Agricultural image processing is one of most innovative and important image processing areas recognized in last few years. Because of the vast range of associated sub domain it is having the current attention of the researchers. In this paper, the exploration of different domains associated with agricultural image processing is defined. The paper has also explored the recognition model with broader view. The paper has presented a generalized framework for plant disease classification and recognition. The paper has also defined a study on some of the effective classification approaches including SVM, Neural Network, KMeans and PCA.


OBJECTIVE
Poststroke depression is a frequent psychiatric complication after stroke that may have strong negative impact on rehabilitation therapy and functional recovery. This study was conducted to show the efficacy and safety of early treatment with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor fluoxetine in post-stroke depressed patients.

METHODS
This double-blind, randomized placebo-controlled study was of patients within two weeks after stroke. Moderate to severe depressed patients (determined by Hamilton Depression Scale (HDS) > 15, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Clinical Global Impression (CGI) Scale) were randomized to receive either 20 mg/d fluoxetine or placebo for 3 months. Beside the psychiatric assessment, patients were evaluated by use of the Scandinavian Stroke Scale (SSS), the Mini-Mental-State-Examination (MMSE) and the Barthel-Index (BI). An open-label long-term follow up was done 18 months after the initial assessment.

RESULTS
54 depressed patients of an inpatient population of 242 consecutive stroke patients aged 25 to 85 years entered the trial within the first two weeks post-stroke. 50 patients completed the trial per-protocol. The initial severity of depression was comparable in the two groups (mean baseline HDS score 32.8 in the fluoxetine vs. 30.3 in the placebo group), as were neurological symptom severity and demographic parameters. Significant improvement was seen in both groups within 4 weeks of treatment, whereas no advantages of fluoxetine could be observed at this time. This indicates a high degree of spontaneous recovery during early rehabilitation therapy. BDI scores of patients treated with fluoxetine further decreased until the follow-up at 12 weeks, whereas the scores increased again in the placebo group. This depressive relapse of the placebo patients after the end of most rehabilitation efforts was evident at a long-term follow-up 18 months after inclusion, when patients who had been treated with fluoxetine were significantly less depressed. No side effects of fluoxetine treatment were detected.

CONCLUSIONS
The advantages of fluoxetine were obvious at the follow-up 18 months after inclusion, but could not be demonstrated within the first three months of controlled treatment. The multitude of therapeutic efforts that take place in the early phase of rehabilitation might have facilitated spontaneous recovery from depression and might have hindered benefits of antidepressant treatment to become obvious. Fluoxetine treatment was well tolerated and safe.


Plant cell culture technologies have made possible the production of a wide variety of pharmaceuticals such as alkaloids, terpenoids, steroids, saponins, monoterpenes, flavonoids and amino acids. The standardization of technologies for the production of plant metabolites through cell cultures helps in understanding the biology of their biosynthesis and accumulation. Various factors such as physical, chemical, nutritional, and genetic influence the production of metabolites in plant cell cultures. The controlled production of plant metabolites through cell cultures provides a suitable alternative not only in relieving pressure from natural habitats of plant species but also provides conditions suitable for year-round production of metabolites. The production of plant metabolites has been enhanced by exposing the cultured cells to biotic and abiotic elicitors. Off late, the induction of hairy roots has been found suitable in the production of metabolites synthesized in various parts of plants. The lack of proper understanding about the biology of biosynthesis of plant metabolites has been a major stumbling block, in addition to poor amenability of medicinal and aromatic plant species to in vitro conditions. Continuous efforts are required to be made in upscaling the production of metabolites on large scale. Least attention has been given towards working out the cost-effectiveness of metabolite production through cell cultures.


At present, the relationship between fault coverage of LSI circuit tests and the tested product quality is not satisfactorily understood. Reported work on integrated circuits predicts, for an acceptable field reject rate, a fault coverage that is too high (99 percent or higher). This fault coverage is difficult to achieve for LSI circuits. This paper proposes a model of fault distribution for a chip. The number of faults on a defective chip is assumed to have a Poisson density for which the average value is determined through experiment on actual chips. The procedure, which relates the model to the chip being studied, is simple; one or more fabricated chip lots must be tested by a few preliminary test patterns. Once the model is characterized, the required value of fault coverage can be easily determined for any given field reject rate. The main advantage of such a model is that it adapts itself to the various characteristics of the chip (technology, feature size, manufacturing environment, etc.) and the fault model (e.g., stuck-type faults). As an example, the technique was applied to an LSI circuit; realistic results were obtained.


ABSTRACT The de novo immune response to infectious organisms arises from the innate recognition of pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) by the host's pattern recognition receptors (PRRs). As the generation of type 2 cytokine responses by the human trematode parasite Schistosoma mansoni is glycan mediated, there is a particular potential role for a C-type lectin receptor (CLR) to mediate the innate recognition of schistosome PAMPs. One such CLR, dendritic cell-specific intracellular adhesion molecule-3-grabbing nonintegrin (DC-SIGN; CD209), has been shown to recognize glycans expressed by S. mansoni eggs. We show that SIGNR1 (SIGN-related 1; CD209b), a murine homologue of DC-SIGN that is expressed on macrophages, also binds both schistosome-soluble egg antigens and worm antigens in vitro. The generation of schistosome egg-induced pulmonary egg granulomas was not altered in SIGNR1-deficient mice. Following S. mansoni infection, the SIGNR1-deficient mice had an unaltered phenotype with an intact immunological response and no difference in pathology. In this study we demonstrate that although SIGNR1 recognizes S. mansoni antigens in vitro, this CLR is redundant during infection. This study highlights the finding that although there was binding of SIGNR1 to immunogenic factors produced in the S. mansoni life cycle, this recognition does not translate to a functional in vivo role for the PRR during infection.


Objective: In the field of mental health it is not rare to encounter that patients have difficulties in learning, recalling and pronouncing brand names of their medicines. In this study it was aimed to determine the problems of psychiatric outpatients in recalling and pronouncing brand names of their medicines. Methods: Patients from four psychiatric outpatient clinics were questioned about the brand names of their medicines. Response scores were standardized as: One point: accurately recalled and accurately pronounced. Two points: accurately recalled, but inaccurately pronounced. Three points: recalled with assistance (by given clue) and accurately pronounced. Four points: recalled with assistance (by given clue), but inaccurately pronounced. Five points: Not recalled at all. Correlations between scores and educational level, age and duration of the medicine usage were examined. Results: Eight hundred and forty-eight patients were enrolled to the study. All patients gave verbal informant consent. Most of the participants were female, married and unemployed. Mean age was 40 and mean level of education was 8 years. 56% of patients have accurately recalled and pronounced (those scored 1 point) brand name of at least one medicine they are taking, but 30% of patients inaccurately recalled and pronounced their medicines. While Zestat, Dideral, Clonex, Akineton and Depakin were brand names those more accurately recalled and accurately pronounced, Xetanor, Wellbutrin, Tegretol, Desyrel and Redepra were brand names those most difficultly recalled and pronounced. No important correlation between scores and level of education, age and duration of the medicine usage has been found. Conclusion: Results of this study address a serious problem about to recall and pronouncing of brand names of medicines those are used in mental health field. In regard to learning and recalling of the words easily, it is necessary to have an association between the phonetic, auditory and meaningful association of the words. Brand names those have familiar association for the patient were easily recalled and pronounced. This study refers to the importance of starting to consider what to do about substituting brand names of drugs with those are more compatible with Turkish language in order to recall and pronounce the medicine names easily and accurately for patients speaking Turkish.
Key words:


The 2012 contest between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney included fierce dialogue about women and issues typically connected to them. The inflammatory comments that conservative radio-show host Rush Limbaugh made about female law student Sandra Fluke and the Affordable Health Care Act's (ACA) requirements that all workplaces cover contraceptives were central topics in the news. The controversy literally followed Romney in the form of "Pillamina," a human-sized costume designed to look like a pack of birth control pills that shadowed the candidate's summer swing state tour. While "Pillamina" was the work of Planned Parenthood's Action Fund, the Obama campaign also took aim at Romney on this issue, running a television commercial featuring "Dawn and Alex," two women talking about how out of touch Romney is with women's health issues. The Romney campaign's attempts to counter these attacks and shift the focus of conversation were largely thwarted, as questionable comments from Republican Senate candidates Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock brought the issue of abortion to the forefront. Both of these statements added fuel to the narrative that Republicans are out of touch with women's needs. And Romney himself contributed to the problem, as his notorious "binders full of women" debate response broadened the scope of the issue from reproductive rights to more general issues about gender equality. Altogether, these Republican comments and positions opened the door for Democrats on the campaign trail to attack the party, and a popular conclusion is that this "War on Women" narrative hurt the Republican Party and played an integral part in Obama's victory.


Abstract: Digital platforms turn traditional approaches of the firm, which relied on the wage relation to explain the major difference between firm and market, upside down and underline the advantages of coordination through organization over coordination through market. This study aims to propose a definition of the firm able to integrate, besides the integrated firm, also hybrid forms such as networks of subcontractor/subcontracting firms as well as atypical forms such as digital platforms. By reactivating the firm-boundary problem, this article suggests putting valorization by labor at the heart of the firm's decisions concerning integration. It suggests therefore a general definition of the firm as a techno-institutional center of capital valorization, provided that firms make profits by means of the appropriation of labor incorporated into their (productive, structural, intellectual) capital through institutional arrangements. By stressing the relation of production between the owners of the means of production and the direct producers, the approach of the firm supported here should allow to cover the different existing models of the firm, from the classical firm to hybrid models, around which the boundary debate has revolved, to digital platforms.


