UNLABELLED
Minimal research has examined whether the decline in physical activity (PA) among adolescent girls is associated with chronological age (CA) or biological age (BA).

PURPOSE
To describe the PA levels and perceived barriers to PA of adolescent girls grouped by school grade and maturity status (i.e., early or late maturing) within grades.

METHODS
Two hundred and twenty-one girls (aged 8-16 yr, grades 4-10) wore an Actical accelerometer for 7 d and then completed a semistructured, open-ended questionnaire on perceived barriers to PA over the 7-d period. Predicted age at peak height velocity and recalled age at menarche were used to assess maturity among the elementary and high school girls, respectively. Maturity and grade group differences in PA were assessed using a MANCOVA and independent sample t-test and barriers to PA using chi-squared statistics.

RESULTS
Daily minutes spent in moderate to vigorous PA decreased by 40% between grades 4 and 10. Within grade groupings, no differences in PA were found between early and late maturing girls (P > 0.05). Grades 4 to 6 participants cited more interpersonal (i.e., social) barriers. Grades 9 to 10 participants cited more institutional barriers to PA, primarily revolving around the institution of school. No differences were found in types of barriers reported between early and late maturing girls.

CONCLUSION
Because PA and types of perceived barriers to PA were dependent on grade, future research should work to identify the most salient (i.e., frequent and limiting) barriers to PA by CA in youth. Once reliably was identified, multipronged intervention strategies must be tested for effectiveness to help youth cope with their salient barriers.


Hollow fiber membranes with a multibore configuration have demonstrated their advantages with high mechanical strength, easy module fabrication, and excellent stability for membrane distillation (MD). In this work, the microstructure of multibore fibers was optimized for vacuum MD (VMD). A microstructure consisting of a tight liquid contact surface and a fully porous cross-section is proposed and fabricated to maximize the wetting resistance and VMD desalination performance. The new membrane exhibited a high VMD flux of 71.8 L m−2 h−1 with a 78°C model seawater feed. Investigations were also carried to examine various effects of VMD operational conditions on desalination performance. The 7-bore membrane showed higher flux and superior thermal efficiency under the VMD configuration than the direct contact MD configuration. Different from the traditional single-bore hollow fiber, the VMD flux of multibore membrane at the lumen-side feed configuration was higher than that of the shell-side feed due to the additional evaporation surface of multibore geometry. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 60: 1078–1090, 2014


Text generation is an important Natural Language Processing task with various applications. Although several metrics have already been introduced to evaluate the text generation methods, each of them has its own shortcomings. The most widely used metrics such as BLEU only consider the quality of generated sentences and neglecting their diversity. For example, repeatedly generation of only one high quality sentence would result in a high BLEU score. On the other hand, the more recent metric introduced to evaluate the diversity of generated texts known as Self-BLEU ignores the quality of generated texts. In this paper, we propose metrics to evaluate both the quality and diversity simultaneously by approximating the distance of the learned generative model and the real data distribution. For this purpose, we first introduce a metric that approximates this distance using n-gram based measures. Then, a feature-based measure which is based on a recent highly deep model trained on a large text corpus called BERT is introduced. Finally, for oracle training mode in which the generator's density can also be calculated, we propose to use the distance measures between the corresponding explicit distributions. Eventually, the most popular and recent text generation models are evaluated using both the existing and the proposed metrics and the preferences of the proposed metrics are determined.


Gas-liquid chromatogrophy was used to study the skin and sebum cutaneum of 6 male test subjects (aged 45-55) before and after 30-day enclosure. The greatest changes were seen in the composition of free fatty acids of lipids of the facial skin (increase of palmito-oleic acid). The lipid composition of the sebum cutaneum of the healthy subjects differed from that of the acne-bearing subjects. It is recommended to use the ratio of palmitic acid to palmito-oleic acid as a measure of changes of fatty acids in the sebum cutaneum of healthy people in an unusual environment.


In the design of cyber-physical systems (CPS) where multiple physical systems are coupled via a communication network, a key aspect is to study how network services are distributed. In this letter, we first describe a cross-layer model for CPS to explicitly capture the coupling between control and networking and the time-sensitive requirements of each physical system. Physical systems processes are coupled via a shared network that provides a diverse range of cost-prone and capacity-limited services with distinct latency characteristics. Service prices are given such that low latency services incur higher communication cost, and prices remain fixed over a constant period of time but will be adjusted by the network for the future time periods. Physical systems decide to use specific services over each time interval depending on the service prices and their own time sensitivity requirements. Considering the service availability, the network coordinates resource allocation such that physical systems are serviced the closest to their preferences. Performance of individual systems are measured by an expected quadratic cost and we formulate a social optimization problem subject to time-sensitive requirements of the physical systems and the network constraints. From the formulated social optimization problem, we derive the joint optimal time-sensitive control and service allocation policies.


With this issue, we introduce a new section of the journal, "Discussion," in which we shall publish contributions addressing timely concerns. All materials published here will be subject to peer review and assessment of factual accuracy. We invite readers to make submissions. Like the "Philologica," this section will appear on an occasional basis, when we have suitable material to publish. And as with the "Book Reviews" section, we shall post prepublication versions of these materials on the journal Web site. Also on the journal Web site, we have added a new section for "Letters to the Editor." We encourage your comments and will endeavor to post them in a timely fashion. Submissions for all materials and letters may be sent to email@example.com. The first set of contributions to this new section of the journal originated in an unsolicited manuscript by Professor Mark Anderson. The nature of the primary points of discussion and the required documentation led us to subject this submission to extra scrutiny, including blind review by multiple peers and review by the entire editorial board. The New York editorial and book review staff are especially grateful to board members for their guidance and direction in the evaluation of these materials. We are also grateful to Professor Julian Young and Mr. Daniel Blue for their participation and commentary. We believe that the materials are of special interest in the context of the philological and methodological issues raised in the current issue. Finally, this issue marks the last one for which Professor Paul S. Loeb will serve as book review editor. As readers will surely know, he has made tremendous contributions to the journal by raising the quantity and quality of the reviews we are able to publish. We are all truly in his debt for his service. I look forward to introducing our new book review editor in the next issue. Meanwhile, correspondence pertaining to reviews should be sent to the general editorial e-mail address: firstname.lastname@example.com.


Assessing an image-based text is a complex task that requires multiple dimensions of judgment. This is because the production process itself consists of a complex circle of interdependent relationships that is almost life-like. Can this complex process be prescribed and measured or is it in the eye of the beholder? This paper presents the results of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) funded Priority research project Assessing Graduate Screen Production Output in Nineteen Australian Film Schools.

The aim of the project was to show that assessment of image-based creative works is as consistent as assessment conducted in traditional discipline areas. Thirty (30) screen production academics from 22 institutions were tested using the same sample of 45 short Honours productions and a carefully selected set of 34 criteria. Creative works alone were assessed without any written components or exegeses. Rasch psychometric modeling was then used to test the internal consistency of the assessment data.

The results confirmed the hypothesis that screen production assessors are consistent and methodical with very little overall difference between 25 Australian assessors and 5 UK assessors. There was also little difference in the assessments of "objective" and "subjective" criteria which invites all kind of questions regarding the status of subjective and objective verification procedures within creative arts. Is this distinction still valid in the psychometric Google universe?


Rheumatic diseases occur frequently in women of childbearing years necessitating drug treatment also during a concurrent pregnancy in order to control maternal disease activity and to ensure a successful pregnancy outcome. This survey reviews maternal and fetal side effects of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) and immunosuppressive agents in pregnant patients. The classic nonselective nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are not teratogenic, but given in late pregnancy they can induce renal and cardiac side effects in the fetus. Similar effects must be expected of the new, selective Cox2-inhibitors. NSAID should therefore be stopped by gestational week 32. Corticosteroids are frequently necessary to control rheumatic disease flares and for prevention of serious organ manifestations. However, due to an increased risk of oral clefts, high doses (1-2 mg/kg) should be avoided in the first trimester. Among disease modifying drugs, sulfasalazine and antimalarials have the safest record. Cyclosporine and azathioprine can be given throughout pregnancy if disease control requires it. Insufficient data exist for treatment of pregnant patients with TNF-inhibitors and mycophenolate mofetil. The severity of the disease under treatment decides if continuation of one of these drugs is justified. Prophylactic withdrawal of drugs before pregnancy is mandatory for leflunomide and the cytotoxic agents methotrexate and cyclophosphamide. Prepregnancy counselling and careful monitoring during pregnancy help to tailor necessary drug treatment for the benefit of mother and child.


Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides non-invasive, repetitive measures in the same individual, allowing the study of a physio-pathological event over time. In this study, we tested the performance of 7 Tesla multi-parametric MRI to monitor the dynamic changes of mouse skeletal muscle injury and regeneration upon acute ischemia induced by femoral artery dissection. T2-mapping (T2 relaxation time), diffusion-tensor imaging (Fractional Anisotropy) and perfusion by Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI (K-trans) were measured and imaging results were correlated with histological morphometric analysis in both Gastrocnemius and Tibialis anterior muscles. We found that tissue damage positively correlated with T2-relaxation time, while myofiber regeneration and capillary density positively correlated with Fractional Anisotropy. Interestingly, K-trans positively correlated with capillary density. Accordingly, repeated MRI measurements between day 1 and day 28 after surgery in ischemic muscles showed that: 1) T2-relaxation time rapidly increased upon ischemia and then gradually declined, returning almost to basal level in the last phases of the regeneration process; 2) Fractional Anisotropy dropped upon ischemic damage induction and then recovered along with muscle regeneration and neoangiogenesis; 3) K-trans reached a minimum upon ischemia, then progressively recovered. Overall, Gastrocnemius and Tibialis anterior muscles displayed similar patterns of MRI parameters dynamic, with more marked responses and less variability in Tibialis anterior. We conclude that MRI provides quantitative information about both tissue damage after ischemia and the subsequent vascular and muscle regeneration, accounting for the differences between subjects and, within the same individual, between different muscles.


