The white root disease caused by Rigidoporus microporus (Sw.) Overeem is a destructive disease in rubber plantation, particularly in southern Thailand. It persists on dead or live root debris for a long time. In this study, resistant clones of white root disease were screened. Pathagenicity tests of R.microporus in 10 local clones (PSU1, PSU2), Kantang, Bangmark, Sakraphangsurin, Bangrak, Khaowiset, Wangkere, Bangdee and Huaiyot districts) were done, compared with clone RRIM 600 and GT 1. The experiment was designed as a completely randomized design (CRD) with 5 replications. The following data were recorded for 2-week interval within 5 months: root distributions, area under disease progress curves (AUDPC), growth and symptom of rubber seedlings. Results indicated that the most of active root proliferation of 45-60 cm soil layer depth from the soil surface. Root growth of seedlings from clone Bangmark and Huaiyot districts showed significantly higher than RRIM 600, GT 1 and the other clones. With the AUDPC observation, the seedlings from clone Bangmark, Kantang and Prince of Songkla University (PSU1) were significanly higher P>0.05 )AUDPC) than the other clones. Growth of each clone was monitored by measuring height, circumference and number of petiole per seedling, the seedlings from clone Bangrak exhibited the highest growth. Symptom development of the seedlings from clone Kantang, Khaowiset districts and GT 1 clones were evident, around 50%. Among 10 local clones, RRIM 600 and GT 1 clones, the seedlings from Sakraphangsurin, Bangrak districts, PSU1 and PSU2 clones tended to exhibit white root disease resistance.


The review deals with the analysis of the publications related to the evaluation of mucopolysaccharidosis clinical manifestations. The pathological conditions and syndromes characterizing the changes in different organs and systems for glycosaminoglycan degradation disorder described, as well as mucopolysaccharidosis types, the plan of the patients' examination, the diagnostics and the details of treatment.


This article presents a method of adjusting the tempo of a music software sequencer so that it remains synchronized with a drummer's musical pulse. This allows music sequencer technology to be integrated into a band scenario without the compromise of using click tracks or triggering loops with a fixed tempo. Our design implements real-time mechanisms for both underlying tempo and phase adjustment using adaptable parameters that control its behavior. The aim is to create a system that responds to timing variations in the drummer's playing but is also stable during passages of syncopation and fills. We present an evaluation of the system using a stochastic drum machine that incorporates a level of noise in the underlying tempo and phase of the beat. We measure synchronization error between the output of the system and the underlying pulse of the drum machine and contrast this with other real-time beat trackers. The software, B-Keeper, has been released as a Max for Live device, available online at www.b-keeper.org.


An integrated capacitor substrate which is proposed as an essential part in the realization of a thin film module for high speed digital computing systems is discussed. Several innovative multilayer ceramic (MLC) concepts relative to the fabrication of the desired low inductance capacitor and current paths to chips are described. Ceramic and metal composite material sets which may be used in the fabrication are also proposed. Experimental evaluations of some of the crucial concepts were made and included in the discussions. The result is an elegant approach to the fabrication of one of the key requirements in realizing the thin film high performance module.


Recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEPO) at pharmacological doses was used to improve anemia and reduce the transfusional requirements of 43 patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). rhEPO was given by s.c. injection three times per week for 12 weeks. The EPO dose was started at 150 IU/kg and was increased to 300 IU/kg if after 6 weeks there was no or suboptimal erythroid response. Responses were defined as being a complete response (CR), partial response (PR), or no response (NR). A CR was considered a rise in untransfused hemoglobin concentrations of at least 2 g/dl or a 100% decrease in RBC transfusion requirements over the treatment period. A PR was defined as an increase in untransfused hemoglobin values of 1-2 g/dl or a decrease in RBC transfusion requirements equal to or greater than 50%. NR was defined as responses less than a PR. Patients who responded to therapy were continued on rhEPO at the same dose for 6 additional months. An objective response (CR and PR) was observed in 7 of 42 (16.7%) assessable cases after 6 weeks of treatment at the dose of 150 IU/kg. Dose escalation (300 IU/kg) in nonresponders resulted in another six patients attaining a rise in hemoglobin concentrations. The final response rate was 13 of 41 (31.7%); 4 patients became transfusion independent. Therapy was tolerated well, with no relevant side effects. MDS progression was seen in one case. An elevated bone marrow erythroid infiltration (erythroid index) and detectable pretreatment circulating erythroid progenitors (burst-forming units-erythroid) were the best predictors of hemoglobin response when we controlled for other variables. These data suggest that rhEPO has a role in the treatment of certain patients with MDS, particularly in those with a high erythroid index and detectable circulating erythroid burst-forming units.


Traditional origami starts from flat surfaces, leading to crease patterns consisting of Euclidean vertices. However, Euclidean vertices are limited in their folding motions, are degenerate, and suffer from misfolding. Here we show how non-Euclidean 4-vertices overcome these limitations by lifting this degeneracy, and that when the elasticity of the hinges is taken into account, non-Euclidean 4-vertices permit higher order multistability. We harness these advantages to design an origami inverter that does not suffer from misfolding and to physically realize a tristable vertex.


PP-246, a 6-page illustrated fact sheet by Monica L. Elliott and Timothy K. Broschat, includes tips to determine when laboratory diagnostics may be useful and how to interpret and/or integrate field and laboratory diagnoses. Includes references. Published by the UF Department of Plant Pathology, June 2008.
PP 246/PP166: Palm Problems: Field and Laboratory Diagnosis (ufl.edu)


This research guide introduces users to the legal research process. If you're new to legal research, it's best to follow this guide step-by-step.


Traditionally, signatures used for traffic classification are constructed at the byte-level. However, as more and more data-transfer formats of network protocols and applications are encoded at the bit-level, byte-level signatures are losing their effectiveness in traffic classification. In this poster, we creatively construct bit-level signatures by associating the bit-values with their bit-positions in each traffic flow. Furthermore, we present BitMiner, an automated traffic mining tool that can mine application signatures at the most fine-grained bit-level granularity. Our preliminary test on popular peer-to-peer (P2P) applications, e.g. Skype, Google Hangouts, PPTV, eMule, Xunlei and QQDownload, reveals that although they all have no byte-level signatures, there are significant bit-level signatures hidden in their traffic.


Experiments with high-power electron cyclotron heating (ECH) and current drive (ECCD) in the TCV tokamak are discussed. Power up to 2.7 MW from six gyrotrons is delivered to the tokamak at the second-harmonic frequency (82.7 GHz) in X-mode. The power is transmitted to the plasma by six independent launchers, each equipped with steerable mirrors that allow a wide variety of injection angles in both the poloidal and toroidal directions. Fully non-inductive operation of the tokamak has been achieved in steady state, for the full 2 s gyrotron pulse duration, by co-ECCD with a highest current to date of 210 kA at full power. The experimentally measured ECCD efficiency agrees well with predictions obtained from linear modelling. We have observed that the highest global efficiency attainable at a given power is limited by stability constraints. While the efficiency is maximum on the magnetic axis, a disruptive MHD instability occurs when the width of the deposition profile is lower than a minimum value, which increases with total power. Many ECCD discharges display a high level of electron energy confinement, enhanced by up to a factor of two over the Rebut-Lallia-Watkins (RLW) scaling law, which by contrast is well satisfied in ohmic conditions. The longest confinement times (up to four times RLW) are observed with central counter-ECCD. Central electron heat diffusivities comparable to ohmic levels are obtained in these scenarios, with electron temperatures in excess of 10 keV.


Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) poses a severe threat to human health. The NET-1 protein has been proved to be strongly associated with HCC proliferation and metastasis in our previous study. Here, we established and validated the NET-1 siRNA nanoparticles system to conduct targeted gene therapy of HCC xenograft in vivo with the aid of sonodynamic therapy. Then, we conducted a label-free proteome mass spectrometry workflow to analyze formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded HCC xenograft samples collected in this study. The result showed that 78 proteins were differentially expressed after NET-1 protein inhibited. Among them, the expression of 17 proteins upregulated and the expression of 61 proteins were significantly downregulated. Of the protein abundance, the vast majority of Gene Ontology enrichment terms belong to the biological process. The KEGG pathway enrichment analysis showed that the 78 differentially expressed proteins significantly enriched in 45 pathways. We concluded that the function of the NET-1 gene is not only to regulate HCC but also to participate in a variety of biochemical metabolic pathways in the human body. Furthermore, the protein–protein interaction analysis indicated that the interactions of differentially expressed proteins are incredibly sophisticated. All the protein–protein interactions happened after the NET-1 gene has been silenced. Finally, our study also provides a useful proposal for targeted therapy based on tetraspanin proteins to treat HCC, and further mechanism investigations are needed to reveal a more detailed mechanism of action for NET-1 protein regulation of HCC.


BACKGROUND
PrEPX was an Australian HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) study conducted between 2016 and 2018. This analysis aimed to estimate hepatitis C (HCV) incidence and explore likely modes of transmission.

SETTING
Cohort study of PrEP users in Victoria, Australia.

METHODS
HCV tests were conducted at enrolment and every 12 months thereafter. HCV incident cases were identified from laboratory data. Likely modes of transmission were inferred from computer-assisted self-interviews (CASI), medical records, and interviews.

RESULTS
Among 3,202 PrEPX participants tested for HCV at baseline, HCV RNA-positive prevalence was 0.22% (95% CI 0.09-0.45). Among participants testing HCV antibody- or RNA-negative at baseline, 2,058 had at least one follow-up HCV test. Eight incident HCV cases were identified during 2,111 person-years of follow-up (incidence 0.38/100 person-years); all were primary infections in men who had sex with men (MSM). Clinical, laboratory and CASI data were available for all, and six cases were interviewed. Three cases were attributable to injecting drug use (IDU). A fourth case reported IDU, but his HCV was attributable to sexual transmission. Four other cases reported no IDU and probably acquired HCV sexually. Most cases reported anal trauma in the context of condomless receptive anal intercourse during group sex at sex-on-premises venues (SOPV).

