INTRODUCTION
Rural generalist anaesthetists (RGAs) are central to the delivery of health care in much of rural and remote Australia. This article details a systematic review of the literature specifically asking the question, 'What is the current evidence of the 'safety' of anaesthesia delivered by RGAs?'

METHODS
Six databases were searched using terms including 'safety', 'rural', 'anaesthetics', 'general practitioners', and associated search terms. Relevant articles were assessed for rigour, and information was summarised using qualitative grid analysis that included information on the study setting, participants, methods, limitations and key result areas. The primary author developed key themes from the data, which were refined in discussion with other authors.

RESULTS
The safety of RGAs was described using five concepts: appropriate training and leadership, rates of complications, volume or scope of practice, access to equipment, and case selection.

CONCLUSION
RGAs are pivotal in the delivery of health care in rural and remote communities. The sparse literature available on RGA safety is broadly grouped into five areas. There is a need to characterise and describe the role of RGAs, review and revise training and education, recognise RGA scope of practice and understand how RGAs lead the management of safety and risk in their practice.


In this report I argue that a popular account of the nature of ethical thought and talk – non-cognitivism – cannot make sense of our attempts to explain why some things are right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust. After introducing the process by which we attempt to explain these sorts of ethical features (a process I call ethical explanation), I consider how we might test whether non-cognitivism can account for this process. We can test whether non-cognitivism can account for ethical explanation, I argue, by testing whether non-cognitivism can account for the meanings of ethical explanatory sentences, the sentences we use to express explanatory thoughts in ethics. After considering how non-cognitivism might account for ethical explanatory sentences (and so the thoughts these sentences express), I develop a series of problem cases on which, I argue, no plausible non-cognitivist account of these meanings of these sentences is possible. Because non-cognitivism cannot account for the meanings of ethical explanatory sentences, I conclude, non-cognitivism cannot account for ethical explanation.


The increasing prevalence of overweight can be seen from the people who are overweight and obesity. North Sumatera is one of the provinces which has the higher prevalence of overweight and obesity than the national rate at 13% and 18.1%. One of the factors associated with overweight and obesity is food consumption. Poor dietary habbit, which is low in fiber and high in fat, can lead to weight gain. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship of dietary habbit to nutritional status. The research used cross sectional design. The sample were 70 employee of Health Polytechnic Directorate, Health Ministry of Medan and taken by using total sampling technique. The measured factors were carbohydrate and fat intake, the type of food and nutritional status. The data were obtained based on the interviews using food recall, FFQ and questionnaires and measurement of IMT. Data were analyzed using chi square test. The results showed that there was a relationship between the adequate intake of carbohydrates (p = <0.001) and adequate intake of fat (p = 0.022) to nutritional status while the type of food consumed does not show relationship to nutritional status. It is recommended that The Management of Health Polytechnic Directorate, Health Ministry, Medan to do concealing, make policy and supervision to carry out


Purpose: Positive intervention effects following lexical retrieval interventions are increasingly reported with people with progressive language impairments; however, generalization of therapy gains are less frequently evident and less well understood. This study sought to explore the impact of specific therapy ingredients on generalization outcomes.Method: Twelve participants with progressive lexical retrieval deficits (four each with semantic variant primary progressive aphasia, logopenic variant primary progressive aphasia, and Alzheimer's disease, amnestic presentation) and their family members participated in a 6-week intervention that aimed to increase access to different word classes (nouns, verbs, and adjectives) through a strategic self-cueing approach. Generalization was actively facilitated through strategy practice in connected speech. Repeated baselines of picture naming and connected speech were conducted prior to intervention and repeated immediately post and at 6 weeks following intervention.Results: All three diagnostic groups showed significant improvements in naming performance post-intervention for all word classes and for both treated and untreated items, demonstrating consistent treatment effectiveness and generalization at the word level. No changes in the informativeness or efficiency of connected speech were found.Conclusions: Despite heterogeneity across participants, widespread evidence of both treatment effects and generalization to untreated items was found for all diagnostic groups and word classes. The consistent within-level generalization across all groups is explored here in relation to optimization of strategy use through incorporation of cognitive scaffolds, strategic practice at the connected speech level, and the inclusion of family members. The absence of across-level generalization to connected speech is also explored.Supplemental Material S1. Naming stimuli synonyms and psycholinguistic variables.Supplemental Material S2. Parameters and instruction of strategic self-cueing approach.Supplemental Material S3. Strategic self-cue cards.Supplemental Material S4. Cognitive scaffolds implemented in intervention.Supplemental Material S5. Home practice.Supplemental Material S6. Rationale for the statistical analyses.Supplemental Material S7. Statistical support for aggregated baseline naming data.Supplemental Material S8. Performance means for cognitive control measures by diagnostic group and assessment time.Beales, A., Whitworth, A., Cartwright, J., Panegyres, P. K., & Kane, R. T. (2021). Making the right connections: Maximizing lexical generalization in lexical impairments in primary progressive aphasia and Alzheimer's disease. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_AJSLP-20-00019


Most digital electronic products must comply with the Electromagnetic
Compatibility (EMC) requirements to access the market of EMC-enforced countries.
One of the EMC requirements is to control unwanted emission of electromagnetic
(EM) energy. However, as the clock frequency goes higher, it is a greater challenge
to design EMC-complied circuitry due to the problem of rahation in the harmonic
frequencies. Consequently, it is crucial to understand the basic concepts of the
emission mechanisms and the suitable mitigation techniques to ensure EMC
compliance. This research was to characterise the sources of radiated emissions from
a hgital circuit and investigate the effects of employing EMC design practices on the
reduction of emission. The novelty of this research is athibuted to the
comprehensive study on the sources of emission and mitigation techniques of digital
circuits on double-sided board at 0.125 MHz, 0.25 MHz, 1.25 MHz, 2.5 MHz, 12.5
MHz and 25 MHz. The radiated emissions are measured for various mitigation
techmques such as the size of loop area, length of cable and signal currents. The
measurement results are then compared with the radiated emission limits of
European Norm (EN) 55022 and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
Part 15 Class B. Nine Printed Circuit Board (PCB) layouts with different design are
designed and fabricated by using the IsoPro software and the Quick Circuit milling
machine. The peak measurements were conducted in a 3-meter Semi Anechoic
Chamber (SAC) in the frequency range from 30 MHz to 1 GHz. The results showed
a reduction of emission level by an average 6.5 dB at frequency below 800 MHz
(harmonics) by keeping the loop of return current small. However, the emission
level for harmonic frequencies of 25 MHz or 12.5 MHz clock signals increase above
the frequency of 300 MHz. Series resistor on each signal trace reduces the level by
an average 10 dB above the frequency 175 MHz to 1 GHz. The employment of
small area of ground plane for critical clock trace routing and wide power trace can
reduce the emission by an average of about 9.1 dB.


The last in a series of books devoted to the work of John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), this volume covers the figure and landscape works that Sargent produced between 1914 and 1925. The story begins with the artist painting with friends on vacation in Austria in the summer of 1914, unaware that war was about to be declared. The following year, he began working in London on his ideas for the murals at the Boston Public Library and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, before spending two years in Boston and exploring other parts of America. While in Florida to paint a portrait of John D. Rockefeller, he produced a group of uniquely Floridian watercolors that are breathtaking arrangements of color, form, and light. In July 1918 he accepted an invitation from the British government to travel to the Somme battlefields as an official war artist. This experience led him to produce a remarkable group of works depicting troop movements, off-duty soldiers relaxing, and the studies for his epic canvas, Gassed. Sargent returned to Boston in 1921 and 1922 to complete his mural projects, and visits to Maine and New Hampshire yielded numerous watercolors. Chapters on Sargent's materials and the framing of his pictures complete this remarkable project.


We study the problem of translating an image-based, step-by-step assembly manual created by human designers into machine-interpretable instructions. We formulate this problem as a sequential prediction task: at each step, our model reads the manual, locates the components to be added to the current shape, and infers their 3D poses. This task poses the challenge of establishing a 2D-3D correspondence between the manual image and the real 3D object, and 3D pose estimation for unseen 3D objects, since a new component to be added in a step can be an object built from previous steps. To address these two challenges, we present a novel learning-based framework, the Manual-to-Executable-Plan Network (MEPNet), which reconstructs the assembly steps from a sequence of manual images. The key idea is to integrate neural 2D keypoint detection modules and 2D-3D projection algorithms for high-precision prediction and strong generalization to unseen components. The MEPNet outperforms existing methods on three newly collected LEGO manual datasets and a Minecraft house dataset.


At present there is considerable interest in the use of single carrier frequency-division multiple access. This interest is justified by the inherent single carrier structure of the SC-FDMA scheme, which is more robust against phase noise and has a lower peak-to-average power ratio than orthogonal frequency-division multiple access. This consequently makes it more attractive for uplink transmission from low-cost devices with limited transmit power. SC-FDMA commonly makes use of frequency domain linear equalization in order to combat the frequency selectivity of the transmission channel. Frequency domain decision feedback equalization, composed of a frequency domain feed forward filter and a time domain feedback filter, outperforms LE due to its ability to cancel precursor echoes. Although these solutions suffer from error propagation, results show that DFE still offers a significant performance gain over conventional LE for uncoded SC-FDMA. In this article we show how precoding can be used on the uplink of the LTE standard to overcome the frequency selective nature of the radio channel. We propose a frequency domain implementation of Tomlinson- Harashima precoding and investigate the bit error rate and the PAPR performance for SCFDMA using ZF and MMSE THP.