In Balinese architectural knowledge it is known that it has a fundamental conception that has long been applied to the realization of buildings and layout of Bali since long time ago. This conception is known as Panca Mahabhuta containing the doctrine of the five main elements of the universe or cosmos macro (Bali: bhuwana agung); human body or micro cosmos (Bali: bhuwana alit), and the realization of the architecture or the built environment which has mesocosmos scale. This kind of conception was also known in the classical cultures belong to other nations in the world, such as in China, India, Japan, and Greece. This brief article concerns with some issues about the conception of Panca Mahabhuta, namely: (a) definition, (b) philosophical background; (c) its relation to natural character; (d) its relation to elements of the human body, (e) to figures of the Five Pandawas, and (f) the application form to layout and the structure of Balinese buildings. This paper is based on the library research and observations in the field object by applying rationalistic paradigm and hermeneutic studies.


Tasks for general practitioners in this field are discussed in connection with a two-year follow up of a randomised community sample of 310 unemployed persons in Norway. This study supported both the selective and causative mechanisms for explaining high morbidity among the unemployed. Thus, medicine is faced with both clinical and preventive tasks. Unemployed patients must be cared for by proper somatic and/or psychiatric diagnosing. A sociomedical diagnosis of the main unemployment problem is suggested. Counselling should be an important part of the treatment of unemployed patients. General practitioners may be the only independent councellors of the many possibilities within the social security system. Secondary prevention may also be necessary to encourage passive unemployed patients to participate in activation programmes offered by the community (education, work opportunity programmes, sports, cultural activities, etc.). Primary prevention should help to avoid unemployment of more than three months' duration. Phycisians are encouraged to lobby such measures in their communities.


The interest for the sphenopalatine ganglion (SPG) in neurovascular headaches dates back to 1908 when Sluder presented his work on the role of the SPG in 'nasal headaches', which are now part of the trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias and cluster headache (ICHD-III-beta). Since then various interventions with blocking or lesional properties have targeted the SPG (transnasal injection of lidocaine and other agents, alcohol or steroid injections, radiofrequency lesions, or even ganglionectomy); success rates vary, but benefit is usually transient. Here we briefly review some anatomophysiological characteristics of the SPG and hypotheses about its pathophysiological role in neurovascular headaches before describing recent therapeutic results obtained with electrical stimulation of the SPG. Based on results of a prospective randomized controlled study, SPG stimulation appears to be an effective treatment option for patients with chronic cluster headaches; efficacy data indicate that acute electrical stimulation of the SPG provides significant attack pain relief and in many cases pain freedom compared to sham stimulation. Moreover, in some patients SPG stimulation has been associated with a significant and clinically meaningful reduction in cluster headache attack frequency; this preventive effect of SPG stimulation warrants further investigation. For migraine attacks, the outcome of a proof-of-concept study using a temporary electrode implanted in the pterygopalatine fossa was less encouraging; however, an ongoing multicenter trial is evaluating the efficacy of long-term SPG stimulation against sham stimulation for acute and preventive treatment in patients with frequent migraine.


SoHo users are increasingly faced with the dilemma of applying appropriate security mechanisms to their computer with little or no knowledge of which countermeasure will deal with which potential threat. As problematic as it may seem for individuals to apply appropriate safeguards, individuals with malicious intent are advancing methods by which malicious software may operate undetected on a target host. Previous research has identified that there are numerous ways in which malware may go undetected on a target workstation. This paper examines the quality of malware removal programs currently available on the market, which consumers may use whilst utilising the Internet. The research suggests that current anti-virus products, whilst able to detect most recently released malware, still fall short of eliminating the malware and returning the system to its original state. The paper does not compare or disclose potential flaws within each product; rather it depicts the current state of anti-virus products.


When using iontophoresis, the 'non-specific' vasodilatation (NSV) that is observed as a result of C-fibre excitation is generally attributed to the local accumulation of protons under the anode. NSV following prolonged 100-microA anodal current application only appears after the current is stopped. Break excitation alone does not explain the delayed onset of this vasodilatation. We hypothesised that this delay could result from an anodal block and thus, that a minimal intensity would be required to achieve hyperpolarisation of primary afferent fibres (mainly C-fibres). Using laser Doppler flowmetry, cutaneous blood flow was recorded in the forearms of 8 healthy volunteers 2 min before current application, during the application and 20 min after stopping the monopolar anodal current. In protocol 1, after 2.5 min of current application at an intensity of 100 microA, the intensity was abruptly decreased to 0-80 microA for a second 2.5-min period. The onset of vasodilatation was only delayed at intensities >30 microA during this second period. In protocol 2, re-application of the current after a 50-second interruption (expected to allow for the occurrence of an axon reflex) did not interfere with the onset of vasodilatation. Thus: (1) the minimal intensity interfering with the axon reflex is far lower than that reported for C-fibre blockade in isolated nerves; (2) the results suggest that current application does not directly interfere with the vasodilator mechanisms induced by the axon reflex at the level of smooth muscle cells.


Most scene graph parsers use a two-stage pipeline to detect visual relationships: the first stage detects entities, and the second predicts the predicate for each entity pair using a softmax distribution. We find that such pipelines, trained with only a cross entropy loss over predicate classes, suffer from two common errors. The first, Entity Instance Confusion, occurs when the model confuses multiple instances of the same type of entity (e.g. multiple cups). The second, Proximal Relationship Ambiguity, arises when multiple subject-predicate-object triplets appear in close proximity with the same predicate, and the model struggles to infer the correct subject-object pairings (e.g. mis-pairing musicians and their instruments). We propose a set of contrastive loss formulations that specifically target these types of errors within the scene graph parsing problem, collectively termed the Graphical Contrastive Losses. These losses explicitly force the model to disambiguate related and unrelated instances through margin constraints specific to each type of confusion. We further construct a relationship detector, called RelDN, using the aforementioned pipeline to demonstrate the efficacy of our proposed losses. Our model outperforms the winning method of the OpenImages Relationship Detection Challenge by 4.7\% (16.5\% relatively) on the test set. We also show improved results over the best previous methods on the Visual Genome and Visual Relationship Detection datasets.


Malaria is a major cause of infant and child mortality in Africa. Bednets are currently the best means of protection, especially those treated with insecticide. However, untreated bednets offer no protection if they have five or more finger-sized holes, are not long enough to be tucked in under the mattress or are badly torn. Despite the long tradition of using bednets in The Gambia, around 42% of nets in rural Gambia are in poor condition or used incorrectly (Clarke et al, 2001). This six month study (July to December 2002) set out to examine whether villagers could be encouraged to change their behaviour and repair holes in and use their bednets correctly through an intervention developed through community participation. Through focus group discussions and interviews, culturally compelling interventions developed were health education songs composed and sung by the villagers with complementary posters displayed in the two study villages. The songs were recorded on cassette tapes and were sung at formal and informal village gatherings. The success of this intervention was quantified by bednet surveys, where the condition of 554 nets was recorded before and after the intervention. To measure the impact of people's behaviour, mosquitoes were collected from under bednets, pre and post intervention, and general mosquito levels were monitored throughout the study using light traps. Data analysis showed a significant increase in the proportion of repairs post intervention compared to pre-intervention (paired T-Test, P=<;0.001). However, the overall number of holes remained the same due to constant wear and tear of the bednets and so there was not a significant reduction in exposure to mosquitoes. Nevertheless, these results show encouraging signs of enabling a behaviour change towards improving existing bednets using participatory methods.


During the last few years, there is an increasing interest in mixing software and hardware to serve efficiently different applications. This is due to the heterogeneity characterizing the tasks of an application which require the presence of resources from both worlds, software and hardware. Controlling effectively these resources through an integrated tool flow is a challenging problem and towards this direction only a few efforts exist. In fact, a framework that seamlessly exploits both resources of a platform for executing efficiently an application has not yet come into existence. Moreover, reconfigurable computing often incorporated in such platforms due to its high flexibility and customization, has not yet taken off due to the lack of exploiting its full capabilities. Thus, the capability of reconfigurable devices such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) to be dynamically reconfigured, i.e. reprogramming part of the chip while other parts of the same chip remain functional, has not yet taken off even in small-scale basis. The inherent difficulty in using the tools to control this technology has kept it back from being adopted by academia and industry alike. The FASTER (Facilitating Analysis and Synthesis Technologies for Effective Reconfiguration) project aims at introducing a design methodology and a tool flow that will enable designers to implement effectively and easily a system specification on a platform combining software and reconfigurable resources. The FASTER framework accepts as input a high-level description of the application and the architectural details of the target platform, and through certain steps it can enable the full use of the capabilities of the platform, while at the same time it should be flexible enough so as to balance efficiently performance, power and area. One of the main novelties is the incorporation of partial reconfiguration as an explicit design concept at an early stage of the design flow. We target different applications from the embedded, desktop and high-performance computing domains. In all cases we will demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework in exploiting the inherent parallelism of applications and enabling the runtime adaptation of the platforms to the changing needs of the applications.