In the field of the Welfare State, the evaluation of public policies is more and more becoming a series of small devices (programmes, projects, nudges) aiming at measuring the performance of public services. This transforms the scope of the evaluation process and transforms the way by which "the effectiveness" of social policies is revealed and measured. This paper defends the idea that the claim for "performance" is one of the symptoms of the dissolution of evaluation of public policies in the measurement of the performance of public services. This is also a way of confusing individual performance with social progress.


Both academia and financial society are questioning the sustainability of current corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure practices to provide effective, reliable, and transparent information as measures for investments. An increasing interest of many investors is in combining ethical decisions, social and financial interests. Investors seek for an appropriate reporting framework that would allow them to benchmark and effectively use disclosed information. Although recently companies tend to provide more complete CSR disclosure, this increase in quantity is not associated with higher quality of information. There is a substantial mismatch between the corporate supply of non-financial CSR information and the investors' demand for it. We understand very little about how managers make CSR disclosure decisions, what information they voluntary disclose, and how investors react to such disclosures in the context of investment decision-making. The purpose of this project is to explore two sides of materiality of CSR disclosure in publicly available sources by focusing on investor and manager perspectives.


The Pathfinder Uranium Mine which is located in southeastern Wyoming,
was actively mined during the 1960's-1980's. Reclamation involved returning the
spoil/overburden and replacing the salvaged topsoil. The area was revegetated in
1974-1977, but was not grazed until 1980-85. A grazing experiment was then
conducted to determine solubility of mineral elements in soil, uptake by plants and
absorption by grazing animals. Blood sera were collected at 28-30 day intervals
during the three grazing/growing seasons in 1980-1982. Blood sera samples were
frozen and later analyzed by ICP. When compared to published data, plants on the
reclaimed site contained lower concentrations of Ca, Mg, Mn, P, and Zn; but higher
concentrations of Cd, Cr and Ni than plants on adjacent undisturbed sites. When
compared to expected blood sera data, animals grazing on the reclaimed site had
lower concentrations of B. Ca, Cu, Mg, and Na; but higher concentrations of Cr and
Fe than would be expected for most grazing animals. Livestock producers are
advised to provide supplements of Ca, Mg, Mn, P, and Zn to minimize deficiency of
these elements in livestock nutrition when grazing these reclaimed lands.


This paper develops a distributed self-organizing strategy for an Internet-of-Things (IoT)-based public safety network (IPSN). Recent advances in wireless broadband and multimedia services have evolved PSNs extensively. Third generation partnership project long term evolution (3GPP-LTE) becomes a basic platform for deploying public safety networks around the world. There have been extensive studies on LTE-based PSNs satisfying mission-critical requirements. However, most studies focus on investigating PSNs with network infrastructure, and there is little progress on infrastructure-less PSNs, where base stations and network coordinators become destroyed or impaired. This paper focuses on infrastructure-less PSNs, where battery-powered individual IoT devices cooperate to construct the network without any central coordination. It is aimed at maximizing the network survival time of the IPSN while satisfying mission-critical requirements. A highly nonlinear nature of the network construction problem with several constraints renders the optimization task very challenging. In addition, no coordinator exists in IPSNs and all nodes are subject to the identification of distributed strategy to achieve the goal. To this end, a state-of-the-art message-passing framework is introduced to develop a novel distributed algorithm. The major benefit originates from the controllability of the limit on wireless link hops to meet the data reliability and transmission latency required for mission-critical IPSNs. We also establish the proof on the optimality. The proposed technique converges rapidly and keeps the computation load per IoT device low, which makes it attractive for practical implementation. Simulation results verify that the proposed approach outperforms various existing approaches considerably and consistently.


Delayed mortality associated with discarded crabs and
fishes has ordinarily been observed through tag and recovery studies or during prolonged holding in deck
tanks, and there is need for a more efficient assessment method. Chionoecetes bairdi (Tanner crab) and C. opilio (snow crab) collected with bottom trawls in Bering Sea waters off Alaska were evaluated for reflexes and injuries and held onboard to track mortality. Presence or absence of six reflex actions was determined and combined to calculate a reflex impairment index for each species. Logistic regression revealed that reflex impairment provided an excellent predictor of delayed mortality in C. opilio (91% correct predictions). For C. bairdi, reflex impairment, along with injury score, resulted in 82.7% correct predictions of mortality, and reflex impairment alone resulted in 79.5% correct predictions. The relationships
between reflex impairment score and mortality were independent of crab gender, size, and shell condition, and predicted mortality in crabs with no obvious external
damage. These relationships provide substantial improvement over earlier predictors of mortality and will help to increase the scope and replication of fishing and handling experiments. The general approach of using reflex actions to predict mortality should be equally valuable for a wide range of crustacean species.


The irritative effects of preservatives found in ophthalmologic solution, or of antiseptics used for skin disinfection is a consistent problem for the patients. The reduction of the toxic effects of these compounds is desired. Brilliant Blue G (BBG) has shown to meet the expected effect in presence of benzalkonium chloride (BAK), a well known preservative in ophthalmic solutions, and octenidine dihydrochloride (Oct), used as antiseptic in skin and wound disinfection. BBG shows a significant protective effect on human corneal epithelial (HCE) cells against BAK and Oct toxicity, increasing the cell survival up to 51 % at the highest BAK or Oct concentration tested, which is 0.01 %, both at 30 min incubation. Although BBG is described as a P2x7 receptor antagonist, other selective P2x7 receptor antagonists, OxATP (adenosine 5'-triphosphate-2',3'-dialdehyde) and DPPH (N'-(3,5-dichloropyridin-4-yl)-3-phenylpropanehydrazide), did not reduce the cytotoxicity of neither BAK nor Oct. Therefore we assume that the protective effect of BBG is not due to its action on the P2x7 receptor. Brilliant Blue R (BBR), a dye similar to BBG, was also tested for protective effect on BAK and Oct toxicity. In presence of BAK no significant protective effect was observed. Instead, with Oct a comparable protective effect was seen with that of BBG. To assure that the bacteriostatic effect is not affected by the combinations of BAK/BBG, Oct/BBG and Oct/BBR, bacterial growth inhibition was analyzed on different Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. All combinations of BAK or Oct with BBG hinder growth of Gram-positive bacteria. The combinations of 0.001 % Oct and BBR above 0.025 % do not hinder the growth of B. subtilis. For Gram-negative bacteria, BBG and BBR reduce, but do not abolish, the antimicrobial effect of BAK nor of Oct. In conclusion, the addition of BBG at bacterial inhibitory concentrations is suggested in the ready-to-use ophthalmic preparations and antiseptic solutions.


Visual speech information from the speaker's mouth region has been successfully shown to improve noise robustness of automatic speech recognizers, thus promising to extend their usability in the human computer interface. In this paper, we review the main components of audiovisual automatic speech recognition (ASR) and present novel contributions in two main areas: first, the visual front-end design, based on a cascade of linear image transforms of an appropriate video region of interest, and subsequently, audiovisual speech integration. On the latter topic, we discuss new work on feature and decision fusion combination, the modeling of audiovisual speech asynchrony, and incorporating modality reliability estimates to the bimodal recognition process. We also briefly touch upon the issue of audiovisual adaptation. We apply our algorithms to three multisubject bimodal databases, ranging from small- to large-vocabulary recognition tasks, recorded in both visually controlled and challenging environments. Our experiments demonstrate that the visual modality improves ASR over all conditions and data considered, though less so for visually challenging environments and large vocabulary tasks.


In agriculture, a major benefit of satellite registrations crop is forecast problem by following up the development of crops in certain phenological stages. Then, the registration of pest attacks made possible intervention in the early stages of this phenomenon. Development of the Earth's surface registration techniques in different spectral bands, specialized for certain components of the environment. Such as those of the last LANDSAT and SPOT satellites were able to follow some aspects of forestry and agriculture


Abstract Andros is a key island for understanding both the timing of high-pressure–low-temperature (HP-LT) metamorphism and the dynamics of crustal-scale detachment systems exhuming high-grade units in the Cyclades (Greece). Using phengite 40Ar–39Ar geochronology coupled with thermobarometry, as well as data from literature, we constrain the pressure–temperature–time (P-T-t) paths of the Makrotantalon and Attic–Cycladic Blueschist units on Andros. Peak conditions of the HP-LT episode in the Makrotantalon unit are 550°C and 18.5 kbar, dated at 116 Ma. We correlate this episode with Early Cretaceous blueschist facies metamorphism recognized in the Pelagonian zone of continental Greece. This is a new argument favouring a Pelagonian origin for the Makrotantalon unit. In the Attic–Cycladic Blueschist unit, the P-T-t path is characterized by: (1) exhumation after peak conditions in HP-LT conditions between 55 and 35 Ma; (2) isobaric heating at 7 kbar until 30 Ma; and (3) isothermal decompression until 21 Ma. This thermal evolution and timing are similar to those of the neighbouring Tinos Island, emphasizing major thermal re-equilibration at the transition between stable and retreating subduction. Modifications of the crustal thermal state played a major role in the evolution of the North Cycladic Detachment System, below which Andros HP-LT units were exhumed.


Most tropical rivers, especially in the Asian region, are severely impacted by various human perturbations and the diverse habitats in streams support rich invertebrate and vertebrate communities. It is hypothesized that the fish assemblages and their dietary structure in two tropical streams differ because they flow through different terrains and are exposed to different climatic conditions. In the wet‐zone stream, which is geomorphologically more complex, fish faunal diversity showed a significant variation and presence of endemic fish species. In the diets of fish, the taxonomic composition was different along the longitudinal gradients, but dietary taxa richness in the two streams was virtually similar having 32 dietary taxa in the wet‐zone stream and 36 taxa in the dry‐zone stream. In the wet‐zone stream, we observed a lower proportion of specialist feeding species than those in the dry‐zone stream. Trophic indices of individual species in fish assemblages ranging from herbivory to carnivory also indicate structuring of fish communities along the longitudinal gradients of the two streams based on the dietary structure. The main differences between the fish assemblages in the wet zone compared with the dry zone were the higher number of endemic species and the lower percentage of specialist feeders with higher trophic indices. The outcome of this study, hopefully, contributes to planning future biodiversity conservation management schemes under various river‐basin development strategies.


