This paper studies distributed algorithms for (strongly convex) composite optimization problems over mesh networks, subject to quantized communications. Instead of focusing on a specific algorithmic design, a black-box model is proposed, casting linearly convergent distributed algorithms in the form of fixed-point iterates. The algorithmic model is equipped with a novel random or deterministic Biased Compression (BC) rule on the quantizer design, and a new Adaptive encoding Non-uniform Quantizer (ANQ) coupled with a communication-efficient encoding scheme, which implements the BC-rule using a finite number of bits (below machine precision). This fills a gap existing in most state-of-the-art quantization schemes, such as those based on the popular compression rule, which rely on communication of some scalar signals with negligible quantization error (in practice quantized at the machine precision). A unified communication complexity analysis is developed for the black-box model, determining the average number of bits required to reach a solution of the optimization problem within a target accuracy. It is shown that the proposed BC-rule preserves linear convergence of the unquantized algorithms, and a trade-off between convergence rate and communication cost under ANQ-based quantization is characterized. Numerical results validate our theoretical findings and show that distributed algorithms equipped with the proposed ANQ have more favorable communication cost than algorithms using state-of-the-art quantization rules.


Mantella bernhardi is an endemic species of Malagasy poison frog threatened by loss and fragmentation of its natural habitat and collection for the pet trade. It is classified as threatened according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) categories and included in Appendix II of the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES). A recent survey has increased the known distributional range of the species from one to eight populations across southeastern Madagascar, but little is known about its biology and genetic diversity. Here we estimate inter- and intrapopulation mitochondrial genetic variation of four populations. Populations from the northern and southern parts of the distributional range showed a high degree of divergence (maximum of 11.35% in cytochrome b ) and were recovered as reciprocally monophyletic groups. Nine haplotypes were detected in the northern and 12 in the southern populations. The population from Ranomafana National Park showed the lowest number of haplotypes and nucleotide diversity, and shared its most common haplotype with the second northern population from Tolongoina. All the other detected haplotypes were unique to each of the four populations. This suggests the existence of important barriers to gene flow, pre-dating human colonization of Madagascar at about 2000 years ago, in distinct contrast to other Mantella species that show a high degree of haplotype sharing throughout their range. The continued habitat fragmentation within the distribution range of M. bernhardi prevents any connection between its populations. Our data indicate the existence of at least two different management units for conservation in this species, corresponding to the North and South of its distribution range, and highlight the existence of strong regional endemism in southeastern Madagascar.


Addiction to internet cyberspace technology, like Facebook, Twiter, Messenger, Line, WhatsApp, which attacks many online behavior excessively, especially among teenagers. Addicted to schools, Even Internet home offices cannot stop her craving home. Young said cyberspace labeled online did a lot of harm, losing control of explaining what the internet used and its life was. An internet addict, like alcohol or other alcoholic drinks, instead turns to spending hours even in full on the internet as a substitute for extreme addiction, days in front of a safer computer. Likewise, teenagers in Margo Mulyo Village have started to love the progress of the virtual world from the dependence on games that exist in the world of information and technology in the form of cellphones and online game tools in internet cafes. The Bentiring Self-Migration Settlement, which has been inhabited since 1983, began with the village of Bentiring to become the location for a pilot project for independent transmigration based on requests from the community.


The increasing complexity of vehicular embedded systems has encouraged researchers and practitioners to adopt model-driven engineering in the development of these systems. In particular, several modelling languages have been introduced for representing the vehicular software architecture and its quality attributes. Current trend in the automotive domain is to shift from single-core architectures to multi-core ones in the attempt of providing the computational power required from the next generation of vehicles, particularly autonomous ones. On the one hand, multi-core architectures introduce new real-time challenges in the development of these systems like core-interdependency. On the other hand, it is pivotal that modelling languages continue to be effective in representing the new vehicular architectures together with their novel concerns, to continue to benefit from model-based methodologies. In this thesis, we present a systematic mapping study focusing i) on the real-time challenges introduced by the adoption of multi-core architectures and ii) on the extent of the modelling support for the resolution of these challenge, in the automotive domain.


To assess the risk of cancers associated with sleep duration using a meta-analysis of published cohort studies, we performed a comprehensive search using PubMed, Embase and Web of Science through October 2013. We combined hazard ratios (HRs) from individual studies using meta-analysis approaches. A random effect dose-response analysis was used to evaluate the relationship between sleep duration and cancer risk. Subgroup analyses and sensitivity analyses were also performed. Publication bias was evaluated using Funnel plots and Begg's test. A total of 13 cohorts from 12 studies were included in this meta-analysis, which included 723,337 participants with 15,156 reported cancer outcomes during a follow-up period ranging from 7.5 to 22 years. The pooled adjusted HRs were 1.06 (95% CI: 0.92, 1.23; P for heterogeneity=0.003) for short sleep duration, 0.91 (95% CI: 0.78, 1.07; P for heterogeneity <0.0001) for long sleep duration. In subgroup analyses stratified by cancer type, long duration of sleep showed an inverse relation with hormone-related cancer (HR=0.79; 95% CI: 0.65, 0.97; P for heterogeneity=0.009) and a greater risk of colorectal cancer (HR=1.29; 95% CI: 1.09, 1.52; P for heterogeneity=0.346). Further meta-analysis on dose-response relationships showed that the relative risks of cancer were 1.00 (95% CI: 0.99, 1.01; P for linear trend=0.9151) for one hour of sleep increment per day, and 1.00 (95% CI: 0.98, 1.01; P for linear trend=0.7749) for one hour of sleep increment per night. No significant dose-response relationship between sleep duration and cancer was found on non-linearity testing (P=0.5053). Our meta-analysis suggests a positive association between long sleep duration and colorectal cancer, and an inverse association with incidence of hormone related cancers like those in the breast. Studies with larger sample size, longer follow-up times, more cancer types and detailed measure of sleep duration are warranted to confirm these results.


Proper positioning of division sites in Escherichia coli requires balanced expression of minC, minD, and minE gene products. Previous genetic analysis has shown that either MinD or an apparently unrelated protein, DicB, cooperates with MinC to inhibit division. We have isolated and sequenced minC mutations that suppress division inhibition caused by overproduction of either DicB or MinD proteins. Most missense mutations were located in the amino acid 160 to 200 region of MinC (231 amino acids). Some mutations exhibited preferential resistance to one or the other coinhibitor, suggesting that two distinct proteins, possibly MinD and DicB themselves, interact in slightly different manners with the same region of MinC to promote division inhibition.


ABSTRACT Self-reflection has not so far been shown to have any specific benefits for mental health except for self-knowledge. Recent research showed that the controversy concerning the relationship between self-reflection and mental health could completely be eliminated if self-rumination and the need for absolute truth, especially the need for absolute truth, were considered as suppressor variables. This research replicated these findings in a different sample and expanded these findings by showing that the same is true for private self-consciousness. The need for absolute truth as a new variable was shown to be highly important in understanding the effects of self-consciousness on mental health.


A few traditional pulse-forming circuits are implemented in a commercial 0.13 μm digital complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. These circuits, based on a coplanar waveguide, are analyzed and compared through Cadence™ Spectre simulations. The results show that these traditional pulse-forming-line (PFL) based circuits can be implemented in standard CMOS technology for short pulse generations. Further work is needed to explore the potential of the circuit techniques and to minimize parasitic effects.


Introduction and Hypothesis:
 Since the introduction of thrombolysis with recombinant rtPA for the treatment of acute ischemic stroke it has been well-established that there exists a relatively narrow window for therapeutic intervention. Therefore, a substantial number of investigations sought to identify factors that delay patient presentation. However, little is known regarding the impact of time to presentation (TTP) on final outcome particularly when considering patient presenting outside the established time window for acute stroke therapy. We sought to determine whether the TTP is independently associated with the 90-day outcome.

 Methods:
 Retrospective analysis of 270 consecutive acute ischemic stroke patients prospectively evaluated between January 2013 and February 2014. Multivariable logistic regression with backward elimination was used to determine whether greater TTP independently predicted a poor 90-day outcome as defined as a modified Rankin scale (mRS) score of 3-6 after adjustment for known predictors of stroke outcome.

 Results:
 TTP (per hour; P=0.014; OR 1.013; 95%-CI 1.003-1.023), age (per year; P=0.005; OR 1.044; 95%-CI 1.013-1.076), NIHSS (per point; P<0.001; OR 1.247; 95%-CI 1.168-1.331), and preadmission mRS (per step; P=0.001; OR 1.969; 95%-CI 1.316-2.948) independently predicted a poor 90-day outcome These results did not meaningfully change when patients eligible for rtPA or neurointervention were excluded.

 Conclusion:
 Each hour delay of presentation to neurological evaluation decreased the chance for a good outcome by 1.3% independent of other established outcome predictors. Continued efforts to counsel the public to seek immediate medical attention as well as to expedite patient evaluation by neurologists after ischemic stroke, even when ineligible for acute intervention, are critical to reduce the risk for a poor outcome.


We present an implementation of the TransLucid language, in which expressions are evaluated in a dynamic context of arbitrary dimensionality. The basis for this implementation is the TransLucid virtual machine (TVM), whose execution supposes a centralised cache storing intermediate computed values and whose individual threads compute the values for (identifier, context) pairs. The TVM is designed so that it is efficiently implementable on a wide variety of physical architectures.


