We are building an inspection workstation development environment to use as a testbed for understanding what types of knowledge, e.g. data, algorithms and processes, can increase the productivity of inspection operations. Inspection can be more efficient through reducing the need for fixturing, integrating the generation of process plans and their execution within the controller, and reducing the errors or data losses that occur by translating the models to different formats. The initial configuration of inspection systems can be less costly through the use of open architectures that are constructed from components. Key elements of our work include in-situ feature-based planning, vision-driven part pose estimation and software methods to facilitate construction of manufacturing controllers. These provide a rich environment in which to study the categories of knowledge that are useful in intelligent control of inspection workstations. This paper describes our vision, approach and preliminary results.


Much analogous to corporate law, the core problem of which could be described as the agency problem, corporate bankruptcy law's nucleus problem is the Problem of Preservation: attempting to prevent inasmuch as possible unnecessary alteration of pre-bankruptcy entitlements. Pursuing preservation, however, is of course only a second order goal. Corporate bankruptcy law was not created as a means to accomplish preservation, but rather to deliberately alter pre-bankruptcy entitlements in order to pursue a first order goal – effectively help firms in financial distress. Thus, it becomes apparent that corporate bankruptcy law cannot rely on the decisions of a single regulator (i.e., the bankruptcy judge) to prevent excessive alteration of pre-bankruptcy entitlements, because attaining preservation inherently – and blatantly – conflicts with bankruptcy's first order goals. Consequently, corporate bankruptcy law must also employ other mechanisms in order to truly support a policy of preservation. It is argued here that corporate bankruptcy law demonstrates its commitment to preservation by deploying specially crafted self-executing mechanisms. At least three types of such mechanisms can be identified in corporate bankruptcy settings: internal mechanisms that monitor against excessive redistribution; discretion-limiting mechanisms; and external monitoring and enforcement market mechanisms. The line of reasoning presented in this Article supplies a new point of view from which to explain certain corporate bankruptcy doctrines, and the structure of corporate bankruptcy law in general. Moreover, analyzing the bankruptcy phenomenon from the perspectives of the preservation problem and self-executing mechanisms leads to important normative conclusions. First, lawmakers ought to consider several additional preservation mechanisms, some of which are easily available. Second, future research ought to contemplate whether corporate bankruptcy law is indeed successful in preventing excessive alteration of pre-bankruptcy entitlements by deploying its specified self-executing mechanisms. More importantly, research should examine the relative efficacy of the various types of mechanisms.


Abstract: This paper examined the use of technologies for instruction as innovative strategies in higher education from a Nigerian perspective. Changes in learning often come about when the current practices are challenged, making a search for a more efficient way of achieving educational objectives inevitable. The global educational standards require innovations in the development of the educational system as a whole in the developing countries. This research portrayed technologies for instruction as the specific teaching – learning patterns that serve reliably as templates for achieving demonstrably effective learning. It is the application of modern tools, technical knowledge and methods as a unit for achieving a common goal. Higher education in most African/developing countries is currently going through its most challenging and depressive situation due to an unprecedented high demand of youths for admission into tertiary institutions; lack of funding which is reported to be below UNESCO recommendation; etc. Since it has been shown that technologies for instruction have been used by the developed countries over the years to address and overcome instructional challenges at all levels of their educational system, it was recommended that teachers and learners should be computer literate, government and other stake holders in the education sector should encourage teachers to be exposed to the various technologies for instruction through workshops, seminars, training and retraining.


The forming of tailor-welded blank is an important technology to body light weighting. While it is difficult to predict the forming limits of tailor welded blanks with different base materials or thickness. For the expanding experiments, an analytical method to predict forming limit height of tailor-welded blanks is established based on the deformation characteristic and plastic theory, and verified by simulation results. This method is not only provided a path to predict forming limit of tailor welded blanks but also provided references to the design of tailor weld parts.


AIDS, Lyme disease, and the deadly hantavirus are just a few of the dozens of new diseases to arrive in recent years. Old ones such as TB and cholera have returned with sharper virulence. Where do new diseases come from? Why are old ones back as vicious changelings? Why now? We created this epidemic of epidemics by transforming our environment and behavior - our landscape, technology, and sex lives. Thus we hasten microbes' evolution and our own, making the world a global village for diseases. In Man and Microbes, respected science writer Arno Karlen presents a dramatic panorama of the natural history of disease. Drawing on case studies and tales of medical detection, he uncovers the ills of ancient hunter-gatherers, relates the rise of diseases that came with each domesticated species, and exposes the origins of modern urban epidemics. Citing original sources and extensive research, Karlen recounts the terror of measles and smallpox that raked the ancient empires of Rome and China; the intertwined stories of leprosy and tuberculosis throughout thousands of years of history; the onslaught of European microbes that devastated the peoples of the Americas far more than did the firearms of their conquerors; and the much-forgotten influenza pandemic of 1918 that killed tens of millions. He also analyzes the most recent medical reports of mysterious new diseases from around the world and provides a view of how they have arisen and what they bode for the future. Man and Microbes makes clear that infection is a natural and necessary part of life. It shows how the search for food, shelter, and a safer, more prosperous life has altered the environment, changed the dance of adaptation betweenhumans and microbes, and generated new diseases. The means to surmount the growing public health crisis in our ever-accelerating global society lie in the same ingenuity that created it. Understanding the complex and vital relationships between man and microbe can help us tame or mak


We introduce an effective quark model that is in principle dynamically derivable from the QCD action. An important feature is the incorporation of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in a renormalizable fashion. The quark propagator in the condensed vacuum exhibits complex conjugate poles, indicative of an unphysical spectral form, i.e. confined quarks. Moreover, the ensuing mass function can be fitted well to existing lattice data. To validate the physical nature of the new model, we identify not only a massless pseudoscalar (i.e. a pion) in the chiral limit, but we also present reasonable estimates for the rho meson mass and decay constant, employing a contact point interaction and a large N argument to simplify the diagrammatic spectral analysis. We stress that we do not use any experimental input to obtain our numbers, but only rely on our model and lattice quark data.


Cortical processing of sensory events is significantly influenced by context. For instance, a repetitive or redundant visual stimulus elicits attenuated cortical responses, but if the same stimulus is unexpected or "deviant", responses are augmented. This contextual modulation of sensory processing is likely a fundamental function of neural circuits, yet an understanding of how it is computed is still missing. Using holographic two-photon calcium imaging in awake animals, here we identify three distinct, spatially intermixed ensembles of neurons in mouse primary visual cortex which differentially respond to the same stimulus under separate contexts, including a subnetwork which selectively responds to deviant events. These non-overlapping ensembles are distributed across layers 2-5, though deviance detection is more common in superficial layers. Contextual preferences likely arise locally since they are not present in bottom up inputs from the thalamus or top-down inputs from prefrontal cortex. The functional parcellation of cortical circuits into independent ensembles that encode stimulus context provides a circuit basis underlying cortically based perception of novel or redundant stimuli, a key deficit in many psychiatric disorders. One Sentence Summary Visual cortex represents deviant and redundant stimuli with separate subnetworks.


Abstract This article examines how education policies developed in the European Union (EU) through the open method of co-ordination (OMC) are received at the member state level of the United Kingdom (UK). We argue that the UK's response to the education OMC can be understood mainly in terms of deflecting EU influence on the process and content of national education policy-making. We focus on three manifestations of deflecting EU influence on national education policies. On a level of institutional structures, first, few organizational resources are made available for responding to the education OMC. Second, there is limited communication between domestic policy teams and UK civil servants involved in international work. Third, on a level of discourse UK education policy-makers have retained a commitment to the continued sovereignty of the UK over education policy and its role as a potential leader of education policy agendas in the EU. Deflecting the education OMC involves here constructing images of 'fit' between UK and EU OMC education policies.


Blue-luminescent N-doped carbon quantum dots (NCQDs) exhibiting rarely observed excitation independent optical properties are synthesised from citric acid in the presence of ammonia via a Continuous Hydrothermal Flow Synthesis (CHFS) approach. CHFS is an eco-friendly, rapid synthetic approach (within fractions of a second) facilitating ease of scale-up industrialization as well as offering materials with superior properties. The synthesised CQDs readily disperse in aqueous solution, have an average particle size of 3.3 ± 0.7 nm, with highest emission intensity at 441 nm (and a narrow full width at half maximum, FWHM ~78 nm) under a 360 nm excitation wavelength. N-doped carbon quantum dots, without any further modification, exhibited a high selectivity and sensitivity as a nano-sensor for the highly toxic and carcinogenic chromium (VI) ions. The nano-chemo-sensor delivers significant advantages including simplicity of manufacturing via a continuous, cleaner technology (using targeted biomass precursor), high selectivity, sensitivity and fast response leading to potential applications in environmental industry as well photovoltaics, bio-tagging, bio-sensing and beyond.


Satellite measurements have revealed significant enhancement of 5.3‐μm nitric oxide (NO) emission during shock‐led interplanetary coronal mass ejections. Great discrepancies in modeled neutral density occur during these events and may be attributed to the abnormally high NO cooling. Meanwhile, the relative significance of protons, soft electrons, and keV‐electrons to NO emission is yet to be well determined. The goal of this study is to identify the contribution of electron and proton precipitations to the thermospheric NO cooling by using the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) data. The observed energetic electrons and protons (0.1–30.2 keV) during 36 shock‐led interplanetary coronal mass ejection events in 2002–2010 are binned into geomagnetic grids to provide statistical distributions of the particle precipitation for polar regions. The distributions are incorporated into the Global Ionosphere‐Thermosphere Model. The results show that electrons play a dominant role to NO cooling, but protons are also important and contribute to up to a quarter of NO cooling by electrons and ions combined. NO cooling enhancement during the events is proportional to the level of energy flux and is dominated by the electrons in the energy band of 1.4–3.1 keV. Both total electron content (TEC) and NO cooling enhance at the source regions, but they have different lifetime and correlation with the particle precipitations. Generally, NO cooling and TEC enhancements have a positive correlation with the precipitating energy. Cross correlation shows that particle precipitations have more instantaneous impact on TEC while it takes longer for the atmosphere to heat up for cooling to proceed.


