This paper presents an innovative approach to achieve face cartoonisation while preserving the original identity and accommodating various poses. Unlike previous methods in this field that relied on conditional-GANs, which posed challenges related to dataset requirements and pose training, our approach leverages the expressive latent space of StyleGAN. We achieve this by introducing an encoder that captures both pose and identity information from images and generates a corresponding embedding within the StyleGAN latent space. By subsequently passing this embedding through a pre-trained generator, we obtain the desired cartoonised output. While many other approaches based on StyleGAN necessitate a dedicated and fine-tuned StyleGAN model, our method stands out by utilizing an already-trained StyleGAN designed to produce realistic facial images. We show by extensive experimentation how our encoder adapts the StyleGAN output to better preserve identity when the objective is cartoonisation.


— A novel system has been developed for the imaging of carrier transport within semiconductor nanostructures by operating a near field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) within a scanning electron microscope. Luminescence associated with carrier recombination is collected with high spatial resolution to monitor the motion and recombination of charge generated by use of an electron beam as an independent point source. Light is collected in the near field from a scanning fiber using tuning fork feedback in an open architecture combined AFM/NSOM system allowing for independent motion of sample and tip. From a single image, it is possible to obtain a direct measure of minority carrier diffusion length. This technique has been used in the near-field collection mode to image the diffusion of holes in n-type GaN-AlGaN core-shell nanowires, grown via Ni-catalyzed MOCVD. Measurements were made on tapered nanowires ranging in diameter from 500 to 800 nm, with lengths up to ∼ 30 µm . The average 1-dimensional carrier diffusion length was measured to be 1.2 +/- 0.2 µ m in the low injection limit. In addition, it is possible to map the luminescence that is wave-guided to the end of the structure, imaging waveguide modes


The ability to express emotions is a natural trait of humans. Machines or robots do not have that ability, so far. The synthesized speech signals, that machines use currently, lack naturalness, primarily because those do not convey any emotions and hence sound flat or artificial to human ears. Automatic emotion recognition from the speech signal has also been a big challenge to researchers in speech signal processing domain. In this paper, changes in the discriminating features are analyzed for 6 different emotions: anger, fear, happiness, surprise, sadness and neutral. The sub-segmental features F0, Strength of Excitation and Signal Energy are derived directly from the emotional speech signal, for discriminating amongst these emotions. Signal processing methods autocorrelation of linear prediction (LP) residual, zero-frequency filtering and signal energy are used for deriving these features. The analysis is carried out using two emotion databases, namely German Emotion Database and Telugu Emotion Database. Emotional speech data, for a total of 10 speakers (5 male and 5 female speakers) is examined from each database. Performance evaluation results of using these features for discriminating amongst the 6 emotions are encouraging. These discriminating features and this study should be helpful further towards automatic detection and classification of these different emotions.


An interactive proximity operations planning system, which allows on-site planning of fuel-efficient, multi-burn maneuvers in a potential multi-spacecraft environment was developed and tested. Though this display system most directly assists planning by providing visual feedback to aid visualization of the trajectories and constraints, its most significant features include an inverse dynamics algorithm that removes control nonlinearities facing the operator and a trajectory planning technique that reduces the order of control and creates, through a geometric spread-sheet the illusion of an inertially stable environment. This synthetic environment provides the user with control of relevant static and dynamic properties of way-points during small orbital changes allowing independent solutions to the normally coupled problems of orbital maneuvering. An experiment was carried out in which experienced operators were required to plan a trajectory to retrieve an object accidently separated from a dual-keel space station. The time required to plan these maneuvers was found to be predicted by the direction of the insertion thrust and did not depend on the point of separation from the space station.


We develop a market-wide illiquidity risk factor based on run lengths and find that it is priced using standard asset-pricing specifications. Our theoretical framework of equity returns derives the result that average run lengths of individual stocks proxy for illiquidity, and are related to common measures of liquidity such as trading volume and trade price-impact. This relationship holds irrespective of the sampling frequency in the computation of run lengths. Thus, liquidity can be quantified by examining a stock's run length signature, providing a statistical mechanics link across illiquidity metrics. Tests using daily equity return data for all stocks over the period 1962–2005 find that run lengths are decreasing in turnover, and increasing with bid-ask spreads, and price-impact. Illiquidity is shown to be a risk factor/characteristic in explaining equity returns.


With the development of Web applications, large scale data are popular; and they are not only getting richer, but also ubiquitously interconnected with users and other objects in various ways, which brings about multi-view data with implicit structure. In this paper, we propose a novel hierarchical Bayesian mixture regression model, which discovers and then exploits the relationships among multiple views of the data to perform various machine learning tasks. A stochastic EM inference and learning algorithm is derived; and a parallel implementation in Hadoop MapReduce [9] paradigm is developed to scale up the learning. We apply the developed model and algorithm on click-through-rate (CTR) prediction and campaign targeting recommendation in online advertising to measure its effectiveness. The experiments on both synthetic data and large scale ads serving data from a real world online advertising exchange demonstrate the superior CTR prediction accuracy of our method compared to existing state-of-the-art methods. The results also show that our model can recommend high performance targeting features for online advertising campaigns.


The invention relates to fluorinated aminotriazole derivatives of formula (I), wherein A, R1 and R2 are as defined in the description, their preparation and their use as pharmaceutically active compounds.


In the past few years, networks of workstations (NOWs) and clusters, based on high-speed local area networks (LANs), have emerged as a serious alternative to supercomputers and high-performance servers. Meanwhile, applications demanding real-time network services have also suffered a substantial growth. In order to use NOWs for distributed real-time processing, a topology change and faulttolerant mechanism that guarantees the maximum latency or the minimum bandwidth in the worst case must be provided. Up to now, the backup channel protocol (BCP), based on real-time channels, provides fault-tolerant realtime services. But in this approach, fault tolerance is limited by the alternative paths provided by the routing function to establish the backup channels and topology change tolerance is not supported. On the other hand, dynamic reconfiguration updates the routing tables without stopping user traffic when a topology change or fault occurs. However, dynamic reconfiguration by itself does not provide neither quality of service nor real-time services, but it provides support for an additional mechanism designed to meet realtime requirements. In this paper, we propose a new hardware-supported protocol to provide topology change and fault-tolerant real-time services on NOWs. The novelty of our proposal primarily relies on the ability to assimilate hot topology changes and faults while still providing real-time services through backup channels and dynamic reconfiguration. Our protocol increases fault tolerance beyond the level provided by the backup channel protocol so that fault tolerance is only limited by topology connectivity. Furthermore, to our knowledge, our protocol is the only mechanism which is able to assimilate hot updates without stopping neither realtime traffic nor normal network operation.


The major reasons and causes are the same for both MNM and MDR, so review of MNM cases is likely to yield valuable information regarding severe morbidity which could lead to death of mother, if not intervened properly and in time. According to WHO "a woman who survives life threatening conditions during pregnancy, abortion and childbirth or within 42 days of pregnancy termination, irrespective of receiving emergency medical/surgical interventions, is called maternal near miss."


The usage of games has been one of the most utilized pedagogical practices in the teaching of oral and sign languages. Research shows that this resource helps students understand the content and promotes a pleasant and entertaining environment during tasks. The main goal of this work was to present four games for the teaching of Brazilian Sign Language (Libras), and the Writing of Sign Sign Language (ELiS), describe how to play them in the classroom and show their efficacy. In order to do so, after the application of four games, a research was done with the utilization of field diaries as an instrument for data collection, which highlighted the positive results of these activities


We consider low energy threshold reactive collisions of particles interacting via a van der Waals potential at long range in the presence of external confinement and give analytic formulas for the confinement modified scattering in such circumstances. The reaction process is described in terms of the short range reaction probability. Quantum defect theory is used to express elastic and inelastic or reaction collision rates analytically in terms of two dimensionless parameters representing phase and reactivity. We discuss the modifications to Wigner threshold laws for quasi-one-dimensional and quasi-two-dimensional geometries. Confinement-induced resonances are suppressed due to reactions and are completely absent in the universal limit where the short-range loss probability approaches unity.


