) and largest in the brainstem (hypothalamus, midbrain, and medulla oblongata). The dose of methyl bromide to inhibit CK activities was lower than that to damage the central nervous system histologically. No inhibition of ASAT or LDH activities was seen except for a slight inhibition of these in striatum. Inhibition of CK activities did not increase clearly on increasing dose (290 to 495 ppm) or on prolonging exposure period (4 to 8 wk). Although 50% recovery of CK activities and the half-life of bromide ion agreed well in the medulla oblongata, changes in CK activities and bromide ion concentrations did not correlate otherwise. Thus, inhibition of CK activities in brain appears to be a sensitive indicator of methyl bromide intoxication, and may be related to genesis of its neurotoxicity. The inhibition seems to be caused by methyl bromide itself rather than by bromide ion. When effects on enzyme activities in brain homogenate were examined in vitro by bubbling with methyl bromide gas, CK inhibition was seen within 15 s of exposure. Dithiothreitol suppressed the CK inhibition, whereas N -acetylcysteine did not. These observations suggest that methyl bromide may attack sites in the CK molecule different from those attacked by ethylene oxide or acrylamide.


Nootropics also referred to as smart drugs, memory enhancers, neuro enhancers, cognitive enhancers, and intelligence enhancers, are drugs, supplements, nutraceuticals, and functional foods that purportedly improve mental functions such as cognition, memory, intelligence, motivation, attention, and concentration. Nootropics are thought to work by altering the availability of the brain's supply of neurochemicals (neurotransmitters, enzymes, and hormones), by improving the brain's oxygen supply, or by stimulating nerve growth. Drugs considered cognitive enhancers include dietary products and supplements, racetams, stimulants, dopaminergics, cholinergics, GABA blockers, glutamate activators, serotonergics and hormones, etc. however not all are healthy or safe to use but they can still have mental benefits. The safest types of cognitive enhancers constist of herbal drugs and are available in supplement form, which mostly contain vitamins, fatty acids, antioxidants, amino acids, minerals, etc and other herbal ingredients. Vitamins are involved in brain development and in adult brain function. Omega$3 influences both communication between cells and cell function. Antioxidants help to retain the mental abilities longer, keep the brain younger and protect it from oxidative damage. Amino acids help to produce the catecholamines and create alertness. Hormones increase neurogenesis and improve both memory encoding and recall. Iron helps create hemoglobin, which transports oxygen to the brain. Creatinine protects ATP during transport. Lipoic acid improves oxygen usage and antioxidant recycling, improving memory and Germanium increases oxygen supply to the brain. Herbs and herbal products which have been found useful in improving cognitive ability include Bacopa monniera, Ginkgo biloba, Siberian ginseng, Rhodiola rosea, Brahmi rasayana, , Lycoris radiata , Sutherlandia frutescens, Mucuna pruriens, Butea frondosa , St John's Wort , Arecholine, Royl Jelly, Caffeine, Curcumin and so on. The mechanism of action is different for different drugs. These drugs are used primarily to treat people with cognitive difficulties as in Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and Attention$deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).


In view of low efficiency and high cost during the operation of the manufacturing and assembly line to redistribute workpieces, this paper presents a logistical balancing method based on time and costs in manufacturing and assembly line. The workpieces are selected in a short time by use of database and spreadsheet. The iterative computation will stop when the expense is higher than benefit. This method is especially suitable for the small and medium enterprises which can not burden the re-program cost. An example about Harbin HBC Value Co. Ltd is given to explain the logistical balancing method. The results show that the implementation of this logistics balancing method offer the way to improve the efficiency of vacant time by 62.6% and the cost of product is reduced greatly.


INTRODUCTION
We conducted a cross-sectional study on children with steroid-resistant nephrotic syndrome (SRNS) in a single center in Southern China.

METHODS
A total of 166 SRNS cases in the Paediatric Nephrology Center of the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University from September 1, 2006, to August 31, 2016 were retrospectively analysed. The inclusion criteria were: 1) age ≤ 14 years, 2) diagnosed with SRNS, and 3) without purpura nephritis, immunoglobulin A nephropathy, lupus nephritis, or another secondary nephritis. Incidences of primary/ late steroid-resistance and curative effects were analysed.

RESULTS
The median follow-up time was 4.64 (2.64 to 8.11) years. There were 67 cases of complete remission (CR) (40.36%), 46 cases of partial remission (PR) (27.71%), 31 cases of no remission (NR) (18.67%), 18 cases of end-stage renal disease (ESRD, 10.84%, including 7 cases of kidney transplantation), and 4 cases of death due to hematoma and severe infection after renal biopsy; renal failure after progression to ESRD; sepsis during glucocorticoid (GC) + Cyclosporine A (CsA) treatment; and multiple organ failure at the onset of disease, respectively. For the 8 cases with gene mutation, unnecessary drug treatment should be reduced due to their low responsiveness to immunosuppressive treatment. Female, patients with hematuria, primary steroid-resistance (PSR) type and histopathologic focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) were more likely to have higher ESRD rate. Subgroup analysis of ESRD suggested that female patients and patients with PSR type were more likely to develop ESRD. Cox-regression analysis showed that female (HR = 3.04, 95% CI: 1.18 to 7.86; P < .05), without hematuria (HR = 0.36, 95% CI: 0.14 to 0.91; P < .05), and LSR type (HR = 0.17, 95% CI: 0.04 to 0.74; P < .05) were significantly associated with ESRD. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis also showed the same trends.

CONCLUSION
Of the 166 SRNS cases, 68.07% of patients achieved CR or PR, 18.67% of cases had NR, 10.84% of cases developed ESRD, and 2.41% of patients died during follow-up. Female gender, hematuria, and PSR type were positively associated with ESRD.


The report provides an overview of the status of 5G roll-out and its industrial uptake in the Nordic-Baltic region. The aim is not only to present the roll-out status across the region but also to put these insights into a broader political and technological context. The report describes some of the most relevant testbeds and policy initiatives, provides examples of successful and promising use cases, and highlights existing strengths and ongoing challenges in the Nordic-Baltic region. Juxtaposing these against established goals emphasises areas for possible future cooperation and knowledge exchange between the Nordic and Baltic actors to encourage sustainable innovation and competitiveness across the region. The report reveals notable variations in the progress of 5G coverage among the Nordic-Baltic countries. Denmark and Finland have made significant strides and surpassed the European Union average regarding 5G coverage, while other countries still face challenges in catching up. Despite the presence of numerous 5G activities, such as testbeds and innovation hubs, a considerable number of initiatives remain in the testing and prototyping stage. The report indicates that the full potential of 5G for innovation and competitiveness in the Nordic-Baltic region has yet to be fully realised. With the accelerated digitalisation brought by 5G, the importance of cyber security considerations increases. As 5G networks increase electricity demand, it is essential to consider the environmental footprint and societal effects of their rollout. While 5G has immense potential, it necessitates significant adjustments in various areas, including network infrastructure, systems, applications, data ethics, privacy, and workforce implications. Challenges related to social inclusion further underscore the importance of cooperation and synergy across the region. The report highlights the need for increased knowledge exchange, the formulation of common roadmaps, and the establishment of guidelines to promote harmonised 5G deployment. Collaborative efforts among stakeholders are crucial for maximising the benefits of 5G technology in the Nordic and Baltic countries.