While an argument that the far right supports Putin is popular, comparative analysis of far-right parties' stances on Russia is generally lacking. In the wake of the 2022 Russian (re)invasion of Ukraine, this becomes increasingly problematic. This study aims to fill this gap and provide an initial answer(s) to an increasingly important question of who supports Putin's Russia within the Western world. First, I examine the immediate reactions to the 2022 (re)invasion of far-right parties across the European Union. Based on the findings, new sub-categories within the far right in terms of stances on Putin's Russia are proposed. Second, I provide a comparative analysis of the roll-call votes in the European Parliament on resolutions condemning Russia's actions and test the proposed sub-categories.


Peer-to-Peer (P2P) IPTV applications have increasingly been considered as a potential approach to online broadcasting. These overcome fundamental client-server issues and introduce new, self-management features that help improving performance. Recently, many applications such as PPlive, PPStream, Sopcast, and Joost have been deployed to deliver live and Video-on-Demand streaming via P2P. However, the P2P approach has also shown some points of failure and limitations. In this paper we analyze, assess and compare two popular Live and Video-on-Demand P2P streaming applications, Sopcast and Joost. Our goal is not simply to underline similarities and differences from the architectural and functional point of view, but also to highlight their performance in terms of traffic behavior and network efficiency; thus our experiments have been conducted in different scenarios including a large-scale event (Euro 2008).


The formation of metal (Ni and Pd) silicide thin films on a Si wafer is analyzed using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and isothermal X ray diffraction measurements. The sensitivity of DSC is remarkable even in this experimental Ni/Si and Pd/Si(001) and allows to show two steps of growth for a phase formation (lateral and normal growth). This technique is shown being of main interest for characterization of silicide formation during microelectronic industrial processes. Combining X-ray diffraction measurements and DSC measurements, the interface mobilities and the effective diffusion coefficient characterizing Ni2Si and Pd2Si growth are measured. These quantities as well as the interface mobilility for lateral growth have been determined by using a model taken into account the nucleation and lateral growth as well as a normal growth controlled by diffusion and interface reaction.


Most power plant piping systems experience some level of vibration during operation. In some cases, the addition of restraints is required to keep operational vibration levels within acceptable limits. Vibration levels may need to be controlled to limit stresses in the piping or attached components, minimize wear on supports or other components, or prevent impacts with other piping or components. This paper discusses the use of dynamic restraints to effectively mitigate piping-system vibrations. Topics covered include: The effectiveness of using dynamic restraints for various sources of vibration; the effectiveness and applicability of various types of dynamic restraints; design considerations, including sizing and placement of dynamic restraints; and maintenance and testing considerations for dynamic restraints.Paper published with permission.Compilation Copyright © 2019 ASME


Advances in artificial intelligence have changed the ways in which computers create "original" work. Analogies that may have worked sufficiently well in the past, when the technology had few if any commercially viable applications, are now reaching the limit of their usefulness. This paper considers particularly radical thought experiment in relation to computer generated art, challenging the legal responses to computer generated works and discussing their similarity to works by animals.


Since Ebbesen's seminal work in 1998 observing extraordinary optical transmission (EOT) through nanohole arrays, much research has focused on the role of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) in EOT. While the energy and momentum conditions have become clear, no consensus has been reached on the role of incident light polarization. This study presents a simple model that captures Bloch-SPP excitation, including the role of polarization, in general periodic plasmonic structures. Our model predicts that under certain conditions polarization conversion should occur in EOT light transmitted through the nanohole array. We experimentally measure polarization conversion in EOT and compare the experimentally obtained results to the predictions of our model. Using numerical simulations, we tie the far field experimental results to the near field underlying physics described by our model. In using polarization conversion to provide evidence supporting our model, we also establish a novel approach to achieving polarization conversion based on SPPs instead of hole shape or other techniques in literature, and present reasons why this approach to achieving polarization conversion may be better suited for applications in biomedical sensing and optical elements. Polarization Conversion mediated by Surface Plasmon Polaritons in Extraordinary Optical Transmission through a Nanohole Array


The structural variations which occur in the dendritic spines of pyramidal neurons of the somatic sensory cortex of the cat are described, particular attention being paid to spines attached to different parts of the dendritic tree. Spines may be recognized particularly by the absence of neurotubules and the common presence of a spine apparatus, and they can be considered as pedunculated or sessile , depending upon the presence or absence of a narrow pedicle. Within these 2 categories spines may be rounded, cup-like or prismatic, can be large or small, and may show various degrees of inversion of the surface receiving a synaptic contact. While spines of every size and shape may be attached to dendrites of all diameters, there is a definite tendency for the largest spines to occur on the smallest dendrites and vice versa. Furthermore, the smallest dendrites possess the spines with the longest pedicles. Every dendritic spine receives 1 axon terminal containing spherical synaptic vesicles and ending in an asymmetrical synaptic contact. In addition, 10-20% of the spines receive a second terminal, which in some cases may contain spherical vesicles and terminate asymmetrically but in others contains small, flattened or pleomorphic vesicles and ends in a symmetrical contact. The additional terminal may end on the pedicle of the spine or on the parent dendrite near the attachment of the pedicle. In the latter site, asymmetrical synapses are commonly associated with an additional spine apparatus.


This paper presents the using vibration spectrum of transformer operational status with online monitoring methods, analyzes and discusses the transformer vibration spectrum about the producing mechanism and extraction scheme . At the same time, it also discusses the feasibility and necessity of using vibration spectrum methods to monitor the transformer fault .Some vibration spectrum methods ,relating to the transformer research contents and key technical breakthrough direction, are summarized in detail. Finally, it put forward a new immune from organization antibody network model and antibody generating algorithm that is used for vibration spectrum power transformer fault diagnosis.


In order to improve the symbiosis between machine translation (MT) system and post-editor, it is not enough to know that the output of one system is better than the output of another system. A fine-grained error analysis is needed to provide information on the type and location of errors occurring in MT and the corresponding errors occurring after post-editing (PE). This article reports on a fine-grained translation quality assessment approach which was applied to machine translated-texts and the post-edited versions of these texts, made by student post-editors. By linking each error to the corresponding source text-passage, it is possible to identify passages that were problematic in MT, but not after PE, or passages that were problematic even after PE. This method provides rich data on the origin and impact of errors, which can be used to improve post-editor training as well as machine translation systems. We present the results of a pilot experiment on the post-editing of newspaper articles and highlight the advantages of our approach.


Evaluating the benefits of publicly funded research is always a challenging task. This paper cannot produce air-tight quantification of the benefits of Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change (SLMACC) research. We do, however, demonstrate the key building blocks of significant impact have been obtained. First, it is clear that public funding has contributed importantly to New Zealand's positioning itself as one of the leading global contributors to agricultural mitigation research. Second, the prominence of the research combined with the low likelihood of research occurring on this scale without public support suggests strongly that the results would not have been obtained absent public funding. Finally, though the realization of ultimate environmental and/or economic benefits will depend on the evolution of farming practices and climate change policy settings, the advances in genetic markers for low CH4 animals and identification of emission-reducing management practices have the potential for GHG emission reductions that would be significant in environmental terms, and whose value at likely carbon pricing levels would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Although the results discussed are conditional on several factors such as future policy implementation, adoption rates and the practical availability of mitigation options and practices for different farm landscapes; the impacts, economic and environmental values attached to mitigation research cannot be overlooked and provide important insights to the benefits that public investments can make to the development of a more sustainable agricultural system for the country.


A new decoupling method for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) phased arrays is studied by experimental measurements. A laboratory measurement setup is built to characterise the signal coupling paths and their coupling strengths. A new concept, the receiving mutual impedance, is introduced to measure the coupled signals between the phased array elements. Measured values of the receiving mutual impedances for a typical two-element surface-coil array are obtained and used in other experiments to find the uncoupled voltages from the received voltages. Results show that the new decoupling method is both accurate and robust over a wide frequency range. Comparison of the uncoupled voltages with the actual ideal uncoupled voltages confirms that if the position of the signal source is known, almost error-free uncoupled voltages can be obtained. The errors resulted from a change of the position of the signal source are also measured and it is found that they generally increase with the deviation of the signal source from its position where the receiving mutual impedances are measured. The maximum % error of the uncoupled voltages is found to be below 10% when the signal source changes its position over a distance of half the length of a surface coil. Over this distance change, the signal isolation between the two surface coils is found to be at least 20 dB, whereas the maximum is more than 300 dB. The results demonstrate the effectiveness and the feasibility of the new decoupling method for use in MRI phased arrays.


The modern corporation is characterized both by a separation of ownership from management and by managerial incentives that often include strategic elements in addition to the standard incentive elements. Despite the importance of these two features in the agency and corporate-governance literatures, they are absent in the treatment of the firm in the patent-licensing literature. The analysis in this paper shows how, by simply taking into account these two features of the modern corporation, it is possible to offer a new explanation for the use of royalties in licensing agreements. Copyright (c) 2002 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.


This paper addresses the problem of species classification in bird song recordings. The massive amount of available field recordings of birds presents an opportunity to use machine learning to automatically track bird populations. However, it also poses a problem: such field recordings typically contain significant environmental noise and overlapping vocalizations that interfere with classification. The widely available training datasets for species identification also typically leave background species unlabeled. This leads classifiers to ignore vocalizations with a low signal-to-noise ratio. However, recent advances in unsupervised sound separation, such as mixture invariant training (MixIT), enable high quality separation of bird songs to be learned from such noisy recordings. In this paper, we demonstrate improved separation quality when training a MixIT model specifically for birdsong data, outperforming a general audio separation model by over 5 dB in SI-SNR improvement of reconstructed mixtures. We also demonstrate precision improvements with a downstream multi-species bird classifier across three independent datasets. The best classifier performance is achieved by taking the maximum model activations over the separated channels and original audio. Finally, we document additional classifier improvements, including taxonomic classification, augmentation by random low-pass filters, and additional channel normalization.


