The bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling pathways have important roles in embryonic development and cellular homeostasis, with aberrant BMP signaling resulting in a broad spectrum of human disease. We report that BMPs unexpectedly signal through the canonical transforming growth factor β (TGF‐β)‐responsive Smad2 and Smad3. BMP‐induced Smad2/3 signaling occurs preferentially in embryonic cells and transformed cells. BMPs signal to Smad2/3 by stimulating complex formation between the BMP‐binding TGF‐β superfamily receptors, activin receptor‐like kinase (ALK)3/6, and the Smad2/3 phosphorylating receptors ALK5/7. BMP signaling through Smad2 mediates, in part, dorsoventral axis patterning in zebrafish embryos, whereas BMP signaling through Smad3 facilitates cancer cell invasion. Consistent with increased BMP‐mediated Smad2/3 signaling during cancer progression, Smad1/5 and Smad 2/3 signaling converge in human cancer specimens. Thus, the signaling mechanisms used by BMPs and TGF‐β superfamily receptors are broader than previously appreciated.—Holtzhausen, A., Golzio, C., How, T., Lee, Y.‐H., Schiemann, W. P., Katsanis, N., Blobe, G. C. Novel bone morphogenetic protein signaling through Smad2 and Smad3 to regulate cancer progression and development. FASEB J. 28, 1248–1267 (2014). www.fasebj.org


Once very common in children, mumps virus infection is now much rarer thanks to vaccination, recommended in the majority of countries in the world. This virus of the family Paramyxoviridae has a marked tropism for glandular tissues which explains the great diversity of pathologies related to this virus, including parotitis, orchitis or meningitis. Due to the lower circulation of the virus, the proportion of infected adults increases. A surveillance system for mumps virus infections at the national and international levels is organized, particularly at the molecular level. In France, it is provided by the national reference center for Measles, Mumps and Rubella. Although it has led to a significant reduction in the number of cases, the long-term effectiveness of mumps vaccination is questionable. The nature of the vaccine strains and the lack of regular stimulation of populations by circulating wild viruses may explain, in part, the decrease in immunity over time. Thus, the vaccination recommandations could evolve in the future to reach eradication in a medium or long term.


Remapping is an essential part of most Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) methods. In this paper, we focus on the part of the remapping algorithm that performs the interpolation of the fluid velocity field from the Lagrangian to the rezoned computational mesh in the context of a staggered discretization. Standard remapping algorithms generate a discrepancy between the remapped kinetic energy, and the kinetic energy that is obtained from the remapped nodal velocities which conserves momentum. In most ALE codes, this discrepancy is redistributed to the internal energy of adjacent computational cells which allows for the conservation of total energy. This approach can introduce oscillations in the internal energy field, which may not be acceptable. We analyze the approach introduced in [1] which is not supposed to introduce dissipation. On a simple example, we demonstrate a situation in which this approach fails. A modification of this approach is described, which eliminates (when it is possible) or reduces the energy discrepancy. Manuscript Click here to view linked References


Ca-doped BiFeO3 nanofibres have been fabricated by electrospinning method. Our results indicate that phase transition from space group R3c to C222 can be observed by the Ca doping. These BiFeO3 nanofibres show obvious room temperature ferromagnetic behaviors, and saturation magnetization can be enhanced with the Ca-doping concentration increasing, which could be correlated with the variation of the ratio of Fe2+/Fe3+ valence state. The BiFeO3 nanofibres show obvious photocatalytic performance and can be improved by the Ca-doping.


Palliative care professionals often speak of the importance of forming meaningful relationships with patients and their families Trust and rapport, usually established over extended periods of time through face-to-face interactions, and a 'gentle honesty' regarding end-of-life and death are key aspects of developing a sense of intimacy with people who are approaching the end of their lives A fundamental feature of this intimacy is conveying a sense of 'being with' a patient However, these ways of working were greatly challenged by the impact of COVID-19 This article explores how intimacy both was and was not established at the height of the pandemic, and it describes the extent to which shared concerns functioned as a new means to create a sense of a common experience


[1] Observed variations of upper-ocean zonal currents on the equator at 142°E and 147°E from November 1994 through October 1996, when the surface warm water layer was well developed, are described in relation to the wind forcing and the stratification. The variations of zonal currents were strongly correlated with the variations of local zonal wind stress in two distinct frequency bands separated by very low coherence for periods exceeding 10 days. One band encompasses the annual period, and the other band brackets approximately the 30- to 80-day period. At annual period, high coherence with almost zero phase was limited to a region of very shallow depth, with high coherence at almost 180° phase seen at about 100 m. An eastward current above the Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC), which developed only during boreal summer with the seasonal upward displacement of the upper thermohaline, was responsible for this subsurface coherence maximum. At the 30- to 80-day period, a high positive cross correlation between zonal current speed and zonal wind stress was seen from the shallowest observation depth to about the zero-crossing depth between the South Equatorial Current and the EUC (ZCD), and a high negative correlation was seen below. The ZCD was located near the 29°C isotherm, and the vertical extent of high positive cross correlation in this band was found to vary together with the interannual and annual variations of the ZCD. There were temperature variations in this band, possibly caused by meridional or vertical advection, which were coherent with those of the zonal current.


Abstract The new mineral anatolyite Na6(Ca,Na)(Mg,Fe3+)3Al(AsO4)6 was found in the Arsenatnaya fumarole, Tolbachik volcano, Kamchatka, Russia. It is associated with potassic feldspar, hematite, tenorite, cassiterite, johillerite, tilasite, ericlaxmanite, lammerite, arsmirandite, sylvite, halite, aphthitalite, langbeinite, anhydrite, wulffite, krasheninnikovite, fluoborite, pseudobrookite and fluorophlogopite. Anatolyite occurs as aggregates (up to 2 mm across) of rhombohedral–prismatic, equant or slightly elongated along [001] crystals up to 0.2 mm. The mineral is transparent, pale brownish–pinkish, with vitreous lustre. It is brittle, cleavage was not observed and the fracture is uneven. The Mohs' hardness is ca 4½. Dcalc is 3.872 g cm–3. Anatolyite is optically uniaxial (–), ω = 1.703(4) and ε = 1.675(3). Chemical composition (wt.%, electron microprobe) is: Na2O 16.55, K2O 0.43, CaO 2.49, MgO 5.80, MnO 0.16, CuO 0.69, ZnO 0.55, Al2O3 5.01, Fe2O3 7.94, TiO2 0.18, SnO2 0.17, SiO2 0.04, P2O5 0.55, As2O5 60.75, SO3 0.03, total 101.34. The empirical formula based on 24 O apfu is (Na5.90K0.10)Σ6.00(Ca0.50Na0.13Zn0.08Mn0.03)Σ0.74(Mg1.63Fe3+1.12Al0.15Cu0.10)Σ3.00(Al0.96Ti0.03Sn0.01)Σ1.00(As5.97P0.09Si0.01)Σ6.07O24. Anatolyite is trigonal, R$\bar{3}$c, a = 13.6574(10), c = 18.2349(17) Å, V = 2945.6(4) Å3 and Z = 6. The strongest reflections of the powder XRD pattern [d,Å(I)(hkl)] are: 7.21(33)(012), 4.539(16)(113), 4.347(27)(211), 3.421(20)(220), 3.196(31)(214), 2.981(17)(223), 2.827(100)(125) and 2.589(18)(410). The crystal structure was solved from single-crystal XRD data to R = 4.77%. The structure is based on a 3D heteropolyhedral framework formed by M4O18 clusters [M1 = Al and M2 = (Mg,Fe3+)] linked with AsO4 tetrahedra. (Ca,Na) and Na cations centre A1O6 and A2O8 polyhedra in voids of the framework. Anatolyite is isostructural with yurmarinite. The new mineral is named in honour of the outstanding Russian crystallographer, mineralogist and mathematician Anatoly Kapitonovich Boldyrev (1883–1946).


OBJECTIVE
To determine the clinical significance of elevated serum levels of VH4-34 encoded IgM and IgG antibodies with respect to the clinical characteristics of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).

METHODS
VH4-34 encoded IgM and IgG immunoglobulin was measured in 95 patients with SLE by ELISA using antiidiotype monoclonal antibody (Mab) 9G4. SLE disease activity, severity, and damage were assessed by visual analog scales, Systemic Lupus Activity Measure, Lupus Severity of Disease Index, and Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics/American College of Rheumatology Damage Index. Presence of VH4-34 encoded antibodies on patients' B lymphocytes was analyzed by flow cytometry using Mab 9G4.

RESULTS
Fifty-two of 95 patients with SLE had elevated levels of VH4-34 encoded antibodies of IgG isotype; 17 patients with VH4-34 IgG had elevated VH4-34 of the IgM isotype. Forty-three of the 95 patients had normal levels of VH4-34 encoded antibodies. When disease severity was correlated to VH4-34 isotype, patients with circulating VH4-34 IgG but without IgM had significantly more severe disease compared to patients who had VH4-34 of both isotypes. Eighty-six percent of patients with SLE nephritis and 100% of those with central nervous system (CNS) lupus had VH4-34 IgG without IgM. In vivo, VH4-34 encoded antibodies were found to bind autologous B lymphocytes.

CONCLUSION
Presence of VH4-34 IgG in the absence of VH4-34 IgM was the finding most strongly associated with severe SLE, nephritis, and CNS lupus, suggesting that isotype switching of VH4-34 encoded antibodies or loss of VH4-34 IgM encoded antibodies may influence the progression of disease in SLE.


