Rafflesia cantleyi, known as one of the world's largest flowers, is a specialised holoparasite due to dramatic morphological modifications. It possesses highly reduced vegetative structure and only appears as a flower for sexual reproduction. Moreover, it has an unusual life cycle in that its floral bud development takes up to nine months. In order to fully understand the highly modified floral...

OBJECTIVE Nine tsunami-affected districts in Aceh, Indonesia, were surveyed between February and August 2005 to characterize tsunami mortality. METHODS The surveys employed a two-stage cluster methodology with probability proportional to size sampling, and encompassed 1653 tsunami-displaced households with a pre-tsunami population of 10 063 individuals. FINDINGS Of the original pre-tsunami ...

As reported by Wilson and Rayson (1993) and Rayson and Wilson (1996), the UCREL semantic analysis system (USAS) has been designed to undertake the automatic semantic analysis of present-day English (henceforth PresDE) texts. In this paper, we report on the feasibility of (re)training the USAS system to cope with English from earlier periods, specifically the Early Modern English (henceforth Emo...

This paper presents the fabrication and application of a micro-scale hybrid wicking structure in a flat polymer-based heat pipe heat spreader, which improves the heat transfer performance under high adverse acceleration. The hybrid wicking structure which enhances evaporation and condensation heat transfer under adverse acceleration consists of 100 μm high, 200 μm wide square electroplated copp...

OBJECTIVES High blood pressure (BP) is associated with diastolic dysfunction, but the consequence of elevated BP over the adult life course on diastolic function is unknown. We hypothesised that high BP in earlier adulthood would be associated with impaired diastolic function independent of current BP. METHODS Participants in the Medical Research Council National Survey of Health and Developm...

ADAMTS-13, a metalloprotease in plasma, specifically cleaves the Tyr-1605-Met-1606 bond in the A2 domain of von Willebrand factor (VWF) to regulate the polymer distribution of VWF in circulation, which is critical for primary hemostasis. A 73-aa peptide (VWF73) was previously identified as the minimal substrate cleavable by ADAMTS-13. In this study, VWF73 was enzymatically and chemically cleave...

Characterization of indoor air quality in school classrooms is crucial to children’s health and performance. The present study was undertaken to characterize the indoor air quality in six naturally ventilated classrooms of three schools in Cassino (Italy). Indoor particle number, mass, black carbon, CO2 and radon concentrations, as well as outdoor particle number were measured within school hou...

1. W. J. Eckert, "The computation of special perturbations by the punched card method," Astronomical Jn., v. 44, 1935, p. 177-182. 2. W. J. Eckert, Dirk Brouwer, & G. M. Clémence, "Coordinates of the five outer planets (1653-2060)," Astronomical papers prepared for the use of the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac, v. 12, U. S. Gov. Printing Office, Washington, D. C, 1951. 3. Dirk Brouwer,...

Procalcitonin (PCT) has been used to guide treatment in critically ill patients with sepsis, but whether PCT at intensive care unit (ICU) discharge can stratify risks of post-ICU readmission or mortality is unknown. This cohort study compared the ability of PCT with C-reactive protein (CRP) in predicting unexpected adverse post-ICU events. Of the 1877 patients admitted to the multidisciplinary ...

Hydrogen bonding occurs when an atom of hydrogen is attracted by rather strong forces to two atoms instead of only one, so that it may be considered to be acting as a bond between them [99]. Typically hydrogen bonding occurs where the partially positively charged hydrogen atom lies between partially negatively charged oxygen and/or nitrogen atoms, but is also found elsewhere, such as between fl...