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Despite researchers considering time of day an important variable in studies on implicit food evaluations and food intake, time of day effects on implicit food evaluations have yet to be tested. Positive implicit evaluations of unhealthy food stimuli measured with an implicit association test (IAT) predict behaviour toward those stimuli, and are assumed to reflect automatic reactions outside of conscious awareness and control. However, recent research has revealed controlled processing to have an influence on IAT performance. The current study tested time of day effects on implicit evaluations of unhealthy food measured with an IAT, and specifically on automatic and controlled processes underlying IAT performance. A sample of 304 undergraduate women aged 17-25 years completed a single-category IAT at varying times of the day. Results revealed that participation later in the day was associated with a more positive implicit evaluation of unhealthy food. This was mediated by a decrease in the ability to inhibit positive food reactions (i.e., controlled processing), rather than an increase in automatic positive reactions. The findings draw attention to the importance of considering time of day in studies measuring aspects of implicit cognition using tasks such as the IAT. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Catheter ablation for the treatment of arrhythmia is associated with significant complications and often-repeated procedures. Consequently, a less invasive and more efficient technique is required. Because high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) enables the generation of precise thermal ablations in deep-seated tissues without harming the tissues in the propagation path, it has the potential to be used as a new ablation technique. A system capable of delivering HIFU into the heart by a transesophageal route using ultrasound (US) imaging guidance was developed and tested in vivo in six male pigs. HIFU exposures were performed on atria and ventricles. At the time of autopsy, visual inspection identified thermal lesions in the targeted areas in three of the animals. These lesions were confirmed by histologic analysis (mean size: 5.5 mm(2) x 11 mm(2)). No esophageal thermal injury was observed. One animal presented with bradycardia due to an atrio-ventricular block, which provides real-time confirmation of an interaction between HIFU and the electrical circuits of the heart. Thus, US-guided HIFU has the potential to minimally invasively create myocardial lesions without an intra-cardiac device. (E-mail: francis.bessiere@inserm.fr) (C) 2016 World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology.

Although loving-kindness meditation (LKM) has shown some promise as a psychological intervention, little is known about the effectiveness of LKM for reducing one of the most prevalent mental health problems: anxiety. To build knowledge in this area, we conducted a randomized controlled trial, assigning non-clinical undergraduates to either a four-session, group-based LKM intervention (n = 38) or a waitlist control (n = 33). Self-reported anxiety, compassionate love, and self-compassion were assessed at pretreatment, posttreatment, and 8-week follow-up. Relative to control participants, participants in the LKM intervention reported higher compassionate love and self-compassion at posttreatment and higher self-kindness (a component of self-compassion) at follow-up. Anxiety ratings did not significantly differ between conditions at posttreatment or follow-up. Study limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

The objective of this study is to develop a conceptual model to analyze the role of rice paddy fields in water management and to use the model to suggest an appropriate countermeasure for land development. Rice paddy fields are traditionally seen in East and South-East Asia, particularly in areas that have a considerable seasonal variation in rainfall resulting in flooding and drought. One of the advantages of these fields in East Asia is that the period of rainfall is similar to the period of the water demand of the rice paddy. In this study, the water management functions of rice paddy are evaluated using rainfall-storage-discharge (RSD) modeling. The RSD system is a type of onsite structure used for rainwater management. In this study, the area of the rice paddy is assumed to be 10,000 m(2), and the rice paddy is considered to perform the storage and catchment functions of a rainwater harvesting system. The RSD system can be used for analyzing the outflow rate according to the rice paddy area and the peak outflow curves for a 100-year period; further, the effectiveness of the RSD system in reducing the final water discharge rate through a rice paddy is evaluated.

The Short Form 36 Health Survey (SF-36) is a popular health-related quality of life (HrQoL) tool. However, few studies have assessed its psychometric properties in patients with spondyloarthritis (SpA). We therefore aimed to assess the reliability and validity of the SF-36 in patients with SpA in Singapore. Cross-sectional data from a registry of 196 SpA patients recruited from a dedicated tertiary referral clinic in Singapore from 2011 to 2014 was used. Analyses were guided by the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments framework. Internal consistency reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha. Construct validity was assessed through 33 a priori hypotheses by correlations of the eight subscales and two summary scores of SF-36 with other health outcomes. Known-group construct validity was assessed by comparison of the means of the subscales and summary scores of the SF-36 of SpA patients and the general population of Singapore using student's t tests. Among 196 patients (155 males (79.0 %), median (range) age: 36 (17-70), 166 Chinese (84.6 %)), SF-36 scales showed high internal consistency ranging from 0.88 to 0.90. Convergent construct validity was supported as shown by fulfillment of all hypotheses. Divergent construct validity was supported, as SF-36 MCS was not associated with PGA, pain and HAQ. Known-group construct validity showed SpA patients had lower scores of 3.8-12.5 when compared to the general population at p < 0.001. This study supports the SF-36 as a valid and reliable measure of HrQoL for use in patients with SpA at a single time point.

Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Genetic Algorithms (GA) are used to minimize the cost of a permanent magnet (PM) synchronous generator with concentrated windings for tidal power applications. With the use of MATLABs global optimization toolbox, it is possible to run several optimization algorithms on the same problem, and to combine the two stochastic solvers GA and PSO with the gradient based solver fmincon to produce two hybrid optimization solvers. It has been shown that a complex machine design problem with tight constraints and a narrow solution space is difficult to solve for both a GA and for PSO. Both GA and PSO were unable to find the optimal value on their own. Hybrid versions of GA and PSO gave better results. The average minimum costs found with hybrid PSO and hybrid GA were 1.07 and 1.11 times the global minimum. When the integer value was set to the optimal value, the hybrid GA found a mean cost only 1.01 times the global minimum. For both algorithms, it was necessary to increase the population size to improve the fitness functions and reduce the variance.

This work presents the application of the comprehensive predictive modeling methodology for single multiphysics time-dependent systems, developed by Cacuci and Ionescu-Bujor (2010), to a paradigm spent fuel dissolver model of interest to nonproliferation objectives, in order to quantify uncertainties due to dissolver model parameters and subsequently to combine all of the available experimental and computational information to obtain best-estimate values for model responses and parameters, along with reduced predicted uncertainties. This predictive modeling methodology uses the maximum entropy principle to construct an optimal approximation of the unknown a priori distribution for the a priori known mean values and uncertainties characterizing the model parameters and the computed and experimentally measured model responses. This approximate a priori distribution is subsequently combined using Bayes' theorem with the likelihood provided by the multiphysics computational models. Finally, the posterior distribution is evaluated using the saddle-point method to obtain analytical expressions for the optimally predicted values for the parameters and responses of both multiphysics models, along with corresponding reduced uncertainties. The weighting functions used within this predictive modeling methodology are provided by the first-order sensitivities (i.e., functional derivatives) of the model's response with respect to the model's parameters. The dissolver model comprises 619 model parameters related to the model's equation of state and inflow conditions. The sensitivities to all model parameters of the acid concentrations at each of these instances in time were computed exactly and efficiently in an accompanying work by Peltz and Cacuci (2015), using the adjoint sensitivity analysis method. These sensitivities are used in this work to quantify the uncertainties in the acid concentration (system responses) in various dissolver compartments, arising from uncertainties in the model parameters. Subsequently, the sensitivities are used within the predictive modeling methodology to combine the computational results with the available experiments, which were performed solely in the compartment farthest from the inlet. The results of applying the predictive modeling methodology yield optimally calibrated values for all 619 model parameters, with reduced predicted uncertainties, as well as optimal (best-estimate) predicted values for the acid concentrations, also with reduced predicted uncertainties. Notably, even though the experimental data pertain solely to the compartment farthest from the inlet (where the data were measured), the predictive modeling methodology actually improves the predictions and reduces the predicted uncertainties not only in the compartment in which the data were actually measured but also throughout the entire dissolver, including the compartment farthest from the measurements (i.e., at the inlet). This is because the predictive modeling methodology combines and transmits information simultaneously over the entire phase-space, comprising all time steps and spatial locations. The results obtained in this work establish confidence in the dissolver model's accuracy for simulating the acid concentrations required to dissolve used nuclear fuel. In turn, these results will be used to generate source terms for key reprocessing facility components downstream and to support material accountability for nuclear safeguards.

Crop simulation models are commonly used to forecast the performance of cropping systems under different hypotheses of change. Their use on a regional scale is generally constrained, however, by a lack of information on the spatial and temporal variability of environment-related input variables (e.g., soil) and agricultural practices (e.g., sowing dates) that influence crop yields. Satellite remote sensing data can shed light on such variability by providing timely information on crop dynamics and conditions over large areas. This paper proposes a method for analyzing time series of MODIS satellite data in order to estimate the inter-annual variability of winter wheat sowing dates. A rule-based method was developed to automatically identify a reliable sample of winter wheat field time series, and to infer the corresponding sowing dates. The method was designed for a case study in the Camargue region (France), where winter wheat is characterized by vernalization, as in other temperate regions. The detection criteria were chosen on the grounds of agronomic expertise and by analyzing high-confidence time-series vegetation index profiles for winter wheat. This automatic method identified the target crop on more than 56% (four-year average) of the cultivated areas, with low commission errors (11%). It also captured the seasonal variability in sowing dates with errors of 8 and 16 days in 46% and 66% of cases, respectively. Extending the analysis to the years 2002-2012 showed that sowing in the Camargue was usually done on or around November 1st ( +/- 4 days). Comparing inter-annual sowing date variability with the main local agro-climatic drivers showed that the type of preceding crop and the weather conditions during the summer season before the wheat sowing had a prominent role in influencing winter wheat sowing dates. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

There is evidence of health disparities between sexual minority and heterosexual populations. Although the focus of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender health research has been human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and sexually transmitted infection among men who have sex with men, there are health disparities among sexual minority women. Using the minority stress framework, these disparities may in part be caused by individual prejudice, social stigma, and discrimination. To ensure equitable health for all, there is urgent need for targeted culturally sensitive health promotion, cultural sensitivity training for health care providers, and intervention-focused research.

Oxidative stress has been shown to play a contributory role in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Recent studies have provided evidence for antioxidant properties of spa therapy. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether spa therapy with saline balneotherapy has any influence on the oxidant/antioxidant status in patients with RA and to assess clinical effects of spa therapy. In this investigator-blind randomized controlled trial, we randomly assigned 50 patients in a 1:1 ratio to spa therapy plus standard drug treatment (spa group) or standard drug treatment alone (control group). Spa group followed a 2-week course of spa therapy regimen consisting of a total of 12 balneotherapy sessions in a thermal mineral water pool at 36-37 A degrees C for 20 min every day except Sunday. All clinical and biochemical parameters were assessed at baseline and after spa therapy (2 weeks). The clinical parameters were pain intensity, patient global assessment, physician global assessment, Health Assessment Questionnaire disability index (HAQ-DI), Disease Activity Score for 28-joints based on erythrocyte sedimentation rate (DAS28-4[ESR]). Oxidative status parameters were malondialdehyde (MDA), nonenzymatic superoxide radical scavenger activity (NSSA), antioxidant potential (AOP), and superoxide dismutase (SOD). The NSSA levels were increased significantly in the spa group (p = 0.003) but not in the control group (p = 0.509); and there was a trend in favor of spa therapy for improvements in NSSA levels compared to control (p = 0.091). Significant clinical improvement was found in the spa group compared to the control in terms of patient global assessment (p = 0.011), physician global assessment (p = 0.043), function (HAQ-DI) (p = 0.037), disease activity (DAS28-4[ESR]) (0.044) and swollen joint count (0.009), and a trend toward improvement in pain scores (0.057). Spa therapy with saline balneotherapy exerts antioxidant effect in patients with RA as reflected by the increase in NSSA levels after spa therapy; whether this antioxidant effect contributes to the clinical improvements observed remains to be verified.