Introduction Temporary tracheostomy is commonly used in patients admitted to intensive care units. Cuffed tubes prevent laryngeal airflow, preventing vocalisation. Sub-glottic suction tubes such as the 'Blue Line Ultra Suctionaid™' are used primarily to remove sub-glottic secretions, but retrograde gas flows via the suction port can facilitate above cuff vocalisation. The aims were to assess whether patients could achieve an audible voice using above cuff vocalisation, to demonstrate the safe use of the Blue Line Ultra Suctionaid™ tracheostomy tube for above cuff vocalisation, and to assess potential benefits of above cuff vocalisation for communication, secretion management and swallowing. Methods Our study (Reference 15/NW/0464, IRAS 178997) recruited adult intensive care unit patients who were alert, able to participate in an above cuff vocalisation trial and dependent on an inflated Blue Line Ultra Suctionaid™ cuff for ventilatory support. Consenting participants underwent fibreoptic endoscopic assessment of swallow by experienced Speech & Language Therapy staff with and without above cuff vocalisation. Clinical and fibreoptic endoscopic assessment of swallow, assessment of voice quality, swallowing and secretion management were recorded and scored. Median differences between paired observations and scores were analysed with and without above cuff vocalisation. Adverse events were identified by follow up fibreoptic endoscopic assessment of swallow and patient accounts. Results Ten patients completed the study. Above cuff vocalisation was used for a median of 15 min, during a median of nine episodes, over a median of three days. Above cuff vocalisation resulted in an audible voice in eight of the 10 patients, during 66 out of 91 above cuff vocalisation attempts. There improvements in unstimulated dry cough and swallow frequency and aspiration ratings measured by fibreoptic endoscopic assessment of swallow. No complications were reported or observed in 66 attempts with only one episode terminated prematurely. Conclusions Above cuff vocalisation can achieve effective, safe, well-tolerated vocalisation in ventilator-dependant intensive care unit patients. Above cuff vocalisation has the potential to aid earlier, more effective communication and may improve laryngeal function and rehabilitation.


A language variety is one of the aspects in learning sociolinguistics. People use a language in different varieties based on their environment They will use stawdard language when they write and they will use colloquial when they speak. Today, the differences between the languages varieties for writing and speaking are not r.
This research has trpase to learn _w .it the use of the language variety by writers of Sarong Semarang articles which is published in Snare Merdeka, a daily newspaper.
Data were collected from the article during six months that started from May to October l994. After having edited the data researchers analyzed the edited data based on first, kinds of the language varieties used Second, they also analyzed about the relationship between topics of the articles and the language varieties used. Last. they researched code switching, slang, and interference from the articles.
The result of the research show that slang, switched code, interference from Javanese language, dngli ' , Dutch to Indonesian language are often used to express the writer's idea.


A simple and rapid one-step continuous-flow synthesis route has been developed for the preparation of chromene derivatives from the reaction of aromatic aldehydes, α-cyanomethylene compounds, and naphthols. In this contribution, a one-step continuous-flow protocol in a ThalesNano H-Cube Pro™ has been developed for the preparation of these chromene derivatives. This arises from the multicomponent one-step reaction of aromatic aldehydes, α-cyanomethylene compounds, and naphthols. This flow protocol was optimized in 2-methyltetrahydrofuran, which is a more environment-friendly solvent. The faster residence times (<2 min) coupled with elevated pressure (~25 bar) results in an efficient, safer, faster, and modular reaction. Results obtained illustrate that this base-catalyzed reaction affords the respective chromene derivative products in very high yields. The products can then be easily purified by recrystallization, if desired.


The aim of this thesis is to explore eclecticism, its relationship with pluralism and to achieve a suitable definition and justification for its adoption with regard to economic research. In this dissertation eclecticism shall be understood as a philosophical leitmotif for the individual researcher to be unprejudiced, to have no commitment to a particular school of thought but to treat them all as a priori valuable for the pursuit of one's research aspiration by deliberately choosing from the available range of historical and modern economic concepts, ideas, theories and practices.
To achieve this particular aim, this thesis i) investigates the history of eclecticism as a philosophical concept as well as its modern applications, ii) develops a differentiation between eclecticism and pluralism based on an inquiry into the pluralist literature, iii) formulates a suitable definition of eclecticism and iv) develops a justification for eclectic research in economics. The justification formulated in this thesis specifically focuses on the question of how eclectic choice of theory, methods and concepts from different schools of thought can be made without commitment to any reference framework that would define the criteria from which to choose from.
The result of the philosophical enquiry suggests that eclectic choice is justified, when choice is understood as migration between different cognitive aims and methodological norms (Laudan, 1978, 1987, 1996) on different levels of abstraction, and can become necessary when this migration is used to trigger epistemological crises (MacIntyre, 1977), which are events for a school of thought, or entire disciplines, to make any intellectual progress. The research further argues that migration on the level of schools of thought, and their respected cognitive aims and methodological norms, remains easy for the eclectic. On the other hand, migration between higher levels becomes increasingly difficult the further one moves to those higher levels. The thesis concludes that eclecticism is a recommendable research philosophy for the individual economists, who wishes to internalise pluralism.


Objectives: The present research sought to determine the prevalence of depression and depressive symptoms among patients with chronic illness admitted to the medical ward at the University Hospital of the West Indies and the association between depression and sociodemographic characteristics among these patients. Method: This was a cross-sectional study utilizing researcher administered questionnaires with the Brief Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) as the screening tool for depression. The study consisted of 76 participants and data were collected over a one-month period. Results: The study revealed that one in three persons admitted to the medical ward during the period under study exhibited depressive symptomatology. However, no significant differences were noted between sociodemographic characteristics and the prevalence of depression. Conclusion: The high prevalence of depression among patients with chronic illnesses admitted to the medical ward suggests need for greater attention to psychiatric evaluation in the care and treatment of these patients.


This paper introduces a new application of fuzzy logic control (FLC) for the improvement of traffic performance over optical code-division multiple-access (OCDMA) networks. This application focuses on the mitigation of environmental temperature variation effects that occur in the transmission links that impact the expected magnitude of the autocorrelation peak in the users' code. The FLC system, whose input variables are the propagation distances and the estimated temperature changes, is installed in the network receivers. This system sets the threshold detection level according to the variations of the environmental temperature provided by external sensors. Calibration of the fuzzy control requires a priori knowledge of the analytical response of the OCDMA channels. The simulation results show that the network performance can be significantly improved when the proposed approach is employed.


An approach to software design representation which is consistent with the concept of engineering blueprints is presented. The main criteria for software engineering blueprints are defined and a network scheme of graphical representation is considered through an overview of Petri net techniques. The concept of an abstract process (AP) is introduced as the basic element of system representation. An abstract process network schema of software design representation is developed and supported by an algebraic system of notation. Methods of AP-net construction are presented and illustrated by examples. The advantages of using the proposed approach in different phases of software engineering are pointed out and the main directions for further research have been identified.


Sedimentation in hangingwall dipslope settings is still a relatively underexplored topic in rift basin studies. A better understanding of the evolution of marine sedimentary environments in this kind of settings has to address the variations occurring both along the strike and down the dipslope. Previous work was mainly built on the analysis of subsurface data, relying on the visualization of coarse resolution (10s of m) seismic sections and sparsely located borehole logs (km apart). This study focuses on the sedimentology and stratal arrangement of excellent quality Miocene marine early syn‐rift and rift climax successions continuously exposed for more than 20 km along the strike of the hangingwall dipslope in the El Qaa Fault Block, Suez Rift, Egypt. The integration of traditional sedimentary field techniques and terrestrial LIDAR scanning allowed for a detailed analysis of dip and dip direction for the different depositional units. Three different phases of tilting were identified for the hangingwall dipslope, which controlled the overall evolution of the marine sedimentary environment in the area. The tilt of the hangingwall not only determined variations in facies, thickness and grain‐size of the deposits down the dipslope but also along its strike. The studied exposures of the El Qaa Fault Block dipslope constitute a unique outcrop analogue for marine sedimentation in hangingwall dipslopes.


There remains a great deal of uncertainty about uncertainty estimation in hydrological modelling. Given that hydrology is still a subject limited by the available measurement techniques, it does not appear that the issue of epistemic error in hydrological data will go away for the foreseeable future and it may be necessary to find a way of allowing for robust model conditioning and more subjective treatments of potential epistemic errors in model applications. In this study we have made an attempt to analyse how this is the result of the epistemic uncertainties inherent in the hydrological modelling process and its impact on model conditioning and hypothesis testing. We propose some ideas about how to deal with assessing the information in hydrological data and how it might influence model conditioning based on hydrological reasoning, with an application to rainfall-runoff modelling of a catchment in Northern England where inconsistent data for some events can potentially introduce disinformation into the model conditioning process. A methodology is presented to make an assessment of the relative information content of calibration data, before running a model that can then inform the evaluation of model runs and resulting simulation uncertainties.


The interaction of ethanolic solution of semicarbazide hydrochloride, benzyldehyde and morpholine yielded N-(I-Morpholinobenzyl) Semicarbazide Schiff base. The Schiff base complexes of manganese(II) and iron(II) were synthesized by refluxing the mixture of ethanolic solutions of the Schiff base and metal(II) chlorides, respectively. These complexes were characterized by gravimetry, spectrophotometry, potentiometry, molar conductance and infrared analyses. The Schiff base and the complex compounds are not soluble in water, slightly soluble in most common organic solvents but are readily soluble in methanol and ethanol. The molar conductance of the manganese(II) and iron(II) Schiff base complexes measured are 3.78 and 6.90 ohm-1cm2mol-1, respectively, indicating their non-electrolytic nature. The potentiometric studies revealed a pKa of 5.40 for the Schiff base. The standard Gibb's free energy of Mn(II) and Fe(II) Schiff base complexes determined are -65.79KJmol-1 and -60.35KJmol-1, respectively. The ratio of metal ion to Schiff base determined potentiometrically and spectrophotometrically for the complex compounds is 1: 2. The IR spectrum of the Schiff base shows bands observable in the two Schiff base complex compounds, indicating the coordination of the Schiff base to the copper ion.