A boundary Nevanlinna-Pick interpolation problem is posed and solved in the quaternionic setting. Given nonnegative real numbers κ1, . . . , κN , quaternions p1, . . . , pN all of modulus 1, so that the 2-spheres determined by each point do not intersect and pu 6= 1 for u = 1, . . . , N , and quaternions s1, . . . , sN , we wish to find a slice hyperholomorphic Schur function s so that lim r→1 r∈(0,1) s(rpu) = su for u = 1, . . . , N, and lim r→1 r∈(0,1) 1− s(rpu)su 1− r ≤ κu, for u = 1, . . . , N. Our arguments relies on the theory of slice hyperholomorphic functions and reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces.


Background Hysteroscopy is becoming a common method for the diagnosis of uterine disorders in developed countries. However, hysteroscopy might worsen the prognosis of endometrial cancer because it could cause cancer dissemination into the peritoneal cavity through the fallopian tubes. Objective: The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to explore the oncological safety of hysteroscopy for early-stage endometrial cancer. Search Strategy Eligible studies were obtained from PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library up to September 22, 2020. Selection Criteria Studies which compared the oncological safety of hysteroscopy with other methods were included. Data Collection and Analysis A total of 3980 patients were included in this study, of whom1357 patients had undergone hysteroscopy and2623 had not. Main Results There was no significant association between hysteroscopy and worse prognosis in early-stage endometrial cancer [disease-free survival: log risk ratio(logRR) -0.22; 95% confidence interval (CI), -0.54 to 0.1; p=0.97; overall survival: logRR 0.03; 95% CI, -0.05 to 0.11; p=0.02; disease-specific survival: logRR 0.03; 95% CI, -0.03 to 0.10; p=0.00]. Conclusion This study suggests that hysteroscopy is a safe diagnostic and treatment method, and has no significant effect on the prognosis of early-stage endometrial cancer. Systematic Review Registration PROSPERO registration number: CRD42020193696.


Understanding the degradation mechanism of organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) is essential to improve device performance and stability. OLED failure, if not process-related, arises mostly from chemical instability. However, the challenges of sampling from nanoscale organic layers and interfaces with enough analytical information has hampered identification of degradation products and mechanisms. Here, we present a high-resolution diagnostic method of OLED degradation using an Orbitrap mass spectrometer equipped with a gas cluster ion beam to gently desorb nanometre levels of materials, providing unambiguous molecular information with 7-nm depth resolution. We measured blue phosphorescent OLED devices and showed that dominant chemical degradation occurred at the interface between electron transport and emission layers (EML/ETL) where exciton distribution was maximised. We also show an approximately two orders of magnitude increase in lifetime of a device with slightly modified host material, which presented negligible EML/ETL interfacial degradation. Our results provide insight for material and device architecture development.


The article presents the results of landscape zoning of the territory of the Buturlinsky district of the Nizhny Novgorod region, carried out on the basis of field research, analysis of maps, literary sources and remote sensing data of the Earth. Landscape zoning is performed at the hierarchical level of landscapes. For each of the landscapes the most significant characteristics from the point of view of establishing the disturbance and vulnerability of the landscape are calculated: wooded, ploughing. The materials, presented in the article, are the basis for further geoecological research, primarily to determine the ecological potential of the researched territory.


A knowledge-based system is presented that has been designed to overcome the difficulties generally encountered in the extraction of structures from biomedical images. Different segmentation methods are opportunistically applied and parameter values are automatically controlled through the use of models, data, and progressive results. Detected structures are assigned fuzzy membership values related to the reliability of recognition results. The application of the system to microscopic images is described. Peculiar features of the system include a high degree of tolerance to parameter variations high flexibility and a reduced processing time.


In entomology, as in many other disciplines, there is need for better quality visual materials and similar teaching software. Recent proliferation of textbooks has enhanced our discipline; yet, with the exception of the Brigham Young Univ./ Entomological Society of America slide/tape program (Tipton 1973), there have been few attempts to generate these type materials.


Blood pressure levels and BMI values were compared between children (8-16 years old) of hypertensive and normotensive parents. Children of hypertensive parents (n=97) were found to have significantly higher mean Systolic Blood Pressure (mSBP), mean Diastolic Blood Pressure (mDBP) and BMI as compared to children of normotensive parents (n=93). Essential hypertension has a strong genetic basis, which is reflected by its significant inheritability.


Metaphor is understood as verbal and mental construct, denoting some class of entities or phenomena for the characteristics or name of an object included in another class, due to the comparison of two entities, phenomena on the basis of analogy or similarity between them, that is, finding their common characteristics. It is marked, that verbal metaphor is not the full reflection of mental metaphor. In Russian and German languages the features of metaphorization of concepts of natural phenomena in poetic discourse are considered. It is noted that (subject) metaphorical model structuring concepts of natural phenomena, is first in terms of frequency and variety of lexical means, "the fullness" of its contained conceptual metaphors. Analysis of the material allows to identify that the noun is the dominant metaphor in Russian and German languages in the representation of concepts of natural phenomena. This is explained by the fact that the representatives of these cultures are the whole relevant "package" of knowledge about the area of the source, and not just about the typical characteristics, properties or functions. In Russian poetic discourse there is a higher index of use of extended metaphorical descriptions with a strong verbal component comparison.


Partial response maximum-likelihood (PRML) and fixed-delay tree search with decision feedback (FDTS/DF) yield a sub-optimum performance in storage systems. However, they suffer from the inevitable complexity problems. this paper focuses on detection schemes to overcome the drawbacks of the sequence detections by exploiting minimum run-length d=2. It is expected that the proposed systems yield substantial reductions of both processing speed and receiver complexity. When combined with a decision feedback equalization (DFE), they prove to keep pace with the FDTS/DF with =2 and even outperform the PR(1111)ML at normalized density S>5.6.


8‐methoxypsoralen, the most widely used psoralen in photochemotherapy, was shown to induce mixed‐function oxidases. Induction of mixed‐function oxidases in mouse liver was examined after mice were given a single dose of one of three psoralens. 8‐methoxypsoralen clearly induced p‐nitro‐anisole‐O‐demethylase and slightly induced aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase. Psoralen and 4,5′,8‐trimethylpsoralen failed to induce either enzyme. These results represent the first enzyme induction studies on these clinically useful compounds. The studies may have relevance in understanding the clinical differences in skin photosensitizing activity and photochemotherapeutic effectiveness of the compounds in such diseases as psoriasis and vitiligo.


Objective To assess the trends in the prevalence of comorbidities in US patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), and the association of demographic characteristics with the presence of comorbidities. Study design A retrospective analysis was conducted from a sample of 5 million patients from the IMS Health Real World Data Adjudicated Claims – US database. Methods Comorbidity in patients with MS was assessed by year (2006–2014), and logistic regression models evaluated the association of age, sex, and region with select comorbidities. Results The most common comorbidities from 2006 to 2014 were hyperlipidemia and hypertension (25.9%–29.7% of patients within an individual year), followed by gastrointestinal disease (18.4%–21.2% of patients) and thyroid disease (12.9%–17.1% of patients). The proportion with a claim for hyperlipidemia increased from 2006 to 2009, was stable from 2009 to 2011, and then declined from 2011 to 2014. The proportion with a claim for hypertension generally increased from 2006 to 2013, then declined from 2013 to 2014. The proportion with a claim for gastrointestinal disease, thyroid disease, and anxiety generally increased from 2006 to 2014. Claims for comorbidities were statistically significantly more likely among older age groups (p<0.05), with the exception of anxiety and alcohol abuse, which were statistically significantly less likely among older age groups. Claims for gastrointestinal disease (OR=0.75), thyroid disease (OR=0.36), chronic lung disease (OR=0.76), arthritis (OR=0.71), anxiety (OR=0.63), and depression (OR=0.69) were statistically significantly less likely among males versus females (all p<0.05). Claims for hyperlipidemia (OR=1.39), hypertension (OR=1.25), diabetes (OR=1.31), and alcohol abuse (OR=2.41) were significantly more likely among males (p<0.05). Many comorbidity claims were statistically significantly more likely in the Northeast and South compared with the Midwest and West. Conclusion This study provides select comorbidity claims estimates in US patients with MS, and thus highlights the importance of comprehensive patient care approaches.


We present a common framework for dialectical proof procedures for computing credulous, grounded, ideal and sceptical preferred semantics of abstract argumentation. The framework is based on the notions of dispute derivation and base derivation. Dispute derivation is a dialectical notion first introduced for computing credulous semantics in assumption-based argumentation, and adapted here for computing credulous semantics and grounded semantics. Base derivation is introduced for two purposes: (i) to characterize all preferred extensions containing a given argument, and (ii) to represent backtracking in the search for a dispute derivation. We prove the soundness of the proof procedures for any argumentation frameworks and their completeness for general classes of finitary or finite-branching argumentation frameworks containing the class of finite argumentation frameworks as a subclass.We also discuss related results.