Background: The motor innervation of the lower orbicularis oculi has not been clearly established. There is a discrepancy between anatomical descriptions and clinical outcomes of the motor innervation of the pretarsal orbicularis oculi muscle. Therefore, the purposes of this study were to identify every motor and sensory nerve of the lower eyelid, and to reveal the detailed motor nerve pathways toward the medial canthal area. Methods: Fresh cadaver dissections were performed on 50 hemifaces under a surgical microscope. Submuscular and intramuscular nerves of the lower eyelid were identified, and the pathways of facial nerves that ran toward the medial canthus were traced. Results: Vertical submuscular nerves at the lower eyelid originated from the infraorbital foramen, indicating that all were sensory nerves. The zygomatic branch of the facial nerve traveled obliquely through the anterior cheek and supplied the orbicularis oculi of the lower eyelid and the medial portion of the upper eyelid. Its route was defined as a clinically useful line, the medial orbicularis motor line. In addition, the nerve innervating the pretarsal orbicularis oculi arose at the superomedial preseptal area and extended horizontally and laterally. Interestingly, the angular nerve appeared not to innervate the palpebral orbicularis oculi. Conclusions: In the lower eyelid, the vertical sensory and the oblique motor nerve supplies are independent and clearly distinguished in aspect of their own routes. The medial orbicularis motor line represents the motor route to the medial portion of the orbicularis oculi. These results might provide valuable knowledge about surgical anatomy for safe lower blepharoplasty with or without midface lift.


A general framework for expanding the time-domain passivity control approach, to large classes of control systems is proposed. We show that large classes of control systems can be described from a network point of view. Based on the network presentation, the large classes of control systems are analyzed in a unified framework. In this unified network model, we define "virtual input energy", which is a virtual source of energy for control, and "real output energy" that is physically transferred to a plant to allow the concept of passivity to be used to study the stability of large classes of control systems. For guaranteeing the stability condition, the time-domain passivity controller for two-port is applied. Design procedure is demonstrated for a motion control system. The developed method is tested with numerical simulation in the regulation of a single link flexible manipulator. Totally stable control is achieved under wide variety of operating condition and uncertainties without any model information.


A pandeid hydrozoan new to California, Amphinema sp., was collected in 1998 as a hydroid living on the non-indigenous bryozoan, Watersipora subtorquata , attached to floats in Bodega Harbor 80 km north of San Francisco Bay. The hydroid was cultured in the laboratory and medusae it released were raised to maturity. No species name could be assigned because although the hydroid colony structure and morphology of the polyp most closely resemble descriptions of Amphinema rugosum, the immature and adult medusae best resemble A. dinema. These two described species are known from widely-spaced locations worldwide including Europe (British Isles and the Mediterranean), New England, the Caribbean, east Africa, India, Japan and China, implying that they may transport easily between sites by man´s activities. Such wide-spread distributions of both species, coupled with the notable absence of Amphinema sp. from Bodega Harbor during a number of previous field surveys in the 1970´s, strongly intimates that Amphinema sp. has been introduced from elsewhere into Bodega Harbor during the past 25 years. Two additional species of Amphinema medusae present on the west coast of North America are discussed.


A transient thermal analysis was performed on the Motorola Automotive and Industrial Electronics Group (AIEG) electronic module to determine the maximum temperatures of a bare transistor die during cyclic electrical loading. The Icepak computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software was used to model system level transient thermal behaviour. An initial steady state full CFD model was solved for mass, momentum, and energy based on Navier-Stokes and energy equations using the finite volume method. Heat transfer coefficients were obtained from object surfaces in contact with the convective fluid and plotted as a linear function of wall temperature for various power dissipation levels. A model with a reduced meshed region of 1/6 of the full CFD model was developed. This model incorporates heat transfer coefficients, determined from full CFD steady state runs at various power dissipation levels, as boundary conditions on the walls of the computational domain coincident to the outer surfaces of the solid model and solves only for the energy equation. The heat transfer coefficient is input as a linear function of the wall temperature. The simplified heat transfer coefficient model can be accurately used to solve transient thermal analysis problems for various duty cycles. It reduces computation time by a factor of 10 relative to the full CFD model.


The objective of this study was to assess the effect of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection on graft and patient survival in a cohort of Libyan renal transplant recipients. Medical records of 241 renal transplant (RT) patients who have been followed-up at the Benghazi Nephrology Center up to February 2010 were reviewed. Based on the presence or absence of anti-HCV antibodies and HCV-RNA in the serum, patients were divided into two groups: HCV-positives and HCV-negatives. Anti-HCV antibodies were detected by the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay technique and HCV-RNA by the polymerase chain reaction. Of the 241 RT patients, 162 were male and 79 were female. One hundred and ten patients (45.6%) were HCV-positives and 131 (54.4%) were HCV-negatives. Acute graft rejection was significantly higher among HCV-negative than HCV-positive patients (42 patients versus 28 patients, respectively; P<0.001). Conversely, chronic graft rejection was higher among HCV-positives than that among HCV-negative patients (35 patients versus 24 patients, respectively; P<0.05), and this difference became more significant after a 12-month period of transplantation (P<0.01). Seventeen patients died during the follow-up: Seven HCV-positives (6.3%) and 10 HCV-negatives (7.6%), and there was no significant difference in the death rate following RT between the two groups (P=0.08). Among the seven deaths of HCV-positives, liver disease-related complications were the main cause of death in three (42.8%) HCV-positive patients compared with none in the HCV-negative patients. The presence of HCV infection influenced chronic graft survival in RT patients and a higher proportion of HCV-infected patients had hepatic dysfunctions after RT. An increase in fatal liver complications was noted in HCV-positive patients with RT. In addition to pre-RT-specific therapy of HCV infection, all measures should be taken to prevent HCV infection pre- and post-RT. HCV-infected RT recipients need close monitoring for graft and liver function to prolong allograft and patient survival.


A 71-year old man presented with a progressive chronic paraparesis combined with inflammatory biological features including hypereosinophilia and an aneurysm of the abdominal aorta. Disseminated cholesterol embolization of arterioles was evidenced by the identification of cholesterol crystals in biopsies of the quadriceps muscle and of an iliac lymph node. Despite the lack of post mortem study of the spinal cord, the presentation was highly suggestive of cholesterol emboli in the spinal arteries. Only ten documented cases have been reported.


BACKGROUND
Protective effect of pretreatment with ghrelin against different forms of acute pancreatitis (AP) has been recently reported. Moreover, the healing properties of this peptide have been proved in AP evoked by cerulein. However, no studies have investigated whether the administration of ghrelin affects the course of ischemia/reperfusion-induced AP.

AIM
The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of ghrelin therapy on the course of necrotizing inflammation of the pancreas and to test its impact on peroxidation of lipids and antioxidant defense system in the acutely inflamed pancreas.

METHODS
Acute inflammation of the pancreas was triggered by pancreatic ischemia which was then followed by reperfusion of the gland. Ghrelin (8 nmol/kg/dose) was administered to intraperitoneally twice daily, 24h after the initiation of AP. The impact of ghrelin on the course of necrotizing pancreatitis was evaluated between 1 and 21 days, and involved histological, functional, and biochemical analyses.

RESULTS
Treatment with ghrelin ameliorated morphological signs of pancreatic damage including edema, acinar cells vacuolization, hemorrhages, acinar necrosis, leukocytic infiltration of the gland, and led to its earlier regeneration. These effects were accompanied by an improvement in pancreatic blood flow, enhanced DNA synthesis, reduced serum level of pro- inflammatory interleukin-1β, decreased levels of malondialdehyde and an enhanced superoxide dismutase activity in pancreatic tissue.

CONCLUSIONS
Ghrelin exerts a pronounced therapeutic effect against ischemia-reperfusion-induced pancreatitis. The mechanisms involved are likely multifactorial and are mediated by its anti-inflammatory, as well as anti-oxidative properties.


Conventional biomass plants for electric power generation are not effective in terms of system performance. A gasification plant integrated with SOFC and steam cycle has been studied; calculations have proved a significant increase of plant efficiency. Simulations have been run by means of DNA (Dynamic Network Analysis) a component-based simulation tool for energy systems analysis developed at the Thermal Energy Systems department (DTU).
 Two different plant configurations have been studied. In the first no hybrid recuperation is considered; efficiency is 47.74%. Second configuration (hybrid recuperation) shows a significant increase in terms of performance (53.09%). Optimized system is also analyzed; efficiency is up to 57%. Alternatively steam cycle is replaced by a Kalina cycle; ammonia-water mixture has been added as a new fluid inside DNA library. Plant efficiency for optimized system is 52.53%. It has been concluded that better solution is to integrate woodchips gasification and SOFC with a steam cycle (higher efficiency).
 This solution has also been investigated by means of thermoeconomic analysis; simulations have been run with EES (Engineering Equations Solver).
 Equations allow also to calculate plant exergy losses; major sources of inefficiency are: gasifier, cathode preheater and burner. An exergetic efficiency of 50% is calculated. With a woodchips price of 165 [€/ton], a price of electricity of 0.40 [€/kWh] is obtained. Future price of SOFC is supposed to decrease by lowering SOFC operating temperature: with a purchase cost of 300 [€/kW] price of electricity is around 0.19 [€/kWh].
 The analyzed plant is proved to be theoretically feasible by an energetic and thermoeconomic point of view.