We present two cases of neuroendocrine tumors: insulinoma and glucagonoma. Several diagnostic procedures are analysed including those useful to localize the tumor and its possible metastasis, as ultrasound, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, angiography, endoscopic ultrasonography and somatostatin receptor scintigraphy. We suggest that the work up should begin with lesser invasive procedures such as CT and In111-labelled pentetreotide scan.


In Distance Vector Routing [4,7, 9, 10] each router collects and forwards the information from and to the neighbors. It was the original ARPANET routing algorithm and use in the Internet under the RIP [2]. The methodology of collecting and broadcasting the routing related information initiates the problems i.e. (1) two-Node Loop Instability, (2) Three-Node Loop Instability and (3) Count-to-Infinity, are well known all over. We try to give the details of Distance Vector Routing Algorithm and the problems in the Introduction section and discuss the Related Works in direction of this problem. New algorithms are introduce to give the solution of the discuss problem along with the corrective actions for arising the problem due to implementation of new discuss methodology. We try to reduce the loopholes in the Distance Vector Routing Algorithm by applying the new concept of test packet, which is helpful in receiving and forwarding the correct and updated information regarding the available and non available routers to the other routers.


An efficient joint source-channel (S/C) decoder based on the side information of the source and on the MN-Gallager Code over Galois fields, $q$, is presented. The dynamical posterior probabilities are derived either from the statistical mechanical approach for calculation of the entropy for the correlated sequences, or by the Markovian joint S/C algorithm. The Markovian joint S/C decoder has many advantages over the statistical mechanical approach, among them: (a) there is no need for the construction and the diagonalization of a $q \times q$ matrix and for a solution to saddle point equations in $q$ dimensions; (b) a generalization to a joint S/C coding of an array of two-dimensional bits (or higher dimensions) is achievable; (c) using parametric estimation, an efficient joint S/C decoder with the lack of side information is discussed. Besides the variant joint S/C decoders presented, we also show that the available sets of autocorrelations consist of a convex volume, and its structure can be found using the Simplex algorithm.


This paper describes the Mario AI benchmark, a game-based benchmark for reinforcement learning algorithms and game AI techniques developed by the authors. The benchmark is based on a public domain clone of Nintendo's classic platform game Super Mario Bros, and completely open source. During the last two years, the benchmark has been used in a number of competitions associated with international conferences, and researchers and students from around the world have contributed diverse solutions to try to beat the benchmark. The paper summarizes these contributions, gives an overview of the state of the art in Mario-playing AIs, and chronicles the development of the benchmark. This paper is intended as the definitive point of reference for those using the benchmark for research or teaching.


BACKGROUND: Liver diseases are responsible for metabolic disorders and loss of muscle mass and function that affect functional status and quality of life (QoL). OBJECTIVE: To compare exercise capacity, respiratory muscle strength, and QoL in liver transplant candidates with cirrhosis of the following etiologies: hepatitis C virus (HCV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), and alcoholic cirrhosis (AC). METHODS: Cross-sectional study comprising 86 patients divided into three groups: HCV (40 patients), HBV (14 patients), and AC (32 patients). Patients were evaluated using the Six-Minute Walk Test (6MWT), manometry, and the QoL questionnaire SF-36. RESULTS: The AC group showed the lowest performance in the 6MWT (meters) compared to the HBV and HCV groups (373.50±50.48, 464.16±32, and 475.94±27.84, respectively, p=0.001). In the domains of the SF-36, the AC group had lower scores for functional capacity and physical limitations when compared to the HBV and HCV groups (p=0.001). In the comparison of respiratory muscle strength, the AC group had lower MIP (cmH2O) compared to the HBV and HCV groups (-65.54±11.28, -71.61±6.96, -82.44±13.71, respectively, p=0.001). The MEP (cmH2O) in the AC group was also lower than in the HBV and HCV groups (65.13±10.74, 82.44±13.87, 83.44±12.20, respectively, p=0.001). CONCLUSION: The AC group showed worse exercise capacity, respiratory muscle strength, and QoL compared to patients with HCV and HBV.


Worldwide, medium-to short-term earthquake prediction is becoming ever more essential for safeguarding man due to an un-abating population increase, but hitherto, there have been no verifiable methods of reliable earthquake prediction developed -except for a few isolated examples of such in China and in Greece. This dilemma is a result of previous and still current approaches to earthquake prediction which are squarely based on the seismic measurement of crustal movements, observable only after a tectonic stress-change discharge (earthquake) has occurred. The prediction models derived from past histories of measurements were mainly carried out during the past 40-50 years, although initiated soon after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. During the past decade it was proved and shown that it is not possible to derive reliable models for earthquake predictions from crustal movement measurements alone - as valuable and as indispensable those indeed are - and that an entirely new approach must be taken and rigorously pursued over many years and decades to come, and most likely throughout this twenty-first century. Of considerable importance will be the full integration of multi-band (P-K Band) repeat-pass differential interferometric Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (POL-SAR) space borne and high-altitude platform monitoring operations which will be considered here in conjunction with "seismo-electromagnetic " ground measurements. It will be shown that Taiwan is ideally suited for studying earthquake related electromagnetic precursor studies in that the island is separated from other continental regions, and there exist the resources, the dedication and will power for advancing our knowledge most rapidly. Both land-based and sub-oceanic measurement networks already exist, which need to be upgraded and perfected. With the aid of experienced and knowledgeable experts, this will be done soon.


It is important to develop the production and utilization technology of highly reactive coke in order to improve the efficiency of blast furnace reactions. In this study, the characteristics of catalyst-coated highly reactive coke produced by the 'post-addition of catalyst to coke' method were investigated. First, the catalytic effect of Fe and Ca on graphite and deashed coke during the C–CO2 reaction was investigated. Fe and Ca addition increased the reaction rate and decreased the reaction beginning temperature. Second, the reaction rate of Fe or Ca coated coke was kept high until the weight loss reached 10%. This means that a high catalytic effect is maintained in the thermal reserve zone of the blast furnace. Furthermore, it was found that 70% of the catalyst coated on the coke surface remains after drop impacts. It is expected that the loss of catalyst during coke handling and transportation is small. Catalyst-coated highly reactive coke is promising for improving the efficiency of blast furnace reactions.


The nonlinear dielectric properties of dense BaTiO3 ceramics with grain size of 1 μm–90 nm were investigated. In the finest ceramics, the permittivity reduces below 1000 and a remarkable nonhysteretic linear dc-tunability [e(E)] is obtained at high field, above 40 kV/cm. The observed behavior was explained by considering the nanostructured ceramic as a composite formed by ferroelectric grains, whose nonlinearity is reducing, and by low-permittivity nonferroelectric grain boundaries, whose volume fraction increases when decreasing the grain size. Reducing the grain size in ferroelectric dense materials is an alternative route to accomplish the application requirements: nonhysteretic tunability and permittivity below 1000.


In 2008, Germany introduced an interest barrier which allows the deduction of interest only if a company's net interest expenditure does not exceed 30% of the company's EBITDA. The regulation aims at preventing excessive debt financing of companies resident in Germany and distinguishes neither between long- or short-term liabilities nor between resident and non-resident creditors. It further covers all types of debt capital and does not differentiate whether the debt capital was granted by third parties or by shareholders. That is why the interest barrier was criticized extensively as being too strict and demanding. By applying a binominal model which considers economic risks, this paper elaborates on the effects of both an interest barrier and a thin capitalization rule on an internationally operating group of companies. Further, the impact of debt and hybrid financing on group companies subject to either a thin cap or an interest barrier is measured. I find that the thin cap is more advantageous under economic certainty and in situations of low risk, whilst the interest barrier tends to be advantageous in risky situations. In very risky situations there is almost no measurable difference between thin cap and interest barrier in case of debt financing. In case of hybrid financing, the interest barrier is advantageous also in very risky situations. Further, companies are less likely to go bankrupt and the group terminal value is higher.


ABSTRACT This study adopted content analysis to examine policy papers concerning the eligibility requirements of the Minimum Living Standard Scheme (MLSS) in China's 31 capital cities. It was found that local officials not only assess applicants' assets and incomes, but also their living space, quality of home decoration, possession of luxury goods, leisure activities, and behavior. The local governments' use of a lifestyle assessment approach is caused by financial constraints and the lack of an effective mechanism to check applicants' incomes. The lifestyle approach leads to regional inequalities in accessing public assistance, because some of the terms, which define the quality of life, are too ambiguous. The lifestyle approach, which requires applicants to live in very poor living conditions and also demonstrate their hardship to local officials, will be a barrier preventing poor people from being integrated into their communities. This study suggests that the key words and terms in the policy documents need to be clearly explained and similar criteria should also be adopted across different regions. It also proposes that the gap between MLSS eligibility criteria in the policy papers and their actual implementation requires further study in order to understand the impact of special local factors and the quality of life of poor people in China.