To date, the underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms of absolute pitch (AP) have remained elusive. In the present fMRI study, we investigated verbal and tonal perception and working memory in musicians with and without absolute pitch. Stimuli were sine wave tones and syllables (names of the scale tones) presented simultaneously. Participants listened to sequences of five stimuli, and then rehearsed internally either the syllables or the tones. Finally participants indicated whether a test stimulus had been presented during the sequence. For an auditory stroop task, half of the tonal sequences were congruent (frequencies of tones corresponded to syllables which were the names of the scale tones) and half were incongruent (frequencies of tones did not correspond to syllables). Results indicate that first, verbal and tonal perception overlap strongly in the left superior temporal gyrus/sulcus (STG/STS) in AP musicians only. Second, AP is associated with the categorical perception of tones. Third, the left STG/STS is activated in AP musicians only for the detection of verbal‐tonal incongruencies in the auditory stroop task. Finally, verbal labelling of tones in AP musicians seems to be automatic. Overall, a unique feature of AP appears to be the similarity between verbal and tonal perception. Hum Brain Mapp, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


This article tries to explore the possibilities of tasawuf ethic application to actualize Good Governance in Indonesia. The study focuses on some arguments why tasawuf and al-Ghazali are selected as the main discussion. The arguments are that Tasawuf is an Islamic tradition and al-Ghazali has capability for it in terms of his social lives. He proposed three concepts of thought concerning tasawuf ethics, that is, zuhd, teleological ethics, and ummahat al-fadhail. These concepts can be implemented in reforming good Indonesian government. Keyword: Tasawuf, social sensitivity, IlA¢hiyah consciousness, tasawuf tradition


This work comprises a video sequence shot from my sixth-floor apartment window to the sidewalk below and composed inside a digital-game environment. The intention is to empty the video of narrative and reduce it to an image string. Exploring the space, flying over and through the image sequence, the effect turns unsettling and a new narrative emerges.


Background: Portable and cost-effective accelerometers can yield instantaneous results of force, power, and velocity, with minimum set-up time to assess muscle power. However, such devices must also produce both valid and reliable data.

Objective: The current study assessed the validity and reliability of the Myotest Pro wireless accelerometer (ACC).

Methods: Thirty physically active males performed two squat jump, on two separate sessions. The jump was recorded simultaneously by a force platform and ACC, which was attached to a barbell resting on the subjects' shoulders. Validity was determined using Pearson correlation coefficient (r) and t-test between the maximum force platform (F_{FP}) and ACC (F_{ACC}) force. Between session reliability of F_{ACC}, power (P_{ACC}) and velocity (V_{ACC}) from the ACC were assessed with t-test, intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), and coefficient of variation (CV).

Results: F_{ACC} correlated highly to F_{FP} (r=0.815, p 0.05) for any variable. High ICCs were found for all variables (F_{ACC} 0.90; P_{ACC} 0.80; V_{ACC} 0.84). Low CV was found for F_{ACC} (2.1%), P_{ACC} (3.3%) and V_{ACC} (3.2%).

Conclusions: ACC is a valid and reliable tool to use for assessing barbell movement, but caution in power data interpretation is needed.


Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive and disabling neurodegenerative disease, characterized by a loss of dopamine neurons in the midbrain. Treatment of the motor symptoms of PD relies on replacing lost dopamine with dopaminergic drugs, in particular the pro-drug levodopa (L-DOPA). Chronic L-DOPA treatment leads to unwanted side-effects in the form of abnormal, involuntary movements (dyskinesias), which represent a major barrier to effective symptomatic management of PD. Although pre-clinical animal models provide compelling evidence as to the underlying mechanisms of levodopa-induced dyskinesias (LID), this has repeatedly failed to translate into treatment options Animal model data implicates both pre-synaptic and post-synaptic mechanisms of LID; namely that serotonin neurons cause LID by aberrantly releasing dopamine, and that post-synaptic dopamine receptors become hypersensitised to dopamine resulting in dyskinetic movements. Correlative data from human studies is notably lacking, but is a critical step in improving research translation. The research presented in this thesis aimed to address this translational gap by compiling two cohorts of post-mortem human brain tissue from PD patients characterised on the basis of their clinical LID phenotype, which provided an unprecedented opportunity to explore the pathophysiology of LID in PD. Studies were designed to determine whether hypotheses generated from animal models could be validated in human tissue. The results of these studies do not support a central role for serotonin neurons in LID, nor was post-synaptic sensitisation of dopamine receptors supported as a mechanism of LID. Putative genetic risk factors for developing LID identified from cross-sectional living cohorts were also excluded in a pathologicallyconfirmed study. The failure to demonstrate pathological markers of LID identified from animal models in human tissue challenges the adequacy of current pre-clinical animal models of LID, demonstrates the value of autopsy studies, and may go some way to explain why effective treatment of LID has so far proved elusive. These findings have important implications for the development of anti-dyskinetic agents but also contribute to the understanding of PD as a whole.


Mobile network operators often use handover statistics to improve the structure of their networks. However, such statistics only reflect the movement of connected users. In this paper, a thorough investigation of the correlation between idle and connected user mobility statistics is performed based on measurements from a live GSM network. A multiple regression model is proposed to estimate the number of location updates due to mobility and non-mobility reasons on a per-cell basis from measurements in the network management system. Results shown that, although the number of location updates can normally be predicted accurately from handover statistics, especially when aggregated over large geographical areas, large deviations are observed in cells of lower layers in multi-tier networks.


Heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HeFH) is a monogenic disorder that affects about 1 in 500 people, with a higher prevalence in certain subpopulations such as people of Quebecois, Christian Lebanese and Dutch South Afrikaner extraction. HeFH is characterized by cholesterol deposits affecting the corneas, eyelids and extensor tendons; elevated plasma concentrations of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol; and accelerated vascular disease, especially coronary artery disease (CAD). Although HeFH is genetically heterogeneous, it is most often caused by heterozygous mutations in the LDLR gene encoding the LDL receptor. We describe a man who was diagnosed with HeFH after he had a myocardial infarction at 33 years of age. By DNA sequence analysis, he was found to have a heterozygous splicing mutation in his LDLR gene. This discovery expanded the growing mutational spectrum in patients with HeFH in Ontario. Given that HeFH is a treatable cause of early vascular disease, it is important that this condition be recognized, diagnosed and treated in affected patients; but as yet, there is no consensus on the best approach. Diagnostic criteria based on family history and clinical presentation have been proposed for patients with suspected HeFH. Biochemical or molecular screening might be considered to detect new cases of HeFH in populations with a relatively high HeFH prevalence and a relatively small number of possible causative mutations. So far, however, the most cost-effective and efficient systematic strategy to detect previously undiagnosed cases of HeFH is still cascade testing: clinical and biochemical screening of close relatives of the proband patient diagnosed with HeFH. Pharmacologic treatment of HeFH is cost-effective.


Background Identifying Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) phenotypes among middle-aged and older Hispanics/Latinos can facilitate personalized care, better inform treatment decisions, and could lead to improved clinical outcomes. Methods We focused on middle-aged and older adults (ages ≥45–74 years at baseline) with an apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) ≥5 from the HCHS/SOL (2008–2011) (unweighted n = 3,545). We used latent class analyses (LCA) to identify empirical and clinically meaningful OSA phenotypes. Sleep variables included AHI, percent sleep time SpO2<90%, Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), Women's Health Initiative Insomnia Rating Scale (WHIIRS) score, self-reported average sleep duration, restless legs symptoms, napping frequency, and self-reported sleep quality. We used survey logistic and Poisson regression to test the associations between our OSA phenotypes and prevalent and incident cardiovascular measures (cardiovascular disease, heart failure, Stroke/TIA, hypertension, diabetes, and the Framingham Cardiovascular Risk Score). Results Average AHI, ESS, WHIIRS, and sleep duration were 18.1±19.5, 6.3±6.1, 7.4±6.6, and 7.8±1.7 hours, respectively, and 2.9% had zero percent time SpO2 <90%. We identified a three-class solution that clustered individuals into (1) insomnia OSA (44.3%), (2) asymptomatic mild OSA, (36.2%) and (3) symptomatic OSA (19.5%). Elevated WHIIRS and AHI scores primarily drove classification into groups one and three, respectively. In covariate adjusted models, OSA phenotypes were differentially associated with prevalence (baseline and seven years later) and incidence of cardiovascular measures. Conclusions OSA subtypes in diverse U.S. Hispanic/Latino adults have different cardiovascular complications. More targeted research, that takes these variations into account, could help ameliorate Hispanic/Latino sleep and cardiovascular health disparities.


Recently, sustainable growth and development has become an important issue for governments and corporations. However, maintaining sustainable development is very difficult. These difficulties can be attributed to sociocultural and political backgrounds that change over time [1]. Because of these changes, the technologies for sustainability also change, so governments and companies attempt to predict and manage technology using patent analyses, but it is very difficult to predict the rapidly changing technology markets. The best way to achieve insight into technology management in this rapidly changing market is to build a technology management direction and strategy that is flexible and adaptable to the volatile market environment through continuous monitoring and analysis. Quantitative patent analysis using text mining is an effective method for sustainable technology management. There have been many studies that have used text mining and word-based patent analyses to extract keywords and remove noise words. Because the extracted keywords are considered to have a significant effect on the further analysis, researchers need to carefully check out whether they are valid or not. However, most prior studies assume that the extracted keywords are appropriate, without evaluating their validity. Therefore, the criteria used to extract keywords needs to change. Until now, these criteria have focused on how well a patent can be classified according to its technical characteristics in the collected patent data set, typically using term frequency–inverse document frequency weights that are calculated by comparing the words in patents. However, this is not suitable when analyzing a single patent. Therefore, we need keyword selection criteria and an extraction method capable of representing the technical characteristics of a single patent without comparing them with other patents. In this study, we proposed a methodology to extract valid keywords from single patent documents using relevant papers and their authors' keywords. We evaluated the validity of the proposed method and its practical performance using a statistical verification experiment. First, by comparing the document similarity between papers and patents containing the same search terms in their titles, we verified the validity of the proposed method of extracting patent keywords using authors' keywords and the paper. We also confirmed that the proposed method improves the precision by about 17.4% over the existing method. It is expected that the outcome of this study will contribute to increasing the reliability and the validity of the research on patent analyses based on text mining and improving the quality of such studies.


The study analyses the importance and characteristics of Industrial Economics/Organisation and related courses (e.g. Firm Economics, Innovation Economics, Applied Economics) in Italian Universities. Attention is concentrated on first level (3-year) degree courses, set up by Italian Faculties according to the New Organisation of Studies. The research points out that the IE-IO teaching cluster plays a major role in Italian Universities, counting on about 170 courses and 160 professors. Most of the programs analyse applied microeconomic subjects related to non perfectly competitive markets, mainly monopoly and oligopoly (market structure and results, strategic interdependency, price and non-price policies, entry deterrence, etc.). Other traditional IE subjects (from structural analysis of production systems by industries and firm size, to public industrial policies) are also developed, both in general and specific courses.


SYNOPSIS Objective. The researchers in this study investigated whether Chinese and American children's interpretations of parents' coercive authority assertion moderate relations between their self-reported parenting and adjustment. Associations between child adjustment and parents' shaming and critically comparing children to their peers were also investigated. Design. Sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders (M ages = 11.73, 12.74, and 13.78 years, respectively) residing in Shanghai (n = 150) and Chicago (n = 168) rated possible motivations for coercive authority assertion, indicated whether they approved of it, and reported their parents' coercive authority assertion, critical comparison and shaming, as well as their own depression, antisocial behavior, and school effort. Results. Children in both cultures indicated that parents practiced coercive authority assertion to benefit their children more than themselves. Yet approval ratings were low. Approval of coercive authority assertion and the child-beneficial interpretation moderated relations between parents' coercive authority assertion and depression in both cultures. For American children, relations between parents' coercive authority assertion and both antisocial behavior and school effort were moderated by a social conventional interpretation. Critical comparison and shaming, and parents' coercive authority assertion were associated with poorer adjustment in both cultures. Conclusions. Chinese and American children believe parents are well-meaning but misguided in their practice of coercive authority assertion. Children's approval and interpretations can moderate parents' coercive authority assertion's links to psychosocial and academic functioning. Critical comparison and shaming is also associated with poorer adjustment in both cultures.