Direct gaze is a salient nonverbal signal for social interest and the intention to communicate. In particular, the duration of another's direct gaze can modulate our perception of the social meaning of gaze cues. However, both poor eye contact and deficits in social cognitive processing of gaze are specific diagnostic features of autism. Therefore, investigating neuralmechanisms of gaze may provide key insights into the neural mechanisms related to autistic symptoms. Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a parametric design, we investigated the neural correlates of the influence of gaze direction and gaze duration on person perception in individuals with high-functioning autism (HFA) and a matched control group. For this purpose, dynamically animated faces of virtual characters, displaying averted or direct gaze of different durations (1 s, 2.5 s and 4 s) were evaluated on a four-point likeability scale. Behavioral results revealed that HFA participants showed no significant difference in likeability ratings depending on gaze duration, while the control group rated the virtual characters as increasingly likeable with increasing gaze duration. On the neural level, direct gaze and increasing direct gaze duration recruit regions of the social neural network (SNN) in control participants, indicating the processing of social salience and a perceived communicative intent. In participants with HFA however, regions of the social neural network were more engaged by averted and decreasing amounts of gaze, while the neural response for processing direct gaze in HFA was not suggestive of any social information processing. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

Experimental self-driving cars are being tested on public roads, and will at some point be commercially sold or made otherwise available to the public. A self-driving car and its digital control systems take over control tasks previously performed by the human driver. This places high demands on this control system which has to perform the highly complex task of driving the car through traffic. When this system does not perform its task adequately and damage ensues the failure of the control system may be used as a stepping stone to claim liability of the manufacturer of the car or the control system. Uncertainties about the application of (product) liability law may slow down the uptake of self-driving cars more than is warranted on the basis of technical progress. This article examines how the decision about the timing of a market introduction can be approached and how possible chilling effects of liability law can be redressed with an adequate system of obligatory insurance. (C) 2015 Maurice Schellekens. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In modern therapeutics, chemically synthesized drugs have been reported as causing adverse effects including allergies, rashes, itches, and swelling. For the past few decades, silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have widely been applied in medical domains due to their antimicrobial and wound healing properties. In the present study, different concentrations of phytosynthesized AgNPs-saturated cotton dress fabrics - in comparison to cotton fabrics treated with commercial ointment - were tested for 18 days to assess their ability to speed the healing of rats' burn wounds. No significant difference in body weight was observed during the course of treatment as compared to the normal rat group. The cotton fabrics observed under Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) confirmed the distribution of AgNPs in the cotton fibers. Energy-Dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) spectrum also authenticated the AgNPs' distribution. At the end of the experimental period, the wound healing efficacy of dressing containing commercial ointment (Burn Heal) was slightly lower than that of treatment containing 100 mu g/kg of body weight (kg b.w.) of AgNPs. Additionally, it was also observed that the wound contraction area was higher than that of the positive drug 100 mu g/kg b.w. treated group, which indicates comparatively better-quality activity of ointments with AgNPs with regards to their burn healing properties. The histological and SEM observations showed better fibril alignments in repaired skin when compared with the negative and positive control groups. Perhaps due to the tensile strength of the comparatively higher concentration of nanoparticles, Groups IV and V (which contained the most nanoparticles out of all the groups) showed much better healing properties than did the positive drug treated group VI. Altogether, increased-concentration AgNPs show increased recovery action in comparison to the positive drug treated group. This study provides additional insight into the incorporation of AgNPs in wound dressings for speedy recovery of burn wounds, for improved human welfare. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The review examines Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD in its Child and Adult form) and its various presentations (Hyperactive Impulsive, Inattentive, and Combined) with a particular focus on environmental (incl. social factors), lifestyles and comorbidities. It is argued that ADHD is best understood in a holistic and interactive context and a vast empirical literature is presented to illustrate the point: Environmental factors include stress in general as well as exposure to toxins (phthalates, bisphenol A). Social factors are illustrated by effects of social deprivation and seduction to unhealthy lifestyles. Maternal lifestyle during pregnancy is pointed out (particularly her exposure to nicotine, alcohol, caffeine, and drugs, even seemingly benign medications like acetaminophen), which all tend to be related to ADHD. Family environment is discussed with respect to protective effect of (mainly authoritative and autocratic) parenting styles. Societal factors include mainly economic and political issues: income inequality and poverty (low SES is an ADHD risk factor) and a growing moral dilemma between a humanistic effort to globally spread the knowledge of ADHD and the medicalization and commercialization of the disorder. The second part of the review is devoted to ADHD related lifestyles and resulting comorbidities (e.g., food addiction and obesity, substance abuse, electronic media dependencies and conduct and personality disorders). Although ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder, its assessment and treatment are also linked to environmental, behavioral and social factors and their interactions.

BACKGROUND: Opiate abuse and overdose reached epidemic levels in the United States. However, despite significant advances in animal and in vitro models, little knowledge has been directly accrued regarding the neurobiology of the opiate-addicted human brain. METHODS: We used postmortem human brain specimens from a homogeneous European Caucasian population of heroin users for transcriptional and epigenetic profiling, as well as direct assessment of chromatin accessibility in the striatum, a brain region central to reward and emotion. A rat heroin self-administration model was used to obtain translational molecular and behavioral insights. RESULTS: Our transcriptome approach revealed marked impairments related to glutamatergic neurotransmission and chromatin remodeling in the human striatum. A series of biochemical experiments tracked the specific location of the epigenetic disturbances to hyperacetylation of lysine 27 of histone H3, showing dynamic correlations with heroin use history and acute opiate toxicology. Targeted investigation of GRIA1, a glutamatergic gene implicated in drug-seeking behavior, verified the increased enrichment of lysine-27 acetylated histone H3 at discrete loci, accompanied by enhanced chromatin accessibility at hyperacetylated regions in the gene body. Analogous epigenetic impairments were detected in the striatum of heroin self-administering rats. Using this translational model, we showed that bromodomain inhibitor JQ1, which blocks the functional readout of acetylated lysines, reduced heroin self-administration and cue-induced drug-seeking behavior. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, our data suggest that heroin-related histone H3 hyperacetylation contributes to glutamatergic transcriptional changes that underlie addiction behavior and identify JQ1 as a promising candidate for targeted clinical interventions in heroin use disorder.

Dietary phenolic compounds are often transformed before absorption. This transformation modulates their biological activity. Different studies have been carried out to understand gut microbiota transformations of particular polyphenol types and identify the responsible microorganisms. Although there are potentially thousands of different phenolic compounds in the diet, they are typically transformed to a much smaller number of metabolites. The aim of this review was to discuss the current information about the microbial degradation metabolites obtained from different phenolics and their formation pathways, identifying their differences and similarities. The modulation of gut microbial population by phenolics was also reviewed in order to understand the two-way phenolic-microbiota interaction. Clostridium and Eubacterium genera, which are phylogenetically associated, are other common elements involved in the metabolism of many phenolics. The health benefits from phenolic consumption should be attributed to their bioactive metabolites and also to the modulation of the intestinal bacterial population.

Wine, and particularly red wine, is a beverage with a great chemical complexity that is in continuous evolution. Chemically, wine is a hydroalcoholic solution (similar to 78% water) that comprises a wide variety of chemical components, including aldehydes, esters, ketones, lipids, minerals, organic acids, phenolics, soluble proteins, sugars and vitamins. Flavonoids constitute a major group of polyphenolic compounds which are directly associated with the organoleptic and health-promoting properties of red wine. However, due to the insufficient epidemiological and in vivo evidences on this subject, the presence of a high number of variables such as human age, metabolism, the presence of alcohol, the complex wine chemistry, and the wide array of in vivo biological effects of these compounds suggest that only cautious conclusions may be drawn from studies focusing on the direct effect of wine and any specific health issue. Nevertheless, there are several reports on the health protective properties of wine phenolics for several diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, some cancers, obesity, neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes, allergies and osteoporosis. The different interactions that wine flavonoids may have with key biological targets are crucial for some of these health-promoting effects. The interaction between some wine flavonoids and some specific enzymes are one example. The way wine flavonoids may be absorbed and metabolized could interfere with their bioavailability and therefore in their health-promoting effect. Hence, some reports have focused on flavonoids absorption, metabolism, microbiota effect and overall on flavonoids bioavailability. This review summarizes some of these major issues which are directly related to the potential health-promoting effects of wine flavonoids. Reports related to flavonoids and health highlight some relevant scientific information. However, there is still a gap between the knowledge of wine flavonoids bioavailability and their health-promoting effects. More in vivo results as well as studies focused on flavonoid metabolites are still required. Moreover, it is also necessary to better understand how biological interactions (with microbiota and cells, enzymes or general biological systems) could interfere with flavonoid bioavailability.

A huge number of genes within the human genome code for proteins that mediate and/or control nutritional processes. Although a large body of information on the number of genes, on chromosomal localisation, gene structure and function has been gathered, we are far from understanding the orchestrated way of how they make metabolism. Nevertheless, based on the genetic information emerging on a daily basis, we are offered fantastic new tools that allow us new insights into the molecular basis of human metabolism under normal as well as pathophysiological conditions. Recent technological advancements have made it possible to analyse simultaneously large sets of mRNA and/or proteins expressed in a biological sample or to define genetic heterogeneity that may be important for the individual response of an organism to changes in its nutritional environment. Applications of the new techniques of genome and proteome analysis are central for the development of nutritional sciences in the next decade and its integration into the rapidly developing era of functional genomics.

This paper presents a retrospective study from 2004 to 2014 of FTIR prostate cancer spectroscopy related to tissues and cell biology. Since vibrational spectroscopy is delicately sensitive to the biochemical composition of the sample and variations therein, it is possible to monitor metabolic processes in tissue and cells, and to construct spectral maps based on thousands of collected IR spectra. These reveal information on tissue structure, distribution of cellular components, metabolic activity and the health condition of cells and tissues. In addition, rapid collection, reliable data, a powerful ability to structure elucidation about IR spectroscopy, and the need for a rapid diagnosis of traditional biopsy (subject to sampling and inter-observer) have potentiated infrared as a way for a new type of analysis based on optical examination and being more objective than conventional colour methods. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Background. The experience of 'sensed presence' a feeling or sense that another entity, individual or being is present despite no clear sensory or perceptual evidence is known to occur in the general population, appears more frequently in religious or spiritual contexts, and seems to be prominent in certain psychiatric or neurological conditions and may reflect specific functions of social cognition or body-image representation systems in the brain. Previous research has relied on ad-hoc measures of the experience and no specific psychometric scale to measure the experience exists to date. Methods. Based on phenomenological description in the literature, we created the 16-item Sensed Presence Questionnaire (SenPQ). We recruited participants from (i) a general population sample, and; (ii) a sample including specific selection for religious affiliation to complete the SenPQ and additional measures of well-being, schizotypy, social anxiety, social imagery, and spiritual experience. We completed an analysis to test internal reliability, the ability of the SenPQ to distinguish between religious.and non-religious participants,. and.whether. the SenPQ was specifically related to positive schizotypical experiences and social imagery. A factor analysis was also conducted.. examine underlying latent variables. Results, The SenPQ was found to be reliable and valid, with religious participants significantly endorsing.more items than non-religious participants, and the scale showing a selective relationship with construct relevant measures. Principal components analysis indicates two potential underlying factors interpreted as reflecting 'benign' and 'malign' ensed presence experiences. Discussion. The SenPQ appears to be a reliable and valid measure of sensed presence experience although further validation in neurological and psychiatric conditions is warranted.

Biogenic amines are nitrogen compounds which are products of the decarboxylation of free amino acids. They are produced with the participation of bacterial microflora producing enzymes, and they may be introduced together with food into the human body. The highest amounts of biogenic amines are found in meat, fish and cheeses. Consumption of products containing biogenic amines can cause food poisoning and allergies in consumers. The most common amines in cheeses are tyramine, histamine, putrescine, cadaverine and 2-phenylethylamine. The formation of amines depends on the technology of food production, storage conditions (temperature, time, pH, moisture), the quality of the raw materials (the content of free amino acids, proteins, salts, sugars) and the presence of microorganisms producing decarboxylases. This article describes different types of biogenic amines, their formation, detection methods and health risks to consumers. Information on the harmfulness of biogenic amines and on factors conducive to their production may help prevent poisoning with these compounds.