 Key Words: Schiff base, azomethine, benzyldehyde, potentiometry, spectrophotometry, semicarbazide hydrochloride, morpholine.


Emotional intelligence (EI) and its significance to nursing have been increasingly emphasized throughout the last few years.  Emotional intelligence is composed of a deposit of interrelated skills involving a capability to appraise one's own emotions, and those of others, utilization &regulation of own emotions, social skills, and optimism. Empathy also has been described as a necessary element of the nurse- patient relationship and its link to emotional intelligence has been reported. Accordingly, EI training skills can be incorporated into educational training intervention to promote these skills. Objective: Investigate the effect of emotional intelligence educational training intervention on levels of emotional intelligence and empathy among nursing students of Damanhour University. Setting: Fourth year nursing students, Faculty of Nursing, Damanhour University. Subjects: Twenty nine students enrolled in Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing course, and a matched group of twenty nine students enrolled in the Community Health Nursing course. Tools: Three tools were used for data collection 1) Socio-demographic and academic data tool 2) Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSPE) 3) Emotional Intelligence Scale. Results: The present study findings showed that empathy& emotional intelligence improved over a four weeks period after introducing training intervention for the study subjects. Conclusion: Emotional Intelligence training has can improve students' empathy, appraisal of students own emotion and regulation and utilization of emotions. Recommendations: Emotional Intelligence courses should be held in curriculum of nursing for students and nursing staff to improve their empathic talents and emotional intelligence.


The theologically-inspired Jubilee 2000 campaign was highly successful but much theological reflection on the sovereign debt owed by the poorest nations has been overly polemical. Our study indicates that nonetheless a post-liberal, dialogical approach to the issue of international debt can be realised, and traces some of its key observations and themes. The origins and development of Jubilee 2000 are traced both in Britain and internationally, with particular reference to the campaign in Zambia. Key arguments and factors critical to the success of Jubilee 2000 are discussed and analysed. In performing this analysis we draw on the work of Atherton, whose approach offers criteria for establishing the adequacy of theological engagement in a plural and globalised context. Analysis of the themes of jubilee, grace and forgiveness, and usury reveal that despite their limitations, they offer valuable and distinctive contributions on issues of power and money, in their insights into the human condition, and into obligations across generations. Future theological engagement on debt will also require greater attention to the role that money performs, and a new synthesis of visionary and realistic elements.


Hydrological processes in permafrost regions are still hard to represent in models because of a lack of sufficient process understanding based on field observations in different permafrost settings. This work delivers an important contribution to the knowledge of hydrological processes, specifically the water balance of a thermokarst lake in ice -rich permafrost.
The goal of this research is to quantify the water balance based on field measurements of hydraulic components as well as modeling. The study site is located on Kurungnakh, an island in the central part of the Lena river delta in northern Siberia underlain by continuous ice- rich permafrost. The investigated lake, Lucky Lake, covers an area of about 3 km² and has a volume of approximately 20 * 10^6 m³. Field measurements of the water balance components were conducted in a period from July 15th to August 26th.
Precipitation was recorded by an automatic rain gauge, at a nearby site on Kurungnakh island. Open channel inflow from a neighboring thermokarst lake into Lucky Lake was identified. It was possible to estimate the amount of water input by using a measurement device based on electro magnetism (Flo-Mate).
The outflow of Lucky Lake was determined every ten minutes by using the stage -discharge relationship of an installed weir and a radar sensor. The evaporation of the thermokarst lake was calculated using climate data from weather stations on Kurungnakh island and the neighboring island Samoylov. The lake water storage
was measured using an automated water level sensor in 30 minutes intervals. Water levels in the shallow active layer were recorded at seven measurements sites within the catchment of Lucky Lake. Changes of the active layer, hydraulic conductivity in the thawed layer and the groundwater level on the permafrost table were measured at different locations during the mentioned period.
This contribution shows the measured and estimated water balance components for the thermokarst lake. During the period of measurement the discharge decreased significantly, due to unusual small amount of precipitation in this summer. The evaporation measured during this time was as usual high compared to the rest of the year. These two main drivers for the water balance explain the development of water storage within the lake, as it also decreased. In consequence evaporation dominated the water balance of Lucky Lake during the measurement period by far


Now a day's everyone uses different mobile application. Also user can't control the activities perform by applications. Because of that security and privacy can't be maintain. So we face many critical issues. Context Based Remote Access Control System (CBRAC) is an android mobile application which is used to control data leakage as well as malicious activities. It is used to handle the sensitive data and privacy related issues of smartphone users. Through CBRAC user can set different policies according to their individual context and user requirement. This system is also beneficial for pre-defined area like colleges, educational institutes, hospitals etc. Network administrator can apply these different policy set for such pre-defined area.


Two experimental approaches were made to gain insight into the physiological significance of cardioglobulin. The first was to determine whether Cardioglobulin was localized to a particular organ or tissue, since earlier studies had suggested that the system might function as a regulator of myocardial contractility. By fluorescence localization of antibodies to rat cardioglobulin-C, cardioglobulin-C was found not only on the surface of heart muscle cells, but in other extracellular locations which, broadly speaking, were either cell surfaces or basement membrane. The second phase of the study was measurement of plasma activity of cardioglobulin-A, -B, and -C in human diseases. The previously discovered increased overall activity in patients with elevated left ventricular systolic pressure was due to increased cardioglobulin-A. Decreased activity in patients with idiopathic myocardial failure was due to decreased cardioglobulin-C. Patients with advanced cirrhosis and evidence of impaired protein production also had low cardioglobulin-C. Low plasma cardioglobulin was found in 22 of 24 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. Cardioglobulin was normal in all of 17 patients with other connective tissue diseases. The new tissue and clinical findings may provide a clue in the search for the functional significance of this recently discovered protein system.


Objective To analyze the urine of renal recipients for the presence of donor DNA in an attempt to establish an alternative diagnostic means of acute rejection.Methods Sixty-four renal transplant recipients were examined. Thirty-seven were norma lafter transplantation, while 22 others developed acute rejection, based on ser um creatinine levels and/or needle biopsy findings of the graft. Five developed drug-induced renal dysfunction. In female recipients with a male graft, we ex amined urine for the presence of Y chromosome (SRY and DYZ-1) and in recipients receiving an HLA mismatched graft, we looked for HLA-DR gene (DRB1) using PCR .Results Among the 14 female recipients with male grafts demonstrating stable renal function, only one was positive for SRY and DYZ-1 on the Y chromosome. However, SRY and DYZ-1 were found in the urine of four female patients with acute rejection , but these DNA fragments were not detected in 3 of the 4 after anti-rejection therap y. The last patient was referred to hemodialysis. Of 23 recipients of a graft from HLA mismatch donors with stable renal function, DRB1 was negative in 21 (91 %). Of 18 patients with acute rejection, DRB1 was positive in 16 (89%) and nega tive in 2. These DNA fragments were no longer found in 13 patients after anti -rejection therapy. In all patients with drug induced renal dysfunction, donor -derived DNA was negative.Conclusions Presence of door specific DNA in the urine of the recipient is strongly associat ed with acute rejection. Analysis of DNA derived from donor cells in urine was an effective and accurate method for the diagnosis of acute rejection of a renal transplant.


Rotating instabilities (RIs) have been reported in axial flow fans as well as in low-speed and high-speed axial compressors during recent years. They can cause the non-synchronous vibrations (NSV) and generate noise.
 In this paper, numerical simulations are performed on an axial flow fan to investigate the influence of RIs on aerodynamic damping of fan blades. The phenomena of RIs in the axial fan were first observed during an experimental test. The spectrum of the pressure signal captured by the case-mounted unsteady pressure transducers near blade tips contains narrow frequency bands below the blade passing frequency, of which the dominant frequency does not equal harmonics of rotor shaft frequency.
 The numerical investigation is performed with an unsteady 3D Navier-Stokes method that solves for the entire blade row at near-stall point to confirm the phenomena. Flow separation and blade tip vortex shedding are captured at the tip region of the blades in the simulation. Although the spectrums are different between numerical simulation and experimental results, the simulation predicts a dominant pressure fluctuation frequency of RI that is almost the same as the experimentally measured value, which verified the accuracy of the numerical simulation. Aeroelasticity of the fan blade is investigated by influence coefficient method based eigenvalue method. At near-maximum-efficiency point and near-stall point, aerodynamic modal damping ratios (AMDRs) and distribution of local AMDR of first two modes (first and second flapping mode) are computed respectively. The separation region improves the stability of both modes. However, the vortex shedding area on suction side reduce the AMDRs of 1F mode while the vortex impingement region on pressure side reduces local AMDR for both modes.


The intent of this research was to investigate the relationship between the workforce, business strategy and performance of architectural firms. Data was collected from 92 firms randomly selected from the cities where architectural firms were most concentrated in Nigeria using questionnaires. Hierarchical regression analysis was carried out to investigate the direct and indirect impact of the workforce of the architectural firms of their performance. The findings confirm the significant positive impact of the workforce on the performance of architectural firms. With business strategy controlled, the specific characteristics of the workforce and its management which influenced performance were the number of architects, the work structure, and the age and experience of the principal partners. The impact of the number of non- architecture professionals and staff participation in decision-making on performance was moderated by the business strategy adopted by the firms. The results suggest that workforce characteristics have a higher value than management of workforce in determining performance of architectural firms contrary to the results of previous studies which suggest higher value of the management of the workforce in determining performance of firms. This probably indicates the peculiarity of architectural firm as a professional service firm in the construction industry.


