An innovative architectural platform demonstrating transparent transmission of frequency division multiplexed (FDM) WiMAX channels over multi-wavelength splitter-PONs enriched by overlapping cell functionalities has been investigated to potentially double the spectral efficiency and provide resilience. The obtained results has demonstrated EVMs below -30 dB at ONU/BS WiMAX remote antenna inputs and 4 dB downstream power penalty for 10-6 BERs over line-of-sight overlapping micro-cells circumference without any error coding. In addition, to accommodate various delay requirements a dynamic multi-wavelength (DMW) protocol suite is examined demonstrating a minimum of 100 Mbit/s bandwidth provision for each of 32 ONUs with a maximum 0.085 s packet delay for the worst-performing lower service level agreement (SLA) ONUs.


Background Violence against women and girls has gained international recognition as a public health concern, with profound negative impact on personal and community health. Domestic violence expirienced 47% females older than 15 year during lifetime in Bosnia and Herzegovina. From 96% women physically injured just 20% were looking for physician's help, according to the mentioned survey. Health staff has an important role in the intersectorial chain of prevention and as part of the solution. Many international documents recommend and request health professionals engagement in intimate partner violence in different medical settings. Pharmacist as health care providers are videly awailable but usually not recognized as part of the violence solution. Even less is known about their attitudes and opinion related to the violence topics. Objective This study assessed the perception of domestic violence topic among pharmacist on internal-ship in public health education. Method This is cross sectional study conducted by short questionnaire and group discussion among 200 participants during 10 months period in Federal Public Health Institute Sarajevo. Results and discussion This are the first research in B and H, among internationaly scare professional literature that is aimed at pharmacists and thir perception of family violence Participants were mostly female, under 30 years, with the prevalence of less than a 1 year of professional career, but with several months expirience from the community pharmacy. Near 70% expressed profesisonal importance of the topic for their practice. Participants have had more private than professional expirience about the violence issues. Participants just partly knew about obligation to reprot violence, mostly were refering to the social service, NGO's shelter services and less to the police. Conclusion Results indicated that there is unsuffitient previous undergraduate education about violence, but linked to pharmacists practice. There is interest and willingness to participate in additional and continuing education about the domestic violence among majority of participants.


ANALYSIS OF MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF BREAKFAST CEREALS DURING PROCESS OF MILK ABSORPTION. Breakfast cereals are products extrudate, starch-based, which traditionally are consumed with milk. The crispness of these products has been associated to the freshness and quality and their loss has been one of the causes of rejection by consumers. Undesirable textural changes may occur when these cereals are exposed to the atmospheric environment or are soaked in liquid medium. The physical structure of these cereals has a great influence in the moisture diffusion, therefore their high porosity and hygroscopic behavior imply in increase of the diffusivity of the milk and increase of the water activity, gaining moisture quickly and loosing their desirable brittle texture, becoming soggy. This behavior could be related to a transition from the glassy solid state to rubbery liquid state. In this work the behavior of three commercial breakfast cereals were analyzed, the mass diffusion coefficients were determined, besides the texture change of these products, using mechanical properties, which were related to the time of immersion in milk. The variation of water activity values, at equilibrium, of cereal samples immersed in milk was determined to quantify the critical time and the water activity value in that the commercial breakfast cereals became soggy.


Deforestation is the act of cutting down or burning the trees in an area. Soil erosion is being caused by widespread deforestation. Deforestation is contributor to global warming and is often cited as one of major causes for the enhancement of green house effect. It could account for one third of total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission. Recent findings suggest that carbon dioxide emission due to deforestation contribute about 12% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission with a range from 6-17%. Tress and other plants remove carbon in the form of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during the process of photosynthesis and release oxygen back into the atmosphere. Both the decay and burning wood releases much of these stored carbon back to atmosphere. Deforestation may cause carbon stores held in soil to be released. In deforestation areas, the land heats up faster and reaches a high temperature leading to localized upward motions that enhance the forest of clouds and ultimately produce more rainfall. Producing emissions from the tropical deforestation. REDD, has emerged as new potential to complement ongoing climate policies. Global warming refers the rising average temperature of earth's atmosphere and oceans. Climate model projections are summarized in 2007. Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) by IPCC indicates that during 21st century the global surface temperature is likely to rise a further 1.1 to 2.9oC (2 to 5.2oF) for their lowest emission scenario and 2.4 to 6.4oC (4.3 to 11.5oF) for their highest. The ranges of these estimates arise from the use of models with differing sensitivity to Green house gases (GHG) concentrations. GHG can stay in the atmosphere for an amount of years ranging from decades to hundreds and thousands of years. Five deadliest effects of global warming are: (i) Polar ice cap melting, (ii) Economic consequences, (iii) Increased probability and intensity of droughts and heat eaves, (iv) Warmer waters and more hurricanes and (v) Spread diseases. Government of India and Indian citizens have cautiously to take preventive measures otherwise A. Bhartendu: Deforestation 1732 Causing Global Warming and…. places and famous towns of India like Mumbai, Goa, Kolkata, Puri, Vishakhapatnam, Chennai, Pondicherry etc., are, very soon, going to be under water due to the effects of global warming. Forest are able to extract carbon dioxide and pollutants from the air, thus, contributing to biospheres stability.


OBJECTIVE
To examine the effects of policy, health system, and sociodemographic characteristics on the likelihood that uninsured persons pay a lower price at their regular source of care, or that they are aware of lower priced providers in their community.

DATA SOURCES
The 2003 Community Tracking Study household survey, a nationally representative sample of the U.S. population and 60 randomly selected communities.

STUDY DESIGN
The survey asked uninsured persons if they paid full or reduced cost at their usual source of medical care, or if they were aware of providers in their community that charge less for uninsured people. We use binomial and multinomial logistic regression analysis to examine the effects of various policy, health system, and sociodemographic characteristics on use and awareness of lower priced providers. We focus especially on the effects of safety-net capacity, measured by safety-net hospitals, community health centers, physicians' charity care, and Community Access Program (CAP) grants.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS
Less than half of the uninsured (47.5 percent) reported that they used or were aware of a lower priced provider in their community. Multivariate regression analysis shows that greater safety-net capacity is associated with a higher likelihood of having a lower priced provider as the regular source of care and greater awareness of lower priced providers. Lower incomes and racial/ethnic minorities also had a higher likelihood of having a lower priced provider, although health status did not have statistically significant effects.

CONCLUSION
Although increased safety-net capacity may lead to more uninsured having a lower priced provider, many uninsured who live near safety-net providers are not aware of their presence. Greater outreach designed to increase awareness may be needed in order to increase the effectiveness of safety-net providers in improving access to care for the uninsured.


Accurate methods to estimate the aboveground biomass (AGB) of mangroves are required to monitor the subtle changes over time and assess their carbon sequestration. The AGB of forests is a function of canopy-related information (canopy density, vegetation status), structures, and tree heights. However, few studies have attended to integrating these factors to build models of the AGB of mangrove plantations. The objective of this study was to develop an accurate and robust biomass estimation of mangrove plantations using Chinese satellite optical, SAR, and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) data based digital surface models (DSM). This paper chose Qi'ao Island, which forms the largest contiguous area of mangrove plantation in China, as the study area. Several field visits collected 127 AGB samples. The models for AGB estimation were developed using the random forest algorithm and integrating images from multiple sources: optical images from Gaofen-2 (GF-2), synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images from Gaofen-3 (GF-3), and UAV-based digital surface model (DSM) data. The performance of the models was assessed using the root-mean-square error (RMSE) and relative RMSE (RMSEr), based on five-fold cross-validation and stratified random sampling approach. The results showed that images from the GF-2 optical (RMSE = 33.49 t/ha, RMSEr = 21.55%) or GF-3 SAR (RMSE = 35.32 t/ha, RMSEr = 22.72%) can be used appropriately to monitor the AGB of the mangrove plantation. The AGB models derived from a combination of the GF-2 and GF-3 datasets yielded a higher accuracy (RMSE = 29.89 t/ha, RMSEr = 19.23%) than models that used only one of them. The model that used both datasets showed a reduction of 2.32% and 3.49% in RMSEr over the GF-2 and GF-3 models, respectively. On the DSM dataset, the proposed model yielded the highest accuracy of AGB (RMSE = 25.69 t/ha, RMSEr = 16.53%). The DSM data were identified as the most important variable, due to mitigating the saturation effect observed in the optical and SAR images for a dense AGB estimation of the mangroves. The resulting map, derived from the most accurate model, was consistent with the results of field investigations and the mangrove plantation sequences. Our results indicated that the AGB can be accurately measured by integrating images from the optical, SAR, and DSM datasets to adequately represent canopy-related information, forest structures, and tree heights.


Generally, waste management in major cities in Indonesia are still relying on landfilling that requiring large land and continue to grow along with the increasing volume of waste generation from day to day. Meanwhile the land where the final disposal (landfill) of waste in large cities increasingly limited. This study aims to develop a model of waste management through waste reduction, ranging from the source. There are several criteria and sub-criteria that should be considered in developing a model that negative impacts arising can be minimized.Based on the results of previous studies, using Analytical Network Process (ANP), the chosen model for the handling of waste is individual models on a scale of RT/RW. In order to implement this model required an appropriate institutional because it involves community participation as the key to success. By using  Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) showed that the treatment of urban waste must be oriented on raising awareness of the public to maintain cleanliness and environmental health through the concept of 3R (reduce, reuse and recycle). To overcome the obstacles faced during the Local Government should need to restructure the organization of waste management by establishing a Public Service Board/BLUD business Waste and Waste ManagementCommissionoftheCity/KPSK. KEYWORDS Volume of waste generation, Public Service Board


The publication and mathematical model upon which this ABM is based shows one mechanism that can lead to stable behavioral and cultural traits between groups. A fitness advantage is conferred on interacting agents when they share the same behavioral norms or beliefs. However, agents are not able see another agent's behavior prior to interacting. Only an external marker trait is visible. With a probability of interacting with an agent that shares the same marker, the agents with the greatest fitness tend to survive generations, and distinct behaviors (culture) and markings (ethnicity) can become fixed within populations and become stably fixed in contrast to neighboring populations.