The screening of a number of chiral stationary phases (CSPs) with different modifiers in supercritical fluid chromatography to find a chromatographic method for separation of enantiomers can be time-consuming. Computational methods for data analysis were utilized to establish a hierarchical screening strategy, using a dataset of 110 drug-like chiral compounds with diverse structures tested on 15 CSPs with two different modifiers. This dataset was analyzed using a combinatorial algorithm, principal component analysis (PCA), and a correlation matrix. The primary goal was to find a set of eight columns resolving a large number of compounds, but also having complementary enantioselective properties. In addition to the hereby defined hierarchical experimental strategy, quantitative structure enantioselective models (QSERs) were evaluated. The diverse chemical space and relatively limited size of the training set reduced the accuracy of the QSERs. However, including separation factors from other CSPs increased the accuracies of the QSERs substantially. Hence, such combined models can support the experimental strategy in prioritizing the CSPs of the second screening phase, when a compound is not separated by the primary set of columns.

This article from preparation befor the job, blind pipe with fixed and waterproof plate laying geotextile, analysis of waterproof board laid before the preparatory work, waterproof board laid process related indicators of control, and offer reference for the construction of the tunnel.

A remotely-piloted aircraft (RPA) is used in this study to collect high resolution data of the flow in complex terrain at a potential site for a wind energy test field in Southern Germany. It is described how such a system was used to retrieve information about the flow field, turbulence intensity, vertical wind components and shear at an escarpment site that is known for its high wind potential. Measurements were done with the aircraft on several days with varying wind and weather conditions, while the focus of the study is on the characterisation of the flow field in main wind direction and neutral stratification. It is shown that flow inclination of up to 30 is found over the escarpment, but attenuates within a few hundred metres downstream. The formation of a reattached boundary layer could be measured, as well as an increased turbulence intensity in the reattachment zone. The results are highly valuable information for the planning of a wind energy test site at the location of the experiment and can also be used for the validation of numerical simulations and remote sensing instruments. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In the present investigation a series of model tests have been performed to study the effect of different governing parameters viz., relative density (D (r) ) of sand, the ratio of embedment depth (H) of anchor to diameter (D) of bell of anchor, number of ties (N), the ratio of length of tie (L (g) ) to diameter of bell of anchor, diameter of bell of anchor and friction ratio (f = psi/I center dot) on uplift capacity of anchor with ties embedded in river sand. From the experiment, it is observed that with increase in H/D ratio the ultimate uplift capacities of anchor with or without ties increase. With increase in number of tie layers up to 2, the ultimate uplift capacity of anchor with ties increases. A non linear power model has been developed to predict the ultimate uplift capacity (Q (Rult) ) of anchor with ties in terms of ultimate uplift capacity of anchor without tie (Q (UR) ), D (r) , H/D ratio, N, L (g) /D ratio, and f.

Introduction: Opioid dependence relapse is a complex and multidimensional problem, and lack of spiritual well-being is a major concern in opioid addicts. Aim: This study was conducted to determine spiritual well-being and factors associated with relapse Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted from April 2015 to September 2015. According to purposive sampling, 312 eligible addicted patients were enrolled in the study. The patients had at least an attempt of detoxification in the past six months and referred to an outpatient detoxification clinic in Shahrekord (Southwest, Iran). They completed Paloutzian and Ellison's Spiritual Well-being Scale. A researcher-developed questionnaire consisting of demographic characteristics and 20 questions about associated factors with relapse was administered. Data were analysed by version 16.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL) using one-way ANOVA, Pearson's correlation test, chi-square, Friedman test, and student's t-test. Results: The most important factors associated with opioid dependence relapse consist of relation with an addict friend, unemployment, living expenses, family conflicts, and somatic pain. In the present study, 157 patients had never experienced relapse while the mean of relapse in the rest participants was (3.25 +/- 1.53) times. Furthermore, the addicted patients with relapse had significantly lower scores of spiritual well-being and its subscales compared with non-relapse patients (p<0.001). Conclusion: The findings of the present study indicate the necessity of paying attention to spiritual well-being, family and economical, personal, and occupational factors as crucial factors in opiate addiction relapse.

Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I molecules present antigenic peptides to cytotoxic T cells. During an adaptive immune response, MHC molecules are regulated by several mechanisms including lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and interferon gamma (IFN-g). However, it is unclear whether the serine protease cathepsin G (CatG), which is generally secreted by neutrophils at the site of inflammation, might regulate MHC I molecules. We identified CatG, and to a higher extend CatG and lactoferrin (LF), as an exogenous regulator of cell surface MHC I expression of immune cells and glioblastoma stem cells. In addition, levels of MHC I molecules are reduced on dendritic cells from CatG deficient mice compared to their wild type counterparts. Furthermore, cell surface CatG on immune cells, including T cells, B cells, and NK cells triggers MHC I on THP-1 monocytes suggesting a novel mechanism for CatG to facilitate intercellular communication between infiltrating cells and the respective target cell. Subsequently, our findings highlight the pivotal role of CatG as a checkpoint protease which might force target cells to display their intracellular MHC I: antigen repertoire.

System analysis of metabolic network reconstructions can be used to calculate functional states or phenotypes. This provides tools to study the metabolic effects of genetic and epigenetic properties, such as dosage sensitivity. We used the genome-scale reconstruction of human metabolism (Recon 1) to analyze the effect of nine known or predicted imprinted genes on metabolic phenotypes. Simulations of maternal deletion of ATP10A indicated an anabolic metabolism consistent with the known clinical phenotypes of obesity. The abnormal expression of the other genes affected fewer subsections of metabolism consistent with a lack of established clinical phenotypes. We found that four of nine genes had metabolic effect as predicted by the Haig's parental conflict theory.

Mindfulness is defined as moment-by-moment social awareness derived from a non-judgmental, friendly, and receptive attitude. Previous research suggested that mindfulness has a positive effect on parenting. The present study examined the association between mindfulness, parent-child relationship, and child social behavior in a Chinese sample. Two-hundred and sixteen mothers with children of preschool age completed a set of questionnaires on their mindfulness, parent-child relationships, and their children's social behavior. A path analysis of their responses indicated that mindfulness had a significant and positive effect on the mother-child relationship in terms of attachment, involvement, and parental confidence and a negative effect on discipline practice and relational frustration. Mindfulness also had a significantly negative indirect effect on children's emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity, and peer problems and a significant and positive indirect effect on children's prosocial behavior. These results supported previous findings that mindful parents were more involved in their children's lives and have a tendency to be more aware of their children's needs. Implications of these results are discussed.

Many computer vision problems involve exploring the synthesis and classification models that map images from the observed source space to a target space. Recently, one popular and effective method is to transform images from both source and target space into a shared single sparse domain, in which a synthesis model is established. Motivated by such a technique, this research attempts to explore an effective and robust linear function that maps the sparse representatio ns of images from the source space to the target space, and simultaneously develop a linear classifier on such a coupled space with both supervised and semi-supervised learning. In order to capture the sparse structure shared by each class, we represent this mapping using a linear transformation with the constraint of sparsity. The performance of our proposed method is evaluated on several benchmark image datasets for low-resolution faces/digits classification and super-resolution, and the experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) and Ambient Intelligence (AmI) try to achieve a future where technology surrounds the users and helps them in their daily lives. In this sense, the urgent need of solutions to cover the rapid increase of the elderly population with chronic diseases led to the increase of projects related with AAL and AmI. During the latest years, several projects have been proposed to tackle different medical problems, some building devices and others services. This paper presents iGenda and its evolution, the UserAccess, with the main objective of developing an AAL platform. It features an analysis of the latest developments and points future directions for the work. These projects display the importance of the interoperability of the platforms, demonstrating a case study for AAL development.

Compared with the position fixed fish feeding machine, shrimp feeding requires bait spread evenly across the whole pond water surface since its domain characteristic and low activity ability. There is less feeding machine that can meet this goal. To solve this problem, in this paper, a throwing tray is designed based on the bait particles moving curve simulation and experiment, which can achieve even spreading of the bait. A new feeding machine is upgraded to meet the requirement of installation and operation on the boat. The driving system and power source is calculated and assembled. Experiment has been conducted in the practical shrimp cultivation and the performance result shows its validation.

We propose a framework for developing a comprehensive biophysical model that could predict and simulate realistic longitudinal MRIs of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). The framework includes three major building blocks: i) atrophy generation, ii) brain deformation, and iii) realistic MRI generation. Within this framework, this paper focuses on a detailed implementation of the brain deformation block with a carefully designed biomechanics-based tissue loss model. For a given baseline brain MRI, the model yields a deformation field imposing the desired atrophy at each voxel of the brain parenchyma while allowing the CSF to expand as required to globally compensate for the locally prescribed volume loss. Our approach is inspired by biomechanical principles and involves a system of equations similar to Stokes equations in fluid mechanics but with the presence of a non-zero mass source term. We use this model to simulate longitudinal MRIs by prescribing complex patterns of atrophy. We present experiments that provide an insight into the role of different biomechanical parameters in the model. The model allows simulating images with exactly the same tissue atrophy but with different underlying deformation fields in the image. We explore the influence of different spatial distributions of atrophy on the image appearance and on the measurements of atrophy reported by various global and local atrophy estimation algorithms. We also present a pipeline that allows evaluating atrophy estimation algorithms by simulating longitudinal MRIs from large number of real subject MRIs with complex subject-specific atrophy patterns. The proposed framework could help understand the implications of different model assumptions, regularization choices, and spatial priors for the detection and measurement of brain atrophy from longitudinal brain MRIs. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The home automation is one of the most customers of electrical energy after the industry. Lighting represents on average about 15% of the annual electricity bill excluding gas and hot water. Different studies have been made to reduce the electrical energy consumption like automatic switching and time programming. But all these techniques have not an important rate in reducing the electrical energy consumption. So we note that an intelligent lighting which varies with the users need remains important source of economy of the energy. The intelligent lighting is obtained by using ambient intelligence (AmI). Multi agent System (MAS) have become the important paradigm to develop an ambient system because they have important characteristics like autonomy, proactivity and mobility to respond better to the main characteristic of ambient intelligence like the adaptability to the context. In this area, we propose an adaptive and intelligent lighting system in which each light source is represented by a software agent and the set of agents compose and coordinate their competences in order to illuminate a region with minimum energy consumption.

This paper looks at the benefits of applying quaternions to the study and research of electrical circuits and motor/generator applications. A bottom up approach is taken. The paper shows when variables in electrical circuits are formulated as vector quantities, simple manipulation of the variables can give results which are easily interpreted, and especially so for the variables which are in quadrature with one another. The example of the force calculation in electrical motors, is also developed and extended for the case of non-ideal flux and rotor coil positioning. Other applications of quaternions are eluded to for the completeness.

In real quadratic number field Q (root d), integral basis element is denoted by w(d) = [a(0); a(1), a(2), ... , a(l)(d)(-1), a(l(d))] for the period length l(d). The fundamental unit epsilon(d) of real quadratic number field is also denoted by epsilon d = t(d)+u(d)root d/2 >1. The Unit Theorem for real quadratic fields says that every unit in the integer ring of a quadratic field is generated by the fundamental unit. Also, regulator in real quadratic cryptography is outstanding. We have seen that the regulator R = log epsilon(d) plays the role of a group order. The regulator problem is to find an integer R' satisfies vertical bar R' - R vertical bar < 1 where R' is an approximation of.. with any given precision can be computed in polynomial time for discriminant. However, some of the fundamental units can not be calculated by computer programme in short time because of the big numbers or long calculations of usual algorithm. This is also the main problem from the computing/informatics point of view. So, determining of the fundamental units is of great importance. In this paper, we construct a theorem to determine the some certain real quadratic fields Q(root d.) having specific form of continued fraction expansion of w(d) where d = 1(mod4) is a square-free integer. We also present the general context and obtain new certain parametric representation of fundamental unit epsilon(d) for such types of fields. By specialization, we get a fix on Yokoi's invariants and support all results with tables. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by IASE.

