ABSTRACT
Hydrocarbon contaminants regularly leach into groundwater because of human
activities and accidental chemical spills. Here, the contaminants pose a threat to the
environment and valuable drinking water resources. Many subsurface environments
are able to purify the groundwater of such contaminants, thus lowering the cost of
remediation. This has sparked an interest in the use of naturally occurring processes
to degrade contaminants in the subsurface and has opened up an area of research
focusing on "natural attenuation".
For the successful application of natural attenuation and in order to obtain regulatory
approval a reliable assessment of the mechanisms responsible for the removal of
contaminants in an aquifer is essential. This thesis presents evidence to support the
natural attenuation of isoproturon (IPU) and sulphanilamide (SULPH) in a chalk
aquifer and assesses in-situ biodegradation by: (a) analysing historical monitoring
data to identify and support biodegradation processes at the contaminated field site;
(b) the development of in-situ microcosm approaches, (c) determining the catabolic
activity present across the site using ex-situ microcosm studies that replicate in-situ
aquifer conditions and, (d) identifying and quantifying biodegradation in the aquifer
(of SULPH) using compound specific isotope analysis.
Based on the historical data and ex-situ microcosms IPU biodegradation was found
to be occurring at the site; albeit at very low levels (2 %). It is suggested that the
high concentrations of other contaminants at the site (up to 650 mg L-1), compared to
the low IPU concentrations (9 μg L-1) may have impeded IPU biodegradation.
However, even these low levels of IPU biodegradation may be important in aquifers
exhibiting long residence times. The historical data and ex-situ microcosms further
indicated the biodegradation of around 50% of the SULPH present at the site.
The development of novel compound specific isotope analysis indicates 56 % of the
SULPH has undergone biodegradation at the site. These three approaches; historical
data, ex-situ microcosms and compound specific isotope analysis, provide strong
evidence to support the occurrence of natural attenuation at the site. Of particular
originality, is the identification of natural attenuation of SULPH in a chalk aquifer
and the quantification of its biodegradation using compound specific isotope
analysis.


We designed and trained a connectionist network to generate letterforms in a new font given just a few exemplars from that font. During learning, our network constructed a distributed internal representation of fonts as well as letters, despite the fact that each training instance exemplified both a font and a letter. It was necessary to have separate but interconnected hidden units for "letter" and "font" representations - several alternative architectures were not successful.


At present, the protection of critical infrastructure is a major task incumbent to governments, local leaders, and to other factors. Priority comes from the multiplication of hostile challenges to society and various vital goals, and also from the increase in amplitude of these events. With the support of modern technology, solutions have been identified to increase the protection of critical facilities. The use of essential equipment was accompanied by enhanced training of the personnel involved. With all efforts, the expected finalities are far from being achieved, and further action is necessary to halt evolution of diversified threats and coverage requirements necessary for the securing plan. The great variety of facilities which need protection, the dissipation of efforts and the high costs, require the identification of integrative solutions to optimize protection effort in local, national, European and global area. E-Learning software's strategies and means provide a great support in terms of knowledge and threat analysis, training of personnel involved, the possibility of security analysis, and interventions potentially to be achieved. This assures all the participants easy acces to the course documents and suplimentary data from the virtual database. It also assures good colaboration between lecturers and students by allowing them to take over, basic data from the multiple operational environment. Because reality has a lot of setbackes in allowing the creation of the operational context in the field of securing critical infrastructure, the virtual domain is excellent in simulating complex and integrating exercises in wich all the players can act. The network communications help to instantely put into practice the accepted solutions, the instructions, creation of wide area networks-all of these being possibilities that boost the online education. Virtual Learning Environment is a very useful tool for the increase of training level of multiple samples from various domains, compared to the possible risks and threats of the future.


Manipulating and delivering data in heterogeneous environments such as those underlying cloud systems is a critical task because of confidentiality issues. Cloud technology remains vulnerable to data leakage attacks due to its applications in gathering information about multiple independent entities (e.g. end users and VMs) and sharing cloud resources. Furthermore, the number of threats are increased when the cloud users are using cloud computing services compared to PC users, due to loss of control, privacy and outsourced data storage. Consequently, hackers exploit security vulnerabilities to launch attacks to take advantage of sensitive data such as secret keys. When data is manipulated and shared between different parties in cloud systems, it will be vulnerable to threats in cloud systems. This chapter explores data vulnerability throughout its life cycle to categorise existing data leakage attack techniques in terms of where they can be implemented and what can be stolen in this untrusted environment, and also classifies data leakage attack techniques according to the type of data, such as files and secret keys. Furthermore, this study explores core technologies upon which cloud computing is built, such as the web, virtualisation and cryptography, and their vulnerabilities prone to such attacks. We also propose existing data leakage detection and protection techniques to mitigate and alleviate such attacks.


Dengue epidemics occur typically in the warmest months without qualitative differences for the Brazilian geographic regions. However, this disease has an important quantitative difference. We observe two clusters in the country regarding the number of case notifications: The first cluster is formed by the North-East and South-East regions, that sum about 86% of the all notifications; and the second is formed by the South, North and Center-West regions. Vector index were associated to the population sizes, and most of them were below of the recognized threshold index for epidemic's risk although epidemic situation were observable in some of these places. Apparently, there was no positive evidence between dengue's epidemics and vector index.


In humans, the gene encoding a reverse thymidylate synthase (rTS) is transcribed in the reverse direction of the gene encoding thymidylate synthase (TS) that is involved in DNA biosynthesis. Three isoforms are found: α, β, and γ, with the transcript of the α-isoform overlapping with that of TS. rTSβ has been of interest since the discovery of its overexpression in methotrexate and 5-fluorouracil resistant cell lines. Despite more than 20 years of study, none of the rTS isoforms have been biochemically or structurally characterized. In this study, we identified rTSγ as an l-fuconate dehydratase and determined its high-resolution crystal structure. Our data provide an explanation for the observed difference in enzymatic activities between rTSβ and rTSγ, enabling more informed proposals for the possible function of rTSβ in chemotherapeutic resistance.


We present the complete set of universal one-loop beta functions of cubic gravity in six dimensions. The system admits over 8000 distinct fixed points, of which more than 200 are real. Some of them might be relevant for the quantisation of gravity in the physical case of four dimensions.


A strictly anaerobic, thermophilic bacterium, designated strain R270(T), was isolated from microbial mats thriving in the thermal waters (66 degrees C) of a Great Artesian Basin bore (registered no. 17263) runoff channel. Cells of strain R270(T) were straight to slightly curved rods (3.50-6.00x0.75-1.00 microm) that stained Gram-positive, but possessed a Gram-negative cell-wall ultrastructure. Strain R270(T) grew optimally in tryptone-yeast extract-Casamino acids medium at 65 degrees C (growth temperature range between 50 and 70 degrees C) and at pH 7.0 (growth pH range between 6.0 and 9.0). In the presence of 0.02 and 0.10 % yeast extract, pyruvate and Casamino acids were the only substrates fermented from a wide spectrum of substrates tested. Fe(III), Mn(IV), thiosulfate and elemental sulfur were used as electron acceptors in the presence 0.2 % yeast extract, but not sulfate, sulfite, nitrate, nitrite or fumarate. Growth of strain R270(T) increased in the presence of Fe(III), which was reduced in the presence of peptone, tryptone, Casamino acids, amyl media, starch, pyruvate, H(2) and CO(2), but not in the presence of acetate, lactate, propionate, formate, benzoate, glycerol or ethanol. Growth and Fe(III) reduction were inhibited by chloramphenicol, streptomycin, tetracycline, penicillin, ampicillin and 2 % NaCl (w/v). The DNA G+C content of strain R270(T) was 41+/-1 mol% (T(m)) and phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene indicated that this isolate was closely related to Thermovenabulum ferriorganovorum DSM 14006(T) (similarity value of 96.1 %) within the family 'Thermoanaerobacteraceae', class 'Clostridia', phylum 'Firmicutes'. On the basis of the phylogenetic distance separating the two, together with differences in a number of key phenotypic characteristics, strain R270(T) represents a novel species of the genus Thermovenabulum, for which the name Thermovenabulum gondwanense sp. nov. is proposed; the type strain is R270(T) (=KCTC 5616(T)=DSM 21133(T)).


PURPOSE
Nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFAT) has been reported to be involved in the development of various types of cancer including adenocarcinoma of the breast. This research was the first to investigate NFAT protein expression in primary non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tissues from Chinese patients.

METHODS
NFAT protein expression was determined in 130 surgically resected primary NSCLC and matched normal tissues by immunohistochemical analysis. The association between NFAT expression and clinical categorical variables was further analyzed with the SPSS software.

RESULTS
We found that NFAT expression was much higher in 85 tumor tissues (65.4%) and lower in 45 tumor tissues (34.6%) compared with the matched normal tissues. Further statistical analysis by the chi-square test showed that high expression of NFAT proteins was significantly associated with tumor differentiation (p=0.045), invasion (p=0.031), histology (p<0.0001), tumor size (p=0.038) and cigarette smoking history (p=0.024). However, there was no correlation between the expression of NFAT proteins and pTNM classification, and no difference in 5-year survival rate between patients with high or low expression of NFAT proteins. Multivariate logistic regression analysis for the correlation between NFAT protein expression levels and various characteristics showed a significant association with histology (p=0.008, OR=0.273).

CONCLUSION
Our results revealed that high NFAT expression was present in Chinese NSCLCs and that NFAT expression might be involved in the process of human lung cancer development.