This paper examines why credit constraints for domestic and exporting firms arise in a setting where banks do not observe firms' productivities. To maintain incentive-compatibility, banks lend below the amount needed for first-best production. The longer time needed for export shipments induces a tighter credit constraint on exporters than on purely domestic firms, even in the exporters' home market. Greater risk faced by exporters also affects the credit extended by banks. Extra fixed costs reduce exports on the extensive margin, but can be offset by collateral held by exporting firms.


In this paper, we test whether economic growth depends on human capital development using data disaggregated at territorial level and propose the use of efficiency estimates, measured using a non-parametric technique, as an alternative quality measure of higher education institutions (HEIs). The nature of knowledge spillovers is also taken into account to examine the existence of geographically localized spillovers, from the presence of efficient universities, on local growth. Results show that the efficiency of universities has a positive and significant effect on GDP per worker. Moreover, we find evidence that productivity gains are larger in areas in which the most efficient universities are located, suggesting that investment in tertiary education may affect geographical distribution of economic activity as well as its level.


To study the anti-tumor activity of sea cucumber extracts, human colon adenocarcinoma Caco-2 cells were exposed to hot water extract of sea cucumber. Morphological changes with apoptotic bodies were observed in the cells treated with the extract. We demonstrated the induction of apoptosis using phosphatidylserine translocation (APOPercentage Assay kit), terminal deoxynucleotide transferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick-end labeling (TUNEL), and DNA fragmentation observed as DNA ladder. These results show that apoptosis was induced by a high molecular weight fraction in a dose dependent manner. These data suggest that water soluble and high molecular weight compounds from sea cucumber might exhibit anti-tumor activity by triggering apoptosis. The apoptosis-inducing activity may contribute to cancer chemopreventive effects of sea cucumber.


This paper studies the effect of mothers' education on fertility in a population with very low female labor force participation. The results we present are particularly relevant to many countries in the Muslim world where 70-80 percent of women are still out of the labor force. For identification we exploit the abrupt end of the military rule which greatly restricted the mobility of Arabs in Israel until the mid-1960's. This change improved access to schooling in communities that lacked schools and, as a consequence, significantly increased the education of affected cohorts, mainly of girls. The very large increase in schooling attainment triggered a sharp decline in completed fertility. We show that no other changes explain these findings and that the results are robust to checks against various threats to identification. We rule out convergence in fertility and schooling, changes in labor-force participation, age upon marriage, marriage and divorce rates, and spousal labor-force participation and earnings as mechanisms in this fertility decline. Spousal education increased however sharply through assortative matching and played a role in the fertility decline. We also show that the increase in mother's education was significantly and positively correlated with several potential mechanisms such as a reduction in the desired number of children, better knowledge and higher probability of using contraceptives, recognition that family size can compromise children quality, larger role for women in family decision making, less religiosity, and positive attitude towards modern health care and modernism in general.


The study deals with the Taboo words uttered by the singer of pop, rock, and hip hop songs. The objective of this study was to identify the kinds and the reason of taboo words used by the songs in pop, rock, and hip hop genres. The source of the data waslyrics of three lates album in recent five years (2010-2015) which lead three genres; Miley Cyrus for pop, Linkin Park for rock, and Nicki Minaj for hip hop. Each of singers brought five songs as the data. The data were collected by selecting lyrics containing taboo words after listening the song and matching the lyrics from internet carefully. The results of this study were four kinds of taboo words; offensive slang, profanity, sexual referent, and scatological referent occured in the songs and the most dominant kinds of taboo word appeared was offensive slang.


Objectives: This study examined decision-making competence in ADHD by using multiple decision tasks with varying demands on analytic versus affective processes. Methods: Adults with ADHD and healthy controls completed two tasks of analytic decision making, as measured by the Adult Decision-Making Competence (A-DMC) battery, and two affective decision tasks (the Balloon Analog Risk Task and the lowa Gambling Task). Results: Although a majority of the ADHD participants were tested under medication, they showed impairments in both types of task. However, logistic regression analysis showed that the applying-decision-rules task of the A-DMC battery was the only significant predictor of ADHD status. Conclusions: These findings suggested that ADHD is associated with impaired decision making in tasks involving a significant degree of cognitive control. Although both deliberative and affective neurocognitive systems probably contributed to ADHD-related problems in decision making, the findings underlined the involvement of prefrontally mediated executive functions.


Monetary policy is one of the most sensitive problems in the modern financial systems. Money production of central banks and commercial banks generates a lot of problems in the prices mechanism, structure of production and is the major source of error in entrepreneurial decision. This paper discuss the major problems with modern monetary policies regarding: concept and function of money as a medium of exchange, (non)neutrality of money, independence of central banks, ineffectiveness of some specific monetary tools like inflation targeting is. There are a lot of mistakes produced from a long time that influenced and continue to influence the (in)stability of financial systems.


Postmodernism appeared as a unit of study in the New South Wales Higher School Certificate for the first time in 2001. The inclusion of postmodernism is part of a new English syllabus described as "a major reconceptualisation and expansion of the study and teaching of English" in New South Wales. The new English syllabus involves crucial issues about literary theory, culture and education. The definition of texts has been extended to include film, media and multimedia texts, and the definition of English studies has been changed to combine traditional literary studies with new theoretical views of meaning and texts.


The importance of carcinoma of the esophagus becomes evident when it is realized that in New York city alone it accounts for 3.5 per cent of all deaths from cancer (Watson). In the United States registration area the incidence of cancer of the esophagus increased almost 100 per cent from 1915 to 1932. Clairmont, in 1924, estimated that about 25,000 persons die of this disease annually in Europe. With the realization that cancer of the esophagus is assuming increasing importance from the standpoint of numerical incidence and with the rapid strides being made in the fields of anesthesia and thoracic surgery has come an ever increasing interest in the radical surgical treatment of this disease, based on the present day conception of surgical treatment of cancer in general. It is, however, only in recent years that encouraging progress has been noted. Although at present operative treatment of cancer of the


Who are the people in the Netherlands with an active interest in cultural
heritage and the performing arts, and who prefer to leave these forms of
culture alone? Have the size and composition of the groups of 'culture-lovers'
and 'culture-leavers' changed since the end of the 1970s? These are the central
questions in this concise descriptive study. It considers not only visits to
cultural institutions such as museums and concert halls, but also the
consumption of culture via the media and active cultural participation through
the amateur arts. Trends in total participation are presented against the
background of continuity and change in cultural output.

More women than men have an interest in cultural activity, and more
better-educated than less well-educated people. The level of cultural interest
among the better-educated has declined, but thanks to the rising education
level this has not (yet?) been translated into a lower overall level of
cultural interest. Among middle-aged people, the main growth area has been in
their interest in popular culture. At the end of this report a number of
scenarios from earlier studies on the position of culture in the midst of
increasing competition for people's leisure time are subjected to scrutiny.


This volume gathers together cutting-edge research from the Third Workshop on Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics and gives a solid overview of the state of the art in robot algorithms. The papers cover core problems in robotics, such as motion planning, sensor-based planning, manipulation, and assembly planning. They also examine the application of robotic algorithms in domains like molecular modeling, geometric modeling, and computer-assisted surgery.


Palaechthonid plesiadapiforms from the Palaeocene of western North America have long been recognized as among the oldest and most primitive euarchontan mammals, a group that includes extant primates, colugos and treeshrews. Despite their relatively sparse fossil record, palaechthonids have played an important role in discussions surrounding adaptive scenarios for primate origins for nearly a half-century. Likewise, palaechthonids have been considered important for understanding relationships among plesiadapiforms, with members of the group proposed as plausible ancestors of Paromomyidae and Microsyopidae. Here, we describe a dentally associated partial skeleton of Torrejonia wilsoni from the early Palaeocene (approx. 62 Ma) of New Mexico, which is the oldest known plesiadapiform skeleton and the first postcranial elements recovered for a palaechthonid. Results from a cladistic analysis that includes new data from this skeleton suggest that palaechthonids are a paraphyletic group of stem primates, and that T. wilsoni is most closely related to paromomyids. New evidence from the appendicular skeleton of T. wilsoni fails to support an influential hypothesis based on inferences from craniodental morphology that palaechthonids were terrestrial. Instead, the postcranium of T. wilsoni indicates that it was similar to that of all other plesiadapiforms for which skeletons have been recovered in having distinct specializations consistent with arboreality.


Heme is an essential cofactor and alternative iron source for almost all bacterial species but may cause severe toxicity upon elevated levels and consequently, regulatory mechanisms coordinating heme homeostasis represent an important fitness trait. A remarkable scenario is found in several corynebacterial species, e.g. Corynebacterium glutamicum and Corynebacterium diphtheriae, which dedicate two paralogous, heme‐responsive two‐component systems, HrrSA and ChrSA, to cope with the Janus nature of heme. Here, we combined experimental reporter profiling with a quantitative mathematical model to understand how this particular regulatory network architecture shapes the dynamic response to heme. Our data revealed an instantaneous activation of the detoxification response (hrtBA) upon stimulus perception and we found that kinase activity of both kinases contribute to this fast onset. Furthermore, instant deactivation of the PhrtBA promoter is achieved by a strong ChrS phosphatase activity upon stimulus decline. While the activation of detoxification response is uncoupled from further factors, heme utilization is additionally governed by the global iron regulator DtxR integrating information on iron availability into the regulatory network. Altogether, our data provide comprehensive insights how TCS cross‐regulation and network hierarchy shape the temporal dynamics of detoxification (hrtBA) and utilization (hmuO) as part of a global homeostatic response to heme.