Mg-20.5 at% Sc alloy with hcp (α)+bcc (β) two-phase was investigated to understand the effects of aging treatment at 473 K on microstructure, hardness and tensile properties. A Mg-Sc alloy ingot was prepared by induction melting in an Ar atmosphere, and then hot rolled at 873 K followed by cold rolling into a sheet. The rolled specimens were annealed at 873 K to obtain an α+β two-phase microstructure. The annealed specimens were then aged at 473 K for various time. Vickers hardness of the α+β two-phase alloy drastically increased after a certain incubation time and then reached a maximum hardness of 142.8 HV. The incubation time of the Mg-20.5 at% Sc alloy with the α+β two-phase was longer than that of the same alloy with a β single-phase. Ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and elongation of the as-annealed specimen were 280 MPa and 28.2%, respectively. Meanwhile, the specimen aged at 473 K for 14.4 ks showed a UTS of 357 MPa and an elongation of over 12%. The specimen aged for 18 ks showed a higher UTS of 465 MPa, while keeping a better elongation of 6.9%. The age hardening of the MgSc alloys was found to be due to the precipitation of very ne α phase in β phase. [doi:10.2320/matertrans.M2016093]


Nowadays video-assisted lobectomy could be considered an appropriate treatment option for early stage lung cancer patients, as obtaining similar or even better early outcomes when compared to open standard lobectomy. This study was aimed at verifying the long-term impact (three months after surgery) of VATS-lobectomy technique on physical and mental status of patients undergoing lung resection for lung cancer and to compare the physical variation to the one registered after open approach.
We enrolled patients treated by VATS-lobectomy at our institution since June 2012 to June 2015, comparing the preoperative physical evaluation (in terms of FEV1, DLCO and VO2max) and perceived quality of life (measured using the EORTC questionnaire) to the postoperative values. Moreover we performed a propensity score matching analysis to verify if the physical variation registered after VATS-lobectomy differed from that after open resection.
We found a three months postoperative reduction of the physical indicators in comparison to the preoperative values (FEV1-variation: -8.3%, DLCO-variation: -12.4%, VO2max-variation: -6.6%). A similar negative trend was found for the psychological indicators, but the only parameter with a significative worsening was the perceived physical functioning (variation: -6.2%).
The propensity score procedure yielded 83 well-matched open and VATS-lobectomy patients. The reductions in FEV1, DLCO and VO2max were similar in both groups (open patients' reduction: FEV1 -10%, DLCO -11.9%, VO2max -5.5%; VATS patients' reduction: FEV1 -7.2%, DLCO -10.6%, VO2max -6.9%), with a Cohen effect size < 0.2 for all the comparisons.
In conclusion, VATS-lobectomy influences a reduction of the preoperative functional status three months after the operation, without affecting the postoperative perceived quality of life. Moreover VATS-lobectomy doesn't offer any advantage in terms of FEV1, DLCO and exercise capacity recovery in comparison to the open approach.


Web Services are widely adapted for integrating heterogeneous information systems in a cost-efficient way. Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) messages are standard way to exchange the information between web services. Web Services Security (WS-Security) specification is used to secure SOAP messages but adds significant overhead on SOAP message processing. It increases the size of the message on the wire. Also web services are vulnerable to several attacks. Processing efficiency and robustness against certain attacks are important issues of web services security. Schema validation and Hardening are the promising methods to prevent web services from such attacks but have performance bottleneck. A new Parallel Stream based Security Processing model has been developed in order to enhance the performance of WS-Security processing and to secure web services from several attacks. A new methodology is described in the paper in which large SOAP messages are partitioned into schema valid parts. Individual parts are distributed to parallel instances of security processors running on multiple cores in order to reduce the processing load. Experiments are conducted on different sizes of SOAP messages, various security patterns and respective processing time for each is analyzed. Analysis of results reveals that the new parallel stream based security processing model has shown significant improvement in performance as compared to the serial processing.


We introduce an algorithm for the deconvolution of radio synthesis images that accounts for the non-coplanar-baseline effect, allows multiscale reconstruction onto arbitrarily positioned pixel grids, and allows the antenna elements to have direcitonal dependent gains. Using numerical L1-minimisation techniques established in the application of compressive sensing to radio astronomy, we directly solve the deconvolution equation using GPU (graphics processing unit) hardware. This approach relies on an analytic expression for the contribution of a pixel in the image to the observed visibilities, and the well-known expression for Dirac delta function pixels is used along with two new approximations for Gaussian pixels, which allow for multi-scale deconvolution. The algorithm is similar to the CLEAN algorithm in that it fits the reconstructed pixels in the image to the observed visibilities while minimising the total flux; however, unlike CLEAN, it operates on the ungridded visibilities, enforces positivity, and has guaranteed global convergence. The pixels in the image can be arbitrarily distributed and arbitrary gains between each pixel and each antenna element can also be specified. Direct deconvolution of the observed visibilities is shown to be feasible for several deconvolution problems, including a 1 megapixel wide-field image with over 400,000 visibilities. Correctness of the algorithm is shown using synthetic data, and the algorithm shows good image reconstruction performance. Though this algorithm requires significantly more computation than methods based on the CLEAN algorithm, we demonstrate that it is trivially parallelisable across multiple GPUs and potentially can be scaled to GPU clusters. We also demonstrate that a significant speed up is possible through the use of multi-scale analysis using Gaussian pixels.


Understanding the complexity of vulnerability to disasters, including those triggered by floods, droughts and epidemics is at the heart of disaster risk reduction. Despite its importance in disaster risk reduction, there remains a paucity of approaches that contribute to our understanding of social vulnerability that is hidden in dynamic contextual conditions. The study demonstrates an accessible means to assessing the spatial variation of social vulnerability to flood hazards and related for the context of Muzarabani district in northeast Zimbabwe. The study facilitated local identification with residents of variables contributing to social vulnerability and used the principal component analysis (PCA) technique to develop a social vulnerability index (SoVI). Using ArcMap10.2 geographic information systems (GIS) tool, the study mapped composite SoVI at the ward level. The results showed that Muzarabani district is socially vulnerable to hazards. The social vulnerability is influenced by a variety of economic, social and institutional factors that vary across the wards. Quantifying and visualising social vulnerability in Muzarabani provides useful information for decision makers to support disaster preparedness and mitigation programmes. The approach shows how spatially distributed multivariate vulnerability, as grounded in interpretations at local level, can be quantitatively derived for contexts such as those of Muzarabani. The study findings can inform disaster risk reduction communities and cognate disciplines on quantitative assessments for managing hazard vulnerability where these have hitherto not been developed.


Abstract Utilizing de Certeau's concepts of "tactics" and "strategies," and Chatman's "information poverty," this study examines the information practices of the fishermen in the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh. Using faceto- face surveys, this study gathers data from 102 fishermen in the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh. The findings of the study reveal that the majority of fishermen ("fisher folks") studied regularly need information on weather, fish buying and selling prices, daily consumable products, entertainment, and religion. Fisher folks in this study heavily rely on their informal information networks (e.g., family and friends) to meet their diverse information needs. The study also reports various information challenges faced by the participants. It is evident in this study that fisher folks, due to unwelcoming information environment of strategic institutions (e.g., various government agencies), tactically avoid services and information provided by them. A call for radical change in "information service culture" (i.e., offering information to only educated, the dominant group of the society) has been emphasized by the author of the paper. The study also highlights the importance of offering appropriate, need-based, welcoming information services to rural communities by various government information agencies including public libraries. It is expected that this study will help researchers design studies aimed at exploring the "tactical information practices" of various unprivileged groups such as victims of domestic violence, ready-made garments worker, sex workers, etc., who have diverse socioeconomic and political backgrounds.


In many sequential planning applications a natural approach to generating high quality plans is to maximize an information reward such as mutual information (MI). Unfortunately, MI lacks a closed form in all but trivial models, and so must be estimated. In applications where the cost of plan execution is expensive, one desires planning estimates which admit theoretical guarantees. Through the use of robust M-estimators in the planning phase we obtain bounds on absolute deviation of estimated MI. Moreover, we propose a sequential algorithm which integrates inference and planning by maximally reusing particles in each stage. We validate the utility of using robust estimators in the sequential approach on a Gaussian Markov Random Field wherein information measures have a closed form. Lastly, we demonstrate the benefits of our integrated approach in the context of sequential experiment design for inferring causal regulatory networks from gene expression levels. Our method shows improvements over a recent method which selects intervention experiments based on the same MI objective.


The synthesis of the new radioprotective compounds ATB (I, 2-allylthioureidobenzoic acid), PTB (II, 2-phenylthioureidobenzoic acid), A-2-PTU (III, N-allyl-N'-2-pyridylthiourea), and P-2-PTU (IV, N-phenyl-N'-2-pyridylthiourea) and their influence on biological and genetic effects of gamma rays was studied. In result of investigations it must be noted that PTB displayed radioprotective effect as a result of which more plants in M1 germination and survive in M2 of the induced mutations is increased. The cytological analysis reveals that the studied substance (PTB) decreases chromosome aberration in meristem cells of pea roots almost twice as a result of postirradiation treatment. The effect of A-2-PTU in the experiments with peas greatly depends on the dose of irradiation, i.e., on the degree of damaging of the processes of cell restoration and the possibility of their partial restoration after the treatment with the protector. The results obtained suggest that chemical compounds of N,N'-disubstituted thiourea group (A-2-PTU and P-2-PTU) exert strong radioprotective effect in the experiments with peas. This is of great importance to modern radiobiology and radiation mutagenesis and also to protect hereditary structures against radiation.