In numerous propulsion forms of underwater creatures, jet propulsion is one of the major ways to swim, and so far, the main bionic objective of current jet-propelled bionic robots are cephalopods (such as octopuses and squids). However, scallop has unique advantages to survive underwater for its structure and jet propulsion style. In this paper, a scallop robot that mimics the structure and the propulsion mechanism of a scallop is designed and implemented. The scallop robot consists of two shells, a special motor to drive the shells open and close periodically, and a curtain muscle to control the water flow during swimming. The scallop robot absorbs water from the front in the direction of movement, and then sprays water to the rear, with better continuity of movement and endurance compared to other jet propulsion forms. Moreover, the rigid shell protects the carrying device well. Swimming experiments show that the scallop robot's special jet propulsion mode enables it move up to 1.8 body length / second. The developed scallop robot has many potential applications for its good swimming continuity, stable swimming, strong protection, and low-cost structure.


Shao, M. and Wu, Z., 2019. China's renewable marine energy based on big data. In: Guido-Aldana, P.A. and Mulahasan, S. (eds.), Advances in Water Resources and Exploration. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 93, pp. 597–600. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.The China is located in the eastern part of the Asian continent and the western part of the Pacific Ocean, which is rich in renewable marine energy with various forms and the common characteristics of sustainability.The problem of environmental pollution is aggravated by the consumption of fossil energy, so people pay more and more attention to the development and utilization of renewable energy.The exploitation and utilization of Marine renewable energy is the inherent requirement of realizing the scientific development concept of our country and the inevitable choice of building an environment-friendly and resource-saving society in the 21st century.At present, all countries attach great importance to the development of marine energy and have formulated sound standards for marine energy development.The development of Marine energy can effectively alleviate the energy crisis and promote the innovation of marine energy technology industry.This paper expounds the current situation of Marine energy standardization and analyzes the specific problems and countermeasures according to the big data.


The searching spontaneous speech can be enhanced by combining automatic speech transcriptions with semantically
related metadata. An important question is what can be expected from search of such transcriptions and different
sources of related metadata in terms of retrieval effectiveness. The Cross-Language Speech Retrieval (CL-SR) track at recent CLEF workshops provides a spontaneous speech
test collection with manual and automatically derived metadata fields. Using this collection we investigate the comparative search effectiveness of individual fields comprising automated transcriptions and the available metadata. A further important question is how transcriptions and metadata should be combined for the greatest benefit to search accuracy. We compare simple field merging of individual fields with the extended BM25 model for weighted field combination (BM25F). Results indicate that BM25F can produce improved search accuracy, but that it is currently important to set its parameters suitably using a suitable training set.


Tumor-necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) is a proinflammatory cytokine with a wide variety of biological effects. The most important source of this cytokine is monocytes/macrophages. It is a potent agonist in the activation of endothelial cells; however, the precise role of endothelial cells as a source of TNF-alpha is not known. In the present study, we addressed the possibility that TNF-alpha is produced by cultured human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) stimulated with factors such as lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or interleukin-1alpha (IL-1alpha). LPS and IL-1alpha induced expression of TNF-alpha mRNA in HUVEC. IL-1alpha induced expression and secretion of TNF-alpha protein, but LPS did not induce production of TNF-alpha protein. Most of the TNF-alpha protein in cell lysate was found in the membrane fraction. The mRNA for TNF-alpha-converting enzyme (TACE) was expressed in unstimulated HUVEC, and its level was not altered by treatment with LPS or IL-1alpha. Transfection of HUVEC with full-length cDNA encoding the precursor TNF-alpha enhanced secretion of TNF-alpha protein by these cells, and treatment of the cells with a TACE inhibitor reduced the secretion. These results suggest that HUVEC produce TNF-alpha and have TACE activity. Secreted TNF-alpha may be involved in autocrine activation of endothelial cells, and TNF-alpha retained in cell membrane may serve as a juxtacrine system to activate target cells on the endothelial surface.


We aimed to assess the relationship between subjective sleep quality and occupationally-relevant outcomes in military personnel. Participants were from an elite unit of US Army soldiers who worked extended (~30 h) shifts (with minimal recovery time between shifts) during 3-week work sessions. Questionnaires assessing subjective sleep quality during the month prior (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index [PSQI]) were administered at the beginning of the session. Occupational outcomes (emotional exhaustion, functional impairment, role overload, daytime sleepiness) were assessed on the final day of the session. Regression analyses were conducted to link sleep quality and occupational outcomes. The study sample participants had relatively poor sleep prior to the exercise (PSQI Global score average = 6.3 ± 3.1). Higher PSQI Global Scores prior to the work session longitudinally predicted daytime sleepiness (f2: 0.56) after the work session. PSQI component 7, which queries daytime dysfunction attributed to poor sleep quality, longitudinally predicted emotional exhaustion, functional impairment, and role overload (f2 range: 0.19–0.70). In conclusion, poor sleep quality—in aggregation with occupationally-mandated sleep loss—is predictive of poorer subsequent occupational outcomes. Future work should aim to increase sleep opportunities prior to occupationally-mandated sleep loss in order to build resilience when sleep loss is unavoidable.


OBJECTIVE:
 CNS Vasculitis (CNSV) is a rare and ill-defined cause of stroke with limited available case series in the modern era of stroke management. The objective of this study was to evaluate CNS Vasculitis in a tertiary care cerebrovascular center

 DESIGN/METHODS/RESULTS:
 Between March 2009 and July 2012, 14 cases were coded as having cerebral vasculitis and fulfilled our criteria for CNSV which included acute onset of neurologic abnormalities in setting of angiographic guided multiple segmental narrowing in two or more CNS vessels. Patients included 5 males and 9 females between 11 and 88 years of which 3 were African-American and 11 were Caucasian. Presentations ranged from seizures in 28.6%(4/14) and stroke in 71.4% (10/14) with 40% (4/10) being hemorrhagic and 60% (6/10) ischemic, with a 33%(2/6)hemorrhagic conversion rate. 78.6% (11/14) were found to have Primary CNSV and 14.3% (2/14) had systemic vasculitis. Diagnostic modalities included cerebralangiography in 64.2% (9/14), MRA in 85% (12/14), computerized-tomographic angiography in 64%(9/14), and brain/leptomeningeal biopsies in 28% (4/14) of cases. Treatments were along the lines of acute reversal of vasoconstriction induced neurologic symptoms and immunomodulation. 71.4% (10/14) received systemic steroids,7%(1/14) received Mycophenolate mofetil and 57% (8/14) received Cyclophosphamide. Methotrexate was given in 7% (1 /14) and calcium channel blockers were given in 28% (4/14) with 14% administered in the cerebrovascular angio suite intraarterially. 57% (8/14) were transferred to acute rehabilitation facilities, 35.7% (5/14) discharged home, and there was a 7%(1/14)mortality rate.

 CONCLUSIONS:
 We found that primary CNSV was more common than systemic vasculitis and stroke was the most common presentation followed by seizures. Individuals younger than 20 who presented with seizures were less likely to have concomitant strokes. Despite our limited understanding of this rare condition 92%(13/14)of our patients were discharged to either home or acute rehabilitation, while the mortality rate was 7%(1/14)as was the recurrence rate. Further prospective studies are needed to allow for more systematic data collection and to better evaluate and manage CNSV patients.


Matching accuracies of current mirrors using SIMOX technology are discussed. The variation in matching errors has been both qualitatively and quantitatively analysed for MOS current mirrors. Matching errors at low operating currents are dominated by variations in threshold voltage and are inversely proportional to the drain current. In high-current operations, however, they are not dependent on drain current and are dominated by variations in channel length and width. Using 10 µm-channel-length devices, matching error less than 0.6% with 100 µA drain current is obtained without any compensation circuits. MOS current mirrors have been found to present greater advantages for low-current operation, such as higher matching accuracy and a smaller pattern area than similar bipolar current mirrors.


Flooding is not generally regarded as being the kind of hazard that is symptomatic of a 'Risk Society' (Beck 1992), in which dangers arise as unintended by-products of technological modernisation and an unquestioning faith in the ability of science to solve social and environmental problems. However, this chapter explores policy change and the results of two research projects conducted with flood-exposed and affected communities, to argue that the recent shift towards the Flood Risk Management (FRM) approach, with its associated shift of responsibility towards the individual, is, indeed, an example of the risk society at work. In short, decades of support for structural solutions, combined with the increasing challenges of climate change, have allowed the expansion of communities into flood-prone areas, thus increasing the risks to individuals when these defences fail. The research results we present here illustrate how the government's policy of 'Making Space for Water' (Department for Food and Rural Affairs 2005) is played out in practice, with consequences for how risk and resilience is experienced by the communities concerned. We conclude by arguing for citizens to be more involved in the decisions that are made around flood risk management and for better support for the process of flood recovery.


Introduction:
Indigenous health workers (IHWs) are the largest health workforce addressing the poor health outcomes for Indigenous Australians today. This Indigenous health workforce, although highly skilled in delivering primary health care to its clients, is rarely called upon to participate in developing policies and strategies that can influence outcomes in Indigenous health. This is unfortunate because the progress made in Indigenous health often comes from Indigenous people themselves. This approach has often been referred to in the literature as 'bottom up' rather than 'top down' (ANTaR, 2007). This bottom up approach is effective because the right information is collected from the bottom, which can be referred to as the community. If there is no one at the top that has the same ideas and information, the bottom up information can become distorted if there are a limited number of qualified Indigenous health professionals to follow through at the top.