Asthma is a serious chronic respiratory disease and one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Although the prevalence of asthma varies inte rnationally, it is estimated that approximately 300 million people of all ages suffer from asthma worldwide. Asthma is a burden on governments, health-care systems, families, and patients, which is constantly increasing. Therefore, many proposed guidelines for asthma management emphasize the significance of educational program for patients in order to improve patient knowledge and the management of the disease, ultimately resulting in better health-care outcomes. One model of care that plays a significant role in patient asthma education is the nurse-led clinic. This study was carried out to determine the effectiveness of nurse-led educational intervention versus "usual care" for adults with asthma, before and after discharge from hospital and in terms of quality of life, lung function, self-manage ment, and self-efficacy. The method used for this review derives from the methodology for systematic literature reviews adopted by the Joanna Briggs Institute. The reviewed studies showed no significant difference between nurse-led educational intervention groups and usual care groups in relation to the quality of life, which improved over time for both groups. However, the nurse-led educational group showed significantly better self-management and self-efficacy than the control group. All the reviewed studies support educational interventions by asthma nurses or respiratory nursing specialists as a means of improving clinical outcomes for adults with asthma in a hospital setting.


A FEM-numerical simulation system is developed to simulate the process of rotary draw bending of tube. The emphasis is to discuss some factors such as tube materials, bending moment of fan-shaped die, pushing force of sliding slot and tube relative bending radius which have an effect on tube bending quality. The quality parameters of ovality, thinning ratio and thickening ratio are the same as the measurement values in the practical production. Some improved methods are put forward to according to the simulation results. The experiment shows that the simulation system can forecast accurately the deformation in the process of tube bending, so the production manufacturing cost decreases greatly.


The present study aims to understand the melting of the consumable electrode in the VAR process and gain some insight into the influence of an ensemble arc motion on the melting behaviour. In a previous study, a 2D axisymmetric model of the heat transfer in the cathode had been developed. Using the operating parameters as model inputs, it enabled prediction of the melt rate and the evolution of the melting area. Model results were successfully compared to melt rate measurements in an industrial VAR furnace. In recent years, it has been claimed that the electric arc may not be considered as steady and axisymmetric. Our experimental investigation of the luminosity recorded during an actual VAR heat confirms that a transient 3D behaviour may take place. Therefore, a 3D version of the previous model was set up to predict the heat transfer and melting of the electrode, using the unknown ensemble arc motion as an input. The arc is assimilated to a transient distribution of energy flux density. Results evidence that the influence of the arc motion on the shape of the electrode tip can be very important. In industrial practice, the cathode tip usually remains relatively flat during melting. The shapes of the computed electrode tips enable us to propose some arc parameters which remain compatible with both the periodic behaviour of the light emitted and the flatness of the electrode.


BACKGROUND
Alcoholism has been repeatedly associated with gray and white matter pathology. Although neuroimaging has shown alcoholism-related brain volume reductions and axonal compromise, the integrity of white matter volumes in chronic alcoholism has been challenging to measure on a regional level.

METHODS
We first examined the effects of alcoholism on cerebral white matter volumes by lobar and gyral subdivisions in 42 abstinent alcoholics and 42 control participants (split evenly by gender). We also examined cerebellar white matter and regions of the corpus callosum, as well as ventricular volumes. Next, relationships between white matter and ventricular volumes with measures of drinking patterns were assessed. Finally, an examination of early versus late abstinence was conducted. Within each examination, gender effects were explored.

RESULTS
Differences in regional white matter volumes between alcoholics and controls were observed primarily in the corpus callosum, with a stronger group difference among men than women. Years of heavy drinking had a strong negative impact on frontal and temporal white matter among alcoholic women, and on the corpus callosum among alcoholic men. Quantity of alcohol consumption was associated with smaller corpus callosum and larger ventricular volumes among alcoholic women, whereas abstinence duration was associated with larger corpus callosum volume among alcoholic men. Preliminary data indicated that alcoholic women showed stronger positive associations between sobriety duration and white matter volume than men within the first year of abstinence, whereas men showed this association more so than women after 1 year of abstinence.

CONCLUSIONS
Effects of drinking history on white matter and ventricular volumes vary by gender, with alcoholic women showing greatest sensitivity in frontal, temporal, ventricular, and corpus callosum regions, and alcoholic men showing effects mainly in the corpus callosum. Preliminary results indicate that recovery of white matter volume may occur sooner for women than for men.


Preparations for our February 2004 Conference on Religious Values and Corporate Decision-Making took place against the backdrop of an avalanche of corporate accounting scandals, which were provoking much soul searching among business leaders and managers, and also within the legal profession.1 In some sense, our long-planned agenda seemed to fit well as a response to the intensified search for resources to retrieve a sense of orientation and professional integrity. As we brainstormed on how to shape the panels and discussions, I mused with Joseph Geoghan, former General Counsel of Union Carbide, whether the corporate scandals should be our focus. This is not an exact quote, but it captures the gist of his response: "The issues here stand on their own - they are bigger and more important than just a response to the scandals." Now, especially with a bit of hindsight, I can see the wisdom of this perspective, and how it also captured the heart of the work of the Conference sponsor, the Institute on Religion, Law & Lawyer's Work. Since the mid-1990s, Fordham Law School has been at the forefront of efforts to explore the challenges and benefits of integrating religious values into the practice of law. Following the success of groundbreaking conferences that explored the theoretical, ethical and practical implications of "religious lawyering,"2 Fordham's Institute on Religion, Law & Lawyer's Work now devotes an annual conference to in-depth conversation and scholarship about the legal, ethical, and cultural implications of bringing religious values to bear on a particular area of legal practice.3 True, for many religious values may serve as an important source of orientation in the midst of a crisis. But the deeper challenge is more constructive, more positive - and perhaps, in many ways, more ordinary: to articulate what religious values capture and express at the heart of human experience, and then to explore how this can inform all aspects of life, including the law, including business life.4 It was in this spirit that lawyers, corporate executives and academics in the fields of management, economics and law gathered for the conference on Religious Values and Corporate Decision-Making. While the recent scandals were certainly one of the many topics discussed, the panel discussions and the projects showcased could be characterized not so much as a bandage to cover over ugly wounds in the midst of a crisis, but rather as a deeper and more consistent effort to construct positive models for business life. In this light, it is not surprising to see that business professionals are increasingly considering a number of creative resources that might help sustain their commitment to professional integrity and social responsibility, among them religious values. The program was also designed to acknowledge and take very seriously the important questions which arise in the course of this integrative endeavor. For example, in our increasingly complex and pluralistic business environments, might drawing on religious beliefs generate otherwise avoidable conflicts and misunderstandings? Discussions did not shy away from some of the more difficult questions. As Mark Sargent, Dean of Villanova Law School, explained, "there should be a place for people to incorporate religious values into corporation decision-making, but as an empirical matter there is very little room."5 Others were especially cautious because they saw that the effort to draw on religious values could become a source of conflict. But in their discussion of particular problems, many of the panelists were clear that it would be impossible for them to wall off their personal values. As Joseph Geoghan explained, "I strongly believe in the maxim that there is no rule of separation whatsoever between the principle that I apply in my personal life as a Roman Catholic and those applied in my business career. The norms and standards I would apply [to the case at hand] would be influenced by the social justice teachings of the Church, beginning with the primacy of labor over capital. …


A vacuum-insulated tandem accelerator was used to observe in situ blistering during 2-MeV proton irradiation of metallic samples to a fluence of up to 6.7 × 1020 cm−2. Samples consisting of copper of different purity, tantalum and tantalum-copper compounds were placed on the proton beam path and forced to cool. The surface state of the samples was observed using a charge-coupled device camera with a remote microscope. Thermistors, a pyrometer and an infrared camera were applied to measure the temperature of the samples during irradiation. After irradiation, the samples were analyzed on an X-ray diffractometer, laser and electron microscopes. The present study describes the experiment, presents the results obtained and notes their relevance and significance in the development of a lithium target for an accelerator-based neutron source, for use in boron neutron capture therapy of cancer.


Disaster governance in conflict areas is of growing academic concern, but most existing research comprises either single case studies or studies of a variety of country contexts that group all types of conflict together. Based on three case studies, this article offers a middle-ground scenario-based approach, focusing on disaster governance in authoritarian contexts experiencing low-intensity conflict. Low-intensity conflict is characterized by intense political tensions and violence that is more readily expressed in ways other than direct physical harm. Inspired by Olson's (2000) maxim that disasters are intrinsically political, this article explores the politics of disaster response by asking what is at stake and what happened, unpacking these questions for state, civil society, and international humanitarian actors. Using data from a total of one year of qualitative fieldwork, the article analyzes disaster governance in 2016 drought-ridden Ethiopia, marked by protests and a State of Emergency; 2015 flooded Myanmar, characterized by explosive identity politics; and 2016–2019 drought-ridden Zimbabwe, with its intense socioeconomic and political turbulence. The study's findings show how framing and power processes in disaster governance—comprising state and non-state actors—largely lean toward the state, with the consequence that political interests, rather than needs assessments, steer who and what will be protected from disaster impact.


Next-generation wireless networks aim at providing substantial improvements in spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE). Massive MIMO has been proved to be a viable technology to achieve these goals by spatially multiplexing several users using many base station (BS) antennas. A potential limitation of massive MIMO in multicell systems is pilot contamination, which arises in the channel estimation process from the interference caused by reusing pilots in neighboring cells. A standard method to reduce pilot contamination, known as regular pilot (RP), is to adjust the length of pilot sequences while transmitting data and pilot symbols disjointly. An alternative method, called superimposed pilot (SP), sends a superposition of pilot and data symbols. This allows use of longer pilots which, in turn, reduces pilot contamination. We consider the uplink of a multicell massive MIMO network, with i.i.d. Rayleigh fading channels, using maximum ratio combining and compare RP and SP in terms of SE and EE. To this end, we derive rigorous closed-form achievable rates with SP under a practical random BS deployment. We prove that the reduction of pilot contamination with SP is outweighed by the additional coherent and non-coherent interference. Numerical results show that when both methods are optimized, RP achieves comparable SE and EE to SP in practical scenarios.