Coagulation disturbances in the second stage of clotting are basically due to deficient generation of thrombin. The prolonged one-stage prothrombin time readily places the defect in the second stage of clotting. Prior to the identification of the plasma and serum prothrombin conversion accelerators, such cases were labeled hypoprothrombinemias. 1-9, 29 With the identification of Factor V, cases of prolonged one-stage prothrombin time due to deficiency of this substance were separated from the hypoprothrombinemias. The accelerating effect of normal serum on bishydroxycoumarin (Dicumarol) plasma was noted, 10, 11 and de Vries et al. 12 found that if normal plasma was diluted 1:20 with adsorbed plasma the prothrombin time of the mixture was considerably shortened by 1/20 volume of normal serum. They showed that the effect was not due to Factor V and that the effect was abolished by using adsorbed serum. They called the factor SPCA-serum prothrombin conversion accelerator. Owren 13-15


RA is a chronic systemic inflammatory disease that primarily affects the small joints of the hands and feet, and results in a mean reduction in life expectancy of 3-10 years. RA is a multigene disorder with a substantial genetic component and a heritability estimate of 60%. Large-scale Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) and meta-analyses have revealed common disease-associated variants in the population that may contribute cumulatively to RA pathogenesis. This review identifies the most significant genetic variants associated with RA susceptibility to date, with particular focus on the contribution of the HLA class II genes across different ethnic groups. Also discussed are the potential applications of pharmacogenomics to RA management by identifying polymorphisms associated with variation in treatment response or toxicity. The use of genetic variants to guide treatment strategy has the potential to not only reduce National Health Service costs, but also drastically improve patient experience and quality of life.


Background: Dental professionals have a major role in promoting tobacco use cessation (TUC). Purpose: The objective is to assess dental students' knowledge, attitudes, behavior, and perception regarding their potential expected role. Methods: Self-administered anonymous questionnaires were used for all students of the Jerusalem Dental Medicine School. Results: Among 275 responding students, 17% reported smoking. Most students reported asking patients about smoking, counseling against smoking, and advising to quit. Only a minority reported providing antismoking educational material, suggesting nicotine replacements, and arranging follow-ups. Most students did not consider a list of suggested potential obstacles (lack of resources, not their role, etc.) as true barriers. Analysis by stage of studies revealed significant differences in reported TUC strategies and positive attitudes and decreases in perceived potential obstacles. Conclusions: These results indicate specific and practical areas for promoting antismoking intervention. Dental schools need to emphasize their role in preparing the next generation with a clear dedication toward TUC.


It was not a typical Sunday morning for Joni Eareckson. Sure, she was in her regular place along the stage-right aisle at Grace Community Church, halfway back...parked near a few others in wheelchairs. And the worship music had been glorious...hymns Joni could sing along with...which she did. Enthusiastically and without consulting the hymnal. All the verses. Normal so far. The part that wasn't typical was that the pastor/teacher of Grace Church, Dr. John MacArthur, was away. A pinch hitter was filling in. And although he was giving it his best, it wasn't...uh...well, it just wasn't John MacArthur. Joni tried to focus on what was being preached, but her mind began to hopelessly slide. Perhaps the past few days had been a little more hectic than usual. Maybe she and her ministry team had stayed out a little longer than they should have at dinner the night before. Or maybe the volunteers who had come that morning to get Joni up, bathed and dressed had come a little too early. Whatever the reason, Joni fought drowsiness. Caught in a truly awkward situation and not wanting to make a scene, Joni began to pray. It would be a worthy exercise to pass the time. This is something she of-ten did at night when she'd waken with nowhere to go and no wakeful person on duty to help her. Joni knew that the week ahead was going to be a busy one, including some air travel. That's something I can pray about, she mused. And so she did. Next, Joni decided to look around...carefully, of course, so as not to be accused of not paying attention, looking for folks seated in the congregation. 'Lord, is there someone I should pray for?' she whispered almost loud enough to be detected by those close by. She scanned the people sitting in front of her and spotted the back of a man's head a few rows closer to the front of the church. 'Okay, Lord, ' Joni prayed, 'Please bless that man up there with the straight black hair. Thank You for him, protect him and, if You will, please prosper him for Your glory.' She prayed for his family, his work, his friends and interests. Oddly, she found it easy to pray for this man she didn't know... which made her wonder, Lord, why have you put him so strongly on my heart? I can't even see his face... don't know his name. This was the first time Joni would be thanking her Heavenly Father for Ken Tada. It surely wouldn't be the last. And since 1982, when Joni and Ken were married, Ken Tada has been a colleague and full partner in Joni's life and ministry. He also prays for Joni.


The construction industry plays a significant role in contributing to economy and development globally. During the process of construction, various hazards coupled with the unique nature of the industry contribute to high fatality rates. This review was carried out by referring to previous published studies and related Malaysian legislation documents. Four main elements consisting of human, worksite, management and external elements which cause occupational accidents and illnesses were identified. External and management elements are the underlying causes contributing to occupational safety and health (OSH), while human and worksite elements are more apparent causes of occupational accidents and illnesses. An effective OSH management approach is required to contain all the hazards at construction sites. An approach to OSH management constructed by elements of policy, process, personnel and incentive developed in previous work is explored. Changes on the sub-elements according to previous studies and the related Malaysian legislation are also covered in this review.


THIS PAPER DESCIBES A PARALLEL ABSTRACT NETWORK MACHINE (ANM) WHICH USES DI-STRUCTURE (DYNAMIC INCOMPLETE STRUCTURES) AND ASSOCIATIVE NETWORKS FOR REPRESENTATION OF INFORMATION. A COMPUTATIONAL PROCESS CONSISTS OF ASYNCHRONOUS LOCAL TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE NETWORKS WITH A SINGLE MECHANISM-NETWORK UNIFICATION. AL COMPUTATIONAL MECHANISMS ARE ORIENTED TOWARDS THE PROCESSING OF INCOMPLETE INFORMATION. THE ANM IS ABLE TO PERFORM PARTIAL EVALUATION WHEN GIVEN INPUT IS INCOMPLETE AND TO AUTOMATICALLY SYNTHESIZE A RESIDUAL PARALLEL PROGRAM AS A RESULT OF TRANSFORMATION. THE TECHNIQUE FOR TRANSFORMING, OPTIMIZING, SPECIALZING MULTIPURPOSE PROGRAMS IS DESCRIBED. SOME GENERAL PROBLEMS OF DECLARATIVE PARALLEL COMPUTATION WITHOUT CONCEPTS OF A SHARED MEMORY, VALUE ASSIGNMENT, SEQUENTIAL OR PARALLEL CONTROL FLOW ARE DISCUSSED


In The Classical Country House architectural historian David Watkin takes a fresh and innovative look at the traditional British country house and shows how Classicism has been a seminal influence on British architecture since the seventeenth century. He demonstrates how the antecedents of the British Classical house, which lie in both Greek and Roman antiquity, were vigorously revived in the masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance, and enjoyed new life when transplanted to Britain by Inigo Jones, after his Grand Tour of the Continent in 1613-14. The book consists of five parts. The first looks at the birth of English Classicism in the seventeenth century, when houses such as Wilton House in Wiltshire (where Jones and John Webb designed the celebrated Double Cube Room) and Coleshill in Berkshire, reflect a rejection of contemporary styles in favour of a Renaissance-influenced design. The second part shows how the flowering of Classic design in the eighteenth century led to the creation of some of the most celebrated houses of the period: Chiswick House, Holkham Hall, Sir John Soane's Pitzhanger Manor, and the Grecian templar house, Grange Park. The third part recounts how the austerity of many buildings designed in the 18th century gave way to the richer styles of the Italian Renaissance Revival in the 19th century - seen, for example, in Kingston Lacy, Dorset and Brodsworth Hall, Yorkshire. The final two chapters, on the twentieth century and beyond, reveal how even as individual an architect as Sir Edwin Lutyens immersed himself in a Classical language of design, in houses as diverse as Nashdom, Gledstone and the British Embassy in Washington D.C; and how, as the influence of Modernist design has waned, Classical styles have been revived - most notably in the houses of Raymond Erith after the Second World War, and more recently by architects such as Quinlan Terry. David Watkin has selected over 150 of the finest images from the Country Life archive to illustrate an incisive study of 26 major houses and their architects. This highly informative and enlightening survey of Classicism through the centuries is a major addition to architectural history.


Author(s): Chang, Yuan-Shang | Advisor(s): Mosleh, Ali | Abstract: Degradation of cable insulation subject to heat and radiation is modeled by physics-based chemical, mechanical, and electrical approaches. Experimental data of cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE), ethylene propylene rubber (EPR), and silicone rubber (SIR) are incorporated to validate the models. Chemical approaches divide aging kinetics into reaction- and diffusion-controlled mechanisms rendering homogeneous and heterogeneous cross-sections, respectively. The degradation profile of a cross-section serves as the base of Dichotomy Model. The model dichotomizes one bulk material into virtually degraded and non-degraded parts. The quotient of the two parts is determined by a diffusion theory in diffusion-controlled cases or by an exponential distribution in reaction-controlled scenarios to predict the lifespan of the cable insulation. Besides the degradation of the insulation, the migration and decomposition of the antioxidant in the insulation are also modeled by a reaction-diffusion theory representing the uphill diffusion of the antioxidant. The uphill diffusion is driven by the unevenly-distributed activity coefficient linearly proportional to oxygen concentration with a negative slope. Both mechanical and electrical approaches are derived from Dichotomy Model. The degradation of mechanical performance is focused on elongation at break (EAB) while that of electrical property is quantified by resistance. EAB and resistance as functions of time are deterministically developed. Incubation time is a parameter of the function representing the time period when the changes of the physical properties are negligible. Drop-off rate is the other parameter describing the trends of the properties. The values of the two parameters follow the trends of temperature and dose rates, which makes the functions predictable in different aging conditions. Unlike the state of the art, this model can accommodate the shape change of the curves of EAB and resistance along a time axis. By Bayesian parameter estimation, the deterministic function has been converted into a probabilistic equation. This method can represent the thresholds of the EAB and resistance in field application with uncertainty denoting the reliability of cable insulation by expected lifespan in the form of probability. The approach is the first in the area.