A digital low dropout regulator (D-LDO) manages to operate at low voltage and scale with process. But, the tradeoff between current efficiency and transient response speed limits its applications. In this work, a coarse-fine-tuning technique with burst-mode operation is employed to advance this trade-off. Once the output voltage under/overshoot is detected, the power MOS array changes with x16 unit size at 500 MHz sampling frequency for a fixed time, comparing with xi size and 50 MHz in steady state. The limit cycle oscillation (LCO) in steady state is reduced by a feed-forward compensation zero with negligible power and area overheads. The proposed D-LDO is simulated in a 65 nm CMOS process, achieving a 60 mV voltage undershoot and 0.36 ps FOM of speed with a 60 mu A quiescent current, and mode-1 LCO in steady state.

Th2 and Th17 cells are both associated with developing ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and asthma. Th2 cells are also associated with allergic rhinitis and atopic dermatitis (AD). The prevalence of such allergic diseases in AS patients is unknown. In this study, we intended to study the risk of allergic diseases in a 10-year follow-up population of newly diagnosed patients with AS. We used a nationwide 10-year population-based database retrieved from the Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2005 (LHID2005) in Taiwan. The study cohort comprised 857 patients with AS who had at least 1 claim of inpatient admission or at least 2 claims of ambulatory visit. The comparison cohort consisted of 4285 randomly selected subjects matched with AS group at a ratio of 5:1. We used Cox proportional-hazards regression to determine the 10-year disease-free survival rates after adjusting for potentially confounding factors. The AS patients had a 1.31 times greater risk of developing asthma within 10 years of diagnosis when compared with non-AS age-and sex-matched subjects, after adjusting for other risk factors (95% confidence interval=1.00-1.75). But the difference was not significantly different. The AS patients also had a 1.46 times and a 1.22 times greater risk of developing allergic rhinitis and AD significantly. AS patients also had a lower allergic disease-free survival rate compared to non-AS group. Our results showed that patients with AS had a higher risk of developing allergic diseases later in life.

Water scarcity is not a new issue, neither is water pollution. While 70% of the earth's surface is covered with water, only 3% of it is available as fresh water. Moreover the pollution of water resources has dramatically increased the problem of water scarcity over the last century. Bioremediation presents a cheap and effective solution of this problem. In particular, halophiles have been found to be effective in hypersaline wastewater treatment. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a nonlinear mathematical model to study the removal of a pollutant using halophiles in the hypersaline environment. The analysis of the model is being carried out using stability theory of differential equations. The results indicate that halophiles not only help in removing the organic pollutant, but also help in conversion of saline water into fresh water. The numerical simulations along with sensitivity analysis are performed to support the analytical results.

Here we present the technical and economical performances of a small scale trigeneration power plant based on solid oxide fuel cells and designed for a small residential cluster (i.e. 10 apartments). The energy system features a natural gas solid oxide fuel cell, a boiler, a refrigerator, and a thermal storage system. We compare different power plant configurations varying the size of the fuel cell and the refrigeration technology to satisfy the chilling demand (i.e. absorption or mechanical chiller). Given that the ability to meet the power demand is crucial in this kind of applications, the plant performances are assessed following an optimal control strategy, as a function of different energy demand profiles and electricity prices, and of rated and part load efficiencies of each energy converter. The optimization of the energy system operating strategy is performed through a graph theory-based methodology. Results are provided in terms of electrical and thermal efficiency, operating strategy, as well as economic saving, primary energy consumption reduction, and pay back period, considering different capital costs of the fuel cell. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Cancer classification based on site of origin is very significant research issue for prediction and treatment of cancer. This paper is addressing the problem of cancer classification for Homo Sapiens genes composed of amino acid chain. Cancer gene network is realized by equivalent electrical circuits based on hydrophilic/hydrophobic property of amino acid and a classifier is modeled to determine the cancer origin. The phase value, peak gain value and shape of Nyquist curve of network model are investigated to characterize different types of cancer gene origins. The model achieves 81.09% of classification accuracy and proves to be more sensitive and simple, since it shows 69% better performance compare to the existing nucleotide based method. The proposed classifier successfully predicts the site of origin of 93 cancer gene samples.

Background: Inflammation is a key feature of aldosterone-induced vascular damage and dysfunction, but molecular mechanisms by which aldosterone triggers inflammation remain unclear. The NLRP3 inflammasome is a pivotal immune sensor that recognizes endogenous danger signals triggering sterile inflammation. Methods: We analyzed vascular function and inflammatory profile of wild-type (WT), NLRP3 knockout (NLRP3(-/-)), caspase-1 knockout (Casp-1(-/-)), and interleukin-1 receptor knockout (IL-1R(-/-)) mice treated with vehicle or aldosterone (600 mu gkg(-1)d(-1) for 14 days through osmotic mini-pump) while receiving 1% saline to drink. Results: Here, we show that NLRP3 inflammasome plays a central role in aldosterone-induced vascular dysfunction. Long-term infusion of aldosterone in mice resulted in elevation of plasma interleukin-1 levels and vascular abnormalities. Mice lacking the IL-1R or the inflammasome components NLRP3 and caspase-1 were protected from aldosterone-induced vascular damage. In vitro, aldosterone stimulated NLRP3-dependent interleukin-1 secretion by bone marrow-derived macrophages by activating nuclear factor-B signaling and reactive oxygen species generation. Moreover, chimeric mice reconstituted with NLRP3-deficient hematopoietic cells showed that NLRP3 in immune cells mediates aldosterone-induced vascular damage. In addition, aldosterone increased the expression of NLRP3, active caspase-1, and mature interleukin-1 in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Hypertensive patients with hyperaldosteronism or normal levels of aldosterone exhibited increased activity of NLRP3 inflammasome, suggesting that the effect of hyperaldosteronism on the inflammasome may be mediated through high blood pressure. Conclusions: Together, these data demonstrate that NLRP3 inflammasome, through activation of IL-1R, is critically involved in the deleterious vascular effects of aldosterone, placing NLRP3 as a potential target for therapeutic interventions in conditions with high aldosterone levels.

The massive forests of central Amazonia are often considered relatively resilient against climatic variation, but this view is challenged by the wildfires invoked by recent droughts. The impact of such fires that spread from pervasive sources of ignition may reveal where forests are less likely to persist in a drier future. Here we combine field observations with remotely sensed information for the whole Amazon to show that the annually inundated lowland forests that run through the heart of the system may be trapped relatively easily into a fire-dominated savanna state. This lower forest resilience on floodplains is suggested by patterns of tree cover distribution across the basin, and supported by our field and remote sensing studies showing that floodplain fires have a stronger and longer-lasting impact on forest structure as well as soil fertility. Although floodplains cover only 14% of the Amazon basin, their fires can have substantial cascading effects because forests and peatlands may release large amounts of carbon, and wildfires can spread to adjacent uplands. Floodplains are thus an Achilles' heel of the Amazon system when it comes to the risk of large-scale climate-driven transitions.

Recent advances in the development of implicit constitutive relations to describe the response of both solids and fluids have greatly increased the repertoire of the modeler in his ability to describe natural phenomena more faithfully than hitherto possible. It would not be an exaggeration to claim that such constitutive relations have the potential to lead to breakthroughs in mechanics as they provide very promising novel means to study two of the most important and ill-understood problems in mechanics, that of fracturing of solids and of turbulence in fluids, in addition to providing a means to describe a plethora of phenomena that have eluded explanation in biomechanics, response of colloids, and mixtures, etc. In this article, we describe these recent developments within the context of both fluid and solid mechanics.

Because of the large increase in the number of hotels in Brazil, added to the current concern to reduce the use of natural resources and the preference of some consumers for companies that adopt environmental measures in their management plans, rainwater-harvesting system become increasingly common in various levels of infrastructure in the country. The following paper does a bibliographic review of the current legislation that deals with the regulation of the use of the rainwater harvesting system, bringing international examples, beyond some pioneers Brazilian legislation, specifically aimed at the subject. The paper also brings a legislation proposal that encourages the management of rainwater on part of hotel projects as a way to enhance competitiveness, reduce costs, and contribute to a more rational and efficient use of water resources, reducing the volume of water that is discharged into the municipal drainage system.

This paper introduces the adaptive slope compensation method into the digital clamping current control at various input voltages to improve the power factor (PF) and the total harmonic distortion (THD) of the universal input. The controller conducts a phase-management mechanism for various input voltages and load conditions to raise the circuit conversion efficiency. The optimal switching timing for one-and two-phase operations can be determined from the power loss distribution. A digital signal processor chip TMS320F28035 is used to implement the digital platform. A 300-W laboratory prototype with a universal line voltage 80-V dc output voltage is designed and tested to verify the feasibility. The values of efficiency from light load (10% of rated power) to full load at 115- and 230-V inputs are greater than 95%. PF values from medium to full load are greater than 0.94. Input current harmonics also meet the norm of IEC 61000-3-2 Class D.

Concentration of eight heavy metals in surface and groundwater around Dhaka Export Processing Zone (DEPZ) industrial area were investigated, and the health risk posed to local children and adult residents via ingestion and dermal contact was evaluated using deterministic and probabilistic approaches. Metal concentrations (except Cu, Mn, Ni, and Zn) in Bangshi River water were above the drinking water quality guidelines, while in groundwater were less than the recommended limits. Concentration of metals in surface water decreased as a function of distance. Estimations of non-carcinogenic health risk for surface water revealed that mean hazard index (HI) values of As, Cr, Cu, and Pb for combined pathways (i.e., ingestion and dermal contact) were >1.0 for both age groups. The estimated risk mainly came from the ingestion pathway. However, the HI values for all the examined metals in groundwater were1 x 10(-4) for adult and children, respectively. Deterministic and probabilistic estimations of cancer risk through exposure to groundwater were well below the safety limit. Overall, the population exposed to Bangshi River water remained at carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic health threat and the risk was higher for adults. Sensitivity analysis identified exposure duration (ED) and ingestion rate (IR) of water as the most relevant variables affecting the probabilistic risk estimation model outcome. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper presents an experimental study in which laboratory tests were conducted to investigate how the different interlayers (between the pavement surface slabs and the bases) could improve the performances of vibration response and anti-erosion of the bases. In the tests for vibration response of the bases, geotextile and rubber sheet were used as the interlayers, and the micro-seismic testing system was employed to characterize the vibration response of bases of concrete pavements beneath different interlayers under impact loading. The vibration test results indicated that under the same impact loading, compared with the bases without an interlayer atop, vector sum of the maximum vibration velocity of the bases beneath a rubber sheet interlayer and two layers of geotextile interlayer decreased by 35 % and 80 %, respectively; and vector sum of their maximum vibration displacement decreased by 18 % and 26 %, respectively. In the laboratory tests for anti-erosion, the bases with geotextile or emulsified asphalt slurry seal as the interlayer atop were tested for performances of resisting water erosion via a self-made testing apparatus. The anti-erosion test results indicated that, under the same other conditions, compared with the bases without an interlayer atop, the erosion rate (after 12 min of testing) of the bases with geotextile or emulsified asphalt slurry seal as interlayers atop decreased by 99 % or 59 %, respectively. The interlayer has the effects of damping vibration and resisting water erosion on the pavement base.

As a population, middle-aged and older adults are not meeting national guidelines for exercise. The purpose of this study was to describe factors associated with exercise adherence in an 8-month program offered as part of a research study testing the effects of exercise on cognitive performance for persons with a family history of Alzheimer's disease (AD). After completion of the program, participants provided open-ended responses indicating their reasons for adhering to the exercise program, and they completed the Motives for Physical Activities Measure-Revised. Results indicated that adherence was tied to an interest in contributing to our understanding of AD, the opportunity to join an exercise program, perceived exercise benefits, and social support. In addition, participants reported high levels of extrinsic (fitness-related) and intrinsic (interest/enjoyment) motivation. Other possible motivating factors which emerged from day-to-day observations in the program were identified. Findings suggest directions for exercise professionals with respect to exercise adherence.

A piezoelectric unimorph anemovane is proposed and analyzed for measuring precisely variation of wind direction and speed. The proposed anemovane has various advantages, compared with general anemovane. It can detect the wind in all direction, and be fabricated as small one. This anemovane was designed as the shape similar to a sea urchin. We use cantilevers to imitate prickles projected on the sea urchin sphere. If the wind blows, it hit the cantilever and the pressure makes the voltage signal through the piezoelectric unimorph bender. The simulation of the proposed system was performed using the FEM software (COMSOL Multiphysics), and the multi-physics analysis (Fluid mechanics, Mechanics and Electrostatics) was executed by considering real boundary conditions. Based on FEM analysis of the new anemovane with the new structure and control method, the characteristics between the fluid and the piezoelectric unimorph bender was comprehended. The possibility of the proposed anemovane was verified through the fabrication and the experiment.