Our present analysis will focus on the S(V)LS mechanism. In the S(V)LS process, silicon nanowires are grown by heating the metal-coated silicon substrate at high temperature in an argon and hydrogen atmosphere. Here, we demonstrate the origin of the driving force needed for the metal supersaturation and calculate the binary phase diagrams of Au-Si nanosystems involved in the growth of nanowires. These new diagrams can be used for other purposes helping to improve the understanding of the physical properties of nanostructures. We also answer the challenging question that many researchers have addressed on whether a minimum size limit of silicon nanowires exists. The nanowire size limit has been evaluated on the basis of thermodynamics and using silicon nanowires obtained via the S(V)LS rather than the VLS mechanism. At 1100°C, the temperature commonly used for the growth of nanowires by the S(V)LS mechanism, it has been found that there is no minimum size limit of nanowires.


Although the primary function of fleshy fruits is to attract seed dispersers, many ripe fruits contain toxic secondary compounds. A number of hypotheses have been proposed to explain this evolutionary paradox, most of which describe the potential adaptive role that secondary compounds may play in seed dispersal. However, some authors have argued that fruit secondary compounds may be nonadaptive and instead explain their occurrence as a pleiotropic consequence of selection for defense of leaves and other tissues. We address these alternative evolutionary hypotheses through a comparative examination of iridoid glycosides in the leaves, unripe fruits, and ripe fruits of Lonicera × bella (Belle's bush honeysuckle), combined with an examination of fruit damage and removal in natural populations. We provide several lines of evidence that fruit secondary compounds cannot be explained solely as a consequence of foliar defense, including higher concentrations and more individual compounds in fruits compared to leaves and a negative relationship between iridoid glycoside concentration and fruit damage. However, we also show that the compositions and concentrations of secondary compounds in leaves and fruits are not entirely independent, emphasizing that selection in different plant parts is intrinsically linked. We conclude that the adaptive significance of chemical traits is best considered in a whole-plant context that includes fruit-frugivore interactions.


: One important limitation on the accuracy of weather forecasts is imposed by unavoidable errors in the specification of the atmosphere's initial state. Much theoretical concern has been focused on the limits to predictability imposed by small-scale errors, potentially even those on the scale of a butterfly. Very modest relative errors at much larger scales may nevertheless pose a more important practical limitation. We demonstrate the importance of large-scale uncertainty by analyzing ensembles of idealized simulations of mesoscale convective systems. We consider several environments with different low-level shears and pairs of ensembles with equal amplitude large- or small-scale perturbations in the sur-face moisture. As foreshadowed by results obtained with a simple barotropic model in a largely overlooked section of Lorenz's classic 1969 paper "The predictability of a flow which possesses many scales of motion," equal-amplitude initial perturbations at wavelengths of 8 and 128 km produce identical losses of predictability after five hours of simulation. These results imply that minimizing initial errors on scales on the order of 100 km is at least as likely to extend the accuracy of forecasts at lead times longer than 4-5 hours than potentially expensive efforts to minimize initial errors on much smaller scales. These simulations also demonstrate that convective systems, triggered in a horizontally homogeneous environment with no initial background circulations, can generate a background mesoscale kinetic energy spectrum with a slope proportional to the -5/3 power of the wave number, similar to that observed in the atmosphere. The horizontally divergent and rotational parts of the kinetic energy spectrum are examined along with their relative contributions to the -5/3 spectrum.


During a 1993 austral spring cruise, a complex biomass was encountered near South Orkney Island that ranged from a low-biomass, Chaetoceros tortissimus assemblage south of the front towards the ice edge, to a high-biomass, Thalassiosira gravida-dominated assemblage at the northern edge. The maximum levels of chlorophyll (Chl) a (up to 6 mg m -3 ) were higher than those observed in previous high-performance liquid chromatography-based studies of pigments in the pelagic Southern Ocean. The non-photosynthetic pigment chlorophyllide a comprised up to 75% of the chlorophyllous pigments in the southern assemblage, but < 5% in the northern assemblage. Concentrations of the xanthophylls diadinoxanthin (DD) and diatoxanthin (DT), used as indicators of mean irradiance, indicated low-light-adapted populations. Low-light DD + DT/Chl a ratios in surface waters indicated that vertical mixing limited phytoplankton residence time in the near-surface layer, and thus limited exposure to maximum irradiance. Deck incubations of natural assemblages indicated that the dark epoxidation reaction (i.e. the return of DT to DD) was a two-step reaction with the initial rate being more rapid (t1/2 = 9.5 min) than the second (t1/2 = 55 min). Fucoxanthin, a major diatom pigment, was more stable chemically in the water column than Chl a, and the vertical profiles of fucoxanthin followed those of chlorophyllide a in some cases. The formation and apparent stability of chloro- phyllide a and fucoxanthin are important considerations when estimating photosynthetically active biomass over large regions of the ocean.


Hundreds of U.S. industrial sites that generate nuclear electricity and manufacture nuclear weapons regularly release radiation to our air, water and soil via the burial of wastes. These same industries are now lobbying for permission from government to release radioactive materials for re-use in consumer products. There is no safe radiation dose. Whether the release is accidental or allowed is irrelevant. This dramatic surge in the release and distribution of radiation, makes it ever more clear that we do not need a nuclear accident to cause disease.


Objectives: Unlike conventional micro-pumps which have valves that fail as they keep flapping twice during each pumping cycle and a separate micro-needle array, through which drug is injected. The design here uses a micro-pump without moving valves and with the micro-needles integrated with the micro-pump itself. Method/Statistical Analysis: The dimensions for the micro-pump and the micro-needles are chosen based on the physical characteristics of the fluid that needs to be pumped (in this case insulin density, viscosity, size of the particles in the fluid etc). The model is constructed and simulated using COMSOL multi-physics software. Findings: The model is simulated to check the volume of liquid pumped during each cycle and to see if the model constructed remains stable when potential is applied to the actuating membrane. The simulation results showed that the micro-pump model constructed is stable under various levels of applied potential (+200V to -200V), results of which are presented in the following sections. It was also observed that the dead volume of fluid that is left in the pumping chamber is less as compared to the conventional model. Application/Improvement: This micro-pump was designed especially for insulin delivery. The actuation method being piezo-electric, the volume of fluid pumped can be altered by varying the frequency of the applied potential or the amplitude of the applied voltage. This model can still be improved if it can be integrated with a glucose sensor. Based on the level of the glucose measured the insulin to be delivered can be altered.


When a person is first diagnosed with diabetes, one of the first questions voiced is "What can I eat?" Many will then attend self-management education classes to learn more a time when, unsurprisingly, adherence to the diet is at an all-time high. Over time however, that adherence declines, with research suggesting that among people with diabetes, long-term adherence to the prescribed diet rarely increases above 50%. Why might this be the case when the consequences of not adhering are clearly reiterated by every health professional they see? Contrary to popular belief, adherence to the diet is impacted by more than just inadequate knowledge or poor food choices. As health professionals, we have a responsibility to appreciate this complexity. Predicting who will be adherent to the diet is very difficult. However current research indicates four factors affecting adherence to the diet for diabetes that I want to discuss ones that might surprise you.


We investigated the mechanism of Na+ reabsorption in exchange for K+ at the xylem/symplast boundary of soybean roots (Glycine max var Hodgson). The xylem vessels of excised roots were perfused with solutions of defined composition to discriminate between entry of ions into or reabsorption from the xylem vessels. In the presence of NaCl, the transport systems released K+ into the xylem sap and reabsorbed Na+. The Na+-K+ exchange was energized by proton-translocating ATPases, enhanced by external K+ concentration, and dependent on the anion permeability. Evidence was presented for the operation of H+/Na+ and H+/K+ antiporters at the xylem/symplast interface.


In an abstract argumentation framework, there are often multiple plausible ways to evaluate (or label) the status of each argument as accepted, rejected, or undecided. But often there exists a critical set of arguments whose status is sufficient to determine uniquely the status of every other argument. Once an agent has decided its position on a critical set of arguments, then essentially the entire framework has been evaluated. Likewise, once a group, e.g. a jury, agrees on the status of a critical set of arguments, all of their different views over all other arguments are resolved. Thus, critical sets of arguments are important both for efficient evaluation by individual agents and for collective agreement by groups of such. To exploit this idea in practice, however, a number of computational questions must be considered. In particular, how much computational effort is needed to verify that a set is, indeed, a critical set or a minimal critical set. In this paper we determine exact bounds on the computational complexity of these and related questions. In addition we provide similar analyses of issues: a concept closely related to critical set and derived in terms of (equivalence) classes of arguments related through "common" labelling behaviours.


Due to the great economic importance of coconut palm in Brazil and the development of a coconut breeding program intended to produce intravarietal hybrids, the present work aimed to ease the production of hybrids with the same morphological heritage. DNA was extracted from leaf samples of 13 dwarf coconut populations from Brazil, and PCR amplification was performed using 21 previously selected microsatellites. Furthermore, this study selected nine microsatellite markers with the potential to identify Green Dwarf x Yellow Dwarf hybrids and 16 microsatellites with the potential to identify Red Dwarf x Yellow Dwarf hybrids. In conclusion, SSR marker based on DNA Fingerprinting allowed the accurate identification of legitimate intravarietal hybrids since, for those crosses, the methodology of identification based on seedling color is not a viable alternative.