Abstract We describe the selection of Anticalins against a common tumour surface antigen, human Hsp70, using functional display on live Escherichia coli cells as fusion with a truncated EspP autotransporter. While found intracellularly in normal cells, Hsp70 is frequently exposed in a membrane-bound state on the surface of tumour cells and, even more pronounced, in metastases or after radiochemotherapy. Employing a recombinant Hsp70 fragment comprising residues 383-548 as the target, Anticalins were selected from a naïve bacterial library. The Anticalin with the highest affinity (KD=13 nm), as determined towards recombinant full-length Hsp70 by real-time surface plasmon resonance analysis, was improved to KD=510 pm by doped random mutagenesis and another cycle of E. coli surface display, followed by rational combination of mutations. This Anticalin, which recognises a linear peptide epitope located in the interdomain linker of Hsp70, was demonstrated to specifically bind Hsp70 in its membrane-associated form in immunofluorescence microscopy and via flow cytometry using the FaDu cell line, which is positive for surface Hsp70. The radiolabelled and PASylated Anticalin revealed specific tumour accumulation in xenograft mice using positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. Furthermore, after enzymatic coupling to the protein toxin gelonin, the Anticalin showed potent cytotoxicity on FaDu cells in vitro.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the relationships of spirituality and psychosocial well-being to health risk behaviors in pregnant Appalachian women.

METHOD
Descriptive study of 120 women between 16 and 28 weeks of pregnancy. The instruments used were the Spiritual Perspective Scale and religiosity items from the Jarel Well-Being Scale. Psychosocial well-being was measured by the Prenatal Psychosocial Profile. Four items measured health risk behaviors.

RESULTS
Higher levels of spirituality (spiritual perspective and religiosity) were significantly correlated with greater satisfaction with social support, higher levels of self-esteem, and decreased levels of smoking. Sociodemographic, psychosocial, and spiritual variables explained 25% of the variance in frequency of smoking, and in the logistic regression analysis, psychosocial stress was the only variable that significantly predicted substance use.

CONCLUSION
Higher levels of spirituality and lower levels of stress are associated with decreased health risk behaviors among pregnant women from Appalachia. Increasing spiritual resources and decreasing stress during pregnancy offer the potential to improve health promotion efforts in pregnancy with women from Appalachia.


Aiming at properties of remote sensing image data such as high-dimension, nonlinearity and massive unlabeled samples, a kind of probability least squares support vector machine (PLSSVM) classification method based on hybrid entropy and L1 norm was proposed. Firstly, hybrid entropy was designed by combining quasi-entropy with entropy difference, which was used to select the most "valuable" samples to be labeled from massive unlabeled sample set. Secondly, a L1 norm distance measuring was used to further select and remove outliers and redundant data from the sample set to be labeled. Finally, based on originally labeled samples and screened samples, PLSSVM was gained through training. Experimental results on classification of ROSIS hyperspectral remote sensing images show that the overall accuracy and Kappa coefficient of the proposed classification method reach 89.90% and 0.8685 respectively. The proposed method can obtain higher classification accuracy with few training samples, which is much applicable to classification problem of remote sensing images.


This corpus study investigates how children figure out that functional modals like must can express various flavors of modality. We examine how modality is expressed in speech to and by children, and find that the way speakers use modals may obscure their polysemy. Yet, children eventually figure it out. Our results suggest that some do before age 3. We show that while root and epistemic flavors are not equally well-represented in the input, there are robust correlations between flavor and aspect, which learners could exploit to discover modal polysemy.


Benefits to lexical access are provided by acoustically-cued speaker characteristics (such as gender and age), but little work has investigated these effects in meaning-based tasks. Word recognition is affected both by a word's base-level activation and by associative spread of activation among words, and is correlated with speed of lexical access. In a free association task and a semantic priming task, we find off-line and on-line evidence of speaker-specific relationships between words. Our results suggest the need to extend existing models of spoken word recognition to include interactions between linguistic information and social information that is cued by variation in speech.


Background Whether improvement on ratings of global illness severity is differentially associated with improvement in specific symptom domains in patients with schizophrenia is not well understood. The present study examined the independent relationships between improvement in specific symptom clusters and change in global impressions of illness severity. Methods This study included 589 patients with chronic schizophrenia who were assessed at baseline and after 6 months of antipsychotic treatment. Both clinicians and patients completed the Clinical Global Impressions–Severity of Illness Scale (CGI-S). Symptom severity was assessed using factor scores derived from the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. Results Change in illness severity ratings made by the clinician and those made by the patient demonstrated moderate overlap. Nearly half of the patients were evaluated as clinically improved during the 6-month period, as rated by the clinician, with less than a third of patients experiencing a reduction in illness severity as determined by both the clinician and themselves. Improvements in clinician-rated CGI-S scores were most strongly associated with reduction in positive symptom severity. In contrast, change in patient-rated CGI-S scores was not linked to reduction in positive symptoms but rather to improvement in depressive and anxiety symptoms. This latter finding remained in a subsample of patients with relatively preserved insight into illness, suggesting that lack of insight cannot account for these findings. Finally, reduction in positive symptoms beyond 2 to 3 points was found to be clinically meaningful. Conclusions In conclusion, change in overall illness severity, as determined by clinicians, is not necessarily interchangeable with patients' view of improvement of their own clinical status. Moreover, changes in the 2 evaluations of illness severity are associated with changes in different symptom domains.


AIM
The aim of the study was to evaluate the adhesion of Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Lactobacillus rhamnosus strain GG to saliva-coated surfaces in vitro.

METHODS
Fifteen radiolabeled dairy L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus strains and L. rhamnosus GG were tested for their ability to adhere to saliva-coated hydroxyapatite beads and polystyrene microtiter plates and the radioactivity was measured by liquid scintillation counter. The effects of lysozyme on the adhesion of lactobacilli and of pretreatment with lactobacilli on the adhesion of Streptococcus sanguinis were also assessed.

RESULTS
All strains tested adhered to saliva-coated surfaces but with significantly different binding frequencies. The adhesion of the L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus strains remained lower in comparison to L. rhamnosus strain GG. One L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus strain showed binding frequency comparable to S. sanguinis. Lysozyme pretreatment of the samples significantly increased lactobacillus adhesion to saliva-coated surfaces.

CONCLUSION
The present results showed significant variations in the adhesion capacity of the Lactobacillus strains studied. Adhesion to oral surfaces is of primary importance for bacterial colonization in the mouth. Only one of the L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus dairy starter culture strains investigated had a high adhesion percentage. This strain might then be considered for further investigations in the oral environment.


To assess the impact of application of chemical fertilizers in agriculture on the Quaternary aquifer at AI Oha area, United Arab Emirates, 76 groundwater samples were collected during February 1995 March 1996. Samples were analyzed for major, minor and trace chemical constituents in the Food Control Laboratory, Abu Dhabi. The Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) of collected samples varied between 500 milligrams per liter (mg/I) in the east and 3 ,500 mg/I in the west. Except for bicarbonate ion (HC03-), concentration of major cations (Ca2+, Mi+, Na+ and K+) and anions (CO/-, soland Cn shows a general increase from east to west. The increase of salinity and concentration of all ions from east to west occurs in the direction of groundwater flow, where ion-depleted water from recharge area in the east becomes progressively loaded with more iOlls towards discharge areas in the west. Concentration of nitrate ion (NO,-) in groundwater within the study area during February 1995 March 1996 remained below the limits recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for drinking water (45 mg/I as NO)or 10 mg/I as NO)--N). Phosphate ion (PO.?") shows trace concentrations in groundwater within the study area, averaging 0.8 mg/1. With the exception of few local anomalies, concentrations of iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), lead (Pb), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), cobalt (Co) and chromium (Cr) shows a general increase from east to west. Based on the above results, there is no reason to believe that the chemical fertilizers used on farm lands at AI Oha area has adversely affected groundwater in the Quaternary aquifer.


Extracellular matrix protein laminin binds specifically to yeast forms of Paracoccidioides brasiliensis and enhances adhesion of the fungus to the surface of epithelial Madin-Darby canine kidney cells in vitro. Immunoblotting of fungal extracts showed that the gp43 glycoprotein is responsible for adhesion. This was confirmed by binding assays using purified gp43, with a Kd of 3.7 nM. The coating of P. brasiliensis yeast forms with laminin before injection into hamster testicles enhanced the fungus virulence, resulting in a faster and more severe granulomatous disease. These results indicate that interaction of fungi with extracellular matrix elements may constitute a basis for the evolution of fungal infection toward regional spreading and dissemination.


Eighty first-calf Brahman heifers and 51 mature Brahman cows were allotted to one of three diets based on parity, sex of calf, and breed of calf sire (Angus, Brahman, or Tuli) to evaluate rumen undegraded intake protein's (UIP) influence on production characteristics and reproductive performance. Supplements contained either 38.1% (low), 56.3% (medium), or 75.6% (high) UIP. Supplements were given from d 7 to 119 after calving to dams grazing rye-ryegrass overseeded Coastal bermudagrass pastures and with access to Coastal bermudagrass hay. Dam and calf BW and dam body condition score were recorded on d 7, 35, 63, 91, and 119 after calving. Four-hour milk production was recorded on the above days for low (n = 18), medium (n = 19), and high (n = 18) UIP animals and on d 7 and 35 for the entire group. Blood for progesterone RIA was drawn weekly and on d 6, 8, 10, and 12 after an observed estrus. Medium UIP heifers produced more (P < .02) milk (1.18 +/- .07 kg/4 h) than high UIP heifers (.94 +/- .07 kg/4 h), but milk production in mature cows was not influenced by diet. Low UIP dams had lower (P < .04) first-service conception rates (29.2%) than medium (57.6%) and tended (P < .10) to have lower rates than high UIP dams (54.6%). Overall pregnancy rates tended (P < .10) to be higher in medium (61.5%) and high (56.4%) UIP groups than in the low (43.2%) UIP group. Supplementing UIP at the medium rate improved first-service conception rates and tended to improve pregnancy rates.


