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Background: Adiposity is caused by an imbalance between energy intake and consumption. Promotion of the browning of white fat increases energy expenditure and could be a promising therapy for adiposity. Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) has been confirmed to positively correlate with adiposity. However, the putative connection between TSH and white adipose browning has never been explored. In this study, we sought to assess the effect of TSH on white adipose tissue browning and energy metabolism. Methods: Subclinical hypothyroidism mice, thyroid-specific Tshr-knockout mice injected with TSH, adipocyte-specific Tshr-knockout mice, global Tshr-knockout mice and their littermates were subjected to morphological, physiological, genetic or protein expression analyses and metabolic cages to determine the role of TSH on the browning of white adipose tissue and metabolism. To activate thermogenesis, some mice were exposed to cold condition for 4 weeks. 3T3-L1 cells and primary SVF cells were used to verify the effects of TSH on the browning of white adipocytes and its mechanism. Findings: We show that TSH decreases energy expenditure, promotes body weight gain, impairs glucose tolerance and lipid metabolism in subclinical hypothyroidism mice and thyroid-specific Tshr-knockout mice injected with TSH. Adipose-specific or global knockout of Tshr decreases adiposity, resists diet-induced obesity and increases energy expenditure. The knockout of Tshr markedly promotes the development of beige adipocytes and increases expression of UCP1 and other thermogenic genes in both epididymal and inguinal subcutaneous white fat via a mechanism that likely involves AMPK/PRDM16/PGC1α. Interpretation: Our results reveal an important role of TSH in regulating energy balance and adiposity by inhibiting the browning of white fat. Funding: This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation (81400828) and the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2014HQ057). This study was also supported by Projects of the Medical and Health Technology Development Program in Shandong Province (2016WS0427) and Shandong Key R&D Program (2017GSF18129). Declaration of Interest: The authors have no competing financial interests to declare. Ethical Approval: All animal experimental protocols were approved by the Animal Care Committee of School of Medicine, Shandong University.

In this paper, we have studied Bianchi type-I string cosmological model by combining Kaluza-Klein (KK) theory and f(R) theory of gravity which is an extension of 5-dimensional KK string cosmological models. We have used equation of state in the form of p-string or Takabayasi string given by ρ=(1+ω)λ, where ρ and λ denote the rest density of energy cloud of strings, and the tension density of the system of strings, respectively and ω is a constant. In order to get physically significant and viable solution various forms of the function f(R) are assumed, in this paper we assume f(R)=R+αR2 (e.g. Astashenok et al. (2017) [1]), where α is real number. Some physical and geometrical properties of the model are also discussed., N-dimensional Kaluza-Klein cosmology; Cosmic string; f(R) theory of gravity

This paper empirically models the dynamics of Brazilian government bond (BGB) yields based on monthly macroeconomic data, in the context of the evolution of the key macroeconomic variables in Brazil. The results show that the current short-term interest rate has a decisive influence on the long-term interest rate on BGBs, after controlling for various key macroeconomic variables, such as inflation and industrial production. These findings support John Maynard Keynes’s claim that the central bank’s actions influence the long-term interest rate on government bonds mainly through the current short-term interest rate. These findings have important policy implications for Brazil. This paper relates the findings of the estimated models to ongoing debates in fiscal and monetary policies.

Innovation systems are sometimes referred to as complex systems, something that is intuitively understood but poorly defined. A complex system dynamically evolves in non-linear ways giving it unique properties that distinguish it from other systems. In particular, a common signature of complex systems is scale-invariant emergent properties. A scale-invariant property can be identified because it is solely described by a power law function, f(x) = kx^α, where the exponent, α, is a measure of scale-invariance. The focus of this paper is to describe and illustrate that innovation systems have properties of a complex adaptive system. In particular scale-invariant emergent properties indicative of their complex nature that can be quantified and used to inform public policy. The global research system is an example of an innovation system. Peer-reviewed publications containing knowledge are a characteristic output. Citations or references to these articles are an indirect measure of the impact the knowledge has on the research community. Peer-reviewed papers indexed in Scopus and in the Web of Science were used as data sources to produce measures of sizes and impact. These measures are used to illustrate how scale-invariant properties can be identified and quantified. It is demonstrated that the distribution of impact has a reasonable likelihood of being scale-invariant with scaling exponents that tended toward a value of less than 3.0 with the passage of time and decreasing group sizes. Scale-invariant correlations are shown between the evolution of impact and size with time and between field impact and sizes at points in time. The recursive or self-similar nature of scale-invariance suggests that any smaller innovation system within the global research system is likely to be complex with scale-invariant properties too. This record was migrated from the OpenDepot repository service in June, 2017 before shutting down.