Increased incidence of neuronal nuclear indentations is a well-known feature of the striatum of Huntington's disease (HD) brains and, in Alzheimer's disease (AD), neuronal nuclear indentations have recently been reported to correlate with neurotoxicity caused by improper cytoskeletal/nucleoskeletal coupling. Initial detection of rod-shaped tau immunostaining in nuclei of cortical and striatal neurons of HD brains and in hippocampal neurons of early Braak stage AD led us to coin the term tau nuclear rods (TNRs). Although TNRs traverse nuclear space, they in fact occupy narrow cytoplasmic extensions that fill indentations of the nuclear envelope and we will here refer to this histological hallmark as Tau-immunopositive nuclear indentations (TNIs). We reasoned that TNI formation is likely secondary to tau alterations as TNI detection in HD correlates with an increase in total tau, particularly of the isoforms with four tubulin binding repeats (4R-tau). Here we analyze transgenic mice that overexpress human 4R-tau with a frontotemporal lobar degeneration-tau point mutation (P301S mice) to explore whether tau alteration is sufficient for TNI formation. Immunohistochemistry with various tau antibodies, immunoelectron microscopy and double tau-immunofluorescence/DAPI-nuclear counterstaining confirmed that excess 4R-tau in P301S mice is sufficient for the detection of abundant TNIs that fill nuclear indentations. Interestingly, this does not correlate with an increase in the number of nuclear indentations, thus suggesting that excess total tau or an isoform imbalance in favor of 4R-tau facilitates tau detection inside preexisting nuclear indentations but does not induce formation of the latter. In summary, here we demonstrate that tau alteration is sufficient for TNI detection and our results suggest that the neuropathological finding of TNIs becomes a possible indicator of increased total tau and/or increased 4R/3R-tau ratio in the affected neurons apart from being an efficient way to monitor pathology-associated nuclear indentations.

With an ever-increasing accessibility to different multimedia contents in real-time, it is difficult for users to identify the proper resources from such a vast number of choices. By utilizing the user's context while consuming diverse multimedia contents, we can identify different personal preferences and settings. However, there is a need to reinforce the recommendation process in a systematic way, with context-adaptive information. The contributions of this paper are twofold. First, we propose a framework, called RecAm, which enables the collection of contextual information and the delivery of resulted recommendation by adapting the user's environment using Ambient Intelligent (AmI) Interfaces. Second, we propose a recommendation model that establishes a bridge between the multimedia resources, user joint preferences, and the detected contextual information. Hence, we obtain a comprehensive view of the user's context, as well as provide a personalized environment to deliver the feedback. We demonstrate the feasibility of RecAm with two prototypes applications that use contextual information for recommendations. The offline experiment conducted shows the improvement of delivering personalized recommendations based on the user's context on two real-world datasets.

Purpose of review To demonstrate how dysbiosis of the human microbiome can drive autoimmune disease. Recent findings Humans are superorganisms. The human body harbors an extensive microbiome, which has been shown to differ in patients with autoimmune diagnoses. Intracellular microbes slow innate immune defenses by dysregulating the vitamin D nuclear receptor, allowing pathogens to accumulate in tissue and blood. Molecular mimicry between pathogen and host causes further dysfunction by interfering with human protein interactions. Autoantibodies may well be created in response to pathogens. Summary The catastrophic failure of human metabolism observed in autoimmune disease results from a common underlying pathogenesis - the successive accumulation of pathogens into the microbiome over time, and the ability of such pathogens to dysregulate gene transcription, translation, and human metabolic processes. Autoimmune diseases are more likely passed in families because of the inheritance of a familial microbiome, rather than Mendelian inheritance of genetic abnormalities. We can stimulate innate immune defenses and allow patients to target pathogens, but cell death results in immunopathology.

In this study, we attempted to explore the effect and possible mechanism of Andrographolide on OVA-induced asthma. OVA challenge induced significant airway inflammatory cell recruitment and lung histological alterations, which were ameliorated by Andrographolide. The protein levels of cytokines in bron-choalveolar fluid (BALF) and serum were reduced by Andrographolide administration as well as the mRNA levels in lung tissue. Mechanically, Andrographolide markedly hampered the activation of nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kappa B) and NLRP3 inflammasome both in vivo and vitro thus decreased levels of TNF-alpha and IL-1 beta. Finally, we confirmed that ROS scavenging was responsible for Andrographolide's inactivation of NF-kappa B and NLRP3 inflammasome signaling. Our study here revealed the effect and possible mechanism of Andrographolide on asthma, which may represent a new therapeutic approach for treating this disease.

For a spatial modulation of the control parameter which describes, for instance, major effects of a rough container boundary in Rayleigh-Benard convection, the threshold value of the bifurcation from a homogeneous basic state to a spatially periodic state is provided analytically and numerically, taking the one-dimensional cubic-quintic complex Ginzburg-Landau equation with real coefficients as an example. Above the threshold, using the Poincare-Lindstedt expansion, we show that the quintic term affects both the stationary nonlinear solution and the Nusselt number. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

High dimensionality and classification of imbalanced data sets are two of the most interesting machine learning challenges. Both issues have been independently studied in the literature. In order to simultaneously explore the both issues of feature selection and oversampling, we efficiently combine two different methodological approaches in an unified kernel framework. Specifically, we proposed a novel l(2,1) norm balanced multiple kernel feature selection (l(2,1) MKFS), and designed a proximal based optimization algorithm for efficiently learning the model. Moreover, multiple kernel oversampling (MKOS) was developed to generate synthetic instances in the optimal kernel space induced by l(2,1) MKFS, so as to compensate for the class imbalanced distribution. Our experimental results on multiple UCI data and two real medical application demonstrate that jointly operating nonlinear feature selection and oversampling with l(2,1) norm multi-kernel learning framework (l(2,1) MKFSOS) can lead to a promising classification performance.

Background and aims: The Internet addiction paradigm has been criticized for several shortcomings, including inattention to specific online behaviors, not distinguishing the Internet from other media, insufficient focus on comorbidities, and definitions that do not take into account the constant access now possible. The paradigm's biggest casualty, however, may be that it has diverted attention away from subtle personality changes that seem to occur online, including in users who cannot be considered addicted under any definition. Methods: A narrative assessment of the literature was conducted, focusing on the Internet's effects on personality traits as revealed in studies of Internet users. Results: Impulsivity, narcissism, and aggression are some of the personality traits that seem to be nurtured by the Internet, with possible negative offline consequences. Discussion: Ignoring the Internet's subtle effects on personality as we embrace an addiction model that implies severe pathology makes the majority of Internet users feel deceptively immune to the psychological effects of new technologies. It also limits our understanding of the big cultural shifts that are happening as a result. Conclusion: The Internet's potentially negative effect on personality, and by extension on society at large, is a fundamental part of online psychology, one well worthy of further investigation.

The antigenic reactivity of constituents of Schistosoma mansoni and peanut (Arachis hypogaea) was investigated to determine whether identical antigenic epitopes possessed by both organisms provided a possible explanation for the negative correlation between chronic schistosome infection and atopy to allergens. Aqueous extracts of peanuts were probed in Western immunoblots with rabbit IgG antibodies raised against the egg, cercarial and adult worm stages of S. mansoni. Several molecules in the peanut extract were antigenically reactive with antibodies from the various rabbit anti-schistosome sera. A pair of cross-reactive peanut molecules at similar to 30 000-33 000 molecular weight was purified and both proteins were identified by mass spectrometric analysis as the peanut allergen Ara h 1. Anti-S. mansoni soluble egg antigen antibodies that were eluted off the peanut molecules reacted with two S. mansoni egg antigens identified by mass spectrometry as IPSE/-1 and -5. Alignments of the amino acid sequences of Ara h 1 and either IPSE/-1 or -5 revealed a low level of peptide sequence identity. Incubation of nitrocellulose paper carrying electrophoresed peanut molecules, six constituents of other allergic plants and S. mansoni egg antigens in a mild solution of sodium metaperiodate before probing with antibodies, inhibited most of the cross-reactivities. The results are consistent with the antigenic cross-reactive epitopes of S. mansoni egg antigens, peanut and other allergic plants being cross-reactive carbohydrate determinants (CCDs). These findings are novel and an explanation based on blocking antibodies' could provide an insight for the inverse relationship observed between schistosome infection and allergies.

In this paper, we present morphological and electrical characteristics of a junction formed of Si p-type films deposited on an n-type silicon wafer using a hot wire chemical vapor deposition (HWCVD) tool. We describe the fabrication process and study the influence of diborane flow and postprocess annealing in improving junction characteristics. Our morphological studies undertaken using atomic force microscopy show that the initial deposition suffered from voids rather than being a uniform film; however, this improves significantly under our annealing treatment. The improvement in morphology was observed in the electrical characteristics, with estimated V-oc doubling and rectification of the junction improving by several orders of magnitude. Fitting of the current-voltage curves to a two-diode model showed that increasing the diborane flow in the process helps reduce the saturation current and ideality factors, while increasing the shunt resistance. Electrochemical capacitance-voltage (ECV) and quasi-steady-state photoconductance measurements are used to characterize the deposited films further. A solar cell device with a silicon epitaxy emitter is modeled using industry-standard 3-D modeling tools and input parameters from experimental data, and the impact of defects is studied. A potential efficiency approaching 25% is shown to be feasible for an optimized device.

Currently, museums provide their visitors with interactive tour guide applications that can be installed in mobile devices and provide timely tailor-made multimedia information about exhibits on display. In this paper, we argue that mobile devices not only could provide help to visitors, but also to museum staff. Our goal is to integrate, within the same system, multimedia tour guides with the management facilities required by museums. In this paper, we present iMuseumA (intelligent museum with agents), a mobile-based solution to customize visits and perform context-aware management tasks. iMuseumA follows an agent-based approach, which makes it possible to interact easily with the museum environment and make decisions based on its current status. This system is currently deployed in the Museum of Informatics at the Informatics School of the University of Malaga, and its main contributions are: (i) a mobile application that provides management facilities to museum staff by means of sensing and processing environmental data; (ii) providing an integrated solution for visitors, tour guides and museum staff that allows coordination and communication enrichment among different groups of users; (iii) using and benefiting from group communication for heterogeneous groups of users that can be created on demand.

Smart devices from smartphones to wearable computers today have been used in many purposes. These devices run various mobile operating systems like Android, iOS, Symbian, Windows Mobile, etc. Since the mobile devices are widely used and contain personal information, they are subject to security attacks by mobile malware applications. In this work we propose a new approach based on control flow graphs and machine learning algorithms for static Android malware analysis. Experimental results have shown that the proposed approach achieves a high classification accuracy of 96.26% in general and high detection rate of 99.15% for DroidKungfu malware families which are very harmful and difficult to detect because of encrypting the root exploits, by reducing data dimension significantly for real time analysis.