The paper presents a method in teaching software process at under-graduate level, based on the Personal Software Process (PSP). The goal is to inform students about the process and to allow practical experience in the implementation of the defined and measured personal process. During the course, personal baseline and planning processes are implemented while completing programming and report exercises. In the article a tool is presented, that have been built to reduce student time and effort in learning software process. The results of the method implementation are presented for the nonexperienced student programmer.


Specialized education in "information management & information system (IMIS)" attracts the attention of experts and scholars both at home and abroad. Based on a survey of the colleges and universities in Ningbo in the field of IMIS and a review of the recent literature on this subject, this paper horizontally compares how the enterprises, colleges and universities, including teachers, students and others, understand the discipline of IMIS, and discusses how to improve the education and understanding of those in the field of IMIS in the following aspects: standardizing the orientation of discipline, improving the quality of teaching, introducing updated teaching materials, strengthening practical teaching, and training students in their relearning ability and all-round quality, to further promote the development of education in this specialty.


It is useful for teachers to reflect on the future formats that will be necessary for assessment tasks. There is currently much discussion concerning the need for immersive and authentic learning environments. Teachers will need to investigate assessments that mix real and virtual environments, testing declarative knowledge and also conditional and procedural capabilities. Teachers will need to contemplate using assessments that measure approaches to problem solving and student responses in terms of efficiency, ethical considerations and the involvement of others. This image of assessment is still sometime away, but will be within reach in the short term. Are academic staff ready to use this framework for assessment? e-Assessment tasks provide opportunities for academic staff to move beyond the type of question traditionally presented in a paper format. Interactivity is possible in e-assessments so that students are more engaged with the prescribed task and permit assessment to become a genuine learning and teaching tool, rather than just a summative evaluation. Java applets and browser plugins enable teachers to create assessment tasks that encourage active participation and the use of real world data or professional tools, to show the extent of student learning. The interactivity inherent in this type of assessment allows students to explore, or make errors, and often seek their own solutions to the assessment tasks. Many java applets are freely available on the web and teachers may use them as stand alone tools within the eassessment task. The science discipline areas such chemistry, biology, geology, physics, mathematics and statistics are well represented, with other discipline areas such as music, business, economics and commerce having some tools available.


A variety of pivot column selection rules based upon the gradient criteria (including the steepest edge) have been explored to improve the efficiency of the primal simplex method. Simplex-like algorithms have been proposed imbedding the gradient direction (GD) which includes all variables whose increase or decrease leads to an improvement in the objective function. Recently a frame work has been developed in the simplex method to incorporate the reduced-gradient direction (RGD) consisting of only variables whose increase leads to an improvement in the objective function. In this paper, the results are extended to embed GD in the simplex method based on the concept of combining directions. Also mathematical properties related to combining directions as well as deleting a variable from all basic directions are presented.


We investigate the cosmological implications of a new class of modified gravity, where the field equations generically include higher-order derivatives of the matter fields, arising from the introduction of non-dynamical auxiliary fields in the action. Imposing a flat, homogeneous and isotropic geometry, we extract the Friedmann equations, obtaining an effective dark-energy sector containing higher-derivatives of the matter energy density and pressure. For the cases of dust, radiation and stiff matter, we analyze the cosmological behavior, finding accelerating, de Sitter and non-accelerating phases, dominated by matter or dark-energy. Additionally, the effective dark-energy equation-of-state parameter can be quintessence-like, cosmological-constant-like or even phantom-like. The detailed study of these scenarios may provide signatures, that could distinguish them from other candidates of modified gravity.


This work begins by examining the evolution of increased racial diversity in our student populations in comparison to the disproportionate rate of racial diversity of faculty and staff across institutions of higher education within the United States. This specific research focuses on recruitment and retention through identifying key issues and concerns from faculty and staff of color and their experiences working within community colleges in the Pacific Northwest (Oregon & Washington). The research questions, "How does administrative leadership at community colleges within the Pacific Northwest recruit and retain faculty and staff of color?" and "What factors contribute to increased recruitment and retention as well as the loss of faculty and staff of color?" are addressed through three interconnected studies: (1) a phenomenological qualitative study based on interview data; (2) a combined descriptive and correlative quantitative study examining archival data from climate surveys and institutional effectiveness data; and (3) a Participatory Narrative Inquiry (PNI) into 1-2 participants' personal stories. The results will likely show themes and patterns of faculty and staff of color's experiences that negatively impact recruitment and retention. Leadership within higher education will benefit from this research to improve racial diversity within their institutions, which in return benefits the success of students of color (Letcher, 2013; Levin, Haberler, & Jackson-Boothby, 2014; Nixon, 2009). RESEARCH DESIGN RESEARCH DESIGN (continued) IMPACT & FUTURE WORK


Mediation can be described as a multi-functional legal tool serving the mission of law, which is to ensure public balance, justice and order. This is possible owing to the legal nature of mediation, because it is essential not to merely solve a dispute but to understand its cause during the mediation process. Nowadays, mediation is equally effective in cases associated with civil disputes and criminal offences to attain understanding-based reconciliation between the victim and the perpetrator. However, the voluntary nature of mediation may hinder the achievement of a positive result in some situations. The aim of this article is to examine the legal scope of mediation with a view to determining to which extent mediation can be applied in civil and criminal proceedings and answering the question of whether possibilities offered by mediation are effectively used by law. The added value of mediation is the alignment of parties' interests by means of active cooperation and the elimination of the cause of the dispute. Contrary to enforcement mechanisms, such as the execution of court rulings, mediation enables more effective use of possibilities provided by law as a social system and alleviation of tension caused by disputes in society. This research employs general scientific methods, such as analysis, induction and deduction and interpretation of law. The research is based on legislation, scientific literature and case-law. Keywords: Mediation, criminal proceedings, civil proceedings, settlement and resolution of disputes


Based on survey research and ethnographic interviews, we analyze struggles over housing and access to infrastructure in two low-income "unplanned settlements" in the National Capital Region of Delhi, India. We argue that political leadership in these two different areas cannot be regarded as a simple extension of traditional forms of authority from the village to the city. Rather, the local leaders emerge in the process of learning how to engage institutional processes of law and bureaucracy in an urban context to secure housing and infrastructure. The enfolding of structures of governance with democratic politics in these neighborhoods reveals the overlapping movements of law, bureaucracy, markets, and democratic mobilization through which social life is made durable for the urban poor. Instead of asking what democracy has done for the poor in India, we shift the focus to ask, How does the work that the poor perform through and with these institutions give form and substance to democracy in India?


Orosensory perception of food strongly affects the ingestive behavior and intake of nutrients. The genetic variation in the genes encoding taste receptors also modulate the orosensory properties in human beings. The aim of this study was to evaluate the polymorphism in genes encoding bitter and lipid taste receptor in lean and obese subjects. We conducted our study on lean (n = 53) and obese (n = 53) participants that were recruited in National Institute of Nutrition (Tunis). We isolated the genomic DNA from the saliva swabs and, by employing restriction-fragment polymorphism (RFLP), we looked for the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of two genes, CD36 (fat taste) and TAS2R38 (bitter taste). The CD36 gene variant was rs1761667 and TAS2R38 gene variants were rs1726866 and rs10246939. We noticed that A-genotype of rs1761667 was positively associated with obesity. Similarly, A-genotype and C-genotype, respectively of two rs1726866 and rs10246939 were associated with obesity. Our study shows that fat taste and bitter taste modalities play an important role in obesity.


Author(s): Towfic, Zaid Joseph | Advisor(s): Sayed, Ali H | Abstract: Distributed convex optimization refers to the task of minimizing the aggregate sum of convex risk functions, each available at an agent of a connected network, subject to convex constraints that are also distributed across the agents. The risk functions at the agents are generally defined as expectations of certain loss functions, with the expectations computed over the statistical distribution of the data. One of the key challenges in solving such optimization problems is that the agents are only subjected to streaming data realizations and they are not aware of the underlying statistical models. Accordingly, each agent is only aware of its loss function and does not have sufficient information to evaluate its risk function. Another key challenge is that each agent is only aware of its constraints. This dissertation develops and studies fully decentralized first-order strategies to solve such problems. The first class of strategies considered in this work belongs to the family of primal-dual methods, which rely on propagating two sets of variables: the primal variable and a dual variable. In contrast to the traditional treatment of these algorithms in the optimization literature, this dissertation develops primal-dual methods for adaptation and learning from streaming data over networks. In this case, the optimization problem is not necessarily static since its minimizer can drift with time and the exact form of the cost function is not known beforehand. Fully-distributed and adaptive variants of the Arrow-Hurwicz (AH) and augmented Lagrangian (AL) methods are developed by resorting to stochastic-gradient approximations. The stability range and the performance limits of the resulting strategies are analyzed. Several revealing results are discovered including the fact that primal-dual techniques tend to have a smaller stability range and a degraded performance in comparison to primal techniques, such as consensus and diffusion strategies. This conclusion suggests that AH and AL techniques are not as reliable for adaptation over networks and the advantages of AH and AL techniques in the static optimization context do not necessarily carry over to the stochastic context.The dissertation subsequently focuses on developing primal optimization methods of the diffusion type for the distributed solution of a general class of constrained optimization problems. Most available distributed solutions for these types of problems rely on the use of projection steps in order to ensure that the successive iterates at the nodes satisfy the convex constraints. In these solutions, the constraint conditions need to be relatively simple in order for the distributed algorithm to be able to compute the necessary projections analytically (such as projecting onto the nonnegative orthant). This work proposes a new class of distributed solutions that employ constant step-sizes and that eliminate the need for projection steps. The solution technique relies instead on the use of suitably chosen penalty functions and replaces the projection step by a stochastic approximation update that run concurrently with the optimization step. The challenge is to show that the use of penalty functions in the stochastic gradient update step still leads to accurate solutions. The analysis in the dissertation establishes that this is indeed possible. Moreover, in the proposed solution, the nodes are only required to interact locally and to have access to local iterates from their neighbors; there is no need for the nodes to know any of the constraints besides their own.