The paper is a self-review of works on development of new approaches to formation of mimics of receptor and catalytic sites of biological macromolecules in the structure of highly cross-linked polymer membranes and thin films. The general strategy for formation of the binding sites in molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) membranes and thin films was described. A selective recognition of a number of food toxins, endocrine disruptors and metabolites is based on the results of computational modeling data for the prediction and optimization of their structure. A strategy proposed for the design of the artificial binding sites in MIP membranes was supported by the research performed by the authors on development of a number of the MIP membrane-based affinity and catalytic biosensors for selective and sensitive measurement (detection limits 0.3–100 nM) of the target analytes. Novel versatile approaches aimed at improving sensitivity of the developed biosensor systems were discussed.

The latest trends in machining research show that great efforts are being made to simulate machining processes. This paper presents the results of cutting force, feed force and temperatures when the orthogonal cutting of EN AW 6082 T6 alloy. Appropriate material model and damage model were investigated in order to perform finite element simulation with Coupled Eulerian- Lagrangian (CEL) approach. In the next step, simulations were designed based on the input parameters. The size of element in the x-direction (2 µm – 10 µm), size of element in y-direction (2 µm – 10 µm) and width of the workpiece (2 µm – 100 µm) are considered as controllable variables The Genetic Algorithm was used to identify the optimal process parameters by which the minimum value of cutting force error, the minimum value of feed force error and minimum simulation time will be achieved. The optimal combination of the process parameters is size of elements at x-direction 8 µm, y-direction 10 µm and width of workpiece 84 µm. By utilizing the optimal input parameters cutting force error was reduced from 6.5 % to 1.07 % and feed force error was reduced from 6.15 % to 3.12 %. The results showed that the optimum size and orientation of the finite element mesh can significantly reduce the error in the prediction of cutting forces and reduce processing simulation time. In addition, it was concluded that with the CEL approach, temperatures in the cutting zone can be successfully predicted.

Section 1 of this paper provides an introduction to this new “algebra of conditionals”, addresses various plausibility tests for such an algebra, provides a Venn diagram disproving a supposed counter-example, and answers various other objections raised in the literature about the efficacy of this algebraic extension of logic and conditional probability. Section 2 greatly simplifies the calculation of the implications of a set of conditional propositions or conditional events. These results depend on defining a deductive relation for conditionals (actually two have been found) with the property that the conjunction of two conditionals implies each of its components. That seemingly innocuous property assures that the deductively closed set implied by a finite set of n conditionals with respect to the deductive relation is implied by the single conditional formed by conjoining all n of them. The results are illustrated by solving several examples of deduction with several uncertain conditionals., Conditional, Deduction, Quasi-conjunction, Implication, Inference, Uncertainty, Probability.

The research article explores various concepts of urban form given by various authors across the world. The research emphasised on reviewing various authors and their understanding of urban form, factors affecting urban form through systematic literature review. The research paper also attempted to understand how and where the first settlement evolved. The understanding of settlement in caves to villages has been referred. The authors have tried to review that first cities grew on marshes as opposite to the concept of first civilizations which grew along the banks of rivers.

A wireless sensor network (WSN) is buildup of devices which have inbuilt storage, processing and communication capabilities. This research article deals with a heterogenous WSN stability period. The proposed method is extended version of SEP protocol, that work on the concept of clustering. In this method we compare the result basis of various factor like stability period for two level and three level heterogeneity, with existing protocol like Leach, SEP and different variant of SEP. In this paper our focus is on stability period, there is not much significant improvement in throughput.

This research article focuses on the aspect of transformation and its value in a capitalistic society. Human existence is recognized owing to its usefulness or else the existence either ignored or annihilated. Likewise, this paper probes into the existential transformation and its effect on the life of Gregor who resists, accepts, ignores, and succumbs to the weird transformation. This eventually questions the meaning of existence amidst absurd ideals of socio, economic conditions.