Due to constraints of the original mathematical model, accurate replication of model results in this ABM requires minimum group sizes of at least 1000 agents. Performance of this model under Netlogo is very limited with these group sizes.


We review recent investigations of nonlinear carrier transport and related optical nonlinearities in GaAs and InP crystals for the case in which photoexcited carriers are nonuniformly heated by a strong external electric field and are redistributed in a spatially nonuniform internal electric field. We simulated the nonequilibrium carrier and internal field spatial evolution in picosecond and nanosecond time domains and estimated criteria for bipolar high-field Gunn-domain grating formation in dc and ac fields. The coexisting refractive-index modulation mechanisms for free-carrier and electro-optic nonlinearities are analyzed for various external field strengths, grating periods, and excitation levels, thus providing conditions for an efficient and fast electro-optic refractive-index modulation by the transient Gunn-domain grating. Comparison of the experimentally observed enhancement of light's self-diffraction efficiency with numerical calculations has confirmed that the nonresonant electro-optic Gunn-domain-based nonlinearity may exceed the free-carrier nonlinearity.


Three alpha-glucosidases which passed under the names of transglucosidase (from Aspergillus niger), maltase (from Brewers yeast), and isomaltase (from Bakers yeast) for reasons of their substrate specificities and transfer actions, were purified to electrophoretically pure states. These purified alpha-glucosidases were made uniform in the hydrolyzing activities using p-nitrophenyl alpha-glucopyranoside (alpha-p-NPG) and were reacted with p-nitrophenyl alpha-xylopyranoside (alpha-p-NPX) or isoprimeverose (xylopyranosyl-alpha-1,6-glucopyranose), which are typical substrates of alpha-xylosidase. Only Asp. niger alpha-glucosidase among them hydrolyzed alpha-p-NPX and isoprimeverose. Further the substrate specificities of three alpha-glucosidases and two alpha-xylosidases (I and II from Asp. flavus MO-5) were investigated on maltose, isomaltose, alpha-p-NPG, isoprimeverose, and alpha-p-NPX in detail, and kinetic parameters [Km, Vmax, and molecular activity (Ko)] were estimated and compared with each other. In the comparison of kinetic parameters, Asp. niger alpha-glucosidase showed a broad specificity, that is, containing isoprimeverose in addition to maltose, isomaltose, and alpha-p-NPG. Though this enzyme barely hydrolyzed alpha-p-NPX too, the velocity was very slow. Though both yeast alpha-glucosidases barely hydrolyzed alpha-p-NPX or isoprimeverose too, these substrates were not good for yeast enzymes. On the other hand, two alpha-xylosidases showed narrow specificities, such that the substrates except for alpha-p-NPX and isoprimeverose were not hydrolyzed at all. The action on isoprimerose by Asp. niger alpha-glucosidase was completely the same as that on isomaltose at optimum pH, optimum temperature, inhibition pattern of hydrolyzing activity by 1-deoxynojirimycin, and transfer action pattern. Accordingly, we interpret these results as indicating that the hydrolyzations of isomaltose and isoprimeverose by Asp. niger alpha-glucosidase were catalyzed at the same active site. Asp. niger enzyme that has both alpha-glucosidase activity and alpha-xylosidase activity was shown to be classified in a middle position between alpha-glucosidase and alpha-xylosidase.


Abstract For students, the need to fully understand the geographical and historical layout of their societies has grown remarkably in today's dwindling world. Social Studies is one of the programs aiming to meet this need. Innovations in technology have led to searching new ways within Social Studies education, and now it seems highly likely to set up branch special classes at schools. This studyaims to determine teachers' opinions regarding materials and environment to be used in Social Studies classes. Being qualitative in nature, the research has been conducted through semi-structured interviews. The opinions of social studies and classroom teachers have beer investigated via the use of triangulation technigue and maximum variation sampling method. The study has beer analyzed through descriptive methods. The findings have focused on environment, Social Studies classroom at schools, social and physical environment, and using electronic, graphical, three-dimensional, visual and prmtec materials within the classroom. Key Words Social Studies, Social Studies Classroom, Environment and Materials for Social Studies Education Students' need to get to know the world's geographical and historical background has been growing as the world itself has dwindled more and more in recent years. Meeting this need of students' will tremendously contribute to their future efforts in order to make right decisions. Within the scope of Social Studies, which primarily aims to furnish individuals with necessary skills, activities directed to recognizing maps better, questioning the historical events; hence understanding how those events have affected the current life in our world should be conducted (Benscoter & Harris, 2003). Therefore, branch specific classes can be arranged at schools (Martorella, 1998). Being more advanced as opposed to general classroom settings, these classes have been suggested to realize skills and aims outlined in Social Studies instructional program for a long time (Brett, 1996; Martorella). According to Capron and Halley (1972), a Social Studies class can be described as a room where students go during or after school time for Social Studies specific activities. This offers students who are interested in Social Studies a place where they can use their time and energy effectively. The environment and materials inside the class can lessen the load over Social Studies course, and can help students learn more efficiently (Cunningham & Allington, 2003). Technology based learning in the Social Studies class augments students' skills to make decisions, solve problems, search, cooperate and communicate within Social Studies course (Bennett & Scholes, 2001; Mason et al., 2000; Whitworth & Berson, 2003). Being the theoretical background of Social Studies instructional program of 2004, the constructivist approach underpins the importance of student-centered methods. The new program requires that many activities be carried out with specific materials and through various methods (Tarman, 2011). These indicate that Social Studies class is valuable for the new program as well. Literature holds many studies (Acun & Kamber, 2007; Kaya & Ersoy 2007) pointing that the inadequacy of materials at schools endangers constructivist teaching of Social Studies. Built in accordance with classical behaviorist approach and teacher centered perspective, general classrooms make it difficult for students and teachers to adapt the constructivist approach. True for most of general classrooms, this reality contradicts with student centered and constructivist educational activities (Cepni, Bacanak, & Gokdere, 2001; Tarman). In this sense, the Social Studies class can be termed as "a dynamic environment suitable to conduct activities in order to equip individuals with knowledge, skills, and values relevant to the course by means of the materials specific to Social Studies instruction". Based on Dewey (1916), Friedman and Hicks (2006) have stated that education is the process of rearranging, configuring, and converting. …


Reputation can significantly improve the level of cooperation in human societies. In recent years, most research efforts considered binary image scores or first-order evaluation models, and second-order criteria were considered only in well-mixed populations. In this paper, we therefore study the impact of four typical second-order reputation evaluation models in the spatial prisoner's dilemma game. Second-order reputation evaluation entails that an individual's image score is updated not only in accordance with his own strategy, but also in accordance with the reputation of the neighbors. We introduce a value for the reputation step length such that individuals can only maximize their reputation if they cooperate with the surrounding high-reputation individuals, and then thus become influential individuals in the population. By means of systematic Monte Carlo simulations, we show that all four rules promote cooperation beyond spatial reciprocity in the considered prisoner's dilemma game, and we also show that the longer the reputation step length the higher the level of cooperation. These results shed light on how reputation in structured populations affects cooperative behavior, and they might have important implications for human group dynamics and for cooperation in human societies in general.


Keynote paper presented at the International Leucaena Conference, 1‒3 November 2018, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.A study was conducted during 2013–2017 to evaluate the potential of 5 cultivars/experimental lines of leucaena (Leucaena leucocephala) at 2 sites in Northern Inland NSW. In this frost-prone, summer-dominant rainfall region, all cultivars/lines established well and survival was >70% at Bingara and >95% at Manilla. Cultivars Wondergraze and Cunningham were the most productive, producing up to approximately 2.4 t DM/ha y 1.9 t DM/ha per growing season at Bingara and Manilla, respectively. Tropical grass establishment in the alleys was poor with plant productivity inversely related to leucaena productivity. Although this study has confirmed the persistence and productive potential of leucaena, the challenges around tropical grass establishment and persistence as well as the weed potential of leucaena in this region need to be addressed before broad-scale use could be recommended in Northern Inland NSW.