Abstract Multi-core processor is a new type of parallel nonlinear function. It has the characteristics of high efficiency, low power consumption and scalability. It has applications in several fields, such as industrial environments, military weapons systems, aerospace technology, and biomedicine. The core function of a multicore processor is an algorithm that can realize the expansion of the capacity of the isoparametric center and the lifting space, whose main idea is to optimize the spatial distribution by changing the input vector. Traditional solution methods generally use iterative or variational methods to solve nonlinear programming problems, but linear algebraic function models are widely used because of their simplicity and ease of numerical computation. The discrete and multi-attribute matrix combination algorithm can be used to realize the process of transforming complex problems into easier solutions. This paper introduces the basic concepts of linear programming and conducts simulation experiments with a multicore processor, and then makes improvements to a typical optimization problem. This paper analyzes the mathematical principles and steps of the nonlinear mapping algorithm; then MATLAB is used as a platform to study the design process of the multicore set-driven function. Finally it verifies that the method is feasible in solving complex models by arithmetic examples.


The problem of estimating the state vector of a dynamical system from vector measurements when it is known that the state vector satisfies norm equality constraints is considered. The case of a linear dynamical system with linear measurements subject to a norm equality constraint is discussed with a review of existing solutions. The norm constraint introduces a nonlinearity in the system for which a new estimator structure is derived by minimizing a constrained cost function. It is shown that the constrained estimate is equivalent to the brute-force normalization of the unconstrained estimate. The obtained solution is extended to nonlinear measurement models and applied to the spacecraft attitude filtering problem.


In this work, results on the study of the structure and photoluminescence (PL) properties of SiOxNy thin films are presented. The films were deposited at room temperature using a dual-ion-beam co-sputtering system. The XRD and TEM results show that the deposited films have an amorphous structure. In the XPS result, we find N 1 s spectra consist of one symmetric single peak at 397.8 eV, indicating that the nitrogen atoms are mainly bonded to silicon. It is in agreement to the result of FTIR. In SiOxNy films, an intense single PL peak at 590 nm is observed. Furthermore, with the increase of the N content in the SiOxNy films, the intensity of the PL peak at 590 nm increases a lot. The PL peak of 590 nm is suggested to originate from N-related defects.


In this dissertation, I examine investors' use of balance sheet information to infer earnings management constraint and the extent to which they utilize that information to assess the quality of subsequent earnings surprises. Ex-ante constrained firms may not have sufficient ability to manage earnings towards desired earnings thresholds and thus their reported earnings surprises are more likely to be the result of real performance. Exante flexible firms, however, have more room to manage earnings and so it becomes less clear to investors whether the reported earnings surprises are the result of real performance or earnings management. My tests provide mixed support for the constraint theory. I find evidence that the market reacts more to small positive earnings surprises when they are reported by ex-ante constrained firms than when reported by ex-ante flexible firms. This suggests that the market interprets the earnings surprise reported by constrained firms to be of higher quality. However, I also find that earnings surprises reported by ex-ante constrained firms are no more persistent with regard to one-yearahead earnings than those reported by ex-ante flexible firms, a result that is not consistent with the differential reaction to earnings surprises.


This paper seeks to understand how the structure of civic relationships shapes trajectories of economic change through an examination of two well-matched Rust Belt cities: Allentown, Pennsylvania and Youngstown, Ohio. Despite sharing very similar economic histories, Allentown and Youngstown have nevertheless taken dramatically different post-industrial paths since the 1970s. The paper analyses how the intersection of economic and civic social networks shapes the strategic choice and possibilities for mobilization of key organizational actors. The analysis shows that differences in the way that civic and economic relationships intersected facilitated collective action in one location and impeded it in the other. However, in contrast to much of the literature on "social capital", the results indicate the downsides of network density, particularly in times of acute economic crisis. More important than network density is that the structure of social relationships facilitate interaction--and mobilization--across social, political and economic divisions.


On-line dynamic security assessment (DSA) is challenging using conventional techniquesbecause most DSA approaches use detailed mathematical models of the system that arecomputationally intensive and time-consuming. In this paper, a method based on Artificial NeuralNetworks (ANN) is developed to estimate the security margin. The security margin for a given powersystem is obtained by applying standard operations criteria for transient response to off-line timesimulations. These simulations then form a database that can be used to train a pattern matchingapproach, such as, ANNs. Feature selection using statistical approaches is applied to overcome thedimensional problem of applying the ANN to larger systems. This method provides a fast and accuratetool to evaluate dynamic security. If the estimated security margin is less than requirements, thenpreventive control actions that guarantee dynamic security of the power system are needed. This isachieved by optimal rescheduling of the generation with given constraints on the network powerflows and system security margins as estimated by the ANN. This requires a modified Optimal PowerFlow (OPF) solution that allows the trained ANN to act as a security objective function. Numericalresults on the New England 39-bus system validate the methodology.


This paper considers the optimal control and optimal estimation problems for a class of linear parabolic diffusion-reaction partial differential equations (PDEs) with actuators and sensors at the boundaries. Diffusion-reaction PDEs with boundary actuation and sensing arise in a multitude of relevant physical systems (e.g. magneto-hydrodynamic flows, chemical reactors, and electrochemical conversion devices). We formulate both the control and estimation problems using finite-time optimal control techniques, where the key results represent first order necessary conditions for optimality. Specifically, the time-varying state-feedback and observer gains are determined by solving Riccati-type PDEs. These results are analogous to the Riccati differential equations seen in linear quadratic regulator and optimal estimator results. In this sense, this paper extends LQR and optimal estimation results for finite-dimensional systems to infinite-dimensional systems with boundary actuation and sensing. These results are unique in two important ways. First, the derivations completely avoid discretization until the implementation stage. Second, they bypass formulating infinite-dimensional systems on an abstract Hilbert space and applying semigroup theory. Instead, Riccati equations are derived by applying weak-variations directly on the PDEs. Simulation examples and comparative analyses to backstepping are included for demonstration purposes.


The relationship of the civil/non-profit sector and public administration may be examined from several specific aspects, but in our opinion these fields may be put into three – relatively – well distinguishable groups. Therefore, the relationship of administrative bodies with civil organisations may be identified in a) the creation of administrative programs and participation in legislation; b) the provision of public services, and c) the protection of rights. From these three this work undertakes to describe the aspect of civil participation in programme making and legislation in details, in a way that elaborates on the issue from the side of state administration. The primary method of this research – due to the shortage of systematic scientific bases – cannot be anything else but the comprehensive collection of formal institutional facilities provided by Hungarian laws. The paper distinguishes those special forms of participation which approach the legislator (a state administrative body participating in legislation) directly, and those institutionalised solutions through which the citizen or a particular (civil) organisation may influence the content of laws not by approaching the legislator (state administrative body participating in legislation), but through another state organisation. It can be stated that the Hungarian legal system makes it possible to channel the direct and institutionalised participation of civil entities within programand law-making activities of organs belonging to public administration, expressing their interests. Moreover, the Hungarian legal system has introduced developed and sophisticated mechanisms even compared to the international legal practice. Real deficiencies can rather be detected concerning the material and legal consequences of different initiatives, the frequency of convening various corporate bodies, and mere formal mode of operating the particular mechanisms. Furthermore, the trouble is that the civil/non-profit sector is strongly "infected" by direct partisan politics in Hungary: there is a large number of pseudo-civil entities and initiatives within the scope of activities of proposal-making, advisory and coordinative bodies. A special appearance of the abovementioned difficulties is the lack of strong and effective state-civil society joint mechanisms which aggregate and uphold Roma (Gypsy) interests. In summary we can draw the conclusion that the individual segments of civil society, the political culture and also the administrative bodies participate in legislation i. e. their representatives must improve to comply with the already existing legal framework of statutory instruments.


Creativity and innovation have become two very important concepts in today's society where the demand for these abilities are sought after. At the same time, the school system of today follows a more traditional outlook on what learning and knowledge means.The extend students ability to understand and elevate their motivation is possible through creative methods of working. In order to create a school system which can withstand the demands of the future by including creative methods in its model, a study was carried out to examine how teachers' thoughts on creativity could mean for its development.This study took place in an elementary school in Sweden where Entreprenoriellt Larande (EL) has been in use for the last two years. Three teachers were interview regarding subjects such as a) creativity and what it means, b) teaching and motivation and c) students abilities. The study showed that the concept of creativity had undergone some changes even though it was thought of as small ones. This in turn affected the work that was being done and the concept of teaching. At the same time, there are constraints in which the teachers are working, for instance limited recourses and having to reach certain goals. The innovative proposal this study contributes is based on those factors the teachers listed as most constraining.


*Corresponding Author: Haitham M. Kadhim email@example.com Abstract In patients with diabetes, chronic inflammation is characterised by the increase in C-reactive protein (CRP) and tumour necrosis alpha (TNFα). The consumption of melatonin and flaxseed oil may improve insulin sensitivity and the effectiveness of diabetic medications. The current study investigated the efficacy of melatonin and flaxseed oil in patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). It involved 43 patients with diabetes who were divided into 3 groups. The first group received a placebo (starch 50mg, n=13), the second group received melatonin (10mg per day, n=14) and the third group received flaxseed oil (1000mg per day, n=16), in addition to prescribed hypoglycaemic medication and a 12-week controlled diet. Fasting blood sugar (FBS), glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c), oxidative stress and inflammatory parameters were measured in each group at 0, 6, and 12 weeks. Melatonin and flaxseed oil administrations resulted in a highly significant increase in glutathione (GSH) levels, a significant decrease in malondialdehyde (MDA), a significant increase in superoxide dismutase (SOD) in the melatonin group and a significant increase in SOD in the flaxseed oil group. The melatonin group and the flaxseed oil group also showed a highly significant decrease in oxidised lowdensity lipoprotein (ox-LDL).TNF-α was significantly reduced after the respective consumption of melatonin and flaxseed oil. Furthermore, flaxseed oil consumption resulted in a significant decrease in CRP; however, there was no significant difference in CRP due to melatonin consumption.