The psychoanalytic and social constructionist perspectives on work place emotion are often presented as conflicting with one another, due to differing assumptions and mistrust about the tenets of the other. In particular, social constructionist approaches have emphasized the public aspects, cultural specificity, and language-mediated qualities of emotional displays. Psychoanalytic approaches, by contrast, have explored the prelinguistic, unconscious and private dimensions of emotions. My doctoral thesis addresses these tensions and seeks to bring these models closer together, to enrich understanding of emotion in organisations. To pursue this research, I conducted interviews with workers in Chennai and Delhi, India. I chose India as my place of fieldwork, because of its diversity and rich emotional landscape, which naturally provide useful resources to examine emotion from more than one perspective. The history of psychoanalysis in India provides unique examples for how to overcome obstacles of juxtaposing these two ways of conceptualising emotion. Furthermore, the emotional landscapes the researcher encounters in India are both very similar and also different from the West, raising unique challenges in understanding and analysing the emotional experiences of working life. Most existing research on emotion in organisations has focused on Western settings, but a multicultural approach may be more relevant to organisational settings today, in which people from different cultures meet in many work spaces. In this paper, I will discuss findings from my study illustrating different ways to overcome points of conflict, such as demonstrating how one approach addresses the limitations of the other. Intertwining culture and unconscious processes will further demonstrate how the tensions can be resolved to strengthen significantly analysis of emotion at work. Moreover, I will provide support for instances in which psychoanalytic interpretations provide depth of understanding beyond what social constructionist approaches alone can reveal about the emotional experiences of organisational members.


Abstract The Belgian Material Test Reactor BR2 is a strongly heterogeneous high-flux engineering test reactor at SCK-CEN (Centre d'Etude de l'Energie Nucléaire) in Mol with a thermal power of 60 to 100 MW. It deploys highly enriched uranium, water-cooled concentric plate fuel elements, positioned inside a beryllium reflector with a complex hyperboloid arrangement of test holes. The objective of this paper is to validate the MCNP&ORIGEN-S three-dimensional (3-D) model for reactivity predictions of the entire BR2 core during reactor operation. We employ the Monte Carlo code MCNP-4C to evaluate the effective multiplication factor keff and 3-D space-dependent specific power distribution. The one-dimensional code ORIGEN-S is used to calculate the isotopic fuel depletion versus burnup and to prepare a database with depleted fuel compositions. The approach taken is to evaluate the 3-D power distribution at each time step and along with the database to evaluate the 3-D isotopic fuel depletion at the next step and to deduce the corresponding shim rod positions of the reactor operation. The capabilities of both codes are fully exploited without constraints on the number of involved isotope depletion chains or an increase of the computational time. The reactor has a complex operation, with important shutdowns between cycles, and its reactivity is strongly influenced by poisons, mainly 3He and 6Li from the beryllium reflector, and the burnable absorbers 149Sm and 10B in the fresh UAlx fuel. The computational predictions for the shim rod positions at various restarts are within 0.5 $ (βeff = 0.0072).


It is often thought that judgments about what we ought to do are limited by judgments about what we can do, or that "ought implies can." We conducted eight experiments to test the link between a range of moral requirements and abilities in ordinary moral evaluations. Moral obligations were repeatedly attributed in tandem with inability, regardless of the type (Experiments 1–3), temporal duration (Experiment 5), or scope (Experiment 6) of inability. This pattern was consistently observed using a variety of moral vocabulary to probe moral judgments and was insensitive to different levels of seriousness for the consequences of inaction (Experiment 4). Judgments about moral obligation were no different for individuals who can or cannot perform physical actions, and these judgments differed from evaluations of a non-moral obligation (Experiment 7). Together these results demonstrate that commonsense morality rejects the "ought implies can" principle for moral requirements, and that judgments about moral obligation are made independently of considerations about ability. By contrast, judgments of blame were highly sensitive to considerations about ability (Experiment 8), which suggests that commonsense morality might accept a "blame implies can" principle.


In 1990, the FBI entered Sturges's studio and seized his work, claiming violation of child pornography laws. Citizens, artists, and the media responded with outrage. "With The Last Day of Summer," Aperture accords Sturges's vision the dignity and respect it so richly deserves."In the 58 images of this handsome... monograph, Sturges sustains a delicate balance on a very precarious wire... His struggle is to observe and render his subjects in all of their complexities, trembling on the cusp of change. The result of this long-term, communal effort is one of the most clear-eyed, responsible investigations of puberty and the emergence of sexuality in the medium's history, making a metaphor of the metamorphosis from child to adult." --A. D. Coleman, "The New York Observer"


In this review we have attempted a synthesis of ideas from cross-bridge theories of muscle contraction with biochemical mechanisms of the actomyosin ATPase. This synthesis of ideas has been based on experimental approaches that permit mechanical and biochemical investigations on the same system. We have formulated an example of how biochemical processes may be influenced by strain in the cross-bridge and have highlighted how much has yet to be learned about the biochemistry (and protein structure) of the working stroke of the cross-bridge. Processes that do not appear to be related to the working stroke such as ATP-induced dissociation of actomyosin or protein-bound ATP hydrolysis appear to be similar kinetically in fibers and isolated actomyosin. But, as might be expected, this is not the case in those processes that involve force production and the performance of mechanical work. There appears to be a sound base from which the mechanochemistry of individual processes within the cross-bridge cycle can be analyzed in detail. There is a need for the development of spectroscopic techniques, particularly those that might detect the rate of Pi and ADP dissociation from cross-bridges into the medium. The combination of pulse photolysis of caged ATP and time-resolved structure analysis by use of synchrotron radiation (53) should lead to better understanding of the structure of cross-bridge states in relation to the chemistry and mechanics of transient intermediates.


A Thesis submitted to the Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Master of Science in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology of Makerere University


There are five taxa of tribosphenic mammals in the Early Cretaceous Antlers Formation of Texas and Oklahoma, USA: a basal stem therian (Kermackia texana), stem therians near the eutherian-metatherian dichotomy (Holoclemensia texana and Pappotherium pattersoni), and stem marsupials (Atokatheridium boreni and Oklatheridium szalayi). K. texana has a primitive therian postcanine formula with three molars, replacement of p5, M3 with low protocone and no conules, lower molars with a large trigonid angle, oblique protocristid, paraconid smaller than metaconid (except m3), strong distal metacristid, narrow talonid, small talonid basin, and small entoconid (absent on m3). H. texana also has replacement in the fifth premolar locus and three molars. It is more derived in having a larger protoconal region with higher protocone and conules present, lack of distal metacristid, smaller trigonid angle, transverse protocristid, and wide talonid with larger talonid basin. It is similar to Eutheria by having M1 with reduced ectoflexus, semimolariform p5, and low trigonid angle with transverse protocristid. Holoclemensia cannot be referred to Eutheria because of the lack of the second rank postvallum/prevallid shear and unwinged conules. P. pattersoni (=Slaughteria eruptens) has replacement in the fifth premolar position, premolariform p5, and three molars (symplesiomorphies for Theria). It is more derived than Holoclemensia in having a wider and shorter talonid. Pappotherium is similar to Eutheria in having a low trigonid angle, transverse protocristid, and the cristid obliqua labial to the protocristid notch. It cannot be attributed to the Eutheria because of the narrow protoconal region, low protocone, small conules lacking internal cristae, postprotocrista not extending labially past the metacone base, and a small talonid basin. Atokatheridium boreni and Oklatheridium szalayi (=O. minax, syn. nov.) have four molars and emphasis on the postvallum/prevallid shear (large metacone on M2, strong postmetacrista, paraconid higher than metaconid). These taxa cannot be attributed to the Deltatheroida because of large protoconal region with winged conules. Oklatheridium is further different from the Deltatheroida in having a wider talonid and better developed entoconid.


Detailed protocols are provided for titering and isolating bacterial colonies by serial dilutions, or alternatively by streaking or spreading a plate. Support protocols describe replica plating as well as methods for storing strains as agar stabs or frozen glycerol stocks.


Let $f_1$ and $f_2$ be rational maps with Julia sets $J_1$ and $J_2$, and let $\Psi:J_1\to \mathbb{P}^1$ be any continuous map such that $\Psi\circ f_1=f_2\circ \Psi$ on $J_1$. We show that if $\Psi$ is $\mathbb{C}$-differentiable, with non-vanishing derivative, at some repelling periodic point $z_1\in J_1$, then $\Psi$ admits an analytic extension to $\mathbb{P}^1\setminus {\mathcal E}_1$, where ${\mathcal E}_1$ is the exceptional set of $f_1$. Moreover, this extension is a semiconjugacy. This generalizes a result of Julia (Ann. Sci. École Norm. Sup. (3) 40 (1923), 97–150). Furthermore, if ${\mathcal E}_1=\emptyset$ then the extended map $\Psi$ is rational, and in this situation $\Psi(J_1)=J_2$ and $\Psi^{-1}(J_2)=J_1$, provided that $\Psi$ is not constant. On the other hand, if ${\mathcal E}_1\neq \emptyset$ then the extended map may be transcendental: for example, when $f_1$ is a power map (conjugate to $z\mapsto z^{\pm d}$) or a Chebyshev map (conjugate to $\pm \text{Х}_d$ with $\text{Х}_d(z+z^{-1}) = z^d+z^{-d}$), and when $f_2$ is an integral Lattès example (a quotient of the multiplication by an integer on a torus). Eremenko (Algebra i Analiz1(4) (1989), 102–116) proved that these are the only such examples. We present a new proof.


Acute illness in older adults that results in hospitalisation can trigger deconditioning and functional decline. Several risk factors, in addition to prolonged bed-rest, account for hospital-associated deconditioning (HAD). Evidence indicates that an integrated, multi-component approach to addressing co-existing risk factors may reduce HAD syndromes as well as hospital length of stay. This approach would include reducing sedentary behaviour, educating and supporting patients to be more mobile, and modifying the hospital environment to facilitate activities based around socialising. Our attached poster summarises the four areas to be addressed in future work: Physical activity. Eating drinking and continence. Promoting recovery. Predictors and measures.