Abstract: This paper reports on an intensive day-long symposium on Proposition 9 (also called the Victims' Bill of Rights Act, or Marsy's Law) held inside San Quentin, a maximum security prison for men in Northern California. This new law essentially ends parole for inmates serving terms of 25-years-to-life by extending the wait time between a parole denial and a new hearing to fifteen years. Its sponsors have framed it as a victims' rights bill. This paper adopts a race, gender, and critical criminology perspective to challenge dominant criminal justice language and common-sense discourse such as "victims' rights," "public safety," and "equality." Dominant framings in criminal justice are deconstructed and their multiple meanings are explored from the position of diverse actors gathered at the prison symposium -Proposition 9 proponents, prisoners, crime victims, and prisoner-rights advocates. The paper argues that rather than protecting crime victims and promoting public safety (claims by Proposition 9 proponents) power and inequality inhere in mainstream criminal justice language whose dominant discursive framings mask a racial agenda and engender new forms of victimization-that of prisoners and their families. Politicized criminal justice talk surrounding "victims' rights," and the specific dichotomies it produces, ultimately denies rights and endangers the public by indefinitely removing parole-eligible "lifers' from their communities. Keywords: critical criminology; prisons; race; gender; discourse analysis; critical race theory; social control; critical legal theory; victims' rights; Marsy's Law INTRODUCTION "The law does not passively adjudicate questions of social power; rather the law is an active instance of the very power politics it purports to avoid and stand above." (Crenshaw, 1995:xxiv) This paper analyzes how rights discourses and mainstream criminal justice language, captured in commonsense concepts such as "victims," "criminals," and "public safety," have helped to make California one of the most punitive states in the nation. The Victims' Bill of Rights Act of 2008 (also called Marsy's Law, or Proposition 9) vastly changes the way persons in prison serving life terms with the possibility of parole, are considered for parole. The severity of this new law is perhaps most clearly seen in its presumption of a fifteen-year "wait period" between parole hearings, as opposed to the usual one-year wait period, for inmates who are denied parole.1 Opponents of the Law argue that this amounts to an additional prison sentence. The following is an analysis of how The Victims' Bill of Rights Act claims to uphold equal rights and protections for California citizens-and for particular citizens. But this paper is not about the law, nor is it an instrumentalist critique of law's racially biased outcomes. Rather, it is about how laws in the liberal legalist tradition, and about how criminal justice language, construct and are constitutive of unequal social relations. My main argument is that the justice language employed to frame the issue of crime by proponents of Proposition 9 masks and embodies racial, gender, and class power. Commonsense notions about crime, victims, and public safety belie the inherent power relations they represent and bolster a political agenda that reinforces white privilege and serves the function of excluding those not privileged. I seek to show how the Victims' Bill of Rights Act and Proposition 9 proponents have actively appropriated the very rights discourse used in the past by socially oppressed groups, and in so doing, reify white privilege into law. This paper asks: (i) who is being protected from whom through the Victims' Bill of Rights Act, (ii) who are the "victims," (iii) who are the perpetrators, and most of all, (iv) whose rights are at stake? I accomplish this analysis through a report on an unusual event - a deeply emotionally charged, day-long symposium on Proposition 9 held inside San Quentin prison, a maximum security prison for men in Northern California. …


The hydrolysis of extremely stable peptide and phosphoester bonds by metalloenzymes is of great interest in biotechnology and industry. However, due to various shortcomings only a handful of these enzymes have been used for industrial applications. Therefore, in the last two decades intensive scientific efforts have been made in rational development of small molecules to imitate the activities of natural enzymes. Despite these efforts, their currently available synthetic analogues are inferior in terms of selectivity, catalytic rate, and turnover and the designing of efficient artificial metalloenzymes remains a distant goal. This is a challenging area of research that necessitates a rigorous integration between experiments and theory. The realization of this goal requires knowledge of the catalytic activities of both enzymes and their existing analogues and an effective fusion of that knowledge. This article reviews several studies in which a plethora of computational techniques have been successfully employed to investigate the functioning of two chemically promiscuous mono‐ and binuclear metalloenzymes (insulin degrading enzyme and glycerophosphodiesterase) and two synthetic analogues. These studies will help us derive fundamental principles of peptide and phosphoester hydrolysis and pave the way to design efficient small molecule catalysts for these reactions.


Advancements in remote sensing, along with greater access to high spatial and temporal resolution imagery, have improved our ability to model glacier surface energy and mass balance in remote regions of complex terrain, such as High-mountain Asia (HMA). In general, net shortwave (SW) radiation accounts for the majority of energy available on a glacier surface during the summer months, suggesting that SW modeling errors can critically impact surface energy balance estimates. In this study, we model the clear-sky SW irradiance for a group of glaciers in the Everest region of HMA using a high-resolution (8-meter) digital elevation model (DEM) composite derived from commercial stereo satellite imagery. We then systematically downsample this DEM and considered the effect on incoming SW irradiance, with a sensitivity analysis for standard terrain attributes. The slope and aspect (combined) and topographic shading have the greatest impact on daily SW irradiance and also introduce a larger SW bias when DEM resolution is downsampled. Our results show that modeled incident SW is overestimated as resolution becomes coarser. For 10 selected glaciers in the Everest region, decreasing spatial resolution from 8 to 30 meters results in a range of average daily biases between +20 to +60 Wm-2 (or ~7 to 20%) at some high and low elevations, and an average bias of more than +100 Wm-2 (~33%) as resolution is coarsened to 500 meters. In order to determine the bearing these results have on surface melt, we explore the diurnal variability of this bias. Additionally, we compare our results with modeled incident SW using several global DEM products (ASTER, SRTM, and ALOS) to evaluate error introduced by lower resolution. Models using the 30-meter products show an overall average daily SW bias of +24 Wm-2 (or ~8%) across elevation with some elevations showing a bias up to +60 Wm-2 (~20%) on multiple glaciers. Taken together, our results demonstrate the value of high-resolution data to correct biases in modeled SW radiation and constrain uncertainties for glacier energy balance modeling in regions of complex terrain.


OBJECTIVES
The primary objective of this clinical trial was to assess the clinical activity of various doses and formulations of AFFITOPE® AD02 following its repeated s.c. administration to patients with early Alzheimer´s disease (AD), based on the evaluation of cognitive and functional domains.

DESIGN
It was designed as a randomized, placebo-controlled, parallel group, double blind, multicenter phase II trial with 10 regular outpatient visits and 6 telephone interviews.

SETTING
The trial was performed at 32 sites in six countries.

PARTICIPANTS
A total of 332 patients were enrolled and 265 patients completed the trial in 3 treatment groups with AD02 and 2 control groups with aluminum oxihydroxide, here named IMM-AD04. Patients were randomly assigned to 5 groups: two doses of IMM-AD04, 25µg AD02 (in two different formulations) and 75µg AD02.

INTERVENTION
At months 0, 1, 2, 3, 9 and 15, each patient received a single s.c. injection of the corresponding preparations of AFFITOPE® AD02 or the control, IMM-AD04.

MEASUREMENTS
Co-primary efficacy outcomes included a measure of cognition (adapted AD Assessment Scale cognitive [aADAS cog]), and a measure of function (adapted AD Cooperative Trial Activities of Daily Living [aADCS-ADL]). A primary composite score was the sum of these two scores.

RESULTS
Treatments were generally well tolerated and adverse events (AEs) were seen at similar rates across all treatment groups, with the exception that more injection site reactions were seen in the groups with a higher level of adjuvant. None of the AD02 groups showed a benefit over the IMM-AD04 controls for primary or exploratory efficacy outcomes. The control groups differed on aADCS-ADL and therefore couldn't be pooled (p=0.039). Unexpectedly, the 2mg IMM-AD04 showed statistically significant effects over the other groups on several clinical outcomes including: aADAS-cog, aADL, Composite, ADAS-cog, CDR-sb, and QOL-AD Caregiver as well as two biomarker outcomes: right and total hippocampal volume (all p<0.05). 48% of patients in the IMM-AD04 2mg group had no decline in the composite outcome over 18 months compared to 17%-31% in the other groups, which is consistent with historical placebo groups.

CONCLUSION
No significant treatment effects were seen for the investigational compound AD02. However, the IMM-AD04 2mg group showed statistically significant effects over all other groups on several clinical outcomes as well as a slowing of decline on right hippocampal volume. The data support further development of IMM-AD04 as a disease modifying agent in line with EMA/FDA definitions.


In the past several years, China is entering a new stage of country`s economic development. Due to these changes of foreign brands also are switching their position towards Chinese consumers. The attitudes that consumers have towards international brands have been studied in the western countries for some time now. On 6th November 2016, the 5th Summit of China and Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs 16+1 Cooperation) was successfully held in Riga, Latvia. On the behalf of Guidelines which were made to help the cooperation between Central and Eastern Europe and China, some Latvian companies adopted an approach that emphasizes relation building with local agencies. However, these companies don`t do enough marketing planning and their activities in this field are implicit, because they do not understand Chinese consumers and their shopping habits. In order to enter Chinese market and expand the business here, entrepreneurs must understand the mindset and preferences of Chinese consumers. Through some marketing survey in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Nanjing, Hangzhou, the author collected the marketing research data of consumer preference by questionnaires among the six largest cities in China. Through some marketing theories, SWOT analysis, data statistics, the research gets a comprehensive analysis result. By taking a fresh look at the marketing researches amidst latent consumer conception and behavior further, this study generates gaining experiences of Latvian brands building in China market. Then the conclusion will show the suggestions of how Latvian international brands adjust their marketing changes to raise their brands competitiveness in Chinese consumption patterns and to address the impact of consumer behaviors and marketing activities successfully.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eis.0.11.18913


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate whether pedal bacteremia develops following regional IV perfusion (RIVP) of a 2% lidocaine hydrochloride solution in cattle with deep digital sepsis (DDS) and to determine which bacterial pathogens are most commonly isolated from the pedal circulation.

DESIGN
Prospective observational cohort study.

ANIMALS
9 adult cattle with DDS in 10 limbs and 10 healthy adult cattle with no evidence of lameness or digital infection.

PROCEDURES
Blood samples were obtained aseptically from the dorsal common digital vein immediately following tourniquet application and 30 to 60 minutes after aseptic RIVP with a 2% lidocaine solution. Aerobic and anaerobic bacterial cultures were performed on all samples collected. For cattle with DDS, clinical examination with or without debridement of digital lesions was performed after RIVP.

RESULTS
Bacteria were isolated from pedal blood prior to RIVP in 1 cow with DDS and after RIVP and examination with or without debridement in that cow and 4 additional cattle with DDS. Bacteria were not isolated from any blood sample obtained from the healthy cattle. Of the 8 bacterial isolates identified, 5 were gram-positive facultative anaerobes. Cattle with DDS were significantly more likely to develop bacteremia in the pedal circulation than were healthy cattle following RIVP.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Results indicated that bacteremia may be present in the pedal circulation before and following RIVP and examination with or without debridement in cattle with DDS. Thus, systemic or local antimicrobial treatment might be warranted prior to or concurrently with RIVP in cattle with DDS.