We derive the full set of field equations for the metric-affine version of the Myrzakulov gravity model and also extend this family of theories to a broader one. More specifically, we consider theories whose gravitational Lagrangian is given by F(R,T,Q,T,D) where T, Q are the torsion and non-metricity scalars, T is the trace of the energy-momentum tensor and D the divergence of the dilation current. We then consider the linear case of the aforementioned theory and, assuming a cosmological setup, we obtain the modified Friedmann equations. In addition, focusing on the vanishing non-metricity sector and considering matter coupled to torsion, we obtain the complete set of equations describing the cosmological behavior of this model along with solutions.


This study seeks to explore the use of social media to support the learning of nursing students in Zambia. Data was collected from the WhatsApp and email conversation chats involving 76 nursing students at the University of Zambia School. The content of the conversation chats was analyzed in terms of common themes, patterns and interrelationships. It was established that nursing students can take a leading role in empowering themselves by taking charge of their continued learning by using social media responsibly. Key findings that emerged from the WhatsApp and e-mail discussions are: Knowledge enhancement and sharing of best practices were significant in the WhatsApp Group, Virtual Classroom community, was significantly stronger in the WhatsApp group, WhatsApp group had a minimally more positive placement experience, other measures (social capital/knowledge application/learning dimension community) did not differ significantly. The use of social mobile media is not only limited to professional nurses but also nursing students. As the training of nurse professionals evolves in the midst of high technology use, more and more students may seek to prefer the use of social mobile media as a tool for continuous learning. In comparison to the email platform, students in the WhatsApp were able to maintain conversations up to the end of the allocated period of the study. The information gathered from this project can be useful to fostering a unified understanding of professional knowledge and a feeling of belongingness among nursing students.


Stereotactic radiosurgery is a single-fraction radiation therapy procedure for treating intracranial lesions using a stereotactic apparatus and multiple narrow beams delivered through noncoplanar isocentric arcs. To guarantee a high quality standard, a comprehensive Quality Assurance programme is extremely important to ensure that the measured dose is consistent with the tolerance considered to improve treatment quality. The Radiological Science Laboratory operates a postal audit programme in SRT and SRS. The purpose of the programme is to verify the target localization accuracy in known geometry and the dosimetric conditions of the TPS. The programme works in such a way those thermoluminescence dosimeters, consisting of LiF chips, are sent to the centre where they are to be irradiated to a certain dose. The TLD are then returned, where they are evaluated and the absorbed dose is obtained from TLDs readings. The aim of the present work is estimate the uncertainties in the process of dose determination, using experimental data.


Today. A scattering of fishing boats. A lost kite.
 A scattering of geese and ducks.
 Fishermen working ropes along a ropewalk.
 Last night. In the night sky a falling comet,
 like a stroke flashing down through the brain. No sound.
 If sound, it would be that of a newborn screaming....


Purpose

The "condohotel" is a type of condominium, which is most commonly used in tourist buildings, such as hotels, where investors can buy a private room/unit and offer it to a hotel company, which manages the "condohotel" and offers the units to guests through an accommodation contract. According to the Spanish regions called autonomous communities that provide a special legal framework for "condohotels", room owners are also permitted to use their units for a specific period. However, residential use is prohibited. In exchange, the hotel company pays a part of its profit to those owners. This paper aims to analyse how the "condohotel" regime works in Spain and what the main weaknesses are that explain its limited success, despite the importance of the real estate and tourist sectors and the popularity of the condominium regime in this country.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, the complex concept of "condohotel" is explained. The role of the participating parties is examined along with the supplementary legal regimes that are applied to identify the reasons why it has had a limited success and how its regulation could be improved.

Findings

This paper identifies the changes that are needed to address the relative failure of this regime in Spain, as "condohotels" can be an attractive type of alternative accommodation for someone interested in hotel services or for retired people who want to stay some months of the year in the beautiful and sunny Spain with all the amenities of a hotel or for those who need to live in a place for a few months for work reasons.

Research limitations/implications

This paper identifies different contracts to cede private units to hotel company. However, further research is necessary to identify which contract is the best option or if it could be a mixture of them.

Originality/value

The "condohotels" facilitate becoming an owner of a hotel room or unit of another tourist establishment under the condominium regime. However, the unit can only be used for tourist purposes. Despite this limitation, "condohotels" might potentially be used not only as a second residence or a tourist solution but also as a temporal housing solution or as an investment to obtain some extra income. Thus, it is worthwhile improving the legal framework and offering more legal certainty to the parties that intervene in this regime.


Bullying is a problem within the school context and with important consequences for the victim. The scientific literature has shown that emotional intelligence (EI) enhances the role of cohabitation within the school context. This systematic review aims to analyze the evidence of the role of EI in bullying. Results show greater levels of emotional perception in students involved in bullying and lower levels of emotional understanding and regulation compared to students not involved in these behaviors. In addition, gender differences in their levels of EI were found among students involved in bullying. The results reveal the importance of designing and implementing programs of EI in the school context as prevention and action against bullying


Abstract According to the recovery model, mental healthcare should be aimed towards a conception of recovery articulated by a patient or service user in accord with his or her own specific values. The model thus presupposes and emphasises the agency of the patient and opposes paternalism. Recent philosophical work on the relations between respect, self-respect, self-esteem, shame, and agency suggests, however, two ways in which mental illness itself can undermine self-respect, promote shame and undermine agency, suggesting a tension within the recovery model. I argue, however, that this is a tension rather than a fatal flaw by distinguishing between paternalist and non-paternalist clinical responses to this failure of agency.


This revised and expanded edition focuses on a highly intensive behavioural parenting program that can be used with parents of children with Disruptive Behaviour Disorders. The book begins with an excellent chapter that investigates the root causes of oppositional behaviour. In addition, this chapter also outlines compliance and non-compliance in normally developing children. The second chapter of the book describes the development of parent training programs and compares the most commonly used behavioural parenting programs. The following chapters describe McMahon and Forehand's Helping the Noncompliant Child program and adaptations of the program that can be used for specific populations, such as children with developmental disabilities. The book ends with a review of current research in the area of behavioural parenting techniques and with a number of reproducible parent handouts.

Overall, this is an excellent book for any clinician who is working in an intensive treatment setting for children with behavioural difficulties. The first chapter, which reviews the development of behavioural difficulties, is a must for anyone who is working with children who present with oppositional behaviour. I plan to make it the first item my students read when they train with me. This chapter is an easy, enjoyable read and would be helpful for both clinicians and front-line staff in many settings. The second strength of the book is the reproducible parent handouts at the back of the book. They include instructions on Active Ignoring, Giving Clear Instructions and other important parenting techniques. The book also includes many excellent diagrams that show the progression and development of behavioural difficulties, and record sheets that can be filled out by parents when they are trying to implement a new technique. I also enjoyed the chapters describing McMahon and Forehand's parenting program, specifically the techniques used to quantify the parent's use of specific parent skills (e.g., attends, rewards), to determine areas needing further work and measures of improvement.

The most important weakness of this book, in my opinion, is the title. Many clinicians may read the title and assume that this book can guide their work in an office-based environment. In fact, the book describes an extremely intensive parenting program that involves training staff to watch parents and children through a one-way mirror or in the home environment. Optimal scheduling is described as twice a week for 75–90 minutes each time (5–14 sessions total). The authors note that weekly 50-minute sessions were less successful. Although the authors describe the program as flexible, it is clear when reading the book that this book is describing treatment techniques that would be best administered in a highly intensive setting. Many clinicians are not working in a clinic that provides the time or the appropriate setting for implementing the program, and would be better served by reading Forehand's book, Parenting the Strong Willed Child and some of the other excellent parenting books that are available.

Another weakness of the book is that on several occasions the authors discuss the use of spanking without discussing the multitude of research describing the negative effects of its use. On one occasion the authors note that they no longer recommend spanking but appear to gloss over their reasons for this change (noting that it has become "increasingly less acceptable"). On another occasion (p. 88) the authors note that they use "punishment of one sort or another (e.g., spanking, loss of privileges)". I believe that the authors had a real duty to fully outline the research on spanking, as this is an important subject that I discuss with all parents in my work.