The paper derives the first known numerical shallow water model on the sphere using radial basis function (RBF) spatial discretization, a novel numerical methodology that does not require any grid or mesh. In order to perform a study with regard to its spatial and temporal errors, two nonlinear test cases with known analytical solutions are considered. The first is a global steady-state flow with a compactly supported velocity field, while the second is an unsteady flow where features in the flow must be kept intact without dispersion. This behaviour is achieved by introducing forcing terms in the shallow water equations. Error and time stability studies are performed, both as the number of nodes are uniformly increased and the shape parameter of the RBF is varied, especially in the flat basis function limit. Results show that the RBF method is spectral, giving exceptionally high accuracy for low number of basis functions while being able to take unusually large time steps. In order to put it in the context of other commonly used global spectral methods on a sphere, comparisons are given with respect to spherical harmonics, double Fourier series and spectral element methods.


Humanoid strategies of avoiding obstacles were analyzed and formulated into virtual force field (VFF) algorithm. In view of obstacles moving, smoothing accumulation computing method was designed for updating credibility factors (CF) of grid held by obstacle, and two examples were given. Uncertainty reasoning was adopted for computing complex CF with uncertainty of sensors signal, and synthesize method was designed. The weight of repulsive force was designed to be varying with angle from robot moving direction to obstacles, in order to make robot more sensitivity to obstacles on moving way. Indoor and outdoor virtual environment were established and simulations were carried out. The results demonstrate that the path is better using proposed than common VFF.


1 Eight double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, single-dose, cross-over studies were carried out to evaluate the usefulness of testing the acute analgesic effect of drugs in out-patients with non-migrainous headache. 2 The reference compounds were either (1) aspirin, (2) a combination of aminopyrine, caffeine and butalbarbital (Optalidon), and (3) a combination of (2) with dihydroergotamine (Tonopan). 3 The test compounds were (1) proquazone, (2) fluproquazone and (3) and (4), new formulations of Optalidon and Tonopan in which the aminopyrine was replaced by propyphenazone. They were all found to be active. 4 A significant, dose-response relationship was established for aspirin (250, 500 and 1000 mg). 5 It is concluded that the non-migrainous headache model is a practical, reproducible and sensitive method for the investigation of the acute efficacy of analgesics.


In societies heading for modernization, culture‑ and stratum‑specific cognitive representations of social success also undergo change, but it is by no means indifferent to the process of development how they change. Nor is Hungary an exception, where after the changes of the early 1990s the findings of research which give an insight into the images of social and personal success among professionals who play a decisive role in modernization might be of special interest, and perhaps utility. These images are indicators of status as well as motivations in the given process of modernization. The investigation described in this paper used cognitive social psychology to explore the social representations of success among would‑be and practicing members from three professional fields (agricultural engineers, architects and economists) who had and still have varying chances of success after the political changes. The present study only enlarges upon a part of the complex questionnaire survey,specifically the alleged factors and traits (causal attributes) that underlie the success of a) successful persons that respondents' personally know, and b) generalized Hungarian successful persons, together with the factors that structure the social representations of success, as well as significant differences in these by gender, professional field and generation. The most conspicuous of our findings relates to negative emotional perceptions about the generalized successful Hungarian man, especially in the subsample of students. Known successful people are almost exclusively male and come from the world of business, which is a remarkable sign of the survival of earlier beliefs, even if otherwise no comprehensive difference was detected between the genders. Neither was a difference specific to the field of specialisation identified, in contrast to generation‑specific divergences (particularly concerning the more complex approach of earning professionals to achievement, staying well‑informed and communicative skills).


Aims: To evaluate the effects of phosphate rock and organic inputs on soil organic carbon and acid phosphatase activity.
Study Design: The experiment was laid in Randomized Complete Block Design with seven treatments replicated thrice.
Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted at Kigogo Primary school in Meru South Sub-county, Tharaka Nithi County, Kenya. The experiment ran for two consecutive seasons the short rains of 2017 (October to December) and long rains of 2018 (March through June).
Methodology: There were seven treatments replicated thrice. The treatments included Tithonia diversifolia, Phosphate rock (PR), Goat manure, Tithonia diversifolia + Phosphate rock, Goat manure + Phosphate rock, Triple superphosphate + Calcium ammonium nitrate and a Control (no soil external inputs). The test crop was maize (Zea mays L.) H516 variety. Soil organic carbon followed modified Walkley and Black oxidation method while acid phosphatase enzyme activity was essayed following the method by Tabatabai and Bremner.
Results: Goat manure + phosphate rock, sole phosphate rock and use of goat manure significantly (P= .0001) increased soil organic carbon by 198, 100 and 71% compared to the control. Tithonia diversifolia reported a 3.4-fold increase in soil organic carbon compared to the control in short rains of 2017. Goat manure gave higher soil organic carbon by 135% compared to the control in the long rains of 2018. Goat manure + phosphate rock treatment significantly (P= .0002) increased the phosphatase activity by a difference of 1.12% compared with the control, with 2.14% decreases under TSP+CAN treatment compared to the control.
Conclusion: The results showed that integration of phosphate rock and manure could have a far-reaching influence on soil organic carbon and acid phosphatase activity thus could be recommended for improved soil productivity in humic nitisols in similar agro-ecological zones.


In 1957 a number of women?s organizations were involved in planning a government-sponsored Festival of Women ? an event that indicates contemporary awareness of and interest in the changing position of women. This study is similarly concerned with the position of women in the 1950s and 60s, relating constructions of the ?modern? woman in women?s magazines to post-war developments, such as increasing levels of consumption and changing leisure patterns. There are two major themes in the thesis: the housewife and the modern. The study illustrates the centrality of ?the housewife? while accentuating the breadth and complexity of post-1945 women?s roles and identities, with a focus on two sites pivotal to constructions of femininity in women?s magazines: the home and appearance. The study also explores how women?s magazines shaped the modern, emphasizing the range of ways in which this notion was constructed and understood. The concept of social capital is used to examine the significance of the modern, looking at why it was so important and its connection with ideas of exclusion and belonging.The study looks at two magazines. Home and Country was the magazine of the National Federation of Women?s Institutes, and hence it targeted rural women. Woman?s Outlook, on the other hand, was the Women?s Co-operative Guild magazine, aimed at working-class Guild members. Through comparisons between the two and with Woman, a mass-circulation weekly magazine, the thesis demonstrates that their respective rural and Co-operative identities were distinctive features that contrast with the urban and mass consumption viewpoints evident in other titles. These rural and Co-operative identities heavily influenced the perspectives of the organizational magazines and created alternative visions of the modern. The relationship of these features to post-war British modernity has received little attention, with historians? focus on the urban and the individual consumer positioning the countryside and the Co-operative movement as antithetical to the modern. However, this study reveals that rural and Co-operative interpretations of the modern enhance and develop understandings of key themes in 1950s and 60s British history such as national identity, consumer culture, generation and age. The thesis situates Home and Country and Woman?s Outlook within broader social and cultural networks and shows the extent to which women?s magazines operated as cultural intermediaries. The study also engages with a number of intersecting bodies of literature, such as revisionist accounts of domesticity and recent work on women?s organizations, and contributes to various discussions including housing in post-war Britain and feminist analyses of fashion and beauty. This multifaceted investigation generates new insights into both the housewife and the modern, insights which offer a more complex and nuanced account of 1950s and 60s Britain and the position of women.


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OBJECTIVE
To determine the effect of changes from nasal to tracheal respiration on maxillary sinus mucosal blood flow in rabbits with unobstructed sinus ostia.

DESIGN
Animals underwent tracheotomy with a T tube and then a small window of intact maxillary sinus mucosa was exposed. Mucosal blood flow was recorded during normal nasal respiration using laser-Doppler velocimetry. At hourly intervals, respiration was changed from the nasal to the tracheal route and then back again.

SUBJECTS
Ten anesthetized rabbits were used: 5 underwent single and 4 underwent multiple shifts in the respiratory route, while 1 was monitored continuously during long-term nasal breathing only.

RESULTS
A significant decrease in maxillary sinus blood flow occurred on switching from nasal to tracheal respiration and a significant increase in blood flow occurred on return to nasal respiration. Where multiple switches were made, blood flow changes diminished in magnitude, but significant decreases (nasal to tracheal) or increases (tracheal to nasal) were evident in all cases.

CONCLUSIONS
It is proposed that the maxillary sinus may act in an accessory capacity to the nose for humidification of inspired air via secretions liberated from the sinus ostium. Furthermore, we suggest that nasal airflow is involved with the reflex regulation of sinus blood flow, probably via stimulation of sensory receptors in the nasal cavity. Reduced maxillary sinus mucosal blood flow may thus contribute to supra-systemic levels of antral carbon dioxide. Since elevated carbon dioxide levels have been shown to reduce maxillary sinus mucociliary activity in vitro, nasal airflow compromise may contribute to the initiation of a cascade of pathophysiological events leading to acute sinusitis.