To address this situation it is necessary to establish an Indigenous health workforce with recognized professional qualifications in health. Currently there are cohorts of Indigenous health workers from the South West Queensland region who have embarked on the journey to make the transition from Indigenous Health Workers to Registered Nurses. The motivation for most of these students is to gain professional health qualifications in order to be a voice in Indigenous health matters. Their involvement in the decision making processes for Indigenous health services that impact on their own people will assist greatly in 'Closing the Gap' (Close the Gap is a government initiative to close the 20 years life expectancy gap that
currently exists between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians) and putting an end to the current Indigenous health crisis.

Research Question:
What are the experiences of Indigenous Health Workers enrolled in the Bachelor of Nursing at the University of Southern Queensland? : How can these experiences be improved?

Aims of the study:
To reveal, explore and thus develop an understanding of the experiences of IHW's in their journey through the Bachelor of Nursing at the University of Southern Queensland.
To develop insight into how they approach barriers to their study progress.
To shed light on an undervalued workforce resource in Indigenous health and encourage the development of an effective study pathway for these workers to gain professional health qualifications.

Study Setting:
The study setting was situated in the Nursing Department on the USQ Toowoomba campus.


Epidemiologic studies of childhood leukemia have made limited use of tumor genetic characteristics, which may be related to disease etiology. We characterized the cytogenetics of 543 childhood leukemia patients (0-14 years of age) enrolled in the Northern California Childhood Leukemia Study, an approximately population-based study comprised primarily of Hispanics (42%) and non-Hispanic Whites (41%), and compared the cytogenetic profiles between these two ethnic groups. Subjects were classified by immunophenotype, conventional cytogenetic characteristics, and fluorescence in situ hybridization findings. The ploidy levels most frequently observed among acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients were high hyperdiploidy (51-67 chromosomes) and pseudodiploidy (34% and 27%, respectively). No ethnic differences in the frequency of 11q23/MLL rearrangements were observed between Hispanics and non-Hispanic Whites. Among B-lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients, the percentage of TEL-AML1 translocations was significantly lower in Hispanics (13%) than in non-Hispanic Whites (24%; P = 0.01). This is the first time that this ethnic variation has been observed in a large number of patients in a defined geographic region, which is consistent with findings from smaller international studies. The mechanistic basis for this 2-fold variation in frequency of TEL-AML1 may be due to ethnic-specific risk factors or genetics and should be explored further. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2006;(15)3:578–81)


Big data powered Deep Learning (DL) and its applications have blossomed in recent years, fueled by three technological trends: a large amount of digitized data openly accessible, a growing number of DL software frameworks in open source and commercial markets, and a selection of affordable parallel computing hardware devices. However, no single DL framework, to date, dominates in terms of performance and accuracy even for baseline classification tasks on standard datasets, making the selection of a DL framework an overwhelming task. This paper takes a holistic approach to conduct empirical comparison and analysis of four representative DL frameworks with three unique contributions. First, given a selection of CPU-GPU configurations, we show that for a specific DL framework, different configurations of its hyper-parameters may have a significant impact on both performance and accuracy of DL applications. Second, to the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to identify the opportunities for improving the training time performance and the accuracy of DL frameworks by configuring parallel computing libraries and tuning individual and multiple hyper-parameters. Third, we also conduct a comparative measurement study on the resource consumption patterns of four DL frameworks and their performance and accuracy implications, including CPU and memory usage, and their correlations to varying settings of hyper-parameters under different configuration combinations of hardware, parallel computing libraries. We argue that this measurement study provides in-depth empirical comparison and analysis of four representative DL frameworks, and offers practical guidance for service providers to deploying and delivering DL as a Service (DLaaS) and for application developers and DLaaS consumers to select the right DL frameworks for the right DL workloads.


This paper derives and presents mean leads and lags as well as patterns of relative importance weights implied by the PAC (polynomial-adjustment-cost) error-correction equations which form the core of the FRB/US model at the Federal Reserve Board. Relative importance weights measure the contributions of past and future expected changes in fundamentals on current decisions. These and the associated mean lags and leads can be considered summary measures of key dynamic properties of FRB/US. The spending equations are those for total consumption, durables consumption, business equipment, residential housing, and private inventories. The pricing equations are those for the price level and wage growth. In addition FRB/US has one PAC equation for dividends and one for labor hours.


The California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program, a partnership of fishermen, non-governmental organizations, and agency and academic scientists, developed protocols for monitoring marine protected areas in central California using hook-and-line and trap fishing gear. In the summer and fall of 2007, 2008, and 2009 the protocols were used to collect information about species composition, catch rates, and sizes of nearshore fishes in the Ano Nuevo, Point Lobos, Piedras Blancas, and Point Buchon State Marine Reserves, and corresponding co-located reference sites. A total of 115 surveys, employing hook-and-line methods, were conducted from 2007 – 2009; 47 in the fall of 2007, 48 in the summer and fall of 2008, and 24 in the summer and fall of 2009, in and near the Ano Nuevo, Point Lobos, Piedras Blancas and Point Buchon marine protected areas. A total of 68 trap fishing surveys occurred in and near the Ano Nuevo, Point Lobos, Cambria, and Piedras Blancas marine protected areas; 43 in 2008 and 25 in 2009. During these surveys, all caught fishes were identified, measured, tagged with external T-bar anchor tags, and released at location of capture. A total of 12 Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessels, 4 commercial trap-fishing vessels, and 415 volunteer anglers spent a total of 1,121 hours fishing with hook-and-line gear, and 3,445 hours fishing with trap gear. This combined effort resulted in a total catch of 26,262 fishes, which were comprised of 42 species. Of the total catch 22,551 fishes were tagged and released. Out of the fishes released with tags, 119 were recaptured and reported to our offices with information about the location of recapture. The ten most frequently caught species were similar among marine protected areas, and the composition between paired marine protected areas and reference sites is more similar than among marine protected areas, indicating that the reference sites chosen are well-suited for comparisons with associated marine protected areas. Catch and biomass rates for most species were higher in marine protected areas than in reference sites, indicating habitat differences existed prior to the establishment of the MPAs. When differences in mean lengths of fishes were detected, the lengths were most often greater in marine protected areas than in associated reference sites.


Wistar rats were exposed to trinitrotoluene (TNT) for 6 weeks. After initiation of TNT exposure, serum phosphorylase A activities and calcium contents were assayed for every 2 weeks. Both of these 2 parameters increased in rats treated with 50 and 100 mg TNT/kg b.w. at 3 intervals. Serum phosphorylase A activities and calcium contents of TNT exposure worker increased too.


Abstract The formation of a compound, "white" layer on the surface of Fe-7wt.% Cr alloy, by exposure to a gas mixture of ammonia and hydrogen at 580°C, was investigated. The microstructure of the surface layer was analysed employing light and scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and electron probe microanalysis. For the first time a quantitative (phase) analysis of such a white layer was carried out, demonstrating the presence of a dispersed CrN phase within a γ| iron-nitride matrix.


Primary immunodeficiencies are a heterogeneous group of genetically inherited diseases quantitively or functionally affecting innate or adaptive immunity. The innate and adaptive arms of the immune system work synergistically to efficiently control and neutralise the wide range of pathogens that challenge vertebrates. Although at first glance innate immunity might appear primitive, innate immune cells can orchestrate discrete immune responses to different infections through the recognition of diverse pathogens by germline-encoded pattern recognition receptors. Neutrophils, macrophages, dendritic cells, natural killer (NK) cells and NKT cells, in conjunction with natural antimicrobial agents, opsonins (as Complement) and cytokines, are critical innate components in neutralising infectious agents. Primary immunodeficiencies are understood as a state of primary lack of protective immunity. Different compartments of the innate immune system are analysed in this article to highlight their critical pathophysiological role in host defences and protective immunity.

Key Concepts:

The innate immune system includes epithelial and mucosal barriers, cells, natural antimicrobial product, pattern recognition receptors (PRR) and cytokines to protect the host from infections without the need of previous exposure to those microorganisms.

Neutrophil disorder should be suspected in patients with recurrent, severe, bacterial or fungal infections, especially those caused by unusual organisms.

The mononuclear phagocytes are crucial for antigen presentation and for protection against intracellular infections, especially mycobacteria.

Natural killer cell deficiency could involve quantitative and functional defects, in both cases showing increased susceptibility to viral infections.

Natural killer T (NKT) cells constitute a distinctive subpopulation of mature lymphocytes that coexpress NK (CD56) and T (CD3) cell antigens and play a central role in infectious (e.g. virus), allergic (e.g. asthma) and autoimmune diseases (e.g. hepatitis), as well as tumour control.

The complement system is a cascade system of more than 30 serum and membrane-bound proteins that, when deficient, leads to impaired host defence and inappropriate inflammation.

Keywords:

innate immunity;
neutrophils;
macrophages;
NK cells;
NKT cells;
complement;
primary immunodeficiency


This paper addresses issues of online learning and occlusion handling in video object tracking. Although manifold tracking is promising, large pose changes and long-term partial occlusions of video objects remain challenging. We propose a novel manifold tracking scheme that tackles such problems, with the following main novelties: (a) Online estimation of object appearances on Grassmann manifolds; (b) Optimal criterion-based occlusion handling during online learning; (c) Nonlinear dynamic model for appearance basis matrix and its velocity; (b) Bayesian formulations separately for the tracking and the online learning process. Two particle filters are employed: one is on the manifold for generating appearance particles and another on the linear space for generating affine box particles. Tracking and online updating are performed in alternative fashion to mitigate the tracking drift. Experiments on videos have shown robust tracking performance especially when objects contain significant pose changes accompanied with long-term partial occlusions. Evaluations and comparisons with two existing methods provide further support to the proposed method.