This study is guided by the research question, are personality traits, character traits, situational factors, and their interaction all necessary to explain helping behavior? 121 undergraduates' scores on the Agreeableness scale of the Big Five Inventory and the Kindness scale of the Values in Action Inventory were examined in conjunction with experimentally induced positive, neutral, or negative mood via false feedback on a bogus intelligence test. The number of spilled pencils participants helped retrieve in a mishap was the measure of helping. Kindness significantly predicted helping behavior, but neither feedback condition nor Agreeableness was significantly related to helping. Interactions between Kindness, Agreeableness, and feedback conditions were non-significant. These results highlight a stronger contribution to helping behavior from the trait of Kindness than from the trait of Agreeableness and situational factors. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This work describes the practical implementation of an interleaved multi-phase, multiswitch boost converter for fuel cell applications. The paper aims to validate the concept of digitally-controlled Multi-Interleaving Boost Converter pisq for fuel cell applications, from two-phase, four-legs per phase, synchronous boost converter, abbreviated as 2-4MIBC. Compared with the Interleaved Boost Converter (IBC), MIBC exhibits interesting performance in terms of magnetics, input and output current ripple, part count and distributed power losses. A potential field of application is indeed medium and higher power fuel cell front-end converters, where minimizing input current ripple is significant but also redundancy and reliability are crucial. Actually, this approach covers all these aspects since provide module and device redundancy with real-time and flexible digital control reconfiguration. Relevant aspects related to design, modeling, simulation and experimental verification of 1 kW, FPGA-controlled, 2-4-MIBC are treated in this paper. Copyright (C) 2015, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system (CNS), where inflammation, demyelination together with the axonopathy are the cardinal features on pathologic ground, with a combined genetic and environmental background. The associations of PD-1 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs): PD-1.3 (in intron 4), PD-1.5 and PD-1.9 (both in exon 5) with clinical manifestation of MS in 479 south Polish individuals including 203 MS patients were analyzed. Presence of PD-1.5 T allele was linked with the first manifestations of disease: diplopia and pyramidal signs-favored pyramidal signs but protected against of diplopia development. Farther, PD-1.3G/PD-1.5C/PD-1.9C haplotype significantly favored whereas GTC protected against diplopia. Besides, GTT haplotype strongly favored non-severe RRMS outcome and ATC haplotype was specific only for these MS patients. Our population-based case-control study, investigating selected three PD-1 SNPs: PD-1.3, PD-1.5 and PD-1.9, revealed that polymorphic variation may be rather disease-modifying than MS risk factor. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Traditional digital controls mostly use digital-analog converters to convert input and output voltages into digital coding to achieve control. This paper proposes the use of two digital ramps with two different frequencies to replace a digital-analog converter. This approach can produce seven bit resolution for the DPMW signal. In addition, we use an all-digital DLL phase correction concept to further enhance the resolution of the DPWM signal by an additional three bits, resulting in 10-bit DPWM signal resolution. The proposed circuit uses 0.35 mu m CMOS processes, with a core area of 0.987 mm(2), a system switching frequency of 500 KHz, an input voltage range of 3.3-4.2 V, and an output voltage range of 5 V. Output voltage measurement accuracy reaches 99%, while the system reaches efficiency of 91% with output loads of up to 500 mA. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sphingolipid signaling in Caenorhabditis elegans is vital for sensing environmental change and effecting appropriate cellular response. Many molecular components in sphingolipid intermediary metabolism are conserved throughout evolution. Here we review use of C. elegans as a model system for conducting sphingolipid-based scientific investigation, which has helped us better understand vital roles these remarkable lipids play in human metabolism and disease.

We examined the influence of interdependence goals on the accessibility of implicit gender stereotypical associations. Participants were asked to cooperate with or compete against a woman on a mathematical abilities task and subsequently the relative activation of positive and negative warmth and competence traits was measured using a primed categorization task. Results showed that female primes (vs. male primes) facilitated the activation of low warmth and high competence in the competition condition, whereas high warmth was activated in the cooperation condition and no differences were found for competence traits. These results are discussed referring to the stereotype content model and the compensation effect in person perception. The goal dependent nature of implicit gender stereotypes is emphasized.

We posit that the modern airplane is a social microcosm of class-based society, and that the increasing incidence of air rage can be understood through the lens of inequality. Research on inequality typically examines the effects of relatively fixed, macrostructural forms of inequality, such as socioeconomic status; we examine how temporary exposure to both physical and situational inequality, induced by the design of environments, can foster antisocial behavior. We use a complete set of all onboard air rage incidents over several years from a large, international airline to test our predictions. Physical inequality on airplanes-that is, the presence of a first class cabin-is associated with more frequent air rage incidents in economy class. Situational inequality-boarding from the front (requiring walking through the first class cabin) versus the middle of the plane-also significantly increases the odds of air rage in both economy and first class. We show that physical design that highlights inequality can trigger antisocial behavior on airplanes. More broadly, these results point to the importance of considering the design of environments-from airplanes to office layouts to stadium seating-in understanding both the form and emergence of antisocial behavior.

Natural disasters are projected to increase in many regions of the world due to the growing exposure of human activities, combined with increased vulnerability and the projected increase in frequency and intensity, and the effects of climate change and global warming. To combat disasters, university network is gaining importance as it plays a proactive role in disaster risk reduction. University has the capacity to educate, research and bring stakeholders together to share experiences, increase the knowledge base and Facilitate improved decision-making for policy and practice since the university is the center of excellence with regard to research and in disseminating research outputs to end users. This desktop research identifies the role of networking in various risk reduction approaches carried out by university and other stakeholders. It illustrates the example of disaster resilient habitat and rainwater harvesting where the university provided key interventions to reduce disaster impacts. In conclusion, this paper formulates and provides a model for strengthening of networking of universities to build disaster resilient coastal communities. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Typical Internet of Things (IoT) applications involve collecting information automatically from diverse geographically-distributed smart sensors and concentrating the information into more powerful computers. The Raspberry Pi platform has become a very interesting choice for IoT applications for several reasons: (1) good computing power/cost ratio; (2) high availability; it has become a de facto hardware standard; and (3) ease of use; it is based on operating systems with a big community of users. In IoT applications, data are frequently carried by means of wireless sensor networks in which energy consumption is a key issue. Energy consumption is especially relevant for smart sensors that are scattered over wide geographical areas and may need to work unattended on batteries for long intervals of time. In this scenario, it is convenient to ease the construction of IoT applications while keeping energy consumption to a minimum at the sensors. This work proposes a possible gateway implementation with specific technologies. It solves the following research question: how to build gateways for IoT applications with Raspberry Pi and low power IQRF communication modules. The following contributions are presented: (1) one architecture for IoT gateways that integrates data from sensor nodes into a higher level application based on low-cost/low-energy technologies; (2) bindings in Java and C that ease the construction of IoT applications; (3) an empirical model that describes the consumption of the communications at the nodes (smart sensors) and allows scaling their batteries; and (4) validation of the proposed energy model at the battery-operated nodes.

Conducting polymers have been used for many years as coating materials against corrosion. However, the coated materials absorb water over time resulting in reduction of resistivity and anticorrosion properties. In this study, poly(N-ethylpyrrole) (P(N-MPy)) and P(N-MPy)/titanium dioxide ((TiO2) nanocomposite films were synthesized in 0.5 M oxalic acid solution on Al 1050 electrode by chronoamperometric method. The modified electrodes were characterized by scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray analysis, Fourier transform infrared-attenuated transmission reflectance, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and Tafel extrapolation techniques. The corrosion tests results were obtained in 3.5% sodium chloride (NaCl) solution by Tafel plots. In addition, the equivalent electrical circuit model of P(N-MPy) and P(N-MPy)/TiO2 nanocomposite films were investigated in 3.5% NaCl solution at different time periods. The EIS study of the polymer and nanocomposite were analyzed by Matlab program and for the first time Tina, the equivalent electrical circuits program, was used.

Due to their widespread use and limited human metabolism, beta-blockers were widely detected in sewage effluents and surface waters. beta-blockers are persistent in agricultural soils that have been irrigated with treated wastewater or fertilized with sewage sludge. It is important to study beta-blockers interaction with kaolinite and talc because kaolinite is a major component of soil that formed under warm and humid conditions, and talc is frequently used as an excipient for drug formulation. In this study, the interactions between metoprolol (MT), a beta-blocker, and kaolinite and talc, clay minerals of 1:1 and 2:1 structural types, were investigated under varying physical and chemical conditions. Uptake of MT on both minerals was instantaneous with capacities close to the cation exchange capacity of the substrates. MT sorption was exothermic and the free energy of sorption was small and negative. These parameters pointed out to physical sorption for the uptake of MT on these minerals. Both solution pH and ionic strength had significant effects on MT uptake on kaolinite, but minimal influence on talc, contrasting different mechanisms of MT uptake on these minerals. The FTIR results showed bands blue shifted for both in-plane and out-of-plane bending of NH2. Meanwhile, blue shift was also found for the 1246 and 1011 cm(-1) bands, attributed to aromatic ether, after MT sorption on kaolinite and talc. For talc, blue shift of the band at 965 cm(-1), attributed to aliphatic ether, was also observed. These results suggested that electrostatic interactions or hydrogen bonding played important roles in MT uptake on kaolinite. In contrast, the hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interaction were likely the main mechanisms of MT uptake on talc. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The annual average rainfall in the coastal area of Bangladesh is more than 2,400mm and rainwater harvesting (RWH) has been practiced for a long time for drinking water supply. For household RWH, the capacity of the storage tanks varies from 1,000 to 5,000 litres, which are the model-type storage tanks provided under several RWH programs of government and NGOs. The optimum storage tank volume has not been investigated considering family size and demand, roof types and rainfall. As a result, most of the households can avail water from rainwater tanks for about six months and rest of the year, they have to depend on other unreliable and distance sources. With the aim of developing a comprehensive decision support tool for a reliable RWH system, design curves for the storage volume were developed for three climatic conditions (i.e. dry, average, and wet years), available roof catchment area (10-50m(2)), rainfall loss factor and household demand (2-12 lpcd) for a typical six members family using mass curve. Moreover, a spreadsheet-based daily water balance model was developed to assess the reliability of the currently used water tanks (1,000-5,000L). The analysis showed that the currently used tanks are insufficient to meet the year-long drinking and cooking water demand. Under average and dry climatic conditions, the achievable reliability does not significantly varies with increase of catchment area and tank size; and the maximum achievable reliability is about 70%. A large quantity of water is lost as spilled water even with a tank size of 5,000L. This water can be used for other purposes if larger tanks are used to capture the excessive spilled water.

Sperm cells provide essential, if usually diminutive, ingredients to successful sexual reproduction. Despite this conserved function, sperm competition and coevolution with female traits can drive spectacular morphological change in these cells. Here, we characterize four repeated instances of convergent evolution of sperm gigantism in Caenorhabditis nematodes using phylogenetic comparative methods on 26 species. Species at the extreme end of the 50-fold range of sperm-cell volumes across the genus have sperm capable of comprising up to 5% of egg-cell volume, representing severe attenuation of the magnitude of anisogamy. Furthermore, we uncover significant differences in mean and variance of sperm size among genotypes, between sexes, and within and between individuals of identical genotypes. We demonstrate that the developmental basis of sperm size variation, both within and between species, becomes established during an early stage of sperm development at the formation of primary spermatocytes, while subsequent meiotic divisions contribute little further sperm size variability. These findings provide first insights into the developmental determinants of inter- and intraspecific sperm size differences in Caenorhabditis. We hypothesize that life history and ecological differences among species favored the evolution of alternative sperm competition strategies toward either many smaller sperm or fewer larger sperm.

Background. Blunted facial affect is a common negative symptom of schizophrenia. Additionally, assessing the trustworthiness of faces is a social cognitive ability that is impaired in schizophrenia. Currently available pharmacological agents are ineffective at improving either of these symptoms, despite their clinical significance. The hypothalamic neuropeptide oxytocin has multiple prosocial effects when administered intranasally to healthy individuals and shows promise in decreasing negative symptoms and enhancing social cognition in schizophrenia. Although two small studies have investigated oxytocin's effects on ratings of facial trustworthiness in schizophrenia, its effects on facial expressivity have not been investigated in any population. Method. We investigated the effects of oxytocin on facial emotional expressivity while participants performed a facial trustworthiness rating task in 33 individuals with schizophrenia and 35 age-matched healthy controls using a double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over design. Participants rated the trustworthiness of presented faces interspersed with emotionally evocative photographs while being video-recorded. Participants' facial expressivity in these videos was quantified by blind raters using a well-validated manualized approach (i.e. the Facial Expression Coding System; FACES). Results. While oxytocin administration did not affect ratings of facial trustworthiness, it significantly increased facial expressivity in individuals with schizophrenia (Z=-2.33, p=0.02) and at trend level in healthy controls (Z=-1.87, p=0.06). Conclusions. These results demonstrate that oxytocin administration can increase facial expressivity in response to emotional stimuli and suggest that oxytocin may have the potential to serve as a treatment for blunted facial affect in schizophrenia.