CONCLUSION
Incident HCV was uncommon in PrEPX compared to international PrEP studies, and most cases were transmitted sexually. Our findings highlight the need for HCV prevention messaging by clinicians, in SOPV and on digital platforms utilised to arrange group sex, and for HCV screening among some PrEP-using MSM.


Swine manure contains a host of chemical and biological constituents which make it desirable for amending lignocellulosic biomass in storage for year round processing in a biorefinery. Application of swine manure in an integrated biomass storage and conversion system was investigated to determine the potential for improved conversion of corn stover to organic acids and soluble carbohydrates during ensiling. Corn stover- swine manure mixtures were prepared containing swine manure at rates of 0%, 15%, 30%, 45%, and 60% while simultaneously being adjusted to 65% moisture on a wet basis and ensiled for 0, 1, 7, and 21 days. Samples were analyzed for pH, dry matter, water-soluble carbohydrates, and organic acids. All treatments, with the exception of the 60% manure substrate, produced a pH less than 4.5, which is sufficient for stable storage. Water-soluble carbohydrates were highest in the control treatment, producing a level of 3.0% DM at day 21. Lactic acid production was unaffected by the rate of manure, with a concentration of 2.8% DM reached at day 21. Acetic acid production was improved with the manure substrates. Manure amendment rates of 30%, 45%, and 60% produced the highest acetic acid concentration of 1.8% DM. Treatments of 0%, 15%, 30%, and 45% swine manure would be acceptable substrates for use in this system; however, if preservation of fermentable carbohydrates is a higher priority than organic acid production, then the pure corn stover substrate would be the most appropriate material to use.


Abstract Activity patterns of Phyllophaga crinita (Burmeister), Phyllophaga congrua (LeConte), Phyllophaga crassissima (Blanchard), and Cyclocephala lurida (Bland) grubs were monitored with acoustic sensors in small pots of bluegrass, Poa arachnifera Torr, at varying and constant temperatures over multiple-day periods. Experienced listeners readily distinguished three types of sound with distinct differences in frequency and temporal patterns, intensities, and durations. Of ≈3,000 sounds detected from P. crinita larvae, 7% were identifiable as snaps, with large amplitudes and short durations typically associated with root breakage or clipping activity. Approximately 60% were identifiable as rustles, suggestive of surfaces sliding or rubbing past each other during general movement activity. Another 2% of sounds contained patterns of repeated pulses suggestive of surfaces scraping across a pointed ridge. The remaining 31% had spectral or temporal patterns that fell outside the ranges of easily recognizable sound types. Because the behavioral significance of the different sound types has not yet been fully established, the classified and unclassified sounds were pooled together in analyses of the effects of species, temperature, weight, and time of day. Grubs of all four species produced detectable sounds at rates that increased with temperature [0.45 sounds/((min)(°C))] and larval weight [6.3 sounds/((min)(g))]. Mean sound rates were independent of species and time of day. At temperatures <9°C, mean sound rates fell below the typical levels of background noise observed under field conditions. This reduced activity at low temperatures is likely to reduce the effectiveness of acoustic monitoring in the field in cold weather. The consistency of results obtained in these tests over multiple-day periods suggests that acoustic systems have potential as tools for nondestructive monitoring of the efficacy of insect management treatments as well as for biological and ecological studies.


The skeleton is the main site affected by metastases and breast cancer is the most frequent tumor to invade bone. The assessment of bone metastases is difficult and biochemical markers of bone formation (BFMs) could be a promising alternative. Although the essential role of osteoblasts in the metastatic process of bone destruction is now well established, little attention has been paid to BFMs. We conducted a Medline search for studies about BFMs in breast cancer. Our review allows us to conclude that BFMs have high specificity but low sensitivity for the diagnosis of bone metastases. The available biochemical markers cannot replace imaging techniques for the diagnosis of bone metastases. Several studies indicate that BFM serum levels reflect total tumor burden in the skeleton. BFM levels are higher in patients with blastic lesions compared to those with lytic lesions. Serial measurements of BFMs could be useful for the clinical assessment of response to antineoplastic treatment or to bisphosphonate therapy. Besides markers of bone resorption, biochemical markers of bone formation are a promising alternative for the assessment of metastatic bone disease, but large prospective studies are needed to address this important issue.


: Freshwater mussel Hyriopsis cumingii is ubiquitous in China and commercially valuable for freshwater pearl production. Donor pearl mussel or oyster shell nacre color considerably affects pearl color, but the molecular mechanism underlying pearl color remains unclear. Mussels with purple and white inner-shell colors were selected, and five genes related to nacreous layer color formation were identified through comparative transcriptome analysis. Real-time quantitative analysis indicated that HcTyr1 encoding tyrosinase is involved in black pigment synthesis. HcTyr1 expression in rear edge films was higher in the purple mussels ( p < 0.05). The expression in the posterior and anterior mantle pallial of HcAst , which encodes shrimp erythropoietin, was higher in the purple mussels ( p < 0.01). HcAst expression in the central membrane was also higher in the purple mussels ( p < 0.05). The expression of HcCyt , which encodes cytochrome P450, was higher in the central membranes of the purple mussels than in the posterior and anterior mantle pallial and the central membranes of the white mussels ( p < 0.01). The expression in the posterior mantle pallial of HcTDO , which encodes tryptophan oxygenase involving in ophthalmic lutein synthesis, was significantly higher in the purple mussels ( p < 0.01). No difference in expression regularity in the outer mantle of HcUROD which encodes urine porphyrin decarboxylase participating in heme synthesis was observed among the mussels, and the expression was higher in the posterior marginal membrane than in the central membrane ( p < 0.01). These studied genes are involved in nacre color formation in H. cumingii .


A new collision resolution algorithm called the space division multiple access protocol (SDMA) is presented. SDMA gains a performance advantage over similar protocols by using information about the positions of stations on the network. The protocol can operate asynchronously on a broadcast bus, allowing variable sized packet traffic. Through simulation the protocol is demonstrated to have better performance than Ethernet and the Capetanakis Tree protocol, a similar collision resolution protocol, under some traffic conditions. In particular, under heavy loads, SDMA displays better average throughput and lower variance of delay than Ethernet. The protocol demonstrates a performance bias based on the location of stations, but in most cases this bias is less severe than that experienced by Ethernet.<<ETX>>


INTRODUCTION
The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of photodynamic therapy in the treatment of experimental corneal neovascularization (NV) with benzoporphyrin derivative (BPD).

METHODS
One group was considered as control (n=6 eyes) then, corneal NV was induced in 30 New Zealand male rabbits (n=60 eyes) by placing 7.0 silk sutures at midstromal depth approximately1mm from the limbus. Fifteen rabbits with corneal NV were left without any treatment, and 15 rabbits were subjected to photodynamic therapy (PDT) by intravenous injection with Verteporfin at a dose of 1.5 mg /Kg. Diode laser (660 nm) was applied after 15 minutes for 5 minutes with a power of 50 mW/cm2. All rabbits were successively followed up by slit lamp examination for periods of 1 day, 1, 2, 3 and 4 weeks. Three rabbits were selected and sacrificed weekly (n=6 eyes each) and the corneas were isolated for histopathological examination.

RESULTS
The results of slit lamp examination indicated the gradual regression of the cornea neovascularization 4 weeks of PDT. Furthermore, regression of corneal neovascularization was documented clinically by decrease number and length of blood vessels and by histopathological examination.

CONCLUSION
PDT with Verteporfin can provide efficacious treatment of corneal neovascularization.


PROLOGUE Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a pathologic condition of injury to the esophagus caused by regurgitation of gastric or gastroduodenal contents into the lumen of the esophagus(1). Histopathology of the esophageal mucosa may or may not be present. Gastroesophageal reflux of acid and gastric contents often causes a condition commonly referred to as heartburn. This is characterized as a retro-sternal burning sensation that radiates to the throat and interscapular region. It may be confused, even in the emergency room, with anginal pain or the onset of myocardial infarction; therefore its rapid diagnosis is important. In many patients GERD should be considered a chronic and lifelong illness and maintenance therapy is often needed(2). Repeated exposure of the esophagus to stomach contents leads to esophagitis. In severe cases, this can actually erode esophageal tissue (erosive esophagitis). In the last five to seven years several new treatment options for GERD have become available. These include antise-cretory agents such as the proton pump inhibitors, and new surgical techniques that have improved Nissen fundoplication safety and efficacy rates(3-4). Clinicians caring for patients with this common disorder need to understand the pathology behind GERD, its common (and uncommon) clinical manifestations, and current treatment options as recommended by the American College of Gastroenterology(2).


Background QVA149 is a once-daily (o.d.) inhaled dual bronchodilator containing a fixed-dose combination of the long-acting β2-agonist indacaterol and the long-acting muscarinic antagonist glycopyrronium for the treatment of COPD. The QUANTIFY study compared QVA149 with a free-dose bronchodilator combination of tiotropium plus formoterol (TIO+FOR) in improving health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of patients with COPD. Methods This multicentre, blinded, triple-dummy, parallel-group, non-inferiority study randomised patients aged ≥40 years with moderate-to-severe COPD (post-bronchodilator forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) ≥30% to <80% predicted) to QVA149 110/50 µg o.d. or TIO 18 µg o.d.+ FOR 12 µg twice daily (1:1) for 26 weeks. The primary endpoint was to demonstrate non-inferiority in HRQoL assessed using St George's Respiratory Questionnaire-COPD (SGRQ-C). The prespecified non-inferiority margin was 4 units. Secondary endpoints included Transition Dyspnoea Index (TDI) score, pre-dose FEV1, forced vital capacity (FVC) and safety. Results Of the 934 patients randomised (QVA149=476 and TIO+FOR=458), 87.9% completed the study. At week 26, non-inferiority was met for SGRQ-C (QVA149 vs TIO+FOR; difference: –0.69 units; 95% CI −2.31 to 0.92; p=0.399). A significantly higher percentage of patients achieved a clinically relevant ≥1 point improvement in TDI total score with QVA149 (49.6%) versus TIO+FOR (42.4%; p=0.033). QVA149 significantly increased pre-dose FEV1 (+68 mL, 95% CI 37 mL to 100 mL; p<0.001) and FVC (+74 mL, 95% CI 24 mL to 125 mL; p=0.004) compared with TIO+FOR at week 26. The incidence of adverse events was comparable between both treatments (QVA149=43.7% and TIO+FOR=42.6%). Conclusions QVA149 is non-inferior to TIO+FOR in improving HRQoL, with clinically meaningful and significant improvements in breathlessness and lung function in patients with COPD. Trial registration number NCT01120717.