Despite several attempts to provide a definite pattern regarding the effects of personality traits on performance in higher education, the debate over the nature of the relationship is far from being conclusive. The use of different subject pools and sample sizes, as well as the use of identification strategies that either do not adequately account for selection bias or are unable to establish causality between measures of academic performance and noncognitive skills, are possible sources of heterogeneity. This paper investigates the impact of the Big Five traits, as measured before the beginning of the academic year, on the grade point average achieved in the first year after the enrolment, taking advantage of a unique and large dataset from a cohort of Italian students in all undergraduate programs containing detailed information on student and parental characteristics. Relying on a robust strategy to credibly satisfy the conditional independence assumption, we find that higher levels of conscientiousness and openness to experience positively affect student score.

Polish Abstract: W marcu 2020 r., a wiec w czasie trwania pandemii COVID-19, w Bawarii mialy miejsce wybory samorządowe: 15.03 odbyla sie pierwsza tura wyborow (w formie tradycyjnej oraz korespondencyjnej), a 29.03 – druga tura (jedynie w formie korespondencyjnej). Zmiana regul glosowania miedzy I a II turą nastąpila w atmosferze politycznej zgody, za aprobatą wszystkich frakcji parlamentarnych. Druga tura byla zorganizowana w okregach, gdzie glosowanie w pierwszej turze nie przynioslo rozstrzygniecia. Takich okregow bylo 34, spośrod ogolnej liczby 96 bawarskich okregow wyborczych. W ten sposob wytworzyla sie proba badawcza obejmująca wspomniane 34 okregi, losowo i rownomiernie rozproszone po terytorium calego landu, oraz proba kontrolna, obejmująca pozostale 62 okregi. Celem niniejszego artykulu jest zweryfikowanie hipotezy gloszącej, ze zorganizowanie w Bawarii w marcu 2020 r., tj. w czasie trwania pandemii, wyborow w formie korespondencyjnej doprowadzilo do wzrostu liczby przypadkow COVID-19. Wyniki tego badania mogą byc interesujące dla toczonej w Polsce dyskusji na temat zasadności organizacji wyborow prezydenckich w czasie pandemii pod wzgledem bezpieczenstwa epidemiologicznego. Przyklad Bawarii byl bowiem przywolywany zarowno przez zwolennikow, jak i przeciwnikow zorganizowania w Polsce wyborow prezydenckich w formie korespondencyjnej – odpowiednio jako argument na rzecz albo przeciwko przeprowadzeniu glosowania zgodnie z pierwotnie przyjetym kalendarzem wyborczym. English Abstract: In March 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, local elections were held in Bavaria: the first round of voting took place on 15.03.2020 (traditional and postal voting) followed by run-off ballot on 29.03.2020 (postal voting alone). The political decision to rely solely on postal voting in the second ballot was made unanimously by all political fractions represented in the Bavarian parliament in the sense of responsibility for public health. The run-off ballot was held in constituencies where voting in the first round did not yield a winner. There were 34 such constituencies out of a total of 96. In this way, a research sample was created embracing the abovementioned 34 constituencies, randomly and evenly dispersed throughout the entire Bundesland, and a control sample comprising the remaining constituencies. The purpose of this paper is to test the hypothesis according to which the postal voting held in Bavaria in March 2020, amidst the pandemic, has led to an increase of the number of COVID-19 cases. The results of this study may be relevant for the discussion that is ongoing in Poland where public health concerns are being expressed. The Bavarian example was invoked by both supporters and opponents of postal voting as the sole form of voting in the upcoming 2020 presidential elections in Poland – as an argument made – respectively in favor of or against – sticking to the originally adopted schedule.

India is the 10th, largest economy in the world, even though standing 2nd position in the global population. And 70% of GDP is coming from urban areas, while we are just investing 1.70 for urban development. For the best economic growth, India still needs to be focused much more on the consistently growing sectors like, Infrastructure, Industries, Hospital Services, Tourisms, IT, Foreign Direct Investments, Research & Development under PPP model, foreign collaborated Higher Education Systems, Service Industries, e-Governance in a more better way. So it is the need of an hour that India needs to concentrate in constitution of 100 Smart Cities in fourth coming years under the visionary of Prime Minister Shri. Narendra Modi to upsurge more Gross Domestic Products (GDP). This research article is focusing on the essence of Smart Cities and conceptual views about Smart Cities by different practitioners. More over this paper is also discussing about “Smart Cities – Six Dimensions” in details for understanding this new urban paradigm shift phenomenon. Besides these, this research manuscript also talks about the Smart Cities enablers comprising of Internet of Things technologies and testimonies of different world Smart Cities applications. The best part of this article is depicting of prerequisite considerations “How to set up 100 New Smart Cities in India” with some models and examples.