Summary Multiple i.p. injections of actinomycin D induced invasive, transplantable tumors, but actinocylgramicidin S did not. The mechanism of oncogenesis by actinomycin D may be dependent upon the intact peptide lactone moieties, since the analog, actinocylgramicidin S, which contains the universal actinomycin chromophore but does not bind with DNA, was not oncogenic. Most of the actinomycin-induced tumors displayed a variety of gross features and histological patterns. Grossly, the tumors appeared as multiple, gray or yellow, firm, irregular, predunculated, or sessile nodules 2 to 10 mm in diameter attached to peritoneum, mesentery, and serosal surfaces of the abdominal viscera. In addition to this surface growth, there was invasion into the muscularis of the bowel and, occasionally, infiltration between pancreatic lobules as well as into portal tracts of the liver. Microscopically, each tumor contained a variety of histological patterns; in most instances, a fibrosarcomatous appearance predominated but, within the same tumors, there were areas resembling hemangioma, dilated cysts, an alveolar pattern, osseous foci, and, in peripancreatic tissue, adenocarcinoma. Because of the prominent surface growth and the variation in histology, the tumors were interpreted tentatively as mesotheliomas. Preliminary electron microscopic examination revealed that the tumors had ultrastructural features similar to those reported in mesotheliomas in humans. No insulin-like activity was detected. The solid tumor and ascites form were transplantable through several generations.


The 1st published study of efficacy of a hormonal male contraceptive, by the WHO Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction, employed weekly deep intramuscular injections of testosterone enanthate. 271 fertile married men at 10 centers worldwide participated for 18 months. The goal of this preliminary study was to determine if azoospermia was necessary or sufficient for effective contraception. Azoospermia was produced in 157 men, who then participated in a 12-month trial. There was 1 pregnancy, for a failure rate of 0.8 per 100 person-years, highly effective in comparison with oral contraceptives, IUDs and injectables. There was a 12% annual discontinuation rate reasons cited were acne (4%), behavioral effects such as aggression or increased libido (1%), and other medical reasons (1%), e.g. weight gain, polycythemia, hyperlipidemia or hypertension. Recruitment of study subjects was difficult in developed countries until direct public appeals met with success. Future developments in the male hormonal contraceptive field will require a more acceptable administration route. To develop this, longer-acting injectables or implants utilizing testosterone cybutanate (20AET-1), or other combinations of testosterone with a progestin or a gonadotropin-releasing hormone antagonist are envisioned. The effect of incomplete azoospermia and the fertilizing capacity of remaining sperm is a serious issue for research. Each more crucial is resolution of the social, political and legal problems involved in male hormonal contraceptive research. Probably reform of the US product liability litigation procedures will do more to advance contraceptive development than any other single factor.


YSZ electrolyte-supported hollow-fiber SOFCs were successfully fabricated and their electrical and mechanical properties were investigated. The as-prepared hollow fiber SOFCs show a high mechanical strength of 149.0 MPa and 177.9 MPa before and after reduction by hydrogen gas, respectively. The open circuit voltage (OCV) values are greater than 1.0 V and the maximum power densities reach 146 mW cm-2 at 800°C, using wet H2 (~3% H2O) and static air as fuel and oxidant gas, respectively. As a result of high packing densities, this kind of YSZ electrolyte-supported hollow-fiber SOFCs has a high potential for practical applications.


Pregnancy is associated with increased nutritional needs due to the physiologic changes of the female and the metabolic demands of the embryo/fetus. The use of chelating compounds with high biological activity increased the fertility of female rats by stimulation metabolism and functional activity of the reproductive system. Manganese is an essential element utilized by antioxidants, including superoxide dismutase (MnSOD), and others metalloenzymes that take part in reduction reactions, in multiple physiological processes including reproductive system. The aim of the research was to determine the effect of subcutaneous injections of Mn glutamate in liposomal forms on the reproductive system and the process of embryogenesis of experimental female rat. The study was conducted on female rats aged 2.5-3 months with body weight of 180-200 g. Rats with dated gestation were divided into three groups: two experimental and control. Female rabbits of the 1 th experimental group were subcutaneous injected of 2 mg/ml for Mn glutamate in liposomal form one week before fertilization and the animals of the 2 th group were obtained the same preparation during fertilization. Rats were euthanized on the twentieth day, ovariens were singled out of fiber, visual inspection and counting the number of yellow bodies were performed, absolute and relative mass indexes were determined, Mn glutamate influence index was calculated. Experimental results showed that the administration of Mn glutamate 7 days before fertilization and during fertilization significant increased the number of corpora lutea of pregnancy (p<0,001), number of live fetuses (p<0,001) due to the decrease in general and pre-implantation embryonic mortality compared with the control group. The experimental results showed improvement in key indicators of embryonic development. We observed significant increase in the number of implanted embryos on 1 female at 10,7±0,26 and 11,3±0,21 (p<0,001) (9,4±0,16 vs. control group) and decrease of the number of resorption in the female rats treated with Mn glutamate as compared with the control group. The results suggest a beneficial effect on the course of Mn glutamate embryogenesis of experimental animals. Key words: glutamate manganese, pregnancy, embryogenesis, liposomal preparation


Abstract On May 31, 1975, 15 miles northwest of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the Chevron No. 1 Alma Plantation well was completed as the discovery well for the False River Field. Completed from perforations at 19,836–19,916 feet with a rate of 20 million cubic feet of gas per day (MMCFGD) and 80 barrels of condensate per day (BCPD), the well opened the prolific South Louisiana Lower Tuscaloosa Trend. Seven months later, the completion of the Chevron No. 1 State Lease 6646 well in Lake Borgne, 110 miles southeast of False River, suggested a significant new gas trend for the Gulf Coast. Initial optimism placed the trend's dimensions as 30 miles wide and 200 miles long, extending from the Texas/Louisiana state line eastward through Lake Pontchartrain. Recollections from geoscientists, engineers, landmen, and landowners who worked the trend in the early years provide an oral history of the excitement, rapid development, well control events, and technical understanding of the trend. The trend's early development was covered in many local and national newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and New York Times; magazines, including Time, Forbes, Ebony, Louisiana Life, Christian Science Monitor), and trade journals. Several papers were presented at Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies (GCAGS) annual meetings, GCAGS member society luncheons, and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) annual meetings. Early resource predictions for the trend varied greatly from 3 to 60 trillion cubic feet of gas equivalent (TCFGE). As more wells were drilled, the original size of the trend was reduced significantly, along with the resource size. A "sweet spot" centered in Pointe Coupee, Livingston, West Baton Rouge, and East Baton Rouge parishes has produced approximately 4 TCFGE, which is still a significant and impressive trend for the Gulf Coast. Three fields (Port Hudson, 1356 billion cubic feet of gas equivalent [BCFGE]; Judge Digby, 759 BCFGE; and Morganza, 559 BCFGE) account for 67% of the trend's production.


The purpose of this study was to explore the related practical techniques of monitoring and controlling system in designing renewable energy system, especially for small-scaled wind-power generator. Recently, the whole world was actively developing replaced energy to solve the economic development and daily-life necessities problems resulting from gradually lacking of oil. Taiwan government was progressively planning to develop small-scaled wind-power generators under authority of Energy Bureau of Economy Minister. The real-time running parameters of wind-power generator is very essential for designing the power-generating system, in this paper, a data transition system including how to construct ZigBee non-beacon-enable-network, communication techniques, data coding, and its interface for collecting running parameters in wind-power generator was designed with ZigBee wireless-sensor-networks (WSN) module. The final result of this study has successfully implemented in a practical small-scaled wind-power generator system which was part of integrated-project of Teaching Superior Projects authorized by Taiwan Education Minister-Constructing Monitoring and Controlling Interface in small-scaled wind-power generator system, and the validity and stability of the system has been proved efficient and successful.


Periodic poling of lithium niobate crystals (PPLN) by means of electric field has revealed the best technique for finely tailoring PPLN structures and parameters, which play a central role in many current researches in the field of nonlinear integrated optics. Besides the most studied technique of bulk poling, recently a novel technique where domain inversion occurs just in a surface layer using photoresist or silica masks has been devised and studied. This surface periodic poling (SPP) approach is best suited when light is confined in a thin surface guiding layer or stripe, as in the case of optical waveguide devices. Also, we found that SPP respect to bulk poling offers two orders of magnitude reduction on the scale of periodicity, so that even nanostructures can be obtained provided a high resolution holographic mask writing technique is adopted. We were able to demonstrate 200 nm domain size, and also good compatibility with alpha-phase proton exchange channel waveguide fabrication. Our first experiments on lithium tantalate have also shown that the SPP technology appears to be applicable to this crystal (SPPLT), whose properties can allow to overcome limitations such as optical damage or UV absorption still present in PPLN devices. Finally, the issue of SPP compatibility with proton exchange waveguide fabrication will be addressed.


Many options are available to patients to maintain occlusal function. Dental implants provide yet another. This paper examines the author's experience with one type of dental implant technique. The findings are based on data contained within the data base the author maintains of approximately 3,000 individual implants. The maxilla is the more challenging of the two arches, and the subperiosteal allows us to choose between grafting procedures and endosseous implants or a combination of subperiosteal implant and root form implants. Each has its positives and negatives. The At Risk statistical computer analysis of the author's database validates the use of the subperiosteal as an alternative.


We investigate theoretically the performance of adaptive-optics correction for Gaussian beams affected by oceanic turbulence. Action of adaptive optics is modeled as removal of a certain number of Zernike modes from the aberrated wavefront. We found that, similarly to atmospheric turbulence, adaptive optics is very effective in improving optical system performance of laser communication links in weak oceanic turbulence.