The purpose of this research and development activity was to build a mobile application with a low-distraction user interface appropriate for use in a connected vehicle (CV) environment. To realize their full potential, future CV applications will involve communicating information to and from drivers during vehicle operation. Mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets may be a reasonable hardware platform to provide this communication. However, there are concerns that a potential increase in driver interaction with CV applications may lead to driver distraction and possible negative impacts on driving safety. The prototype mobile device user interface that was designed and created during this project can be used to test new CV applications, validate their impact on driver safety, and inform future mobile device user interface standards for driving applications.


This research assesses the trade competitiveness of BRICS nations during the period 2001-2017. The ultimate aim of the study is to investigate the effects of economic integration in enhancing the trade competitiveness of member countries. Various price and non-price measures that carry information on trade competitiveness are computed and their relative importance is analyzed. The findings of the research demonstrate the asymmetric pattern of trade development in BRICS region even after the formation of group. The benefits under integration are more country specific and in particular, the partnership favors more to the growth of China and India. Surprisingly, the research finds the loosely linked stock markets as and real exchange markets in BRICS that acclaims the lack of consensus among market regulators in their intervention policies.


Purpose: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends six evidence-based strategies to improve safety and support for sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth in U.S. schools. However, only a small minority of schools implement all strategies. This study draws on implementation science to assess contextual challenges to strategy implementation. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with at least two stakeholders at each of 42 high schools in New Mexico. Interviews consisted of open-ended questions centered on attitudes toward, access to, and availability of school and community supports for SGM youth, school policies and practices, and organizational factors believed to impact implementation. Transcripts were imported into NVivo 11 for iterative coding and qualitative analysis. Results: We identified eleven overarching sets of factors related to the preparedness of schools to implement the evidence-based strategies: 1) political climate; 2) community context; 3) community resources; 4) policies and practices; 5) staff knowledge and exposure to SGM issues; 6) training deficits; 7) prevalence of neutrality discourses suggesting SGM students should not be singled out for "special treatment" or intervention; 8) student attitudes and support; 9) de facto safe spaces; 10) health education curricula; and 11) pragmatic considerations, such as time, staff turnover and workloads. Key factors believed to hinder implementation included lack of resources, staffing concerns, and knowledge deficits. Conclusions: These results can be used to inform the development of implementation strategies to modify school health systems from within to best support evidence-based practices for SGM youth and other stigmatized populations.


Abstract. The problem of calculating bending plates by the finite element method with considering of shear deformations is considered. The bending plates are widely used as common structures of various objects of civil and industrial construction. The solution was obtained on the basis of the principles of the minimum of additional energy and possible displacements. For approximation of moment fields, piecewise constant functions are used. Shear forces can be approximated by constant or piecewise constant functions. The necessary relations for rectangular and triangular finite elements are obtained. It is shown that the proposed method can be used in combination with traditional finite elements for thin plates obtained by the finite element method in displacements. A comparison of the solutions, obtained by the proposed method, with other known solutions for bending plates, with assuming of shear deformations, is given. A numerical estimate of the accuracy and convergence of the proposed method, when crushing the finite element mesh, is given.


With regard to the water shortage in several regions of South East Asia, the paper focuses on the development of a sustainable Industrial WasteWater Management Concept with the focus on Reuse (brand name: IW2MC → R) to reduce water consumption from natural resources. The IW2MC → R includes the sustainable treatment of wastewater in industrial parks (IP) to provide reuse water for different purposes. The main objective is to reach the highest possible Industrial Park Reuse Factor (IPRF). The IPRF describes the relation between wastewater inflow to the central wastewater treatment plant and the outflow of reuse water for different applications. The Infrastructure Reuse Factor (IRF), one component of the IPRF, relates to infrastructural reuse applications (e.g. irrigation, street cleaning, toilet flushing). To determine the IRF, a model industrial park is applied. A first calculation resulting in an IRF of ∼25% includes reuse applications for irrigating green spaces, street cleaning, and toilet flushing. In cases when other applications for reuse water are considered (e.g. cooling or firefighting water), the IRF can be higher than 25%. Thus, the IW2MC → R provides a sustainable solution strategy, especially for water-stressed regions, to drive new IP developments by reducing water extraction from natural resources.


Escherichia coli ST131 is an emerging resistant agent recently called "superbug" in England. This strain is responsible of community-acquired urinary tract infections and nowadays showing increasing resistance to antibiotics like fluoroquinolones and cephalosporins. Survey of virulent bacterial clone is relevant to control its spreading in community. We aim to assess the circulation of resistant clones Escherichia coli ST131 outside of the hospital to prompt control of outbreak in our geographical area. We selected 105 E. coli resistant isolates from community-acquired urinary infections and performed a multiplex PCR to evaluate if they belonged to the ST131 type. We investigated their set of virulence factors; in particular, kpsMII, papA, sfaS, focG, iutA, papC, hlyD and afa genes, and finally, we evaluated beta lactamases genes and quinolone resistance determinants. E. coli ST 131 clone was present in 66.6% of our isolates and showed positivity to a wide range of resistance genes, in particular blaCTX-M-15 among beta lactamases and plasmid-related quinolone resistance genes (qnrA, qnrS and aac (6')-Ib-cr). Moreover, 81% of the strains showed positivity to at least one of the virulence factor genes. Our results suggested a high presence of E. coli ST131 in community. We suggest antibiotic stewardship for outpatient clinicians and facilities to contain the spread of "superbug" agents.


In the present work, in order to obtain a promising material, SiC@SiO2@graphene nanoarrays with numerous flake-like graphene coatings have been prepared on a Si substrate through a simple chemical vapor deposition (CVD) approach. The field emission (FE) measurements show that the turn-on field (Eto) of the as-synthesized SiC@SiO2@graphene nanoarrays is decreased dramatically from 1.75 V μm−1 to 0.73 V μm−1 when temperature is increased from room temperature (RT) to 500 °C, which is superior to most SiC one-dimensional (1D) nanomaterials. The current fluctuation of the emitters at RT and 200 °C is approximately ±1.3% and ±1.7%, respectively, suggesting remarkable emission efficiency and stability of the sample. The excellent FE behavior is mainly attributed to the distinctly increased number of electron emission sites and the Fermi level (Ef) adjustment caused by the multilayer heterostructure as well as the increased temperatures. Based on the structural components of the nanoarrays, a reasonable "Stripping Reconstruction" mechanism model has been first established. It is believed that not only can the as-synthesized SiC@SiO2@graphene nanoarrays be utilised as promising emitters under high temperatures, but also the proposed mechanism model and the multilayer decoration strategy are valuable for the FE enhancement of other 1D nanomaterials.


Population transfer in a three-level Λ system is simulated numerically and optimized. Almost complete population transfer from |1 to |3 is achieved by a genetic algorithm while the population in state |2 reached minimum over the entire evolution at the same time. The result shows that the optimal pulse sequence is the well-known stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) scheme. The detuning of pump pulse and Stokes pulse Δp and Δs with the opposite sign and the chirps χp and χs with the same sign are in favour of the complete and robust population transfer for few-cycle laser pulse. Rabi frequencies Ωp and Ωs have insensitive effects on the complete population transfer during a large scope of their ratio when they are large enough.


Modern theories in cognitive psychology and neuroscience indicate that there are two fundamental ways in which human beings comprehend risk. The "analytic system" uses algorithms and normative rules, such as probability calculus, formal logic, and risk assessment. It is relatively slow, effortful, and requires conscious control. The "experiential system" is intuitive, fast, mostly automatic, and not very accessible to conscious awareness. The experiential system enabled human beings to survive during their long period of evolution and remains today the most natural and most common way to respond to risk. It relies on images and associations, linked by experience to emotion and affect (a feeling that something is good or bad). This system represents risk as a feeling that tells us whether it is safe to walk down this dark street or drink this strange‐smelling water. Proponents of formal risk analysis tend to view affective responses to risk as irrational. Current wisdom disputes this view. The rational and the experiential systems operate in parallel and each seems to depend on the other for guidance. Studies have demonstrated that analytic reasoning cannot be effective unless it is guided by emotion and affect. Rational decision making requires proper integration of both modes of thought. Both systems have their advantages, biases, and limitations. Now that we are beginning to understand the complex interplay between emotion and reason that is essential to rational behavior, the challenge before us is to think creatively about what this means for managing risk. On the one hand, how do we apply reason to temper the strong emotions engendered by some risk events? On the other hand, how do we infuse needed "doses of feeling" into circumstances where lack of experience may otherwise leave us too "coldly rational"? This article addresses these important questions.


ESD, the discharge of electrostatically generated charges into an IC, is one of the most important reliability problems for ultra-scaled devices. This electrostatic charge can generate voltages of up to tens of kilovolts. These very high voltages can generate very high electric fields and currents across semiconductor devices, which may result in dielectric damage or melting of semiconductors and contacts. It has been reported that up to 70% of IC failures are caused by ESD. Therefore, it's necessary to design a protection circuit for each pin that discharges the ESD energy to the ground. As the devices are continuously scaling down, while ESD energy remains the same, they become more vulnerable to ESD stress. This higher susceptibility to ESD damage is due to thinner gate oxides and shallower junctions. Furthermore, higher operating frequency of the scaled technologies enforces lower parasitic capacitance of the ESD protection circuits. As a result, increasing the robustness of the ESD protection circuits with minimum additional parasitic capacitance is the main challenge in state of the art CMOS processes. Providing a complete ESD immunity for any circuit involves the design of proper protection circuits for I/O pins in addition to an ESD clamp between power supply pins. In this research both of these aspects are investigated and optimized solutions for them are reported. As Silicon Controlled Rectifier (SCR) has the highest ESD protection level per unit area, ESD protection for I/O pins is provided by optimizing the first breakdown voltage and latch-up immunity of SCR family devices. The triggering voltage of SCR is reduced by a new implementation of gate-substrate triggering technique. Furthermore, a new device based on SCR with internal darlington pair is introduced that can provide ESD protection with very small parasitic capacitance. Besides reducing triggering voltage, latch-up immunity of SCR devices is improved using two novel techniques to increase the holding voltage and the holding current. ESD protection between power rails is provided with transient clamps in which the triggering circuit keeps the clamp "on" during the ESD event. In this research, two new iii clamps are reported that enhance the triggering circuit of the clamp. The first method uses a CMOS thyristor element to provide enough delay time while the second method uses a flip flop to latch the clamp into "on" state at the ESD event. Moreover, the stability of transient clamps is analyzed and it's been shown that the two proposed clamps have the highest stability compared to other state of the art ESD clamps. Finally, in order to investigate the impact of ESD protection circuits on high speed applications a current mode logic (CML) driver is designed in 0.13μm CMOS technology. The protection for this driver is provided using both MOS-based and SCRbased protection methods. Measurement results show that, compared to MOS-based protection, SCR-based protection has less impact on the driver performance due to its lower parasitic capacitance.