Overall, I concluded that the parenting techniques provided in the book were excellent. However, I had some differences with the authors. On one occasion, they noted that they tell parents that active ignoring is "much easier to use than punishment". In my work, I have found that many parents of children with behaviour problems have anger management problems of their own. Therefore, parents often find active ignoring to be an extremely difficult technique to learn and, in my opinion, benefit from a great deal of support about how tough it will be to implement.

Overall, this is an excellent book for any clinician who is able to implement an intensive, structured parent skills training program. However, for clinicians who work in public health clinics which do not allow for long sessions of observation and frequent appointments, they would be better off reading several of the other books aimed at clinicians. For my purposes, as a psychologist working in a Day Treatment setting, the book is a welcome addition to my bookcase and will be used often.


Objective To evaluate the effects of inhaled nitric oxide( iNO) therapy combined with conventional ventilation on persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn( PPHN). Methods NO inspiration was performed in 33 infants with PPHN who were not responsive to the conventional ventilation. The iNO concentration started at 10 ppm for 20 infants and( 15-25) ppm for 13 infants. When SpO2≥90% and remain stable for 30 min,the parameters of ventilator were regulated down,and gradually regulated down the iNO concentration. When iNO concentration reached 5 ppm,ventilation was lasted for 2 to 3 hours. The ventilation was stopped when PaO2 55 mm Hg and SpO2 90%. The blood gas analysis,SpO2 and vital signs were monitored before and 2 to 6 hours after the administration of iNO. Results Clinical situation were significantly improved in 28( 84. 85%) of the infants with SpO2 gradually going up after 30 minutes of iN0. Before iNO,mean FiO2was( 0. 90 ± 0. 10),SpO2was( 70. 5 ± 14. 1) %,and PaO2was( 45. 8 ± 10. 7) mm Hg. From 2 to 6hours after iNO,SpO2 increased to( 95. 3 ± 3. 6) %,PaO2 increased to( 92. 9 ± 24. 6) mm Hg,FiO2 decreased to( 0.60 ±0.08). The differences were significant( P 0.05).28 of 33( 84.85%) infants survived. Conclusion The iNO is effective in reliving vasospasm of pulmonary vasculature in infants with PPHN and improving partial pressure of blood oxygen and cure rate. There are no remarkable side effects. It is easy to operating and worthy of promotion.


Dante's impact on music has been studied completely enough, but so far mainly in an empirical and descriptive way. The article examines the works of romantic composers of the 19th - early 20th centuries, based on the plot of Dante's "Divine Comedy": Liszt's fantasy-sonata "After reading Dante" and the "Dante-Symphony", the "Francesca da Rimini" by Tchaikovsky (symphonic fantasy) and Rachmaninoff (opera). The author analyses compositional and stylistic models of the romantic music inspired by Dante's poetry as a system, which is relevant for modern musicology, in particular, for the theories of musical language, style, and musical meaning. Along with the traditional musicological methods of analysis of form and intonational dramaturgy, an interdisciplinary methodology is applied, associated with the coverage of the entire system of musical compositional prototypes as a structuring of meaning. This has a pronounced narrative poetic nature in romantic music. The results of the study demonstrate a system of structural and semantic invariants (secondary, musical models) conditioned by Dante's figurative world and manifested in melody, harmony, fret organization, composition. The conclusions of the article reveal the roles of Dante's models of the world in the works considered in the following aspects: in the process of extreme intensification of the contrasts of romantic music in the semantic coordinates of "Hell – Paradise"; "Love – Death"; in the approval of the concept of Liebestod; in the creation of new, extreme expressive possibilities for the given style, which significantly expanded the idea of the boundaries of beauty and caused transformations in musical sound (harmony, texture, melody); in the formation of stable idioms of romantic music from Liszt to Rachmaninov; in the modification of the structures of a one-part sonata, of the cyclic symphony, and of opera, which have received the quality of a vectorial dramaturgical process and open dramaturgy.


Endocrine disruptors (EDs) are exogenous chemicals that alter the endocrine system function and have adverse effects on animal and human health. Synthesized compounds such as pesticides, industrial chemicals and their by-products, natural mycotoxins and phyto-oestrogens are included in the group of permanently present harmful compounds. The second group contains occasionally used chemicals (personal care products, pharmaceutical agents). The harmful effects of ED are tested in wildlife and laboratory animals, in cell cultures, and in human epidemiological and clinical research. The consequences of early exposure to ED have been demonstrated in disorders of the reproductive and endocrine systems, the occurrence of metabolic disorders and diseases, and neurological disorders. Some of the consequences are passed onto the next generations. In early childhood, it is important to detect and investigate the indicators of foetal exposure to harmful chemicals, to identify high- and low-risk groups for ED exposure, and to conduct prospective studies of the correlation of exposure with clinical outcomes throughout childhood and adolescence.


A self-luminous odontoscope for dentists comprises an odontoscope, wherein a circle of groove is arranged on the surface of an odontoscope handle, fluorescent powder is arranged in the groove, and the surface of the groove is fixedly connected with a transparent cover body. When the self-luminous odontoscope is in use, the fluorescent powder in the groove on the surface of the handle can emit light automatically, so that not only can dentists conveniently observe the situation inside the mouth, but also the energy can be saved. The self-luminous odontoscope has the advantages that simplicity in structure, convenience in use and reasonability in construction can be realized, and the energy can be saved while convenience can be brought to the dentists.


: A duality is introduced between a pair of polynomial twisted de Rham cohomology groups associated with a generalized Airy function in several variables. Natural bases of the twisted de Rham groups are constructed in terms of Schur polynomials. Then the intersection matrix relative to these bases is calculated explicitly in terms of skew-Schur polynomials.


Summary from only given. Since they exhibit a low heat generation, ytterbium-doped materials turned out to be serious competitors of neodymium-doped materials for high power diode-pumped lasers. Because there is no excited-state absorption and upconversion processes, the only heat source is commonly admitted to be the quantum defect. As a consequence, thermal lensing is not expected to be different under lasing or non lasing conditions, provided the lasing wavelength is close to the average fluorescence wavelength. We herein relate thermal lensing measurements in diode-pumped Yb-doped oxoborate crystals: we observed strong differences between lasing and nonlasing conditions, proving that the quantum defect is not the only heat generating process.


The production and application of several cyclohexanone derivates with broad market prospects are described. Some proposals for developing cyclohexanone derivates are put forward.


The Integrated Water Supply System (IWSS) supplying Perth, Mandurah, Goldfields and Agricultural Areas Water Supply (GAWS) schemes is undergoing its most significant change in decades. This is primarily due to the observed run of dry years over the last two decades which has reduced the yield of surface water sources in the IWSS by as much as 45%. The reductions in the number of rain days and the rainfall per rain day are significant and the impact on the IWSS poses major challenges for water planners and operators. The challenges include the following: - The management of rapid changes to the system as the source development program is accelerated to maintain the balance between water supply and demand. - The integration of major new system components such as trunk mains and pumping systems that need to be developed in conjunction with major new sources. - The operation of the system to ensure that water quantity and quality supplied to customers are maintained while major system changes are occurring. - The increased pressure from customers to improve supply reliability and reduce the severity of restriction. The challenges above and an outlook of the IWSS over the next decade are discussed.


The abuse and overuse of antibiotics lead to increasing bacterial resistance to actibiotics and extensive dissemination of resistance.As a reservoir for antibiotic resistance bacteria(ARB) and antibiotic resistance gene(ARG),the effluent and biosolids of wastewater treatment plants(WWTPs) are the important contamination sources for the antibiotic resistance dissemination.Meanwhile,WWTPs play an important role in controlling of resistance dissemination.The purpose of this paper is to summarize pollution status of antibiotic resistance in the aquatic environment,to thoroughly review the advances of removing ARB and ARG during WWTP treating processes,and to propose the future research direction.


A pitch detection method for a harmonic signal based on the wavelet transform is proposed. A modified wavelet transform is derived from a general continuous wavelet transform. Errors of pitch estimation obtained by the proposed method are presented. Moreover, the authors examine how the frequency and phase errors in analyzing the wavelet against the observed signal affect the accuracy of the pitch estimation. Furthermore, the pitch estimation is performed for vowels. As a result, the pitch peak power is enhanced. So, the pitch frequency is estimated with ease among candidates for the power power.