PUBLIC NOTICE IS GIVEN that the City Council members have been invited to attend the first T-Bone Sweep of 2015. The Sweep will begin at 520 Olive Street on January 7, 2015. The Sweep will cover areas from I-49 to I-20 to Gilbert and Kings Highway to Market Street. The Sweep will end at 12 noon at the Property Standards office, 1025 Shreveport-Barksdale Highway, with a discussion of the Sweep and Property Standards issues. No other business will be conducted at this meeting and no formal action will be taken.


: The detrimental effect of ocean acidification (OA) on marine animals with carbonate exoskeletons or shells is an issue drawing increased attention in marine biology and ecology, yet few studies have focused on the impact on gelatinous organisms like scyphozoan medusae. Here, we examined the physiological tolerance of Cassiopea sp., an abundant genus of scyphozoans valuable for their role as bioindicators and for having similarities to other cnidarians, to OA by conducting three, 12-week trials using CO 2 diffusers and electronic pH controllers to incrementally lower the water to test pHs of 7.5 and 7.0. The impact of reduced pH on the survival, pulse rate, bell diameter, and reorientation and settlement abilities of Cassiopea sp. medusae were measured weekly. Cassiopea sp. was tolerant to pH 7.5 while further reduction of the pH to 7.0 resulted in 22.22% mortality rate, which was significantly different from the control and treatment pH 7.5. Significant differences between the treatment pH 7.0 and control first occurred on day 23.5 with a 50% reduction in the pulse rate, and on day 36 with a 16.6% reduction in bell diameter, while pH 7.5 had no effect. By the final time point of 66 days in treatment pH 7.0, there was an 87% reduction in pulse rate and a 36% reduction in bell diameter versus control. Reduced pH 7.0 caused bell malformations, inhibited swimming abilities, and deterioration of the oral arm feeding apparatus, but had no effect on the orientation and settlement assay. Observations indicate that asexual reproduction via planuloid production and strobilation was unaffected by pH reduction, though polyps in treatment pH 7.0 gave rise to ephyrae with inverted bells. Combined, findings from this study demonstrate Cassiopea sp. to be resilient to the end of century ocean acidity prediction of pH 7.6, and vulnerable to more severe OA to pH 7.0.


AIMS
This paper examines phenomenography, a research approach designed to answer certain questions about how people make sense of their experience. The research approach, developed within educational research, is a content-related approach investigating the different qualitative ways in which people make sense of the world around them. The outcomes of phenomenographic research are different content-related categories describing the differences in other people's ways of experiencing and conceiving their world.

METHODS
The research approach is presented by describing the underlying ontological and epistemological assumptions, describing the research method in detail and providing some examples of phenomengraphic studies in health care and nursing research. The possibilities for applying the methodology to nursing research are discussed, illustrated by research examples. Finally, the future role of the approach within nursing research is discussed.

CONCLUSION
The emphasis on differences in the phenomenographical research approach makes it distinct from other research approaches, and accordingly, it seems to be reasonable to incorporate knowledge of this kind in the professional education of health care personnel.


Electronic capture of patient records, including digital imaging, facilitates: i) collaboration and communication between providers and entities involved in patient care, ii) compilation of lifetime patient histories that are more accessible to treating physicians, and iii) aggregation of population data for evidence-based medicine and creation of decision support tools. The Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record (EHR) Incentive Programs and associated Meaningful Use (MU) requirements are a driving force in the evolution towards digitized patient recordkeeping. For the foreseeable future, MU will continue to exert pressure on EHR vendors, hospitals, and ambulatory practices to conform to increasingly stringent government reporting requirements or else face obsolescence and/or reduced fees for services. This is encouraging many practices - including radiology and digital imaging centers - that may have opted out of MU compliance in the past - to re-examine how they integrate their work flows with EHR systems and with other physicians and treatment facilities. This paper describes digital imaging technology and strategies to interface and integrate it with EHR systems and clinical work flows. A case study based on the open source electronic health record software, OpenEMR, is presented as an illustrative example of challenges integrating imaging and EHR technology across and between clinical practices. The case study demonstrates how poor EHR integration with picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) and radiology information systems (RIS) complicates and adds to the clinician work flow and reduces the diagnostic value of imaging data. EHR, PACS, and RIS vendors need to improve system interoperability and image sharing capabilities in their product offerings. Better, more complete standards are needed to enable this to happen. DICOM, HL7, IHE, and other standards are evolving to address gaps in data integration and continuity across the spectrum of health information technology used in patient care. This will alleviate burdens on healthcare professionals and information technology staff who must use and implement systems infrastructure while maintaining compliance with Meaningful Use (MU) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This is essential to achieving technology's promise of optimized healthcare delivery.


This document provides an overview of renewable resource potential at Fort Campbell, based primarily upon analysis of secondary data sources supplemented with limited on-site evaluations. This effort focuses on grid-connected generation of electricity from renewable energy sources and also on ground source heat pumps for heating and cooling buildings. The effort was funded by the U.S. Army Installation Management Command (IMCOM) as follow-on to the 2005 Department of Defense (DoD) Renewables Assessment. The site visit to Fort Campbell took place on June 10, 2010.


The introduction of agile methods at scale entails unique concerns such as inter-team coordination, dependencies to other organizational units, or distribution of work without a defined architecture. Compared to the rich body of agile software development literature describing typical challenges and best practices, recurring concerns and patterns in large-scale agile development are not yet documented extensively. We aim to fill this gap by presenting a pattern language for large-scale agile software development as part of our larger research initiative in close collaboration with 10 companies. The structure and practical relevance of the proposed language were evaluated by 14 interviews. In this paper, we showcase our pattern language by presenting four patterns.


Background: Over the past two decades there has been a substantial increase in environmental levels of palladium, platinum, and rhodium, the platinum group elements (PGEs), due to the widespread use of catalytic converters for automotive traction. Aim: To evaluate urinary platinum levels in occupationally exposed subjects. Methods: A total of 161 employees from the Rome City Police Force were studied; 103 were traffic police involved in controlling streets with an average flow of vehicles, while the remaining 58 were control subjects engaged only in office work. Platinum quantification in the urine samples of these subjects was carried out by sector field inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Results: There were no statistically significant differences between platinum levels in the group of subjects engaged in traffic control and the control group (4.45 (2.42) ng/l v 4.56 (2.84) ng/l, respectively). Conclusions: Urinary levels were found to be higher than those reported for other urban populations, thus showing a progressive increase in human exposure to Pt.


This dataset provides a U.S. national 60-meter, 19-class mapping of anthropogenic land uses for five time periods: 1974, 1982, 1992, 2002, and 2012. The 2012 dataset is based on a slightly modified version of the National Land Cover Database 2011 (NLCD 2011) that was recoded to a schema of land uses, and mapped back in time to develop datasets for the four earlier eras. The time periods coincide with U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Census of Agriculture data collection years. Changes are derived from (a) known changes in water bodies from reservoir construction or removal; (b) housing unit density changes; (c) regional mining/extraction trends; (d) for 1999–2012, timber and forestry activity based on U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools (Landfire) data; (e) county-level USDA Census of Agriculture change in cultivated land; and (f) establishment dates of major conservation areas. The data are compared to several other published studies and datasets as validation. Caveats are provided about limitations of the data for some classes. The work was completed as part of the USGS National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program and termed the NAWQA Wall-to-Wall Anthropogenic Land Use Trends (NWALT) dataset. The associated datasets include five 60-meter geospatial rasters showing anthropogenic land use for the years 1974, 1982, 1992, 2002, and 2012, and 14 rasters showing the annual extent of timber clearcutting and harvest from 1999 to 2012.


The need to 'raise aspirations' among young people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds has been prominent in UK policy debates over the last decade. This paper examines how this discourse is negotiated and contested by teachers and pupils in a Scottish secondary school. Interviews, group discussions and observations were analysed by drawing on Foucauldian discourse analysis. The analysis exposes contradictions and silences inherent in dominant discourses of aspiration, most notably the tension between the promise and the impossibility of 'success' for all. It is argued that attempts to reconcile this tension by calling on young people to maximise individual 'potential' through attitude change silence the social construction of 'success' and 'failure'. The paper concludes with suggesting ways in which schools could embrace the contradictions underpinning dominant 'raising aspiration' discourses and adopt a more critical-sociological approach in working with young people.


Existing in suboptimal conditions is a frequent occurrence for species inhabiting the cusp of their ecological range. In range‐edge populations of plants, the scarcity of suitable habitat may be reflected in small population sizes which may result in increased self‐pollination and/or inbreeding and an increase in the incidence of clonal reproduction. These factors may result in a decrease in levels of genetic diversity and a loss of potential adaptive variation that may compromise species' ability to cope with changes in their environment, an issue that is particularly relevant today with the current concern surrounding global climate change and its effect on species' distributional ranges. In the present study, we have compared the levels of clonal reproduction in the one‐sided wintergreen Orthilia secunda (L.) House in (1) populations from its main continuous distribution range, (2) populations occurring on the limits of the continuous range, and (3) peripheral populations outwith the species' continuous distribution range. Range‐edge populations in Scotland and Sweden displayed significantly lower genotypic richness and diversity than those from the main area of the species' distribution in these countries. Populations from Ireland, which occur in the temperate zone rather than the boreal conditions that are the preferred habitat for the species, and which represent relict populations left over from cooler periods in the Earth's history, displayed no within‐population genetic diversity, suggesting a complete lack of sexual reproduction. Furthermore, the genetic distinctiveness of the Irish populations, which contained alleles not found in either the Scottish or the Swedish populations, highlights the value of 'trailing edge' populations and supports the concept of 'parochial conservation', namely the conservation of species that are locally rare but globally common.