Changes in lake water chemistry between 1984 and 2001 at 130 stratified random sites across the northeastern United States were studied to evaluate the population-level effects of decreases in acidic deposition. Surface-water S04(2-) concentrations decreased across the region at a median rate of -1.53 microequiv L(-1) year(-1). Calcium concentrations also decreased, with a median rate of -1.73 microequiv L(-1) year(-1). This decrease in Ca2+ retarded the recovery of surface water acid neutralizing capacity (Gran ANC), which increased at a median rate of 0.66 microequiv L(-1) year(-1). There were small increases in pH in all subregions except central New England and Maine, where the changes were not statistically significant. Median NO3- trends were not significant except in the Adirondacks, where NO3- concentrations increased at a rate of 0.53 microequiv L(-1) year(-1). A regionwide decrease in the concentration of total Al, especially in ponds with low ANC values (ANC < 25 microequiv L(-1)), was observed in the Adirondack subregion. These changes in Al were consistent with the general pattern of increasing pH and ANC. Despite the general pattern of chemical recovery, many ponds remain chronically acidic or are susceptible to episodic acidification. The continued chemical and biological recovery at sites in the northeastern United States will depend on further controls on S and N emissions.


The temperature dependence of current–voltage (I–V) and capacitance–voltage (C–V) characteristics of the Au/n-InP Schottky barrier diodes has been measured in the temperature range of 80–320 K. The forward I–V characteristics are analysed on the basis of standard thermionic emission (TE) theory and the assumption of a Gaussian distribution of the barrier heights (BHs). It has been shown that the ideality factor decreases while the barrier height increases with increasing temperatures, on the basis of TE theory. Furthermore, the homogeneous BH value of approximately 0.524 eV for the device has been obtained from the linear relationship between the temperature-dependent experimentally effective BHs and ideality factors. The modified Richardson plot, according to inhomogeneity of the BHs, has a good linearity over the temperature range. The value of Richardson constant A* has been found to be 5.97 A cm−2 K−2, which is close to the theoretical value of 9.4 A cm−2 K−2 for n-InP. Moreover, the temperature coefficient of the BH is found to be −3.16 × 10−4 eV K−1 for Au/n-InP.


This paper presents the first results of an investigation and pilot study into an active, binocular vision system that combines binocular vergence, object recognition and attention control in a unified framework. The prototype developed is capable of identifying, targeting, verging on and recognizing objects in a highly-cluttered scene without the need for calibration or other knowledge of the camera geometry. This is achieved by implementing all image analysis in a symbolic space without creating explicit pixel-space maps. The system structure is based on the 'searchlight metaphor' of biological systems. We present results of a first pilot investigation that yield a maximum vergence error of 6.4 pixels, while seven of nine known objects were recognized in a high-cluttered environment. Finally a "stepping stone" visual search strategy was demonstrated, taking a total of 40 saccades to find two known objects in the workspace, neither of which appeared simultaneously within the Field of View resulting from any individual saccade.


This paper presents a thorough investigation into the effects of several phone chassis-related parameters-length, width, thickness, and distance between the head and phone-on the bandwidth, efficiency, and specific absorption rate (SAR) characteristics of internal mobile phone antennas. The studied antenna-chassis combinations are located beside an anatomical head model in a position of actual handset use. The effect of the user's hand is also studied with two different hand models. The main part of the study is based on FDTD simulations, but also experimental results, which support the computationally obtained conclusions, are given. The presented analysis provides novel and useful information for future design of mobile handset antennas. The results show the general trends of bandwidth, SAR, and efficiency with different chassis parameters. The results also reveal a connection between these three performance parameters: an increase in SARs and a decrease in radiation efficiency occur compared to the general trend when the bandwidth reaches its maximum. This happens when the resonant frequency of the chassis equals that of the antenna.


A marker-free vector, pBINMF, for clean gene transfer was constructed based on the binary vector pBINPLUS. Vector pBINMF, carrying only a multiple cloning site (MCS) between the left and the right T-DNA border, was suitable to directly generate marker-free transgenic plants (MFTPs) without any vector sequences inserted into plant genomes. Transformation efficiency of pBINMF was tested by transferring gus A reporter gene and npt II gene into tomato, respectively. The results from three experiments show that 4.4% of regenerated shoots were transgenic by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, and the phenotype expression percentage of PCR positive transformants was 57.4% as tested by beta-glucuronidase (GUS) assay. Moreover, 24 out of 27 phenotype positive transformants were homogeneous as confirmed by blue staining over whole leaves and roots in GUS staining. The vector might also be used in tobacco marker-free gene transfer as was confirmed by transient expression assay of gus A. The results indicate that pBINMF was an efficient and reliable vector to directly generate complete MFTPs in plant species, and might be especially suitable for vegetatively propagating species.


Proponents of science literacy claim that the public needs more knowledge about science, and the field of entertainment education demonstrates that this learning can come through entertainment programming in addition to more informative media products. While studies have examined the effects of entertainment upon science learning in a short-term experimental context, what remains unexplored is why audiences choose to consume entertaining scientific content and how they interpret the embedded science information across long-term relationships with entertainment programming. This study fills this gap by using a uses and gratifications framework to explore why and how audiences select and interpret embedded science information within popular entertainment media. This study interviewed 45 audience members who have chosen to view at least one full season of The Big Bang Theory to explore their reasons for doing so and how they interpret the science within the program. The Big Bang Theory is a good context in which to examine these questions because it is a popular television program about science and one in which the producers have publicly stated how they want the program to effect the audience. Results suggest that all participants watch the program for purposes of diversion, although other gratifications are present. Likewise, most participants do not consider that they have learned much science from the program; yet other statements suggest that they are learning science, but conceptualize it differently than how proponents of science literacy do. Other differences are discussed based on the participant's pre-existing knowledge and interest in science.


Abstract. Over the past 24 years, the AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) program has provided highly accurate remote-sensing characterization of aerosol optical and physical properties for an increasingly extensive geographic distribution including all continents and many oceanic island and coastal sites. The measurements and retrievals from the AERONET global network have addressed satellite and model validation needs very well, but there have been challenges in making comparisons to similar parameters from in situ surface and airborne measurements. Additionally, with improved spatial and temporal satellite remote sensing of aerosols, there is a need for higher spatial-resolution ground-based remote-sensing networks. An effort to address these needs resulted in a number of field campaign networks called Distributed Regional Aerosol Gridded Observation Networks (DRAGONs) that were designed to provide a database for in situ and remote-sensing comparison and analysis of local to mesoscale variability in aerosol properties. This paper describes the DRAGON deployments that will continue to contribute to the growing body of research related to meso- and microscale aerosol features and processes. The research presented in this special issue illustrates the diversity of topics that has resulted from the application of data from these networks.


We establish asymptotic and exponential stability theorems for delay impulsive systems by employing Lyapunov functionals with discontinuities. Our conditions have the property that when specialized to linear delay impulsive systems, the stability tests can be formulated as Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs). Then we consider Networked Control Systems (NCSs) consisting of an LTI process and a static feedback controller connected through a communication network. Due to the shared and unreliable channels, sampling intervals become uncertain and variable. Moreover, samples may be dropped or experience uncertain and variable delays before arriving at the destination. We show that the resulting NCSs can be modelled by linear delay impulsive systems and we provide conditions for stability of the closed-loop system in terms of LMIs. By solving these LMIs, one can find a positive constant that determines an upper bound between each sampling time and the subsequent input update time, for which stability of the closed-loop system is guaranteed.


This paper presents the experimental data that was collected from small pilot solar chimney. The experimental data together with ambient conditions are used to evaluate the performance and study the behavior of the solar chimney; this data will be used for comparison with theoretical models in another paper [part II). The solar chimney prototype was designed and constructed at the Subrata Faculty of Engineering-Libya. The data were collected over several days of June 2011. The solar chimney system contains two main components; the solar collector and the solar chimney. The solar collector root' has a circular area of126 m3, the solar chimney is a PVC tube with internal diameter of 0.2 m and the total height of chimney is 9.3 m. The measurements include the intensity of solar radiation inside/outside the collector, temperature and velocity of air at the entrance of the chimney, temperature and speed of wind outside the collector, temperature of the ground inside collector al1d temperature measurements of air at speci?c points at different levels throughout the collector. Solar irradiance was found to affect the chimney temperature and subsequently affects chimney air velocity. The experimental results showed that temperature differences of (30 - 45°C) were recorded between the ambient temperature and that of air inside the chimney in the middle of the day, where the highest air temperature of 73.4°C was recorded at the entrance of the solar chimney. The maximum air velocity of 3.6 m/s was recorded inside the solar chimney at noon on 9 June. Wind speed outside the collector had a small effect on the speed of the air inside the chimney and tends to change slightly, hence, can neglect influence of wind speed on the performance of the system. Also the experimental results indicate that such type of system can trap a suf?cient amount of solar radiation, which elevates the air temperature to a suf?cient value able to generate enough air ?ow to operate a wind turbine to produce electricity; this means the solar chimney system for electricity production can work in the north-western part of Libya in the summer time at least.