This paper presents the results of an experimental model study of the transient loading of steam generator tubes during a postulated main steam line break (MSLB) accident in a nuclear power plant. The problem involves complex transient two-phase flow dynamics and fluid-structural loading processes. A better understanding of this phenomenon will permit the development of improved design tools to ensure steam generator tube integrity. The pressure and temperature were measured upstream and downstream of a sectional model of a tube bundle in cross-flow, and the transient tube loads were directly measured using dynamic piezoelectric load cells. High-speed videos were taken to observe and better understand the flow phenomena causing the tube loading. The working fluid was R-134a and the tube bundle was a normal triangular array with a pitch ratio of 1.36. The flow through the bundle was choked for the majority of the transient. The transient tube loading is explained in terms of the associated fluid mechanics. An empirical model is developed that enables the prediction of the maximum tube loads once the pressure drop is known.

Tourist-host social contact, as a unique type of social contact, is not getting sufficient attention in tourism academia considering its remarkable impacts on tourists' travel attitudes, behaviors and long-term perceptions. The objectives of the current study are to explore the dimensions of tourist-host social contact and to contribute to the theory of tourist typology according to their dynamic nature in tourist host social interaction. Forty-five in-depth interviews were conducted to generate insightful information. The software of NVivo 10 was applied to examine and code the transcripts. As a result, six dimensions were adopted to describe tourist-host social contact, which are purposes, determinants, activities, intensity, impacts and attitudes. Five types of tourists were pinpointed and theoretical and practical contributions of the study were discussed. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In this study, a market framework is proposed for the practical implementation of lossy financial transmission rights (FTRs). The advantage of lossy FTRs over conventional FTRs is that the lossy FTRs can be settled directly according to locational marginal prices (LMPs) without requiring any LMP decomposition. Therefore, the price risk for a forward contract can be perfectly hedged if the power transaction involved perfectly matches the corresponding FTR. Although proposed long back, lossy FTRs still did not find an entry to the market because of the prejudice of market complexity and inefficiency. The principal aim of this study is, thus, to create the necessary environment so as to make those fine risk-hedging tools available in the market. First of all, a suitable format for forward contracts is prescribed to enable proper utilisation of lossy FTRs. The detailed lossy FTR auction model is prepared based upon a suitable optimal power flow (OPF) formulation. In addition, the implementation of lossy FTRs is shown for an AC-DC system by appropriately modelling the DC-line power flow behaviour according to the chosen OPF framework. The lossy FTR auction model prepared is thoroughly verified for the FTR issuance as per the market expectations.

Active speakers have traditionally been identified in video by detecting their moving lips. This paper demonstrates the same using spatio-temporal features that aim to capture other cues: movement of the head, upper body and hands of active speakers. Speaker directional information, obtained using sound source localization from a microphone array is used to supervise the training of these video features.

The present study focuses on the time-averaged turbulence characteristics over a highly spatially-heterogeneous gravel-bed. The time-averaged streamwise velocity, Reynolds shear and normal stresses, turbulent kinetic energy, higher-order moments of velocity fluctuations, length scales, and the turbulent bursting were measured over a gravel-bed with an array of larger gravels. It was observed that the turbulence characteristics do not vary significantly above the crest level of the array as compared to those below the array. The nondimensional streamwise velocity decreases considerably with a decrease in depth below the array. Below the array, the Reynolds shear stress (RSS) deviates from the gravity-law of RSS distributions. Turbulence intensities reduce below the crest level of the gravel-bed. The third-order moments of velocity fluctuations increase below the crest level of the gravel-bed and give a clear indication of sweeps as the predominating event which were further verified with the quadrant analysis plots. The turbulent length scales values change significantly below the crest level of the gravel-bed.

A number of significant studies in the field of cell biology have revealed another pattern of intracellular signal transduction in which cells transmit information through the dynamics of key signaling molecules. Dynamical properties of p53 have been demonstrated to be the key factor in dictating cell fate, including cell cycle arrest, permanent cell cycle arrest, and cell death. Previous studies showed a negative feedback regulation pathway between SGK1 and p53, but the dynamics of SGK1 have never been reported before. Therefore, we used different dosing strategies of Wogonin to affect SGK1 dynamics and investigate its impact on cell response. Key factors, such as APAF1, BAX, GADD45A, p21, PML, and YPEL3, which are related to cell cycle arrest, senescence, and apoptosis, were measured at different time points after incubation with Wogonin. Western blot and quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction analysis were used to examine protein and mRNA expression of these genes. In addition, we also used beta-galactosidase staining and flow cytometric analysis to further verify the results. It was found that Wogonin inhibited cell viability and downregulated SGK1 protein levels; 20 mu M Wogonin could induce non-small-cell lung cancer A549 cells into cell cycle arrest/senescence/apoptosis after 0.5/2/4 h, respectively; and SGK1 dynamics showed significant differences under different cell responses. Together, our findings showed that SGK1 protein dynamics can be an important part of intracellular signaling, directly influencing cellular response decisions.

Water harvesting systems are traditional technologies that have met the needs of local populations for many centuries indicating the systems are clearly sustainable. It is simply defined as a method for inducing, collecting, storing and conserving local surface run-off for future productive use. It is one of the oldest and most commonly used sustainable water management systems in India. There are various types of systems to harvest rainwater in India ranging from very simple to the complex industrial systems. Examples of traditional rainwater systems in India include bamboo pipes and Apatani systems of eastern Himalayas, Ghul of western Himalayas, Zabo and Cheo-ozihi of north eastern India, Dongs, Garh and Dara of Brahmaputra valley, Kund, Khadin, Talabs, Beri, Johad, Baoli etc. of Thar desert and Gujrat, the Havelis of Jabalpur, bandh and bandhulia of Satna, virda of Gujarat, ahar-pynes of Bihar, Eri and Kulam of eastern coastal plains, Jackwells of islands, most of which showed immense structural simplicity and high efficiency. Almost all forts in India, built in different terrains and climatic conditions, had elaborate arrangements for drinking water. Most of the old temples in south India built centuries ago have large tanks in their premises. These tanks are either fed by harvested rain water or by tapping underground springs. The traditional water-wisdom at all levels of the society ensured adequate availability of water for all, which in turn, formed the basis for all round development and prosperity. We should again learn and comprehend the ancient knowledge and apply it in our modern society to get rid of the present water stressed condition.

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are novel bio-electrochemical device for spontaneous or single step conversion of biomass into electricity, based on the use of metabolic activity of bacteria. The design and use of MFCs has attracted considerable interests because of the potential new opportunities they offer for sustainable production of energy from biodegradable and reused waste materials. However, the associated slow microbial kinetics and costly construction materials has limited a much wider commercial use of the technology. In the past ten years, there has been significant new developments in MFCs which has resulted in several-fold increase in achievable power density. Yet, there is still considerable possibility for further improvement in performance and development of new cost effective materials. This paper comprehensively reviews recent advances in the construction and utilization of novel anodes for MFCs. In particular, it highlights some of the critical roles and functions of anodes in MFCs, strategies available for improving surface areas of anodes, dominant performance of stainless-steel based anode materials, and the emerging benefits of inclusion of nanomaterials. The review also demonstrates that some of the materials are very promising for large scale MFC applications and are likely to replace conventional anodes for the development of next generation MFC systems. The hurdles to the development of commercial MFC technology are also discussed. Furthermore, the future directions in the design and selection of materials for construction and utilization of MFC anodes are highlighted.

Accumulating research indicates that the regular practice of physical exercise is beneficial to the human brain. From the improvement of academic achievement in children to the prevention of Alzheimer's disease in the elderly, exercise appears beneficial across the developmental spectrum. Recent work from animal studies also indicates that a pregnant mother can transfer the benefits of exercise during gestation to her offspring's brain. Exercising pregnant rats give birth to pups that have better memory and spatial learning as well as increased synaptic density. To investigate whether this transfer from the pregnant mother to her child also occurs in humans, we conducted a randomized controlled trial (n=18) and measured the impact of exercise during pregnancy on the neuroelectric response of the neonatal brain with electroencephalography (EEG). Here we show that, compared to the newborns of mothers who were inactive during their pregnancy, the children of exercising pregnant women are born with more mature brains. This was measured with the infant slow positive mismatch response (SPMMR), an electroencephalographic potential known to decrease in amplitude with age. The SPMMR reflects processes associated with brain maturation via its response to sound discrimination and auditory memory. In this study, the children of the mothers who exercised throughout their pregnancy have a smaller SPMMR than the children of mothers who remained sedentary (p=.019). Our results demonstrate the impact regular exercise during pregnancy can have on the development of the human fetal brain.

A multidisciplinary research project series has sought to identify and better understand multiple hygienic-microbiological and chemical contaminations from both point sources and diffuse pollution to contribute to the improvement in surface water quality. In the catchment area of the river Swist (Germany), municipal sewage treatment plants were investigated, followed by event-based investigation of combined sewer overflows, rainwater retention basins and diffuse pollution by surface and subsurface run-off as well as drain pipes. Recently, retention soil filters installed between stormwater storage basins and receiving surface waters in order to provide further treatment of combined sewer overflows were investigated. Geographical information system analysis helped to examine the data in their temporal and spatial dimensions. A model for calculating microbial and chemical loads within a catchment area was developed (Swistbox) which provides an efficient tool for risk assessment. Nearly two decades of investigation has demonstrated that several elements of the landscape's water balance account for surface water pollution from both diffuse and point sources. Depending on land cover characteristics, wastewater technology and the proportion of wastewater as compared to total river water flow, a source can vary in its importance for the catchment area. The findings can be applied for sustainable and health-sensitive catchment management in relation to recreational or agricultural water use as well as ecological aspects.

Structured triglycerides (STG) are introduced for clinical purpose by a recently registered lipid emulsion, in which long-chain fatty acids and medium-chain fatty acids are randomly attached to the same glycerol molecule. Studies in animals showed an improvement in nitrogen balance. Studies in patients demonstrate an improvement or at least equivalent effects on the nitrogen balance, compared with LCT or a physical mixture of MCT and LCT. In most of the studies serum triglycerides, and free fatty acid concentrations are lower indicating a faster clearance from the blood; beta-OH-butyrate concentrations are higher but do not reach toxic levels, or influence the serum pH value. No modulatory effects on the immune system by STG can be demonstrated. Hypotheses are discussed of the influence of lipids on protein metabolism. The recently introduced STG open the door for really new structured triglycerides in which on-demand specific fatty acids can be linked to a specific position at the glycerol molecule, with the objective of realising specific clinical effects. (C) 2002, Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Genomics is a disruptive technology, having revealed that cancers are tremendously complex and differ from patient to patient. Therefore, conventional treatment approaches fit poorly with genomic reality. Furthermore, it is likely that this type of complexity will also be observed in other illnesses. Precision medicine has been posited as a way to better target disease-related aberrations, but developing drugs and tailoring therapy to each patient's complicated problem is a major challenge. One solution would be to match patients to existing compounds based on in silico modeling. However, optimization of complex therapy will eventually require designing compounds for patients using computer modeling and just-in-time production, perhaps achievable in the future by three-dimensional (3D) printing. Indeed, 3D printing is potentially transformative by virtue of its ability to rapidly generate almost limitless numbers of objects that previously required manufacturing facilities. Companies are already endeavoring to develop affordable 3D printers for home use. An attractive, but as yet scantily explored, application is to place chemical design and production under digital control. This could be accomplished by utilizing a 3D printer to initiate chemical reactions, and print the reagents and/or the final compounds directly. Of interest, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently approved a 3D printed drug-levetiracetam-indicated for seizures. Further, it is now increasingly clear that biologic materials-tissues, and eventually organs-can also be printed. In the near future, it is plausible that high-throughput computing may be deployed to design customized drugs, which will reshape medicine.