One hundred Karakul ewes were divided according to 'age in two groups of 50 ewes each. Group 1 were stimulated by teaser rams. while Group 2 served as the controls. The body masses of the ewes in both groups were kept constant by feeding them a maintenance ration consistmg of a 70:30 ratio of lucerne and maize. Three teaser rams were joined with the ewes in Group 1 for a period of 17 days. Laparotomies were performed on 20 ewes of each group before, and 10 days after, joining with teaser rams. From this it was concluded that silent ovulations occurred in 40% of the ewes Iaparotomized. During the 25 days when the thirty ewes not Iaparotomized .••. ere tested for oestrus, 22 ewes (73%) in Group 1 exhibited oestrus, 19 of them (63%) within the fust ten days. In the control group 12 ewes (40%) exhibited oesrrus which included 6 ewes (20 %) within the fust 10 days. It was noted that the remaining 8 ewes in the teaser ram group included 5 maiden ewes younger than 18 months while the remaining 18 ewes (60?o) in the control group included 7 ewes younger than 18 months. It is concluded that synchronized mating in mature Karakul ewes is possible with the aid of teaser rams as much as two months before the commencement of their normal breeding season.


Our purpose was to determine in 20 unilateral cleft lip and alveolus subjects characteristics of the maxillary permanent teeth and maxillary arch development. Clinical and radiographic examinations have been carried out to identify congenitally missing teeth and sagittal skeletal patterns. Study cast assessment was undertaken to evaluate mesiodistal widths of individual teeth, intercanine and intermolar distances for the maxillary arch, as well as dental relationships. We observed that the congenital absence of the upper incisors was higher on the cleft side than on the non-cleft side. There was a statistically significant difference between the mesiodistal widths of cleft-side permanent upper lateral incisors, and their antimeres (p<0.05). Most of the patients presented a class II dental relationship on the affected side comparing to class I/class III Angle on the unaffected side. We concluded that patients with isolated cleft lip and alveolus present perturbations in dental and maxillary arch development, a more severe disruption being recorded on the cleft side.


This paper presents an application of Support Vector Regression method for the prediction of an environmental variable such as the level of natural radioactivity. The basics of the method are described, and some practical considerations are presented, including the meaning of the method's parameters and their influence on the model. The use of the prior data is discussed. It is shown how to include the information on the variance of the measurements into the model. The use of crossvalidation for tuning the parameters of the algorithm is presented. Some ideas for detecting the unusual training samples with SVR are discussed. Generally, the case study illustrates the usefulness of the considered approach for automated spatial mapping tasks in the presence of prior data.


Since Olympic Games succeeded hosting in 2008, sports events popularization range in China has become more and more widely. Sports have gradually become a kind of industry that is received by people. Sports consumption status attracts more attentions form investors and consumers. Thereupon, the paper takes Beijing Tennis consumption status as an example, researches sports consumption main influence factors. Utilize factor analysis method, by analyzing consumption possibility and consumers' age, sex, income and education background relative data, and then get conclusion. Conclusion shows consumers' income is the largest influence factor, age and education background impacts degrees are equal and also the larger influence factors and sex becomes smallest influence factor. Above conclusion have important significances in investors' judgment investment and future earnings status. And meanwhile it has guidance in national economic development direction.


In this work, we deploy a logistic regression classifier to ascertain whether a given document belongs to the fiction or non-fiction genre. For genre identification, previous work had proposed three classes of features, viz., low-level (character-level and token counts), high-level (lexical and syntactic information) and derived features (type-token ratio, average word length or average sentence length). Using the Recursive feature elimination with cross-validation (RFECV) algorithm, we perform feature selection experiments on an exhaustive set of nineteen features (belonging to all the classes mentioned above) extracted from Brown corpus text. As a result, two simple features viz., the ratio of the number of adverbs to adjectives and the number of adjectives to pronouns turn out to be the most significant. Subsequently, our classification experiments aimed towards genre identification of documents from the Brown and Baby BNC corpora demonstrate that the performance of a classifier containing just the two aforementioned features is at par with that of a classifier containing the exhaustive feature set.


To assess bone mass in ankylosing spondylitis (AS) we have measured total body calcium, bone mineral content of the lumbar spine and metacarpal indices in groups of patients with AS. Mean total body calcium was reduced by 5.3% (p less than 0.05) in 20 patients compared with controls. The mean annual loss of bone, assessed over an 18 month period in 17 patients, was 2.9% (p less than 0.001). Compared to controls, bone mineral content was increased by 28% (p less than 0.05) in 8 male patients while metacarpal indices were normal in 18 male and female patients. The results of total body calcium measurements give support to the hypothesis of a minor increase in bone turnover in AS. The increased bone mineral content in the male patients may relate to syndesmophyte formation.


Bullous pemphigoid (BP) has been reported to be associated with significant morbidities and a considerable mortality rate. We retrospectively studied 94 patients with BP in a Chinese tertiary medical center between 2005 and 2010 to evaluate the treatment of BP and prognostic factors for the mortality of BP. Cerebrovascular diseases (42.55%) and hypertension (39.36%) were the most common pre-existing conditions. Cardiopathy, diabetes and psoriasis pre-existed in 24.47%, 22.34% and 5.32%, respectively. Eighty of all 94 patients were treated by systemic corticosteroid at prednisone 0.3 mg/kg to 1.5 mg/kg daily. Patients were followed up for a minimum of 1 year or until the time of death. The mean duration of follow-up was 32 months. Kaplan-Meier analysis showed a 1-year survival probability of 76.6% (standard error 4.4%), with a 95% confidence interval (68.04%, 85.16%). Multivariate analysis revealed that increased age, bedridden condition, presence of cerebrovascular diseases at diagnosis, pre-existing cardiopathy and low serum albumin level were associated with the elevated 1-year mortality rate of BP.


Atomically thin MoS2 is of great interest for electronic and optoelectronic applications because of its unique two-dimensional (2D) quantum confinement; however, the scaling of optoelectronic properties of MoS2 and its junctions with metals as a function of layer number as well the spatial variation of these properties remain unaddressed. In this work, we use photocurrent spectral atomic force microscopy (PCS-AFM) to image the current (in the dark) and photocurrent (under illumination) generated between a biased PtIr tip and MoS2 nanosheets with thickness ranging between n = 1 to 20 layers. Dark current measurements in both forward and reverse bias reveal characteristic diode behavior well-described by Fowler-Nordheim tunneling with a monolayer barrier energy of 0.61 eV and an effective barrier scaling linearly with layer number. Under illumination at 600 nm, the photocurrent response shows a marked decrease for layers up to n = 4 but increasing thereafter, which we describe using a model that accounts for the linear barrier increase at low n, but increased light absorption at larger n creating a minimum at n = 4. Comparative 2D Fourier analysis of physical height and photocurrent images shows high spatial frequency spatial variations in substrate/MoS2 contact that exceed the frequencies imposed by the underlying substrates. These results should aid in the design and understanding of optoelectronic devices based on quantum confined atomically thin MoS2.


The purpose of the present study was to identify the effective elements on strategic thinking in the MAPNA Group Corporation whilst its' method of conduction is a mixed one. Once interviews were completed, 44 raw datasets were identified which were transformed into 28 mutual codes that were further categorized in 6 concepts that felt under two categories; ultimately a theory was made. Among the several elements that have been found effective on strategic thinking it can be referred to organizational structure, reward system, organizational culture, organizational agility, organizational outlook, organizational creativity and innovation. In the qualitative part, the population of the present study includes the entire experts and elites of the MAPNA Group Corporation and the identified elements have been subjected to numerical analyses in form of hypotheses. In addition in the quantitative part, the population of the study includes the entire employees of the MAPNA Group Corporation among whom 154 individuals have been selected as the samples of the study. results of the study have shown that the identified elements are not of equal importance and in terms of priority these elements respectively include organizational structure, organizational agility, organizational outlook, organizational creativity and innovationو reward system, organizational culture.


Introduction Skin tears are considered injuries of traumatic etiology that can result from a variety of mechanical forces, such as shear or friction forces, blunt trauma, falls, improper handling, injury caused by equipment or removal of adherent dressings. These are acute wounds that have a high probability of becoming complex chronic wounds. They cause pain, increase healthcare costs, reduce quality of life and are a source of stress for the person. They lengthen hospital stay and increase the risk of morbidities. Skin Tears are a growing problem, making it crucial to invest in this topic in order to promote their prevention and proper treatment. Objective To identify nursing care and strategies to prevent skin tears in the elderly. Methods A bibliographic survey of publications was carried out in the EBSCOhost search engine, which incorporates the CINAHL Complete, MEDLINE Complete and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews databases and in the PubMed database, carried out in June 2022. 26 records were returned, five meeting the inclusion criteria. The included studies (n=5) were carried out between 2012 and 2022. Results In the sample of articles, it was possible to identify the benefits of twice-daily application of topical products, moisturizing creams and emollients, and the relevance of oral administration for 8 weeks of an oral nutritional supplement in the hydration of the stratum corneum and in the elasticity of the skin, as well as the importance of primary prevention and the promotion of health education in elderly skin care. Conclusion Preventive care to avoid skin tears in the elderly focuses on the daily topical application of moisturizing creams and emollients, nutrition (administration of oral nutritional supplements with 10g of collagen peptides) and adequate hydration; to prevent cutaneous traumas by providing a safe environment with adequate devices, and through the promotion of health education.