In this paper, we suggest diagnosing InterOperabil-ity Testing problems by integrating Constraint-Based and Case-Based Reasoning. We model the problem as a Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP), then Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) is used to compensate for what is missing in this model. CBR supports the process of learning by supplying the case-base with new cases that can be used to solve future similar problems. CBR is also used to update the CSP model, and make it more robust for solving more problems. The domain we are using is InterOperability Testing of protocols in ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) networks.


14 15 The nitrate to ammonium ratios in nitrogen (N) compounds in wet atmospheric deposits have 16 increased over the recent past, which is a cause for some concern as the individual effects of nitrate and 17 ammonium deposition on the biomass of different soil microbial communities and enzyme activities are 18 still poorly defined. We established a field experiment and applied ammonium (NH4Cl) and nitrate 19 (NaNO3) at monthly intervals over a period of four years. We collected soil samples from the 20 ammonium and nitrate treatments and control plots in three different seasons, namely spring, summer, 21 and autumn, to evaluate the how the biomass of different soil microbial communities and enzyme 22 activities responded to the ammonium (NH4Cl) and nitrate (NaNO3) applications. Our results showed 23 that the total contents of phospholipid fatty acids (PLFA) decreased by 24% and 11% in the ammonium 24 and nitrate treatments, respectively. The inhibitory effects of ammonium on gram positive bacteria (G) 25 and bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes, and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) PLFA contents ranged 26 from 14% to 40% across the three seasons. We also observed that the absolute activities of C, N, and P 27 hydrolyses and oxidases were inhibited by ammonium and nitrate, but that nitrate had stronger 28 inhibitory effects on the activities of acid phosphatase (AP) than ammonium. The activities of 29 N-acquisition specific enzymes (enzyme activities normalized by total PLFA contents) were about 21% 30 2 and 43% lower in the ammonium and nitrate treatments than in the control, respectively. However, the 31 activities of P-acquisition specific enzymes were about 19% higher in the ammonium treatment than in 32 the control. Using redundancy analysis (RDA), we found that the measured C, N, and P hydrolyses and 33 polyphenol oxidase (PPO) activities were positively correlated with the soil pH and ammonium 34 contents, but were negatively correlated with the nitrate contents. The PLFA biomarker contents were 35 positively correlated with soil pH, soil organic carbon (SOC), and total N contents, but were negatively 36 correlated with the ammonium contents. The soil enzyme activities varied seasonally, and were highest 37 in March and lowest in October. In contrast, the contents of the microbial PLFA biomarkers were 38 higher in October than in March and June. Ammonium may inhibit the contents of PLFA biomarkers 39 more strongly than nitrate because of acidification. This study has provided useful information about 40 the effects of ammonium and nitrate on soil microbial communities and enzyme activities. 41 42 43


Advances in military and civil aviation have, given rise to the need for additional information on the human responses to low frequency structure borne vibration. The occupants of certain aircraft may be exposed to whole-body vibration at frequencies of less than 10 Hz and this is of interest in aviation medicine since vibrations of this type may excite hitman body resonances into large amplitude oscillations. The presence of vibration becomes of concern when it reaches such intensity as to disturb the aircraft itself and in particular where it represents a threat to comforts health and efficiency of aircrew. The work which is reported in this thesis concerns the respiratory affects of whole body structure borne vibration in man. In particular two major areas have been studied - one concerning tbe effects of vibration on pulmonary ventilation and gaseous exchange and the other, more specifically, on the effect of whole body vibration on metabolic oxygen consumption in man. The investigations were carried out at the Royal Air Force, Institute of Aviation Medicine, using a mechanical vibrator which applied sinusoidal vibration, at frequencies of 2 - 10 Hz and acceleration amplitudes of up to 1.4 Gz, to the buttocks of a seated subject. The results of this study have shown that whole body vibration at certain frequencies and amplitudes can induce, a marked increase in pulmonary ventilation, which is a true hyperventilation with hypocapnia. With exposure to vibration at high intensities, the magnitude of the hypocapnia was sufficient to produce symptoms in some of the experimental subjects. When the amplitude of displacement of the vibration was held constant the greatest respiratory changes were found at the highest frequencies used in this study (6, 8 and 10 Hz). With this type of vibrations the frequencies and intensities Which gave rise to the greatest degree of hyperventilation and hypocapnia were also those, Which caused the greatest degree of discomfort and pain in the thorax and abdomen of the vibrated subject. The onset of this pain and discomfort during exposure to constant amplitude vibration was advanced as a possible explanation for the observed respiratory changes. By contrast, exposure of the subject to vibration at a constant acceleration induced the greatest respiratory changes at the lower frequencies studied (2 and 4 Hz) and since these were not accompanied by pain or discomfort in the subject, labyrinthine stimulation was tentatively suggested as the causative machanism. The influence of a number of factors in modifying the respiratory changes associated with whole body vibration have been studied. It has been shown that firm restraint of the subject in the vibrating seat and the posture adopted by the subject during vibration had no effect on the hyperventilation and hypocapxiia induced by vibration at various frequencies and intensities. Only by the application of firm external support to the thorax and abdomen of the vibrated subject (by means of a restrainer suit) were the respiratory changes during vibration eliminated or greatly reduced. The practical importance of the finding of hyperventilation and hypocapnia in the subject exposed to whole body vibration have been discussed in terms of the in-flight hazard associated with this condition. The investigations have also shown that whole body vibration causes a marked increase in oxygen consumption at certain frequencies and intensities. The results showed that this was not due to the muscular activity required by the subject to maintain posture in the face of vibration since changes of similar magnitude were found in conditions where the subject was restrained by harness in the vibrating seat and where he was unrestrained in the seat. High speed cinephotography revealed that during whole body vibration there was alternate tensing and relaxation of musculature - possibly as a protective mechanism - and it was believed that this phenomenon could explain the increased metabolic oxygen consumption observed during whole body vibration. The practical importance of the increased metabolic activity during vibration has been discussed in terms of the energy required by aircrew to fly various types of aircraft in a variety of conditions. The findings of this investigation have advanced knowledge of the respiratory and metabolic responses of man to whole body structure borne vibration. The practical implications of the results of this study have been discussed in relation to the possible threat which they might pose to the comfort, safety and wellbeing of the pilot required to operate in conditions of inflight vibration.


Aims
Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) reduces morbidity and mortality in systolic heart failure patients with ventricular conduction delay. Variability of individual response to CRT warrants improved patient selection. The Markers and Response to CRT (MARC) study was designed to investigate markers related to response to CRT.