The present studies were conducted to understand better the regulation of phospholipase A2 (PLA2)-dependent mobilization of lipid mediators by arachidonic acid (C20:4). After stimulation of human neutrophils, g.l.c./m.s. analysis of non-esterified fatty acids indicated that the quantity of C20:4 increased as a function of time after stimulation, from undetectable quantities to > 800 pmol/10(7) cells. In contrast with C20:4, the quantities of other free fatty acids such as oleic and linoleic were high in resting cells and did not change after stimulation. Some 15% of the C20:4 released from cellular lipids remained cell-associated. To examine the effect of C20:4 on its own release, neutrophils were exposed to [2H8]C20:4, to differentiate it by g.l.c./m.s. from naturally occurring C20:4. In A23187-stimulated neutrophils, low concentrations (5-10 microM) of [2H8]C20:4 added just before A23187 increased the quantity of C20:4 produced by the cell, whereas higher concentrations (30-50 microM) decreased the quantity of C20:4 released from phospholipids. As other measures of PLA2 activity, the effects of C20:4 on production of platelet-activity factor (PAF) and leukotriene B4 (LTB4) were assessed. C20:4 treatment just before stimulation of neutrophils blocked PAF and LTB4 production in a concentration-dependent manner (IC50 10-20 microM). The effect of C20:4 was not blocked by the cyclo-oxygenase inhibitor naproxine (10 microM), nor could it be mimicked by 1 microM LTB4, 5-hydroxyeicosa-6,8,11,14-tetraenoic acid (5HETE), 5-hydroperoxyeicosa-6,8,11,14-tetraenoic acid (5HPETE) or 15-hydroxyeicosa-5,8,11,13-tetraenoic acid (15HETE). The 5-lipoxygenase (5LO) inhibitor zileuton induced a concentration-dependent decrease in PAF, with a maximal effect of a 50% decrease at 10-50 microM. The decrease in PAF by the 5LO inhibitor could not be circumvented by addition of 1 microM 5HETE, 5HPETE and LTB4, and may be attributed to the capacity of zileuton to increase the quantity of C20:4 in A23187-treated neutrophils. The inhibitory effect of C20:4 (20-40 microM) on PAF production could be antagonized by the protein kinase C inhibitor staurosporine (30 nM), but not by inhibitors of protein kinase A, tyrosine kinase or calmodulin kinase II. Taken together, these data demonstrate that C20:4 is selectively released from membrane phospholipids of A23187-stimulated neutrophils, and this C20:4 may play an important role in regulating the mobilization of C20:4 by altering PLA2 activity.


Ireland's classical music culture was, for long, strikingly underdeveloped, with a paucity, until recently, both of composers of international reputation and of writing (critical or historical) worthy of international attention. Where the historiography of the topic is concerned, activity was minimal until recent times. After some initial efforts to present basic information about musical activity over the centuries, the need to explain and conceptualise the condition of classical music in Ireland grew.
Two writers, Joseph Ryan and Harry White, were to the fore in proposing a theory that has dominated the field since the publication of White's The Keeper's Recital (1998). This theory affirms that the rise of nineteenth-century Irish nationalism, both cultural and political, polarised classical music between narrow political demands (music as reinforcement or symbol of the cause) and a cosmopolitan European culture which in Ireland was damaged by its introduction by, and association with, Ascendancy and British power.
The thesis focuses on 1820-1920 as it contests this theory. My research first demonstrates how little concrete historical evidence there is for the theory. Second, it deploys and itself adapts T.C.W. Blanning's properly historicised adaptation of Jurgen Habermas's concept of the public sphere. This becomes a tool for escaping nationalist/cosmopolitan polarities and for exploring the dynamics of Irish middle-class urban culture, and the place of classical music within it, in its relation to society at large. This process leads to innovative readings of important figures in music history, to a new conceptualisation of the increasing divergence between British and Irish musical life, to the opening up of rich comparative perspectives and to the reasons behind the failure of classical music to benefit substantially from the cultural mobilisation seen during the Irish Revival and to play a significant role in projecting national identity.


Historically the United States has looked to the publicly funded agricultural research institutions at the Department of Agriculture and land-grant universities as the primary sources of new agricultural science and technology.However, during the past several decades wide-reaching changes have taken place in the structure of the U.S. agricultural research system. One significant development is the growing capacity of the private sector for conducting agricultural research. In fact, private companies now spend more on agricultural research than public research institutions. The private sector is also the most rapidly growing source of funds for public research.In addition, new technology transfer mechanisms have been established to increase the flow of science and technology among public and private research laboratories, including cooperative research agreements, research consortia, and greater use of intellectual property rights and patent licensing.The agricultural research system has not escaped the forces of globalization, as sources and flows of agricultural science and technology become increasingly international in scope. These changes have important implications for how research in the U.S. is financed, who conducts it, the type of technology that is developed, and who is likely to benefit from it.


Sugarcane is an important tropical crop, responsible for two thirds of the world sugar production, gaining actually importance as a source of biofuel. Drought tolerance is a very important feature considering the actual climate change scenario throughout the world. This study aimed to determine the genetic diversity between sugarcane varieties with contrasting features under drought. For this purpose, twelve ISSR primers were used to characterize nine sugarcane varieties under cultivation in different countries including selected drought resistant material from Northeast Brazil and two varieties from India as contrasting genotypes. 317 scorable bands were generated, among which 301 comprised polymorphic markers, with an average of 25 polymorphic bands per primer. In the generated dendrogram the accessions were placed in clusters, where cluster A included two varieties from India (Co331 and Co419), and B comprised plants eight Brazilian accessions and a 'Barbado' variety. Within this clade, drought tolerant and susceptible varieties were clearly separated. The present evaluation revealed important contrasting parental candidates regarding their drought response, very promising for future mapping approaches aiming the identification of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) associated to drought in sugarcane. The selected primers were used for the first time in sugarcane, representing valuable tools for future evaluations, with emphasis to diversity characterization and genetic mapping.


Bioinformatics and Computational Biology is an interdisciplinary science at the interfaces of the biological, informational and computational sciences. The science focuses on a variety of topics. These include gene identification, expression, and evolution; RNA, protein, and genome structure; and molecular and cellular systems and networks. The large group of participating faculty provides students with a multidimensional perspective on bioinformatics and computational biology and presents them with broad range of possibilities to get involved in research.


Teacher agency refers to the extent to which teachers proactively influence their environment in a self-regulated manner to make intentional changes. Although teacher agency has gained traction in recent years, previous findings tend to view it as a static phenomenon, primarily describing forms of agency enactment or achievement. The fact that teacher agency is increasingly recognised as a developmental construct renders such examination of teacher agency problematic for failing to reveal its course of development. To address this methodological gap, this paper proposes a developmental-introspective approach to studying teacher agency based on three principles delineated by Vygotsky in his chapter "Problems of Method" (Vygotsky, 1978). Practical application and implications for research on teacher agency are discussed, drawing on the author's experience in carrying out his doctoral research project which examines teacher agency in Vietnamese tertiary setting.


A tasteless odor will smell sweeter after being sampled by mouth with sucrose and will smell sourer after being sampled with citric acid. This tasty-smell effect was found in experiments that compared odor-taste and color-taste pairings. Using odors and colors with minimal taste (Experiment 1), the authors found that repeated experience of odor-taste mixtures produced conditioned changes in odor qualities that were unaffected by intermixed color-taste trials (Experiment 2). An extinction procedure, consisting of postconditioning presentations of the odor in water, had no detectable effect on the changed perception of an odor (Experiments 3 and 4). In contrast, this procedure altered judgments about the expected taste of colored solutions. Evaluative conditioning (conditioned changes in liking) is claimed to be resistant to extinction. However, these results suggest that resistance to extinction in odors is related to the way they are encoded rather than to their hedonic properties.


Civil society has come to dominate the discourses of development and social change
for the last few decades. This thesis is a critical engagement with the liberal ideas of
civil society; it specifically explores the politics that surfaces in the civic sphere in
the context of caste inequalities through the study of Dalit socio-political
organisations that occupy the margins of civil society in India.
This ethnography of Dalit politics interrogates the intersections of caste and civil
society in current globalised times and spaces through exploration into post-Panther
phase of Dalit politics in rural Maharashtra. The focus is on two socio-political
movements; one is Manavi Hakk Abhiyan (MHA), a grassroots Dalit organisation
with international networks and the other is Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) a national
Dalit political party.
This study offers insights into the dynamic nature of caste and its vitality in
constructing localised form/s of civil society in India. A common running theme in
the thesis is Dalit politics of resistance and their struggle to access justice through the
state despite the continued denial of justice to Dalits through fragmented institutions
of the state. The study, thus, observes how the participation of Dalit movements in
claiming democratic citizenship through party politics occurs alongside the
marginalisation of Dalit assertion in electoral politics.
Looking beyond the state, the thesis charts the relationships between Dalits and the
external relational fields within which they operate: it details the vernacular modes of
communication in the civic sphere where protests and violence are important modes;
the innovative uses of caste and cultural repertoires by Dalit movements in
challenging caste hierarchy and forming collective identities of protest; and finally,
the context of global associational revolution and engagement of NGOs and INGOs
as new associations in Dalit politics of resistance.
This thesis contributes to the larger debates on the makings of caste and civil society
in India and argues that caste and Dalit movements have a key role in constructing
localised forms of civility and civil society that challenge the dynamic hierarchies
and exclusions of caste.