The competition in sports equipment and sports fashion today is fierce. And as e-commerce grows, the competing players has to remain accessible and usable regard-less of the device their customers visit the website on. Stadium is Swedens biggest player on the market and puts a lot of effort on their online activity. Something Stadium found interesting was the possibility of introducing elements that would increase the conversion rates directly into the product menu. This study explores the possibility to find a responsive solution for the product menu at Stadiums' e-commerce website which could contribute to increased conversion rates.The study is built upon an experiment and the foundations of the experiment is based upon a market analysis of used design patterns for product navigation in the domain of sport resellers. Added to that, theories of usability and sales aspects, Stadiums own point of view, and known design patterns, have all contributed to the birth of a responsive product navigation concept. What started as sketches first evolved into three high fidelity design solutions (one for desktop devices, one for tablet devices, and one for smartphone devices) and then into working prototypes. The prototypes were tested by multiple users, following a set of tasks. The results was then compared with the same tasks conducted at Stadiums current website.The theories we have found clearly indicate that a good user experience greatly affects the potential for higher conversion rates and also increase the possibility of a higher customer loyalty towards the brand. Stadiums' philosophy is focused on the product range and to show the products as the hero of the brand. The user testing conducted showed that the design solutions made by us didn't meet the standard of the current Stadium product navigation. The statistics from the tests is spraw-ling and the lack of completness within the prototype shined through. Despite the sprawling results, the study concludes in a design solution that can act as a starting point for further investigations to find the best possible solution.


Background : Resveratrol, a plant polyphenol existing in grapes and many other natural foods, possesses a wide range of biological activities including cancer prevention. It has been recognized that resveratrol is intracellularly biotransformed to different metabolites, but no direct evidence has been available to ascertain its bioactive form because of the difficulty to maintain resveratrol unmetabolized in vivo or in vitro. It would be therefore worthwhile to elucidate the potential therapeutic implications of resveratrol metabolism using a reliable resveratrol-sensitive cancer cells. Objective : To identify the real biological form of trans-resveratrol and to evaluate the safety of the effective anticancer dose of resveratrol for the normal brain cells. Methods : The samples were prepared from the condition media and cell lysates of human glioblastoma U251 cells, and were purified by solid phase extraction (SPE). The samples were subjected to high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS) analysis. According to the metabolite(s), trans-resveratrol was biotransformed in vitro by the method described elsewhere, and the resulting solution was used to treat U251 cells. Meanwhile, the responses of U251 and primarily cultured rat normal brain cells (glial cells and neurons) to 100μM trans-resveratrol were evaluated by multiple experimental methods. Results : The results revealed that resveratrol monosulfate was the major metabolite in U251 cells. About half fraction of resveratrol monosulfate was prepared in vitro and this trans-resveratrol and resveratrol monosulfate mixture showed little inhibitory effect on U251 cells. It is also found that rat primary brain cells (PBCs) not only resist 100μM but also tolerate as high as 200μM resveratrol treatment. Conclusions : Our study thus demonstrated that trans-resveratrol was the bioactive form in glioblastoma cells and, therefore, the biotransforming activity of trans-resveratrol would be reversely correlated with the chemosensitivity of the treated cells. The findings from PBCs suggest that an effective anti-glioblastoma dose of resveratrol may not exert side-effect on normal brain cells, providing a strong evidence for practical use of resveratrol in the management of human brain malignancies. Key words : Resveratrol, glioblastoma, drug metabolism


Background:  Previous cross-sectional research has identified that the desire to lose weight is prevalent amongst young people (McCabe & Ricciardelli, 2003; McCabe & Ricciardelli, 2005). What is less well understood is the extent to which these young people are justified in their desire to lose weight. It is thought that increasing weight-loss desires are justified by increasing obesity rates. Identifying those young people with appropriate, excessive and insufficient concerns is important because of the differing needs and public health approaches that these groups will require. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the prevalence of weight-loss desires amongst adolescents between 1997 and 2006 and to identify changes in the appropriateness of these weight-related attitudes.

Methods:  Data were collected by the School Health Education Unit annually over 10 years using a self-completed survey (further information on data collection is available at http://www.sheu.org.uk) providing a sample of 243 206 young people. The survey assessed weight-related desires ('I would like to put on weight', 'I am happy with my weight as it is' and 'I would like to lose weight') and self-reported height and weight. Body mass index (BMI) was calculated and participants were categorised as underweight, overweight and obese. Participants were classified as having: (i) weight-related desires appropriate to their bodyweight (e.g. a healthy bodyweight and happy with their weight or overweight and wanting to lose weight); (ii) insufficient concerns (e.g. overweight but happy with their weight); or (iii) excessive concerns (e.g. a healthy bodyweight but wanting to lose weight). All data were analysed using SPSS, version 15 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Trends for weight-loss desires and appropriate and inappropriate concerns were displayed graphically by year, gender and ethnicity, factors discovered to independently affect a person's weight-related desire. 'Standard error of proportions' identified significant changes.

Results:  Weight loss desires are higher in females than in 14–15-year-old males. Weight loss desires are more prevalent in 12–13-year-old males than those in Year 10; however, the reverse is true for females. In each year throughout the last decade, boys were significantly more likely to have weight-related desires appropriate for their weight classification compared to girls. Excessive concern about being overweight was consistently most prevalent among girls. Older girls (14–15 years) were consistently more likely to have excessive concerns compared to younger girls (12–13 years). However, the proportion of older girls with excessive concerns decreased slightly over the 10-year period, whereas the proportion of younger girls with excessive concerns increased slightly. The above observations were consistent across all ethnicities.

Discussion:  Although the expected patterns in weight-loss desires were not found, the study demonstrates that many young people in the UK do not have weight-related desires that are appropriate for their bodyweight. Although previous cross-sectional research (McCreary & Sasse, 2000; McCabe & Ricciardelli, 2003) has demonstrated that older females have a greater prevalence of excessive concern, it is encouraging to observe that this has slightly decreased over the past 10 years. What previous studies have been unable to demonstrate are the rises in excessive concern amongst younger girls, suggesting the possibility for a novel target audience for health promotion campaigns.

Conclusions:  Inappropriate concern, particularly excessive concern, is consistently found throughout the last 10 years in the UK population of young people. It is important to acknowledge that young people are not a homogenous group but have differing beliefs and needs regards health promotion, and that people who want to lose weight, despite not needing to, do not need their concerns reinforced.

References  McCabe, M.P. & Ricciardelli, L.A. (2003) Sociocultural influences on body image and body change strategies among adolescent boys and girls. J. Soc. Psychol.143, 5–26.

McCabe, M.P. & Ricciardelli, L.A. (2005) A longitudinal study of body image and strategies to lose weight and increase muslces among children. Appl. Dev. Psychol.26, 559–577.

McCreary, D.R. & Sasse, D.K. (2000) An exploration of the drive for muscularity in adolescent boys and girls. J. Am. Coll. Health48, 297–304.


The rootstock had a significant impact on the quantity and quality of grapes of the varieties grafted on it. That had been determined by the different growth strength of the rootstocks, their different absorption capacity and compatibility with the cultivated vine. During the period 2017-2020, a study was carried out on the agrobiological and technological properties of grapes and wine of the Kaylashki Rubin variety, grafted on vine rootstocks SО4, 110 Rihter, 44-53 Malegue and Fercal. Differences in the investigated indicators were found as a result of the influence of the used rootstocks. A mechanical analysis was made to determine the composition and structure of the clusters and berries. For the period, the highest average yield per vine was reported for Fercal rootstock, while the best theoretical yield had the variant on 44-53 Malegue rootstock. The chemical composition of grapes and experimental wines had been determined. On the average for the period the highest sugar accumulation and respectively the lowest titratable acids in grapes were reported in the variant of 44-53 Malegue rootstock. The opposite relationship was observed for 110 Richter. Differences in the chemical composition of the wines depending on the used rootstocks were found. The wines from 44-53 Malegue variant had the highest average alcohol content and sugar-free extract, but the lowest rates of titratable acids. The average amounts of the total phenolic compounds and anthocyanins in the wines from the variants of the different rootstocks were close. Their values were the lowest in the samples 2017 vintage. The rootstock type also affected the organoleptic properties of the Kaylashki Rubin wines; however, there was no common trend for the studied period. In 2018 and 2020, the samples from the 110 Rihter variant showed the best tasting qualities.


Corporate research centers, universities, power equipment vendors, end users, and other market participants around the world are beginning to explore and consider the use of dc in future transmission and distribution system applications. Recent developments and trends in electric power consumption indicate an increasing use of dc-based power and constant power loads. In addition, growth in renewable energy resources requires dc interfaces for optimal integration. A strong case is being made for intermeshed ac and dc networks, with new concepts emerging at the medium-voltage (MV) level for MV dc infrastructure developments.


We examine immigrant entrepreneurship and the survival and growth of immigrant-founded businesses over time relative to native-founded companies. Our work quantifies immigrant contributions to new firm creation in a wide variety of fields and using multiple definitions. While significant research effort has gone into understanding the economic impact of immigration into the United States, comprehensive data for quantifying immigrant entrepreneurship are difficult to assemble. We combine several restricted-access U.S. Census Bureau data sets to create a unique longitudinal data platform that covers 1992-2008 and many states. We describe differences in the types of businesses initially formed by immigrants and their medium-term growth patterns. We also consider the relationship of these outcomes to the immigrants' age at arrival to the United States.


This paper presents a novel discriminative training criterion, minimum word classification error (MWCE). By localizing conventional string-level MCE loss function to word-level, a more direct measure of empirical word classification error is approximated and minimized. Because the word-level criterion better matches performance evaluation criteria such as WER, an improved word recognition performance can be achieved. We evaluated and compared MWCE criterion in a unified DT framework, with other commonly-used criteria including MCE, MMI, MWE, and MPE. Experiments on TIMIT and WS JO evaluation tasks suggest that word-level MWCE criterion can achieve consistently better results than string-level MCE. MWCE even outperforms other substring-level criteria on the above two tasks, including MWE and MPE.


