Advocacy for pediatric care ("Politische Kindermedizin") is an Austrian association of engaged pediatricians, aiming at identifying, analyzing and evaluating pressing issues of pediatric care and to suggest improvements to the responsible politicians. The aim was and is to achieve an improvement of pediatric care for children and adolescents in the sense of patient advocacy. The history and concerns of the initiative "Politische Kindermedizin" from 1997 until the present are presented.Febrile neutropenia is the most common potential emergency situation in children and adolescents with cancer. The host response of these patients is severely compromised by treatment-induced immunosuppression resulting in a lack of important defence mechanisms, so that bacterial infections and in certain risk groups also fungal infections can be life threatening. As the clinical course of these infectious complications may be rapid and fatal, early antibiotic treatment can save lives. This article aims to raise awareness to this emergency situation and gives an overview of the management of pediatric cancer patients with febrile neutropenia.We present a new theoretical analysis of local superlinear convergence of classical quasi-Newton methods from the convex Broyden class. As a result, we obtain a significant improvement in the currently known estimates of the convergence rates for these methods. In particular, we show that the corresponding rate of the Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno method depends only on the product of the dimensionality of the problem and the logarithm of its condition number.We study minimization of a structured objective function, being the sum of a smooth function and a composition of a weakly convex function with a linear operator. Applications include image reconstruction problems with regularizers that introduce less bias than the standard convex regularizers. We develop a variable smoothing algorithm, based on the Moreau envelope with a decreasing sequence of smoothing parameters, and prove a complexity of O ( ϵ - 3 ) to achieve an ϵ -approximate solution. This bound interpolates between the O ( ϵ - 2 ) bound for the smooth case and the O ( ϵ - 4 ) bound for the subgradient method. Our complexity bound is in line with other works that deal with structured nonsmoothness of weakly convex functions.The stable isotope ratios of stream water can be used to trace water sources within river basins; however, drivers of variation in water isotopic spatial patterns across basins must be understood before ecologically relevant and isotopically distinct water sources can be identified and this tool efficiently applied. We measured the isotope ratios of surface-water samples collected during summer low-flow across five basins in Washington and southeast Alaska (Snoqualmie, Green, Skagit, and Wenatchee Rivers, and Cowee Creek) and compared models (isoscapes) describing the spatial variation in surface-water isotope ratios across a range of hydraulic and climatic conditions. We found strong correlations between mean watershed (MWE) elevation and surface-water isotopic ratios on the windward west side of the Cascades and in Alaska, explaining 48-90% of variation in δ18O values. Conversely, in the Wenatchee basin, located leeward of the Cascade Range, MWE alone had no predicative power. The elevation relationship and predictive isoscapes varied between basins, even those adjacent to each other. Applying spatial stream network models (SSNMs) to the Snoqualmie and Wenatchee Rivers, we found incorporating Euclidean and flow-connected spatial autocovariance improved explanatory power. SSNMs improved the accuracy of river water isoscapes in all cases; however, their utility was greater for the Wenatchee basin, where covariates explained only a small proportion of total variation. Our study provides insights into why basinscale surface-water isoscapes may vary even in adjacent basins and the importance of incorporating spatial autocorrelation in isoscapes. For determining source water contributions to downstream waters, our results indicate that surface water isoscapes should be developed for each basin of interest.South Asian region possess an abundant growth of seaweeds. Due to unappealing taste of seaweeds, most South Asians reject seaweed based products in the global market. Thus, the research aims to develop a seaweed snack appealing to the taste of South Asians using Ulva fasciata with the intention of popularizing seaweed consumption in the South Asia. Ulva fasciata samples were collected from Matara, Sri Lanka. Snack was developed by the traditional nori making technique. Flavor is enhanced by ginger oleoresin. The moisture content (%), total fat content (%), protein content (%) and ash content (%) of the unroasted snack was determined according to the AOAC procedures and resulted 12.52 ± 0.48, 0.26 ± 0.042, 19.18 ± 0.53 and 13.91 ± 0.46 respectively. Total carbohydrate content (%) was analyzed according to the Dubois method and recorded as 9.48 ± 0.14. The arithmetic difference was taken to determine the total fibre content (%) which was recorded as 44.64 ± 0.23. The elemental composition of the processed snack was determined by X-ray fluorescence elemental analysis. The results recorded a significantly high content (ppm) of Calcium 13,700 ± 707 in the unroasted snack. As the final outcome a nutritious seaweed snack was developed.In the present investigation, essential oil (EO) of Ocimum tenuiflorum and its principal constituent (eugenol) was evaluated for its toxicity and mode of action against Callosobruchus maculatus. Furthermore, fumigant toxicity and germination studies on the application of O. tenuiflorum EO and eugenol against C. maculatus on different pulses was also studied. Fumigant activity studies revealed that EO toxicity was significantly (p  less then  0.05) influenced by concentration and exposure time. In fumigant toxicity assay without food, O.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/mk-0159.html  tenuiflorum EO and eugenol showed LC50 value of 278.6 and 256.5 µL/L air, respectively, at one hour exposure. Further, O. tenuiflorum EO displayed fumigant toxicity via inhibiting acetylcholinesterase activity. Pulses treated with O. tenuiflorum EO showed 70% of C. maculatus mortality at 250 µL/L air concentration after 24 h. Furthermore, these treatments didn't affect the seed viability of the pulses tested. Hence, the application of O. tenuiflorum EO has potential scope as a botanical insecticide.