Abstract Sintering of Cr-prealloyed PM steels requires atmospheres with good quality – low oxygen potential – to achieve satisfactory sintering results. But during heating even the best atmospheres may be oxidizing, the system turns to reducing conditions only at high temperatures, which can be monitored by thermal analysis. During the dewaxing process, oxidizing conditions are favourable for effective dewaxing without sooting and blistering. However, this may result in some oxygen pickup during heating, and then the final properties of the produced parts may be strongly influenced by this intermediate oxidation. This study demonstrates the behaviour of artificially oxidized steels (Fe-C and Fe3Cr-0.5Mo-C) during the sintering process by stepwise sintering. Iron and steel powder were slightly oxidized and then pressed and sintered at different temperatures. In parallel, as a second approach, pressed samples were oxidized and then sintered. Density, hardness and impact energy were measured and dilatometry/MS was used for online monitoring of the sintering process. The starting oxygen content of 0.20 to 0.30 wt% is high enough to change the sintering behaviour of the materials, but still leads to rather good properties. Thermal analysis showed that most of the oxygen picked up was present as iron oxides on the surface which were reduced by hydrogen at rather low temperatures, confirming that these were iron oxides, which also holds for the Cr-prealloyed variant. The biggest influence on the final performance was exerted by the final carbon content and the microstructural development of the material.


The storm formed over the warm waters between Sicily and Libya in a region of weak flow ahead of a cold, upper-level trough. During its 5-day lifetime it moved erratically before dissipating off the Turkish coast. As the storm developed, it diminished in size, assuming a hurricane-like appearance in satellite imagery. Ships near the vortex center reported nearhurricane force winds. An attempt to simulate the storm development with a state-of-the-art mesoscale model met with mixed success. The most serious errors occurred after the initial deepening when the predicted track departed substantially from the observed and the contraction of the storm to mesoscale dimension was missed. A number of forward and adjoint sensitivity experiments were conducted to identify factors influencing the development and to explore ways of improving the prediction. The most realistic prediction was achieved by implanting a vortex, in the manner commonly done in tropical cyclone prediction, at an early stage in the storm's history and by using, in addition, adjoint sensitivity to further modify the initial conditions.


This article examines the recent enactment of Health Savings Accounts (HSA) as they might affect how Americans obtain coverage for their health care expenses and the role that personal responsibility will play in that process. It explains the historical development of this country's tying health insurance to current employment status and especially the role of tax policy in that phenomenon. After considering the advantages and disadvantages of this approach, the article analyzes the key elements of the 2003 legislation that created HSAs. This part examines the "high deductible" insurance plan that must accompany an HSA, including its limit on out-of-pocket expenditures and the scope of additional insurance permitted. The operation of the HSA itself is then addressed, including the relationship of employer and employee contributions into such accounts, the tax treatment of distributions from these accounts, and what happens to unused balances. The article then assesses the likely impact of HSAs according to five C's: complexity of possible configurations, confusion over self-administration, choice of alternative arrangements, control, and cost of health care. The article concludes that HSAs represent a potentially paradigmatic shift in how Americans view health care costs and align a growing appetite for individual control over this critical employee benefit with today's workplace realities.


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We report the high-pressure properties of two heterometallic perovskite-type metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) templated by dimethylammonium (NH2(CH3)2, DMA+) with the general formula [DMA]MI0.5CrIII0.5(HCOO)3, where MI = Na+ (DMANaCr) and K+ (DMAKCr). The high-pressure Raman scattering studies show crystal instabilities in the 4.0-4.4 GPa and 2.0-2.5 GPa ranges for DMANaCr and DMAKCr, respectively. The mechanism is similar in the two compounds and involves strong deformation of the metal-formate framework, especially pronounced for the subnetwork of CrO6 octahedra, accompanied by substantial compressibility of the DMA+ cations. Comparison with previous high-pressure Raman studies of sodium-chromium heterometallic MOFs show that the stability depends on the templated cation and increases as follows: ammonium < imidazolium < DMA+. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations are performed to get a better understanding of the structural properties leading to the existence of phase transitions. We calculate the energy of the hydrogen bonds (HBs) between the DMA+ cation and the metal formate cage, revealing a stronger interaction in the DMAKCr compound due to a HB arrangement that primarily involves the energetically preferred bonding to KO6 octahedra. This material however also has a smaller structural tolerance factor (TF) and a higher vibrational entropy than DMANaCr. This indicates a more flexible crystal structure, explaining the lower phase transition pressure, as well as the previously observed phase transition at 190 K, which is absent in the DMANaCr compound. The DFT high-pressure simulations show the largest contraction to be along the trigonal axis, leading to a minimal distortion of the HBs formed between the DMA+ cations and the metal-formate sublattice.


In this chapter, Andrea Fried and Arvind Singhal highlight which novel research questions break ground when taking a second-order perspective on organizational deviance. The concept of the 'second-order observer' for researchers leaves the assessment of organizational deviance explicitly to the empirical field, and brings organizations and their members as describers, as assessors, and as sanctioners of organizational deviance into the discussion. The chapter strengthens social agency in deviations from standards to counteract the view that deviants are a 'passive non-entity'. Fried and Singhal describe how organizational deviance has three dimensions and can analytically be distinguished as a descriptive, a normative, and a sanctioning aspect. The chapter concludes with six assignments for developing a concept of organizational deviance.


Attempts were made in this study to examine the effectiveness of polymer addition to coagulation process during treatment of a beverage industrial wastewater to remove some of its trace metals content such as lead, cadmium, total iron, total chromium, nickel and zinc. Experiments were conducted using the standard Jar test procedure to determine the performance of both ferric chloride and organic polymer (a non-ionic polyacrylamide) individually and ferric chloride-polymer combination. The dosages used for ferric chloride ranged from 0 to 500mg/l, whereas polymer dosages varied between 0 and 100mg/l. The (optimal) removal efficiency for total chromium in the wastewater was obtained at 300mg /l for ferric chloride and 65mg/l for polymer. Whereas for zinc and total iron, the optimal removal efficiencies were obtained at 500mg/l for ferric chloride and 65mg/l for polymer. Addition of ferric chloride resulted in significant removal of the metals reaching up to 91%, 72% and 54% of total chromium, zinc and total iron respectively while addition of polymer achieved 95%, 87% and 88% of total chromium, zinc and total iron respectively. Ferric chloride produced more voluminous and more compacted sludge than polymer. Combinations of ferric chloride and polymer at different ratio achieved better removal efficiencies of the metals in the range 84-97% for total chromium, 69-90% for zinc and 69-92% for total iron, also less sludge was produced. Lead, cadmium and nickel were not detected in the raw wastewater. Journal of Applied Sciences and Environmental Management Vol. 10(3) 2006: 159-162


ABSTRACT Changes occurring as the prophase I oocyte matures to metaphase II are critical for the acquisition of competence for normal egg activation and early embryogenesis. A prophase I oocyte cannot respond to a fertilizing sperm as a metaphase II egg does, including the ability to prevent polyspermic fertilization. Studies here demonstrate that the competence for the membrane block to polyspermy is deficient in prophase I mouse oocytes. In vitro fertilization experiments using identical insemination conditions result in monospermy in 87% of zona pellucida (ZP)-free metaphase II eggs, while 92% of ZP-free prophase I oocytes have four or more fused sperm. The membrane block is associated with a postfertilization reduction in the capacity to support sperm binding, but this reduction in sperm-binding capacity is both less robust and slower to develop in fertilized prophase I oocytes. Fertilization of oocytes is dependent on the tetraspanin CD9, but little to no release of CD9 from the oocyte membrane is detected, suggesting that release of CD9-containing vesicles is not essential for fertilization. The deficiency in membrane block establishment in prophase I oocytes correlates with abnormalities in two postfertilization cytoskeletal changes: sperm-induced cortical remodeling that results in fertilization cone formation and a postfertilization increase in effective cortical tension. These data indicate that cortical maturation is a component of cytoplasmic maturation during the oocyte-to-egg transition and that the egg cortex has to be appropriately primed and tuned to be responsive to a fertilizing sperm.


In this paper, we present a mathematical model of near-hover attitude dynamics and control in flapping flight. Then we apply this model to fruit fly (Drosophila) as an example. The attitude dynamics are derived from the complete 6-DOF equations of motion. Stability derivatives are estimated based on quasi-steady aerodynamic models of Flapping counter-torques (FCTs). Control derivatives are derived in a similar manner. Results show that stable angular motions can be achieved using a simple proportional feedback control. A coupled yaw and roll rotation (similar to a banked turn) is indentified as the most stable mode of angular motion. Additionally, free response results suggest that the fruit fly is able to damp out an initial disturbance of angular velocity.


literature written by and about the Kennedy family. Included are works by and about JFK, general works on his administration, Kennedy administration foreign and domestic affairs, and JFK's assassination and its aftermath. Coverage also extends to Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, Robert and Ethel Kennedy, Edward and Joan Kennedy, and a brief section on other members of the Kennedy clan. Many items are annotated and the larger sections are further divided by subcategories. Text includes index. Cuba from its colonial origins to the present, with most of the data focusing on the twentieth century. Included are chapters on climate and land, population, vital statistics, slavery and migration, education, labor, production, culture, recreation and sports, foreign trade, money and balance of payments, public debt, foreign aid, tourism, public finance and budgets, government, politics and the military, banking and finance, and price indexes, national income, and capital stock. Text also includes brief discussion of data sources and index.


An extreme halophilic bacterium was isolated from solar saltern samples and identified based on biochemical tests and 16S r RNA sequencing as Chromohalobacter sp. strain TVSP101. The halophilic protease was purified using ultrafiltration, ethanol precipitation, hydrophobic interaction column chromatography and gel permeation chromatography to 180 fold with 22% yield. The molecular mass of the protease determined by SDS PAGE was 66 kDa. The purified enzyme was salt dependent for its activity and stability with an optimum of 4.5 M NaCl. The optimum temperature for maximum protease activity was 75oC. The protease was optimally active at pH 8 and retained more than 80% of its activity in the range of pH 7-10. Sucrose and glycine at 10% (w/v) were the most effective osmolytes, retained 100% activity in the absence of NaCl. The activity was completely inhibited by ZnCl2 (2 mM), 0.1% SDS and PMSF (1mM). The enzyme was not inhibited by 1mM of pepstatin, EDTA and PCMB. The protease was active and retained 100% it activity in 10% (v/v) DMSO, DMF, ethanol and acetone.