In many countries, women are over-represented among low-wage employees, which is why a wage floor could benefit them particularly. Following this notion, we analyse the impact of the German minimum wage introduction in 2015 on the gender wage gap. Germany poses an interesting case study in this context, since it has a rather high gender wage gap and set the minimum wage at a relatively high level, affecting more than four million employees. Based on individual data from the Structure of Earnings Survey, containing information for over one million employees working in 60,000 firms, we use a difference-in-difference framework that exploits regional differences in the bite of the minimum wage. We find a significant negative effect of the minimum wage on the regional gender wage gap. Between 2014 and 2018, the gap at the 10th percentile of the wage distribution was reduced by 4.6 percentage points (or 32%) in regions that were strongly affected by the minimum wage compared to less affected regions. For the gap at the 25th percentile, the effect still amounted to -18%, while for the mean it was smaller (-11%) and not particularly robust. We thus find that the minimum wage can indeed reduce gender wage disparities. While the effect is highest for the low-paid, it also reaches up into higher parts of the wage distribution.


Background: Acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) is a life-threatening emergency cardiovascular condition. Mortality is still high in rural region. Objective: to identify mortality rate and evaluate the clinical outcomes of acute STEMI patients using the fast tract management system at Naresuan University Hospital (NUH) Material and Method: Descriptive review of clinical parameters from STEMI patients who participated in the fast tract management system Results: Between Jan 2010 to Sep 2013 , 191 STEMI patients were enrolled. The 147 patients (77%) were referrals and 44 patients (23%) were non-referrals. They were predominantly male patients with an average age of 65 years. The risk factors of coronary artery disease (CAD) were dyslipidemia (86.9%), hypertension (61.3%), smoking (51.3%) and diabetes mellitus (18.3%). Cardiac arrest was found in 16.2% and 14.1% presented with cardiogenic shock. 86.4% received reperfusion therapy with 37.2% got primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). The median door to balloon time and door to needle time for non-referral patients were 89 and 58 minutes, respectively. The median time to treatment was 226 min in the thrombolytic group and 234 min in the primary PCI group. The overall mortality rate was 11.5% which was much lower than the previous data of NUH (33.3%). For the referred patients, the median first medical contact (FMC) to device time was 344 min. Mortality rate of primary PCI in referral group (17.9%) was higher than in non-referral group (6.3%). Conclusion: The mortality rate at NUH is lower than before having established fast tract management system but still high as compare to standard of care. Fibrinolytic therapy is preferred for the treatment of choice at non-PCI capable hospital and PCI will be considered for failed fibrinolysis or presence of contraindication to fibrinolysis. Shortening of pain to treatment time by fast tract management system is the mainstay to improve survival in the patients who suffer from STEMI. Keywords: ST elevation myocardial infarction, fast tract


Abstract Background Antimicrobial stewardship programmes are important in driving safety and quality of antimicrobial prescribing. The National Antimicrobial Prescribing Survey (NAPS) is a point-prevalence audit of inpatient antimicrobial prescribing in Australian hospitals. Objectives To design and adapt the NAPS tool for use in the outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) and hospital-in-the-home (HITH) setting. Methods An inter-disciplinary working group with expertise in OPAT and HITH services was established to adapt the NAPS template for use in the OPAT setting—called HITH-NAPS. This was initially trialled in 5 HITH services, subsequently adapted following participant feedback, then offered nationally to 50 services in 2017. Results There were 1154 prescriptions for 715 patients audited via the HITH-NAPS. The most common antimicrobials prescribed were cefazolin (22%), flucloxacillin (12%), piperacillin/tazobactam (10%) and ceftriaxone (10%). The most common infections treated were cellulitis (30%) and respiratory tract infections (14%). Eighty-seven percent of prescriptions were assessed as appropriate, 11% inappropriate and 2% not assessable. Prolonged durations of antimicrobials and unnecessarily broad-spectrum antibiotics were used in 9% of prescriptions. Conclusions The HITH-NAPS pilot project revealed that auditing of this type is feasible in HITH. It showed that antibiotic use in these HITH services was generally appropriate, but there are some areas for improvement. A national OPAT/HITH-NAPS can facilitate benchmarking between services, identify potentially inappropriate prescribing and help guide quality improvement.


Aims: The main objective of the current research is to develop light-weight and flexible electromagnetic shielding materials with improved properties using nano/mikro boron carbide dispersed into polymer based matrices after surface modification.
Methods: Nano/micro boron carbide particles with various morphologies were synthesized by sol-gel techniques and the obtained particles were surface modified with different functional groups. After mixing the particles with different polymers using high shear mixer, shielding composite plates were shaped using injection moulding and warm pressing.
Results: It was shown that sol-gel technique was able to produce boron carbide particles with controlled morphology and better shielding properties could be obtained using these particles within polymeric matrices leading to the formation of flexible composites.
Conclusions: Overall, it was found that light-weight and effective shielding materials could be obtained using boron carbide particles dispersed within polymeric matrices. Surface modification of the particles is critical for good dispersion and hence to get better final properties. The concentration of the reinforcing particles also affects the properties in terms of energy absorption and shielding.


Differential Power Analysis (DPA) measures single-bit differences between data values used in computer systems by statistical analysis of power traces. In this paper, we show that the mere co-location of data values, e.g., attacker and victim data in the same buffers and caches, leads to power leakage in modern CPUs that depends on a combination of both values, resulting in a novel attack, Collide+Power. We systematically analyze the power leakage of the CPU's memory hierarchy to derive precise leakage models enabling practical end-to-end attacks. These attacks can be conducted in software with any signal related to power consumption, e.g., power consumption interfaces or throttling-induced timing variations. Leakage due to throttling requires 133 . 3 times more samples than direct power measurements. We develop a novel differential measurement technique amplifying the exploitable leakage by a factor of 8 . 778 on average, compared to a straightforward DPA approach. We demonstrate that Collide+Power leaks single-bit differences from the CPU's memory hierarchy with fewer than 23 000 measurements. Collide+Power varies attacker-controlled data in our end-to-end DPA attacks. We present a Meltdown-style attack, leaking from attacker-chosen memory locations, and a faster MDS-style attack, which leaks 4 . 82 bit / h. Collide+Power is a generic attack applicable to any modern CPU, arbitrary memory locations, and victim applications and data. However, the Meltdown-style attack is not yet practical, as it is limited by the state of the art of prefetching victim data into the cache, leading to an unrealistic real-world attack runtime with throttling of more than a year for a single bit. Given the different variants and potentially more practical prefetching methods, we consider Collide


To delete genes specifically from mammary tissue using the Cre-lox system, we have established transgenic mice expressing Cre recombinase under control of the WAP gene promoter and the MMTV LTR. Cre activity in these mice was evaluated by three criteria. First, the tissue distribution of Cre mRNA was analyzed. Second, an adenovirus carrying a reporter gene was used to determine expression at the level of single cells. Third, tissue specificity of Cre activity was determined in a mouse strain carrying a reporter gene. In adult MMTV-Cre mice expression of the transgene was confined to striated ductal cells of the salivary gland and mammary epithelial cells in virgin and lactating mice. Expression of WAP-Cre was only detected in alveolar epithelial cells of mammary tissue during lactation. Analysis of transgenic mice carrying both the MMTV-Cre and the reporter transgenes revealed recombination in every tissue. In contrast, recombination mediated by Cre under control of the WAP gene promoter was largely restricted to the mammary gland but occasionally observed in the brain. These results show that transgenic mice with WAP-Cre but not MMTV-Cre can be used as a powerful tool to study gene function in development and tumorigenesis in the mammary gland.


Friction stir welding is a solid state joining process which enables most metals and alloys to be welded without fusion temperatures occurring. The centre of the weld is comprised of dynamically recrystallized material which is beneficial for superplastic deformation. The high temperatures involved with conventional fusion welding techniques disrupt the delicate microstructure of superplastic materials. Superplasticity is heavily reliant on a small grained equiaxed matrix structure pinned by a fine distribution of hard second phase particles to inhibit grain growth during forming of the material. During the superplastic forming operation, the heavily strained structure present in the parent material undergoes a transformation from a banded structure comprising of very long, thin grains to fine equiaxed grains through various static and dynamic recrystallization mechanisms. During forming of friction stir welded materials the stability of the weld region has been investigated. Grain growth is more apparent in the strain hardening of AA5083 due to the relatively small amounts of strengthening precipitates. This material statically recrystallizes during the preheat stage of the superplastic forming process, the grains then begin to grow during a dynamic recovery process becoming far too large to allow superplastic deformation. AA2004 is specially designed superplastic forming (SPF) alloy which contains a large amount of Zr for grain stability. This alloying element is preferentially distributed along the grain boundaries which prevents grain growth during SPF. During the forming process the AA2004 dynamically recrystallizes; disruption to the parent material structure causes discontinuous dynamic recrystallization that results in a heterogeneous structure and makes the material prone to abnormal grain growth. The weld regions of FSWs in AA5083 and AA4004 have been shown to exhibit AGG in weld nugget and shoulder influenced regions. The stability of the superplastic material is reliant on their strengthening precipitates. The Zr in the AA2004 is a much more effective precipitate for maintaining stability.


Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) can reduce mortality, reinfarction rates and hospitalisations, and improve health related quality of life (HRQoL), it is cost effective and is recognised as a standard of care for patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) and heart failure (HF) and forms a part of self-management support for chronic disease (1). The aim of this study was to identify the need and capacity of CR services in Ireland. This was done in two parts; need figures were estimated by applying international guidelines to hospital admission figures for selected conditions for the year 2014, and a survey of CR centres was performed to gather information regarding capacity, supply and process of CR. Need and capacity were compared nationally, geographically and by hospital group in order to identify gaps. There was the capacity to provide CR for 39% of the need for CHD and HF patients nationally. Geographical disparities were apparent; capacity compared to need ranged from 9% to 75% by county. Funded staffing posts had fallen 62.7% since 2009 nationally and significant gaps in staffing and service provision were apparent around the country. CR can reduce mortality, hospitalisations and is cost effective, however, this study found that there was insufficient capacity to meet need for CR, inequity of access, and the service has experienced significant cutbacks in recent years. Furthermore, need is expected to increase; the incidence of cardiovascular disease is predicted to increase by 4-5% per annum (2). This must be addressed in order to maximise and achieve the best health for all of the population and reduce pressures on acute services. While this study had limitations, for example, assumptions had to be made regarding patient flow, and need was estimated using data from the Hospital Inpatient Enquiry scheme (HIPE) only, it was shown that CR is understaffed and does not have the capacity to provide for current need. It is recommended that the capacity of CR is expanded, minimum standards per 100,000 population for the provision of CR should be established and central co-ordination of referrrals should be considered to improve equity of access. Further research is needed to examine patient outcomes and alternative modes of delivery of CR, and audit standards and a regular CR audit should be established. References: 1- Dalal HM, Doherty P, Taylor RS. Cardiac rehabilitation. BMJ. 2015 2015-09-29 11:41:26;351. 2- Smyth B, Marsden P, Collins L, Dee A, Donohue F, Evans D, et al. Planning for health trends and priorities to inform health service planning 2016: Health Service Executive (HSE) 2016-01. Report No.: 978-1-78602-002-4


Currently, microplastics are dispersed everywhere; from our oceans to our rivers, sediments, organisms, air, and even food resources. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the degree of contamination present in the Portuguese traditional table salts depending on their origin and type of salt. Fourteen samples were selected: seven from fleur de sel and seven from coarse salts, corresponding to seven distinct regions of the Portuguese territory. The concentration of microplastics, depending on salts' origin, ranged between 595 and 5090 MPs/kg, in sea salt, and in Rio Maior's well salt it varied from 3325 to 6430 MPs/kg. By salt type, the concentration of microplastics in the fleur de sel was 2320–6430 MPs/kg and in the coarse salt was 595–3985 MPs/kg. In the analyzed table salt, the most abundant anthropogenic particles were fibers (64%) and fragments (35%). The most predominant colors were transparent, blue, and black. The concentration of microplastics did not vary significantly (p > 0.05) between fleur de sel samples within different regions. However, statistically significant differences were found between coarse salt samples from the various regions. The results, gathered from this study, demonstrate the high contamination within artisanal Portuguese table salts, thus, becoming crucial to develop more future research, leading to a better understanding of the health risks associated with salt consumption.


This study aims to investigate how the mentoring program affects married immigrant women and their mentors. The mentoring program as a man-to-man program was conducted in 2009 and provided married immigrant women with an agricultural education program. This study used a case study as a research method and collected data using interviews and observations. Participants were selected according to Patton`s (2002) purposeful sampling strategies, and the results of data analysis were evaluated by the method of Evaluation Checklist. In order to increase the internal validity of the study, this study used both triangulation and peer examination. By including the diverse aspects of the mentoring program, this study shows that each case has special characteristics according to the situations of married immigrant women and their mentors. As a result, this qualitative research project provided the detailed picture of the mentoring program by specifically describing how married immigrant women had a relationship with their mentors.


Technology has contributed to the advances on the genomic, transcriptomic, metabolomic and proteomic analyses of the plant-root-knot nematode (RKN) interaction. Holistic approaches to obtain expression profiles, such as cDNA libraries, differential display, q-PCR, microarray hybridization, massive sequencing, etc., have increased our knowledge on the molecular aspects of the interaction and have triggered the development of biotechnological tools to control this plague. An important limitation, however, has been the difficulty of cross-comparative analysis of these data. The construction of a database, NEMATIC, compiling microarray data available in Arabidopsis of the interaction with plant endoparasitic nematodes facilitated the in silico analysis, but is not sufficient for the handling of 'omic' information of different plant species. Omics combined with cell isolation techniques have shed some light on the heterogeneous expression signatures of nematode induced gall tissues, i.e., plant defences are specifically inhibited in giant cells within the gall aiding the nematode for a successful establishment. The natural resistance against RKNs varies from an early hypersensitive reaction before the establishment of the nematode, to the arrest of gall growth. The molecular bases of these mechanisms, not fully understood yet, could disclose powerful targets for the development of biotechnology based tools for nematode control.


The idea of designing multispecific antibodies capable of simultaneously engaging two or more epitopes on the same or different antigens was developed more than 50 years ago. However, the molecular complexity of such molecules may pose significant challenges for their development and clinical use. Particularly challenging is to obtain the correctly assembled combination of different polypeptide chains, which places significant demand on downstream process development, analytical characterization and control strategy. Here, we review the progress made in protein engineering to force the correct assembly of different heavy and light chains, as well as upstream and downstream processes currently applied to control generation of unwanted byproduct species. We cover in-depth the analytical methods available to characterize such complex molecules, focusing on mispairing analysis and functional characterization.


Export taxes can provide additional welfare to large exporters, an argument for interventions in many primary commodity exporting countries. We investigate the benefits of export taxation for Cote d'Ivoire, the dominant exporter of cocoa. Where many applications treat the formula for optimal export taxes incorrectly as a prescription, we take the endogeneity of the exporter's share into account. We also distinguish between short-term and long-term effects, relevant for a tree crop like cocoa and we allow for a normal commercial margin between export and farm gate prices. Results are calculated via simulations in a model, in which the age-compositions of the tree stocks of major producing countries are distinguished. Simulations over a period of 15 years show that higher levels of export taxation do not change overall revenues of Cote d'Ivoire on a longer term, but lead to strong redistribution from farmers to the central authorities.


Thin film metal-insulator-metal junctions are used in a novel approach to investigate the dissipation of potential energy of multiply charged ions impinging on a polycrystalline metal surface. The ion-metal interaction leads to excited electrons and holes within the top layer. A substantial fraction of these charge carriers is transported inwards and can be measured as an internal current in the thin film tunnel junction. In Ag-AlOX-Al junctions, yields of typically 0.1-1 electrons per impinging ion are detected in the bottom Al layer. The separate effects of potential and kinetic energy on the tunneling yield are investigated by varying the charges state of the Ar projectile ions from 2+ to 9+ for kinetic energies in the range from 1 to 12 keV. The tunneling yield is found to scale linearly with the potential energy of the projectile.


Acanthamoeba encephalitis exhibits broad spectrum of neuropathology depending on the localization of the lesions. Natural infection is associated with haematogenous spread leading to Acanthamoeba entry into the brain, most likely via the blood-brain barrier, although blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier has also been suggested as a possible route. Experimental infection is induced by intranasal injection of parasites, followed by amoebae invasion of the central nervous system via the olfactory neuroepithelium route. The precise mechanism of entry and the factors that influence amoebae entry into the central nervous system are not fully understood. The development of strategies to combat this fatal infection requires an understanding of the interactions between Acanthamoeba and the central nervous system.


We consider stochastic PDEs on the $d$-dimensional torus with fractional
Laplacian of parameter $\rho\in(0,2]$, quadratic nonlinearity and driven by
space-time white noise. These equations are known to be locally subcritical,
and thus amenable to the theory of regularity structures, if and only if $\rho
> d/3$. Using a series of recent results by the second named author, A.
Chandra, I. Chevyrev, M. Hairer and L. Zambotti, we obtain precise
asymptotics on the renormalisation counterterms as the mollification parameter
$\varepsilon$ becomes small and $\rho$ approaches its critical value. In particular,
we show that the counterterms behave like a negative power of $\varepsilon$ if $\varepsilon$
is superexponentially small in $(\rho-d/3)$, and are otherwise of order
$\log(\varepsilon^{-1})$. This work also serves as an illustration of the general
theory of BPHZ renormalisation in a relatively simple situation.


OBJECTIVE
Evaluate the efficacy and safety of lisdexamfetamine dimesylate augmentation for major depressive disorder (MDD) in escitalopram nonremitters.

METHOD
In this proof-of-concept study (conducted from July 2009-August 2010) with a prespecified critical α = .10, adults with nonpsychotic MDD (DSM-IV-TR criteria) and residual depressive symptoms (17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale score ≥ 4) after 8 weeks of open-label escitalopram were randomized to 6 weeks of lisdexamfetamine dimesylate (20-50 mg/d) or placebo augmentation. The primary endpoint, Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) total score change in escitalopram nonremitters (MADRS total score > 10) from week 8 (augmentation baseline) to week 14/end of study, was assessed using analysis of covariance, with last observation carried forward.

RESULTS
For nonremitters (placebo, n = 64; lisdexamfetamine dimesylate, n = 65), the least squares (LS) mean (90% CI) treatment difference for MADRS total score reduction at week 14/end of study (-2.3 [-4.5 to -0.1]; P = .0902) met the prespecified criterion for lisdexamfetamine dimesylate superiority (adjusted effect size, -0.3); the number needed to treat for MADRS remission (MADRS total score ≤ 10) was 6.7. The LS mean treatment difference in remitters was not statistically significant (1.2 [-1.6 to 4.0]; P = .4726). Among randomized participants, 49.4% (42/85) receiving placebo and 60.2% (53/88) receiving lisdexamfetamine dimesylate had ≥ 1 treatment-emergent adverse event, the most frequent with lisdexamfetamine dimesylate being dry mouth and headache (both 11.4%). Mean (SD) vital sign and electrocardiogram changes (placebo vs lisdexamfetamine dimesylate) were 0.5 (8.98) versus 2.3 (9.04) mm Hg (systolic blood pressure), -1.0 (7.19) versus 0.9 (6.61) mm Hg (diastolic blood pressure), -0.4 (7.39) versus 4.8 (8.64) beats per minute (heart rate), and -1.6 (11.23) versus -4.9 (11.84) milliseconds (Fridericia-adjusted QTc).