The NCB is hosting a workshop for staff, students and members of the public interested in exploring the relationship of psychology, biography and history.
The workshop will be lead by historians, Professor Melanie Nolan, director of the NCB; Dr Alastair Maclachlan, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Humanities Research Centre ANU; and Professor John Sutton, depury director of the Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University.


The rhetoric is that the public sector provides broader coverage and more affordability of health benefits to its employees than the private sector. This study examines the reality of public and private health plans. It focuses specifically on the three types of managed care plans: Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO), Preferred Provider Organizations (PPO), and Point-of-Service (POS) plans. An examination of health care benefits is especially important given the double-digit rise in premiums since 2001. This article first focuses on the literature showing differences in health benefits in the public sector compared with the private sector. The literature on the factors that influence choice of managed care plans are also examined. The results reveal that public sector health care costs are slightly higher and fewer plans are offered to its employees. There are fewer alternative health care options, such as high deductible health plans and health savings accounts, as compared with what is offered by the private sector. In addition, the logistic regression results reveal that there are significant differences between the public and private sectors in types of plans offered, controlling for organizational and community factors, characteristics of health care plans, and opinions of human resources (HR) managers on controlling costs.


: Few people believed the Internet would have much impact on the delivery of health care services. However, combined with technological advances in how computer systems are structured and implemented and knowing what doesn't work in managed care from bitter experience, the Internet is being used to create a new paradigm of alternative health insurance products. These products hold the potential to change for the better the face of health care as we know it. Self-directed health plans will be less expensive than managed care programs and offer greater predictability in health care spending. For health care providers, SDHPs' reliance upon episode allowances will create a new market for packaged or bundled services. Providers will be paid to provide solutions, not just treatment. This could represent a new model in which physicians accept a risk-adjusted payment and provide a warranty that they will do whatever necessary until the patient has reached the reasonably expected health status. This is a radical departure from the fee-for-service or capitation system.


A major problem encountered in genomic and proteomic studies arises from the heterogeneous nature of different tissue. Analysis of a pure cell population is essential for correlating relevant molecular signatures in diseased and disease-free cells. During the last 30 years this challenge has led to the development of different technologies able to isolate cells of interest. Laser capture microdissection (LCM) is the last available technology using the precision of a laser beam to isolate single cells from complex tissue. In this chapter we will review the different technologies available and some applications.


medical service provided by a physician were unknown, which makes it unfeasible to examine whether each physician's excess charge is consistent across their services. The results may not be generalizable to private or other insurance. As the health insurance market shifts toward more restrictive physician networks and high-deductible plans,5 protecting uninsured and out-of-network patients from high medical bills should be a policy priority. For example, a recent law in New York restricts out-of-network physicians from charging patients excessive unexpected amounts.6


Prevalent matrix completion theories reply on an assumption that the locations of the missing data are distributed uniformly and randomly (i.e., uniform sampling). Nevertheless, the reason for observations being missing often depends on the unseen observations themselves, and thus the missing data in practice usually occurs in a nonuniform and deterministic fashion rather than randomly. To break through the limits of random sampling, this paper introduces a new hypothesis called \emph{isomeric condition}, which is provably weaker than the assumption of uniform sampling and arguably holds even when the missing data is placed irregularly. Equipped with this new tool, we prove a series of theorems for missing data recovery and matrix completion. In particular, we prove that the exact solutions that identify the target matrix are included as critical points by the commonly used nonconvex programs. Unlike the existing theories for nonconvex matrix completion, which are built upon the same condition as convex programs, our theory shows that nonconvex programs have the potential to work with a much weaker condition. Comparing to the existing studies on nonuniform sampling, our setup is more general.


Photography's initial claim to represent has been derived from a privileging of the visible world, which, it might be argued, is reinforced by the limited visibility of the camera. The proliferations of utilitarian photographies, therefore, are necessarily also the elimination of the non-visible. Such a notion of visibility, when contested, might provide the starting point for a reconception of the photographic in which the apparently indexical medium is filtered through alternative relationships to representation, transparency, and ultimately, even the discourse of realism. This article proposes that an alternative conception of realism might sceptically underline the limitation of the photographic apparatus in relating to but also limiting the world.


OBJECTIVE: To estimate the effect of maternal exposure to magnesium sulfate on fetal heart rate characteristics during active labor. METHODS: Within a 4-year retrospective cohort study of consecutive term deliveries reaching the second stage of labor, we compared women exposed to magnesium for severe preeclampsia to all women not exposed. Primary outcome was the electronic fetal monitoring tracing in the 30 minutes preceding delivery. Secondary outcomes were fetal acidemia and nursery disposition. Attributable risk estimates and multivariable logistic regression were used to estimate the association between magnesium exposure and fetal heart rate characteristics. Unadjusted risk estimates for the association between fetal heart rate characteristics and neonatal outcomes were generated stratified by group. RESULTS: Of 5,387 women, 248 (4.6%) were exposed to magnesium. Magnesium exposure was associated with lower fetal heart rate baseline (136.9±12.3 beats per minute compared with 139.0±13.5 beats per minute; P=.02), increased risk of baseline less than 120 beats per minute (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 1.76, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.21–2.56), and increased risk of absent or minimal variability (adjusted OR 2.41, 95% CI 1.78–3.27). More than 20% increased frequency of ever absent or minimal variability was attributable to magnesium (attributable risk 0.21, 95% CI 0.15–0.27). There were no significant differences in presence or number of accelerations or decelerations; however, magnesium was associated with fewer prolonged decelerations (adjusted OR 0.64, 95% CI 0.49–0.84). After excluding women with adverse neonatal outcomes, these associations remained. CONCLUSION: Maternal exposure to magnesium is associated with lower fetal heart rate baseline within the accepted normal range, decreased variability, and fewer prolonged decelerations without evidence of adverse effect on neonatal outcome. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: II


Considers the crucial role of private sector social entrepreneurship in the context of a state welfare system stretched beyond its means. Defines social entrepreneurship, recounts a number of key points from relevant research projects, reflects upon current developments and initiatives, describes a number of cases and uses these to draw a set of tentative conclusions about social entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurship in the context of the current government's aim of fostering rapid growth in the sector. Concludes that while such growth is highly desirable, a number of hurdles have to be overcome.


Background Little is known about risk factors for persistent high-risk human papillomavirus (hrHPV) infection in low-income settings, and prior research has not quantified the relative duration of hrHPV infections stratified by risk factors. We compared the duration of hrHPV infection among female sex workers (FSWs) by exposure to sexually transmitted infections (STIs), using a highly sensitive biomarker assay. Methods From 2009 to 2011, 350 FSWs enrolled in this longitudinal study. Every 3 months, sociodemographic and sexual behavior data were collected via questionnaire, and APTIMA assays were used to detect the rRNA of Chlamydia trachomatis (CT), Neisseria gonorrhea, Trichomonas vaginalis, Mycoplasma genitalium, and messenger RNA of the E6/E7 oncoproteins expressed by hrHPV. Among 173 FSW who were infected with hrHPV during the observation period, accelerated failure time models estimated time ratios (TRs) for duration of hrHPV infection, comparing FSW infected with STIs at baseline to STI-uninfected FSWs. Results Median follow-up time was 26.2 months (interquartile range, 18.8–27.5 months). The median duration of hrHPV infection among all FSWs was 9.3 months (95% confidence interval [CI], 9.3–11.5). The duration of hrHPV infection among FSW infected with CT at baseline was greater than that among FSWs who were uninfected (adjusted TR, 1.7; 95% CI, 1.2–2.6). Among FSWs who were coinfected with hrHPV and CT at baseline, the adjusted TR was 3.4 (95% CI, 2.5–5.4) compared with FSWs infected with hrHPV only. No other STI was associated with hrHPV duration. Conclusions Recent or concurrent CT infection was associated with prolonged hrHPV infection among a cohort of Nairobi FSWs. Management of CT could reduce risk for hrHPV persistence.