This paper describes a method for multi-axle moving train loads identification based on simulated annealing genetic algorithm by minimizing the errors between the measured displacements and the reconstructed displacements from the identified moving loads. Experimental studies were carried out to investigate the effect of the proposed method on moving loads identification. A simply supported steel beam model and a model train with three carriages were constructed in laboratory. A series of comparative researches for moving loads identification have been conducted. Effects of moving speed and measurement station numbers on the accuracy of the proposed method are investigated. The results show that the proposed method is accurate and feasible for multi-axle moving train loads identification.


Road-signs which indicate the following traffic information can provide important assistance for driving safety in driving assistance system (DAS). In order to detect road-signs, we use a machine learning method in this paper. We first generate database using some image processing steps, then we use HOG for feature description. In the road marking identification step, we use SVM for this task. The designed method is applied using various video images from black box, and is verified to be robust and efficient.


This paper aims at the study of the delimitation of the sets of feasible trajectories (discrete trajectories having a biological sense) generated by a family of two-dimensional map Trelated to a discrete epidemic model. The inverse of Thas vanishing denominator giving rise to non-classical singularities: a non definition line, a focal point and a prefocal line. In particular, we give an answer to one of the open problems proposed by Kocic and Ladas.


Feldspar aggregates experimentally deformed in the dislocation creep regime undergo dynamic recrystallization because recovery is difficult due to the limited climb of dislocations. Recrystallizing aggregates have a lower strength because of the cyclic production of small, strain-free grains, and they develop a strong preferred orientation, consistent with that observed in mylonites. Thus, recrystallization-accommodated dislocation creep may be responsible for the grain-size reduction and strain softening that lead to the formation of many mylonites and ductile shear zones.


This paper proposes a framework for understanding management's decision-making on observable accounting policy choices. The framework is used to hypothesize how country, industry, and topic factors influence policy choice under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The hypotheses are tested on the choices made by the largest firms from 10 jurisdictions on a comprehensive set of IFRS policy topics, which are hand-collected from the financial statements. The results are consistent with the framework: country factors are particularly influential when the choice does not affect an important accounting number; and industry and topic factors influence the choice on some topics. Overall, we find that country factors have the greatest influence on IFRS policy choice.


The opportunity cost of water in the irrigation industry is a contentious issue at present because of the commitment made by the State and Commonwealth governments to get water out of the irrigation industry for environmental flows. The estimated value of the opportunity cost will affect farmers' claims for compensation. Variation in the opportunity cost over space and the functioning of the spatial market will determine whether the efficiency costs of a simple across the board reduction in rights can be mitigated by trade or whether strategic buy back of water is required. The extent of variation in the opportunity cost of water according to seasonal conditions will affect the cost of flow policies that impact on the reliability of rights. To date, most economic advice on this opportunity cost of water has centred on gross margin analysis of the main irrigation uses of water and the compensation of these industries across space compared to the quantity of rights held. However, there has been a large volume of trade on temporary water markets in recent years and there is potential for using this data to better understand some of the characteristics of water demand and the market for water. This paper presents a preliminary analysis of market data from the last 5 years of trade on the Northern Victorian water exchange. The nature of bidding behaviours and spatial and temporal variations in water prices is illustrated, and the impact of water allocations and seasonal conditions on water prices is estimated.


In the core, in the shell, or both: a microfluidic device is used to design magnetic vesicles (liposomes and polymersomes) through chemical modification of the nanoparticle surface. Hydrophilic, hydrophobic and fluorescent quantum dot nanoparticles are used for elaborating the vesicles. Hybrid vesicles are easily obtained with a very high yield and excellent monodispersity.


Function, structure, and stability are strongly coupled in obligated oligomers, such as triosephosphate isomerase (TIM). However, little is known about how this coupling evolved. To address this question, five ancestral TIMs (ancTIMs) in the opisthokont lineage were inferred. The encoded proteins were purified and characterized, and spectroscopic and hydrodynamic analysis indicated that all are folded dimers. The catalytic efficiency of ancTIMs is very high and all dissociate into inactive and partially unfolded monomers. The placement of catalytic residues in the three‐dimensional structure, as well as the enthalpy‐driven binding signature of the oldest ancestor (TIM63) resemble extant TIMs. Although TIM63 dimers dissociate more readily than do extant TIMs, calorimetric data show that the free ancestral subunits are folded to a greater extent than their extant counterparts are, suggesting that full catalytic proficiency was established in the dimer before the stability of the isolated monomer eroded. Notably, the low association energy in ancTIMs is compensated for by a high activation barrier, and by a significant shift in the dimer‐monomer equilibrium induced by ligand binding. Our results indicate that before the animal and fungi lineages diverged, TIM was an obligated oligomer with substrate binding properties and catalytic efficiency that resemble that of extant TIMs. Therefore, TIM function and association have been strongly coupled at least for the last third of biological evolution on earth.


Grape (Vitis vinifera L.) is among the most cultivated plants in the world. Its origin traces back to the Neolithic era, when the first human communities started to domesticate wild Vitis sylvestris L. grapes to produce wines. Domestication modified Vitis vinifera to assume characteristics imparted from the humans, selecting desired traits (e.g. specific aromas), and excluding the undesired ones. This process made this species very different from all the other wild grape species existing around the world, including its progenitor, Vitis sylvestris.
Metabolomics is a field of the sciences that comparatively studies the whole metabolite set of two (or more) groups of samples, to point out the chemical diversity and infer on the variability in the metabolic pathways between the groups. Crude metabolomics observation can be often used for hypotheses generation, which need to be confirmed by further experiments. In my case, starting from the grape metabolome project (Mattivi et al. unpublished data), I had the opportunity to put hands on a huge dataset built on the berries of over 100 Vitis vinifera grape varieties, tens of grape interspecific hybrids and few wild grape species analyzed per four years; all included in a single experiment. Starting from this data handling, I designed specific experiments to confirm the hypotheses generated from the observation of the data, to improve compound identification, to give statistical meaning to the differences, to localize the metabolites in the berries and extrapolate further information on the variability existing among the grape genus. The hypotheses formulated were two: 1) several glyco-conjugated volatiles can be detected, identified and quantified in untargeted reverses-phase liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry; 2) The chemical difference between Vitis vinifera and wild grape berries is wider than reported in literature. Furthermore, handling a huge dataset of chemical standards injected under the same conditions of the sample set, I also formulated a third hypothesis: 3) metabolites with similar chemical structures are more likely to generate similar signals in LC-MS, therefore the combined use of the signals can predict the more likely chemical structure of unknown markers.
In the first study (chapter 5), the signals putatively corresponding to glycoconjugated volatiles have been first enclosed in a specific portion of the temporal and spectrometric space of the LC-HRMS chromatograms, then they have been subjected to MS/MS analysis and lastly their putative identity have been confirmed through peak intensity correlation between the signals measured in LC-HRMS and GC-MS. In the second study (chapter 6), a multivariate regression model has been built between LC-HRMS signals and the substructures composing the molecular structure of the compounds and its accuracy and efficacy in substructure prediction have been demonstrated. In the third study (chapter 7), I comparatively studied some wild grapes versus some Vitis vinifera varieties separating the basic components of the grape berry (skin, flesh and seeds), with the aim to identify all the detected metabolites that differentiate the two groups, which determine a difference in quality between the wild versus domesticated grapes, especially regarding wine production.


Under the sponsorship of the National Science Foundation (NSF), a large amount of data accumulated in a study of the behavior of a tall building under the influence of winds will be made available to the engineering profession at some time in the future. That data will be in a form suitable for processing in a digital computer. A summary description of previous on-site measurements of wind effects on buildings is presented. A brief description is presented of the methods used in this study to sense and record such parameters as: wind velocity; wind pressures; window and support mullion deflections; window frame and structural frame racking; and building motions. Sample graphical records of typical on-site data are presented.


The rapid development in methods for transforming non-edible biomass into platform chemicals and fuels has accelerated over recent years. However, the determination of whether these 'next-generation' biofuels perform in a satisfactory manner in engines, turbines and burners has lagged behind. The evaluation of the ecological and toxicological aspects has also been unable to keep up. We show, by using 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF) as a concrete example, how a range of studies is needed to establish the benefits and risks of using a particular biofuel. In this regard, the variable with the largest impact about which little is known is probably the behaviour of DMF when it is accidentally introduced into groundwater. A primary consideration is to avoid a repetition of the methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) fiasco.


Mucosal healing (MH) is an important treatment goal for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Vedolizumab (VDZ), a gut-selective anti-lymphocyte trafficking agent, has shown potential to achieve MH.1,2 EARNEST, a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial of VDZ in chronic pouchitis,3 offers a robust dataset systematically collected from the inflamed pouch mucosa to further explore the impact of VDZ treatment on MH.

 EARNEST evaluated intravenous VDZ (300 mg) vs placebo (PBO) administered at weeks 0, 2, 6, 14, 22, and 30, in adult patients (pts) with active chronic pouchitis despite antibiotic therapy after proctocolectomy and ileal pouch-anal anastomosis for ulcerative colitis. Endoscopic imaging was captured and centrally read at baseline, Week (W) 14, and W34. Total ulceration and SES-CD (modified to apply to a single segment) were evaluated. Microscopic inflammation was also evaluated using the Pouchitis Disease Activity Index (PDAI) histological component. Pre-specified exploratory endpoints included changes in total ulceration and SES-CD remission (score ≤2); MH was defined post-hoc as SES-CD=0 plus PDAI histology score ≤1 (none/mild polymorphic nuclear leukocyte infiltration and no ulceration). Fecal calprotectin (FCP) levels were explored by MH status. PDAI remission (score <7 and ≥3 point-reduction from baseline) and Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire (IBDQ) remission (score ≥170) were assessed in pts with/without MH at W14.