CONCLUSIONS
Lisdexamfetamine dimesylate augmentation reduced depressive symptoms in participants with inadequate escitalopram response.

TRIAL REGISTRATION
ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00905424.


One of the most powerful dramas ever written for the stage, Othello is a story of revenge, illusion, passion, mistrust, jealousy, and murder. If in Iago, Shakespeare created the most compelling villain in Western literature, in Othello and Desdemona, he gave us our most tragic and unforgettable lovers.


Individual recognition (IR) is essential for maintaining various social interactions in a group, and face recognition is one of the most specialised cognitive abilities in IR. We used both a mating preference system and an electric shock conditioning experiment to test IR ability in medaka, and found that signals near the face are important. Medaka required more time to discriminate vertically inverted faces, but not horizontally shifted faces or inverted non-face objects. The ability may be comparable to the classic 'face inversion effect' in humans and some other mammals. Extra patterns added to the face also did not influence the IR. These findings suggest the possibility that the process of face recognition may differ from that used for other objects. The complex form of recognition may promote specific processing adaptations, although the mechanisms and neurological bases might differ in mammals and medaka. The ability to recognise other individuals is important for shaping animal societies. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.24728.001


(1) Background: Regular physical activity (PA) plays an important role during early childhood physical and psychological development. This study investigates the effects of a 9-month PA intervention on physiological characteristics and motor and cognitive skills in preschool children. (2) Methods: Preschool children (n = 132; age 4 to 7 years) attending regular preschool programs were nonrandomly assigned to PA intervention (n = 66; 60 min sessions twice per week) or a control group (n = 66; no additional organized PA program) for 9 months. Exercise training for the intervention group included various sports games, outdoor activities, martial arts, yoga, and dance. Anthropometry, motor skills (7 tests), and cognitive skills (Raven's Colored Progressive Matrices and Cognitive Assessment System) were assessed before and after an intervention period in both groups. Data were analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVA. (3) Results: Body weight significantly increased in both groups over time. Compared to the changes observed in the control group, the intervention group significantly increased in chest circumference (p = 0.022). In contrast, the control group demonstrated an increase in waist circumference (p = 0.001), while these measures in the intervention group remained stable. Participants in the intervention group improved running speed (p = 0.016) and standing broad jump (p = 0.000). The flexibility level was maintained in the intervention group, while a significant decrease was observed in the control group (p = 0.010). Children from the intervention group demonstrated progress in the bent-arm hang test (p = 0.001), unlike the control group subjects. Varied improvements in cognitive skills were observed for different variables in both intervention and control groups, with no robust evidence for PA-intervention-related improvements. (4) Conclusions: Preschool children's participation in a preschool PA intervention improves their motor skills.


The principal object of the present communication is twofold:—in the first place, to bring under the notice of the Society the occurrence in Shropshire of an extremely interesting series of ancient vitreous and semivitreous lavas, with their associated agglomerates and ashes; and in the second, to show, from an examination of their structure and composition, that originally they were absolutely identical with some of the glassy volcanic rocks ejected during the most recent geological periods. In a previous paper (published in vol. xxx. pp. 529-567, of the Quarterly Journal) I arrived at the same result as to the identity of ancient and recent volcanic products, from an investigation restricted to the basic group of rocks; and I am now enabled to show that those of the acid type afford equally strong evidence in the same direction. The discovery of several highly characteristic varieties of glassy rocks and volcanic ashes of Palæozoic age is, I think, a matter of considerable interest from a petrological point of view, more especially as their mode of occurrence and their relations to the surrounding strata afford the clearest evidence that the geological structure of a part of the district in which they occur has hitherto been misunderstood. On Sheet 61 of the Geological-Survey map a band of "greenstone" is represented as constituting the axis of the somewhat irregular narrow ridge of which Ercal Hill and the Wrekin form the greater portion. It commences half a mile south of Wellington, and extends in a south-westerly direction


Allergic rhinitis is the most common form of allergy with a prevalence of 30%. Allergic rhinitis is associated with substantial health economic costs and patient suffering. Asthma is strongly associated with allergic rhinitis. The treatment of allergic rhinitis should be individualized and include the whole airway. The treatment goals should be a patient free of symptoms affecting their daily life or sleep.


This paper simulates the expected device performance and scaling perspectives of carbon nanotube (CNT) field-effect transistors with doped source and drain extensions. The simulations are based on the self-consistent solution of the three-dimensional Poisson-Schroumldinger equation with open boundary conditions, within the nonequilibrium Green's function formalism, where arbitrary gate geometry and device architecture can be considered. The investigation of short channel effects for different gate configurations and geometry parameters shows that double-gate devices offer quasi-ideal subthreshold slope and drain-induced barrier lowering without extremely thin gate dielectrics. Exploration of devices with parallel CNTs shows that on currents per unit width can be significantly larger than the silicon counterpart, while high-frequency performance is very promising


We developed software called SIPReS, which describes two-dimensional images with sound. With this system, visually-impaired people can tell the location of a certain point in an image just by hearing notes of frequency each assigned according to the brightness of the point a user touches on. It can run on Android smartphones and tablets. We conducted a small-scale experiment to see if a visually-impaired person can recognize images with SIPReS. In the experiment, the subject successfully recognized if there is an object or not. He also recognized the location information. The experiment suggests this application's potential as image recognition software.


This paper presents a complexity-effective HHT IP for embedded real-time applications. The proposed HHT improves the original empirical mode decomposition (EMD) to reduce the interferences between signal components with filtering, similar to that in the wavelet transform. The IMF and residue signals are compacted to reduce computation and storage. Multirate Hilbert spectral analysis (HSA) is performed to further reduce computations. A prototype of an embedded HHT analyzer has been built to demonstrate the effectiveness.


The impacts of the aphid infestation on yield of Rapeseeds, Brassica napus L. and Brassica campestris L., genotypes were studied in an experiment carried out in natural conditions. The attack of aphid on crop and its effects on seed weight were determined using a random plants sampling and by analysis of grain yield. On the basis of pest damage, no genotypes were totally free from aphid Myzus persicae (Sulzer) invasion. Distinct genotypes differing in pest tolerance and grain yield were identified from the experiment. The parameters used quantified that genotypes viz., MM-IV/03-5, MM-III/03-4 and NIFA-Raya were the least infested, presented the highest seed weight and showed more resistance to pest. The Abasin-95, 04k 8/13-2 and NH-975/2-4 genotypes showed more susceptibility to pest and were superfluous infested and produced less grain. Present findings revealed that the resistant genotypes can be utilized in breeding programs for development of Brassica varieties having reasonable aphid tolerance at growing stage to receive maximum seed yield.

 Key words: Rapeseed, Brassica napus, Brassica campestris, aphids, resistance.


Automata theory plays an important role in various areas especially in game design. This paper describes the concept of automata theory in designing one of the most popular classical game which is Hangman. In this study, we focused on a game called Hangaroo, which implemented the same concept as in Hangman game. We studied and discussed the combination of automata and game theory that can be considered in order to design the game. As a result, we found that, automata theory is the fundamental access in designing and developing Games.


Actuators that convert external stimuli to mechanical energy have aroused strong attention for emerging applications in robotics, artificial muscles, and other fields. However, their limited performance under harsh operating conditions evidenced by the low cycle life and hysteresis have restricted their practical applications. Here, a thermal-driven actuator based on layered metallic molybdenum disulfide (1T MoS2) nanosheets is demonstrated. The active actuator film exhibits fully reversible and highly stable (> 99.296% in 2700 cycles) thermal-mechanical conversion over a wide temperature window (from −60 °C to 80 °C). Importantly, 1T MoS2 film shows a fast response with the bending rate and the recovery rate of > 1.090 rad·s−1 and > 0.978 rad·s−1, respectively. The assembled actuator can lift 20 times its weight over several centimeters for more than 200 cycles. This work, for the first time, demonstrates the thermoresponsive characteristics of 1T MoS2 in developing the thermal actuator, which may open new opportunities for various applications, such as robotics, artificial muscles, and human assist devices.


Background: Antiplatelet drugs, such as ticagrelor, which target platelet P2Y12 receptors, are used for prevention of ischemic heart disease. Ticagrelor is also known to have pleiotropic effects of unknown mechanisms. Ticagrelor could influence the expression of molecules involved in resolution of inflammation. This study aimed to investigate if ticagrelor could change the expression of CYP4F2 and its encoded protein concentration and, additionally, to determine ticagrelor possible antibacterial activity against gram-negative bacteria. Methods: CYP4F2 expression was determined in HUVEC and HepG2 cell lines by qPCR. CYP4F2 protein concentration was determined by ELISA. Antibiotic susceptibility testing was performed using a disc diffusion method. Results: Ticagrelor was observed to reduce the expression of CYP4F2 in HUVEC and HepG2 cell lines. It also reduced CYP4F2 protein levels in HUVEC cells. Ticagrelor had no bactericidal activity against gram-negative third generation cephalosporin resistant E. coli. Conclusion: Ticagrelor reduced CYP4F2 protein concentration in HUVEC, and CYP4F2 expression in HUVEC and HepG2 cells, but had no effect on third-generation cephalosporin-resistant E. coli strains.