We report charge-carrier velocity distributions in high-mobility polymer thin-film transistors (PTFTs) employing a dual-gate configuration. Our time-domain measurements of dual-gate PTFTs indicate higher effective mobility as well as fewer low-velocity carriers than in single-gate operation. Such nonquasi-static (NQS) measurements support and clarify the previously reported results of improved device performance in dual-gate devices by various groups. We believe that this letter demonstrates the utility of NQS measurements in studying charge-carrier transport in dual-gate thin-film transistors.


Donoghue and Wise (1982) identified an area AGm in the rat that they take to be a nonprimary motor area. In the present experiments, therefore, this area was removed bilaterally in rats. The animals were poor at relearning a visual conditional motor task but were able to learn spatial delayed alternation as rapidly as unoperated animals. Thus removing this area in rats has a similar effect to removing premotor cortex in monkeys. It is argued that this dorsomedial shoulder area should not be regarded as part of prefrontal cortex in the rat.


The first course on Medical Sciences in Chile was inaugurated in 1833, being its director William C Blest, MD, an Irish physician graduated in Edinburgh University. Therefore, Dr. Blest can be considered the founder of Chilean formal medical education. When the University of Chile was established (in 1842), among its five initial Faculties was included Medicine, on the basis of the Medical Sciences course created ten years before. By then, the medical profession was not yet socially reputed and the initial years of the Faculty were difficult. During the 19th Century and until the second decade of the 20th century, this was the only medical school in the country. Its development was slow but sustained, reaching its apogee in the middle of the 20th Century, when it had outstanding clinical and basic sciences teachers and investigators. Clinical research, postgraduate teaching and medical specialization had a great development during that period. Nowadays, it is a complex Faculty that teaches eight health sciences courses leading to different professional titles, gives higher academic degrees in biomedicine and public health and certifies different medical specialties. It has a modern, well equipped library and a unique Museum of Medicine. Besides the traditional Departments in Medical Faculties, it has Departments of Medical Teaching, Bioethics and Medical Humanities. It provides continuing medical education programs and distance teaching has recently experienced a great development. The community is also favored with specific teaching programs. The academic promotion of its faculty members is based in a strict evaluation. During its existence, the Faculty has graduated a large number of physicians and other health care professionals. Our country should be grateful to the University of Chile Faculty of Medicine, in its 170th birthday, for its outstanding contribution to the development, welfare and happiness of Chilean society.


APOLOGIUM Many of the facts about examinations are well known to teachers, but it is difficult to analyze those facts or to synthesize them in a manner that can be designated as truly scientific. Furthermore, some of the facts are observed through a tinted glass, the jaundiced yellow of prejudice or the rose of gentle kindliness, and some are seen through the clear lens of objective detachment. Thus, at the present time it seems necessary and wise to employ the philosophical rather than the strictly scientific line of approach. To paraphrase Lippmann, the views expressed represent an attitude toward examinations "which, when it becomes articulate and explicit, may be dignified as a philosophy." The purpose of this paper is not so much to discuss details of methods as to emphasize anew some aspects of the matter that appear to be of broad interest. The examination has a valuable place in


Several crops have recently been identified as potential dedicated bioenergy feedstocks for the production of power, fuels, and bioproducts. Despite being identified as early as the 1980s, no systematic work has been undertaken to characterize the spatial distribution of their long‐term production potentials in the United states. Such information is a starting point for planners and economic modelers, and there is a need for this spatial information to be developed in a consistent manner for a variety of crops, so that their production potentials can be intercompared to support crop selection decisions. As part of the Sun Grant Regional Feedstock Partnership (RFP), an approach to mapping these potential biomass resources was developed to take advantage of the informational synergy realized when bringing together coordinated field trials, close interaction with expert agronomists, and spatial modeling into a single, collaborative effort. A modeling and mapping system called PRISM‐ELM was designed to answer a basic question: How do climate and soil characteristics affect the spatial distribution and long‐term production patterns of a given crop? This empirical/mechanistic/biogeographical hybrid model employs a limiting factor approach, where productivity is determined by the most limiting of the factors addressed in submodels that simulate water balance, winter low‐temperature response, summer high‐temperature response, and soil pH, salinity, and drainage. Yield maps are developed through linear regressions relating soil and climate attributes to reported yield data. The model was parameterized and validated using grain yield data for winter wheat and maize, which served as benchmarks for parameterizing the model for upland and lowland switchgrass, CRP grasses, Miscanthus, biomass sorghum, energycane, willow, and poplar. The resulting maps served as potential production inputs to analyses comparing the viability of biomass crops under various economic scenarios. The modeling and parameterization framework can be expanded to include other biomass crops.


We study the possibility of computing cryptographic primitives in a fully black-box arithmetic model over a finite field F. In this model, the input to a cryptographic primitive (e.g., encryption scheme) is given as a sequence of field elements, the honest parties are implemented by arithmetic circuits that make only a black-box use of the underlying field, and the adversary has a full (non-black-box) access to the field. This model captures many standard information-theoretic constructions. We prove several positive and negative results in this model for various cryptographic tasks. On the positive side, we show that, under coding-related intractability assumptions, computational primitives like commitment schemes, public-key encryption, oblivious transfer, and general secure two-party computation can be implemented in this model. On the negative side, we prove that garbled circuits, additively homomorphic encryption, and secure computation with low online complexity cannot be achieved in this model. Our results reveal a qualitative difference between the standard Boolean model and the arithmetic model, and explain, in retrospect, some of the limitations of previous constructions.


In our efforts to engineer a DNA binding and cleaving protein with greater sequence discrimination, we have designed dimeric proteins derived from engrailed homeodomain and calmodulin. Previous research by our group has shown that a hydrolytically active lanthanide binding site can be incorporated into a DNA binding motif. To understand protein-DNA interaction and improve the sequence selectivity of the chimeric complex, two lanthanide-binding homodimers were designed and expressed. One of the dimers, F2, is coupled together by a flexible polypeptide linker and the other, R7C, is a disulfide cross-linked cysteine mutant at the N-terminus. Studies of fluorescence of tryptophan residues document that the overall affinity for lanthanide and calcium is similar to traditional EF-hand peptides (1-10 μM). Metal titrations monitored by circular dichroism (CD) revealed that the secondary structures of the dimers contained a lower degree of α-helicity than the designed monomeric protein due to additional modifications, but because of their flexibility and their two active-site domain, hydrolytic activity was several folds faster than our previously designed proteins and peptides. Unlike earlier reports on our chimeras, F2 also demonstrated the capability to hydrolyze DNA in the presence of some biological relevant metal ions suggesting different cleavage mechanisms were carried out. Extensive DNA sequencing studies on cleavage patterns with oligonucleotide duplexes confirmed the unique sequence selectivity and kinetic properties of F2. Two engrailed homeodomain target sites, TAATTA, were favored for hydrolytic activity corresponding to one domain acting as a DNA anchor on the first target site while the other was an "opportunist" at recognizing the second site. Nonetheless, the hydrolytic behavior at the phosphodiester bond on a specific dsDNA sequence is in good agreement with the behavior of restriction endonucleases. Unlike restriction enzymes, metallated F2 has not only demonstrated the ability to cleave DNA plasmid, but it also excises the entire nucleotide on a selected sequence. This homodimer


We propose a method of factor profiled sure independence screening for ultrahigh-dimensional variable selection. The objective of this method is to identify nonzero components consistently from a sparse coefficient vector. The new method assumes that the correlation structure of the high-dimensional data can be well represented by a set of low-dimensional latent factors, which can be estimated consistently by eigenvalue-eigenvector decomposition. The estimated latent factors should then be profiled out from both the response and the predictors. Such an operation, referred to as factor profiling, produces uncorrelated predictors. Therefore, sure independence screening can be applied subsequently and the resulting screening result is consistent for model selection, a major advantage that standard sure independence screening does not share. We refer to the new method as factor profiled sure independence screening. Numerical studies confirm its outstanding performance. Copyright 2012, Oxford University Press.


Strategic uses of information technology based on personal information may raise privacy concerns among consumers if these applications do not reflect a common set of values. This study addresses what differentiates consumers who object to certain uses of personal information from those who do not object. Data collected by questionnaire from young consumers are used to identify a research approach for investigating attitudes toward the secondary use of personal information for direct marketing. Secondary information use occurs when personal information collected for one purpose is subsequently used for a different purpose. While secondary information use is both widespread and legal, it may be viewed as an invasion of privacy when it occurs without the knowledge or consent of the consumer. The setting for the study is the use of point-of-sale data from a supermarket frequent shopper program to generate direct mail solicitations.

Control emerges as a clear theme in differentiating individuals with positive overall attitudes toward secondary information use from those with negative attitudes. Study participants with positive attitudes are less concerned about privacy (measured as control over personal information), perceive shopping by mail as beneficial, and have coping strategies for dealing with unwanted mail. The results also suggest that theory related to categorization of strategic issues as positive-negative with outcomes that are controllable/uncontrollable provides a basis for understanding differences in the ways individuals perceive practices involving personal information. Future research should focus on the specific characteristics of secondary use practices, including the sensitivity of the information, its source, its perceived relevance to the original transaction, and whether disclosure reflects informed consent or results in a potentially harmful outcome to the individual


A new approach is presented for modeling the resistances of the substrate coupling network employed for noise calculations in the design of mixed-signal and RF ICs. The approach introduces intermediate resistances having progressively simpler current flow patterns than the coupling resistances. Each coupling resistance is then modeled as the product of two resistance ratios and a resistance having simple 1-D vertical or lateral flow, and each resistance ratio is approximated as a simple function of geometrical aspect ratios. Based on this approach, closed-form expressions are derived for coupling resistances associated with parallel stripe contacts on a substrate with or without a bottom contact, in terms of dimensions of the contact configuration and substrate parameters.