In the past several decades, the experimental method has lent deep insights into economics. One area that has contributed is the experimental study of children, where advances as varied as the evolution of human behaviors that shape markets and institutions to how early life influences shape later life outcomes, have been explored. We first develop a framework for economic preference measurement that provides a lens into how to interpret data from experiments with children. Next, we survey work that provides general empirical insights within our framework and provide a comprehensive summary of experimental methods used with children. Finally, we provide 10 tips for pulling off experiments with children, including factors such as taking into account child competencies, causal identification, and logistical issues related to recruitment and implementation. We envision the experimental study of children as a high-growth research area in the coming decades as social scientists begin to more fully appreciate that children are active participants in markets who (might) respond predictably to economic incentives. (JEL C90, D11, D83, D91, J13, J16, Z13)


Purpose Growing evidence suggests, in glaucoma, the dendritic degeneration of subpopulation of the retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) may precede RGCs soma death. Since different RGCs synapse in different IPL sublayers, visualization of the lamellar structure of the IPL could enable both clinical and fundamental advances in glaucoma understanding and management. In this pilot study, we investigated whether visible-light optical coherence tomography (vis-OCT) could detect the difference in the inner plexiform layer (IPL) sublayers thicknesses between small cohorts of healthy and glaucomatous subjects. Method We investigated vis-OCT retinal images from nine healthy and five glaucomatous subjects. Four of the healthy subjects were scanned three times each in two separate visits, and five healthy and five glaucoma subjects were scanned three times during a single visit. Raster speckle-reduction scans (3 by 3 by 1.2 mm^3: horizontal; vertical; axial directions with 8192×8×1024 samplings, respectively) of the superior macular were acquired. IPL sublayers were then manually segmented using averaged A-line profiles. Results The mean ages of glaucoma and healthy subjects are 59.6 +/- 13.4 and 45.4 +/- 14.4 years (p =0.02, Wilcoxon rank-sum test), respectively. The visual field mean deviation (MD) are −26.4 to −7.7 dB in glaucoma patient and −1.6 to 1.1 dB in healthy subjects (p =0.002). The mean circumpapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thicknesses are 59.6 +/- 9.1 μm in glaucoma and 99.2 +/- 16.2 μm in healthy subjects (p=0.004). Median coefficients of variation (CVs) of intra-session repeatability for the entire IPL and three sublayers are 3.1%, 5.6%, 6.9%, and 5.6% in healthy subjects and 1.8%, 6.0%, 7.7%, and 6.2% in glaucoma patients, respectively. The mean entire IPL thicknesses are 36.2 +/- 1.5 μm in glaucomatous and 40.1 +/- 1.7 micrometer in healthy eyes (p=0.003, Mixed-effects model). We found that the middle sublayer thickness was responsible for the majority of the difference (14.2 +/- 1.8 μm in glaucomatous and 17.5 +/- 1.4 in healthy eyes, p<0.01). Conclusions IPL sublayer analysis revealed that the middle sublayer could be responsible for the majority of IPL thinning in glaucoma. Vis-OCT quantified IPL sublayers with good repeatability in both glaucoma and healthy subjects. Visualization of the IPL sublayers may enable the investigation of lamella-specific changes in the IPL in glaucoma and may help elucidate the response of different types of RGCs to the disease.


This work presents the analysis of wave and turbulence measurements collected at a tidal energy site. A new method is introduced to produce more consistent and rigorous estimations of the velocity fluctuations power spectral densities. An analytical function is further proposed to fit the observed spectra and could be input to the numerical models predicting power production and structural loading on tidal turbines. Another new approach is developed to correct for the effect of the Doppler noise on the high frequencies power spectral densities. The analysis of velocity time series combining wave and turbulent contributions demonstrates that the turbulent motions are coherent throughout the water column, rendering the wave coherence-based methods not applicable to our dataset. To avoid this problem, an alternative approach relying on the pressure data collected by the ADCP is introduced and shows appreciable improvement in the wave-turbulence separation.


The adsorption characteristics of explosive molecules: RDX, TATP, HMTD, TNT, HMX and PETN with boron nitride (BN) and graphene (G) flakes have been investigated using first principles density functional theory (DFT). It has been found that the binding between BN flakes and the explosive molecules is stronger than that with G flakes due to higher charge transfer in the BN-complexes. The energy decomposition analysis indicates that the dispersive interaction is the most dominant one. The optical properties and the nature of electronic transitions of BN and G-explosive complexes are studied by time dependent DFT (TD-DFT). It is observed that the strong interaction with BN flakes quenches the optical spectra by a significant amount whereas the graphene flakes leave the spectra almost unperturbed. Our findings of differential characteristics of 2D flakes will be useful for the designing of nanomaterials for the detection of aromatic and nonaromatic explosive molecules.


BACKGROUND
Little information is available about the association between bronchomalacia and historical or clinicopathologic data. Also, studies applying an endoscopic classification scheme that differentiates between static and dynamic bronchial collapse and based on a scoring system are lacking.

OBJECTIVES
To describe the clinical presentation of bronchomalacia in dogs, to classify endoscopic findings, and to evaluate associations among historical, clinicopathologic data, and endoscopic findings.

ANIMALS
Fifty-nine client-owned dogs with an endoscopic diagnosis of bronchomalacia.

METHODS
In this retrospective study, medical records were analyzed and video documentation was reviewed to assign a score to endoscopic findings. Univariate analysis was performed on categorical variables organized in contingency tables, and a stepwise logistic regression model was used for multivariate analysis.

RESULTS
Of the 59 dogs included in the study, 2 were affected by static bronchial collapse (SBC), 35 by dynamic bronchial collapse (DBC), and 22 by both SBC and DBC. The association between SBC and DBC was more frequently seen in the dogs with higher body weight, pulmonary hypertension, a bronchial type of radiographic pattern, and nodularity at endoscopic examination. Thirty-one dogs were presented with tracheomalacia and bronchomalacia; an association emerged between these concurrent disorders in dogs living indoors. Multivariate analysis of the endoscopic scores showed a correlation between DBC severity and cough duration.

CONCLUSION AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE
Results of this study provide evidence for 2 different types of bronchial collapse. Endoscopic scoring scheme has proved to be promising in the bronchomalacia classification, although further evaluation of its applicability in larger canine populations is needed.


Globally, unemployment persists because skill levels and learner capabilities are not in tandem with job market requirements. Using logistic analysis, the present study probed determinants of employability of 150 graduates of Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) in Central Uganda and further predicted factors influencing their skills level by applying Tobit regression. On a 1 to 5 scale, skills averaged at 3.3. Employability depended on the skills level, age, gender, possessing a national award and disability status whereby the disabled had less likelihood of being employed. Class size, the training period, age and gender of the graduate significantly explained skill level of graduates. It was reported that the main methodology used to assess the graduates was class-based written testing. The paper argues that administrators of training institutions originate a special training and assessment methodology for the disabled. Class sizes should also be small and manageable for learners to be adequately trained and assessed. The study further proposes that the training period be longer and learners attend for the entire period to acquaint themselves with work-world demanded capabilities.


Selective laser sintering (SLS) is a high-resolution additive manufacturing fabrication technique. To fully understand the process, we developed a computational model, using the finite element method, to solve the flow problem of sintering two viscoelastic particles. The flow is assumed to be isothermal and the particles to be in a liquid state, where their rheology is described using the Giesekus and XPP constitutive models. In this work, we assess the parameters that define this problem, such as the initial geometry, the Deborah number and other dimensionless parameters present in the rheological models. In particular, the conformation tensor is considered, which is a measure for the polymeric strain and plays an important role in the crystallization kinetics of semicrystalline polymers like polyamide 12, usually used in SLS.


In this paper, we focus on the well-known drawback of per user unitary beamforming rate control (PU2RC) that sum throughput severely degrades with a small number of users due to the mismatch between the actual link quality and channel feedback of users. We propose an adaptive channel feedback adjustment (ACFA) method which estimates the actual link quality by adaptively adjusting user feedback according to the number of scheduled users. Numerical results show that the proposed ACFA considerably increases sum throughput of PU2RC especially when the number of users is small.


In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada released a Final Report containing 94 Calls to Action. Included were calls for reform in how history is taught in Canadian schools, so that students may learn to address such difficult topics in Canadian history as Indian Residential Schools, racism and cultural genocide. Operating somewhat in parallel to these reforms, social studies curricula across Canada have undergone substantial revisions. As a result, historical thinking is now firmly embedded within the curricula of most provinces and territories. Coupled with these developments are various academic debates regarding public pedagogy, difficult knowledge and student beliefs about Canada's colonial past. Such debates require that researchers develop a better understanding of how knowledge related to Truth and Reconciliation is currently presented within Canadian classrooms, and how this may (or may not) relate to historical thinking. In this paper, I explore this debate as it relates to Indian Residential Schools. I then analyse a selection of classroom resources currently available in Canada for teaching about Truth and Reconciliation. In so doing, I consider how these relate to Peter Seixas's six concepts of historical thinking (Seixas and Morton, 2013), as well as broader discussions within Canada about Indigenous world views, historical empathy and Reconciliation.


We calculate the coherent charmonium photoproduction in the photon energy domain where the coherence and formation lengths exceed the average internucleon distance in nuclei but are comparable to the nuclear radii. In this kinematical regime we use the generalized vector dominance model (GVDM) adjusted to account for the physics of bound charmonium states and for the color screening phenomenon. We find significant oscillations in the energy dependence of the total and forward photoproduction cross sections due to the oscillating behavior of the longitudinal nuclear form factor. Within the GVDM these oscillations are strongly modified by the nondiagonal rescatterings of the charmonium. We demonstrate how to employ the oscillating behavior of the photoproduction cross sections off nuclear targets to determine the elementary charmonium photoproduction amplitudes and the genuine charmonium-nucleon cross sections in the forthcoming SLAC E160 experiment.


Shock wave lithotripsy (SWL) suffers from the fact that it can produce residual stone fragments of significant size (>;2 mm). Mechanistically, cavitation has been shown to play an important role in the reduction of such fragments to smaller debris. In this study, we assessed the feasibility of using cavitationally-based pulsed ultrasound therapy (histotripsy) to erode kidney stones. Previous work has shown that histotripsy is capable of mechanically fractionating soft tissue into fine, acellular debris. Here, we investigated the potential for translating this technology to renal calculi through the use of a commonly accepted stone model. Stone models were sonicated using a 1-MHz focused transducer, with 5-cycle pulses delivered at a rate of 1 kHz. Pulses having peak negative pressures ranging from 3 to 21 MPa were tested. Results indicate that histotripsy is capable of effectively eroding the stone model, achieving an average stone erosion rate of 26 mg/min at maximum treatment pressure; substantial stone erosion was only observed in the presence of a dense cavitational bubble cloud. Sequential sieving of residual stone fragments indicated that debris produced by histotripsy was smaller than 100 μm in size, and treatment monitoring showed that both the cavitational bubble cloud and model stone appear as hyperechoic regions on B-mode imaging. These preliminary results indicate that histotripsy shows promise in its use for stone comminution, and an optimized erosion process may provide a potential adjunct to conventional SWL procedures.