Methods and results
We prospectively studied the ability of 11 clinical, 11 electrocardiographic, 4 echocardiographic, and 16 blood biomarkers to predict CRT response in 240 patients. Response was measured by the reduction of indexed left ventricular end-systolic volume (LVESVi) at 6 months follow-up. Biomarkers were related to LVESVi change using log-linear regression on continuous scale. Covariates that were significant univariately were included in a multivariable model. The final model was utilized to compose a response score. Age was 67 ± 10 years, 63% were male, 46% had ischaemic aetiology, LV ejection fraction was 26 ± 8%, LVESVi was 75 ± 31 mL/m2, and QRS was 178 ± 23 ms. At 6 months LVESVi was reduced to 58 ± 31 mL/m2 (relative reduction of 22 ± 24%), 130 patients (61%) showed ≥ 15% LVESVi reduction. In univariate analysis 17 parameters were significantly associated with LVESVi change. In the final model age, QRSAREA (using vectorcardiography) and two echocardiographic markers (interventricular mechanical delay and apical rocking) remained significantly associated with the amount of reverse ventricular remodelling. This CAVIAR (CRT-Age-Vectorcardiographic QRSAREA -Interventricular Mechanical delay-Apical Rocking) response score also predicted clinical outcome assessed by heart failure hospitalizations and all-cause mortality.

Conclusions
The CAVIAR response score predicts the amount of reverse remodelling after CRT and may be used to improve patient selection. Clinical Trials: NCT01519908.


Proceedings: AACR 101st Annual Meeting 2010‐‐ Apr 17‐21, 2010; Washington, DC

Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) is a stress-responsive enzyme that has antioxidant and cytoprotective functions. 15-Deoxy-Δ12,14-prostaglandin J2 (15d-PGJ2), an endogenous ligand of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ), has been reported to induce HO-1 and other antioxidant enzymes in certain cell lines. In the present work, we investigated the effects of HO-1 on the expression of p53 and p21 induced by 15d-PGJ2 in human breast cancer (MCF-7) cells. Treatment of MCF-7 cells with 15d-PGJ2 (30 μM) led to time-dependent increases in the expression of p53 and p21 as well as HO-1. The up-regulation of p53 and p21 expression by 15d-PGJ2 was abrogated by pharmacological inhibition with zinc protophophyrin (10 μM) or si-RNA knock down of HO-1. Nrf2, a basic-leucine zipper transcription factor, plays a key role in regulating the up-regulation of many antioxidant enzymes including HO-1. In MCF-7 cells transfected with NRF2 si-RNA, 15d-PGJ2 failed to induce expression of p53, p21 and HO-1. In addition, HO-1 inducers, such as cobalt protoporphyrin (25 μM) and hemin (10 μM), upregulated the expression of p53 and p21 without eliciting any apparent cytotoxicity. HO-1 degrades heme to produce iron, biliverdin, and carbon monoxide. We hypothesize that iron, a by-product of HO-1-catalyzed reactions, could mediate 15d-PGJ2-induced expression p53 and p21. Up-regulation of p53 and p21 expression by 15d-PGJ2 was abrogated by the iron chelator desferrioxamine (25 μM) in MCF-7 cells. Iron released from heme by HO-1 activity is mostly in the ferrous (Fe2+) form. When MCF-7 cells were treated with the iron-specific chelator phenanathroline (10 μM), 15d-PGJ2-induced expression of p53 and p21 was attenuated. However, p53 induction by 15d-PGJ2 was not affected by GW9662, a PPARγ antagonist. In addition, levels of the iron-sequestering protein H-ferritin were induced by 15d-PGJ2 in MCF-7 cells. Addition of the antioxidant N-acetylcysteine lowered the 15d-PGJ2-mediated H-ferritin levels. Recently, it has been reported that p21 as a positive regulator of Nrf2 extends the prosurvival function of p53 through recruitment of stress-response genes. Up-regulation of p53 and p21 expression via Nrf2-driven HO-1 induction and subsequent release of iron together with elevated expression of H-ferritin may confer resistance to oxidative damage in MCF-7 cells.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1470.


Over the last couple of decades, there has been a growing call for teachers to become more responsive to the increasing cultural diversity of students as a means of improving students' experiences in school and their learning outcomes. Challenges exist in working with secondary mathematics teachers due to the common belief that math is culture-free and the lack of images of culturally responsive teaching in secondary mathematics classrooms. In this research, we explored the affordances of the Cultural Inquiry Process project in building inservice secondary mathematics teachers' capacity for cultural responsiveness.


The political accident that was the sack of Rome is a major landmark in the artistic history of Europe. Contemporaries insisted on its Protestant iconoclasm, which notably jeopardized the relics and sacred images of the Holy City, home of the Holy See and destination of pilgrimages. The sack dispersed the successors to Raphael along with the other actors of the first generation of Mannerists, thereby bringing about the immediate diffusion of the first Roman—as well as Florentine—manner, initially towards the main courts of Italy (1527 and 1528) and later to those of France (Fontainebleau) and ultimately Europe.


We first synthesized gadolinium oxide (Gd2O3) by a modified "polyol" strategy and then embedded it into mesoporous silica by a simple self-assembly sol-gel reaction. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) results show that the samples have good sphericity and good dispersibility. The structure of mesoporous silica was characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and small-angle X-ray diffraction (SAXRD). Results show that the mesoporous structure has not been destroyed after gadolinium oxide imbedding. The ratio of gadolinium and silica was determined by the mean of energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS).


3D hand pose estimation from monocular RGB is a challenging problem due to significantly varying environmental conditions such as lighting or variation in subject appearances. One way to improve performance across-the-board is to introduce more data. However, acquiring 3D annotated data for hands is a laborious task, as it involves heavy multi-camera setups leading to lab-like training data which does not generalize well. Alternatively, one could make use of unsupervised pre-training in order to significantly increase the training data size one can train on. More recently, contrastive learning has shown promising results on tasks such as image classification. Yet, no study has been made on how it affects structured regression problems such as hand pose estimation. We hypothesize that the contrastive objective does not extend well to such downstream task due to its inherent invariance and instead propose a relation objective, promoting equivariance. Our goal is to perform extensive experiments to validate our hypothesis.