Extract: In previous reports the subclassifications for the terminations of the G line of the palm and for the interdigital palmar areas have been described. These subclassifications, as well as those of Cummins and Midlo for the hypothenar and thenar/I areas, were applied to anthropologic data and showed strong bilateral and racial polymorphism. The present study is an effort to determine the usefulness of these methods in investigations of clinical data. A well defined anomaly, Down's syndrome, which has known dermatoglyphic peculiarities, was chosen for this test. The study involved 145 male and 120 female patients and 108 male and 114 female control subjects. All subjects were unrelated Caucasians. Significant differences between the patient and control subjects were encountered in the subclassifications of the C line terminations and in the hypothenar area patterns. Significant differences were observed in the frequency of patterns in the thenar/I area as well as the expected differences in the simial lines. Sydney line frequencies showed no significant differences.Speculation: The results of the present study suggest that the subclassifications of the palmar patterns and the G line terminations are of value in the investigation of clinical data by offering further diagnostic criteria not revealed by gross dermatoglyphic evaluation.


One of the important issues in the study of steel frames is to find a suitable formulation for semi-rigid connections. In this paper, the explicit stiffness matrix for a two-dimensional beam- column element having end-flexibilities is derived. The effects of the lateral uniformly distributed load on the deflection are considered. Both the tensile and compressive axial loads are also taken into account by one formula. Using the proposed stiffness matrix, some first-order, second-order, buckling, and dynamic analyses for semi-rigid frames are performed. The plastic analysis is also carried out using the plastic hinge approach. Comparing the calculated results with other references shows the accuracy and capabilities of the utilized element. Furthermore, the influences of the semi- rigid connections on the static and dynamic responses are investigated.


This paper examines the effectiveness, within the construction sector, of the Internal Quality Audit (IQA) and its contribution to Quality Management System (QMS) based on the ISO 9000 Certification Scheme. Once a company has obtained ISO Certification the IQA is amongst the requirements specified in the ISO Standards that must be maintained. However, the way the IQA is conducted has an effect on its contribution to the QMS. This specifically includes company risk management and compliance with contractual obligations. A literature review establishes the relationship between the QMS, ISO implementation and the auditing system. The four indicators of an effective IQA are identified. These indicators are then be used as a basis to measure effectiveness of IQAs when applied to construction. This paper draws on the findings of recently conducted case studies conducted on the use of IQAs in the construction industry in Singapore. The key finding is that IQAs are under utilized in terms of a measure of the effectiveness of the QMS and also as a measure of demonstrating compliance with contractual obligations. The recommendations arising from this research fall into two categories. The first category relates to the need to increase the frequency of conducting IQAs in order that there is adequate evidence of implementation of the QMS for the purpose of risk minimization, third party audits and compliance with contractual obligations. The second area is the need to train and educate staff to understand the role and contribution of the IQA to the overall QMS process.


Congenital dyserythropoietic anemia type II (CDA II) or HEMPAS is a genetic disease caused by plasma membrane abnormality. The enzymic defect of HEMPAS has been suggested to be the lowered activity of N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase II, resulting in lack of polylactosamine formation on proteins and leading to accumulation of polylactosaminyl lipids. In contrast to typical HEMPAS cases, cell-surface labeling of the erythrocytes of a HEMPAS variant G.K. showed an absence of polylactosamines either on proteins or on lipids. Fast-atom bombardment mass spectrometry analysis of G.K.'s erythrocyte glycopeptides detected a series of high mannose-type oligosaccharides, which were not detected in erythrocyte N-glycans of normal cells or of other HEMPAS cases: The former contains polylactosaminoglycans and the latter contains hybrid-type oligosaccharides. Keratansulfate (sulfated polylactosamines) in this patient's serum was abnormally low. The galactosyltransferase activity in microsomal membranes prepared from G.K.'s mononucleated cells was 24% of the normal level, whereas this enzyme activity in G.K.'s serum was comparatively higher than normal. Western blotting of G.K.'s membranes using antigalactosyltransferase antibodies showed that G.K. has reduced amounts of this enzyme present. The results collectively suggest that variant G.K. is defective in polylactosamine synthesis owing to the decreased quantity of the membrane-bound form of galactosyltransferase.


Adverse skin reactions to drugs are frequent, with rates of reaction to many commonly used drugs exceeding 1%. We describe a 29-year-old woman admitted with a history of itching, rash, vesicles on her hands and soles, and edema on her tongue and oropharynx after trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, ciprofloxacin, methenamine anhydromethylene citrate, piroxicam, azithromycin, and ceftriaxone intake. Erythema multiforme (EM) was diagnosed by skin biopsy after oral challenge with piroxicam. EM lesions reappeared after oral challenge with levofloxacin. Although EM is quite common with trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole and there are some reports of EM appearing after intake of ciprofloxacin, it has rarely been attributed to piroxicam and no reports have identified levofloxacin as a cause.


Background: The only treatment specifically developed for chronic depression, the Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy (CBASP), is based amongst others on the hypothesis that chronically depressed patients (CD) show considerable deficits of affective theory of mind (ToM) capabilities. Data are scarce, however, and it remains unclear if ToM deficits are specific or if they arise from global cognitive deficits associated with depression. This study investigates the specific deficits of affective ToM abilities in CD. Sampling and Methods: ToM abilities were assessed in 26 medication-free CD and 26 matched healthy controls (HC) by means of a previously established false-belief ToM cartoon task. Since the task allowed an intern control for cognitive factors - operationalized in a visuospatial ToM task - it was possible to investigate specific affective ToM deficits. Results: As hypothesized, the CD showed a significant specific slowdown of affective ToM compared to cognitive ToM (3rd person perspective) when compared to HC. Simultaneously, we observed a general deterioration of all ToM functions in CD. Conclusions: This study provides evidence that CD have a mentalization deficit, specifically for affective ToM functions. This deficit is combined with a general deterioration of ToM functions, most likely attributable to frequently described cognitive deficits in depression.


Background: Chronic Achilles tendinosis is a relatively common but difficult orthopedic condition to treat. In this study, autologous platelet rich plasma (PRP), a concentrated bioactive blood component rich in cytokines and growth factors, was evaluated to determine its potential long-term efficacy in treating chronic cases of Achilles tendinosis resistant to traditional nonoperative management. Methods: Thirty patients with chronic Achilles tendinosis who did not respond to a minimum of 6 months of traditional nonoperative treatment modalities were treated with a single ultrasound guided injection of PRP. AOFAS scoring was completed for all patients pretreatment and at 0, 1, 2, 3, 6, 12, and 24 months post-treatment. MRI and/or ultrasound studies were completed for all patients pre-treatment and at 6 months post-treatment. Prior to the PRP treatment all of the patients in this study were considering surgical Achilles repair for their severe symptoms. Results: The average AOFAS score increased from 34 (range, 20 to 60) to 92 (range, 87 to 100) by 3 months after PRP treatment and remained elevated at 88 (range, 76 to 100) at 24 months post-treatment. Pretreatment imaging abnormalities present in the Achilles tendon on MRI and ultrasound studies resolved in 27 of 29 patients at 6 months post-treatment. Clinical success was achieved in 28 of 30 patients. Conclusion: Platelet-rich plasma was used effectively to treat chronic recalcitrant cases of Achilles tendinosis. Level of Evidence: IV, Case Series


We introduce light diffusion, a novel method to improve lighting in portraits, softening harsh shadows and specular highlights while preserving overall scene illumi-nation. Inspired by professional photographers' diffusers and scrims, our method softens lighting given only a single portrait photo. Previous portrait relighting approaches focus on changing the entire lighting environment, removing shadows (ignoring strong specular highlights), or removing shading entirely. In contrast, we propose a learning based method that allows us to control the amount of light diffusion and apply it on in-the-wild portraits. Additionally, we design a method to synthetically generate plausible external shadows with sub-surface scattering effects while conforming to the shape of the subject's face. Finally, we show how our approach can increase the robustness of higher level vision applications, such as albedo estimation, geometry estimation and semantic segmentation.


Combustion of poor quality coals is used today worldwide for energy production. The removal of polluting compounds, i.e. S, N, Hg and Cl from them prior to combustion is important not only for improving the coal quality, but also for meeting the strict environmental standards. Thus, a preventive fuels pre-treatment technique, based on low temperature carbonisation, has been developed that aims to convert 'dirty' fuels to cleaner ones. This study looks at the effect of pyrolysis temperature and residence time on the reactivity of clean coals produced by poor quality coals. Pyrolysis tests of three poor quality coals (Ptolemais, Bulgarian and Australian) were performed in a lab-scale fixed bed reactor, under helium atmosphere and ambient pressure. Ptolemais lignite is the main fuel for electricity production in Greece. The effects of carbonisation temperature (200-900°C) and residence time (5-120 min) on the properties of the obtained chars were investigated. Special attention was paid to the polluting compounds (S, N, Hg, Cl) removal. The reactivity under combustion conditions of the Ptolemais chars produced was also investigated. It was observed that low temperature carbonisation could contribute to clean coal production by effectively removing the major part of the existing polluting compounds in the coals. Thus, depending on coal type, nitrogen, mercury and chlorine conversion continuously increase with temperature, while sulphur removal seems to reach a plateau above 500 – 600°C. Furthermore, the prolongation of carbonisation time above 20 min does not affect the elemental conversion of the pollutants. Therefore, carbonisation at 500 – 600°C for ~20 min could be considered sufficient for clean coal production from poor quality coals. The reactivity of the prepared clean coals was evaluated by performing non-isothermal combustion tests in a TA Q600 thermobalance at ambient pressure and 20°C min -1 heating rate. At increased pyrolysis temperatures higher initial combustion temperatures were observed, due to the volatile reduction in char production stage. The latter results to lower total conversions.