This book is "designed for oncologists with general interests who diagnose and treat patients with lung cancer". It is divided into three parts—basic science and the evaluation of lung cancer, which includes molecular biology, and techniques for diagnosis, staging, and histology. The second and third parts are concerned with the treatment of non-small cell and small cell carcinoma, respectively. The reviewer cannot comment on these last two sections. The molecular biology was divided into two sections—a primer and a more detailed section— and there was obvious overlap between them. If the book was meant to appeal to physicians, a more liberal use of diagrams may have helped their understanding. In a rapidly moving field, and given that the book is supposed to be published in 2002 according to the copyright (I received my copy in November 2001), the references were up to date. The histology sections were based on the WHO recommendations (1999), but should have included the use of TTF-1 as a discriminator between primary and secondary lung tumours. Similarly, calretinin and cytokeratin 5/6 were not mentioned, or the elucidation of pleural adenocarcinoma versus mesothelioma. These authors also state that typical and atypical carcinoids may be associated with tumourlets—a rare occurrence. I found the chapter on the techniques for diagnosis one of the best and think that it should be mandatory for clinicians, although it would also be helpful for pathologists, particularly because we can spend hours looking at computed tomography guided transthoracic needle biopsies when the result rarely changes the subsequent clinical management. However, this book will have limited appeal for pathologists because it is covered in other texts (such as Brambilla and Brambilla) and does not consider technical aspects of molecular diagnosis. P Hasleton


Motivated by the EU's "Right To Be Forgotten" regulation, we initiate a study of statistical data deletion problems where users' data are accessible only for a limited period of time. This setting is formulated as an online supervised learning task with \textit{constant memory limit}. We propose a deletion-aware algorithm \texttt{FIFD-OLS} for the low dimensional case, and witness a catastrophic rank swinging phenomenon due to the data deletion operation, which leads to statistical inefficiency. As a remedy, we propose the \texttt{FIFD-Adaptive Ridge} algorithm with a novel online regularization scheme, that effectively offsets the uncertainty from deletion. In theory, we provide the cumulative regret upper bound for both online forgetting algorithms. In the experiment, we showed \texttt{FIFD-Adaptive Ridge} outperforms the ridge regression algorithm with fixed regularization level, and hopefully sheds some light on more complex statistical models.


This paper presents a method to separate the reversible and irreversible parts of magnetization in real ferromagnetic systems. The basic hypothesis is that the first-order reversal curve (FORC) diagram includes effects of both the reversible and irreversible components while the remanent second-order reversal curve (SORCR) diagram includes essentially only the irreversible component. This means that the difference of the two diagrams describes only the reversible part. The experimental and simulated results were compared and the differences are discussed. Various scalar Preisach-type models have been used to simulate the FORC, SORCR and the difference between the two distributions.


: The study investigates philosophically the issue of human illness and its organic pertinence to the meaning of human life starting from the recognition that the dangerous encounter with the experience of illness is an unavoidable – and as such crucial – experience of the life of any living being. As for us humans, there is probably no mortal man who has never suffered of some – any! – kind of disease from his birth to the end of his life… Illness is therefore an experience or outright a danger of existence and its possibility, as well as a way of being that nobody has ever been and will ever be ontologically or existentially exempted from. So, it may well be "arbitrary" or "accidental" which disease affects which being or person, when and to what degree, in what way, etc., but it is factually unavoidable that in the course of one's entire life – from its very beginning to its very end – one would never fall ill in some respect. The paper discusses this issue by the ontological investigation of possibility.


Two of Brazil's most re-occurring platitudes about itself are that Brazil is the country of the future, and that God is Brazilian. It would be of little surprise, then, that both fantasies -- one of divine kinship, the other of deferred salvation -- would merge so symbiotically when Brazil's fetishized potential seems to finally find opportunities for materialization. Today, after all, Brazil is able to make previously unimaginable claims about how close it is to that utopian dictum stitched across its flag, and until recently, a perverse reminder of the gap between the fantasy of the State and the state of the State: "Order and Progress." The thread used as raw material to keep the dream of the nation alive, in Brazil and elsewhere, has been, of course, the figure of the homosexual. Weaving heterosexuality away as negative homosexuality through painstaking quotidian iteration, theviado, or faggot, has served as yardstick for the construction of the normative Brazilian citizen as much as the concept of woman has functioned as necessary launching pad for the construction of the always already male Subject. If "the woman does not exist," as Lacan reminds us, does the homosexual? Brazil's recent bout with socio-economical "progress" seems to suggest that its Homosexual didn't exist, as long as we predicate existence with public visibility. Yet this presence-absenceconditionof the Brazilian homosexual -- the sameviadowho guarantees the legitimacy of the heterosexist State through his constant annihilation and disavowal – takes center stage as that country experiences what it once could only imagine: 20 million people pulled out of poverty in the Lula years (2002-2010); the election of its first female (and rumored lesbian) president, Dilma Rousseff, in 2010); winning the rights to host the Olympics in 2016 and FIFA's World Cup in 2014; the occupation of the Rio de Janeiro favelas by the police and the Army in 2010; and the ruling by the Brazilian Supreme court that same-sex couples are legally entitled to civil unions in 2011.


Historical Background Attempts to prevent gastric irritation and vomiting by enclosing irritant drugs within gastro-resistant coatings are credited to Unna and others more than 100 years ago. Some of these early coatings consisted of keratin, phenyl salicylate (salol), or gelatin hardened in formaldehyde. The preparations were called enteric, since the objective was to have them withstand gastric digestion but, nevertheless, disintegrate and undergo absorption in the intestine. These preparations were not uniformly successful, with respect to this objective. On the one hand, some soluble drugs were found able to diffuse through coatings which were satisfactorily insoluble in gastric juice, and, on the other hand, some enteric preparations were so resistant to disintegration and solution that they traversed the entire gastrointestinal tract intact. Nevertheless, such preparations continued in use and served a somewhat useful purpose. Attempts to improve upon the enteric coatings were made at sporadic intervals, but in a more


In this paper, we endeavor for predicting the performance of quantized compressive sensing under the use of sparse reconstruction estimators. We assume that a high rate vector quantizer is used to encode the noisy compressive sensing measurement vector. Exploiting a block sparse source model, we use Gaussian mixture density for modeling the distribution of the source. This allows us to formulate an optimal rate allocation problem for the vector quantizer. Considering noisy CS quantized measurements, we analyze upper- and lower-bounds on reconstruction error performance guarantee of two estimators - convex relaxation based basis pursuit de-noising estimator and an oracle-assisted least-squares estimator.


61 1092-5171/06/3301-0061 ABSTRACT: The objective of this study was to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of the research relating to behavioral stuttering treatment. Detailed descriptions of the information retrieval, inclusion criteria, study coding, and effect size computations are provided. A total of 375 citations were identified for potential inclusion using electronic and hand-search strategies. Of the 12 included studies, six reported outcomes for treated versus nontreated participants, yielding a significant effect size of 0.91. The remaining six studies compared the effectiveness of two different treatments and yielded a nonsignificant effect size of 0.21. These data support the claim that intervention for stuttering results in an overall positive effect. Additionally, the data show that no one treatment approach for stuttering demonstrates significantly greater effects over another treatment approach.


Sexual Chemistry A History of the Contraceptive Pill. Lara V. Marks. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2001. 384 pp. $29.95, £20. ISBN 0-300-08943-0. Marks argues that the usual focus on the efforts of male scientists has hidden the important roles women played in initiating, funding, and supporting the development and use of the pill.


In this paper, we investigate adaptive power allocation for generalized polar optical wireless communications (OWC), where a general complex bipolar signal is converted into magnitude and phase signals for intensity modulation. Mean square errors (MSE) between the input complex signals and the re-constructed complex signals are derived to characterize signal distortion. Optimal power scaling factors and power allocation are investigated to minimize the distortion. Under a sole average intensity constraint, closed-form optimal power scaling factors are derived and found to be input-dependent. Specifically, they are determined by the first and second moments of the magnitude signals, the first moment of the phase signals as well as the channel state. Under both average and peak intensity constraints, the expression of MSE regarding the power scaling factors is derived but it is too complicated to find the optimal power allocation. Thus, we propose to use a small-scale numerical search for practical power allocation. As an example, we adopt the proposed power allocation to polar optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (P-OFDM) systems and analyze its achievable bit error rate (BER). Numerical simulations are presented to validate the analysis. It is shown that the proposed power allocation greatly improves the performance in terms of MSE and BER and the proposed power allocation-enhanced P-OFDM (EP-OFDM) outperforms existing optical OFDM schemes over various channels in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime, especially in the systems with a peak intensity constraint.


Abstract. Sea spray aerosols (SSAs) impact the particle mass concentration and gas-particle partitioning in coastal environments, with implications for human and ecosystem health. Model evaluations of SSA emissions have mainly focused on the global scale, but regional-scale evaluations are also important due to the localized impact of SSAs on atmospheric chemistry near the coast. In this study, SSA emissions in the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model were updated to enhance the fine-mode size distribution, include sea surface temperature (SST) dependency, and reduce surf-enhanced emissions. Predictions from the updated CMAQ model and those of the previous release version, CMAQv5.0.2, were evaluated using several coastal and national observational data sets in the continental US. The updated emissions generally reduced model underestimates of sodium, chloride, and nitrate surface concentrations for coastal sites in the Bay Regional Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment (BRACE) near Tampa, Florida. Including SST dependency to the SSA emission parameterization led to increased sodium concentrations in the southeastern US and decreased concentrations along parts of the Pacific coast and northeastern US. The influence of sodium on the gas-particle partitioning of nitrate resulted in higher nitrate particle concentrations in many coastal urban areas due to increased condensation of nitric acid in the updated simulations, potentially affecting the predicted nitrogen deposition in sensitive ecosystems. Application of the updated SSA emissions to the California Research at the Nexus of Air Quality and Climate Change (CalNex) study period resulted in a modest improvement in the predicted surface concentration of sodium and nitrate at several central and southern California coastal sites. This update of SSA emissions enabled a more realistic simulation of the atmospheric chemistry in coastal environments where marine air mixes with urban pollution.