Research data occurs in all scientific experiments, computer simulations, observations or as a derivation from other datasets, literature or publications. As a subset of the general concept of digital data, it is classified through its distinct state and its origin. Enriched with descriptive metadata, research data serves as a foundation for discoveries and publishing results in various formats. For citing and linking specific research datasets and publications, unique and persistent identification is necessary. Today, this is realized by Persistent Identifier (PID) systems that provide stable identification for digital entities and an optional annotation by descriptive metadata. Moreover, PID systems abstract the current network location of data in order to anticipate changes in its network location, owed to alternating Uniform Resource Locators (URL) on the World Wide Web (WWW). Applying these concepts, PID systems have tagged billions of research datasets and publications over the past 20 years.

On these foundations, the Handle PID system, known from the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) system, provides reliable access to digital publications and research data to the whole scientific community. While the architecture of the Handle system itself, which depends on fixed network locations, was designed with farsightedness, additional end-user services for PID resolution and management have introduced critical weak spots that can be discovered by comprehensively reviewing the current state-of-the-art.

This thesis focuses on the adaption of location-independent network paradigms which have shown encouraging results when applied to several problems in the domain of decentralized network infrastructures in PID systems. Our first approaches aim at evolving the Handle system design into a self-adjusting system for all major infrastructure services that does not depend on fixed network locations. We tackle this by incorporating strategies and techniques from location-independent network paradigms originating from the current research branch of Named Data Networking (NDN). By this, major weak spots can be eliminated in the Handle PID system and it becomes robust against core infrastructure outages, sudden network topology changes, packet loss and heavy load situations. The second goal of the thesis is the integration of next generation data dissemination technologies based on location-independent network paradigms into the domain of persistent identifier systems. Therefore, we propose to employ the Handle system for citing research datasets which are disseminated by location-independent technologies based on BitTorrent and NDN. To tackle the trust challenges of dynamic data locations, we create a novel approach for trusted data dissemination in location-independent networks that ensures the authenticity of data as well as the attribution to data issuers. This is done by incorporating the foundations of the Handle PID system and a further format for exchanging complex access information in PIDs.


The interaction of feeding by a grass bug, Irbisia pacifica (Uhler), and drought stress on growth of Great Basin wildrye, Leymus cinereus (Scrib. &Merr.) Love, and intermediate wheatgrass, Thinopyrum intermedium (Host) Barkw. &D. R. Dewey, was studied in the greenhouse. At peak production, control plants of Great Basin wildrye had more than twice as much green leaf area per tiller than bug-infested ones, and intermediate wheatgrass controls had three times as much as the bug-infested plants. Total leaf area of control plants also exceeded that of bug-infested plants. Watered plants of both species recovered very little after bugs were removed. Drought conditions augmented the reduction in green leaf area on previously bug-infested plants of Great Basin wildrye but not on previously infested intermediate wheatgrass plants. Thus, when plants were well watered, bug feeding affected growth of intermediate wheatgrass more than growth of Great Basin wildrye. However, when plants were subjected to bug feeding and drought stress, the vigor of Great Basin wildrye was reduced more than that of intermediate wheatgrass. For both species, the potential forage for livestock consumption was lost because of direct damage by bug feeding as well as indirect effects on the acquisition or allocation of plant resources to growth.


Motivated by problems in algebraic complexity theory (e.g., matrix multiplication) and extremal combinatorics (e.g., the cap set problem and the sunflower problem), we introduce the geometric rank as a new tool in the study of tensors and hypergraphs. We prove that the geometric rank is an upper bound on the subrank of tensors and the independence number of hypergraphs. We prove that the geometric rank is smaller than the slice rank of Tao, and relate geometric rank to the analytic rank of Gowers and Wolf in an asymptotic fashion. As a first application, we use geometric rank to prove a tight upper bound on the (border) subrank of the matrix multiplication tensors, matching Strassen's well-known lower bound from 1987.


Twenty-six healthy controls and 45 patients with clinically suspected candidiasis were studied utilizing precipitin determination by double immunodiffusion, agglutinin titers, and presence of clumping factor by microscopy. The data are used to evaluate the specificity, reproducibility, and ease of performance of the procedures. Our results indicate that there is considerable overlap in agglutinin titers in patients with or without visceral candidiasis and that determination of clumping factor by microscopy only is inadequate for diagnosis. Precipitin tests were positive in 80% of patients with visceral candidiasis (exceptions were highly immunosuppressed hosts). This test is easily performed, reproducible, and can be applied in any general hospital laboratory. Neither agglutinin nor precipitin determination appears to be applicable to determining duration of therapy.


Based on embeded technology a portable fault detection equipment for the construction machinery hydraulic system is developed. The equipment is mainly composed of embeded hardware platform and graphical-interface software platform. The hardware platform includes the core control unit ECM-945GSE industrial computer, 8-channel data acquisition module based on ARM chip, LCD screen, touch screen, power supply module with large-scale operation voltage and wide temperature range, PTT pressure transducers, the integration transducer of temperature, pressure, flow rate transducer as well as equipment chassis. The software system consists of data acquisition procedures, diagnosis, detection and output printing programs and drivers programs. The pilot trial in the armed forces shows that both detectors can be used in repair shop or indoor, but also in the field of construction machinery on-site emergency repair when rapid detection and diagnosis. And it has a strong adaptability.


A selection of papers presented during a workshop on small farm mechanisation held at the International Rice Research Institute in September 1981 comprises the contents of this book. Three papers examine aspects of farm machinery manufacture in the Philippines and Thailand and twelve papers arc concerned with the cost effectiveness and social consequences of introducing twowheel tractors, rice threshers, and irrigation pumps to small farms in a number of Asian countries. The papers are written primarily for economists and development agencies, although the general reader will be interested in the authors' conclusions. The first paper provides an overview and a comparison between the three countriesJapan, Taiwan, and Korea-which have already achieved significant levels of farm mechanisation, and other Asian countries. In many countries the introduction of tractors has tended to benefit the wealthy, to displace tenant farmers, and to reduce employment opportunities and unless the farmer adopts other inputs or is enabled to increase the intensity of cropping, tractor cultivation rarely seems to improve yields or production. Imported fuel, lubricants, and spares involve foreign exchange; the maintenance of tractors is a widespread and serious problem. Opportunity to undertake contract cultivation determined the profitability of tractor ownership for many farmers and this opportunity has declined with an increase in tractor ownership. Tractors reduce the need for draught animals although for some operations animals are more satisfactory than tractors and many farmers retain some animals. By contrast, pump irrigation in the Terai of eastern Nepal and tube wells in East Java improved yields, increased farm income, and increased employment. The introduction of rice threshers speeded-up the often critical post-harvest operation, but, depending on socio-economic factors, were not always more cost-effective than traditional methods of threshing. In all countries in which the rural labour force is increasing (it may be decreasing as a proportion of the total labour force) the benefits of any development which reduces employment opportunity have to be examined most carefully. A. Blair Rains


On direct democracy era to demand national law reform. That one of part national law reform, that is to form legislation which to regulate whole life levels. If formal and substantial, legislation must be mirror populace aspiration (responsive) until in to form it also to involve active participation from the self populace.


This paper evaluates the effects of hypoxia (imposed by flushing Nz gas through the nutrient solution) on the growth and carbohydrate status of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), and the reversibility of these effects once aeration is resumed. Plants were transferred to hypoxic nutrient solutions (containing 0.003 mol Oz m-3) at the early tillering stage, when they had 3-4 leaves, well developed seminal roots, and a few crown roots. Hypoxia for 10-14 days had little adverse effect on shoot growth, whereas the seminal roots stopped growing, i.e. elongating and increasing in dry weight; in contrast, the crown roots elongated to a maximum of 9 cm and continued to increase in dry weight. Hypoxia increased the porosity of crown roots 2-3-fold compared with those grown under aerated conditions; in contrast, the porosity of seminal roots was unaffected. Oxygen concentrations in the gas filled pores of hypoxic crown roots (65 mm or longer) were estimated from measurements of radial oxygen loss using cylindrical platinum electrodes. Oxygen concentrations in the root tips were substantially lower than the critical oxygen pressures required for maximum respiration. Further, both oxygen concentrations in root tips and rates of root elongation were higher in shorter than in longer roots. Plants grown in hypoxic nutrient solutions had substantially higher sugar concentrations in shoots and roots than plants grown in aerated solutions. Sugars were not deficient in hypoxic roots since concentrations over a diurnal cycle remained higher than in aerated roots in both the bulk of the seminal and crown roots, and in the tips of the crown roots. Furthermore, tips of seminal roots had similar sugar concentrations when exposed to either aerated or hypoxic solutions. Hypoxia presumably killed seminal root apices, since the seminal axes did not resume elongation once aeration was restored. In contrast, crown roots resumed elongation when aeration was resumed. Although seminal root tips were moribund, the bulk of the seminal root was still alive. Following the transfer to aerated solutions, there was a rapid increase in the dry weight of both crown and seminal roots, in the latter case due to the proliferation of laterals.