In this paper, we investigate into direction estimation in bistatic multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar in the presence of unknown spatial colored noise. Taking the stationary property of the spatial colored noise into consideration, a transform-based tensor covariance differencing method is proposed. The spatial colored noise is eliminated by forming the difference of the original and the transformed covariance matrices. To further exploit the inherent multidimensional nature, a fourth-order tensor is constructed, which helps to achieve more accurate subspace estimation. Thereafter, the traditional subspace-based methods are applied for ambiguous direction estimation. Finally, a special matrix is formed to associate the real angles with the targets. The proposed scheme does not bring virtual aperture loss, and it has complexity lower than the existing tensor-based subspace methods. Numerical simulations verify the improvement of our scheme.


The establishment of soldiers' committee system was an important measure of reform adopted by Mao Zedong in Sanwan Reorganization.This system smashed the army administration foundation of old-style armies and peasants' armed forces,playing an important role in the democratic development of Zhu De and Mao Zedong's Red Army.Later in response to the drawbacks caused by soldiers' committee in the Fourth Red Army,Mao Zedong and other leaders adopted some measures preventing extremalization of democracy.Then the Central Committee of the CPC led by Li Lisan promulgated three basic ordinances including the Draft of Organic Rules for Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army according to the requirements for "national" regular army.In these ordinances there was no provision on the setting of solders' committee.So the promulgation of this policy implied that the soliders' committee system of Zhu De and Mao Zedong's Red Army was abolished.


The caterpillar's question is the question Wonderland's caterpillar posed to Alice: Who are you? This is a question Alice finds she cannot answer. According to postmodernist anti-humanism, Alice cannot answer the question because there is no coherent Alice there to answer it, no unitary subject of consciousness.

This paper contests the anti-humanist denial of a coherent subject of experience. While it is conceded that phenomenologically, we may have difficulty today identifying who we are essentially, it is argued that, conceptually, we cannot do without the ontological category of the person as a unified center of consciousness.


This study has a purpose to check whether there is an alteration towards bid ask spread around earnings statements in Syariah companies that are listed in Indonesian stock market. The population of the study is 336 Syariah companies that are listed on Daftar Efek Syariah, and 66 companies that fulfill the criteria are chosen. The result of Z-test shows that the average bid-ask-spread of companies in five days before doing the earnings statement is higher than average bid-ask-spread in five days after doing the earnings statement. Thus, there is a bid-ask-spread difference between before and after earnings statement. The spread improvement stock because of earnings statement is 34.2%, and the rest 65.8% is caused by another factor. This indicates that some investors still consider stock as trade commodity.


The paper calculates the fractal parameters of spatial structure of soil erosion of Dianchi basin and analyzes its fractal characteristics by using GIS technology combining with fractal theory.The outcomes show that a) the fractal characteristics of spatial structure of soil erosion of Dianchi basin objectively exist and the complicated degree of spot shape of soil erosion in different intensity is different,of which,light erosion medium erosion extreme intensive erosion intensive erosion strenuous erosion;b) the stability of spatial structure of soil erosion decreases at the beginning and then increases later along with the increase of erosion intensity;c) the compactness of spatial structure of each soil erosion intensity is in range of 0.600~0.630 and the aggregation of spots have slightly different because of the influence of human activities.


A fortnight before the outbreak of war in August 1914 two of the Wilbraham brothers persuaded Jesse into a partnership in a bakery near the Elephant and Castle. The business had belonged to a German called Eislinger, whose name in a horseshoe of gold letters on the shop window had not yet been removed a month or so after hostilities had commenced.


This study assessed information literacy skills of library and information science postgraduate students at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. The quantitative approach was employed to solicit information from the postgraduate students. Data collected were analysed using statistical tools such as frequency count and simple percentage. A total of 34 postgraduate students admitted for the 2016/2017 academic year participated in the study. The study found that the postgraduate students are information literate as all items got more than half affirmative responses except for their ability to create content in blogs, YouTube, and personal webpages for different audiences. The study therefore, advocate the urgent need to improve postgraduate students' publishing literacy skills to enable them possess the needed skills to format and publish research and ideas in textual and multimedia formats as well as to be able to create content in blogs, YouTube, and personal webpages for different audiences.


Recent advances in automatic speaker verification (ASV) lead to an increased interest in securing these systems for real-world applications. Malicious spoofing attempts against ASV systems can lead to serious security breaches. A spoofing attack within the context of ASV is a condition in which a (potentially harmful) person successfully masks as another, to the ASV system already known person by falsifying or manipulating data. While most previous work focuses on enhanced, spoof-aware features, end-to-end models can be a potential alternative. In this paper, we investigate the training of a raw wave front-ends for deep convolutional, long short-term memory (LSTM) and vanilla neural networks, which are analyzed for their suitability toward spoofing detection, regarding the influence of frame size, number of output neurons, and sequence length. A joint convolutional LSTM neural network (CLDNN) is proposed, which outperforms previous attempts on the BTAS2016 dataset (0.82% $\rightarrow$  0.19% HTER), placing itself as the current state-of-the-art model for the dataset. We show that end-to-end approaches are appropriate for the important replay detection task and show that the proposed model is capable of distinguishing device-invariant spoofing attempts. Regarding the ASVspoof2015 dataset, the end-to-end solution achieves an equal error rate (EER) of 0.00% for the S1-S9 conditions. We show that the end-to-end approach based on a raw waveform input can outperform common cepstral features, without the use of context-dependent frame extensions. In addition, a cross-database (domain mismatch) scenario is also evaluated, which shows that the proposed CLDNN model trained on the BTAS2016 dataset achieves an EER of 25.7% on the ASVspoof2015 dataset.


The evolution of the Moslem capital of Cairo is studied beginning with the Arab conquest, which led to the widespread intermingling of peoples on two continents, and ending with the discovery of the route around the Cape of Good Hope, which was to undermine Egypt's active international role. The book is written for people of various interests.


Today the problem of crime rape is banya occur not only in big cities only, but already kepelosok village. The threat of sexual violence, be it sexual abuse or rape was not always come from an adult man or men who hiperseks masher, but it can also be done by teenagers and even children themselves. Acts of sexual violence or rape is not really a new issue. But this damned event from time to time still occur due to various sabab and even the victims and the perpetrators even if more and more crossed the age limit is estimated to people. Rape is a crime of morality that can be caused by various factors. Crime is quite komleks cause and does not stand alone. The causes can be influenced by the conditions that support, the existence of victims indirectly encourage the perpetrator and it could be because there are other elements that influence it. This study aims to determine what factors can affect the early teens to commit a crime of rape. The study was a descriptive qualitative research. The data collection method used is the graphical test, interview and documentation. This research was conducted in a correctional institution subsidiaries located in Jl. Bali, No. 60 Blitar, starting on 21 April to 21 May 2003 with a number of research subjects sebannya 7 people. The results of this study indicate that the act of rape committed by teenagers early influenced by personality and behavioral factors, social factors such as family relationships and broken home, a factor that is the situation, the conflict situation, place and time factor.


This thesis describes the growth of European olive (Olea europaea L.) at three different trial sites located near Laverton, in the north-eastern Goldfields region of Western Australia. The local region comprises part of the rangelands area of Australia and has a semi-arid climate. The initial reason for planting olives was indirectly related to the rapid decrease in the local population and the economic downturn that resulted within that community during the late 1990's. This prompted an investigation into other possibilities for economic diversity for remote communities such as Laverton, which are located in the rangelands area of Australia. In Australia, much of the southern and eastern areas of the country have similar climate to traditional olive growing areas in Europe. In the rangelands however, the environment is different to most other areas in the world where olive trees are grown and there is a notable absence of a commercial olive industry. Whilst locally, individual trees were also observed to be growing well and fruiting abundantly, it is not known whether it is possible to grow olive trees successfully on a commercial scale. Two preliminary trials were established in an ad-hoc manner, to examine whether olive trees could be grown successfully in the rangelands environment. Eighty-eight trees of 5 different cultivars were planted on a shallow, clay soil profile at the first trial site. Ninety-eight trees of 11 different cultivar were planted on a deep sand soil profile at the second site. Higher mortality rate occurred at the first site, with most tree deaths being recorded in the first two years. Peak growth of branch tips occurred during the spring-summer seasons at both sites. Differences in trial design and timing of planting prevented statistical comparison of growth performance between sites however. A third olive trial, consisting of 3 olive groves was established according to randomised design. In the north and middle groves, 54 trees of 3 different cultivar were planted on a deep alluvial soil profile. In the south grove, 53 trees of 3 different cultivar were planted on a shallow clay soil profile. High mortality rates were recorded at all 3 groves during the first year, as a result of high salinity levels in irrigation water during the establishment period. Overall, most tree mortality was recorded at the south grove. Significantly higher growth performance occurred within the deeper alluvial soil profile at the north and middle groves, compared to the shallow clay soil profile in the south grove. Negligible olive fruit production occurred at the first site. At the second site, small quantities of olive fruit were produced during some seasons only. No olive fruit production occurred at any grove at the randomized site. Successful fruit formation appears directly related to tree health, as a function of water supply. Ripening of olive fruit occurred earlier than at other more temperate olive growing areas of