Introduction The specific muscles contributing to power production and/or stabilisation during arm crank ergometry (ACE) have been examined (Smith et al., 2008: Journal of Electromyography & Kinesiology, 18, 598–605). To the authors knowledge these muscles have not been examined during Wingate anaerobic testing (WAnT) for ACE. Therefore, the purpose of the research was to examine EMG during WAnT for ACE. Methods Following institutional ethical approval thirteen male students (Age 21.9, s = 7.0 years) volunteered to participated in this study. Each participant completed five seated upper body WAnTs using a table mounted cycle ergometer (Monark 894E, Monark Exercise AB, Sweden) using 2, 3, 4 and 5% body mass (BM) as resistive loads. The order of testing was randomised with a minimum of 24-h between tests. The first test, 4% BM, was a familiarisation session. Before each test a standardised warm-up including three 3-4 s practise sprints against 4% BM was completed. Corrected and uncorrected peak power (PP; over 1 s duration) and mean power (MP; over 29 s duration) were recorded using Cranlea UK Wingate software (version 4.0). During the warm-up sprints the peak EMG (3-4 s) was used to normalise the WAnT EMG data. Data were recorded using double-differential (16-3000Hz bandwidth, x300 gain), bipolar, active electrodes (MP-2A, Linton, Norfolk, UK). The average root-mean-square (RMS) value for each muscle was calculated over 250-ms, for each trial. The following sites were examined: flexor carpi ulnaris (FCU), biceps brachii (BB), triceps brachii lateral (TB), anterior deltoid (AD), infraspinatus (I), external oblique (EO), vastus medialis (VM) and lateral soleus (LS). Statistical analysis: EMG data at peak power and fatigue were analysed by general linear model (SPSS 17.0) with Bonferroni correction. Significance was accepted with P < 0.05. Effect size range .010 to .312 (eta squared). Results At the end of the test (29 s) there were significant differences in normalised EMG responses for, AD at 5% versus 2, 3 and 4%, BB at 5% versus 2 and 3%, TB at 5% versus 2% and 2% versus 3% and OE 2% versus 4 and 5%. Peak power BB was significantly different at 2% versus 5% and approached significance (P=0.068) for EO. There were no significant differences between trials for the remaining muscles although at 29 s FCU at 5% versus 2% and TB 2 versus 4% approached significance (P = 0.057 and P = 0.081 respectively). Discussion During WAnT ACE at 29 s the AD appears to contribute an increasing role to arm stabilisation and/or power produced. Greater EMG activity at 2 vs 5% BM loads represents greater muscular effort. Conclusion The results suggest lower loads (2% BM), may be better for shoulder injury rehabilitation, whereas, a 4 or 5% BM load is suggested for power training. BB and EO may contribute a significant proportion to power production towards the end of the WAnT.


Increasing pulmonary arterial (Ppa) and wedge (Pw) pressures at high flow (Q) during exercise could distend the thin-walled vessels. A mechanical descriptor of vascular distension, the distensibility (alpha, fractional diameter change/mmHg pressure), has been reported to be approximately 0.02 for isolated large and small arteries, i.e., a 2% change in diameter per millimeter mercury pressure. In this review we used a pulmonary hemodynamic model to estimate alpha for data from exercising humans to determine whether interpretable results might be obtained. In 59 normal sea level subjects having published measurements of Ppa and Pw over a range of Q, we found values of alpha (0.02 +/- 0.002) giving calculated Ppa, which matched measured Ppa to within 1.3 +/- 0.1 (SE) mmHg. When subjects were exposed to chronic hypoxia (n = 6, in Operation Everest II), alpha decreased (0.022 +/- 0.002 vs. 0.008 +/- 0.001, P < 0.05), but when subjects were exposed to acute hypoxia (Duke chamber study, n = 8), alpha did not decrease (0.014 +/- 0.002 vs. 0.012 +/- 0.002, P = not significant). Values of alpha tended to decrease with age in men >60 yr. Thus at rest and during exercise, normal values of alpha in young persons were similar to those measured in vitro, and the values decreased in chronic hypoxia and with aging where vascular remodeling or vascular wall stiffening was expected. We propose that the estimation of pulmonary vascular distensibility in humans may be a useful descriptor of pulmonary hemodynamics.


Charged-particle jet yields have been measured in semicentral Pb$-$Pb collisions at center-of-mass energy per nucleon-nucleon collision $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 5$ TeV with the ALICE detector at the LHC. These yields are reported as a function of the jet transverse momentum, and further classified by their angle with respect to the event plane and the event shape, characterized by ellipticity, in an effort to study the path-length dependence of jet quenching. Jets were reconstructed at midrapidity from charged-particle tracks using the anti-$k_{\rm T}$ algorithm with resolution parameters $R =$ 0.2 and 0.4, with event-plane angle and event-shape values determined using information from forward scintillating detectors. The results presented in this letter show that, in semicentral Pb$-$Pb collisions, there is no significant difference between jet yields in predominantly isotropic and elliptical events. However, out-of-plane jets are observed to be more suppressed than in-plane jets. Further, this relative suppression is greater for low transverse momentum ($<$ 50 GeV/$c$) $R =$ 0.2 jets produced in elliptical events, with out-of-plane to in-plane jet-yield ratios varying up to 5.2$\sigma$ between different event-shape classes. These results agree with previous studies indicating that jets experience azimuthally anisotropic suppression when traversing the QGP medium, and can provide additional constraints on the path-length dependence of jet energy loss.


In this work we present a real-time approach to capture the properties of staircases from a free moving, head mounted stereo-camera. A variety of systems can profit from such ability, examples range from robots in multi-floor exploration scenarios to wearable assistance systems for the visually impaired. We introduce a light-weight method to measure the individual steps and use this information to update a minimal stair model while approaching and traversing the stair. Results are evaluated on an in- and outdoor scenario and show competitive accuracy to state of the art approaches working on precise lidar-sensors.


Even if reactions to foreign goods are measured by means of various conceptual structures, few studies approach the question from the point of view of boycotts. Responding to this scarcity and with the aid of netnography, this study examines antecedents of consumer boycotts of foreign goods. The study considers the degree to what a measurement model is useful for examining this boycott process. When the study examines the boycotting of foreign goods as an individual or social process, the study examines the phenomena of nationalism, xenophobia, country-of-origin, and ethnocentrism as antecedents. The conversion of the dimensions obtained from discourse analysis into items and that were tested by means of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis lead to two discoveries: 1) three basic dimensions – hate against foreign products, citizen consumers and economic independence - influenced decisions to boycott and 2) the second-order model (all constructs load on one construct as consumer boycotting) was more valid than the three first-order models.


Modern analytic methods enable finite strain states on the scale of a hand specimen and textures on a much smaller scale to be determined in some rocks, together with error measures. Some recent publications describe attempts to calculate finite strain states from observed textures of phyllosilicates in slates. Petrographic, finite strain and textural data for several slates are presented, which suggest that such calculations are in fact often impossible and in general give inconsistent and erroneous results. The reasons for this are discussed, and it is suggested that there are no simple relations between finite strain states and textures in slates.


In geometric morphometrics, the extent of variation attributable to non-biological causes (i.e. measurement error) is sometimes overlooked. The effects of this variation on downstream statistical analyses are also largely unknown. In particular, it is unclear whether specimen preservation induces substantial variation in shape and whether such variation affects downstream statistical inference. Using a combination of empirical fish body shape data and realistic simulations, we show that preservation introduces substantial artefactual variation and significant non-random error (i.e. bias). Most changes in shape occur when fresh fish are frozen and thawed, whereas a smaller change in shape is observed when frozen and thawed fish are fixed in formalin and transferred to ethanol. Surprisingly, we also show that, in our case, preservation produces only minor effects on three downstream analyses of shape variation: classification using canonical variate analysis, permutation tests of differences in means and computations of differences in mean shape between groups. Even mixing of differently preserved specimens has a relatively small effect on downstream analyses. However, we suggest that mixing fish with different preservation should still be avoided and discuss the conditions in which this practice might be justified.


Delay tolerant networks (DTNs) are a special type of intermittently connected networks (ICN) featured by variable delay, frequent disruption, asymmetric data rates, and high-error rates. The DTNs have been primarily developed for interplanetary networks (IPNs), however, it shows applicability to challenged networks. Thus, solutions devised for security and routing for traditional networks do not apply to DTNs due to its unique nature. Moreover, this paper shows less attention particularly in security and its related strings. In DTNs, malicious nodes launch various attacks that include packet drop, a fake packet, and flood attack. These attacks inevitably overuse scarce resources (bandwidth, buffer, and energy) in DTNs, which leads to low packet delivery ratio and high packet loss ratio. Flood attack is listed in top among the challenging attacks in DTNs. The existing techniques to confront flood attack suffered from high-detection time and low-detection accuracy. This paper proposed novel resources efficient (distributed and intrusion detection system-based) algorithms to mitigate flood attack. The simulation results show considerable improvement in detection time, detection accuracy, and resource consumption, and also show enhanced packet delivery ratio and reduced packet loss ratio.


Abstract High housing density has been considered a stressor that is detrimental to couples' relationships. However, empirical research on this topic has been mixed, which might be due to the fact that not all couples respond to density in the same way. We contribute to the literature by not only considering separation as a potential reaction to density but also moving to a new place. Moreover, we combine insights from different theoretical models to explain how couples react differently to an overcrowded home, depending upon their resources. For our analyses, we use the German Family Panel PAIRFAM (10 waves, 2008/09 to 2017/18) with a sample of N = 4180 couples, of which 484 experience a move and 488 a separation. Applying competing risk models, we find that vulnerable groups such as the poor and the low-educated are significantly more likely than others to separate when in a dense home rather than to stay in the same dwelling.