Introduction: Hypericum perforatum, also known as 'St. John9s wort', is one of the most studied medicinal plants. Despite its primary use as an anti-depression agent, certain compounds such as hypericin and hyperforin in H. perforatum extract have been shown to inhibit tumor growth by inducing apoptosis/necrosis and inhibiting angiogenesis. Using hypericin in photodynamic cancer therapy is also being studied. Our previous studies have demonstrated that H. perforatum extract and a group of 4 compounds in it, namely pseudohypericin, amentoflavone, quercetin, and chlorogenic acid, decreased lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated macrophage inflammatory response, and identified the activation of suppressor of cytokine signaling 3 (SOCS3) as a candidate mechanism for this activity. Given that both inflammation and SOCS3 suppression are associated with tumor progression, we studied the role of SOCS3 activation in the anti-inflammatory activity of H. perforatum extract and its components. Methods: Specific siRNA was used to knockdown the expression of SOCS3 in RAW 264.7 mouse macrophages. Activation of SOCS3 in macrophages was measured at mRNA and protein levels using qRT-PCR and Western blot. H. perforatum extract at 30 µg/mL, the 4 compounds at the same concentrations as in the extract, and the combinations of individual compounds were applied to macrophages with and without SOCS3 knockdown to reveal whether their inhibition of LPS-stimulated prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) and nitric oxide (NO) was dependent on SOCS3. Results: SOCS3 expression in the mouse macrophages was activated upon LPS stimulation and further potentiated by H. perforatum extract and the 4 compounds studied. SOCS3 siRNA transfection significantly compromised the activation of SOCS3. H. perforatum extract and the 4 compounds reduced LPS-stimulated PGE2 and NO production, but only the inhibitory effect of the 4 compounds was negated by SOCS3 knockdown. Combinations of two or three of the 4 compounds that include pseudohypericin, the most essential component among the four that act synergistically in reducing macrophage inflammatory response, lost their inhibitory effect on PGE2 and NO production in SOCS3 knockdown cells. Conclusions: SOCS3 activation was critical for pseudohypericin9s independent and interactive anti-inflammatory activity with amentoflavone, quercetin, and chlorogenic acid. H. perforatum extract utilized alternative mechanisms that are SOCS3 independent to inhibit macrophage inflammation. In addition to light-activated cytotoxicity and inhibition of angiogenesis, magnification of SOCS3 activation by H. perforatum extract might contribute to its anti-tumor potential. Citation Information: Cancer Prev Res 2010;3(12 Suppl):A46.


Satellite networking is different from wired or wireless networks. The behavior and the performance of TCP/IP in normal wireless network as well as in wired network are different from one another. The TCP/IP protocol was not designed to perform well over high-latency or noisy channels so its performance over satellite networks are totally different. Each satellite networks/constellations have different properties. The deployment height, motion, direction, link capacity – all differ from one satellite constellations to another. So, certainly the behavior of TCP/IP will considerably differ from one satellite constellations than another. The Performance of three different TCP Congestion algorithms, Vegas, Reno and Bic are taken for evaluation on the simulated satellite network Iridium and the performance of the three algorithms under the satellites constellation is measured using suitable metrics. It is observed that, irrespective of the high end to end delay, the behavior of TCP/IP under Satellite network is somewhat resembling a high latency wired network. TCP under satellite network is not like that of a mobile ADHOC network. The observation resulted that the overall performance of Vegas was good in Iridium constellations. These reasons should be explored for designing a better congestion control algorithm exclusively for Satellite Networks. Index Terms — Iridium, TCP Vegas, TCP Bic, TCP Reno, Performance Metrics


The application of an active fast-responding heat flux sensor to time-dependent heat flux measurements was studied for two aero-dynamically interfering wall-mounted cubes. This sensor was in-house made and it consisted of a heated thin platinum film deposited on an insulating substrate of glass. The frequency response of the sensor was determined from a calibration with chopped laser beams and with responses to on forehand known periodic oscillations in the flow. The purpose of the study was to measure possible correlation between the vortex shedding, induced at the upstream cube in the tandem, and the convective heat flux from the side faces of the downstream cube. This implied that we were mainly interested in detecting possible characteristic frequencies carried by the time-dependent heat flux signal rather than determining the absolute value of the time-dependent convective heat flux. The results showed maxima in the power density spectra of the heat flux signal at frequencies which were in good agreement with the shedding frequencies found in the corresponding velocity spectra.


The in vivo activities of piperacillin-tazobactam and cefepime were compared with those of ticarcillin-clavulanate, ceftazidime, cefotaxime, and imipenem in a rat model of intra-abdominal abscess with a strain of Klebsiella pneumoniae elaborating an extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (TEM-26). With the exception of ceftazidime, all of the antimicrobial agents significantly reduced bacterial counts within abscesses at the end of therapy compared with those in untreated controls. Residual viable cell counts (mean +/- standard deviation in log10 CFU/gram) were as follows: control, 8.76 +/- 0.97; ceftazidime, 8.00 +/- 0.76; piperacillin-tazobactam, 3.87 +/- 1.72; ticarcillin-clavulanate, 3.74 +/- 1.34; cefepime, 3.15 +/- 1.19; cefotaxime, 2.61 +/- 0.77; imipenem, 2.41 +/- 0.93. Imipenem was more effective than either of the inhibitor combinations (P < 0.05). Cefotaxime was unexpectedly effective given its poor in vivo activity against this organism in our earlier studies, which used a different dose and total duration of therapy (L. B. Rice, J. D. C. Yao, K. Klimm, G. M. Eliopoulos, and R. C. Moellering, Jr., Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 35:1243-1244, 1991). These observations suggest that the effectiveness of cephalosporins in the treatment of experimental infections caused by extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing K. pneumoniae may be highly dependent on dosing regimens, even for a specific organism and site of infection.


The molecular structure and properties of four sodium lignosulfonates (LSs) derived from pulping or bioethanol production were evaluated and compared. SXP and SAL were produced by sulfite pulping and sulfonation reaction of lignin from alkali pulping of poplar, respectively. LS-180 and LS-150 were from sulfite pretreatment to overcome recalcitrance of lignocelluloses (SPORL) pretreatment of lodgepole pine for bioethanol production. The molecular weights of the two LSs from SPORL were much smaller than those from pulping. However, LS-180 and LS-150 had higher sulfur content, especially LS-180. UV–Vis absorption spectra of LS-180 and SXP showed redshift, indicating increased amount of guaiacyl units or conjugated structures. The infrared spectra showed that LS-180 and SXP had more conjugated structures. LS-150 had the highest methoxyl group content, while SAL and LS-180 had lowest. The 1H-NMR was used to further investigate the difference of molecular linkages within each LS. LS-150 had more β-O-4′ structures than the others, while SXP had more β-β′ structures. When used as dispersant for TiO2 slurry, LS-180, LS-150, and SXP all had excellent dispersibility, but not SAL, suggesting LS from bioethanol production is an excellent source of LS and lignin sulfonation of alkali lignin is not sufficient for dispersion applications. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT


In this paper we discuss the structure of -semihypergroups. We prove some basic results and present several examples of -semihypergroups. Also, we obtain some properties of regular and strongly regular relations on a -semihypergroup and construct a -semigroup from a -semihypergroup by using the notion of fundamental relation.


A comparative study of free aminoacid content in the blood of 27 patients will brain hemorrhages and 32 patients with brain infarctions was conducted during the first 12 hours of brain stroke. A comparison of the data obtained with the results of a study of 16 normals and 24 patients with atherosclerosis and hypertensive disease demonstrated changes in the aminoacids spectrum which is characteristic for a hemorrhagical and ischemic stroke. The differences in the content of 10 aminoacids are shown. The achieved results are discussed in the light of their differential diagnostic significance.


This paper proposes a rating methodology that is based on a non-linear classification method, the support vector machine, and a non-parametric technique for mapping rating scores into probabilities of default. We give an introduction to underlying statistical models and represent the results of testing our approach on Deutsche Bundesbank data. In particular we discuss the selection of variables and give a comparison with more traditional approaches such as discriminant analysis and the logit regression. The results demonstrate that the SVM has clear advantages over these methods for all variables tested.


Abstract Background The ophthalmology residency match is highly competitive, and fourth-year medical students frequently complete away rotations at other institutions hoping to increase their chances of matching. Objective The study aimed to determine the impact of away rotations on the ophthalmology residency selection process and to provide recommendations to faculty for counseling fourth-year medical students as they prepare for the ophthalmology match. Methods A survey was sent in June 2020 to program directors (PDs), medical student educators (MSEs), and residents at 119 accredited ophthalmology residency programs via the Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology e-mail listserv. The 43 PDs and 38 MSEs who responded were asked questions about their views regarding away rotations and visiting students during the residency selection process. The 83 resident respondents were asked about their interview and match success after completing away rotations. Categorical variables were analyzed by Chi-square test. Results The majority of PDs and MSEs typically recommend that fourth-year medical students complete away rotations (p = 0.022 and p = 0.194, respectively). The majority believe that an away rotation will increase the chance of the applicant matching with the host institution (p = 0.004 and p = 0.001, respectively). The vast majority of PDs were more likely to offer an interview to a visiting student compared with another equally qualified applicant (p < 0.001). However, only one-third of PDs were typically more likely to rank an away rotator higher on their rank list (p = 0.047). Two-thirds of residents completed at least one away rotation in medical school (mean = 1.7 rotations). The majority received interview invitations from at least some of their host institutions (p < 0.001). Approximately one-fifth ultimately matched at a host residency program (p < 0.001). Conclusion The majority of ophthalmology PDs and MSEs surveyed recommend that fourth-year medical students complete away rotations and believe that these rotations will increase the chance of the applicant matching at a host institution. The PDs are more likely to offer an interview to a visiting student compared with another equally qualified applicant. For some programs, visiting students may also receive special consideration by being ranked higher on a program's rank list and being more likely to match.