The application of genomics technologies to medicine and biomedical research is increasing in popularity, made possible by new high-throughput genotyping and sequencing technologies and improved data analysis capabilities. Some of the greatest genetic diversity among humans, animals, plants, and microbiota occurs in Africa, yet genomic research outputs from the continent are limited. The Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) initiative was established to drive the development of genomic research for human health in Africa, and through recognition of the critical role of bioinformatics in this process, spurred the establishment of H3ABioNet, a pan-African bioinformatics network for H3Africa. The limitations in bioinformatics capacity on the continent have been a major contributory factor to the lack of notable outputs in high-throughput biology research. Although pockets of high-quality bioinformatics teams have existed previously, the majority of research institutions lack experienced faculty who can train and supervise bioinformatics students. H3ABioNet aims to address this dire need, specifically in the area of human genetics and genomics, but knock-on effects are ensuring this extends to other areas of bioinformatics. Here, we describe the emergence of genomics research and the development of bioinformatics in Africa through H3ABioNet.


Fibroblasts are the principal cellular component of connective tissue and are associated with cancer cells at all stages of tumor progression. Structural and functional contributions of fibroblasts to the growth, survival, and invasive capacity of cancer cells are beginning to emerge. In breast carcinoma, approximately 80% of stromal fibroblasts termed cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAF) are thought to manifest an activated phenotype that promotes cancer cell proliferation tumor growth at metastatic sites similar to the primary tumor. In this report, we show that CAFs respond to physiologic concentrations of 17beta-estradiol (E2) by rapidly inducing extracellular signal-regulated kinase phosphorylation and immediate early gene expression, including c-fos and connective tissue growth factor, and cyclin D1. Notably, the E2 response is mediated by the alternate estrogen receptor GPR30, which interfaces with the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signaling pathway. In particular, E2 stimulates a physical interaction between GPR30 and phosphorylated EGFR, recruiting them to the cyclin D1 gene promoter. Nuclear localization induced by E2 was confirmed by cellular immunofluorescence methods. GPR30 was required for CAF proliferation and migration induced by E2. Our results provide important new mechanistic insights into how CAFs are stimulated by estrogen through a GPR30-mediated nuclear signaling pathway. More generally, they define estrogenic GPR30 signaling as a functionally important component of the tumor microenvironment.


ABSTRACT Objective Research examining aspects of positive mental health as potential predictors of cardiometabolic health in young populations is scarce. We investigated the associations between psychosocial well-being and waist circumference (WAIST), blood pressure (BP), the homeostasis model assessment for insulin resistance, triglycerides, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol considering life-style factors as mediators. Methods Data of European children and adolescents participating in the baseline (2007/2008), first follow-up (FU1; 2009/2010) and second follow-up (FU2; 2013/2014) examinations of the IDEFICS/I.Family study were used (ncross-sectional = 6519; nlongitudinal = 1393). A psychosocial well-being score was calculated from 16 items on emotional well-being, self-esteem, and social relationships (0–48 points). Cardiometabolic markers were transformed to age- and sex-specific and, in case of BP, also height-specific z scores. Life-style factors included diet, physical activity, sleep, and electronic media use. Applying path analysis, we obtained unstandardized estimates of direct and indirect effects of well-being on cardiometabolic markers. Results Cross-sectionally, well-being score showed a negative direct and a negative indirect effect through life-style factors on WAIST z score (estimate per 4-point increase, −0.051 [p = .001] and −0.014 [p < .001], respectively). Longitudinally, positive changes in well-being score between baseline and FU1 and between FU1 and FU2, respectively, demonstrated negative indirect effects through life-style factorsFU2 on WAIST z scoreFU2. Both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, higher levels of well-being showed lowering indirect effects on homeostasis model assessment, BP, and triglyceride z scores and an increasing indirect effect on high-density lipoprotein cholesterol z score through both life-style factors and WAIST z score. Conclusions These results supported our hypothesis that a healthier life-style may be one mechanism through which higher well-being is linked with lower abdominal obesity and fewer other cardiometabolic disorders in young populations. Trial Registration: Pan-European IDEFICS/I.Family children cohort, ISRCTN registry number: ISRCTN62310987 (http://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN62310987).


This paper focuses firstly on the production of monomers bis (2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (BHET) and oligomers by using two different form of MgO light active and Nano Magnesium oxide with different weight ratio (0.15, 0.25 and 0.5) by using chemical recycling glass condenser at 190 ˚C. The second purpose is to study the effect of catalyst ratio, time of reaction and yield of products of the product. Elemental analysis for Carbon –Hydrogen and Nitrogen (CHN), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) have been investigated. Results indicated the catalytic activity was found to correlate with surface area; however, LA MgO has shown an exceptional activity, still it is higher than Nano MgO in order to reduce the reaction time till 30 minutes instead of 7 hours without catalyst. The analysis of the thermograms has indicated the presence of various kinds of monomer, dimer and oligomers that are formed during the recycling; this is particularly evident due to new peaks indicating the formation of BHET monomer and oligomer of lower molecular masses.


As social media becomes increasingly prominent in our day to day lives, it is increasingly important to detect informative content and prevent the spread of disinformation and unverified rumours. While many sophisticated and successful models have been proposed in the literature, they are often compared with older NLP baselines such as SVMs, CNNs, and LSTMs. In this paper, we examine the performance of a broad set of modern transformer-based language models and show that with basic fine-tuning, these models are competitive with and can even significantly outperform recently proposed state-of-the-art methods. We present our framework as a baseline for creating and evaluating new methods for misinformation detection. We further study a comprehensive set of benchmark datasets, and discuss potential data leakage and the need for careful design of the experiments and understanding of datasets to account for confounding variables. As an extreme case example, we show that classifying only based on the first three digits of tweet ids, which contain information on the date, gives state-of-the-art performance on a commonly used benchmark dataset for fake news detection –Twitter16. We provide a simple tool to detect this problem and suggest steps to mitigate it in future datasets.


Machine learning (ML) algorithms, especially deep neural networks, have demonstrated success in several domains. However, several types of attacks have raised concerns about deploying ML in safety-critical domains, such as autonomous driving and security. An attacker perturbs a data point slightly in the concrete feature space (e.g., pixel space) and causes the ML algorithm to produce incorrect output (e.g. a perturbed stop sign is classified as a yield sign). These perturbed data points are called adversarial examples, and there are numerous algorithms in the literature for constructing adversarial examples and defending against them. In this paper we explore semantic adversarial examples (SAEs) where an attacker creates perturbations in the semantic space representing the environment that produces input for the ML model. For example, an attacker can change the background of the image to be cloudier to cause misclassification. We present an algorithm for constructing SAEs that uses recent advances in differential rendering and inverse graphics.


In the aftermath of Gregg v Scott and Johnston v NEI, it is commonly thought that claims for exposure to danger of physical harm are not independently compensatable in English law. I argue that this assumption is doubly mistaken. On the one hand, claimants exposed to danger of physical harm have a compelling argument of principle for the recovery of any significant increase in the cost of their options for dealing with the carelessly heightened danger to their physical health. On the other hand, that argument of principle is not blocked by Gregg, or other cases in the line of precedent consolidated in that decision. Properly construed, the rejection of the plaintiff's claims in Gregg and Johnston is consistent with a right of recovery for significant costs following from careless exposure to danger of physical harm.


Glucocorticoids are involved in the regulation of spermatogenesis in the boar testis by initiating apoptosis in early stages of germ cell development. Because cortisol activity is modulated by the 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase system (11beta-HSD), the present study determined both 11beta-activating (reductive) and inactivating (oxidative) enzyme activities in testicular tissue preparations of control boars (n = 5), GnRH-immunized boars (n = 5), and immunized, estradiol-infused boars (n = 6) by radioenzyme assay based on the conversion of tritiated cortisol to cortisone in the presence of NAD+ (inactivation) or tritiated cortisone to cortisol in the presence of NADPH (activation). The presence of both isoforms, 11beta-HSD 1 and 11beta-HSD 2, was confirmed by RTPCR in testicular tissue of control boars. Additionally, cortisol, testosterone, estradiol, and LH were determined in blood plasma sampled twice before killing. Immunization led to a drop of LH from 4.3 +/- 0.3 pmol/L to 1.0 +/- 0.3 pmol/L (testosterone: 11.63 +/- 0.83 nmol/L vs. 0.28 +/- 0.07 nmol/L; 17beta-estradiol: 512.61 +/- 47.60 pmol/L vs. 77.05 +/- 14.00 pmol/L). Low 11beta-HSD reductive activity was found in boars (1 pmol steroid x min (-1) x mg (-1)). It decreased to trace amounts in immunized boars (0.07 pmol steroid x min (-1) x mg (-1)). Oxidative activity was found in boars with 10.19 +/- 2.28 pmol steroid x min (-1) x mg (-1) protein. Immunization led to a sharp decrease (0.08 +/- 0.03 pmol x min (-1) x mg (-1)). Infusion of 17beta-estradiol significantly elevated peripheral estradiol concentrations to 752.07 +/- 24.19 pmol/L which still is a physiological concentration in this species. The infusion led to a minimal reductive activity (0.04 pmol steroid x min (-1) x mg (-1)), but led to a 6-fold rise of the 11beta-HSD oxidative activity to 0.47 +/- 0.14 pmol x min (-1) x mg (-1) compared to immunized boars. It is concluded that the 11beta-HSD system is involved in the regulation of cortisol activity in the testis and thus in the regulation of spermatogenesis.


Carbon taxation is used by several countries to internalize the negative effects of carbon emissions to the emitters of carbon. In this article the effects of a carbon tax on an oligopolistic market of polluters are analyzed. With the help of a multi-criteria optimization model the optimal carbon tax rate is determined; first under certainty and then in presence of demand uncertainty. It is shown that demand uncertainty leads to a lower optimal carbon tax rate, while it simultaneously increases carbon emissions. Finally, the influence of a possible carbon emission reducing investment is analyzed with the help of a real option model.