Background and Objectives: Heavy metal pollution has always been a major cause contamination of environment and considered as a major concern for food health. Rice is the most popular food among Iranians and presence of heavy metals in trace level in rice has received special attention because they are directly related to health. The aim of this research was to investigate the concentration of Pb, Cd, Cr, Ni in rice prevalent in the market of Iran. Materials and Methods: 20 of the most widely consumed brands of Iranian rice were purchased from local market in Iran. 3 samples of each brand were collected and certain volumes of each sample were digested with acid. Heavy metal contents in the digested samples were determined by atomic absorption spectrometry. Results :The results showed that mean concentration Pb , Cr , Ni in rice samples respectively was 0.387 , 0.683, 0.019 ( mg/kg ) Conclusion: Notably the Ni and Cr content in the rice samples was found to be below the food sanitary standards in India rice . In the other hand 50% samples content Pb was found to be upper the food sanitary (Pb: 0.3 mg/kg). The result indicated that weekly intake of heavy metal by rice was below the provisional tolerable weekly intake recommended by WHO/FAO. However, risk assessments needs considerable attention and better prevention this low pollution.


ABSTRACT Introduction Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common cause of chronic liver disease in childhood/adolescence. It comprises a broad spectrum of liver disease severity ranging from simple steatosis to steatohepatitis and fibrosis. To date lifestyle modifications, diet and physical activity represent the main option for the management of pediatric NAFLD, but numerous treatments classified depending on the mechanism of action, have been introduced. In keeping with, bariatric surgery, insulin sensitizers, antioxidants, probiotic and dietary supplementations have been evaluated in pediatric clinical trials. Areas covered This review describes, after a search in PubMed/MEDLINE database, the current pediatric NAFLD non-pharmacological and pharmacological treatments and their effects on biochemical and histological features. We report not only the efficacy of the diet coupled with regular exercise but also advantages of the pharmacological treatments used in combination with lifestyle interventions in pediatric NAFLD. Expert opinion Since pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions have demonstrated variable effects in pediatric NAFLD, it is clear that safe and specific and efficient therapeutic strategies have not yet been identified. Therefore, large and long-term clinical trials in children are needed to find a way to reverse the liver tissue damage and the NAFLD-related long-term morbidity and mortality.


OBJECTIVE
The study assessed the prevalence and duration of axis III physical disorders and the resulting level of disability among Southeast Asian refugee outpatients with axis I psychiatric disorders.

METHODS
A total of 266 consecutive patients who were evaluated in a psychiatric outpatient clinic were assessed for the presence of axis III conditions through questions about physical symptoms, a medical history and review of records, physical examination, and laboratory screening. The sample included 158 Hmong, 58 Laotian, 43 Vietnamese, and seven Cambodian patients.

RESULTS
Fifty-five percent of the patients had one or more axis III disorders, most of which were chronic and were not associated with extreme disability. Neurological conditions were most common, and the sequelae of war-related trauma were prominent. No associations were found between the presence of axis III conditions and age, gender, marital status, or ethnic group. In 48 cases, the axis III condition may have caused or exacerbated the axis I condition.

CONCLUSIONS
Routine medical history and a physical examination, including a neurological examination, are recommended for all psychiatric patients, including outpatients.


"The paper addresses an information management issue in integrated product/process-model based AEC/FM systems. It introduces an approach to the management of heterogeneous representations of project information. The focus is on graphical representations of a building model used as a tool for accessing data from an already populated model in traditionally non-CAD-based applications.
 The proposed approach is based on the concept of controlled vocabularies -- thesauri. In this context, a thesaurus is used to control not only terminology but all different representations of entities comprising a building or project model. Examples of different representations include: graphical representations at varying level of abstraction, diverse graphic formats (vector, pixel, VR, video etc), graphics-text-audio as both alternative and complementary modes, visualised non-natively-graphic information etc.
 The approach is illustrated by a simple application, the first in a series of interrelated projects comprising an intended research. The application uses XML and an existing pilot thesaurus in the low-slope roofing domain for retrieving textual and graphical information from complex documents, sets of documents, and the Internet.
 The application should represent a proof of the concept to be elaborated in the future work and used for efficient and economical management of information in construction planning and facilities management applications within integrated model-based systems."


Hardly any broad analyses exist to link the vast contemporary change in life patterns both to changes in women's lives (rising employment, declining fertility, and changing use of time) and to changes in men's lives, the gender contract, and the economy, as well as to national social policies. This book shows not only similar trends across countries but also the likely direction of future change, particularly as related to economic growth, gender equity, and the well-being of families and children. The first chapter, an overview by the editors, provides a comprehensive conceptual framework for understanding how the economic, sociological, and cultural changes have produced new individual life patterns. Succeeding chapters cover in Part I the connections between contemporary changes in lives and the changing global economy, the changing welfare state, and the growth of personal choice; in Part II changing time use patterns of men and women; in Part III the institutional factors in employment, child care, law, and family that affect life patterns of both sexes.


Memristor-aided logic (MAGIC) design style holds a high promise for realizing digital logic-in-memory functionality. The ability to implement a specific gate in a MAGIC design style hinges on the SET-to-RESET threshold ratio. The TaOx memristive devices exhibit distinct SET-to-RESET ratios, enabling the implementation of OR and NOT operations. As the adoption of the MAGIC design style gains momentum, it becomes crucial to understand the breakdown of energy consumption in the various phases of its operation. This paper presents experimental demonstrations of the OR and NOT gates on a 1T1R crossbar array. Additionally, it provides insights into the energy distribution for performing these operations at different stages. Through our experiments across different gates, we found that the energy consumption is dominated by initialization in the MAGIC design style. The energy split-up is 14.8%, 85%, and 0.2% for execution, initialization, and read operations respectively.


According to the Data Sheet Compendium 1983-84 salbutamol sulphate in the form of Ventolin Respirator Solution can be given by nebuliser in a single dose of 10 mg. This can be repeated four times daily giving a total 24 hour dose of 40 mg. The amount of salbutamol in one metered dose from the inhaler is 100 lAg and the recommended total 24 hour dose is only 600-800 ,jg. Thus we are allowed to give 100 times more salbutamol by nebuliser in a single dose than we can by the inhaler. Also in any 24 hour period we can give 50 times more salbutamol by nebuliser than by pressurised aerosol. The differences between these official recommendations are inexplicable and are certainly not reflections of any differences in efficiency of nebulisers compared with the metered dose inhaler. The restriction on the use of salbutamol and other 32 agonist inhalers is an anachronistic remnant ofthe 1960s experience and regrettably perpetuates the myth that the bronchodilator inhalers are dangerous. These warnings should be removed from inhalers since they are not dangerous and what is more there is no generally accepted recommended dose. If this is not done unnecessary patient anxiety, confusion, and respiratory distress will continue to be created by these illogical warnings.


Many sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) breeding lines have not been evaluated for inherent potential hydrocyanic acid (HCN-p) levels under field conditions. Additionally, levels of HCN-p remaining in sorghum stover used for animal grazing after grain harvest needs elucidation as well as N effects on lines shown to be inherently low in HCN-p.
Fifteen entries, including 13 sorghum lines, one sweet sorghum, and one sudangrass (Sorghum sudanense (Piper) Stapf), were evaluated for differences in HCN-p, influence of N fertilization, and date of harvest. The entry Tx7000 was consistently low in HCN-p at all harvest dates and only exceeded the "threshold of danger" (200 ppm) at the preboot stage. This level is considered to be an approximate value at which HCN may become toxic to ruminant animals. The highest ranking entry was SC0599-6, a Rio selection, which exceeded the 200 ppm level at all stages of harvest employed. Even in entries inherently low, added N increased HCN-p, which supports the theory that caution must be exercised when growing cultivars reportedly low in HCN-p, especially when N fertilizer is applied.
As expected, HCN-p tended to decrease with plant maturity. After physiological maturity of the grain, panicles were removed and leaf blades sampled 8 days later. Two of the entries still retained HCN-p in excess of 200 ppm, indicating a need to exercise caution with some cultivars when allowing cattle to graze stover after grain harvest


Exosomes are secreted small vesicles that mediate various biological processes, such as tumorigenesis and immune response. However, whether the inflammasome signaling leads to the change of constituent of exosomes and its roles in immune response remains to be determined. We isolated the exosomes from macrophages with treatment of mock, endotoxin, or endotoxin/nigericin. A label-free quantification method by MS/MS was used to identify the components of exosomes. In total, 2331 proteins were identified and 513 proteins were exclusively detected in exosomes with endotoxin and nigericin treatment. The differentially expressed proteins were classified by Gene Ontology and KEGG pathways. The immune response-related proteins and signaling pathways were specifically enriched in inflammasome-derived exosomes. Moreover, we treated macrophages with the exosomes from different stimulation. We found that inflammasome-derived exosomes directly activate NF-κB signaling pathway, while the control or endotoxin-derived exosomes have no effect. The inflammatory signaling was amplified in neighbor cells in an exosome-dependent way. The inflammasome-derived exosomes might be used to augment the immune response in disease treatment, and preventing the transfer of these exosomes might ameliorate autoimmune diseases.


In this paper we present our ongoing work on implementing the multi-resource server technology in the Linux operating system running on multi-core architectures. The multi-resource server is used to control the access to both CPU and memory bandwidth resources such that the execution of real-time tasks become predictable. We are targeting Legacy applications to be migrated from single to multi-core architectures. We investigate the available techniques and mechanisms that can support our multi-resource servers and we discuss the potential problems that needed to be tackled considering the requirements of legacy applications.


The Internet and the availability of authoring tools have enabled a greater community of media content creators, including nonexperts. However, while media authoring tools often make it technically feasible to generate, edit and share digital media artifacts, they do not guarantee that the works will be valuable or meaningful to the community at large. Therefore intelligent tools that support the authoring and creative processes are especially valuable. In this paper, we describe two intelligent support tools for the authoring and production of machinima. Machinima is a technique for producing computer-animated movies through the manipulation of computer game technologies. The first system we describe, ReQUEST, is an intelligent support tool for the authoring of plots. The second system, Cambot, produces machinima from a pre-authored script by manipulating virtual avatars and a virtual camera in a 3D graphical environment.