There has been a noticeable shift in the way in which flood risks are managed in England. This is being driven in part by European developments but also by changes in governance across diverse domains of public policy. A key characteristic is a move to transfer responsibility for the management of flood risk away from the central government and towards the local level. This paper aims to describe and evaluate the potential implications of this shift by focusing on three connected policy areas: flood defence, spatial planning, and emergency management. We draw on an analysis of policy documentation and expert interviews to map out current changes in governance. We then outline a number of potential scenarios for how these changes may play out in the future, emphasising that differences in resource availability and local motivation could result in new patterns of vulnerability and inequality.


Artichoke (Cynara) is well known as a vegetable, but it has
also application in pharmacology. The choleretic and
hypocholesterolemic actions of the artichoke extract are
already known. The present research is being carried out into
the antioxidative and hepatoprotective effects of such
extracts. These activities have been attributed to the phenolic
compounds present in the extract and to its caffeoylquinic
derivatives. Micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography
(MECC) has been developed as a promising method for the
analysis of the Artichoke extract. Separation conditions have
been optimised with respect to different parameters including
pH and ion strength of the background electrolyte, SDS
concentration and temperature. A buffer consisting of 100 mM
SDS in 20 mM sodium dihydrogen phosphate, 20 mM disodium
tetraborate pH 8.5 was found to be the most suitable
electrolyte for this separation. An applied voltage of 28 kV
(positive polarity) and a temperature of 25 oC gave the best
separation of the caffeoylquinic acid derivatives.


Capsaicinoids are found only in the fruits of Capsicum plants. While their biosynthesis is largely established, accumulation and degradation are still not
completely understood. Some study groups assume hot pepper peroxidases are responsible for the degradation.
 In a two year study the capsaicinoid contents of more than 400 individual fruits, representing the whole harvest of seven plants, were investigated with regard to
dependence on fruit age and fruit position. Capsaicinoid contents in fruits of the same plant harvested at the same day differed considerably, although mean values and
range were similar in both years. Due to the wide heterogeneity no dependence of capsaicinoid levels on fruit age or node position was observed. The statistical
evaluation illustrated the problem to obtain representative values. Highly varying pungency contents of individual fruits may lead to mistakes when taking samples
which are composed of only a small number of fruits for the observation of biosynthesis, degradation curves and environmental influences. In future experiments
heterogeneity and natural fluctuation in individual fruits have to be considered during planing and evaluation.
 The storage of minced and homogenised fruit material showed that enzymes take part in the reduction of capsaicinoid content. Storage parameters that are favourable
to peroxidases led to a fast loss of pungency. Intensity of degradation varied with fruit age: minced material from young fruits showed the fastest and strongest loss of
capsaicinoids, while capsaicinoids in material from old fruits were not degraded. Subsets of isozymes expressed at different times and locations, e. g. outer cuticle of
the pericarp, may contribute.
 Cellular disruption was always a pre-requisite, an enzymatic metabolism in the intact fruit was not observed.


For the research and development of new battery materials, achieving high reproducibility of the performance parameters in the laboratory test cells is of great importance. Therefore, in the present work, three typical small-format lithium-ion cells (coin cell, Swagelok cell and EL-CELL ECC-PAT-Core) were tested and compared with regard to the reproducibility of their performance parameters (discharge capacity, internal resistance and coulombic efficiency). A design of experiments (DOE) with the two factors separator type and anode–cathode ratio (N/P ratio) was carried out for all cells. For the quality features discharge capacity, internal resistance and coulombic efficiency, the coefficient of variation is used as a measure of reproducibility. The statistical evaluation shows that in 83% of all cases, higher reproducibility is achieved when the Freudenberg separator is used instead of the Celgard separator. In addition, higher reproducibility is achieved in 78% of all cases if the anode and cathode are the same size. A general statement about which test cell format has the highest reproducibility cannot be made. Rather, the format selection should be adapted to the requirements. The examined factors seem to have an influence on the reproducibility but are more insignificant than other still-unknown factors. Since the production of small-format test cells is a manual process, the competence of the assembler seems to prevail. In order to mitigate the influence of as many unknown variables as possible, assembly instructions are proposed for each cell type.


A transformation system was developed for stable germline transformation in the silkworm Bombyx mori L. using piggyBac, a transposon discovered in the lepidopteran Trichoplusia ni, and a helper plasmid. The transposon consists of the piggyBac inverted terminal repeats, the enhanced green fluorescent protein gene as the reporter gene and the spider dragline gene. A nonautonomous helper plasmid encodes the piggyBac transposase. The transformation system was cotransfected into BmN (Bombyx mori L. Nucleopolyhedrovirus) cells using lipofection. PCR amplification on cellular genomic DNA using specific primers showed that a fragment of reporter gene, the spider dragline derived gene and A3 promoter were successfully amplified respectively. Plasmids without being transpositioned were not assayed. Green fluorescence cells were observed at 48 hours after transfection and the fluorescence intensity increased at 72 hours after transfection.


Methane is a greenhouse gas emitted by a range of natural and anthropogenic sources. Atmospheric methane has been measured continuously from space since 2003, and new instruments are planned for launch in the near future that will greatly expand the capabilities of space-based observations. We review the value of current, future, and proposed satellite observations to better quantify and understand methane emissions through inverse analyses, from the global scale down to the scale of point sources and in combination with suborbital (surface and aircraft) data. Current global observations from Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) are of high quality but have sparse spatial coverage. They can quantify methane emissions on a regional scale (100–1000 km) through multiyear averaging. The Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI), to be launched in 2017, is expected to quantify daily emissions on the regional scale and will also effectively detect large point sources. A different observing strategy by GHGSat (launched in June 2016) is to target limited viewing domains with very fine pixel resolution in order to detect a wide range of methane point sources. Geostationary observation of methane, still in the proposal stage, will have the unique capability of mapping source regions with high resolution, detecting transient "super-emitter" point sources and resolving diurnal variation of emissions from sources such as wetlands and manure. Exploiting these rapidly expanding satellite measurement capabilities to quantify methane emissions requires a parallel effort to construct high-quality spatially and sectorally resolved emission inventories. Partnership between top-down inverse analyses of atmospheric data and bottom-up construction of emission inventories is crucial to better understanding methane emission processes and subsequently informing climate policy.


Background and Purpose Subjective cognitive complaints (SCCs) are very common in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). However, the relationship between SCCs and objective cognitive impairment is still unclear. This study aimed to determine whether SCCs are correlated with objective cognitive performance in patients with PD. Methods Totals of 148 cognitively normal patients, 71 patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 31 demented patients were recruited consecutively from a movement-disorders clinic. Their SCCs and cognitive performances were evaluated using the Cognitive Complaints Interview (CCI) and a comprehensive neuropsychological battery. Results The CCI score increased with age, duration of PD, and depression score, and was inversely correlated with cognitive performance. The association between CCI score and performance remained significant after adjustment for the depression score, age, and duration of PD. The CCI score could be used to discriminate patients with dementia from cognitively normal and MCI patients [area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC) of 0.80], but not patients with MCI or dementia from cognitively normal patients (AUC of 0.67). Conclusions SCCs as measured by the CCI are strongly correlated with objective cognitive performance in patients with PD. The CCI can also be used to screen for dementia in patients with PD.


Compatibilism is the view that determinism is compatible with acting freely and being morally responsible. Incompatibilism is the opposite view. It is often claimed that compatibilism or incompatibilism is a natural part of ordinary social cognition. That is, it is often claimed that patterns in our everyday social judgments reveal an implicit commitment to either compatibilism or incompatibilism. This paper reports five experiments designed to identify such patterns. The results support a nuanced hybrid account: The central tendencies in ordinary social cognition are compatibilism about moral responsibility, compatibilism about positive moral accountability, neither compatibilism nor incompatibilism about negative moral accountability, compatibilism about choice for actions with positive outcomes, and incompatibilism about choice for actions with negative or neutral outcomes.


We consider theoretically light propagation at oblique incidence in absorbing cholesteric liquid crystals in the Bragg mode. Using 2 × 2 matrix procedure, we analyze the eigenmodes in terms of the forward- and backward-propagating eigenwaves inside the isotropic medium bounding the cholesteric liquid crystal. The nature of the eigenmodes in the medium changes continuously from the circular to the linear state with increase in the angle of incidence. Using the appropriate eigenmodes, we studied anomalous transmission in first and second Bragg orders in these systems and its relevance to the reported experimental results. We find some interesting polarization features that arise as a result of the absorption in the cholesteric medium.


A series of tests based on large scale model are designed to study dynamic response of pile-broad subgrade, aiming at structure's response towards different load frequency and structure's performance under long-term dynamic load. The test results indicate that dynamic stress of reinforcement and soil decrease slightly with load frequency, while accelerations trend to increase. Soil under loading plate has certain supporting effect because stress of reinforcement is smaller in test group with soil remains. Performance of pile-board subgrade under long-term dynamic load is steady and reliable since none of stress and displacement varies obviously when loading times increase to 106. Ultimate bearing capacity of pile-board subgrade is much bigger than actual demand, so the structural type of pile-broad plate remains to be optimized.