ABSTRACT:  Cambodia has recently demonstrated one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. While scholars have long explored the drivers of tropical forest loss, the case of Cambodia offers particular insights into the role of the state where transnational governance and regional integration are increasingly the norm. Given the significant role logging rents play in Cambodia's post-conflict state formation, this article explores the contemporary regime and its ongoing codependent relationship with forested land. Insights are distilled from comparative analysis of illicit logging in two ethnographic case studies. Both involve foreign investments by state-owned companies – a Chinese-backed hydropower dam and Vietnamese-owned rubber concessions – and both are nestled in prominent conservation landscapes that are managed with international donor support. Together, the cases reveal how Cambodia's current timber extraction regime works through the use and abuse of legal mechanisms associated with forest conservation and foreign investment projects, and the mobilization of elite alliances that log both for private gain and in service of the ruling party's interests. By implication, the government's remarkable facilitation of transnational projects for conservation and development must be reappraised and ultimately seen as constitutive of a predatory and extractive regime that continues to rely heavily upon illicit logging revenues.


In the United Kingdom, the transmission between policy promises and statutes is assumed to be both rapid and efficient because of the tradition of party discipline, relative stability of government, absence of coalitions, and the limited powers of legislative revision in the second chamber. Even in the United Kingdom, the transmission is not perfect since legislative priorities and outputs are susceptible to changes in public opinion or media coverage, unanticipated events in the external world, backbench rebellions, changes in the political parties, and the practical constraints of administering policies or programmes. This paper investigates the strength of the connection between executive priorities and legislative outputs measured by the Speech from the Throne and Acts of Parliament from 1911 to 2008. These are categorized according to the policy content coding system of the UK Policy Agendas Project (www.policyagendas.org.uk). Time series cross-sectional analyses show that there is transmission of the policy agenda from the speech to acts. However, the relationship differs by party, strengthening over time for Conservative governments and declining over time for Labour and other governments.


This paper presents the results of tests of six commonly used airfoils: the CYH, the N-22, the C-72, the Boeing 106, and the Gottingen 398. The lifts, drags, and pitching moments of the airfoils were measured through a large range of positive and negative angles of attack. The tests were made in the variable density wind tunnel of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics at a large Boeing 106, and the Gottingen 398 airfoils, the negative maximum lift coefficients were found to be approximately half the positive; but for the M-6 and the CYH, which have less effective values were, respectively, 0.8 and 0.6 of the positive values.


Introduction Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is considered to be a functional disorder of gastrointestinal tract, the cause of which remains inadequately identified. Since there are no diagnostic markers, symptoms based criteria are currently used to confirm the diagnosis. Due to similar clinical presentation, it is yet a challenging task to distinguish it from inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in both primary care and specialist settings. Volatile compounds are chemical which may be emitted from faeces and reflect the pathophysiological environment of the bowel. Understanding changes in their pattern could provide diagnostic information about various bowel disorders. Methods We aimed to analyse the faecal volatile pattern of patients with diarrhoea predominant IBS and compare it with IBD. We studied 90 individuals, 20 from diarrhoea predominant IBS, 50 from active IBD (CD=25, UC 25), and 20 from healthy individuals. Diagnosis of IBS was confirmed using symptoms based criteria (Manning, Rome III) while all individual with IBD had histological diagnosis. Fresh samples were aliquoted in 10 ml vials and faecal volatile were extracted using solid phase micro-extraction fibre injected into the head space and were analysed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometery. Volatile compounds were identified using NIST library and manual visualisation using fragmentation pattern. Results From 400 VOCs identified, 25 were selected using univariate analysis at 0.007 significant level. These were used in forward stepwise entry analysis to construct a predictive model which showed significant value in separating IBS from active IBD and healthy controls. On cross-validation, the IBS: IBD model remains significantly stable: 90% of patients were correctly diagnosed. This model has sensitivity of 95% and NPV 90%. Conclusion These interim results show that VOCs may be used to distinguish IBS from IBD and either from healthy controls. Further data will provide more information to identify this group more clearly from IBD and allow us to further validate this model.


This paper presents the results of a numerical wave modelling study carried out to assess the near shore wave energy resource around potential wave energy sites at the Outer Hebrides in the United Kingdom. This study uses Danish Hydraulic Institute's MIKE 21 Spectral Wave model suite. Input boundary conditions are obtained from a Datawell directional wave buoy located approximately 16 km off the coast of Lewis in 60 metre depth. Additional data collected from a submerged Acoustic Wave and Current profiler (AWAC) located at 13 metre depth offshore at one of the wave energy development sites was used to calibrate and validate the wave model for separate time periods. The calibration process allows the manipulation of white capping, bottom friction and wave breaking parameters to alter the energy dissipation across the model domain. The altered parameters gave a significantly better agreement between modelled and measured results than the model defaults. While the average wave conditions provided a relatively straightforward calibration process the more extreme storm events significantly under predicted the wave height. After several trials in altering model coefficients a good agreement was reached between the model results and the AWAC data. These new sets of calibration parameters enable the simulation of wave heights within 13% for the AWAC data and marginally more for wave periods for the first 6 months of 2012.Copyright © 2013 by ASME


Introduction: The use of total intravenous anaesthesia (TIVA) has been well established as an anaesthetic technique over the last few decades. Significant variation in practice exists however, and volatile agents are still commonly used. This study aims to determine the motivations and barriers for using TIVA over the use of volatile agents by analysing the opinion of several international anaesthetists with specific expertise or interests. Methods and participants: The Delphi method was used to gain the opinions of expert panellists with a range of anaesthetic subspecialty expertise. Twenty-nine panellists were invited to complete three survey rounds containing statements regarding the use of TIVA. Anonymised data were captured through the software REDCap and analysed for consensus and prioritisation across statements. Starting with 12 statements, strong consensus was defined as ≥75% agreement. Stability was assessed between rounds. Results: Strong consensus was achieved for four statements regarding considerations for the use of TIVA. These statements addressed whether TIVA is useful in paediatric anaesthesia, the importance of TIVA in reducing the incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting, its positive impact on the environment and effect on patient physiology, such as airway and haemodynamic control. Conclusions: Using the Delphi method, this international consensus showed that cost, lack of familiarity or training and the risk of delayed emergence are not considered obstacles to TIVA use. It appears, instead, that the primary motivations for its adoption are the impact of TIVA on patient experience, especially in paediatrics, and the benefit to the overall procedure outcome. The effect of TIVA on postoperative nausea and vomiting and patient physiology, as well as improving its availability in paediatrics were considered as priorities. We also identified areas where the debate remains open, generating new research questions on geographical variation and the potential impact of local availability of monitoring equipment.


Atmospheric processes associated with the South China Sea (SCS) monsoon trough which caused the heavy rainfall in pentad 3 of August 2007 in South China are analyzed using the reanalysis data of NCEP and satellite images. The results indicate that the Asian summer monsoon trough has independent space structure,convergence in the low layers and divergence in the high layers are in the south of the Asian summer monsoon trough. The climate analysis shows that both the Indian monsoon trough and the SCS monsoon trough reach their maximum in August. The SCS monsoon trough in pentad 3 of August 2007 was located in South China coastal areas and had strong intensity. The convergence in the low layers and divergence in the high layers were also stronger. The Indian monsoon trough was also stronger. The strengthened South Asian high locating over the Tibetan Plateau is the main cause for the strengthening of the Asian monsoon trough. The subtropical high in the western Pacific is located over Japan and is intensified,which is propitous to the northward movement and the enhancing of the SCS monsoon and monsoon trough. The increased temperature over the Tibetan Plateau induces the stronger easterly in the upper levels,westerly in the low levels,and the enhancing convergence in the low layers and divergence in the high layers of the SCS monsoon trough. The long-wave trough in the westerly belt is intensified and extends to Southwest China,which causes the SCS monsoon trough to become stronger. The SCS monsoon trough has an intraseasonal period. The intraseasonal oscillation has an important effect on the northward movement and enhancement of the SCS summer monsoon trough.


Prostate cancer (PC) is the most common cancer in men around the word. It is a complex and heterogeneous disease in which androgens and their receptor play a crucial role in the progression and development. The current treatment for PC is a combination of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Therapeutic agents commonly used in the clinic include steroidal and non- steroidal antiandrogens, such as cyproterone acetate. These few agents have multiple adverse effects and are not 100% effective. Several plant compounds and mixtures, including grape seed polyphenol extracts, lycopene and tomato preparations, soy isoflavones, and green tea extracts, have been shown to be effective against PC cell growth. Some isolated compounds were reported with in vivo activity on CP murine model like capsaicin and curcumin. We prepared a library of plant extracts from traditional Mayan medicine. These plants were selected for their use in the contemporaneous Maya communities with application in different types of diseases and treatments. These extracts were used in a phenotypic screening in LNCaP (androgen sensitive) prostate cancer cells in a fixed dose (25 μg / mL). Ten plants out of 11 were identified with cytotoxic activity in these cells. With the active extracts, a bioguided fractionation method was performed until the elucidation of the major components. We identified 3 compounds with activity and design one hybrid molecule with the natural product structure and steroid analog to enhance the antiproliferative activity.