We investigate the international propagation of tax rate shocks originating in the United States using a global vector error-correction model (GVAR). We identify shocks to corporate and personal income tax rates by using narrative series as external instruments, following the proxy-SVAR methodology. The main results of the paper are the following: (1) the domestic effects of corporate tax shocks are stronger than those of personal income tax shock; (2) spillovers are in most cases positive and significant, albeit of small size; (3) the boost to exports in recipient economies, stimulated both by stronger US demand and by real exchange rate depreciation vis-a-vis the US dollar, is the main transmission channel; financial channels (through long-term interest rates) also play a role.

While the 2016 Paris Agreement is in many ways an important attainment with the potential to represent a milestone in humanity's path towards sustainable development, and avoid thus a potential calamitous and destructive future, the achievement of the goals set in the agreement is a long way off. This paper investigates one of the most important worldwide hurdles frustrating the implementation of the policies required to limit environmental degradation and limit pollution, namely the still insufficient public support for the necessary environmental policies and their associated cost. Using a comparative database generated through an experimental study on tax compliance and policy preferences run in five countries (USA, UK, Italy, Sweden and Romania), I will evaluate five explanatory models of the degree to which people support environmentally friendly policies by accepting higher tax burdens and increased collective solidarity.

Background: Assessment of published original “KAP” based research studies conducted amongst Indian medical undergraduate students.Methods: A systematic evaluation was undertaken using keywords “KAP” or “knowledge” or “awareness” or “attitude” or “practices” and “MBBS students” or “medical students” or “health students” or “undergraduate student” or “university students” and “India” through search engines, PUBMED and Google scholar under certain criteria.Results: Highest, “KAP” based articles amongst MBBS students published during one-year period were related to Pharmacovigilance (15.6%) followed by organ/blood donation (11.7%) and self-medication (9.8%), tobacco (5.8%), and basic life support (5.8%) etc; 48 (94.1%) article was one-time cross-sectional descriptive studies while 03 (5.8%) had intervention based research design. Average no. of authors per article was 3.5 (±1.3); Medical student was co-author in 04 (7.8%) research papers. Corresponding author was largely dominated by faculties from pre and para-clinical departments with highest from pharmacology (29.4%) and community medicine (27.4%). The studies covered an average sample size of 225.8 MBBS students (45-648, range) per research article. Avg. no. of references used/article was 18.6 (±7.4); Out of all the references used in research articles, only 60.2% were of recent-10 year time frame (2007-2016) origin while the rest were from older time-frame and only 36.1% of all the references were of Indian origin.Conclusions: Probably, first of its kind systemic synthesis undertaken in the country concludes that diverse topics of “KAP” research have been conducted by the teaching faculties on MBBS students in India and this study provides the over-view of the same.

This paper explores the role of cheap excuses in product choice. If agents feel that they fulfill one ethical aspect, they may care less about other independent ethical facets within product choice. Choosing a product that fulfills one ethical aspect may then suffice for maintaining a high moral self-image in agents and render it easier to ignore other ethically relevant aspects they would otherwise care about more. The use of such cheap excuses could thus lead to a “static moral self-licensing” effect, and this would extend the logic of the well-known dynamic moral self-licensing. Our experimental study provides empirical evidence that the static counterpart of moral self-licensing exists. Furthermore, effects spill over to unrelated, ethically relevant contexts later in time. Thus, static moral self-licensing and dynamic moral self-licensing can exist next to each other. However, it is critical that agents do not feel that they fulfilled an ethical criterion out of sheer luck, that is, agents need some room so that they can attribute the ethical improvement at least partly to themselves. Outsiders, although monetarily incentivized for correct estimates, are completely oblivious to the effects of moral self-licensing, both static and dynamic.