OTX015 is a novel synthetic thienodiazepine analog, which potently inhibits bromodomains (BRD) 2, 3 and 4 of the BET (bromodomain and extraterminal) protein family. It is currently undergoing phase I evaluation in patients with hematologic malignancies using an oral formulation. We developed and validated an Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography method with tandem Mass Spectrometry detection (UPLC-MS/MS) for quantification of OTX015 in plasma in order to investigate its pharmacokinetics in humans, using small plasma samples (50 μL), and an internal standard, Y-401. Chromatographic separation was performed on a BEH C18 UPLC column with a mobile phase gradient at a flow rate of 0.5 mL min−1 for 5 minutes. Quantification was performed using the transition 492–383 (m/z) for OTX015 and 506–383 (m/z) for Y-401. The lower limit of quantification (LLOQ) was established as 1 ng mL−1 with 10.80% precision and 94.67% accuracy. The calibration curve was linear up to 250 ng mL−1 (upper limit of quantification). Intra-assay precision ranged from 7.3% to 11.6% for the three quality control (QC) concentrations evaluated and was 16.0% for the LLOQ, and intra-assay accuracy ranged from 93.7% to 109.8% for the three QC concentrations and was 92.0% for the LLOQ. Inter-assay precision and accuracy ranged from 4.1% to 14.0% and from 92.3% to 104.8%, respectively. These data show that the UPLC-MS/MS procedure is sensitive, accurate, precise and robust, and was validated for determining OTX015 concentrations in plasma. The method was successfully applied to determine the pharmacokinetic profile of OTX015 in patients treated in an ongoing phase I clinical study.


Experiences of maltreatment during childhood and the emergence of sexuality during adolescence are both critical developmental issues that intersect in meaningful ways, yet the two are often isolated from each other in practice. Despite the prevalence of childhood maltreatment, sexuality education does not accommodate young people with trauma histories. This results in curricula and content that ignore the particular needs and experiences of a proportion of students in sexuality education classrooms. Trauma interventions commit a similar oversight by neglecting the prospects for positive, growth-promoting sexual experiences and relationships among young people who have been abused. The failure to account for young people's resilience in the sexual domain results in treatment approaches that emphasise sexual risks (e.g. revictimisation) and problem behaviours to the exclusion of guidance in cultivating positive sexualities. Consequently, many forms of sexuality education and maltreatment interventions may be of limited effectiveness and relevance in promoting the future sexual well-being of young people with histories of trauma. To redress this gap, we advocate for trauma-informed sexuality education, an approach that acknowledges past experiences of abuse, the promise of resilience, and young people's right to positive sexualities.


The conservation of total water is an important numerical feature for global Earth system models. Even small conservation problems in the water budget can lead to systematic errors in century-long simulations. This study quantifies and reduces various sources of water conservation error in the atmosphere component of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model. Several sources of water conservation error have been identified during the development of the version 1 (V1) model. The largest errors result from the numerical coupling between the resolved dynamics and the parameterized subgrid physics. A hybrid coupling using different methods for fluid dynamics and tracer transport provides a reduction of water conservation error by a factor of 50 at 1 horizontal resolution as well as consistent improvements at other resolutions. The second largest error source is the use of an overly simplified relationship between the surface moisture flux and latent heat flux at the interface between the host model and the turbulence parameterization. This error can be prevented by applying the same (correct) relationship throughout the entire model. Two additional types of conservation error that result from correcting the surface moisture flux and clipping negative water concentrations can be avoided by using massconserving fixers. With all four error sources addressed, the water conservation error in the V1 model becomes negligible and insensitive to the horizontal resolution. The associated changes in the long-term statistics of the main atmospheric features are small. A sensitivity analysis is carried out to show that the magnitudes of the conservation errors in early V1 versions decrease strongly with temporal resolution but increase with horizontal resolution. The increased vertical resolution in V1 results in a very thin model layer at the Earth's surface, which amplifies the conservation error associated with the surface moisture flux correction. We note that for some of the identified error sources, the proposed fixers are remedies rather than solutions to the problems at their roots. Future improvements in time integration would be beneficial for V1.


Abstract. The development of toponymical cartography in Russia has a long history and rich practical experience. Cartographic methods have been used in toponymical research for many decades. Their great importance was noted by the founders of fundamental place-name study. This field is actively developing despite the considerable methodological complexity and labor intensity. Modern technologies in cartography make it possible to bring the scale and intensity of toponymic research to a new level and solve problems that have long been identified in science. This further increases the relevance of toponymic mapping and the active introduction of other techniques into the practice of local and regional toponymic research.


From 1776 until current times federal lands in the United States have been the source of conflict. This conflict has been primarily over land-use. There are three main aspects of use conflict: 1) type of use; 2) allocation of use; and 3) management of use. Embedded in this atmosphere of conflict are differing cultural value systems which have evolved in use of this land. This paper focuses on the cultural value system of ranchers in Southwestern Montana who use federal lands for grazing. It discusses those elements which can be used to explain the historic and current conflict over public grazing policy and federal land use as well as some of the current issues which contribute to the conflict.


Image fusion has become an important and powerful technique for image analysis and computer vision. This paper presents a novel multiresolution image fusion method, which is based on wavelet transform combing with an effective fusion scheme. The main contribution of this research is that by considering the physical meaning of the wavelet coefficients, a selection scheme that treats the coefficients in different ways is proposed. This scheme selects the coefficients in the high frequency bands by a wavelet entropy based strategy, while selects the coefficients in the low frequency band by a variance based strategy. The performance of the proposed fusion method is compared with several existing fusion techniques. Comparison results show that the proposed method can effectively fuse the images with less error.


: Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus frequently develop antilymphocyte antibodies as measured by complement-dependent cytotoxicity and immunofluorescence assays. Highest titres of both of the major IgM and IgG classes occur during phases of active disease, and their presence is associated with essentially the entire spectrum of immune system functional abnormalities in this disorder. While the full range of antibody specificities requires further clarification, antibodies to many discrete lymphocyte populations have been described, including B cells, T cells, and T cell subsets. Antibodies to T cell subsets are of special interest because of their relationship with subset depletion in vivo, and their capacity to reproduce, through effects on normal cells in vitro, the same types of immunoregulatory abnormalities characteristic of lymphocytes isolated from patients with SLE. Suppressor/inducer and suppressor/effector T cells appear to be the main targets in this regard. Antibodies specific for activated T lymphocytes exist as well, and this type has the unusual property of interfering with events operant in production of/response to interleukin-2, a critical step controlling the expansion of specifically-reactive T cells and the induction of other lymphokines. In addition to complement-mediated lysis and antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity, anti-lymphocyte antibodies have the potential to influence immune system function by several non-cytotoxic mechanisms, including surface antigen modulation and ligand/receptor triggering. Despite the large amount of data which has been accumulated concerning the cell type specificity and functional effects of anti-lymphocyte antibodies in SLE, little is known about the nature of the surface membrane molecules with which they react. Application of cell cloning and molecular biology technology should rectify this deficiency in the near future. Although it is likely that antilymphocyte antibodies are of relevance to immune system pathophysiology in SLE, it remains to be determined whether these interesting antibodies reflect secondary events, or have some more fundamental significance.