Fast-track knee arthroplasty is a multidisciplinary perioperative approach resulting in decreased convalescence, better patient satisfaction, and reduced hospital costs. However, considerable room for improvement had been recently identified in the postoperative portion of care. Which prognostic factors, in that phase, can improve the outcomes of rehabilitation, in terms of functional recovery and patient satisfaction, how, and for whom? Surgeons, physiatrists and physiotherapists from our high-volume hospital identified five postoperative issues as significantly prognostic to rehabilitation. An electronic research was performed to look for the associate keywords. 30 papers were included in the synthesis. Clinical, social, psychological and logistical prognostic factors are fundamental to improve patient education and compliance. Intensive and early physiotherapy when possible; standard exercise programs based on patient cluster of characteristics; discharge planning according to functional, psychological and social criteria; patient motivation; use of psychopharmacological treatment; substantial connection between institutions; are postoperative prognostic factors which play a major impact on the effectiveness of rehabilitation after fast-track TKA. Future research should identify recovery curves to predict, track and understand specific outcomes to specific cohorts of patients, in order to refer them to the most suitable rehabilitative modality and setting.


Objectives To determine the incidence and risk factors implicated in the development of first cardiovascular event (CVE) in patients with chronic inflammatory rheumatic diseases (CIRD) attending rheumatology clinics after 2.5 years of follow-up. Methods Analysis of data after 2.5 years of follow-up in an observational prospective study [CARdiovascular in rheuMAtology (CARMA) project] that includes a cohort of patients with CIRD [rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS), and psoriatic arthritis (PsA)] and another cohort of matched individuals without CIRD attending outpatient rheumatology clinics from 67 hospitals in Spain. The cumulative incidence per 1000 patients and the incidence density per 1000 patient-months of non-fatal CVE were estimated in both cohorts at 2.5 years from the start of the project. Weibull proportional hazard model was used to calculate the Hazard Ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) of the risk factors involved in the development of CVD events. Losses to follow-up and their causes were also analyzed. Results The total number patient who completed the follow-up visit at 2.5 years was 2,598 (89.2% of those who started the study). Seven patients had died due to CVE and 23 because of non-CVE. The higher number of losses to follow-up was found in the control group (15.81%), because many of them were not periodically follow-up at the outpatient clinics. Cardiovascular cumulative incidence in patients with CIRD 15.30 cases per 1000 patients (95% CI: 12.93–17.67), being higher in AS patients 22.03 (95% CI: 11.01–33.04). The higher risk of developing a first CVE during the 2.5 years of follow-up was in patients with AS (HR: 4.11, 95% CI: 1.07–15.79; p: 0.04), those with older age (HR:1.09; 95% CI: 1.05–1.13, p<0.001), higher systolic blood pressure (HR: 1.02; 95% CI: 1.00–1.04, p=0, 01) and longer duration of the rheumatic disease (HR: 1.07; 95% CI: 1.03–1.12), p<0.01). In contrast, woman gender was a protective factor (HR: 0.43; 95% CI: 0.18–1.00, p=0.05). Conclusions Patients with AS prospectively followed-up at rheumatology outpatients clinics show higher risk of developing a first CVE than those with RA or PsA. Besides traditional CVD risk factors a longer time course of the disease is a risk factor for the development of CVD in patients with CIRD. Acknowledgements This project has been supported by an unrestricted grant from Abbvie, Spain. The design, analysis, interpretation of results and preparation of the manuscript has been done independently of Abbvie. Disclosure of Interest None declared


An ultra-low noise two-stage LNA design for cellular basestations using CMOS is proposed in this thesis work. This thesis is divided into three parts. First, a literature survey which intends to bring an idea on the types of LNAs available and their respective outcomes in performances, thereby analyze how each design provides different results and is used for different applications. In the second part, technology comparison for 0.12μm, 0.18μm, and 0.25μm technologies transistors using the IBM foundry PDKs are made to analyze which device has the best noise performance. Finally, in the third phase bipolar and CMOS-based two-stage LNAs are designed using IBM 0.12μm technology node, decided from the technology comparison. In this thesis a two-stage architecture is used to obtain low noise figure, high linearity, high gain, and stability for the LNA. For the bipolar design, noise figure of 0.6dB, OIP3 of 40.3dBm and gain of 26.8dB were obtained. For the CMOS design, noise figure of 0.25dB, OIP3 of 46dBm and gain of 26dB were obtained. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to analyze the LNA circuit in terms of design, performance, application and various other parameters. Both designs were able to fulfill the design goals of noise figure < 1 dB, OIP3 > 40 dBm, and gain >18 dB.


We developed a numerical simulation model of the decay and vertical transport of soil organic matter. Soil organic matter is divided into a number of compartments each with different decay rates but with similar migration parameters. Decay has been represented with first-order processes. Two elementary forms of migration were explored: diffusive equations represent transport through soil mixing whereas translational convection simulates movement within the liquid phase. Coefficients of decay, diffusion, and convection were taken to be uniform with depth. Carbon input is both through the surface in the form of litter fall and directly underground from roots. Profiles of total C content and 14 C content were measured for a temperate forest silt loam soil. Similar data for other forest soils, available in the literature, were also assembled. Statistical adjustment, through nonlinear regression, of decay, migration, compartment configuration, and plant production parameters, accurately simulated profiles of C and 14 C. The rapidly decaying compartment was successfully likened to the 50- to 200-μm particle-size fraction. Convection rates of 0.3 mm yr -1 and diffusion rates ranging from 1 to 15 cm 2 yr -1 were obtained. Diffusive processes appear to be preponderant relative to convection. The model has proven sensitive to differences between temperate and tropical soils as well as textural variations.


Background: It is possible that men consume a higher amount of legal and illegal drugs than women. This can be assessed using the peer methodology, that is an adaptation of the privileged access interviewers (PAI) method and allows to identify populations in which there may be a tendency to under state a phenomenon (hidden populations) Aim: To compare the consumption of legal and illegal drugs by gender. Material and methods: Drug consumption was assessed using a peer methodology in university students between 18 and 26 years of age. Results: A random sample of 56 women (mean age 21.6 years) and 86 men (mean age 21.5 years), was studied. Women tended to report a higher proportion of tobacco consumption than men. Both genders had a similar consumption behavior of alcohol, total legal drugs, marihuana, cocaine, ecstasies and total illegal drugs. Among subjects that recognized the consumption of legal drugs, men have a higher proportion of illicit drug use and women have a higher proportion of smoking. Men have a higher awareness of the damages caused by drug consumption. Conclusions: The results in these small population sample do not support the hypothesis that men have a higher frequency and proportion of illicit drug consumption (Rev Med Chile 2007; 135: 449-56). (Key words: Alcohol drinking; Cannabis; Gender identity; Street drugs; Tobacco)


In response to toxic stimuli, BCL2L11 (also known as BIM), a BH3-only protein, is released from its interaction with dynein light chain 1 (DYNLL1 also known as LC8) and can induce apoptosis by inactivating anti-apoptotic BCL2 proteins and by activating BAX-BAK1. Recently, we discovered that BCL2L11 interacts with BECN1 (Beclin 1), and that this interaction is facilitated by DYNLL1. BCL2L11 recruits BECN1 to microtubules by bridging BECN1 and DYNLL1, thereby inhibiting autophagy. In starvation conditions, BCL2L11 is phosphorylated by MAPK8/JNK and this phosphorylation abolishes the BCL2L11-DYNLL1 interaction, allowing dissociation of BCL2L11 and BECN1, thereby ameliorating autophagy inhibition. This finding demonstrates a novel function of BIM beyond its roles in apoptosis, highlighting the crosstalk between autophagy and apoptosis, and suggests that BCL2L11's dual effects in inhibiting autophagy and promoting apoptosis may have important roles in disease pathogenesis.


Improving the performance of structural materials definitely leads to their better use for several applications, and consequently to a decrease in the use of natural resources or in the harmful environmental consequences. For example, reducing the weight of cars or planes while improving their structural performances will also bring about a decrease of their fuel consumption and of their level of emitted CO2. The key issue is thus to find and to fabricate better materials for these applications. Our research project deals with the influence of thermal, mechanical and thermomechanical parameters on the thermodynamics, kinetics, crystallography and mechanics of phase transformations occurring in different metallic alloys presenting finely grained multiphase microstructures in order to design new alloys or microstructures exhibiting mechanical properties never reached before. It encompasses the characterisation and the understanding of the relationships between the mechanisms dictating the elastic-plastic properties and the phase transformations and recrystallisation of different engineering metallic materials including steels, iron alloys and titanium alloys in order to improve their structural performances. We focus, on the one hand, on how the microstructure of engineering alloys can be designed and controlled through the combined actions of heat and deformation, and on the other hand, on the discovery and the understanding of how phenomena operating at different scales dictate the macroscopic mechanical behaviour. By controlling the defects structures generated at several levels ranging from 1nm to 100µm in the engineered microstructures, it is possible to attain large improvements of the mechanical properties instead of premature embrittlement.


Many single-channel signal decomposition techniques rely on a low-rank factorization of a time-frequency transform. In particular, nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) of the spectrogram - the (power) magnitude of the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) - has been considered in many audio applications. In this setting, NMF with the Itakura-Saito divergence was shown to underly a generative Gaussian composite model (GCM) of the STFT, a step forward from more empirical approaches based on ad-hoc transform and divergence specifications. Still, the GCM is not yet a generative model of the raw signal itself, but only of its STFT. The work presented in this paper fills in this ultimate gap by proposing a novel signal synthesis model with low-rank time-frequency structure. In particular, our new approach opens doors to multi-resolution representations, that were not possible in the traditional NMF setting. We describe two expectation-maximization algorithms for estimation in the new model and report audio signal processing results with music decomposition and speech enhancement.


A method of forming an insulation film includes the steps of forming an insulation film on a substrate, and modifying a film quality of the insulation film by exposing the insulation film to atomic state oxygen O* or atomic state hydrogen nitride radicals NH* formed with plasma that uses Kr or Ar as inert gas.