Early androgens have been shown to facilitate male‐typical behavior in people, but little attention has been paid to androgen effects on female‐typical behavior. We studied the effects of early androgen on human interest in infants, attempting to extend studies in rodents and primates that indicate that exposure to high levels of androgen in the prenatal and early postnatal periods reduces the expression of maternal behavior in juvenile and adult animals. Parents completed a questionnaire about the behavior of children with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) who had been exposed to high levels of androgens early in life, and their unexposed siblings. As hypothesized, girls with CAH were reported to have less interest in infants than their sisters. These results suggest that early androgens may act to suppress some aspects of female‐typical behavior in people, as in other species, and that sex differences in maternal behavior result, in part, from early hormones.


Non Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) is often diagnosed in an advanced stage. In this setting the disease is associated with an unfavourable prognosis. Although recent therapeutic advances using molecularly targeted agents enable an improved prognosis, most patients still have a poor outcome. Many tumor antigens have been identified in NSCLC and the activation of tumour antigen-specific immunity mediated by vaccination strategies is widely accepted as an attractive new therapeutic strategy.
Different therapeutic cancer vaccines are currently under clinical development. In clinical studies vaccination protocols targeting tumour antigens like MAGE-A3, MUC1 and hTERT have resulted in favourable survival data. Mode of action as well as available clinical data in phase II and III studies are reviewed. The success of this ongoing tumour antigen-specific vaccination approaches is hampered by local immunosuppressive factors like TGF-β and PD-1. Promising data have been obtained by inhibition of these factors facilitating effective tumour specific immune responses. Also in this particular field we will give an update on the most promising approaches.


To address the role of atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) in hypothyroidism in the control of cardiorenal-endocrine function during volume loading, the relationships between atrial pressure, ANF, the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, and renal hemodynamic and excretory function were examined during and after acute 10% body wt saline volume infusion in pentobarbital-anesthetized hypothyroid dogs (n = 8). Hormonal changes before and after thyroidectomy were also evaluated. Four to 6 wk after thyroidectomy, ANF decreased and arginine vasopressin (AVP) and plasma renin activity (PRA) increased. Acute saline volume expansion caused an increase in ANF and decreases in AVP and PRA. Atrial pressure increased throughout volume expansion. Despite the absence of an increase in glomerular filtration rate (GFR) during volume expansion, urinary sodium excretion increased due to a marked rise in fractional excretion of sodium. These studies demonstrate that in hypothyroidism 1) ANF is decreased; 2) despite the decrease in basal ANF, increases in atrial pressure can stimulate relase of ANF; 3) despite the absence of an increase in GFR during volume expansion, fractional excretion of sodium increases associated with an increase in ANF; and 4) a lack of an increase in GFR during volume expansion is not related to an inability to increase ANF.


The queen conch Lobatus (Strombus) gigas, a marine snail, is among the most important fisheries resources of the Caribbean region. To provide effective protection in marine reserves, a good understanding of its habitat usage is essential. Queen conches commonly inhabit marine habitats. In this study, its activity space in a marginal estuarine-like habitat, the groundwater-fed inlet of Xel-Ha (Mexico) was determined using high-resolution acoustic telemetry (VEMCO Positioning System). Thirty-eight animals with syphonal lengths ranging from 80 to 200 mm were tagged, 1 of them with an accelerometer tag. Their trajectories were recorded for 20 mo at 5 m resolution in a closely spaced array of 12 receivers. Space–time kernel home ranges ranged from 1000 to 18500 m2 with an ontogenetically increasing trend. Juveniles, subadults and most adults displayed continuous, non-patchy home ranges consistent with the typical intensive feeding activity by this fast-growing gastropod. In some adults, Levy flight-like fragmentation of home ranges was observed that may be related to feeding range expansion or other ecological drivers such as the breeding cycle. The observed small home ranges indicate that the space use of queen conch in this estuarine-like habitat is not conditioned by food availability, and despite environmental stress due to daily low-oxygen conditions, space use is comparable to that observed in more typical marine habitats. In a marine reserve context, the groundwater-fed inlet provides adequate protection of this inshore queen conch population. Such marginal habitats may play an increasingly important role in conservation management as pressure on populations increase.


Ensembles are a straightforward, remarkably effective method for improving the accuracy, calibration, and robustness of neural networks on classification tasks. Yet, the reasons underlying their success remain an active area of research. Building upon Pfau (2013), we turn to the bias-variance decomposition of Bregman divergences in order to gain insight into the behavior of ensembles under classification losses. Introducing a dual reparameterization of the bias-variance decomposition, we first derive generalized laws of total expectation and variance, then discuss how bias and variance terms can be estimated empirically. Next, we show that the dual reparameterization naturally introduces a way of constructing ensembles which reduces the variance and leaves the bias unchanged. Conversely, we show that ensembles that directly average model outputs can arbitrarily increase or decrease the bias. Empirically, we see that such ensembles of neural networks may reduce the bias. We conclude with an empirical analysis of ensembles over neural network architecture hyperparameters, revealing that these techniques allow for more efficient bias reduction than standard ensembles. question of whether the insights developed in this work can help derive ensembling methods with greater bias reduction.


Here an improved three-level integrated ac–dc converter is presented. This converter improving or boosting power factor correction. And also this converter topology is advanced than previous ac-dc converters mainly the converter is operating with two independent controllers. An input controller is used to power factor correction and it regulates the dc bus, and the output controller is used to control the output voltage of this converter. The input controller prevents the dc-bus voltage from becoming excessive. The paper explains the operation of an improved version of new converter and its procedure for proper design. Simulation results are obtained using mat lab.


Phenotypic flexibility can be an important determinant of fitness in variable environments. The climatic variability hypothesis (CVH) predicts that phenotypic flexibility in thermoregulatory traits will be greater in temperate species than tropical species as a means of coping with increased temperature seasonality at higher latitudes. However, support for the CVH has been mixed, and recent studies suggest that tropical birds are capable of substantial phenotypic flexibility. To test the generality of the CVH, we used flow-through respirometry to quantify seasonal acclimatization in thermoregulatory traits in suites of temperate (n = 6) and tropical (n = 41) birds. We used W/S ratios (winter/summer trait values) to quantify the direction and magnitude of seasonal change (W/S ratio of 1 means no seasonal change). Temperate species exhibited coordinated changes in thermoregulatory traits in winter, including large increases in thermoneutral zone (TNZ) breadth and reductions in heat loss below the lower limit of the TNZ. Conversely, tropical species exhibited idiosyncratic seasonal thermoregulatory responses, and mean W/S ratios were close to 1 for all traits, indicative of little seasonal change and consistent with predictions of the CVH. Nevertheless, mean W/S ratios did not differ significantly between temperate and tropical species for either Mb or BMR, demonstrating that tropical birds can also exhibit substantial thermoregulatory flexibility. Our results highlight the need for complementary acclimation experiments to determine if latitudinal differences in seasonal acclimatization are due to inherent differences in capacity for flexibility.


In this work, hooliganism is analyzed and prognosis of its development is made. To make this prognosis, the extrapolation and expert estimation methods were used. With extrapolation method preliminary prognosis is made and with expert estimation method this prognosis is made more precise. With expert estimation method main factors exerting influence on hooliganism crime are analyzed. Hooliganism in 1999-2000 should increase about 7 %, the structure of hooliganism should change –part of elementary hooliganism decrease but part of hooliganism with weapon increase and parts of women and group hooliganism increase and part of hooliganism to be made previous by convicted people.


Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is genetically characterized by the presence of the reciprocal translocation t(9;22)(q34;q11), resulting in a BCR/ABL gene fusion on the derivative chromosome 22 called the Philadelphia (Ph) chromosome. In 2–10% of the cases, this chimeric gene is generated by variant rearrangements, involving 9q34, 22q11, and one or several other genomic regions. All chromosomes have been described as participating in these variants, but there is a marked breakpoint clustering to chromosome bands 1p36, 3p21, 5q13, 6p21, 9q22, 11q13, 12p13, 17p13, 17q21, 17q25, 19q13, 21q22, 22q12, and 22q13. Despite their genetically complex nature, available data indicate that variant rearrangements do not confer any specific phenotypic or prognostic impact as compared to CML with a standard Ph chromosome. In most instances, the t(9;22), or a variant thereof, is the sole chromosomal anomaly during the chronic phase (CP) of the disease, whereas additional genetic changes are demonstrable in 60–80% of cases in blast crisis (BC). The secondary chromosomal aberrations are clearly nonrandom, with the most common chromosomal abnormalities being +8 (34% of cases with additional changes), +Ph (30%), i(17q) (20%), +19 (13%), –Y (8% of males), +21 (7%), +17 (5%), and monosomy 7 (5%). We suggest that all these aberrations, occurring in >5% of CML with secondary changes, should be denoted major route abnormalities. Chromosome segments often involved in structural rearrangements include 1q, 3q21, 3q26, 7p, 9p, 11q23, 12p13, 13q11–14, 17p11, 17q10, 21q22, and 22q10. No clear-cut differences as regards type and prevalence of additional aberrations seem to exist between CML with standard t(9;22) and CML with variants, except for slightly lower frequencies of the most common changes in the latter group. The temporal order of the secondary changes varies, but the preferred pathway appears to start with i(17q), followed by +8 and +Ph, and then +19. Molecular genetic abnormalities preceding, or occurring during, BC include overexpression of the BCR/ABL transcript, upregulation of the EVI1 gene, increased telomerase activity, and mutations of the tumor suppressor genes RB1, TP53, and CDKN2A. The cytogenetic evolution patterns vary significantly in relation to treatment given during CP. For example, +8 is more common after busulfan than hydroxyurea therapy, and the secondary changes seen after interferon-alpha treatment or bone marrow transplantation are often unusual, seemingly random, and occasionally transient. Apart from the strong phenotypic impact of addition of acute myeloid leukemia/myelodysplasia-associated translocations and inversions, such as inv(3)(q21q26), t(3;21)(q26;q22), and t(15;17)(q22;q12–21), in CML BC, only a few significant differences between myeloid and lymphoid BC are discerned, with i(17q) and TP53 mutations being more common in myeloid BC and monosomy 7, hypodiploidy, and CDKN2A deletions being more frequent in lymphoid BC. The prognostic significance of the secondary genetic changes is not uniform, although abnormalities involving chromosome 17, e.g., i(17q), have repeatedly been shown to be ominous. However, the clinical impact of additional cytogenetic and molecular genetic aberrations is most likely modified by the treatment modalities used.