Testing for differential abundance is a crucial task in metagenome-wide association studies, complicated by technical or biological confounding and a lack of consensus regarding statistical methodology. Here, we developed a framework for benchmarking differential abundance testing methods based on implanting signals into real data. This strategy yields a ground truth for benchmarking while retaining the statistical characteristics of real metagenomic data, which we quantitatively validated in comparison to previous approaches. Our benchmark revealed dramatic issues with elevated false discovery rates or limited sensitivity for the majority of methods with the exception of limma, linear models and the Wilcoxon test. When additionally modeling confounders, we observed these issues to be exacerbated, but also that linear mixed-effect models or the blocked Wilcoxon test effectively address them. Exploratory analysis of cardiometabolic disease cohorts illustrates the confounding potential of medications and the need to consider confounders to prevent spurious associations in real-world applications.


Binge drinking in Ireland, particularly among adolescents, has become an issue of major concern in recent years. This edited volume examines the relationship between binge drinking and the factors that impact on it, in particular certain aspects of youth culture. This book will be of interest to anyone concerned with alcohol consumption more broadly, especially those who wish to place the debate in a broader social context.


Phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSB) can convert insoluble forms of phosphorus (P) to accessible forms. Five highly efficient PSB strains, H22, Y11, Y14, Y34, and S32, were screened and isolated from an alfalfa rhizosphere in heavy metal-contaminated reclamation area in Shanxi Province, China. Based on morphological observations, 16S rRNA sequencing, cellular fatty acid composition analysis, and the BIOLOG test, H22, Y11, and Y34 were identified as Pseudomonas sp., while Y14 and S32 were identified as Pantoea sp. Among them, S32 showed the highest P-solubilizing efficiency in culture medium containing Ca3(PO4)2, lecithin, and powered phosphate rock. The culture medium conditions to obtain the highest P-solubilization efficiency were optimized as follows: the culture temperature was 30°C; the incubation time was 5 days; the initial pH was 7.0; and glucose served as the carbon source. Furthermore, the P-solubilization efficiency of S32 in media containing CaHPO4, lecithin, phosphate rock (PR), FePO4, or AlPO4 was determined to be 18.38, 3.07, 0.16, 0.51, or 2.62%, respectively. In addition, the acid and alkali phosphatase activities of S32 were tested as 6.94 U/100 mL and 4.12 U/100 mL, respectively. The soil inoculation experiment indicated that inoculation with S32 resulted in an obvious improvement in the available P of both the experimental and reclaimed soil. The rice seedling growth experiment also suggested that the application of S32 significantly increased the plant height, biomass, root growth, and P uptake of rice in both experimental and reclaimed soil. Taken together, the isolated S32 strain showed high P-solubilization capacity for both Pi and Po, and its ameliorative effect on reclaimed soil recovery provides the theoretical basis for crop development in the reclaimed soil of mine field.


Study of recently collected bees from south-eastern Spain revealed a new species of subgenus Panurgus (Pachycephalopanurgus) Patiny, 1999, closely related to P. canescens Latreille, 1811, and P. calceatus Perez, 1895. Within this group of three species, P. meridionalis sp.nov. is characterized by the presence of a pair of latero-ventral teeth on the third tergum of the male (unique among Panurginae). This new species is only the second species of Pachycephalopanurgus recorded from Europe, the other five being North African. Distributional patterns in subgenus Pachycephalopanurgus are mapped and summarized.


Background In patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), osteolysis, osteopenia and osteoporosis are predictive of a severe disease phenotype. CCL3 is a chemokine associated with inflammatory osteolytic lesions and bone resorption by osteoclasts in patients with multiple myeloma. CCL3's role in modulating bone destruction during inflammatory arthritis has not been established. The purpose of this study was to assess pharmacological blockade of CCL3 as a strategy to prevent or inhibit osteoclast-associated bone damage during inflammatory arthritis. Method Fully differentiated osteoclasts were formed from human CD14-positive mononuclear cell precursors cultured with macrophage-colony stimulating factor (m-CSF) and receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa-B ligand (RANKL). Collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) was selected for in vivo studies. Antibodies (anti-CCL3 and isotype control) were tested for their potency to modulate; (i) osteoclast differentiation and resorption of bone substrate in vitro and (ii) arthritis severity, synovial inflammation by histology and bone erosion by x-ray. Results The concentration of CCL3 in supernatants increased in a time-dependent manner over the 14-day osteoclast culture period (p<0.05). There was a strong, specific correlation between osteoclast number and CCL3 level (p<0.01). Significant concentration-dependent inhibition of osteoclastogenesis was observed by neutralising CCL3 (p≤0.05). The erosion of ivory discs by osteoclasts was reduced significantly (p≤0.05) by ant-CCL3. Mean area of disc resorbed was 0.2% (anti-CCL3), 0.1% (osteoprotegerin) and 1.5% (Isotype control). Synovial inflammation and joint erosion by histology were both significantly reduced by CCL3 blockade in CIA. The composite histology score was 3.8±0.36 (anti-CCL3) versus 6.8±0.6 (isotype control). Osteoclast number was significantly reduced in the wrist (p<0.05) and elbow (p<0.05) joints by anti-CCL3 blockade. Bone erosion by x-ray in the hind paws (p<0.05) and fore paws (p<0.01) was also significantly reduced by anti-CCL3. Conclusion Targeted inhibition of CCL3 protect the synovial joint against arthritis-associated pathology by potent inhibition osteoclast formation and bone erosion. Our data may help guide future innovations for the diagnosis and treatment of inflammatory arthritis.


This paper presents an analysis of the factors that affect US corporate credit spreads. Using data from Bloomberg we investigate the various determinants that cause changes in credit spreads of US corporate firms. As previous research has shown, the variables that should be based on theory determine credit spread changes have limited explanatory power. Our study breaks apart a range of variables into three different sections and analyzes them individual in the groups and together using multiple regressions. We investigate the spot rate, interest rate volatility and slope for the interest rate effects and find strong relationships between spot rate and slope with credit spreads. For the effects of volatility and market uncertainty we find strong relationships between credit spreads and market volatility proxied by VIX and firm volatility proxied by an average of Call and Put implied volatility. TED spreads, SPX and RTY returns show strong relationships between macro-economic variables and credit spreads. Implied default correlations in the Investment Grade and High Yield market also show a strong positive relationship with credit spreads. Our research investigates certain macro-economic variables that have not been researched before and re-establishes previous findings for other variables post-2007 crisis.


A theoretical approach to the optimal design of a large multifile physical databases is presented. The design algorithm is based on the theory that given a set of join methods that satisfy a certain property called separability, the problem of optimal assignment of access structures to the whole database can be reduced to the subproblem of optimizing individual relations independently of one another. Coupling factors are defined to represent all the interactions among the relations. This approach not only reduces the complexity of the problem significantly, but also provides a better understanding of underlying mechanisms.


Monsonia burkeana is widely used as herbal tea in South Africa. However, the accumulative capabilities (ACs) of its organs for essential nutrient elements are not documented. A study was conducted to determine the ACs for nutrient elements in fruit, leaf, stem and root of M. burkeana . Ten plants per plot, with three replicates, were harvested whole, oven-dried separately into the four organs and quantified for selected essential nutrient elements. On average, the increasing order of macronutrients in various organs was as follows; fruit = Ca >N > K > P > Mg, leaf = Ca > N > K > P ≥ Mg, stem = K > Ca > N > P ≥ Mg and root = K > N > Ca > P ≥ Mg. In contrast, for micronutrients the order was as follows; fruit = Cl > Fe > Mn > Cu > Zn > B, leaf = Cl > Cu > Fe > Zn > Mn > B, stem = Cl > Cu > Fe > Mn > Zn > B and root = Fe > Cl > Cu > Mn > Zn > B. In conclusion, the ACs for essential nutrient elements differed, with the reproductive and vegetative organs having high ACs for macro-nutrients, whereas, roots had high ACs for micro-nutrients. Herbal tea from M. burkeana leaves has the potential to provide the dietary essential nutrient element requirements. Key words: Accumulative capability, Monsonia burkeana, essential nutrient elements, traditional medicine.


The purpose of this study was to compare the polyphenol profile of different Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) extracts obtained from dry and fresh herb and the evaluation of their antioxidant effect. There were studied the polyphenols from hydroalcoholic extracts (1:5- dry plant:solvent) obtained from fresh respectively dry plant and the gemmotherapic extract obtained from fresh plant (1:20- dry plant: solvent). The polyphenol profile was evaluated by UV-Vis spectrophotometry, TLC and HPLC. The total polyphenol respectively flavonoids content were determined by UV-V is spectrophotometry. The antioxidant effect was evaluated by DPPH, ABTS, FRAP, CUPRAC and silver nanoparticle (SNP) methods. The hydroalcoholic extract obtained from fresh plant contains the highest concentration of total polyphenols, (0.601mg/ml rosmarinic acid), total flavonoids, (0.270mg/ml luteoline) and rosmarinic acid (0.350 mg/ml). The less concentrated is the gemmotherapic extract, but also the extraction ratio is higher than the hydroalcoholic extracts. The high content in polyphenols of the mentioned hydroalcoholic extract was confirmed by highest values of antioxidant activity: 39.1ml (DPPH), 7.7 ml (ABTS), 698mM ET/100 ml (FRAP), 1947 mM ET/100 ml (CUPRAC), 4570mM ET/100 ml (SNP). These differences in the polyphenols profiles show the importance of use the fresh plants for obtaining the good quality extracts.