Conferencing and cautioning are used as diversionary alternatives in the juvenile justice system and there is evidence to suggest they reduce reoffending. As Indigenous young people are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system, an important question is whether they are as likely to be diverted as non-Indigenous young people. This study used modelled data to examine juveniles' contact with the police and courts, and the differences in juvenile diversionary rates for Indigenous and non-Indigenous offenders in New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia in 2005. For all states, Indigenous young offenders were more likely than non-Indigenous offenders to be referred to court, non-Indigenous offenders were more likely to receive a police caution, and males and older offenders were more likely to be diverted. The number of prior contacts was similar for all states, with more contacts reducing the likelihood of diversion and with less likelihood of diversion for offenders committing offences against a person. As Indigenous young offenders are more likely to have multiple prior contacts with the system, including detention, further research is needed into the reasons for their high reoffending rates. Judy Putt General Manager, Research The overrepresentation of Indigenous young people in the criminal justice system is one of Australia's most significant social problems. This overrepresentation was highlighted by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody as a contributing factor to the rate of Indigenous deaths in custody (Commonwealth of Australia 1991). Although significant resources have been allocated to reduce this overrepresentation, the problem still remains. In 2005, Indigenous juveniles accounted for 52 percent of 1 0 to 1 7-year-olds in juvenile detention across Australia. In Western Australia (WA) the corresponding rate was 75 percent, in South Australia (SA) 44 percent and in New South Wales (NSW) 52 percent (SCRGSP 2007). New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia have introduced systems of conferencing and/or cautioning to reduce the overall rate of juvenile contact with the criminal justice system. In New South Wales, this is referred to as a Youth Justice Conference (YJC), in South Australia a Family Conference (FC) and in Western Australia a Juvenile Justice Team (JJT). Conferences are facilitated by a trained conference convenor. Family members of the offender, the victim(s), members of the criminal justice system and other interested parties can attend, along with the offender. The offence and its impact on the victim(s) and the wider community are discussed, and the offender is encouraged to accept responsibility and negotiate some form of restitution (also see 'Note'). Although these diversionary alternatives appear to be effective in reducing reoffending (Luke & Lind 2002), Indigenous young offenders appear to be much less likely to be diverted than their non- Indigenous counterparts. Data from South Australia indicate that Indigenous young offenders are more likely to be sent to court and less likely to receive a formal caution or be diverted to a FC than non- Indigenous young offenders (Wundersitz & Hunter 2005). Similarly, in Western Australia, Indigenous young people are five times more likely to have had formal contact with the police and 29 times more likely to have been arrested (in the 1 0-1 4 year age group) (Loh & Ferrante 2003). In New South Wales, Indigenous young people are more likely than non- Indigenous young people to be taken to court (64% compared with 48%) and less likely to be cautioned (1 4% compared with 28%) by police (Chan et al. 2004). The reason for this discrepancy in rates of juvenile diversion is of critical importance to criminal justice policy. Studies by Luke and Cunneen (1 995) and Cunneen (2006) have argued that racial bias in the exercise of police discretion early in the criminal justice process contributes to Indigenous overrepresentation in juvenile detention centres and prison. …


The reduction in pollutional load realised by storm water settling basins is potentially reduced due to the occurrence of a partially mixed situation in the basin or due to resuspension of settled material. The decrease in efficiency can theoretically be avoided by means of partially bypassing the basin. In order to quantify the potential increase in efficiency a settling basin in Amersfoort is taken as an example. This basin seems to behave like an almost completely mixed system, bypassing would increase the overall efficiency from ca. 34 % to ca 39 % for three overflows. The dynamic behaviour of settling basins, scouring conditions and the boundary conditions for which settling basins are to be designed are the research needs for further development in the field of storm water settling basins.


Detailed experimental studies on sheet relativistic electron beam propagation through a long planar wiggler are reported and compared with numerical simulations. The planar wiggler has 56 periods with a period of 9.6 mm. Typically, the wiggler field peak amplitude is 5 kG. The experimental efforts are focused on controlling the deviation of the beam toward the side edge of the planar wiggler along the wide transverse direction. It is found that a suitably tapered magnetic field configuration at the wiggler entrance can considerably reduce the rate of deviation. The effects of the following techniques on beam transport efficiency are discussed: side focusing, beam transverse velocity tuning at the wiggler entrance, and beam spread limiting. High beam transport efficiency (almost 100%) of a 15-A beam is obtained in some cases. >


How can we find the right graph for semi-supervised learning? In real world applications, the choice of which edges to use for computation is the first step in any graph learning process. Interestingly, there are often many types of similarity available to choose as the edges between nodes, and the choice of edges can drastically affect the performance of downstream semi-supervised learning systems. However, despite the importance of graph design, most of the literature assumes that the graph is static. In this work, we present Grale, a scalable method we have developed to address the problem of graph design for graphs with billions of nodes. Grale operates by fusing together different measures of (potentially weak) similarity to create a graph which exhibits high task-specific homophily between its nodes. Grale is designed for running on large datasets. We have deployed Grale in more than 20 different industrial settings at Google, including datasets which have tens of billions of nodes, and hundreds of trillions of potential edges to score. By employing locality sensitive hashing techniques, we greatly reduce the number of pairs that need to be scored, allowing us to learn a task specific model and build the associated nearest neighbor graph for such datasets in hours, rather than the days or even weeks that might be required otherwise. We illustrate this through a case study where we examine the application of Grale to an abuse classification problem on YouTube with hundreds of million of items. In this application, we find that Grale detects a large number of malicious actors on top of hard-coded rules and content classifiers, increasing the total recall by 89% over those approaches alone.


: Short-Term Load Forecasting is a very relevant aspect in managing, operating or participating an electric system. From system operators to energy producers and retailers knowing the electric demand in advance with high accuracy is a key feature for their business. The load series of a given system presents highly repetitive daily, weekly and yearly patterns. However, other factors like temperature or social events cause abnormalities in this otherwise periodic behavior. In order to develop an effective load forecasting system, it is necessary to understand and model these abnormalities because, in many cases, the higher forecasting error typical of these special days is linked to the larger part of the losses related to load forecasting. This paper focuses on the effect that several types of special days have on the load curve and how important it is to model these behaviors in detail. The paper analyzes the Spanish national system and it uses linear regression to model the effect that social events like holidays or festive periods have on the load curve. The results presented in this paper show that a large classification of events is needed in order to accurately model all the events that may occur in a 7-year period.