While sequential programs represent a simple and natural form for expressing functionality, corresponding distributed implementations get considerably more complex. We examine the possibility of using the sequential computation model for programming distributed systems and requirements for making that possible. The benefits of such an approach include easier specification and reasoning about behaviors in the system, as well as a possibility to directly reuse existing techniques for checking correctness and optimization of sequential programs to produce efficient and reliable distributed implementations.


Combined operations for spreaded forms of lung cancer were performed in 59 of 841 patients which made up 7%. Postoperative complications following the combined interventions were observed in 35.6% of the cases. Lethality was 10.7%. Five year survival in patients without metastases to regional lymphatic nodes after the combined operations was 27.8%.


This article reports a unique analysis of private engagements by an activist fund. It is based on data made available to us by Hermes, the fund manager owned by the British Telecom Pension Scheme, on engagements with management in companies targeted by its UK Focus Fund. In contrast with most previous studies of activism, we report that the fund executes shareholder activism predominantly through private interventions that would be unobservable in studies purely relying on public information. The fund substantially outperforms benchmarks and we estimate that abnormal returns are largely associated with engagements rather than stock picking.


We develop and investigate a new medium access control (MAC) algorithm and protocol for ad-hoc wireless networks that employs power control spatial-reuse scheduling techniques. We. introduce a novel interference graph (the power-based interference graph), whose independence and chromatic numbers provide fundamental bounds for the integrated scheduling-power control problem. Based on the properties of the power-based interference graph, we develop two distributed algorithms (the distributed power controlled scheduling algorithms, DPCSs), which merely utilize the local information in the process of time slot allocation and power control. We show that both algorithms lead to a significant increase in the network throughput level through-spatial reuse of the communications resources while (Pareto) optimizing the power consumption.


Addressing an integrated decision-making structure for planting and harvesting scheduling may lead to more realistic, accurate, and efficient decision in fresh product supply chain. This study aims to develop an integrated bi-objective tactical and operational planning model for producing and distributing fresh crops. The first objective of the model is to maximize total revenue of supply chain. Over the past few years, there has been a considerable shift in emphasis in social responsibility of supply chains. Therefore, a key purpose of this article is to plan a socially responsible fresh agricultural supply chain as the second objective function. The proposed bi-objective model seeks to make optimal decisions on planting, harvesting scheduling (harvesting pattern), selecting the transport fleet type, and products supply channel to the consumers. To conduct the analysis, numerical examples are provided based on a real case study and the true Pareto front is achieved with augmented e-constraint method. The results indicated the applicability of the proposed model and verified its validity. Moreover, comparison between total weighting and e-constraint method is provided to ensure the efficiency of Pareto solutions.


Fault-tolerant distributed shared memory systems do not always need to support a complete and consistent recovery after a failure. We describe a framework , within which diierent approaches to, and different degrees of consistency and recoverability can be understood. The addition of consistent failure recovery may be approached from two diierent viewpoints: either by an application-oriented view or a memory-oriented view. The major characteristics used in our framework are variations of availability, consistency, and application support. This paper explains the basic model, which is used in Reliable Mirage + , and describes how the framework can be used by other researchers to understand and classify solutions to the reliable DSM problem. The model distinguishes a recoverable system, which must be able to survive any single-site failure, from a reliable system which also ensures consistency after the recovery. Since consistency requirements may impose a high penalty on standard operational performance , various relaxed recoverability consistencies are described by the multi-level model. Recovery under this model may be accomplished by applications specifying consistency and availability requirements.


Solar energetic particles (SEPs) are sporadically ejected from the Sun during flares and coronal mass ejections. They are of major astrophysical interest, because the proximity of the Sun allows for detailed multi-messenger studies. They affect space weather due to interactions with electronics, with the Earth's atmosphere, and with humans if they leave the protective shield of the magnetosphere of the Earth. Since early studies in the 1950s, starting with particle detectors on the ground, SEP events have been related to radio bursts. Two subjects are addressed in this chapter: attempts to establish quantitative correlations between SEPs and microwave bursts produced by gyro synchrotron radiation of mildly relativistic electrons, and the information derived from type III radio bursts on impulsive processes of particle acceleration and the coronal and interplanetary propagation. Type III radio bursts produced by electron beams on open magnetic field lines have a wide range of applications, including the identification of acceleration regions, the identification of confined particle acceleration with coronal signatures, but no SEPs, and the paths that the electrons, and energetic charged particles in general, take to travel from the low corona to the Heliosphere in case they escape. Simple scenarios of coronal particle acceleration are confirmed in relatively simple and short events. But the comparison with particle transport models shows that longer and delayed acceleration episodes exist especially in large SEP events. They will be discussed in a companion chapter.


In this paper we provide the first consideration of magnetosphere–ionosphere coupling at Jupiter-like exoplanets with internal plasma sources such as volcanic moons. We estimate the radio power emitted by such systems under the condition of near-rigid corotation throughout the closed magnetosphere, in order to examine the behaviour of the best candidates for detection with next generation radio telescopes. We thus estimate for different stellar X-ray–UV (XUV) luminosity cases the orbital distances within which the ionospheric Pedersen conductance would be high enough to maintain near-rigid corotation, and we then consider the magnitudes of the large-scale magnetosphere-ionosphere currents flowing within the systems, and the resulting radio powers, at such distances. We also examine the effects of two key system parameters, i.e. the planetary angular velocity and the plasma mass outflow rate from sources internal to the magnetosphere. In all XUV luminosity cases studied, a significant number of parameter combinations within an order of magnitude of the jovian values are capable of producing emissions observable beyond 1 pc, in most cases requiring exoplanets orbiting at distances between ∼1 and 50 au, and for the higher XUV luminosity cases these observable distances can reach beyond ∼50 pc for massive, rapidly rotating planets. The implication of these results is that the best candidates for detection of such internally generated radio emissions are rapidly rotating Jupiter-like exoplanets orbiting stars with high XUV luminosity at orbital distances beyond ∼1 au, and searching for such emissions may offer a new method of detection of more distant-orbiting exoplanets.


Background Participation in longitudinal research studies in resource-limited settings often involves frequent interactions with study staff and other participants, as well as receipt of incentives and transportation reimbursements. Social support—receipt of material and emotional resources from one's social network—has been linked to antiretroviral adherence in sub-Saharan Africa. The extent to which social support arises from study participation, its range and depth, and its implications for observational study conduct, have not been extensively described. Methods We conducted individual open-ended and semi-structured interviews with participants in a longitudinal, observational antiretroviral therapy adherence monitoring study in Mbarara, Uganda. Participants were asked about their experiences in the longitudinal study and their interactions with research staff. We also interviewed study research assistants (RAs). Deductive and inductive coding were used to identify content related to the experience of study participation. Codes were organized into themes, and relationships between themes were used to develop overarching categories. Results Sixty longitudinal study participants and 6 RAs were interviewed. Instrumental and emotional social support emerged as pervasive and valued aspects of longitudinal study participation. Instrumental support that participants received consisted of enhanced linkage to medical care, health education, and direct and indirect material benefits. Emotional support consisted of perceptions of feeling "cared for" and social interactions that permitted escape from HIV-related stigma. Both instrumental and emotional support often arose through the close relationships participants formed with research staff and with each other. Study-derived social support motivated some participants to adhere to antiretroviral therapy—an unanticipated effect potentially influencing the longitudinal study's primary observational outcome. Conclusions Longitudinal study participation resulted in instrumental and emotional social support for participants. The depth of support participants experienced has implications for observational study design in resource-limited settings, including need to assess potential effects on study outcomes; consideration of social support during risk/benefit assessment in study ethics review and consent; and vigilance for consequences of social support loss when studies end.


Griseofulvin and 53 analogues of this compound have been tested against the pathogenic dermatophytes Trichophyton rubrum and Trichophyton mentagrophytes as well as against the breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231. The modifications to griseofulvin include the 4, 5, 6, 2', 3', and 4' positions. The SAR of the griseofulvin analogues toward the two fungi followed the same trend with the majority being less active than griseofulvin and none had more than twice the potency of the parent compound. A comparison of the antifungal and the anticancer SAR revealed distinct differences, as the majority of analogues showed increased activity against the cancer cell line MDA-MB-231, highlighted by 2'-benzyloxy-2'-demethoxy-griseofulvin, which showed low activity against both fungi but was among the most potent compounds against MDA-MB-231 cancer cells. Tubulin has been proposed as the target of griseofulvin in both fungal and mammalian cells, but the differences revealed by this SAR study strongly suggest that the mode-of-action of the compound class toward fungi and mammalian cancer cells is different.