As businesses reconfigure their value chains and scale up their global expansions, they have to cope with a myriad of complex IT management challenges. This research examines how enterprises realign their global IT strategies for scale, speed, and innovation. Anchored in the IT governance literature, we seek to unravel the required governance structures and processes in balancing the inherent global-local tensions. Through field interviews with CIOs of global enterprises with established Asian presence, we derived a research framework for global IT management. Our findings suggest evolving global-regional-local structural elements in global IT organization supplemented by the institution of horizontal/linking mechanisms. Specifically, the key tension points appear to be in the flexible design of IT service delivery, the facilitation of IT innovation flow, and the nurturing of a global IT management mindset.


The cardiac problem is a common clinical problem in medicine. The abnormal
electrocardiophysiology can be seen in any age group of patients and it is sometimes difficult
to diagnose. Here, the authors present a case of a female presenting with the repeated of
episode with unexplained etiology. The case was carefully physical examination checking
and the postural blood pressure alteration was observed. Further investigation showed that the
patient had abnormal electrocardiographic finding. The incomplete right bundle branch block
was observable in the present case. Full text available online at https://drive.google.com/file/d/161h5u4VvcH79NT_gUkNucqZSDTtJsP8B/view


2016 came to be one of the most influential elections in recent American history; following eight years of the first black president, Hillary Clinton was the first woman to become the first presidential nominee of any major party in the history of the United States. On November 8th, 2016, she received 65 million votes, willing the popular vote but losing the presidency. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and her opponent, Republican nominee Donald Trump, faced off in a town hall-style debate on October 9th, 2016. Just a few days prior, an Access Hollywood tape had been released to the public, wherein Trump bragged about committing sexual assault. Quickly in the debate, Trump's behavior devolved and within only a few minutes, he began pacing, huffing, pointing, and looming behind Clinton. Situated within a context and climate unfriendly to female politicians, Clinton was faced with a choice. Either she could ignore Trump's behavior and hold onto her composure or she could stand up to him and tell him to back off. The country and the world watched this profound moment that encapsulated one of the most significant themes of the campaign in which Clinton's role as the first female presidential nominee by a major party placed hundreds of years of gender norms front and center. Stuck in a classic double bind, Clinton made the decision to keep quiet and ignore Trump. The implication of this double bind is that women vying for power and leadership must choose between being perceived as either too aggressive or too meek for the job, and two hundred years of precedent have supported the notion that the American presidency is a man's job. Of course, although Clinton won the popular vote by 2.8 million votes, Donald Trump won the Electoral College, and thus, the presidency (Begley 2018). As we move forward into an age in which more and more women and other marginalized groups assert themselves in politics, we must reckon with how we talk about women's ability to lead in comparison to men.


Input devices sense physical properties of people, places, or things. Yet any treatment of input devices without regard to the corresponding visual feedback is like trying to use a pen without paper. Small-screen devices with integrated sensors underscore the indivisibility of input and output. This chapter treats input technologies at the level of interaction techniques, which provide a way for users to accomplish tasks by combining input with appropriate feedback. An interaction designer must consider the physical sensor, the feedback presented to the user, the ergonomic and industrial design of the device, and the interplay between all of the interaction techniques supported by a system. This chapter enumerates properties of input devices and provides examples of how these properties apply to common pointing devices as well as mobile devices with touch or pen input. We will discuss how to use input signals in applications, and cover models and theories that help to evaluate interaction techniques and reason about design options. We will also discuss discrete symbolic entry, including mobile and keyboard-based text entry. The chapter concludes with some thoughts about future trends.


A feeding trial was conducted at the Plateau State Veterinary Hospital, Jos to evaluate the effect of malted and unmalted red sorghum based diets on  carcass and organ characteristics of weaned rabbits. Twenty-one (21) grower rabbits were assigned to three experimental diets designated A (Maize), B (unmalted red sorghum) and C (malted red sorghum) as the major ingredients in a completely randomized design. The study lasted for six weeks. The results showed that carcass weight (649.0-794.O g) and dressing percentage (48.8-53.8%) were not affected by dietary treatments. Similarly, the organ (liver, 2.72-2.89; abdominal fat, 0.8-1.34%; heart, 0.26-0.27%; lungs, 0.94-1.03%) and gut (stomach, 1.06-1.38%; small intestine, 4.98-7.70%; large intestine, 6.73-9.04% and caecum, 0.28-0.44%) characteristics were not affected. This result indicates that weaned rabbits can utilize either malted or unmalted red sorghum without adverse effect on carcass yield and organ characteristics. Keywords: Red sorghum, rabbits, malting, carcass


Twelve PVC tubed short concrete columns and four columns without PVC tube confined were tested under axial load to investigate mechanical properties of axially loaded PVC tubed short concrete columns . The principal influencing factors such as concrete strength, loading condition and ratio of height to diameter were studied. Test results indicated that strength and deformation performance of core concrete increased as a result of the confinement of PVC tube. The PVC tube confinement effect on concrete will decrease with an increase in strength of concrete. Load- carrying capacity and deformation of short composite columns with different loading condition made some difference. As the ratio of height to diameter increases, load- carrying capacity and plasticity of short composite columns decreased gradually.


The relation of endotoxicosis to insulin responsiveness was evaluated in male Holtzman rats. Salmonella enteritidis lipopolysaccharide at 0.5 or 1.0 mg per 300 g rat increased lethality in convulsive seizure deaths to 0.25, 0.50, or 1.0 U insulin sc. The hypoglycemic nadir induced by 0.05, 0.10, or 0.25 U of insulin sc was greater in rats rendered endotoxic with 1 mg of lipopolysaccharide IV. Oxidation of U-14C-D-glucose to 14 CO2 by endotoxic tissues in vitro was augmented in liver slices, epididymal fat pads, hemidiaphragms, and spleen slices; no pronounced glucose oxidation increases occurred in lung, heart, stomach, cerebrum, kidney, or whole blood. Epididymal fat pads from endotoxic rats (100 g) manifested increased basal glucose oxidation as well as an enhanced maximal response to incremental insulin doses of 0.01 to 25 mU/ml. It is suggested that altered tissue responsiveness in concert with hyperinsulinemia underlie the profound alterations in glucose homeostasis during endotoxicosis.


Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) is a rare disorder of the mononuclear phagocytic system, characterised by histiocyte and lymphocyte activation. It can be classified as primary and secondary HLH. Primary HLH usually presents in childhood, and is associated with gene mutations. Secondary HLH usually presents in adulthood, and is due to an underlying infection, autoimmune disease or malignancy. We describe a case of HLH secondary to acute hepatitis-A virus infection, which was characterised by persistent fever, pancytopenia, splenomegaly, hyperferritinemia, and hemophagocytosis observed in the bone marrow. Key Words: Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, Hepatitis-A, Mononuclear phagocytes.


The genetic diversity and phylogenetic position of 10 strains of picocyanobacteria from the Arabian Sea were examined using partial sequences from three loci: 16S rDNA, RNA polymerase rpoC1, and two elements of the phycoerythrin (PE) locus, cpeA and cpeB which encode for the α and β subunit of PE. Nine of the strains showed nearly identical spectral phenotypes based on the in vivo excitation spectrum for PE fluorescence emission and appear to be strains synthesizing a phycourobilin (PUB)–lacking PE. These strains include one, Synechococcus sp. G2.1, already known to be closely related to filamentous cyanobacteria and not to the commonly studied 5.1 subcluster of marine Synechococcus. The 10th strain was a PE‐lacking strain that was of interest because it was isolated from open‐ocean conditions where picocyanobacteria with this phenotype are relatively uncommon. Phylogenetic analysis of the concatenated 16S rDNA and rpoC1 data sets showed that none of the previously described strains were members of the 5.1 subcluster of marine Synechococcus, nor were they closely related to strain G2.1. Instead, they form a well‐supported and previously undescribed clade of cyanobacteria that is sister to Cyanobium. Thus, these strains represent the first PE‐containing Cyanobium from oceanic waters, and the lineage they define includes a strain with a PE‐lacking phenotype from the same environment. Analysis of the PE sequence data showed the PE apoprotein has evolved independently in the G2.1 lineage and the Cyanobium‐like lineage represented by the study strains. It also revealed a hypervariable region of the β‐subunit not described previously; variation in this region shows a pattern among a wide range of PE‐containing organisms congruent with the phylogenetic relationships inferred from other genes. This suggests that the PUB‐lacking spectral phenotype is more likely to have evolved in distantly related phylogenetic lineages by either divergent or convergent evolution than by lateral gene transfer. Both the conserved PE gene sequences and the inferred amino acid sequences for the hypervariable region show considerable divergence among Prochlorococcus PEs, red algal PEs, PUB‐containing PEs from the marine Synechococcus 5.1 subcluster, PEs from the Cyanobium‐like strains, and PEs from other cyanobacteria (including strain G2.1). Thus, it appears that the hypervariable region of the PE gene can be used as a taxon‐specific marker.