BACKGROUND Tranexamic acid (TXA) has been previously reported to have a mortality benefit in civilian and combat-related trauma, and was thus added to the Joint Theater Trauma System Damage Control Resuscitation Clinical Practice Guideline. As part of ongoing system-wide performance improvement, the use of TXA has been closely monitored. The goal was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of TXA use in military casualties and provide additional guidance for continued use. METHODS A total of 3,773 casualties were included in this retrospective, observational study of data gathered from a trauma registry. The total sample, along with three subsamples for massive transfusion patients (n = 784), propensity-matched sample (n = 1,030), and US/North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military (n = 1,262), was assessed for administration of TXA and time from injury to administration of TXA. Outcomes included mortality and occurrence of pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis. Multivariable proportional hazards regression models with robust standard error estimates were used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) for assessment of outcomes while controlling for covariates. RESULTS Results of univariate and multivariate analyses of the total sample (HR, 0.97; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.62–1.53; p = 0.86), massive transfusion sample (HR, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.46–1.56; p = 0.51), propensity-matched sample (HR, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.27–1.73; p = 0.34), and US/NATO military sample (HR, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.30–1.92; p = 0.48) indicate no statistically significant association between TXA use and mortality. Use of TXA was associated with increased risk of pulmonary embolism in the total sample (HR, 2.82; 95% CI, 2.08–3.81; p < 0.001), massive transfusion sample (HR, 3.64; 95% CI, 1.96–6.78; p = 0.003), US/NATO military sample (HR, 2.55; 95% CI, 1.73–3.69; p = 0.002), but not the propensity-matched sample (HR, 3.36; 95% CI, 0.80–14.10; p = 0.10). TXA was also associated with increased risk of deep vein thrombosis in the total sample (HR, 2.00; 95% CI, 1.21–3.30; p = 0.02) and US/NATO military sample (HR, 2.18; 95% CI, 1.20–3.96; p = 0.02). CONCLUSION In the largest study on TXA use in a combat trauma population, TXA was not significantly associated with mortality, due to lack of statistical power. However, our HR estimates for mortality among patients who received TXA are consistent with previous findings from the CRASH-2 trial. At the same time, continued scrutiny and surveillance of TXA use in military trauma, specifically for prevention of thromboembolic events, is warranted. Level of Evidence Therapeutic, level IV.


Recently, pre-ionization experiments using thermal electron emission from LaB6 cathode and electron heating by 2 email@example.com GHz Klystron installed at cusp and plug cell respectively have been carried out in Hanbit mirror device. Charge exchange collision between ion and neutral atom has been concerned as an important mechanism of ion energy loss in the Hanbit discharges, hence the high pressure of neutral particles is one of the most reasonable cause of low ion temperature. In this work, we investigate low pressure operation mode with help of the pre-ionization to enhance the ion temperature. The ion temperature and temperature anisotropy are measured and also inferred by ELA(End Loss Analyzer) for central cell plasma. We also characterize RF heating properties for different regimes of ɷ/ɷc0i using simulation code for electromagnetic waves.


A primary goal of class-incremental learning is to strike a balance between stability and plasticity, where models should be both stable enough to retain knowledge learned from previously seen classes, and plastic enough to learn concepts from new classes. While previous works demonstrate strong performance on class-incremental benchmarks, it is not clear whether their success comes from the models being stable, plastic, or a mixture of both. This paper aims to shed light on how effectively recent class-incremental learning algorithms address the stability-plasticity trade-off. We establish analytical tools that measure the stability and plasticity of feature representations, and employ such tools to investigate models trained with various algorithms on large-scale class-incremental benchmarks. Surprisingly, we find that the majority of class-incremental learning algorithms heavily favor stability over plasticity, to the extent that the feature extractor of a model trained on the initial set of classes is no less effective than that of the final incremental model. Our observations not only inspire two simple algorithms that highlight the importance of feature representation analysis, but also suggest that class-incremental learning approaches, in general, should strive for better feature representation learning.


Objectives The aim of this study was to determine the genotoxicity and developmental toxicity of acrylamide (ACR) on the spinal cord white matter of male albino rats and the possible protective role of rosemary. Background With increasing number of sources of ACR exposure to the general public, the need for understanding the toxicological risk associated with such exposure is in high demand. Materials and methods Eighty male albino rats were used in this study. 20 rats for each group their mothers were given either distilled water, rosemary aqueous extract (RAE) (2.2 ml/kg/twice/week - i.e 0.44 ml/rat) orally, ACR (10 mg/kg/day - i.e 2 mg/rat) orally, or ACR in combination with RAE. The rats were subjected to morphological (clinical) assessent. They were then killed at the age of 1, 7, 14, and 21 days and the thoracic part of the spinal cord was subjected to histological, immunohistochemical, and morphometric studies. Single cell gel electrophoresis (comet assay) was performed on peripheral blood leukocytes. Results ACR administration significantly delayed the normal development, reduced the body measurements, and increased the gait score. The spinal cord white matter of ACR-treated rats showed significant reduction in the number of neuroglia, as well as swollen axons and vacuolation. The area percentage of neurofilament and myelin basic protein immunostaining was reduced. Also, ACR led to DNA damage, which was expressed as significant increase in comet tail length, tail DNA%, and tail moment when compared with the control group. ACR toxicity was age dependent. RAE led to improvement in all tested parameters, especially at younger ages. Conclusion ACR induced its neurotoxic effect through demyelination of axons and alteration of neurofilament protein content. RAE (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) showed protective effects against developmental toxicity and genotoxicity induced by ACR.


Pairwise comparison data arises in many domains, including tournament rankings, web search, and preference elicitation. Given noisy comparisons of a fixed subset of pairs of items, we study the problem of estimating the underlying comparison probabilities under the assumption of strong stochastic transitivity (SST). We also consider the noisy sorting subclass of the SST model. We show that when the assignment of items to the topology is arbitrary, these permutation-based models, unlike their parametric counterparts, do not admit consistent estimation for most comparison topologies used in practice. We then demonstrate that consistent estimation is possible when the assignment of items to the topology is randomized, thus establishing a dichotomy between worst-case and average-case designs. We propose two estimators in the average-case setting and analyze their risk, showing that it depends on the comparison topology only through the degree sequence of the topology. The rates achieved by these estimators are shown to be optimal for a large class of graphs. Our results are corroborated by simulations on multiple comparison topologies.


The closing frames of David Cronenberg's Videodrome (1983) show us the protagonist, Max Renn, seemingly in the act of suicide, his mutated flesh-hand-pistol pressed firmly against his head. Looking directly at us, Max utters the phrase 'long live the new flesh' before the film fades to black. This act ends the film, but the end of the film, despite this seemingly conclusive moment, might not mark the end of Max's experience of the diegesis. In a film concerned with bodily transformation in response to media intervention, a film in which our heterosexual male protagonist develops a vaginal opening which generates and transforms objects subject to its own desires and agency, what are we to make of this film's ending (and other similar moments in Cronenberg's work)? What if the vaginal slit that appears in Max's abdomen during the film opens not into his bodily interior but, instead, into a new ontology – the ontology of the Real? What if Videodrome ends not with Max's death but with his movement beyond the Symbolic and into the Real, beyond signification, beyond ontology? This paper seeks to explore a select number of Cronenberg's mid-period works in relation to what Slavoj Žižek refers to as the pre-ontological, a realm of signification that elsewhere links to the abject but which, equally, might provide a glimpse of the unsettling Real that so many of Cronenberg's protagonists hurtle powerlessly towards and which lurks just outside the frame of his narratives, hinted at but always escaping our standard ontological practices.


This paper describes an effective formulation of a maximum-likelihood identification algorithm for linear estimation of the equivalent-circuit parameters of cage-type (single-cage and double-cage) or deep-bar induction motors with measurement and process noises. A complete generalized model for symmetrical and asymmetrical test analysis of induction machines is developed for this purpose. The paper outlines the theory and reasoning behind the proposed statistical-based treatment of online data derived from a generalized least-squares estimator and a Kalman filter. The method is successfully applied to online double-line independent finite-element short-circuit simulated records of a deep-bar type induction motor.


Fibrinogen is a critical protein that is necessary, with the help of thrombin, to facilitate the process of wound healing. Studying how fibrinogen clots in the presence of thrombin and other clotting factors is beneficial in developing new techniques and materials to improve the wound healing process, resulting in less scarring. Unfortunately, as part of the purification process, most commercial fibrinogen comes prepackaged with factor XIII or other clotting factors with unknown quantities. Given these factors influence the clotting process, a lack of detailed information regarding the quantities of these contaminants makes it difficult to interpret results. By incorporating the necessary genes for production of fibrinogen into mammalian cell cultures that can be grown in the lab, fibrinogen can be extracted and purified. Creating a means to produce fibrinogen in the lab that gives pure samples from which one can add known quantities of various clotting factors to determine exactly how it is affecting the resulting clot represents an important next step. Additionally, this approach enables the ability to directly modify the genes to modify the fibrinogen protein that would be expected to result in changes to the forming clot, the results of which can then be studied and associated with various diseases in which mutations in the fibrinogen protein are known to occur. By incorporating human fibrinogen genes in mammalian cells, growing cell cultures, and isolating fibrinogen, the fibrinogen obtained is expected to be useful in understanding of the various effects of the species involved in wound healing.


Sacred Space in the Modern City offers new and original perspectives on a number of controversial issues and important questions concerning Japanese pre- and post-war ideology and identity. The author uses Meiji shrine as a lens with which to investigate the nature of the society that created, experienced and reproduced this site.


Computers play an integral role in today's society.  While computers provide many benefits, they are increasingly used as tools for wrongdoing, causing estimated losses of billions of dollars each year. Computer hackers can, among other things, fraudulently alter accounts, steal business or personal information, and corrupt or disable computer systems.  Congress enacted and has repeatedly amended the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act ("CFAA") to combat the increasing proliferation of computer crimes. This article argues that the Courts of Appeals have not adequately interpreted the foundational terms of the Act and recommends an interpretation of the Act that builds upon the narrower definitions to comprehensively define the scope of the Act's coverage.