We study the question of whether the linearization of the Kodama state around classical deSitter spacetime is normalizable in the inner product of the theory of linearized gravitons on deSitter spacetime. We find the answer is no in the Lorentzian theory. However, in the Euclidean theory the corresponding linearized Kodama state is delta-functional normalizable. We discuss whether this result invalidates the conjecture that the full Kodama state is a good physical state for quantum gravity with positive cosmological constant.


TCPSO (Two-swarm Cooperative Particle Swarm Optimization) has been proposed by Sun and Li in 2014. TCPSO divides the swarms into two groups with different migration rules, and it has higher performance for high-dimensional nonlinear optimization problems than traditional PSO and other modified method of PSO. This paper proposes a particle swarm optimization by modifying TCPSO to avoid inappropriate convergence onto local optima. The quite feature of the proposed method is that two kinds of subpopulations constructed based on the scheme of TCPSO are divided into some clusters based on distance measure, k-means clustering method, to maintain both diversity and centralization of search process are maintained. This paper conducts numerical experiments using several types of functions, and the experimental results indicate that the proposed method has higher performance than the TCPSO for large-scale optimization problems.


At a meeting of the Manchester Medical Society on Oct. 1 Mr. W. F. NICHOLSON, reading a paper on this subject, said that bronchial obstruction with secondary infection was the common cause of lung abscess. In normal health the cilia lining the bronchial tree kept the air passages free from organisms and debris. When ciliary action was impaired by trauma, infection, or growth, coughing was effective in preventing bronchial obstruction. When coughing was embarrassed by pain or anaesthesia or tenacious secretion, bronchial obstruction might occur. An abscess due to bronchial embolism was peripheral in the lung, though it might not present on the costal surface. Because the subapical segment of the upper lobe and the apical segment of the lower lobe contained the most dependent bronchi in the lateral and supine positions respectively, these segments were most frequently,affected, and consequently most inhalation abscesses presented on the costal surface of the lung corresponding to these segments. The upper-lobe abscess was common after operations on the upper respiratory tract, in which a lateral position was usually emplbyed in the immediate postoperative period. Lower-lobe abscess was often due to abdominal operations, which were associated with a supine or Fowler's position. A putrid lung abscess was frequently undiagnosed because it was still not widely known that such an abscess could exist without foul sputum. When the abscess ruptured into the bronchial tree sputum would be present; but even before this happened there might be fetid breath. Treatment was by drainage, either bronchial (postural) or external (by operation). In either case location of the lesion must be exact if treatment was to be rational. The responsibility of the physician in these cases was heavy. If he delayed external drainage, in many cases the disease spread to a diffuse suppurative pneumonia of a lobe, which would eventually require a lobectomy. Moreover, the immediate mortality of conservative treatment was considerable. Only by sharing the responsibility with a surgeon from the beginning could drainage be instituted promptly in cases which did not respond to medical measures. Chemotherapy and antibiotics were of value, but did not replace drainage. Bronchoscopy was of value in locating the broncho-pulmonary segment of the abscess, in improving bronchial drainage, and in excluding a foreign body or growth; as a curative measure it was of little more value than postural drainage. Surgical drainage would decrease mortality and morbidity.


In cargo transportation, reliability is a crucial issue. In the case of railway traffic, the consequences of locomotive failure are not limited to the affected machine. Beside the cost of the machine itself, delays are caused and ultimately propagated through the railway network, rendering the accumulated cost of a single incident unpredictable. In order to avoid failures, Predictive Maintenance (PM) can be used. Predictive Maintenance targets the substitution of existing maintenance processes (e.g. time-based preventive maintenance) by conveniently scheduled corrective maintenance through exploitation of the underlying deterioration processes. In an ideal PM scenario, constant monitoring of the machine is available, measuring all relevant variables, e.g., temperatures or vibrations on a regular basis. However, in the real world, this assumption is limited: The hardware often does not deliver the required amount of data in the necessary precision. Often the machines record only a log-file which provides all activities – useful or not – that the various systems in the machine keep track of. In this paper, we give a short overview on PM in general and on the various types of systems that can be considered for PM. We elaborate on the differences in data as well as the nature of the systems it is possible to predict failures upon. In a prototypical example, we make use of machine learning methods to construct a failure prediction model for cargo trains. This data-driven approach focuses on a specific failure problem which is important to improve upon and aims at an easy prototype implementation for the currently available system. We train a classification model which uses the pattern structure of the diagnosticmessages of the locomotive to recognize abnormal activities in the locomotives behaviour. A meta-classification layer on top of this anomaly detection allows us to build a prediction mechanism. We evaluate our findings on the data of 340 locomotive tours and elaborate on possible improvements of the method.


BACKGROUND
γ-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptors play a central role in fast inhibitory neurotransmission in insects. Several classes of insecticides targeting insect GABA-gated chloride channels have been developed. The important resistant to dieldrin GABA receptor subunit (RDL) has been used to investigate insecticide sites of action using radioligands, electrophysiology and site-directed mutagenesis. Although this important subunit readily forms robust functional homomeric receptors when expressed, alternative splicing and RNA A-to-I editing can generate diverse forms of the receptor.

METHODS
We have reviewed studies on native and recombinant insect GABA-gated chloride channels, their interactions with ligands acting at orthosteric and allosteric sites and their interactions with insecticides. Since some GABA receptor modulators act on L-glutamate-gated chloride channels, some comparisons are included.

RESULTS
The actions on GABA-gated chloride channels of polychlorocycloalkanes, cyclodienes, macrocyclic lactones, phenylpyrazoles, isoxazolines, and metadiamides are described and the mechanisms of action of members of these insecticide classes are addressed. Mutations that lead to resistance are discussed as they can be important in developing field diagnostic tests. Toxicity issues relating to insecticides targeting GABA-gated chloride channels are also addressed. An overview of all major insecticide classes targeting insect GABA-gated chloride channels has enhanced our understanding of these important receptors and their insecticide binding sites. However, the subunit composition of native GABA receptors remains unknown and studies to clarify this are needed. Also, the precise sites of action of the recently introduced isoxazolines and meta-diamides will be of interest to pursue.


Learning Classifier Systems (LCSs) are rule-based systems that can be manipulated by a genetic algorithm. LCSs were first designed by Holland to solve classification problems and a lot of effort has been made since then, resulting in a broad number of different algorithms. One of these is called Organizational Classifier System (OCS), a LCSs that tries to organize its rule set favoring good rules to be together in the same organization. However, the proposal of OCS did not include the discovery mechanism. Recently, the OCS was applied to multi-label classification, a type of classification where one instance can have more than one associated label. The authors represented the multi-label classification problem as a default hierarchy and combined the organizational capabilities of OCS together with Smith's default hierarchy formation theory to solve a simple multi-label problem. The purpose of this paper is to extend this idea with the inclusion of a genetic algorithm for the discovery of new rules and present some initial results obtained using the new method. The preliminary results obtained show that the method is comparable to other multi-label techniques. Final discussions present the conclusions of the work and some directions for further research.


A key problem in developing a better understanding of different responses to landscape level management actions, such as fuel treatments, is being able to confidently record and accurately spatially delineate the meanings stakeholders ascribe to the landscape. To more accurately understand these relationships with the Bitterroot National Forest, Montana, U.S.A., local residents were asked to identify specific places, why they valued them, and how fuel treatments affected these values. Resulting maps displayed variation in the spatial scale and differences in terms used to describe attachments to places they have visited and those they have not. This paper and pencil exercise failed to adequately capture intensity of meanings. To address this issue, a computer-based mapping exercise was used with residents on the Flathead Indian Reservation, Montana, U.S.A., to capture the intensity and spatial distribution of meanings associated with proposed fuel reduction projects on this landscape. This paper will present two different mapping approaches and discuss challenges in mapping meanings.


Background and Aims: Hepatitis C virus is one of the viral infections transmitted by blood transfusion. Patients with thalassaemia frequently need blood transfusion and are in danger of HCV infection. In most cases of infection (85%) the virus evades the immune system and establishes a chronic infection that may lead to cirrhosis and liver carcinoma. Liver is the main site of HCV replication; HCV RNA has been detected in circulating extra hepatic sites, such as in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) .It has been proposed that PBMC could be the source of recurrent HCV infection. The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of HCV RNA in PBMCs of thalassaemia patients with hepatitis C after antiviral treatment. Materials and Methods: About 261 (179 with and 82 without thalassaemia) patients with HCV infection after treatment, 20 patients with HCV infection without treatment and 20 healthy samples as control groups were analyzed in this study. Blood samples were collected in a sterile tube containing EDTA. PBMC were separated from blood of HCV infected patients and control groups by density gradient centrifugation. Viral RNA was extracted from plasma and PBMC by the guanidiumisothiocyonate method. The extracted RNA was amplified by RT-PCR method. Anti-HCV ELISA was performed on all samples. Results: About 92.7% of HCV infected patients were undetectable for HCV RNA in plasma and PBMC samples after treatment. But HCV RNA was detected in plasma and PBMCs samples 6 of 82 (7.3%) patients with chronic HCV after treatment. After antiviral treatment, 146 of 197 (74.2%) patients with thalassaemia had no detectable HCV RNA and 25.8% (51 of 197) of them had HCV RNA in plasma or PBMCs samples which in two cases, HCV RNA was detected only in PBMC. Conclusion: More than 90 percent of patients had clearance of HCV RNA in both serum and PBMCs after 5 years of response to antiviral treatment while 74.2% of patients with thalassaemias achieved to SVR after antiviral therapy. Therefore, the presence of the persistent virus in mononuclear cells of patients may cause hepatitis C recurrence at the end of treatment.