One hundred twenty‐two members (experts) of the Society for Risk Analysis completed a mailed questionnaire and 150 nonexperts completed a similar questionnaire on the World Wide Web. Questions asked included those about priorities on personal and government action for risk reduction, badness of the risk, number of people affected, worry, and probabilities for self and others. Individual differences in mean desire for action were largely explained in terms of worry. Worry, in turn, was largely affected by probability judgments, which were lower for experts than for nonexperts. Differences across risks in the desire for action, within each subject, were also determined largely by worry and probability. Belief in expert knowledge about the risk increased worry and the priority for risk reduction. A second study involving 91 nonexperts (42 interviewed and 49 on the Web) replicated the main findings for nonexperts from the first study. Interviews also probed the determinants of worry, attitudes toward government versus personal control, and protective behaviors.


Abstract Mudstone layers in the tide-dominated Bluesky Formation (i.e., the "mud drapes") have enormously variable sedimentary characteristics: they range from 0.1 to 20 cm thick, can be homogeneous or internally stratified, and can have sharp or gradational upper and lower contacts. Based on recent flume studies, this diversity is interpreted to reflect the wide range of suspended-sediment concentrations (SSC; 100 g L−1) and flow velocities (slack water to several meters per second) that are typical in tidal environments. Four recurring mudstone types are present, each of which is interpreted to have formed under distinct depositional conditions: (1) unstratified mudstone Type 1 (UM1): "classic" mud drapes generated by slow settling from suspensions with SSC values less than 1 g L−1; (2) stratified mudstone Type 1 (SM1): cross-stratified mudstone layers deposited by turbulent or transitional turbulent flows with appreciable current speeds (> 0.2 ms−1) and moderate SSCs (1–10 g L−1); (3) stratified mudstone Type 2 (SM2): horizontally laminated mudstone layers formed under conditions of transitional plug flow with moderate to high SSCs (1–100 g L−1) and appreciable currents (> 0.2 ms−1); and (4) unstratified mudstone Type 2 (UM2): thick mudstone laminae and beds (> 2 mm thick), with no internal lamination and common soft-sediment deformation, deposited by unstable plug flow or quasi-laminar plug flow, with moderate to high SSCs (1–1000 g L−1) and current speeds ranging from slack water to 1–2 ms−1. UM2 and SM2 mudstone types are equivalent to what recent studies have interpreted as the lithified product of fluid mud and may have been deposited dynamically, under current speeds above the threshold of mud erosion in clear-water flows. This indicates that, in high-SSC settings, "mud drapes" could form over significant portions of the tidal cycle (i.e., not only at slack water) and perhaps continuously over multiple tidal cycles if fluid-mud layers persist. Thus, tidal rhythmites might be poorly developed in areas with high SSC values.


Chronic pain is a common and severely disabling disease whose treatment is often unsatisfactory. Insights into the brain mechanisms of chronic pain promise to advance the understanding of the underlying pathophysiology and might help to develop disease markers and novel treatments. Here, we systematically and comprehensively exploited the potential of electroencephalography (EEG) to determine abnormalities of brain function during the resting state in chronic pain. To this end, we performed state-of-the-art analyses of oscillatory brain activity, brain connectivity and brain networks in 101 patients of either sex suffering from chronic pain. The results show that global and local measures of brain activity did not differ between chronic pain patients and a healthy control group. However, we observed significantly increased connectivity at theta (4 – 8 Hz) and gamma (> 60 Hz) frequencies in frontal brain areas as well as global network reorganization at gamma frequencies in chronic pain patients. Furthermore, a machine learning algorithm could differentiate between patients and healthy controls with an above-chance accuracy of 57%, mostly based on frontal connectivity. These results implicate increased theta and gamma synchrony in frontal brain areas in the pathophysiology of chronic pain. While substantial challenges concerning accuracy, specificity and validity of potential EEG-based disease markers remain to be overcome, our study identifies abnormal frontal synchrony at theta and gamma frequencies as promising targets for non-invasive brain stimulation and/or neurofeedback approaches.


The paper analyzes the necessity of a fundamental reform of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation with its division into two codes (a substantive part — the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation, and a procedural part — the Procedural Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation). With regard to the problem of modernization of procedural administrative and tort legislation, the author questions the main directions, objectives and prerequisites of the third codification in this field and draws the conclusion that the fundamental reform of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation with the division of it into two codes — material and procedural — is premature and, in fact, political decision not grounded by feasible research results. The author highlights that the Concept of the new Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation approved at the meeting of the Government of the Russian Federation in June 2019 primarily deals with the issues of reforming mainly substantive administrative and tort legislation, while proposals for the improvement of procedural regulation of administrative responsibility are not covered in details. The Concept does not contain information concerning the fact that instead of the current Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation two new codes — the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation (CAO) and the Procedural Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation (PCAO) — will be adopted.The author focuses on the analysis of the draft of the PCAO published on the website of the Ministry of Justice of Russia. Primarily, the paper highlights such provisions that deserve an affirmative response. However, the author devotes the most significant part of the study to the analysis of the conceptual shortcomings of the PCAO of the Russian Federation. Without elimination of these shortcomings, it can hardly been concluded that a complete and qualitative procedural and legal mechanism for the implementation of justice in the field of administrative and tort relations is established in the courts of general jurisdiction.


A simple algorithm for the computation of local minima of nonconvex problems in one dimension is proposed. This algorithm avoids certain well-known local minima that are distant from the global minimum and can be used to improve the minima obtained using classical descent methods. The calculated minima have mesh scale oscillations typical of weakly converging sequences. It is shown that these local minima converge weakly to the correct limit for certain simple problems; however, numerical evidence suggests that the gradients may not converge to the correct weak limits, and this is verified using asymptotic expansions. Extensions to multiple dimensions and some numerical examples in two dimensions are considered.


Ultrahigh-vacuum growth techniques are now being used to grow single-crystal films of magnetic materials. These growth procedures, carried out in the same molecular beam epitaxy systems commonly used for the growth of semiconductor films, have yielded a variety of new materials and structures that may prove useful for integrated electronics and integrated optical device applications. Examples are given for growth on GaAs and ZnSe, including magnetic sandwiches and patterned structures.


News media tend to reflect voices in the political establishment while covering international events. Is it still true when almost half of the national audience speak the language of the country featured in the coverage? In this paper, we present an analysis of 19.5k news messages collected from Russian-language Ukrainian news outlets covering the 2018 presidential elections in Russia. Using a mixed-method approach (topic modeling and qualitative reading), we identify key topics and stories and evaluate the extent of personalization in the election coverage. We find three central angles: the focus on polls and election results, election preparations in Crimea, and Vladimir Putin's victory. The elections are linked predominantly to Crimean issues through the date of the elections, each candidate's stance on the subject, the election management in the region, and other countries' reactions to the results. Such coverage has an accusatory bias; it stresses the legal status of the Crimean referendum and the Russian authorities' actions and reports the pressures on locals by authorities, especially the Crimean Tatars. Not linked directly to Crimea, other angles are less emotionally charged. Political personalization of the discussion has a contradictory nature. On one hand, the overwhelming majority of the messages mention public figures. On the other hand, the coverage of the figures is limited and omits their traits. Moreover, at times, public figures are replaced by non-personalized symbols (e.g., Kremlin, Russian invaders). However, if the former's coverage is predominantly neutral, the latter's coverage is more prone to negative and loaded statements.


This guide is intended to introduce basic concepts related to preparing a literature review in the fields of information systems, information security, and computer science. Research requires time, patience, creativity, and problem-solving.


Recently, a new high-performance JPEG steganography with a complementary embedding strategy (JPEG-CES) was presented. It can disable many specific steganalysers such as the Chi-square family and S family detectors, which have been used to attack J-Steg, JPHide, F5 and OutGuess successfully. In this work, a study on the security performance of JPEG-CES is reported. Our theoretical analysis demonstrates that in this algorithm, the number of the different quantised discrete cosine transform (qDCT) coefficients and the symmetry of the qDCT coefficient histogram both will be disturbed when the secret message is embedded. Moreover, the intrinsic sign and magnitude dependencies that existed in intra-block and inter-block qDCT coefficients will be disturbed too. Thus it may be detected by some modern universal steganalysers which can catch these disturbances. In this work, the authors have proposed two new steganalytic approaches. Through exploring the distortions that have been introduced into the qDCT coefficient histogram and the dependencies existed in the intra-block and inter-block sense, respectively, these two alternative steganalysers can detect JPEG-CES effectively. In addition, via merging the features of these two steganalysers, a more reliable classifier can be obtained.