Objective: To observe the change of disease distributional characteristics and epidemiology among patients in a hospital last three years in order to provide information for setting up reasonable department and preventing disease in the hospital.Methods: The data about clinical cases of 2008-2010 was collected,and analyzed by SPSS 11.0.Results: The number of inpatient had increased quickly year by year.The top five diseases occupied 60.4% among patients were diseases of digestive system,upper respiratory infection,viral encephalitis,neurological disorder,other diseases.There were significantly statistical differences in marital status,nationality and occupation.Conclusion: The hospital should adjust department,continue to establish our characteristic discipline and departments,and to strengthen the construction of other departments,to the limited resources on the reasonable configuration,so as to provide better,safe and effective medical care for patients,also promote good and fast development of the hospital.


A nonlocal modiˇed gravity model with an analytical function of the d'Alembert operator, is considered. This model has been recently proposed as a possible way of resolving the singularities problem in cosmology. We present exact bouncing solution, which is simpler compared to the already known one in this model, in the sense, it does not require an additional matter to satisfy all gravitational equations.


The American Genetics Association (AGA) is a nonprofit membership society whose mission is to promote the study of genetics. To meet this obligation, the AGA publishes the Journal of Heredity and promotes research in all fields of genetics. The latter is accomplished through an annual meeting and symposium, as well as by sponsorship of special events, such as workshops and symposia in areas of interest to the AGA. In 2006, the annual meeting and symposium of the AGA was held from 21–24 July in Vancouver, British Columbia. The symposium, cosponsored with Molecular Ecology, was titled ''Genetics of Speciation'' and attracted close to 300 participants. Allen Orr was the recipient of the 2006 Wilhelmine Key Lectureship and gave the keynote lecture on ''Speciation in Drosophila: from Phenotypes to Molecules.'' Six articles from the symposium, which focus mostly on the genetics of postzygotic isolation, are published in this issue; another six more ecologically orientated papers will appear in Molecular Ecology. The lead article was authored by Allen Orr, J. P. Masly, and Nitin Phadnis, who review what we know about the genetics of intrinsic postzygotic reproductive isolation, at least with respect to genes underlying hybrid incompatibilities. Based on the 4 such genes that had been published by the symposium date (July 2006), Orr et al. note several striking patterns. In particular, most of these genes are evolving rapidly due to natural selection, a finding that supports the neo-Darwinian contention that reproductive isolation typically evolves as a by-product of adaptation. Given the seeming unity of these results, Orr et al. ask the provocative question ''is the genetics of postzygotic isolation wrapped up?'' That is, will more work in this area likely yield any truly novel results? Fortunately, new results discussed by Orr et al. suggest, in fact, that we are in for some real surprises. Most startling is the discovery that genetic conflict may frequently be the cause of rapid evolution of genes underlying intrinsic postzygotic barriers rather than adaptation to a new environment. Second, there is now evidence that microchromosomal rearrangements may sometimes be the cause of hybrid incompatibilities rather than the traditional Dobzhansky–Muller model. Another of the symposium speakers, Mohamed Noor, has been a leader in exploring nontraditional mechanisms for the evolution of intrinsic postzygotic barriers. In particular, he has developed and empirically tested a model in which genomic regions with low recombination (such as chromosomal inversions) allow Dobzhansky–Muller incompatibilities to accumulate despite ongoing gene flow. In this issue, Cirulli and Noor localize the break points of an inversion between two Drosophila species. Contrary to most other studies, there were no shared repetitive sequences between the 2 break point regions. Thus, the cause of the inversion remains a mystery. Most attempts to localize hybrid incompatibilities have employed experimental crosses, in which associations between molecular markers and sterility or inviability are used to identify chromosomal segments or genes that contribute to hybrid disorders. Although this approach has been highly successful, it is difficult to apply to nonmodel organisms, which can be challenging to rear in the laboratory or greenhouse. Thus, a number of authors have explored the possibility of using patterns of introgression in natural hybrid zones to localize genes or chromosomal rearrangements that contribute to isolation. In ''Searching the Genomes of Inbred Mouse Strains for Incompatibilities that Reproductively Isolate Their Wild Relatives,'' Payseur and Place successfully employ this strategy to identify pairs of loci that may contribute to reproductive isolation between 2 mice species. One of the early conclusions (above) from studies of the genes causing hybrid incompatibilities is that postzygotic isolation often appears to be a by-product of adaptation. Thus, Leonie Moyle asks whether quantitative trait loci (QTLs) underlying putative prezygotic isolating traits in tomatoes, which presumably have been shaped by natural selection, colocalize with QTLs for hybrid sterility. Unfortunately, there is little evidence for a causal association between prezygotic and postzygotic isolation. Intrinsic postzygotic isolation may also arise through genome doubling or polyploidy. However, polyploidy has other genetic and phenotypic consequences beyond reproductive isolation. One of themost interesting of these (and potentially most important) is the observation that large shifts in gene expression may accompany polyploidization. Because polyploidy may involve both interspecific hybridization and genome doubling, the effects of these two processes on gene expression often are confounded. In ''Evolution of Duplicate Gene Expression in Polyploid and Hybrid Plants,'' Journal of Heredity doi:10.1093/jhered/esl066 a The American Genetic Association. 2007. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: email@example.com.


9004 Background: Despite advances in first-line (1L) immunotherapy ± CT, most patients (pts) with aNSCLC experience disease progression, necessitating novel strategies. Dato-DXd is an antibody drug conjugate (ADC) composed of a humanized anti-TROP2 IgG1 monoclonal antibody covalently linked to a topoisomerase I inhibitor payload via a plasma-stable tetrapeptide-based cleavable linker. Dato-DXd had encouraging efficacy and manageable safety in heavily pretreated aNSCLC. Dato-DXd + immunotherapy yielded greater preclinical activity than either agent alone. Methods: TROPION-Lung02 (NCT04526691) is a phase 1b, global, dose-escalation and -expansion study evaluating Dato-DXd (4 or 6 mg/kg) + pembro 200 mg ± Pt-CT (cisplatin 75 mg/m2 or carboplatin AUC 5) every 21 days across 6 cohorts. Pts in escalation may have received ≤2 prior lines of therapy for aNSCLC. Pts in expansion were primarily treatment (tx) naive (pts receiving Dato-DXd + pembro may have ≤1 prior Pt-based tx). The primary objective is to assess safety and tolerability, including dose-limiting toxicities (DLTs). Secondary objectives include evaluation of efficacy, pharmacokinetics, and immunogenicity. Results: As of the Oct 31, 2022, data cutoff (DCO), 120 pts were treated. All cohorts met DLT criteria to move to escalation. Median age was 65 years. PD-L1 expression was <1%, 1%-49%, and ≥50% in 40%, 33%, and 26% of pts, respectively. Median tx duration was 4.6 mo, with 55% receiving tx at DCO. The most frequent any-grade (gr) tx-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) were nausea (45%) and stomatitis (45%). Gr ≥3 TEAEs occurred in 61% of pts; most frequent were neutrophil count decreased (8%) and amylase increased (8%). TEAEs that were serious, associated with discontinuation, or associated with death occurred in 31%, 24% (16% associated with Dato-DXd), and 6% of pts, respectively. Dose reductions due to TEAEs associated with Dato-DXd occurred in 17%. Drug-related interstitial lung disease occurred in 12 pts (10%; 9 gr 1/2; 3 gr 3). The objective response rate (ORR) with 1L Dato-DXd + pembro doublet and Dato-DXd + pembro + Pt-CT triplet tx was 60% (95% CI, 36%-81%; 12 [2 unconfirmed]/20) and 55% (95% CI, 39%-70%; 23 [5 unconfirmed]/42), respectively. The ORR for any line of therapy was 38% (95% CI, 25%-54%; 18 [2 unconfirmed]/47) with doublet and 47% (95% CI, 34%-60%; 28 [5 unconfirmed]/60) with triplet tx. In both subsets, the disease control rate was 85% and median duration of response was not reached. Responses were observed in all 3 PD-L1 expression level subgroups. Although immature, median progression-free survival (95% CI) was 10.8 (8.3-15.2) and 7.8 mo (5.5-NE) with doublet and triplet tx, respectively. Conclusions: Dato-DXd + pembro ± Pt-CT demonstrated tolerable safety with notable 1L activity in this first and largest dataset with an ADC + immunotherapy ± Pt-CT in aNSCLC pts. Clinical trial information: NCT04526691 .