OBJECTIVE
Disturbed neuronal interactions may be involved in schizophrenia because it is without clear regional pathology. Aberrant connectivity is further suggested by theoretical formulations and neurochemical and neuroanatomical data. The authors applied to schizophrenia a recently available functional neuroimaging analytic method that permits characterization of cooperative action on the systems level.

METHOD
Thirteen medication-free patients and 13 matched healthy comparison subjects performed a working memory (n-back) task and sensorimotor baseline task during positron emission tomography. "Functional connectivity" patterns, reflecting distributed correlated activity that differed most between groups, were extracted by a canonical variates analysis.

RESULTS
More than half the variance was explained by a single pattern showing inferotemporal, (para-)hippocampal, and cerebellar loadings for patients versus dorsolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate activity for comparison subjects. Expression of this pattern perfectly separated all patient scans from comparison scans, thus showing promise as a trait marker. This result was validated prospectively by successfully classifying unrelated scans from the same patients and data from a new cohort. An additional 19% of variance corresponded to the pattern activated by the working memory task. Expression of this pattern was more variable in patients during working memory but not the control condition, suggesting inability to sustain a task-adequate neural network, consistent with the disconnection hypothesis.

CONCLUSIONS
Pronounced disruptions of distributed cooperative activity in schizophrenia were found. A pattern showing disturbed frontotemporal interactions showed promise as a trait marker and may be useful for future investigations.


Twenty-four real spectra were strategically structured to have systematic variation in average fidelity (IES Rf = 65, 75, 85, 95), average gamut (IES Rg = 80, 90, 100, 110, 120) and gamut shape (nominally saturating or desaturating red colour evaluation samples), at 3500 K. For each spectrum, 20 participants rated a set of objects along continuous scales of naturalness, preference, vividness and skin preference. Most of the top rated spectra, along all four scales, had average gamut greater than or equal to 100 (IES Rg ≥ 100) and did not desaturate red hues (IES Rcs,h16 ≥ 0%). Best fit models illustrate that average fidelity (i.e. IES Rf) and a proxy for red saturation (i.e. IES Rcs,h16, Rcs,h1) are salient derived measures. The results illustrate that a two-metric system of colour rendition, comprised of average metrics for fidelity and gamut, cannot fully describe colour quality and underscore the importance of a colour rendering graphic (i.e. IES Colour Vector Graphic). We propose and illustrate the utility of quantifying the shape of the IES TM-30-15 Color Vector Graphic with a best-fit ellipse.


Although wind-generated power was estimated to be 4% of the entire world electricity usage, wind turbines are considered to be a growing technology with many experts considering new approaches to wind turbine design and farmland selection to increase the wind turbine output efficiency. When implementing a new wind turbine install on a farm, many concerns are taken into consideration such as environmental challenges and cost. Thus, the power of the wind turbine can be increased at least 10 times when the most efficient wind power location is selected before the wind turbine is placed. In this paper, we propose a novel software-defined quadcopter–6 wheeled industrial IoT (SDQ-6WI) architecture that is based on a developed quadcopter system to collect wind speed data from a mobile IoT vehicle base station that is based on a developed open flow (DOV) protocol operation. The mobile ground vehicle act as a wind speed measurement system that travels on a given set of waypoints to measure the best optimal wind speed quality and send the collected information to the quadcopter-based SDN controller then to the cloud for further processing. Our proposed system can handle a heterogeneous environment that lacks Wi-Fi and cellular coverage and uses the minimum total transmission power when sending data. The experiential results showed that the measured wind speed data could be collected in a time-efficient manner compared to a traditional process which is considered to be costly, time wasting, and non-effective. Our extensive testing showed that about 23.19% in power was reduced in the wind measurement process in comparison with the fixed sensor nodes. In essence, the proposed architecture help reduce the high cost of relocating wind turbines to an efficient location and increase the generated power by selecting the best optimal windy location.


The terms "quasiatom" and "superatom" are introduced. A quasi-atom, for example contains two ions of opposite charge, which behave like an atom, forming Rydberg states. A superatom also contains many atoms, but behaves in a simple way, and can be modelled within the central field approximation. Both are examples of many-body systems which emulate quasi-particle properties. Their behaviour is the opposite of quasi-particle breakdown in isolated atoms. However, it also probes the boundary between simple and complex behaviour, for species larger than atoms. Examples are given, ranging from shallow donor impurities in semiconductors, through ion-pair molecules, confined and endohedral atoms, to metallic clusters.


Multiple and ripetitive mammary fibroadenomas represent a rare disease. The etiology is uncertain. The diagnostic radiology is able to allow a correct diagnosis. The authors report a case of a woman 22 years old undergone a surgical treatment many times to remove multiple and ripetitive mammary fibroadenomas. The proposed management provides for periodic radiological exams; the surgical treatment is proposed only for the lesions with a rapid growth.


ABSTRACT Mass displacement in the Middle East is a major political challenge for contemporary Middle Eastern and Western states. As a consequence, statelessness has emerged as one of the central political issues in relation to the collapse and weakening of the states in the Middle East. Through deploying a qualitative inquiry and interviews with 50 Kurdish immigrants, this article investigates how members of Kurdish diasporas in Sweden and the UK conceive and experience statelessness in a world of unequal nation-states and hierarchical citizenship. Since diasporas are important non-state actors in nation-building processes, it is important to analyse their diasporic visions and the ways they challenge or reinforce the power of the nation-state in the context of migration. While from a legal or a right-based approach, the solution to statelessness is found in acquisition of a nationality/citizenship, I posit that in a world structured by the political normativity of the nation-state, nations without states will continue to be in search of national self-determination, political autonomy and sovereignty in the international comity of sovereign nations.


In this paper, an adaptive filtering technique is proposed to estimate and characterize pathological tremors caused by Parkinson's Disease (PD) and Essential Tremor (ET). The technique is based on the formulation of band-limited multiple Fourier Linear Combiners (BMFLC) and is called Enhanced-BMFLC (E-BMFLC). The effectiveness of the designed filter is statistically evaluated through a clinical study involving 14 PD and 13 ET patients. The hand tremors of the participants are studied in three Degrees Of Freedom (DOF). Using statistical analysis, it is shown that the new design of the filter significantly enhances the accuracy in comparison with the performance of conventional BMFLC filtering. In addition, E-BMFLC significantly reduces the sensitivity to parameter tuning and intrapatient variabilities. The observed improvements are achieved by modulating the memory of the proposed filter, and by enriching the utilized harmonic model. The proposed filter is then used to develop a safe haptics-enabled robotic rehabilitation architecture, designed for patients having hand tremors. The architecture is entitled Augmented Haptic Rehabilitation (AHR), which enables adaptive management of the involuntary components of the hand motion while delivering assist-as-needed haptic therapy (for the voluntary component) and avoiding unsafe amplification of hand tremors. Experimental evaluations are provided to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed AHR system.


The Marchenko redatuming approach reconstructs wavefields at depth that contain not only primary reflections, but also multiply-scattered waves. While such fields in principle contain additional subsurface information, conventional imaging approaches cannot tap into the information encoded in internal multiples in a trivial manner. We discuss a new approach that uses the full information contained in Marchenko-redatumed fields, whose output are local reflection and transmission responses that fully enclose a target volume at depth, without contributions from over- or under-burden structures. To obtain the Target-Enclosing Extended Images (TEEIs) we solve a multi-dimensional deconvolution (MDD) problem that can be severely ill-posed, so we offer stable estimates to the MDD problem that rely on the physics of the Marchenko scheme. We validate our method on ocean-bottom field data from the North Sea. In our field data example, we show that the TEEIs can be used for reservoir-targeted imaging using reflection and, for the first time, local transmission responses, shown to be the direct by-product of using internal multiples in the redatuming scheme. Finally, we present local, TEEI-derived reflection and transmission images of the target volume at depth that are structurally consistent with a benchmark image from conventional migration of surface data.


In June 2019, mandatory front-of-package warning labels (FOPL) were implemented in Peru. The aim of the study was to describe changes in marketing strategies on packaging: marketing techniques (MT), health claims (HC), and nutritional claims (NC) on the packaging of products frequently consumed by children before and after the FOPL implementation. Product photos were taken pre- (March 2019) and post-implementation (March-October 2020) in three supermarkets in Lima, Peru. Following INFORMAS protocols and Peruvian Technical Norms, the presence of MT, HC, and NC was assessed on all package sides. Products were classified as "high-in" and "not high-in" based on the regulation threshold for critical nutrients. Differences in the proportion of products with each strategy in both periods were evaluated. Also, a subsample of products was matched according to the barcode and exact McNemar test was used to compare proportions of strategies pre/post-implementation. We included 883 and 1,035 products in pre- and post-implementation, respectively. In both periods, MT appeared on almost 70% of all products. The presence of HC increased significantly only for beverages (24.5–38.1%, p < 0.001). In both phases, NC were commonly used on beverages (>80%). Overall, the prevalence of "high-in" products using MT increased (73.6–82.1%, p = 0.007), while use of HC increased among "not high-in" products (32.9–41.6%, p < 0.001). There is a high frequency of MT on all products and NC on beverages. The increase in MT in "high-in" products may be an industry response to minimize the impact of the FOPL on food choices and sales. New regulatory aspects regarding labeling should be implemented to strengthen the current policy.


Article history: Received 6 October, 2015 Accepted 27 January 2016 Available online 27 January 2016 The article is concerned with the research of the processes of formation of the structure and properties of systemically alloyed low carbon steel 10H3G3MF in initially hardened and initially cold-deformed condition at high speed thermal-cycle processing (TCP). Metallographic, dilatometric and fractographic analysis, transmission electronic microscopy and uniaxial tensile test and impact test (salt spray chamber) are used as the research methods. It is shown that the maximum fine crushing of grain structure of austenite to 1 micron with high speed TCP of the researched steel in initially cold-deformed condition occurs at the first cycle of heating to 900 ° C, at the same time nanostructural condition of martensite is realized with an average size of stick in the plane of the foil of 60 ± 10 nm, which results in a substantial increase of complex of mechanical properties. It was found that in all studied modes of high speed TCP the α → γ-conversion with heating in the inter-critical temperature range consists of three stages. © 2016 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.