Background Evaluation of obstructive jaundice is a common clinical problem. Objective To compare diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of ultrasound and Magnetic Resonance Cholangio-Pancreatography in the diagnosis of intrinsic obstructive biliary disease. Methods One hundred and sixty patients with an obstructive jaundice for whom ultrasound (U/S), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and Magnetic Resonance Cholangio-Pancreatography (MRCP) were performed. The final diagnosis was confirmed by surgery, tissue biopsy and/or Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangio-Pancreatography (ERCP) in some cases. Results Of the 164 patients, 102 (62.2%) were found to have choledocholithiasis, 42 patients (25.6%) with benign stenosis and 20 patients (12.2%) had cholangiocarcinomas. Regarding choledocholithiasis, U/S examination showed a diagnostic accuracy of 80.15% with sensitivity of 71.08% and a specificity of 95.83 %. Conversely, MRCP showed a diagnostic accuracy of 93.89%, sensitivity of 93.97% and a specificity of 93.75 %. Regarding benign stenosis: U/S showed a diagnostic accuracy of 78.62% with a sensitivity of 16.67 % and a specificity of 97.29%. The diagnostic accuracy of MRCP was 93.13%, with a sensitivity of 90% and a specificity of 94.05%. In malignant stenosis: of the 20 patients with cholangiocarcinomas, 6 were localized in the upper third or hilar biliary tract (Klatskin tumor), 4 in the mid third and 10 in the distal third of the common bile duct (CBD). The diagnostic accuracy of US in malignant stenosis was 93.13%, with a sensitivity of 61.12% and a specificity of 98.23%. For MRCP, the diagnostic accuracy in detecting malignant stenosis was 93.89%, with a sensitivity of 72.23% and specificity of 97.34%. In all cases, no difference was noticed when comparing US and MRCP. Conclusion Lithiasis was the most common cause of extra-hepatic intrinsic biliary obstructions. U/S is considered the first choice option in the diagnostic imaging of obstructive disease. If laboratory and clinical findings are supported by U/S, ERCP is required for therapeutic purposes, or if necessary surgery is performed. Ultrasound is highly reliable for ruling out benign stenosis, though not for demonstrating their presence. MRCP is required only for staging of malignant stenosis, or if the suspicion posed by clinical and laboratory findings is not confirmed at U/S.


Desirable behavioral attributes in mass-reared insects should include the ability to perform favorably under the various environmental conditions they encounter upon release in the field. Insect quality also may be influenced by storage conditions and storage duration before field release. We studied the effects of three different constant ambient temperatures (15, 20, and 25 degrees C) and different lengths of adult cold storage (0, 24, 48, and 72 h at 2 degrees C) on the locomotor activity of adult Cydia pomonella (L.) mass reared through diapause or standard production protocols. Mobility was assessed in actographs housed in a climate controlled chamber; tests lasted 24 h. We found that adult mobility was significantly higher for both males and females at 25 and 20 degrees C than at 15 degrees C. There were no significant differences in mobility in moths reared through diapause or nondiapaused production protocols. In addition, temporal analysis of the data revealed a significant shift in the diel patterns of activity for both genders when adults were tested at the three different temperatures. Moths exposed to the lower temperature shifted their activity pattern from evening to mid-afternoon, which may be an adaptive behavior to take advantage of the expected warmest period of the day. Diapaused adults were significantly less mobile when stored in the cold (24, 48, or 72 h of storage at 2 degrees C) than were diapaused adults that did not experience cold storage (0 h). However, length of time in cold storage did not significantly influence the mobility of adult codling moths reared through standard production protocols.


The metal content of a galaxy, a key property for distinguishing between viable galaxy evolutionary scenarios, strongly influences many of the physical processes in the interstellar medium. An absolute and robust determination of extragalactic metallicities is essential in constraining models of chemical enrichment and chemical evolution. Current gas-phase abundance determinations, however, from optical fine-structure lines are uncertain to 0.8 dex as conversion of these optical line fluxes to abundances is strongly dependent on the electron temperature of the ionized gas. In contrast, the far-infrared (far-IR) emission lines can be used to derive an O++ abundance that is relatively insensitive to temperature, while the ratio of the optical to far-IR lines provides a consistent temperature to be used in the derivation of an O+ abundance. We present observations of the [O iii] 88 μm fine-structure line in NGC 628 that were obtained as part of the Key Insights on Nearby Galaxies: a Far Infared Survey with Herschel program. These data are combined with optical integrated field unit data to derive oxygen abundances for seven H ii regions. We find the abundance of these regions to all lie between the high and low values of strong-line calibrations and to be in agreement with estimates that assume temperature fluctuations are present in the H ii regions.


Objective: To investigate whether brain functional network connectivity is disrupted in patients with the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Methods: Graph theoretical analysis was applied to resting state functional MRI data from 18 patients with probable bvFTD and 50 healthy individuals. Functional connectivity between 90 cortical and subcortical brain regions was estimated using bivariate correlation analysis and thresholded to construct a set of undirected graphs. Correlations between network properties and cognitive variables were tested. Results: Global topologic organization of the functional brain network in bvFTD was significantly disrupted as indicated by reduced mean network degree, clustering coefficient, and global efficiency and increased characteristic path length and assortativity relative to normal subjects. Compared to controls, bvFTD data showed retention of major "hub" regions in the medial parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes, but cortical hubs were not noted in the frontal lobes. Medial and dorsal frontal regions, left caudate nucleus, left insular cortices, and some regions of the temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes showed decreased nodal centrality. BvFTD patients showed the greatest decrease in inter-regional connectivity between the frontal and occipital regions, and the insular cortices and occipital, temporal, subcortical, and frontal regions. In bvFTD, altered global network properties correlated with executive dysfunction. Conclusions: Global and local functional networks are altered in bvFTD, suggesting a loss of efficiency in information exchange between both distant and close brain areas. Altered brain regions are located in structures that are closely associated with neuropathologic changes in bvFTD. Aberrant topology of the functional brain networks in bvFTD appears to underlie cognitive deficits in these patients.


This work capitalises on the morphodynamic study of a scraped artificial dune built on the sandy beach of Porto Garibaldi (Comacchio, Italy) as a barrier to protect the touristic facilities from sea storms during the winter season and contributes to understanding of the role of elevation data uncertainty and uniform thresholds for change detection (TCDs) on the interpretation of volume change estimations. This application relies on products derived from unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surveys and on the evaluation of the uncertainty associated with volume change estimations to interpret the case study morphodynamics under non-extreme sea and wind conditions. The analysis was performed by comparing UAV-derived digital elevation models (DEMs)—root mean squared error (RMSE) vs. global navigation satellite system (GNSS) < 0.05 m—and orthophotos, considering the significance of the identified changes by applying a set of TCDs. In this case, a threshold of ~0.15 m was able to detect most of the morphological variations. The set of TCD ≤ 0.15 m was considered to discuss the significance of minor changes and the uncertainty of volume change calculations. During the analysed period (21 December 2016–20 January 2017), water levels and waves affected the front of the artificial dune by eroding the berm area; winds remodelled the entire dune, moving the loose sand around the dune and further inland; sediment volumes mobilised by sea and wind forcing were comparable. This work suggests that UAV-derived coastal morphological variations should be interpreted by integrating: (i) a set of uniform thresholds to detect significant changes; (ii) the uncertainty generated by the propagation of the original uncertainty of the elevation products; (iii) the characteristics of the morphodynamic drivers evaluated by adopting uncertainty-aware approaches. Thus, the contribution of subtle morphological changes—magnitudes comparable with the instrumental accuracy and/or the assessed propagated uncertainty—can be properly accounted for.


Using a home-built tensile tester, adhesion and mechanical properties of injectable enzymatically crosslinkable hydrogels were determined by placing the hydrogels in between cartilage surfaces. Dextran–tyramine (Dex-TA) and hyaluronic acid–tyramine (HA-TA) conjugates as well as a 50/50 composite material of these polysaccharide conjugates were tested. To integrate the injectable hydrogels with the cartilage tissue, pretreatment of the tissue with a Dex-TA conjugate solution strongly improved the adhesion. Only failure of the crosslinked hydrogel was observed and not at the hydrogel–tissue interface. Moduli of a Dex-TA hydrogel are higher than those of a HA-TA hydrogel, whereas the ultimate strain of the HA-TA hydrogel was at least three times higher. The Dex-TA/HA-TA hydrogel has similar storage and elastic moduli as the Dex-TA gel and also an ultimate strain of ~30%, similarly as found for the HA-TA gel. The controlled biodegradability and gelation time of the Dex-TA/HA-TA hydrogel, the developed method for strong tissue adhesion of the gel particularly in comparison with fibrin glue, makes this material applicable as an injectable hydrogel for tissue regeneration applications


Near-surface seismic refraction tomography imaged the basal contact of the Upper Cambrian silica-rich Mount Simon Formation with that of the underlying Precambrian granite in central Wisconsin. The discrimination between the Mount Simon and underlying non-conformable contact with Precambrian rocks was based upon a p-wave velocity of 1,700 m/s. Refraction tomography imaged deep, broad tidal channels within the Mount Simon consistent with the inference that Mount Simon was deposited in a high-energy near-shore, probably fluvial environment. The Mount Simon is an arenite that has high commercial value.


Lupus is a prototypic systemic autoimmune disease that has a significant genetic component in its etiology. Several genome-wide screens have identified multiple loci that contribute to disease susceptibility in lupus-prone mice, including the Fas-deficient MRL/Faslpr strain, with each locus contributing in a threshold liability manner. The centromeric region of chromosome 7 was identified as a lupus susceptibility locus in MRL/Faslpr mice as Lmb3. This locus was backcrossed onto the resistant C57BL/6 (B6) background, in the presence or absence of Fas, resulting in the generation of B6.MRLc7 congenic animals. Detailed analysis of these animals showed that Lmb3 enhances and accelerates several characteristics of lupus, including autoantibody production, kidney disease, and T cell activation, as well as accumulation of CD4−CD8− double-negative T cells, the latter a feature of Fas-deficient mice. These effects appeared to be dependent on the interaction between Lmb3 and Fas deficiency, as Lmb3 on the B6/+Fas-lpr background did not augment any of the lupus traits measured. These findings confirm the role of Lmb3 in lupus susceptibility, as a modifier of Faslpr phenotype, and illustrate the importance of epistatic interaction between genetic loci in the etiology of lupus. Furthermore, they suggest that the genetic lesion(s) in MRLc7 is probably different from those in NZMc7 (Sle3/5), despite a significant overlap of these two intervals.