 In total, 98 pts had endoscopic evaluations (VDZ n=48; PBO n=50). Ulcers/erosions were higher in VDZ pts at baseline with a greater reduction at W14 and W34 with VDZ vs PBO (Table 1). More pts treated with VDZ vs PBO achieved reduction in ulcerated surface area, complete absence of ulceration/erosions and SES-CD remission. At W14, 7/42 (16.7%) pts had MH on VDZ vs 1/40 (2.5%) on PBO. All 7 VDZ pts with MH at W14 were in PDAI remission at W14 and W34; 6/7 (85.7%) pts achieved IBDQ remission at W14 and 5/7 (71.4%) achieved IBDQ remission at both W14 and W34. Of the 35 VDZ-treated pts without MH at W14, 11/35 (31.4%) achieved PDAI remission at W14, 11/35 (31.4%) at W34, and 9/35 (25.7%) at both W14 and W34; 13/35 (37.1%) achieved IBDQ remission at W14, 17/35 (48.6%) at W34, and 12/35 (34.3%) at both W14 and W34. MH was associated with FCP ≤250 µg/g while ~40-60% of pts without MH had FCP >250 µg/g (Table 2).

 VDZ was associated with better control of markers of inflammation vs PBO, based upon improvements in endoscopic/histologic outcomes in the pouch mucosa, as well as improved outcomes reported by pts. These effects of VDZ in the pouch mucosa are consistent with those observed in the wider patient population with IBD.


Background Research on neighborhood effects increasingly includes the influences of the built environment on health and social well-being. Objectives In this population-based study in a low-socioeconomic-status (SES), Hispanic neighborhood, we examined whether architectural features of the built environment theorized to promote direct observations and interactions (e.g., porches, stoops) predicted Hispanic elders' social support and psychological and physical functioning. Methods We coded built-environment features for all 3,857 lots in the 403-block area of an urban Miami, Florida, community. We then conducted three annual assessments of social support, psychological distress, and physical functioning in a population-based sample of 273 low-SES Hispanic elders (70–100 years of age). We used structural equation modeling analytic techniques to examine hypothesized relationships between the built environment and elders' social support, psychological distress, and physical functioning over a 3-year period. Results After controlling for age, sex, and income, architectural features of the built environment theorized to facilitate visual and social contact had a significant direct relationship with elders' physical functioning as measured 3 years later, and an indirect relationship through social support and psychological distress. Further binomial regression analyses suggested that elders living on blocks marked by low levels of positive front entrance features were 2.7 times as likely to have subsequent poor levels of physical functioning, compared with elders living on blocks with a greater number of positive front entrance features [b = 0.99; χ2 (1 df) = 3.71; p = 0.05; 95% confidence interval, 1.0–7.3]. Conclusions Architectural features that facilitate visual and social contacts may be a protective factor for elders' physical functioning.


Birding the Future is a multi-layered interdisciplinary project that explores issues of species loss and biodiversity while specifically focusing on the warning abilities of birds as indicators of environmental health. It is an outdoor installation and image walk incorporating multi-channel sound, stereoscopic images, text, Morse code messages, calls of endangered and extinct bird species and a rendering of projected extinction rate. Birding the Future is a global project designed as a series of local, site-specific works.


Post-communist democracy promotion has been most important in "borderline" countries, which had less favorable structural conditions than the East-Central European frontrunners, but where a domestic democratic constituency nevertheless existed and could benefit from Western support. External democracy promotion efforts have ranged from "soft" diplomatic pressure to economic and military sanctions and have acted through a variety of channels: (1) promotion of democratic attitudes among citizens yearning for Western integration, (2) political incentives for elites (in government and in the opposition), (3) domestic power balance shifts in favor of democratic politicians, and (4) promotion of better democratic governance through incentives for public administration reform. The most effective approach to democracy promotion thus far, however, has been the combination of political conditionality with significant political/economic incentives, best exemplified by the European integration process. Furthermore, the success of any strategy hinges on its fit with the geopolitical and domestic environment of the country in question. In particular, external actors must be more sensitive to the national sovereignty implications of such interventions, which can be easily exploited by domestic antidemocratic actors to undermine democracy promotion efforts.


Title of Document: INFORMATION CONTROL: LEADERSHIP POWER IN THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. James M. Curry, Doctor of Philosophy, 2011 Directed By: Professor Frances E. Lee Department of Government & Politics Most congressional scholarship argues that legislative leaders—majority party leaders and committee chairs—are strongly constrained, weak agents of their rank-and-file. This study argues that information, and leaders' ability to control it, is a significant and independent source of power for leaders in the House of Representatives. Most rank-and-file members of Congress lack the time and resources necessary to track, study, or become deeply involved in legislating on most bills considered by the House. As a result, they rely on sources that can synthesize the information they need to decide whether or not to support the bill, offer an amendment, or take other actions. The party leadership and committee chairs, because of their staff and resource advantages, are important sources of information for the rank-and-file. However, legislative leaders often exploit their informational advantages to help their preferred legislation gain easy passage through the chamber. Along with the ability to perpetually collect information on rank-and-file preferences, and provide leadershipapproved information about legislation, legislative leaders also have an arsenal of tools to limit the availability of information including withholding legislative language, scheduling votes on short notice, and using large and complex legislation as a vehicle. This information control puts leaders in the driver's seat, allowing them to lead the chamber by shaping the information driving the debate on a bill. Thirty interviews with members of Congress and congressional staff, along with a unique dataset of important legislation considered by the House of Representatives are used to support this theory. Leaders are found to employ information control tactics strategically, to aid the passage of their priority legislation and in response to the potential for significant influence from outside groups. The study, overall, suggests that legislative leaders in the House are more influential than they are typically perceived to be and that participation in congressional policymaking is often restricted. INFORMATION CONTROL: LEADERSHIP POWER IN THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES


In 1620 Jacob Cats published his didactic poem Self-stryt, about the biblical story of Joseph in Potiphar's house (Genesis 39) the title of which he might have borrowed from the English translation by his friend Josuah Sylvester, of George Goodwin's Automachia (1607). Self-stryt can be read as an Arminian text, as the protagonist Joseph fights off the advances of Potiphar's wife, with God's help surely but in the first place by his own good will. In 1620 this would be a dangerous view. The persecution of the Remonstrants was still in full flow. Maybe at instigation of the clergy of Middelburg, good friends of the poet, he therefore added an emblematic poem Sinne-beelt, plus commentary in which he defended the Counter-remonstrant theology, with a heavy accent on God's grace through Jesus Christ. The real Self-stryt is now only to be found in born-again Christians and not in all well-meaning people. The combination of Self-stryt and Sinne-beelt makes the book acceptable for orthodox readers. My argument is that Cats himself did not want to be involved in the dogmatic quarrels of the period. When commenting on the Synod of Dordt (1618-1619), at the time but also later on, he always avoids taking sides. His own position might be characterized as semipela-gianist or synergist: man must be willing to accept God's grace.


EMU is a completely new policy regime which has significant economic implications and which, it is hoped, will ultimately enhance the role of Europe on the world stage. EMU and Economic Policy in Europe takes stock of the initial experiences of EMU and assesses the challenges which will have to be addressed in the early years of its existence to ensure its long-term objectives are successfully achieved.


Quasi-nano filamentary copper-silver composites were irradiated and annealed to study irradiation degradation behavior. The specimen was irradiated in CT hole of HANARO of KAERI for 36 days at 320°C with the maximum neutron flux of 4.8x1020 n/cm2 (E>1.0 MeV). The gamma heating rate was in the range of 2.0-6.45 W/gm. Irradiation embrittlement was observed. Hardness determined by nano-indentation technique were 32.3 GPA for as-received condition, however, it decreased 24.6 GPa due to gamma heating, which was above the value of the specimen with same annealing effect without irradiation. Weight change of specimen with oxidation increased with annealing time, temperature and amount of dose 0.21-0.27 mR/h. Hardness change of the irradiated specimen followed by annealing was significantly dependent upon amount of dose of the specimen.


Puberty is associated with an increase in the plasma concentration of sex steroids, GH, and insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I). Gonadal steroid hormones are important for the normal pubertal growth spurt and skeletal growth. The mechanism by which gonadal steroids induce skeletal growth is still not fully understood. To better understand the direct effect sex steroids have on bone growth, we studied an isolated organ culture system of the mandibular condyle, derived from 3.5-5.5-week-old male and female mice. We found that testosterone 10(-6) M, but not estradiol, stimulated thymidine incorporation into the DNA of male-derived condyle. Three days of testosterone treatment doubled the condyle size and increased the chondroprogenitor zone, while maintaining the normal gradient of the developing chondrocytes. Immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization techniques showed that testosterone stimulated IGF-I and IGF-I-R and their messenger RNAs (mRNAs) mainly in the mature chondrocyte layer. Immunoneutralization of IGF-I in the testosterone-treated condyle caused the disappearance of the chondroblast and young chondrocyte layers, though the progenitor cell layer remained almost unaffected. Overtreatment with testosterone (dose or duration) accelerated condylar ossification. In the presence of testosterone 10(-5) M (high dose), calcification "climbs" up to the chondroprogenitor zone, and most of the condylar chondrocytes are replaced by bone tissue. Similar changes occurred after 7 days of testosterone treatment (long duration) with 10(-6) M. In conclusion, testosterone stimulates growth and local production of IGF-I and IGF-I-R in chondrocyte cell layers of an isolated organ culture of mice mandibular condyle. Part of the effect testosterone has on condylar growth is mediated by IGF-I.


Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) has been proposed to be among the candidate factors with the most potential to play a role in ischemia-induced collateral vessel formation. Recently, we found that VEGF activated the mitogen-activated protein kinase cascade in cultured rat cardiac myocytes. To elucidate how VEGF affects adhesive interaction of cardiac myocytes with the extracellular matrix (ECM), one of the important cell functions, we investigated the molecular mechanism of activation of focal adhesion-related proteins, especially focal adhesion kinase (p125(FAK)), in cultured rat cardiac myocytes. We found that the 2 VEGF receptors, KDR/Flk-1 and Flt-1, were expressed in cardiac myocytes and that KDR/Flk-1 was significantly tyrosine phosphorylated on VEGF stimulation. VEGF induced tyrosine phosphorylation and activation of p125(FAK) as well as tyrosine phosphorylation of paxillin; this was accompanied by subcellular translocation of p125(FAK) from perinuclear sites to the focal adhesions. This VEGF-induced activation of p125(FAK) was inhibited partially by the tyrosine kinase inhibitors genistein and tyrphostin. Activation of p125(FAK) was accompanied by its increased association with adapter proteins GRB2, Shc, and nonreceptor type tyrosine kinase p60(c-src). Furthermore, we confirmed that VEGF induced a significant increase in adhesive interaction between cardiac myocytes and ECM using an electric cell-substrate impedance sensor. These results strongly suggest that p125(FAK) is one of the most important components in VEGF-induced signaling in cardiac myocytes, playing a critical role in adhesive interaction between cardiac myocytes and ECM.


Sendai virus, one of the most prevalent of the murine viruses, was studied in regard to its capability to alter various functions of rats given a second, unrelated antigenic challenge. Rats given a single foot-pad injection of Freund's complete adjuvant (FCA) had an 85% incidence of adjuvant arthritis. The adjuvant disease was significantly less severe (P less than 0.01) in those rats given 0.05 ml of 10(5.5) median egg infective doses of egg-propagated Sendai virus intranasally 7 days before injection of adjuvant. Rats given Sendai virus concurrently with the FCA, or any time after FCA was injected, did not have a lessened severity of the arthritic reaction, as compared with that in control animals. Sendai virus infection had no detectable effect on median tumor dose requirement for Walker carcinosarcoma cells in rats or on the antibody response to bovine serum albumin.


Abstract: With ageing reactor fleets, the importance of estimating material damage parameters in structural materials is increasing. 59Ni is not naturally abundant, but as noted in, e.g., Ref. [1], the two-step reaction 58Ni(n,γ)59Ni(n,α)56Fe gives a very important contribution to the helium production and damage energy in stainless steel in thermal spectra, because of the extraordinarily large thermal (n,α) cross section for 59Ni (for most other nuclides, the (n,α) reaction has a threshold). None of the evaluated data libraries contain uncertainty information for (n,α) and (n,p) for 59Ni for thermal energies and the resonance region. Therefore, new such data is produced in this work, including random data to be used with the Total Monte Carlo methodology [2] for nuclear data uncertainty propagation. The limited R-matrix format ("LRF = 7") of ENDF-6 is used, with the Reich-Moore approximation ("LRF = 3" is just a subset of Reich-Moore). The neutron and gamma widths are obtained from TARES [2], with uncertainties, and are translated into LRF = 7. The α and proton widths are obtained from the little information available in EXFOR [3] (assuming large uncertainties because of lacking documentation) or from sampling from unresolved resonance parameters from TALYS [2], and they are split into different channels (different excited states of the recoiling nuclide, etc.). Finally, the cross sections are adjusted to match the experiments at thermal energies, with uncertainties. The data is used to estimate the gas production rates for different systems, including the propagated nuclear data uncertainty. Preliminary results for SS304 in a typical thermal spectrum, show that including 59Ni at its peak concentration increases the helium production rate by a factor of 4.93 ± 0.28 including a 5.7 ± 0.2 % uncertainty due to the 59Ni data. It is however likely that the uncertainty will increase substantially from including the uncertainty of other nuclides and from re-evaluating the experimental thermal cross sections.


Device management can enhance large-scale deployments of IoT nodes in non-stationary environments by supporting prediction and planning of their energy budget. This increases their ability for perpetual operation and is a step towards maintenance-free IoT. In this paper we consider how to accelerate the collection of relevant training data for nodes that are introduced into an existing deployment to increase the accuracy of their predictions. In particular, we investigate how nodes powered by solar energy can learn their energy intake faster and more accurately by using data from selected nodes that are working in similar conditions. We explore an architecture that utilizes different training data selection policies to manage the learning processes. For validation, we perform a case study to explore how nodes with correlated data can contribute to the learning process of other nodes. The obtained results indicate that this approach improves the accuracy of the predictions of a new node by 14%.


This research
examines content and structural heads in the headlines of Pakistani Urdu and
English newspapers. The data for this research was collected from Pakistani
Urdu and English newspapers including 'Daily Times', 'The Nation', 'Dawn', 'The
Express Tribune', The Frontier Post', 'Daily Jang', 'Daily Dunya', 'Daily Pakistan',
'Daily Nawai-e-Waqt' and 'Daily Express' through random sampling technique. The
investigation utilizes the extended X-bar theory to syntactically dissect the
information within the framework of Minimalist Program. It is found that both
content and structural heads are anticipated in national Urdu and English
Pakistani newspaper headlines. However, their portrayal relies upon the
syntactic setup of the headlines. Sentence type headlines have a bigger number
of heads than phrasal headlines.


MSEVR is a system created for teaching of automated and robotic systems by means of new advanced teaching aids, including virtual reality. One of its constituents is also virtual laboratory that has been created as a specialized website. The presented paper acquaints with structure and performance of the virtual laboratory created by a work team at KVTaR SjF TU at Kosice. It is a laboratory that is segmented to a set of independent robots for learning basics of industrial robots and Modular system for experimentation in virtual reality. The Modular system has been designed for work with bigger, easily configurable workplaces.


A major disadvantage of diode clamped inverters (DCI) in practical implementations is capacitor dc voltage fluctuation. A new and very fast space vector modulation scheme for controlling the capacitor dc voltage fluctuation is introduced in this paper. The proposed algorithm accelerates the computation of the nearest three vectors and calculation of corresponding duty cycles without an increase in computational requirements when extended to DCIs with more levels. This new algorithm is appropriate for real time applications with DSP controllers used in industry. Performance of the proposed method has been simulated in MATLAB Simulink for both 3-level and 4-level three-phase DCIs, with experimental verification presented using a TMS320F2812 DSP. Experimental implementations demonstrate that the proposed method has the ability to effectively control dc-capacitor voltage in an N-level DCI where N is the number of levels (including zero volts) in one half cycle of the inverter line-to-line output voltage.


The electric utility industry has developed an approach for decisionmaking that includes a definition of Adverse Environmental Impact (AEI) and an implementation process. The definition of AEI is based on lessons from fishery management science and analysis of the statutory term "adverse environmental impact" and is consistent with current natural resource management policy. The industry has proposed a definition focusing on "unacceptable risk to the population's ability to sustain itself, to support reasonably anticipated commercial or recreational harvests, or to perform its normal ecological function." This definition focuses not on counting individual fish or eggs cropped by the various uses of a water body, but on preserving populations of aquatic organisms and their functions in the aquatic community. The definition recognizes that assessment of AEI should be site-specific and requires both a biological decision and a balancing of diverse societal values. The industry believes that the definition of AEI should be implemented in a process that will maximize the overall societal benefit of the § 316(b) decision by considering the facility's physical location, design, and operation, as well as the local biology. The approach considers effects on affected fish and shellfish populations and the benefits of any necessary best technology available (BTA) alternatives. This is accomplished through consideration of population impacts, which conversely allows consideration of the benefits of any necessary BTA modifications. This in turn allows selection of BTAs that will protect potentially affected populations in a cost-effective manner. The process also employs risk assessment with stakeholder participation, in accordance with EPA's Guidelines for Ecological Risk Assessment. The information and tools are now available to make informed decisions about site-specific impacts that will ensure protection of aquatic ecosystems and best serve the public interest.


Aging processes are defined as those that increase the susceptibility of individuals as they grow older to the factors that may cause death. Various possible theories of aging are considered, and evidence that may help to decide between them is discussed. Changes in different organ systems may be merely symptoms of some single aging process, or they may be largely independent and synchronized by natural selection. Even if different organ systems age independently, they may do so as a result of similar changes at a cellular level. Cellular theories of aging may have to take into account the effects of selection between the cells in a tissue.

 The effects of radiation and somatic mutation theories of aging are discussed. It is suggested that radiation shortens life by inducing somatic mutations but that normal aging is not to any important extent caused by somatic mutations, although it may result from changes in cells that have effects on the physiology of the individual similar to those of somatic mutations. Evidence is presented that in
 Drosophila
 and in mice there are two phases in the life-span. In
 Drosophila
 , there is an initial "aging" phase, which is irreversible and occurs at a rate approximately independent of temperature, and a second "dying" phase, which is temperature-dependent in rate and reversible at lower temperatures.

 Reproduced by permission.

 J. Maynard Smith, Review Lectures on Senescence: I. The Causes of Aging.
 Proc. R. Soc. London Ser. B
 157
 , 115-127 (1962).