The main aim of our work is to create a realistic model of the behaviour of the upper airways during laryngoscopy. In this procedure the anaesthetist uses a rigid blade to insert a tube into the larynx. The model will serve as the basis of systems which allow anaesthetists to visualise the likely diiculties in carrying out a laryngoscopy, and predict diicult cases in advance. It will also prove useful in building a realistic computer based training system. The main properties to be modelled are the behaviour of the tongue as it is mechanically displaced and compressed by the laryngoscope blade. To provide this, we have used the nite element method in an initial study. The work shows that plausible behaviour can be simulated, and that the elastic properties of the tongue and associated ligaments are signiicant factors in the procedure.


ABSTRACT This article aims to map publications that take Countryside Education as their object on the records of three editions of the National Conference of Mathematics Education (ENEM, initials in Portuguese from Brazil). Through a qualitative bibliographical research that considers content analysis procedures, it could be verified: increase in the number of productions on Countryside Education despite the reduction in the total number of publications throughout the three editions; predominance of experiments that reveal processes of education and learning (34.69%), followed by teacher education (28.57%), theoretical aspects (24.49%) and mathematical skills of countryside people (12.25%); focus on content/concepts of school mathematics only in 2019, considering everyday life at school, mainly, in financial situations.


Concentrating solar power (CSP) technologies with energy storage can greatly enhance the dispatchability and the exploitation of solar energy in different applications. In this context, the present study addresses coupling CSP with calcium looping (CaL) along the 2-fold perspective of accomplishing: (a) carbon capture and sequestration or utilization (CCSU); (b) thermochemical energy storage (TCES). The experimental campaign, aimed at assessing limestone performances over extended cycling under realistic operating conditions, was performed in a fluidized bed reactor directly irradiated by a simulator of concentrated solar radiation. Infrared thermography was used to map the fluidized bed surface during "solar-driven" calcination. Experimental results indicated that TCES operating conditions yield a more reactive material due to the development of better microstructural properties, as inferred from N2- and Hg-intrusion porosimetry, which reflect the different thermal history experienced by sorbent material...


Most display manufacturers aim to improve the display properties of devices such as contrast ratio, screen size, background light power, and viewing angle to get high quality image and high color. Possible changes in the experimental condition such as lighting reduce the quality of the resulted images. In addition to display technology, the viewing environment draws attention to modeling based on recent observations such as quality testing. Color and temperature make the displayed images appear red or blue. In the event of a rainy season the captured image appears dimmed and the precise recognition of a particular image is critical.


This paper introduces the difference among MJ threads,M thread and MR thread,sums up the advantage of using MJ thread,discusses the possibility problem of MJ thread matcheing with M thread in actually assembly,andfinally,offers the judgment formula of solving the problems.


We have prepared stable colloidal suspensions in a lyotropic liquid crystal exhibiting an isotropic-nematic-lamellar phase sequence. Small angle neutron scattering (SANS) and dynamic light scattering (DLS) studies show the existence of attractive interparticle interactions in the nematic phase, which lead to a gas-liquid transition of the particles. The resulting liquid phase is weakly anisotropic. Further, the nematic-lamellar transition of the liquid crystal is found to be accompanied by a liquid-solid transition of the particles.


The invention provides an alarming circuit for a motor train unit. The alarming circuit comprises an alarming key group, a delay circuit, a sound and light alarming circuit and a braking control circuit, wherein the delay circuit is connected with the alarming key group for delay control; the sound and light alarming circuit is used for giving a sound and light alarm if alarming keys are not subjected to first preset operation at a first preset time; the braking control circuit is used for controlling the motor train unit to be braked if the alarming keys are not subjected to second preset operation at a second preset time. Therefore, the sound and light alarm is given if a driver does not touch the alarming keys within the first preset time during the running of the motor train unit; the motor train unit is triggered to be braked if the driver does not press down the alarming keys within the second preset time after hearing alarming sounds.


This article examines the knowledge bases of the world's largest pharmaceutical groups by sales. It builds upon the concepts of knowledge specialisation and knowledge integration as the relevant dimensions along which knowledge bases can be mapped. The former is studied developing indicators of breadth. Breadth is measured by analysing the evolution of specialisation by scientific field over time. It hints at the widening range of bodies of scientific and technological knowledge relevant to firms' innovative activities. Knowledge integration is studied developing indicators of depth. Depth is measured by analysing the evolution of integration across different typologies of research. It hints at the complex, non-linear interdependencies that link the scientific and technological domains. We develop the analysis on the strength of an original database of 33,127 European Patent Office patents and 41,931 citations to 'non-patent document' (of which 19,494 were identified as scientific articles included in the ISI databases) of the 30 largest pharmaceuticals groups during the period 1990–1997. The groups studied seem to have incrementally increased the breadth of their knowledge bases, moving towards the fields proper to the new biopharmaceutical research trajectory. At the same time, some of the groups studied exhibit remarkable depth in knowledge integration in particular fields such as biotechnology, biochemical research and neurosciences.


The shortage of logistics management compound talents about E-commerce Environment has become the bottleneck of the health development of China's E-commerce industry. With the need of E-commerce and new features in the development of modern logistics industry, the key specialty ability of logistics management compound talents about E-commerce Environment has been studied at first, and then the cultivating measure of logistics management compound talents about E-commerce Environment has been described from the educational mode, teaching mode, knowledge hierarchy and evaluation system, in order to supply reference for the cultivating of logistics management compound talents about E-commerce environment.


This campaign was created to reduce texting and driving and to increase awareness of the serious risks involved with texting and driving. The target audience of the campaign is University of Kansas students. This plan proposes an "Anti-Texting and Driving Week" that implements guerilla marketing strategies with support from traditional and social media outlets prior to, throughout and after the main event. The campaign is designed to be exportable to other campuses in Kansas and nationwide. The objective of the campaign is to: 1. Increase awareness about the dangers of texting and driving; 2. For those who are not driving, to speak up to the driver; and 3. Change the perception of the students to build a negative connotation of texting and driving. The campaign will utilize the captive audience of the campus environment to deliver messages to students in an unique way in order to create a stigma around texting and driving. The pervasiveness of cell phones and texting and driving provide a formidable challenge, as well as the opportunity to resonate with a larger audience. Strategies included in the campaign are: 1. Place advertisement with the University Daily Kansan focusing on the dangers of texting and driving; 2. Series of 2 advertisements in Jayplay (Campus Newspaper); 3. Create video PSAs and distribute them through social media; 4. Advertise on campus buses where students will frequently be exposed to it; 5. Run a public service announcement on the radio; 6. Create a "Txt L8r. Drive Safer." Facebook Page; 7. Create a "Txt L8r. Drive Safer." Twitter account to send campaign update tweets using the hashtag #thumbsonthewheel; 8. Use Facebook ads to direct student attention toward the campaign's Facebook page; 9. Contact University of Kansas Athletic "celebrities" as well as local Lawrence businesses to promote the cause via Twitter and Facebook; 10. Create an Anti-Texting and Driving Week event on campus; 11. Create a scavenger hunt for students to participate in as part of the event week to raise awareness and increase interaction with the campaign, posting clues online and in the University Daily Kansan; and 12. Partner with Kansas University Student Union Activities (SUA) to put on a benefit concert at the end of the event week.