This study has two objectives. On the one hand, to analyze the relationships between empathy, prosocial behavior and prosocial moral reasoning, as well as the differences between them in terms of gender. On the other hand, to analyze the predictive value of these variables on empathy, taken as a criterion variable. The sample comprised 1,557 participants (M = 13.13; DT = .86) from 12 to 15 years (47.4 % girls and 52.6 % boys). Comparison of means shows significant differences based on gender. The girls expressed higher levels of empathy, prosocial behavior, prosocial moral reasoning, in the dimensions of internalized, facing the necessity and stereotyped. The boys, meanwhile, show higher rates in physical and verbal aggressiveness and hedonistic and approval-oriented prosocial moral reasoning. Regression analysis identified as predictors of empathy in boys and girls, prosocial behavior and hedonistic reasoning. Prosocial behavior maintains direct relationships with empathy, in the case of hedonism relationships are negative. In the group of boys there are other predictors of empathy. These variables are positively associated with internalized prosocial moral reasoning and moral reasoning led to the need, and negatively with aggressiveness. Perhaps more importantly, more efficient intervention programs designed to foster specific types of prosocial behaviors.

Sometimes our automatic evaluations do not correspond well with those we can reflect on and articulate. We present a novel approach to the assessment of automatic and reflective affective evaluations of exercising. Based on the assumptions of the associative-propositional processes in evaluation model, we measured participants' automatic evaluations of exercise and then shared this information with them, asked them to reflect on it and rate eventual discrepancy between their reflective evaluation and the assessment of their automatic evaluation. We found that mismatch between self-reported ideal exercise frequency and actual exercise frequency over the previous 14 weeks could be regressed on the discrepancy between a relatively negative automatic and a more positive reflective evaluation. This study illustrates the potential of a dual-process approach to the measurement of evaluative responses and suggests that mistrusting one's negative spontaneous reaction to exercise and asserting a very positive reflective evaluation instead leads to the adoption of inflated exercise goals.

The propensity to delay gratification, measured by the discount rate, is associated with a variety of positive outcomes including higher rates of education and savings, as well as lower rates of poverty or addiction. There is a significant literature which supports a linkage between religion and self-regulation. We use an online experimental approach to test the influence of religious salience on intertemporal discount rates. The experiment used both real and hypothetical rewards in its design. Using a large sample, we are able to test the impact of religious primes across a variety of religious traditions as well as the non-religious. Contrary to previous studies, we do not find evidence that increased religious salience increases observed discount rates. Furthermore, we find no significant difference in the impact of religious salience across religious groups. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This study explores the conceptual history of systems biology and its impact on philosophical and scientific conceptions of reductionism, antireductionism and emergence. Development of systems biology at the beginning of 21st century transformed biological science. Systems biology is a new holistic approach or strategy how to research biological organisms, developed through three phases. The first phase was completed when molecular biology transformed into systems molecular biology. Prior to the second phase, convergence between applied general systems theory and nonlinear dynamics took place, hence allowing the formation of systems mathematical biology. The second phase happened when systems molecular biology and systems mathematical biology, together, were applied for analysis of biological data. Finally, after successful application in science, medicine and biotechnology, the process of the formation of modern systems biology was completed. Systems and molecular reductionist views on organisms were completely opposed to each other. Implications of systems and molecular biology on reductionist-antireductionist debate were quite different. The analysis of reductionism, antireductionism and emergence issues, in the era of systems biology, revealed the hierarchy between methodological, epistemological and ontological antireductionism. Primarily, methodological antireductionism followed from the systems biology. Only after, epistemological and ontological antireductionism could be supported. (C) 2015 The Author. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.

Introduction: To date, there are no descriptions in the literature on gynecologic and sexual function evaluation in female patients with dermatomyositis (DM) and polymyositis (PM). Objective: To assess sexual function in female patients with DM/PM. Patients and methods: This is a monocentric, cross-sectional study in which 23 patients (16 DM and 7 PM), with ages between 18 and 40 years, were compared to 23 healthy women of the same age group. Characteristics on sexual function were obtained by applying the questionnaires Female Sexual Quotient (FSQ) and Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) validated for the Brazilian Portuguese language. Results: The mean age of patients was comparable to controls (32.7 +/- 5.3 vs. 31.7 +/- 6.7 years), as well as the distribution of ethnicity and socioeconomic class. As for gynecological characteristics, patients and healthy controls did not differ with respect to age at menarche and percentages of dysmenorrhea, menorrhagia, premenstrual syndrome, pain at mid-cycle, mucocervical secretion, and vaginal discharge. The FSQ score, as well as all domains of the FSFI questionnaire (desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm and satisfaction), were significantly decreased in patients versus controls, with 60.9% of patients showing some degree of sexual dysfunction. Conclusions: This was the first study to identify sexual dysfunction in patients with DM/PM. Therefore, a multidisciplinary approach is essential for patients with idiopathic inflammatory myopathies, in order to provide prevention and care for their sexual life, providing a better quality of life, both for patients and their partners. (C) 2016 Elsevier Editora Ltda.

Four bench-scale solar photocatalytic reactors were fabricated viz. solar photocatalytic single-baffle reactor (SPSBR), solar photocatalytic multiple-baffles reactor (SPMBR), solar photocatalytic cascade reactor (SPCR) and solar photocatalytic pond reactor (SPPR) of 5-L capacity. Evaluation of the reactors performance was carried out by varying the volume of wastewaters in the range of 1-5 L and the recycle flow rates in the range of 250-750 mL/min for the degradation of phenolic wastewaters. The single-baffle reactor gives the maximum phenol removal efficiency irrespective of all volume of wastewater. The phenol removal efficiency increases when the recycle flow rate is increased from 250 to 500 mL/min and then decreased for the recycle flow rate of 750 mL/min. The single-baffle reactor showed the maximum phenol removal efficiency with recycle flow rate of 500 mL/min. For untreated pulp and paper mill wastewater of 200 mg/L phenol concentration, the BOD5/COD ratio is 0.02, while solar photocatalytic treatment of 4 h enhanced the biodegradability values to 0.80.

Accurate pain assessment is a joint function of both the judge perceiving correct (valid) cues of pain and targets displaying valid indicators of pain. The present research examined whether the judgeability of pain expressions could be altered by manipulating the nonverbal supportiveness of a videotaped physician who guided targets through an experimentally induced pain experience in the laboratory. Ten-s video clips of these targets during their pain experience were viewed by 95 na < ve judges who assessed each target's pain on an 11-point numeric rating scale. In addition, the video clips were rated by independent coders on 9-point scales (focused, calm, tense, distressed, composed, fidgety, determined, bored, and nervous). Judges' pain assessment accuracy was calculated by correlating their inferred pain rating for each target with targets' self-reported pain. Pain targets assigned to interact with the nonverbally supportive physician displayed more valid impressions of their pain and judges had higher pain assessment accuracy when viewing these targets compared to targets assigned to interact with the nonverbally unsupportive physician. Interventions for caregivers and healthcare providers that emphasize the importance of nonverbal behavior when interacting with pain sufferers are discussed.

Maintaining multivariate calibrations involves keeping models developed on an instrument applicable to predicting new samples over time. Sometimes, a primary instrument model is needed to predict samples measured on secondary instruments. This situation is referred to as calibration transfer. Sometimes, a primary instrument model is needed to predict samples that have acquired new spectral features (chemical, physical, and environmental influences) over time. This situation is referred to as calibration maintenance. Calibration transfer and maintenance problems have a long history and are well studied in chemometrics and spectroscopy. In disciplines outside of chemometrics, particularly computer vision, calibration transfer and maintenance problems are more recent phenomena, and these problems often go under the umbrella term domain adaptation. Over the past decade, domain adaptation has demonstrated significant successes in various applications such as visual object recognition. Since domain adaptation already constitutes a large area of research in computer vision and machine learning, we narrow our scope and report on penalty-based eigendecompositions, a class of domain adaptation methods that has its motivational roots in linear discriminant analysis. We compare these approaches against chemometrics-based approaches using several benchmark chemometrics data sets. In disciplines outside of chemometrics, particularly computer vision, problems involving calibration updating, e.g., calibration transfer or maintenance, are more recent phenomena, and these problems often go under the umbrella term domain adaptation (DA). We report on penalty-based eigendecompositions, a class of DA methods that has its motivational roots in linear discriminant analysis. These DA methods are coopted for chemometrics-based purposes and are then compared with known calibration updating methods.

Background and Aim: Pulmonary monocyte infiltration plays a significant role in the development of angiogenesis in experimental hepatopulmonary syndrome (HPS) after common bile duct ligation (CBDL). Hepatic monocytes are also increased after CBDL, but the origins remain unclear. Splenic reservoir monocytes have been identified as a major source of monocytes that accumulate in injured tissues. Whether splenic monocytes contribute to monocyte alterations after CBDL is unknown. This study evaluates monocyte distributions and assesses effects of splenectomy on monocyte levels and pulmonary vascular and hepatic abnormalities in experimental HPS. Methods: Splenectomy was performed in CBDL animals. Monocyte levels in different tissues and circulation were assessed with CD68. Pulmonary alterations of HPS were evaluated with vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A) levels, angiogenesis, and alveolar-arterial oxygen gradient (AaPO(2)). Liver abnormalities were evaluated with fibrosis (Sirius red), bile duct proliferation (CK-19), and enzymatic changes. Results: Monocyte levels increased in the lung and liver after CBDL and were accompanied by elevated circulating monocyte numbers. Splenectomy significantly decreased monocyte accumulation, VEGF-A levels, and angiogenesis in CBDL animal lung and improved AaPO(2) levels. In contrast, hepatic monocyte levels, fibrosis, and functional abnormalities were further exacerbated by spleen removal. Conclusions: Splenic reservoir monocytes are a major source for lung monocyte accumulation after CBDL, and spleen removal attenuates the development of experimental HPS. Liver monocytes may have different origins, and accumulation is exacerbated after depletion of splenic reservoir monocytes. Tissue specific monocyte alterations, influenced by the spleen reservoir, have a significant impact on pulmonary complications of liver disease.

This paper introduces the basic concept of fuzzy PID in manufacturing engineering, and the system of temperature control is analyzed, and the temperature is designed with correction factor and the optimized parameters with the application of the fuzzy general MATLAB in simulink toolbox, the temperature is designed by comparing fuzzy PID output with raditional output, the system has the characteristic of quick response, short setting time, small overshoots, and high control precision.

The cognitive load placed on users by both the proactive and spontaneous provisioning of service functionality and by the physical activities performed in ambient intelligence environments can lead to the depletion of their mental resources. This paper demonstrates how burdening the inappropriate selection of service functionality can be for users by conducting a semi-naturalistic and controlled user test to investigate the significance of the cognitive resource depletion problem in specific ambient intelligence environments. A dynamic service binding and scheduling mechanism is provided based on different types of interference and on mental resources and their demand requirements. A technical evaluation is conducted by simulating the mechanism over a set of various abstract service compositions, making use of real datasets of user interactions with diverse HCI services and daily physical activities. The results show that this mechanism ensures less cognitively taxing, unobtrusive service composition provisioning.

Communication may be verbal and nonverbal. Communication changes are commonly reported in older people. In the typical process of aging, communication skills change due to health issues such as depression and cognitive problems. In this review manuscript, communication problems in elderly people are presented. There are health problems found in individuals of older age groups that may affect communication. Examples of these are as follows: cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, hearing and visual loss, aphasia, and neurodegenerative diseases. To improve communication with older adults, some measures should be followed, such as Speak at a normal conversational pace. Avoid speaking very quickly or very slowly and Repeat and elaborate on important points. Communication disorders are experienced in older adults. Etiologic factors may be related to general health problems such as neurological problems, hearing and visual loss, and social problems (such as retirement or social isolation). In older adults with communication disorders, everyone throughout society, and especially health care specialists, should be aware of the problem and should use the simple measures to improve communication problems. In this paper, the issue of communication problems in elderly people will be evaluated.

This paper gives the detailed derivation of a parameterized cage induction machine dynamic model in the natural frame of reference. The model is suitable for the analysis of the impact of a different number of rotor bars on machine transients as well as steady state performances. After the initial induction machine design process, for a predetermined number of stator slots and rotor bars, the parameterized model means that any different number of rotor bars could be chosen, resulting in different machine parameters. During this process, the stator winding scheme as well as the rated power of the machine is invariant. The model of the machine is derived by means of winding functions. Thus, in the way described, a very powerful model is obtained that enables the analysis of a dozen of the different number of rotor bars in an hour. The advantage of this is self-evident compared with models based on the finite element method. The power of the model is illustrated by an analysis of a specific machine with three different numbers of rotor bars.