BACKGROUND: Diagnosis of α-thalassemia can be challenging as it is clinically insignificant in the majority of patients who are presented with one or two α-gene deletion, it cannot be always suspected from the red cell indices, and the confirmatory tests of α-thalassemia are not readily available, applied, and/or provide conclusive results. The importance of diagnosis of α-thalassemia is mainly to identify the patients with α0-thalassemia, hemoglobin (Hb) H disease, Hb Bart's hydrops fetalis, and to identify the ameliorating effect that the coinheritance of α-thalassemia may have on the clinical phenotype of patients with HbS and other structural β-globin chain variants and/or patients with beta-thalassemia. The aim of this study is to evaluate the presentation and diagnosis of patients with α-thalassemia in a cohort of Iraqi patients with hemoglobinopathies. PATIENTS, MATERIALS, AND METHODS: This is a prospective cohort study that included 216 patients diagnosed with different types of hemoglobinopathies from June 2016 to October 2019. For each patient after reviewing the cause of presentation and family history of thalassemia, blood samples were sent for complete blood count, including calculated absolute reticulocyte count, peripheral blood smear, Hb H preparation, serum iron and total iron-binding capacity, sickling test, and if indicated Hb high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) (using BioRad D10). Family study was requested for several patients. RESULTS: Male:female for patients with α-thalassemia is 1:1.25. Consanguinity and family history of α-thalassemia are present in 85.2% and 51.9%, respectively. Out of 216 patients with different types of hemoglobinopathies, 25% are diagnosed with isolated or copresence of α-thalassemia. Low/lower normal HbA2% is the most sensitive parameter for the diagnosis of α-thalassemia. CONCLUSIONS: The most sensitive parameter for the diagnosis of α-thalassemia in this study is the low/lower normal HbA2% in patient with normal iron study. Other parameters such as the presence of golf-ball red cells in Hb H preparation and/or presence of HbH wave in Hb HPLC can be helpful but are only seen in smaller fraction of patients.


Aim: Gastrointestinal (GI) perforation repair is a commonly performed surgery worldwide. Postoperative septic conditions are frequently accompanied by cholestasis and postoperative jaundice. Our study was conducted to evaluate the risk factors and outcome of postoperative hyperbilirubinemia in patients with perforation peritonitis. Materials and Methods: A prospective observational study of 100 patients was conducted between January 2013 and December 2014; they underwent surgery for generalized peritonitis caused by GI perforations in the Department of Surgery of JLN Medical College and Associated Group of Hospitals, Ajmer, Rajasthan, India. Postoperative hyperbilirubinemia is defined as serum total bilirubin level of ≥5 mg/dl within 1 month after surgery. In all the patients with postoperative hyperbilirubinemia, risk factors and outcome were assessed. Data analyses done with Fisher's exact test, Mann–Whitney test, Chi-square test, Student's t test, and repeated-measures analysis of variance were used for statistical comparisons. Results: In our study of 100 patients, M:F ratio was 2.12. Sixteen percent of the total patients belonged to hyperbilirubinemia group and 84% belonged to no hyperbilirubinemia group. In the hyperbilirubinemia group, anemia was seen in 37.5%, poor nutrition in 44%, and shock in 62.5%, and these patients also had increased total leukocyte count counts, bilirubin level, aspartate aminotransferase level, and decreased platelet count, whereas in the no hyperbilirubinemia patients anemia was seen in 11%, poor nutrition in 15%, and shock in 15% cases and all of them had normal blood investigations. Postoperatively, in the hyperbilirubinemia group, cardiac and respiratory support was needed in 62% and 72% cases, respectively, renal insufficiency in 56% cases, prolonged paralytic ileus in 72%, and mortality in 62% cases. Infection-related complications developed in 20 patients (12 patients of hyperbilirubinemia group and 8 patients of no hyperbilirubinemia group). Conclusion: In our study, we concluded that in cases of perforation peritonitis, hyperbilirubinemia was associated with advanced age, poor nutritional status, and prolonged time until surgical intervention, and these patients with postoperative hyperbilirubinemia showed higher morbidity and mortality after surgery.


Abstract The polymerization progression of microtubules is vital to their natural capacities. Polymerization flow allows microtubules to embrace spatial courses of action that can change quickly because of cell needs and, at times, to perform mechanical work. Compounds that interfere with the microtubule-tubulin equilibria in cells are helpful in the treatment of human diseases. A few triazoles mimics of combretastatin-benzothiazole (CAB) hybrids had good activity as inhibitors both of tubulin polymerization and of the development of DU-145 human prostate tumor cells. Display work depicts correlation between the tubulin polymerization inhibitory activity for fundamentally related cis-restricted triazole mimics of CAB hybrids and their physicochemical descriptors in quantitative terms. The measurably approved two-dimensional quantitative structure activity relationship (2D QSAR) display has been gotten through numerous multiple linear regression (MLR) examination strategy used Vlife molecular design suits (MDS). Factual information of Model 5 (r 2 = 0.9922, q 2 =0.7045; F = 147.7612, pred r 2 = 0.8025) related with tubulin polymerization inhibitory activity. Model has included and featured the positive and negative correlation of four-five descriptors with the biological activity. Keywords: Microtubules, tubulin polymerization inhibitors, triazole, regression analysis, QSAR Cite this Article Akanksha, Vikas Mehta, Richa Dhingra et al . QSAR Analysis on a Series of Triazole Based Tubulin Polymerization Inhibitors. Research & Reviews: A Journal of Bioinformatics . 2017; 4(2): 5–20p.


We study a dynamical behaviour of neural population driven by stimulus. This dynamical response is considered in relation to the population coding. The hypothesis that neuronal code at some stages of information processing in the brain is based on synchronisation of neural activity is under intensive discussions. The dynamical regime of partial synchronisation is important and very useful for modelling of neural activity and we have found that the input driven neural assembly can demonstrate a dynamical regime of partial synchronisation. It is interesting to note that population dynamics has a stochastic nature and repetition of the same stimulus causes a synchronous activity of different sub-populations.


In the first part of these remarks I recall such examples from the past of the mentioned political agenda that might be a sort of  warning for a too far reaching overtaking of higher education institutions by political powers. In the second part, however, I recall contemporary ways and forms of political agenda, which I call "velvet" revolutions and I also see them as threat to fulfill by universities their social missions. The remarks and evaluations formulated by me at the end are certainly not to be considered. These remarks are being treated by me as a voice in the discussion on the issue how much politics might be or has to be in the life of universities, what kind of politics do any good to them and what kind brings more damage.


Consolidation of aluminium alloys by sintering present a main problem: the oxide layer that cover aluminium particles. Some alternatives are studied in this work as solution to the oxide layer problem during the sintering of series 2xxx aluminium alloys. One of these solutions is related to the addition of tin traces, and the other is the addition of a second alloy. Moreover, aluminium metal matrix composites are characterized by excellent properties as combination of properties which comes from the matrix and from the reinforcement. In the first part of this work is analyzed the influence of trace additions, and the last part of this study is focused to the analysis of one aluminium matrix composite as the influence of several quantities of reinforcement.


Murraya koenigii Spreng has been traditionally claimed as a remedy for cancer. The current study investigated the anticancer effects of girinimbine, a carbazole alkaloid isolated from Murraya koenigii Spreng, on A549 lung cancer cells in relation to apoptotic mechanistic pathway. Girinimbine was isolated from Murraya koenigii Spreng. The antiproliferative activity was assayed using MTT and the apoptosis detection was done by annexin V and lysosomal stability assays. Multiparameter cytotoxicity assays were performed to investigate the change in mitochondrial membrane potential and cytochrome c translocation. ROS, caspase, and human apoptosis proteome profiler assays were done to investigate the apoptotic mechanism of cell death. The MTT assay revealed that the girinimbine induces cell death with an IC50 of 19.01 μM. A significant induction of early phase of apoptosis was shown by annexin V and lysosomal stability assays. After 24 h treatment with 19.01 μM of girinimbine, decrease in the nuclear area and increase in mitochondrial membrane potential and plasma membrane permeability were readily visible. Moreover the translocation of cytochrome c also was observed. Girinimbine mediates its antiproliferative and apoptotic effects through up- and downregulation of apoptotic and antiapoptotic proteins. There was a significant involvement of both intrinsic and extrinsic pathways. Moreover, the upregulation of p53 as well as the cell proliferation repressor proteins, p27 and p21, and the significant role of insulin/IGF-1 signaling were also identified. Moreover the caspases 3 and 8 were found to be significantly activated. Our results taken together indicated that girinimbine may be a potential agent for anticancer drug development.


The maximum deformation and the stress state of furniture doors with different configurations of hinges were analyzed using finite element analysis with the ultimate purpose of optimizing the hinge configuration. The results showed that the maximum deformation decreased when the end distance ratio (Tp) also decreased. It was concluded that the end distance ratio (Tp) should not be greater than 1/8 when two hinges are mounted. The maximum deformation decreased when the number of mounted hinges was more than two. It is suggested that the number of mounted hinges is three when the dimensions of a furniture door are within normal values, considering the limitations in precision of processing and location. The maximum deformation was least when the middle hinge spacing ratio (Sp) was 1/3 and the mounting hinge number was four. The von Mises stress distribution was uniform within the door, and stress concentration only occurred in the vicinity of the mounted hinges. A material with high modulus of elasticity could contribute to minimizing the maximum deformation.


In this paper it was investigated that silicon be electrodeposited in the room temperature from propylene carbonate solvent. Cyclic voltammograms indicated that it was possible to electrochemical reduction of silicon chloride at -2.3984V versuHg/Hg2Cl2/ KCl (saturation) quasi-reference electrode. Potentiostatic electrolysis yielded deposits, accompanied by the change in electrolyte color from transparent to brown. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersion spectroscopy (EDS) were used to characterize the physical properties of the silicon. The EDS analysis performed simultaneously with SEM observation demonstrates that the deposit consists of Si, O and Cl.