Background When the Zika virus outbreak became a global health emergency in early 2016, the scientific community responded with an increased output of Zika-related research. This upsurge in research naturally made its way into academic journals along with editorials, news, and reports. However, it is not yet known how or whether these scholarly communications were distributed to the populations most affected by Zika. Methodology/Principal findings To understand how scientific outputs about Zika reached global and local audiences, we collected Tweets and Facebook posts that linked to Zika-related research in the first six months of 2016. Using a language detection algorithm, we found that up to 90% of Twitter and 76% of Facebook posts are in English. However, when none of the authors of the scholarly article are from English-speaking countries, posts on both social media are less likely to be in English. The effect is most pronounced on Facebook, where the likelihood of posting in English is between 11 and 16% lower when none of the authors are from English-speaking countries, as compared to when some or all are. Similarly, posts about papers written with a Brazilian author are 13% more likely to be in Portuguese on Facebook than when made on Twitter. Conclusions/Significance Our main conclusion is that scholarly communication on Twitter and Facebook of Zika-related research is dominated by English, despite Brazil being the epicenter of the Zika epidemic. This result suggests that scholarly findings about the Zika virus are unlikely to be distributed directly to relevant populations through these popular online mediums. Nevertheless, there are differences between platforms. Compared to Twitter, scholarly communication on Facebook is more likely to be in the language of an author’s country. The Zika outbreak provides a useful case-study for understanding how scientific outputs are communicated to relevant populations. Our results suggest that Facebook is a more effective channel than Twitter, if communication is desired to be in the native language of the affected country. Further research should explore how local media—such as governmental websites, newspapers and magazines, as well as television and radio—disseminate scholarly publication.

Co-authorship is a form of formal intellectual collaboration in academia and is well researched. But most intellectual collaboration among academics, for example the provision of helpful commentary on a colleague's manuscript, is informal and not well understood. In this paper, we study social network effects in informal intellectual collaboration in financial economics. We reconstruct the social network of financial economics from formal and informal collaboration among financial economists using a novel and unique hand-collected dataset based on all publications in six leading journals in financial economics from 1997-2011. Our hypothesis is that informally collaborating with a colleague who is more central in the social network of financial economics improves the scientific impact of a research article. Treating the assignment of discussants at NBER summer institutes as quasi-natural experiment, we show that an increase in the discussant's eigenvector centrality by about 12.5% from the mean is associated with 2% more citations for an average research article.

Previous studies suggest a significant role of language in the court room, yet none has identified a definitive correlation between vocal characteristics and court outcomes. This paper demonstrates that voice-based snap judgments based solely on the introductory sentence of lawyers arguing in front of the Supreme Court of the United States predict outcomes in the Court. In this study, participants rated the opening statement of male advocates arguing before the Supreme Court between 1998 and 2012 in terms of masculinity, attractiveness, confidence, intelligence, trustworthiness, and aggressiveness. We found significant correlation between vocal characteristics and court outcomes and the correlation is specific to perceived masculinity even when judgment of masculinity is based only on less than three seconds of exposure to a lawyer’s speech sample. Specifically, male advocates are more likely to win when they are perceived as less masculine. No other personality dimension predicts court outcomes. While this study does not aim to establish any causal connections, our findings suggest that vocal characteristics may be relevant in even as solemn a setting as the Supreme Court of the United States.

In the current global economy, chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have become the leading cause of death and a major health concern for both developed and developing countries. Among other factors, the worldwide spread of NCDs is driven by the globalisation of unhealthy habits. The purpose of this paper is to develop a simple statistic to measure, at the national level, the average population's exposure to the main NCDs modifiable risk factors. The approach and methodology followed by the United Nations Development Programme to compute the Human Development Index (HDI) is applied to four basic indicators of NCD-related preventable risk factors (alcohol consumption, excess caloric intake, non-balanced diet and tobacco use) in 112 countries worldwide in 2012-14. We obtain a summary composite index, which we call the Unhealthy Behaviour Index (UBI), which ranks countries by the average level of the unhealthy habits (drinking, eating and smoking) of their populations. We find that Belarus and Russian federation are the two countries with the unhealthiest NCD-related lifestyle. With the exception of Canada, the first twenty populations more exposed to the main NCDs preventable risk factors all live in European countries, and mainly in countries of Eastern Europe. Overall, the UBI tends to increase along with the level of human development. In medium, high and very high HDI countries, however, the same level of human development may be associated with very different kinds of NCD-related lifestyles. Finally, economic growth may push populations toward either more unhealthy or healthy habits, depending on the countries' level of development; the elasticity of unhealthy habits with respect to income per capita is positive (but less than one: on average 0.6) until $30,000, decreases as income rises, and becomes negative (around -0.3) in very high income countries.