The advanced intonation model for speech synthesis described here has a three level architecture. An initial abstract characterisation designed to represent intonation at cognitive percept level is rewritten to an intermediate representation which, though speaker-independent, accurately reflects physical pitch contours. At this stage the contours lack the variability we associate with natural speech. This representation is then further rewritten to provide an actual physical contour (now including variability and other ''natural'' phenomena such as micro-intonation). One or two examples are given for stages one and two of the process, and some indication of how we tackle stage three.


Tourism is a driving force for developing countries such as Turkey. The tourism sector, which provides that the terms of employment creation and foreign exchange earnings of Turkey is one of the indispensable sector for the economy. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that the share of the world tourism revenues has not yet been at the desired level. Failure to attract qualified and high spending tourists is the main reason for this situation. Qualified tourists came to Turkey, but may be able to provide quality services to the facility and staff. The qualified labor force needed by the sector can be met by tourism education institutions. Although tourism education is so important, it is observed that there are many problems related to tourism education in the field. The purpose of this research, the problems experienced in tourism education in Turkey is to consider systematically. For this purpose, a detailed literature review about the field has been made and the problems have been tried to be explained under general headings. The survey results, the number of students in tourism education in Turkey and the school has increased with each passing year, however, physical, especially academic infrastructure issues, foreign language, such as internships and employment shows that there were several problems in many areas.


We study no-gap second-order optimality conditions for a non-uniformly convex
and non-smooth integral functional. The integral functional is extended to the
space of measures. The obtained second-order derivatives contain integrals on
lower-dimensional manifolds. The proofs utilize the convex pre-conjugate, which
is an integral functional on the space of continuous functions. Applications to
non-smooth optimal control problems are given.


The superposition of thermal cycling and vibration loading has been experimentally observed to slow down fatigue damage accumulation rates in solder joints as compared to damage accumulation due to vibration load alone. The reverse may occur for some other load combinations. The popular Palmgren-Miner's hypothesis, which linearly superposes the separate damage caused by each load, is not suitable for explaining the observed trend because interactions between the thermal and vibration loads are ignored in linear damage superposition schemes. Obtaining a meaningful acceleration transform (acceleration transform correlates the accelerated life test results to field life expectations) therefore hinges on the ability to capture the interactive effects between applied loads in the failure models. A modeling approach based on physics of failure (PoF) is presented that adequately quantifies the complex interactions between temperature and vibration loads using an incremental damage superposition approach (IDSA). The first modeling approach (macroscale IDSA) is formulated at the macroscale without any attention to microstructural phenomena, and it phenomenologically captures the dominant failure drivers. The second modeling approach (microscale IDSA) is formulated at the microscale and incorporates the underlying physical mechanisms and microstructural parameters that drive the failure process. Both macroscale and microscale damage models are applied to predict the durability of a selected surface mount interconnect architecture (84-pin plastic-leaded chip carrier). The prediction trends are found to be in good agreement with the experimental results, confirming that the dominant damage contributors have been successfully captured in the IDSA model. This study provides a systematic way of quantifying complex interactions between thermal cycling and vibration loads on durab ility of electronic assemblies. Furthermore, by incorporating the influences of microstructure on damage predictions, this study has also provided a new modeling approach to explicitly account for different microstructural states when extrapolating accelerated test results to field life conditions. Introduction Combined Temperature and Vibration Accelerated Life Tests The Macroscopic Incremental Damage Superposition Approach Macro-IDSA) The Micromechanistic Incremental Damage Superposition Approach (Micro-IDSA) Conclusions Acknowledgments References


Past research on retinal neovascularization forms the basis for our current primary and secondary preventive approaches toward its treatment. Several obstacles will probably delay the clinical application of angiogenic or antiangiogenic factors once these factors are satisfactorily identified. In the near future, however, the Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study should at least provide further insight into primary preventive efforts against the diabetic neovascular process. Overall, it appears that clinicians in the future must continue to rely on current modalities for the treatment of retinal neovascularization. Although new laser protocols or medications may be recommended, specific therapy targeted at the basic underlying mechanism of angiogenesis still seems to be in the distant future.


The samples were collected from 10 stations from September 2002 to October 2003 with the purpose of determining the Oligochaete fauna of Aksu Stream (Antalya). Seventeen species of Oligochaeta were recorded, consisting of 7 species from the family Tubificidae, and 10 species from Naididae. All of them are reported from Aksu Stream for the first time.


A microscopic cluster model with a fully correlated Gaussian basis is developed. In the model, the stochastic variational method is used in order to calculate the ground-energy and the mean-square radius conveniently. Based on this model, the ground-energy level and radius of the neutron halo nucleus, 6He, are calculated as a α+n+n three-cluster model. The results are in good agreement with the experimental data.


A residual distal common bile duct stone was successfully advanced into the duodenum after percutaneous transhepatic catheterization of the biliary tract. Nonsurgical retrieval of retained biliary duct stones through surgically created T-tube tracts has been shown to be a practical procedure with high reported success rates. Reoperation has been necessary in cases where no drainage tube was introduced at surgery or when stones have formed after the fistula closed. Transhepatic catheterization techniques may provide a way to manipulate residual biliary tract stones when no other access is available.


Context: Simple, precise, easy, and accurate spectrophotometric methods are ideal for regular quality control purpose. Menaquinone – 7 (MK-7) and cholecalciferol (CHOL) are two vitamins which work in synergy to elicit pharmacological responses in body. Inspite of multiple available brands of these two vitamins in market, to the best of our knowledge, there is no spectrophotometric method available for simultaneous quantification of these two vitamins. Therefore, an attempt was made in present research to develop two simple, precise, rapid, accurate, and economical spectrophotometric methods for simultaneous estimation of MK-7 and CHOL in combined pharmaceutical dosage forms. Materials and Methods: Method I was based on dual-wavelength method while Method II was based on Q-absorbance ratio method. Validation of developed methods was done as per the International Conference on Harmonization guidelines, and developed methods were applied for the determination of MK-7 and CHOL in laboratory prepared admixtures as well as in-house formulated dosage form. Results: Beer's law was obeyed over concentration range of 5–35 μg/mL for both MK-7 and CHOL (values of correlation coefficient were close to 1). Developed methods are accurate, reproducible, precise, and robust for determination of these two vitamins (percent recoveries lies within range of 98–102% while associated relative standard deviation was <2%). Conclusion: Developed methods can be used for quantification of MK-7 and CHOL in pharmaceutical dosage forms during regular quality control analysis.


ABSTRACT A number of geological inferences are made from studies of the geographic distributions of sediment textural variables. Evaluation of such distributions requires that information on the total within-station variability be available. In order to obtain information on the relative magnitudes of the within-station and among-station variabilities, bottom sampling on the continental shelf of Washington was done in a stratified-multistage scheme on traverses placed by a systematic random scheme along the coast. Duplicate samples were taken at each of 450 stations and duplicate analyses of nine textural variables were made on each sample. Complete analyses are available for 130 stations. This sampling design leads directly to a three-level, hierarchical analysis of variance in which the F-ra ios of the mean square among stations to that within staitons are measures of the reliability of distributions. The most diagnostic variables for differentiating stations are percentage of sand, percentage of silt, sand/mud ratio, and median phi size. The least diagnostic is percentage of clay.


Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) have achieved huge success in generating high-fidelity images, however, they suffer from low efficiency due to tremendous computational cost and bulky memory usage. Recent efforts on compression GANs show noticeable progress in obtaining smaller generators by sacrificing image quality or involving a time-consuming searching process. In this work, we aim to address these issues by introducing a teacher network that provides a search space in which efficient network architectures can be found, in addition to performing knowledge distillation. First, we revisit the search space of generative models, introducing an inception-based residual block into generators. Second, to achieve target computation cost, we propose a one-step pruning algorithm that searches a student architecture from the teacher model and substantially reduces searching cost. It requires no ℓ1 sparsity regularization and its associated hyper-parameters, simplifying the training procedure. Finally, we propose to distill knowledge through maximizing feature similarity between teacher and student via an index named Global Kernel Alignment (GKA). Our compressed networks achieve similar or even better image fidelity (FID, mIoU) than the original models with much-reduced computational cost, e.g., MACs. Code will be released at https://github.com/snap-research/CAT.


Objective To test the hypothesis that ovine footrot associated with a thermostable protease strain of Dichelobacter nodosus undergoes self cure or is sustained as an annually recurring disease, depending on the environment.

Design and procedure Forty Merino sheep from a single blood line were infected with a protease thermostable strain of D nodosus a t each of five sites in Western Australia. Footrot lesions and microscopic evidence of D nodosus were recorded every fortnight for 2.5 years, supplemented by laboratory culture. Rainfall, soil and air temperature, pasture quantity and composition and soil types were also recorded. Flocks that apparently self cured were relocated to a more favourable site for footrot in the final spring season.

Results The maximum prevalence of feet with clinical footrot lesions was 80.6, 1.3, 14.4, 3.8 and 88.1% at the five sites. Severe footrot occurred for three consecutive spring seasons at one site that had clay loam soil and at least 3500 kg/ha total pasture dry matter annually. However, the infection was asymptomatic for up to 10 weeks between outbreaks. D nodosuswas isolated from flocks for 2.5 years at only two sites, although there was microscopic evidence of the organism at other sites in the final year. A thermolabile variant (strain U6) of D nodosus was isolated from the two sites where footrot persisted.

Conclusion Depending on time and location, ovine footrot induced by a protease thermostable strain of D nodosus either self cured or persisted as annual outbreaks interspersed with periods of asymptomatic infection.