One of the remarkable applications of the cavity method in the mean field spin glasses is to prove the validity of the Thouless-Anderson-Palmer (TAP) system of equations in the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick (SK) model in the high temperature regime. This naturally leads us to the study of the limit laws for cavity and local fields. The first quantitative results for both fields were obtained by Chatterjee using Stein's method. In this paper, we approach these problems using the Gaussian interpolation technique and establish central limit theorems for both fields by giving moment estimates of all orders.


Cholesteryl cetyl carbonate (CCC) was synthesized from cetyl alcohol and cholesteryl chloroformate. Cholesteryl cetyl carbonate mixture (CCCM) was obtained from the reaction. CCCM was purified by liquid-liquid extraction and flash column chromatography. Thermotropic liquid crystal was formed in both pure CCC and CCCM. CCCM is composed of cholesterol, cetyl alcohol and CCC (30:20:50, weight ratio). FTIR and NMR were employed to confirm the functional groups of CCC. Thermal properties of CCC were determined by DSC and polarized light microscope. The phase transition from solid crystal to smectic appears at 42 °C, smectic to nematic appears at 54 °C and nematic to isotropic liquid appears at 73 °C. Indomethacin (IDM) could be incorporated into CCC and properties of CCC-IDM mixture stayed as liquid crystalline phase.


Posttranslational protein modifications form a multidimensional metabolic regulatory system that provides speed and flexibility far beyond that provided by changes in nuclear gene expression alone. Mitochondria function as hubs of plant metabolism. Oxidative phosphorylation produces ATP, but it is also a central high-capacity electron sink required by many metabolic pathways that must be flexibly coordinated and integrated. Here, we review the crucial roles of redox-associated posttranslational protein modifications (PTMs) in mitochondrial metabolic regulation. We discuss several major concepts. First, the major redox couples in the mitochondrial matrix (NAD, NADP, thioredoxin, glutathione, and ascorbate) are in kinetic steady state rather than thermodynamic equilibrium. Second, targeted proteomics have produced long lists of proteins potentially regulated by Cys oxidation/thioredoxin, Met-SO formation, phosphorylation, or Lys acetylation, but we currently only understand the functional importance of a few of these PTMs. Some site modifications may represent molecular noise caused by spurious reactions. Third, different PTMs on the same protein or on different proteins in the same metabolic pathway can interact to fine-tune metabolic regulation. Fourth, PTMs take part in the repair of stress-induced damage (e.g., by reducing Met and Cys oxidation products) as well as adjusting metabolic functions in response to environmental variation, such as changes in light irradiance or oxygen availability. Finally, PTMs form a multidimensional regulatory system that provides the speed and flexibility needed for mitochondrial coordination far beyond that provided by changes in nuclear gene expression alone.


Hematologists are often asked to treat patients with venous thromboembolic disease. Although anticoagulation remains the primary therapy for venous thromboembolism, vena caval filters are an important alternative when anticoagulants are contraindicated. To assess the evidence supporting the utility of these devices, a comprehensive review of the English language literature was performed. Except for one randomized trial, the vena caval filter literature consists of case series or consecutive case series. The mean duration of follow-up for each of the 5 filter types varies from 6 to 18 months. All are about equally effective in the prevention of pulmonary embolism (2.6%-3.8%). Deep venous thrombosis (6%-32%) and inferior vena cava thrombosis (3.6%-11.2%) after filter placement vary widely among different filter types primarily because of differences in outcome assessment. Thrombosis at the insertion site is a common complication of filter placement (23%-36%). In view of the absence of randomized comparisons, no filter can be designated as superior in safety or efficacy. Vena caval filters represent a potentially important but poorly evaluated therapeutic modality in the prevention of pulmonary emboli. Randomized trials are necessary to establish the appropriate place for vena caval filters in the treatment of venous thromboembolic disease. (Blood. 2000;95: 3669-3677)


Biocontrol is an important aspect of disease management for plant pathogens, especially for the soil borne fungi. Trichoderma species is the most exploited biocontrol agent in recent years. The soil specific nature of Trichoderma species is a well-known fact and hence native Trichoderma isolates should be more emphasized for control of plant pathogens. Fifty soil samples from rhizosphere of various agricultural crops were collected for isolation of Trichoderma sp. Ten isolates of Trichoderma were tested in dual culture with soil borne pathogens Fusarium solani, Rhizoctonia solani and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum in an in vitro assay. All of the test isolates were found to be significant in terms of mycelial inhibition growth as compared to control. However, varying degrees of antagonism by different Trichoderma isolates were observed for above mentioned soil borne pathogens. The isolate (T363) was found to exhibit more than 80% inhibition of S. sclerotiorum while the isolate T357 was found to control F. solani by more than 80%.  For the control of R. solani, six of the tested Trichoderma isolates showed more than 80% inhibition of its radial colony growth. The Trichoderma isolates seen effective in this study need to be tested in pot and field experiments for exploiting the use and benefits of biocontrol.


Introduction: Primary plasma cell leukaemia (PCL) is a rare disorder representing less than 5% of malignant plasma cell disease and is associated with a poor prognosis with median survivals in PCL reported at 8 to 12 months, significantly shorter than for Multiple Myeloma even when the comparison is adjusted to compare only with Multiple Myeloma of high tumour mass. Treatment of PCL with alkylating agent-based therapy is ineffective and while polychemotherapy may offer improved survival, results remain disappointing with a few exceptions. Autologous transplantation is now being used widely in the treatment of these patients and this report summarises the European Blood and Marrow Transplant (EBMT) experience of this disorder. Patients and Methods: A retrospective study was carried out with 20844 patients with common type multiple myeloma (58% IgG, 21% IgA and 19% light chain types only) and 272 patients with primary plasma cell leukaemia who underwent first autologous transplantation between 1980 and 2006. All patients were reported to the EBMT registry using MED-A (limited data set) or MED-B (more extensive data set) forms. All autografted patients were included in the study regardless of the availability of complete MED-A or MED-B data. The proportion of patients that could be evaluated for each parameter was noted and the number of evaluable patients included in the result. Comparisons between the two groups were made using Chi-squared test for categorical data and the Mann-Whitney test for continuous data. Overall Survival and Progression-Free Survival were calculated using the Kaplan-Meier method and comparisons were made using the Log-Rank test. Relapse/Progression and Death without relapse or progression probabilities were computed by the proper non-parametric estimator for outcomes with competing risks and compared by the Gray test. Results: There were no significant differences in age and gender of the PCL and myeloma groups. Calcium and albumin were also not significantly different, however, haemoglobin was significantly lower in the PCL group (11g/dl versus 9g/dl - P=0.000) while creatinine was significantly higher in the PCL group - 92 micro mol/l versus 122 micro mol/l - P=0.000). B2 microglobulin was significantly higher in the PCL group which tends to be diagnosed with a more advanced disease. There was no difference in the type of graft used or in the use of total body irradiation but the PCL group were transplanted within a shorter time from diagnosis (6.0 v 7.7 months - P=0.000). While there was no significant difference in engraftment, PCL patients were more likely than myeloma patients to enter CR post-autologous transplantation. Despite this, overall survival for the PCL patients was greatly inferior to the myeloma patients - 62.3 months (CI 60.4–64.3) versus 25.7 months (CI 19.5–31.9 - P=0.000). Poor survival is accounted for by an increase in relapse-related mortality and post-transplant responses of short duration. Conclusion: This is the largest study of plasma cell leukaemia patients ever reported. Our data shows an improved outcome for these patients with use of autologous transplantation but undoubtedly this transplant group represents the fittest of such patients and their outcome is still greatly inferior to comparable myeloma patients.


Learning, which is the expected outcome of any educational institution, can be influenced by many factors that include environmental factors. This study is aimed at comparing the learning environment of junior secondary schools, in a North-western state of Nigeria, with established standards in some other countries.  Four government-owned and four private owned schools participated in the study. Environmental variables such as classroom temperature, noise level, lighting and classroom size were all evaluated using standard equipment. Using statistical analytical tools, such as descriptive and comparison of means, the result shows that classroom lighting, noise and temperature do not meet the established standards.  The noise level in all the schools was above the recommended maximum comfort noise level of 40 dB(A) but still below noise harmfulness level of 85dB. The lighting in the classes was also not sufficient based on international recommendations of 300 Lux. The temperature in the classrooms is significantly higher than the acceptable level of 18-28°C. Although public schools have significantly larger classrooms than private schools, they have a smaller space/pupil ratio because of larger population. There is need to improve the building design of schools so that they might aid learning among the children.


Luminous X-ray outbursts with variability amplitudes as high as ~1000 have been detected from a small number of galactic nuclei. These events are likely associated with transient fueling of nuclear supermassive black holes. In this paper we constrain X-ray outbursts with harder spectra, higher redshifts, and lower luminosities than have been studied previously. We performed a systematic survey of 24,668 optical galaxies in the Chandra Deep Fields to search for such X-ray outbursts; the median redshift of these galaxies is ~0.8. The survey spans 798 days for the Chandra Deep Field-North, and 1828 days for the Chandra Deep Field-South. No outbursts were found, and thus we set upper limits on the rate of such events in the universe, which depend on the adopted outburst X-ray luminosity. For an outburst with X-ray luminosity ≳1043 ergs s−1 and a duration of 6 months, the upper limit on its event rate is ~10−4 galaxy−1 yr−1, roughly consistent with theoretical predictions. Compared to previous survey results, our harder band and deeper survey suggests that the outburst rate may increase by a maximum factor of 10 when considering both obscured X-ray outbursts and redshift evolution from z ∼ 0 to z ∼ 0.8. Our results also suggest that the X-ray luminosity function for moderate-luminosity active galactic nuclei is not primarily due to stellar tidal disruptions.