Anti-China critics argue that the People's Republic of China (PRC or China) engages in a long-standing and intentional pattern of currency manipulation that artificially devalues the Chinese currency, the Renminbi (RMB or "people's currency") versus the U.S. dollar. The devaluation of the RMB makes Chinese goods less expensive to the U.S. consumer as consumers need to exchange fewer dollars for the same amount of RMB used to purchase Chinese goods. The devaluation of the Chinese currency means that China exports more inexpensive goods to the United States and the United States exports fewer to China. This pattern leads to an increase in the U.S. trade deficit with China, which has already reached a massive $365.7 billion in 2015, by the far the largest U.S. trade deficit with any individual trading partner. A trade deficit of this size has many negative consequences for the United States, such as closed factories, lost jobs, and stagnant wages. China's currency manipulation is another instance, according to the anti-China critics, of how China conducts international trade to the detriment of the United States. One anti-China critic, a prominent politician running for high political office in 2016, promises to impose punitive tariffs of 45% on all Chinese imports to offset the effects of China's currency manipulation. Should such a measure become enacted, it would cause shock waves around the world and could possibly plunge the world into a costly trade war between the United States and China with ramifications for every corner of the globe. This article examines the main arguments that China's currency manipulation justifies the U.S. imposition of trade sanctions. A detailed legal analysis reveals that China's currency manipulation violates no legal obligations under the WTO. As a result, the United States cannot lawfully impose trade sanctions on China consistent with the WTO. To continue make this argument when it is not legally viable is risky and even dangerous. It is now time to move beyond such inflammatory arguments that do not present a viable legal remedy against China. The article then argues that a different set of strategies is needed to deal with China's sharp tactics in international trade as exemplified in the United States' recent strategy in creating mega-free trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.


This paper discusses the importance of change in American presidential discourse. Taking the inaugural address as its data, the study proposes a corpus-based analysis of the change frame in American presidential rhetoric. Change will be shown to relate to two levels of analysis using a combined approach of quantitative and qualitative methods. Firstly, its occurrence as a lexical concept in the corpus at hand will be examined. Secondly, the study of extended portions of discourse will demonstrate that meaning representation largely occurs on the basis of motion concepts, including the conceptual metaphor CHANGE IS MOTION as the central mapping of the event structure metaphor system (ESM). As will be shown, the knowledge in the change frame is suggestive of ideological discourse structures, which attach opposing value judgements to the presence vs. absence of change, respectively.


Calcium ions in the human body serve as second messengers and are responsible for cell homeostasis. Muscle contractions and neuronal communication are supported by electrical activity. Voltage‐activated calcium channels are crucial for many cellular events. They play an important role in transducing the initial stimulus to the effector systems that modulate insulin secretion in pancreatic cells or neurotransmitter at nerve terminals. Dysfunction of these processes may cause many conditions, including diabetes or Alzheimer's disease. In recent years the amount of research on Ca2+ channels has markedly increased, but there are limitations related to physical restrictions in the spatial resolution of fluorescence microscopy. This phenomenon results in a loss of information with regard to the true location of a point source that is emitting light. Newly developed methods such as Stimulated Emission Depletion Microscopy (STED) or Photoactivated localization microscopy (PALM) allow imaging close to the molecular scale.


Quality of service (QoS) supporting network architectures, like the differentiated services architecture, require a certain agreement regarding service levels. Traffic characteristics like data rates will be part of such agreements and, thus, senders must take care to stay within the agreed limits. Traffic shaping is one important mechanism to avoid penalties in networks (dropped or delayed packets) due to violations of the agreement. This paper presents a new class-based QoS traffic shaper for Linux that aims at shaping aggregate traffic as well as individual flows within an aggregate. In comparison to other approaches (e.g., class-based queuing), our flow based queuing mechanism causes significantly less jitter. Implemented in end-systems, this approach even benefits from direct interaction with applications to create traffic in accordance to application requirements.


This review essay places several recent works on homosexuality and the Left within a broader history of scholarly engagement with queer radicalism. Books by Daniel Hurewitz, Terence Kissack, Gary Holcomb, and Kevin Floyd together represent a grappling with defining queer leftist studies. Their works build on the contributions of several generations of scholarship and envision avenues for mapping future studies of radical queer communities, culture, and politics in the United States.


In this paper, the purpose is to propose a new and a simpler parameter than the previous method which uses an ordinary blood pressure cuff and a Doppler ultrasound blood flow detector in order to predict the severity of PAD(Peripheral arterial disease). For the simpler system, we developed 4 channels of PPG (photoplethysmography) and proposed a new analysis parameter: finger-toe index (FTI). In order to verify the usefulness of the developed system and the new analysis parameter, the experiments were performed on 43 normal subjects. The new analysis parameter: FTI was compared with ABI (ankle-brachial index) using regression analysis method. There are two main findings of this study: first, the proposed parameter, FTI is more strongly correlated with age than ABI. The correlation coefficient between each parameter, FTI & ABI, and age was observed to be 0.642 and 0.271 respectively. The regression coefficient between the parameters, FTI & PTT, and ABI & PTT was observed to be 0.60 and 0.10 respectively. Secondly, the proposed parameter is a more quantitative index. For the same subject group (n=43), the result of ABI showed that all subjects are in a single state group but the results of FTI classified the subjects into three state group.


One of the important pathogens which cause hemorrhagic colitis and hemolytic uremic syndrome in humans is enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) O157:H7. Cattle are the most important reservoir of this bacterium. EspA and Intimin are two protein factors for bacteria colonization on intestinal epithelium and cause attaching/effacing lesion. The LEE pathogenicity islands code these proteins. EspA is part of type III secretion systems which delivers Tir to the host cell and integrate to membrane. Intimin encoded by eae gene and fused to Tir. In this research we supposed that chimeric recombinant form of EI gene containing EspA and Intimin were fused with a linker as an edible candidate vaccine would reduce colonization of E. coli O157:H7 in animal model. We constructed a synthetic gene EspA (E120) and intimin (Int282) fused by (EAAAK)4 sequence. The synthetic gene (EI) was codon optimized and subcloned into plant expression vector (PBI121) under CaMV35S promoter and then transferred to tobacco plant by agrobacterium mediated protocol. The presence of inserted gene in plant genome was documented by PCR and RT-PCR methods. The amount of EI protein in transgenic tobacco leaves were estimated 0.1% of the total soluble protein (TSP) by ELISA method.