An experimental study was performed to measure the heat transfer distributions and frictional losses in rotating ribbed channels with an aspect ratio of 4:1. Angled, discrete angled, V-shaped, and discrete V-shaped ribs were investigated, as well as the newly proposed W-shaped and discrete W-shaped ribs. In all cases, the ribs are placed on both the leading and trailing surfaces of the channel, and they are oriented 45° to the mainstream flow. The rib height-to-hydraulic diameter ratio (e/D) is 0.078, and the rib pitch-to-height ratio (P/e) is 10. The channel orientation with respect to the direction of rotation is 135°. The range of flow parameters includes Reynolds number (Re = 10000–40000), rotation number (Ro = 0.0–0.15), and inlet coolant-to-wall density ratio (Δρ/ρ = 0.12). Both heat transfer and pressure measurements were taken, so the overall performance of each rib configuration could be evaluated. It was determined that the W-shaped and discrete W-shaped ribs had the superior heat transfer performance in both non-rotating and rotating channels. However, these two configurations also incurred the greatest frictional losses while the discrete V-shaped and discrete angled ribs resulted in the lowest pressure drop. Based on the heat transfer enhancement and the pressure drop penalty, the discrete V-shaped ribs and the discrete W-shaped ribs exhibit the best overall thermal performance in both rotating and non-rotating channels. These configurations are followed closely by the W-shaped ribs. The angled rib configuration resulted in the worst performance of the six configurations of the present study.Copyright © 2004 by ASME


Embedded cyclostationary signature (ECS) was recently developed as a useful tool for facilitating detection, classification, frequency acquisition and spectrum rendezvous for wireless devices or networks. In this paper, we present a novel technique for conveying extended information on ECS in multi-carrier signals. The extended information may include device/network identity, geo-location data and spectrum allocation, etc. In this way, the proposed technique can greatly increase the amount of information which can be obtained using spectrum sensing. This can facilitate the coordination and coexistence among heterogeneous wireless devices/networks that operate in complex, dynamic radio environments. To evaluate the feasibility of the proposed technique, we use both simulation and measurement with real-world RF signals. The results from simulation and measurement match well to each other.


In this paper we investigate the effects that team size has on geographically distributed teams within a large, multi-national manufacturing organization. Survey responses from 109 members of distributed teams indicate that compared to members of larger teams, members of smaller teams participated more actively on their team, were more committed to their team, were more aware of the goals of the team, were better acquainted with other team members' personalities, work roles and communication styles, and reported higher levels of rapport. The data also show that larger teams are more conscientious in preparing meeting agendas compared to smaller teams. Consistent with their emphasis on coordination, larger teams adopted technology to support the coordination of asynchronous work, while smaller teams adopted collaboration technology. Implications for technology adoption are discussed.


Penrose surveyed the genetical analysis of man: technical methods of family study and the human chromosome map. Not all the specific contributions can be mentioned here; they included lectures on hereditary galactosaemia (H. A. Kalckar), pseudo-cholinesterase variants (W. Kalow), primaquine sensitivity of red cells (B. Childs and W. H. Zinkham), plasma proteins (H. Harris), haptoglobins (O. Smithies). Blood groups are discussed by W. T. J. Morgan and W. M. Watkins, and haemoglobins by H. A. Itano and V. M. Ingram and his colleagues. General considerations are discussed by R. Ceppeliui and S. Brenner. This is an impressive collection of up-to-date information from a widespread field here conveniently gathered together. Of particular interest are the discussions, of which the most important is perhaps that on the cistron, a genetical unit which is smaller than the chromosome and comprises a group of closely linked genes. It is here that work on micro-organisms has been blazing the trail and is now followed closely by that on blood groups and haemoglobins.


This study aims to rationalize the Aswaja-based Islamic education strategy to counter radicalism. This research method uses literature by analyzing published, unpublished books, journals and research that are in line with the theme of moderate Islamic education through NU-an Aswaja. The results of this study are that NU implements an educational education commanded by LP Maarif NU and principled on al muhafadhotu ala al qodimi as sholih wal akhdu bil jadidi al aslah to aim at forming humans who are rahmatan lin naturalin. In learning the values that are strengthened and internalized are tawazun (balanced), tawassuh (moderate), i`tidal (fair and heartless) and tasammuh (tolerance).


During the Galileo Europa Mission (GEM), impact features on Europa were observed with improved resolution and coverage was compared with Voyager or the Galileo nominal mission. We surveyed all primary impact features >4 km in diameter seen on Europa (through orbit E19). The transition from simple to complex crater morphology occurs at a diameter of about 5 km. We calculated the transient crater dimensions and excavation depths of all craters surveyed. The largest impact feature (Tyre) probably had a transient crater depth between 5 and 10 km and transported material to the surface from a depth of not greater than ∼4 km. Craters <30 km in diameter, such as Manannan and Pwyll, formed within targets whose immediate subcrater materials exhibited nonfluid behavior on time scales of the impact event, and that are capable, especially in the case of Pwyll, of supporting significant local topographic loads such as a central peak. These craters are nevertheless quite shallow, with very subdued floors, and we suspect that Manannan and Pwyll's small depth-to-diameter ratios are due to the isostatic adjustment of large-scale topography, facilitated by warm, plastically deformable ice at depth. Morphological similarities between Callanish and Tyre strongly imply that conclusions reached regarding Callanish in J. Moore et al. (1998, Icarus135, 127–145) also apply to Tyre, which was that Callanish is the consequence of impact into target materials that are mechanically very weak at depth. New evidence that Callanish's circumferential rings formed before the proximal ejecta became immobile implies a low-viscosity substrate at the time of impact. We also report additional evidence that a component of the proximal ejecta of Callanish was emplaced as a fluid. Our observations of Pwyll secondaries support the conclusions stated in Alpert and Melosh (1999) that impacts on icy bodies eject smaller fragments and that fragment size decreases more gradually as velocity increases than observed for impacts on silicate bodies at equivalent ejection velocities. Examination of Pwyll's secondary craters reveals azimuthal variations, with ejecta fragment sizes being larger near the center of a ray than off the ray. Our initial analysis of the characteristic size distribution of Pwyll's secondary craters shows that they form a differential slope slightly shallower than −4. Similar steep slopes for small craters on Ganymede imply that small craters there are mostly formed by secondary impact, and the jovian system may thus be deficient in small impacts relative to the environment of the terrestrial planets.


INTRODUCTION
Assessments of executive functions (EFs) with varying levels of perceptual information or action fidelity are common talent-diagnostic tools in soccer, yet their validity still has to be established. Therefore, a longitudinal development of EFs in high-level players to understand their relationship with increased exposure to training is required.

METHODS
A total of 304 high-performing male youth soccer players (10-21 years old) in Germany were assessed across three seasons on various sport-specific and non-sport-specific cognitive functioning assessments.

RESULTS
The posterior means (90% highest posterior density) of random slopes indicated that both abilities predominantly developed between 10 and 15 years of age. A plateau was apparent for domain-specific abilities during adolescence, whereas domain-generic abilities improved into young adulthood.

CONCLUSION
The developmental trajectories of soccer players' EFs follow the general populations' despite long-term exposure to soccer-specific training and game play. This brings into question the relationship between high-level experience and EFs and renders including EFs in talent identification questionable.


Surgical treatment of primary cutaneous melanoma has significantly changed in the last decades. Tumors are excised with lateral margins of 1-2 cm depending on the depth of tumor infiltration, and reconstructive procedures for defect closure are rarely necessary. Elective lymph node dissection has been replaced by the sentinel lymph node procedure and radical lymph node dissection is restricted to patients with positive lymph nodes. Follow-up of melanoma has been adapted to the individual risk profile of the patient. In early stage melanoma only clinical follow-up examinations are warranted. Ultrasound investigations of the regional lymph nodes is recommended for patients with locally advanced melanoma and with lymph nodes metastases. CT-scans, MRI and PET/CT are recommended only for stage III patients and it has to be taken into account that these evaluations may have only limited value regarding the prognosis of the patients. In stage IV melanoma, the follow-up scheme should be adapted to the individual needs of the patient.


The effect of an axial magnetic field Bz on an imploding metallic gas-puff Z-pinch was studied using 2D time-gated visible self-emission imaging. Experiments were performed on the IMRI-5 generator (450 kA, 450 ns). The ambient field Bz was varied from 0.15 to 1.35 T. It was found that the initial density profile of a metallic gas-puff Z-pinch can be approximated by a power law. Time-gated images showed that the magneto-Rayleigh–Taylor instabilities were suppressed during the run-in phase both without axial magnetic field and with axial magnetic field. Helical instability structures were detected during the stagnation phase for Bz < 1.1 T. For Bz = 1.35 T, the pinch plasma boundary was observed to be stable in both run-in and stagnation phases. When a magnetic field of 0.3 T was applied to the pinch, the soft x-ray energy was about twice that generated without axial magnetic field, mostly due to longer dwell time at stagnation.


The inkjet-printing process of precursor solutions containing In nitrate dissolved in 2-methoxyethanol is optimized using ethylene glycol as a cosolvent that allows the stabilization of the droplet formation, leading to a robust, repeatable printing process. The inkjet-printed precursor films are then converted to In2O3 semiconductors at flexible-substrate-compatible low temperatures (150-200 °C) using combined far-ultraviolet (FUV) exposure at ∼160 nm and thermal treatment. The compositional nature of the precursor-to-metal oxide conversion is studied using grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD), X-ray reflectivity (XRR), and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy that indicate that amorphous, high density (up to 5.87 g/cm3), and low impurity In2O3 films can be obtained using the combined annealing technique. Prolonged annealing (180 min) at 150 °C yields enhancement-mode TFTs with saturation mobility of 4.3 cm2/(Vs) and ∼1 cm2/(Vs) on rigid Si/SiO2 and flexible plastic PEN substrates, respectively. This paves the way for manufacturing relatively high-performance, printed metal-oxide TFT arrays on cheap, flexible substrate for commercial applications.