Importance
Primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) is a rare, inherited condition involving motile cilia that line the upper and lower respiratory tracts, leading to chronic infections of the paranasal sinuses, middle ear, and bronchi that begin during infancy. Unfortunately, despite its early presentation, PCD is often recognized late.

Observations
People with PCD have diverse clinical manifestations, including chronic upper and lower respiratory tract disease, laterality defects, and subfertility. Through efforts of multinational clinical collaboratives, 4 cardinal features have been described that identify people who likely have PCD: unexplained neonatal respiratory distress, left-right laterality defects, daily wet cough, and nonseasonal rhinosinusitis beginning before 6 months of age. Recent advances in the understanding of the genetics and pathogenesis of the disease have led to a revolution in the approach to screening and diagnostic testing. Moreover, PCD has a broad clinical spectrum, and genotype-phenotype associations are beginning to be recognized.

Conclusions and Relevance
A high index of suspicion remains critical in diagnosing PCD. Children who have at least 2 of the major clinical features should be considered for further evaluation. Nevertheless, while newer tools have improved diagnostic capabilities, there is no single test that will diagnose every person with the disease. In people suspected of having PCD, nasal nitric oxide measurement is a useful screen, followed by diagnostic genetic testing and if negative, ciliary ultrastructural analysis. Despite otolaryngologic manifestations being common in infancy and persisting into adulthood, they have been understudied. Indeed, there are few randomized clinical trials examining the medicosurgical approaches to respiratory disease.


Abstract The article presents a review of contemporary Polish military topographic maps, with special focus on those in the scale of 1:50,000. They are basic maps used in all armies of NATO countries at tactical stages. After the political breakthrough of 1989 Polish political elites saw the future of our country in the structures of Western Europe, but the Warsaw Pact still existed, and Soviet Army units were stationed in Poland and in the German Democratic Republic. All the Warsaw Pact countries used maps in the "1942" coordinate system and followed standardized rules of map elaboration. The article presents transformation of those maps into NATO standards, the first stage of which was elaboration of the, so-called, maps adapted to NATO standards. At the end of 1990s there started elaboration of a new topographic map of Poland in the scale of 1:50,000. The project involved preparation of a level 2 map, in NATO nomenclature known as VMap Level 2, and simultaneously using the same base for to generate 580 sheets of a paper map in 1:50,000. Map elaboration finished in 2006 and in the following years the project was enhanced with publication of new maps based on high-resolution image data. Since 2003 Polish cartographers have been participating in Multinational Geospatial Co-production Program (MGCP). Within the program high-resolution vector data is being prepared for selected areas of interest. They are mainly areas of current or potential military conflict, terrorist threat, ethnic or religious conflict, natural disaster, etc. MGCP data is not a ready product meant for direct usage, and without proper preparation it is simply unreadable. Therefore, special computer applications were developed to facilitate fast preparation of topographic maps in 1:50,000: MGCP Derived Graphic (MDG) and lately MGCP Topographic Map (MTM). Such maps differ from Polish topographic maps both in contents (to a lesser extent) and in graphic form (to a larger extent). They contain less objects, but include aerial information.


This study aimed to assess dental caries status and associated factors in Uruguayan adults and elders using data from the first Uruguayan National Oral Health Survey. Data were representative of the country as a whole. Socio-demographic information was collected with a closed questionnaire. Dental caries was assessed by clinical examination using the DMFT index. The final sample consisted of 769 participants. Mean DMFT was 15.20 and 24.12 for the 35-44 and 65-74-year age groups, respectively. Mean number of decayed teeth was 1.70 in adults and 0.66 in elders. Multivariate analyses showed higher prevalence of dental caries associated with age 65-74 years, low socioeconomic status, use of public dental services, presence of gingivitis; for decayed teeth, age 35-44 years, low socioeconomic status, use of public dental services, infrequent tooth brushing, need for oral health care, and presence of root caries showed higher severity. Uruguayan adults and elders from disadvantaged backgrounds concentrated a heavier burden of dental caries.


Carboniferous strata can be described, interpreted, and correlated using six scales of allocyclic transgressive-regressive (T-R) units. These T-R units are inferred to be the net result of deposition during cycles of sea-level change. All Pennsylvanian and Lower Permian strata constitute one second-order T-R unit, or synthem. The Pennsylvanian System contains third-, fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-order T-R units that can be correlated across both marine and nonmarine facies in the Appalachian Basin. This permits differentiation of allocyclic T-R units from autocyclic T-R units or fluvial autocyclic units. The hierarchical approach is also useful for predicting the location of marine horizons, coals, claystones, and various types of stratigraphic breaks. A hierarchical scheme of allocyclic T-R units could be combined with biostratigraphic, radiometric, and magnetostratigraphic data to form a practical chronostratigraphic framework for the Carboniferous.


Firm disclosures often reach only a portion of investors, which results in information asymmetry among investors, and therefore lower market liquidity. This issue is particularly salient for firms that are not highly visible, as they tend not to receive broad news dissemination via traditional intermediaries, such as the press. This paper examines whether firms can reduce information asymmetry by more broadly disseminating their news. To isolate the impact of dissemination, we focus our analysis on firms' use of Twitter and exploit the 140-character message restriction. Specifically, using a sample of technology firms, we examine the impact of using Twitter to send market participants links to press releases that are provided via traditional disclosure methods. We find this additional dissemination of firm-initiated news via Twitter is associated with lower abnormal bid-ask spreads and greater abnormal depths, consistent with a reduction in information asymmetry. Moreover, this result holds mainly for firms that are not highly visible, consistent with them being in greater need of this additional dissemination channel. We also examine the impact of dissemination on a volume-based measure of liquidity, and find that dissemination is positively associated with liquidity.


The new LHC experiments at CERN have very large numbers of channels to operate. In order to be able to configure and monitor such large systems, a high degree of parallelism is necessary. The control system is built as a hierarchy of sub-systems distributed over several computers. A toolkit $SMI++, combining two approaches: finite state machines and rule-based programming, allows for the description of the various sub-systems as decentralized deciding entities, reacting in real-time to changes in the system, thus providing for the automation of standard procedures and for the automatic recovery from error conditions in a hierarchical fashion. In this paper we describe the principles and features of SMI++ as well as its integration with an industrial SCADA tool for use by the LHC experiments and we try to show that such tools, can provide a very convenient mechanism for the automation of large scale, high complexity, applications


Accurate chromosome segregation during cell division requires not only the establishment, but also the precise, regulated release of chromosome cohesion. Chromosome dynamics during meiosis are more complicated, because homologues separate at anaphase I whereas sister chromatids remain attached until anaphase II. How the selective release of chromosome cohesion is regulated during meiosis remains unclear. We show that the aurora-B kinase AIR-2 regulates the selective release of chromosome cohesion during Caenorhabditis elegans meiosis. AIR-2 localizes to subchromosomal regions corresponding to last points of contact between homologues in metaphase I and between sister chromatids in metaphase II. Depletion of AIR-2 by RNA interference (RNAi) prevents chromosome separation at both anaphases, with concomitant prevention of meiotic cohesin REC-8 release from meiotic chromosomes. We show that AIR-2 phosphorylates REC-8 at a major amino acid in vitro. Interestingly, depletion of two PP1 phosphatases, CeGLC-7α and CeGLC-7β, abolishes the restricted localization pattern of AIR-2. In Ceglc-7α/β(RNAi) embryos, AIR-2 is detected on the entire bivalent. Concurrently, chromosomal REC-8 is dramatically reduced and sister chromatids are separated precociously at anaphase I in Ceglc-7α/β(RNAi) embryos. We propose that AIR-2 promotes the release of chromosome cohesion via phosphorylation of REC-8 at specific chromosomal locations and that CeGLC-7α/β, directly or indirectly, antagonize AIR-2 activity.


In this paper, the adhesion of epichlorohydrin rubber (CHR) compounds to polyamide 6 (PA6) using a molecular adhesive (6-triethoxysilylpropylamino-1,3,5-triazine-2,4-ditiol, TES) has been investigated to clarify the relation between TES concentration on the PA6 surface and the peel strength of CHR/PA6 adherends. TES contains two functional groups, one is dithiol triazinyl group and the other is alkoxysilyl group. The former reacts with the chloromethyl group of CHR, the latter reacts with the OH group linked PA6 which was formed by the corona discharge treatment. The introduction of TES on the PA6 surface was analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). As a result, TES concentration on the PA6 surface and peel strength of CHR/PA6 adherends were influenced by the concentration and reaction temperature of TES in solution.In addition, TES concentration on the PA6 surface correlated closely with the peel strength of CHR/PA6 adherends. The failure pattern in CHR/PA6 adherends varied from interfacial failure to cohesive failure by the way of apparent interfacial failure, with the increase of TES concentration on the PA6 surface.


Originally published for the opening of the Toshiba Gallery of Japanese Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum, this book celebrates and sets in context many of its greatest treasures. The museum's Japanese holdings, acquired over a period of 150 years, started with the international exhibitions of the second half of the 19th century and the great private collections formed in Britain at the beginning of the 20th. The result is a panorama of Japan's achievements in art and design from the earliest times, with particular emphasis on ceramics, lacquer, textiles, prints and metalwork from the 17th century to modern day.


We report the case of a 52 years old patient with clinic of food regurgitation and some dysphagia without other added symptoms who was sent to our ENT consulting rooms. It was performed a cervicothoracic CT which informed as a paratracheal cystic lesion with differential diagnosis between esophageal or tracheal diverticulum. The possibility of that last one was discarted by a normal bronchoscopy.


Coherent states for the Landau system (planar charged particle moving in a uniform magnetic field) are developed. It is convenient to use these states to describe the circular motion of the charged particle. The results obtained do not depend on gauges.