The invention provides a processing method for a burnable poison bar of a nuclear power station, which comprises the following steps: arranging the burnable poison bar on a suspension frame; then cutting and disintegrating the burnable poison bar by a cutting machine in a spent fuel canning tank; collecting and putting the cut burnable poison bar into a packing container; and finally, putting the packing container on a spent fuel grillage for storing. The suspension frame provided by the invention comprises a connecting plate and a yoke plate, wherein the connecting plate is connected with the yoke plate through a guide cylinder; and a plurality of connecting holes which can be connected with the burnable poison bar are uniformly distributed on the connecting plate. In the invention, the burnable poison bar is arranged on the suspension frame, then cut and disintegrated by the cutting machine in the spent fuel canning tank, put into the special packing container and stored in the spent fuel grillage, thus the disposition volume of the radioactive waste can be maximumly reduced, the fuel grillages occupied by the burnable poison bar can be greatly reduced, the container can be stored for a long time, and at the same time, when the burnable poison bar is cut, no crushed borate glass falls into a water tank.


A model is presented for the radio outbursts of Cygnus X-3 which accounts for the major radio features. The object is assumed to be a short-period binary undergoing mass transfer, and the outbursts are produced when nova-like explosions produce shock waves in a dense stellar wind. The energetic particles required to produce the radio emission are accelerated at the shock front. The magnetic field required to explain the radio emission is the stellar field of one of the stars, modified by the influence of the dense stellar wind. (AIP)


Decades ago, the parameters of acceptability for historical research and writing were fairly well defined. Wars, white males, and the rise and fall of ancient civilizations all fell neatly within these boundaries, and thus were examined and reexamined. Several biographies of John Hanson and possibly too many analyses of the Civil War typified the published scholarship of this era. In the last twenty-five years, however, the profession of researching and writing history has experienced a revolutionary transformation, finally including many more grassroots topics of study, such as sex, emotion, and the lives of the poor. Even as these boundaries of "acceptability" broadened, clearly understood lines still continued to exist, only to be redrawn. With biographies and diplomacy largely passe, university presses refocused on the new wave of social history. This transformation, however, was more of a palace coup than an egalitarian revolt. Rather than opening the discipline to all comers and potential areas of study, the new masters of the craft just redefined the borders of serious and publishable history. Topics outside this updated definition, or those borrowing methodologies from other disciplines, were often deemed superfluous or quirky, usually receiving minimal acceptance and attention. There seemed to be almost an unwritten rule that a certain topic/book was not scholarly if the reading public would want to buy it at their local mall bookstore; regardless of the updated focus, serious history must still only be for other historians. Only very recently, as many presses now fight for economic survival, are these quirky, popular, and marginalized topics being published and finally gaining scholarly recognition. The pleasant surprise for many historians is that this new genre of scholarship--often examining the more mundane aspects of mainstream commercial culture--actually addresses and answers some crucial questions about recent American society and life. One such study that typifies this "new breed" of scholarship is Susan G. Davis' Spectacular Nature: Corporate Culture and the Sea World Experience.


Political unrest over the Democratic Republic of Congo's recent election as well as continued guerrilla activity in the country's north east have hampered the response to an Ebola epidemic that has now killed 446 people out of 733 infected.

The World Health Organisation said that protesters targeted dozens of clinics around disease hotspots like Beni and Butembo, where they are often seen as outposts of the central government.

Election unrest also sent thousands of Congolese fleeing into neighbouring Uganda, as WHO warned that the virus might spread not only there, but …


James Holloway, University of Michigan James Paul Holloway is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences at the University of Michigan. He teaches classes in engineering, from first year computing through design and gradaute courses in nuclear engineering. His research interests are in mathematics and computation applied to radiation transport and nuclear reactor analysis. He is also the incoming Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education of the College of Engineering at Michigan, effective July 1 2007.


Unplanned cities, like Zagazig, are suffering from traffic congestion, trip delaying, and accidents. This may be caused by harmful impact of the continuous constructing random projects and activities which maximize the number of trips generated in the city and change its distribution from time to time. Trip generation is the first and biggest challenge in transportation modeling process. This stage is used to predict all generated trips including those starting inside and outside the study area. Many terms are used to express trip generation based on its origin destination, or productionattraction as a reference. This study aims to build regression models to determine all generated trips inside unplanned cities. To achieve this objective, a comprehensive experimental program was designed and implemented. It began with selecting Zagazig city (the capital of Alsharkia government, Egypt) as a case study. Different elements affecting trip generation, like households demographic, socioeconomic, and trips movement data were identified and used to design a detailed questionnaire for determining the daily number of trips generated in Zagazig city. Direct interviews were carried out with trip makers for resident and nonresident household samples. Three categories were targeted in data collection: employees, students, and other. A total sample of about 5116 households was targeted consisting of 4207 resident and 909 nonresident household. The collected data were used to create generation models for Zagazig city through carrying out relations between generated trips and each of population, number of household, employees, and students. Different models of trip generation were developed based on origins, destinations, production, and attraction. All developed models have high degree of significance and coefficient of correlation.


This article examines the representation of clouds in Adalbert Stifter's (1805–68) literary writing. His ubiquitous representations of clouds signify the poetic challenges to represent empirical reality of natural phenomena (such as weather phenomena) within the literary medium. The article connects his representation of clouds with scholarly discourses of meteorology during the nineteenth century and offers as context observations by the meteorologist Andreas von Baumgartner (1793–1865). Baumgartner worked as a Professor of Natural Sciences at the University of Vienna and was a friend of Stifter's. Taking Baumgartner's epistemological ambiguities about the weather as a point of departure, the article demonstrates how Stifter's novella Kalkstein (1853) not only displays similar insecurities, but also how the text makes use of them to reflect the possibilities of poetic representation within the mode of literary realism.


Cutting-edge 3D real-time rendering is where programmers rack their brains to feed more instructions to CPU or transfer more data on the bus within each frame, and dynamic languages seem to have no place there. However, there is another hidden cost which is growing rapidly as the quality and complexity of rendered images get higher—the cost of content creation. At SIGGRAPH 2000 and 2001, we, Square USA R&D team showed real-time rendering of scenes from full computergenerated movie "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within". Although we used the most advanced rendering hardware at that time, such as Sony Computer Entertainment's GSCube parallel rendering engine and nVidia's Quadro DCC chip, we had to spend lots of time to tune data to achieve the maximum image quality. We found it tremendous help to have an embedded Scheme interpreter in real-time rendering engine. Scheme could lay out the data on the memory, inspect the state of the engine, and handle user interactions and allow data manipulation over the network, without affecting rendering performance. Scheme representation of the scene structure worked nicely for the last-minute tuning (lots of Emacs works, in fact).


The invention relates to an apparatus and method for controlling a time of flight camera, wherein the distance information for a three-dimensional image from a propagation time difference or phase shift between a light emitted from a light source of the term camera light signal (L) and one of an image sensor of the runtime camera by scattering or reflection receiving the emitted light signal (D) the light signal is detected. Are recorded at least three sub-images. Here, a light pulse is at least transmitted and a closure device (shutter) is by means of at least three control signals (C0, C1, C2) timed so that the phase shift between the light pulse and shutter through the various phases of the control signals between the sub-images is varied. Thereby per pixel three measured values (SO, S1, S2) is obtained. These can be supplied to an operator that is constructed analogously to a Hue-operator, and a rotation angle around the space diagonal of the SO-S1-S2-space determined. By means of a proportionality constant this can then be converted into the distance information.


Pneumococcal meningitis is potentially fatal and can leave sequelae. Streptococcus pneumoniae causes meningitis more often in adults, with a mortality of approximately 25%, outpacing other agents. Bacterial meningitis is characterized by inflammation of the leptomeninges. Its characteristic triad consisting of fever, neck stiffness and altered mental status. Diagnosis is by lumbar puncture with stains, clumps and cerebrospinal fluid culture. Treatment is with bactericidal antibiotics that penetrate into the cerebrospinal fluid and systemic steroids to reduce neurological complications and mortality. We report two cases of pneumococcal meningitis who had a favorable evolution with treatment, but complications after stopping dexamethasone.


Today's power systems are integrated with renewable energy generation resources, such as solar and wind power. Electrical power demand constantly fluctuates, which in turn causes a frequency and voltage fluctuation on the electric grid. In this article, the FFT analysis and mitigation of harmonics along with voltage control for various load scenarios of both R and RL loads for wind power plants equipped with Self Excited Induction Generators (SEIGs) based on multi-level DSTATCOM. The test system has been developed with a multi-level DSTATCOM fed SEIG based wind power plant to feed isolated loads of both R and RL type. The wind plant is subjected to speed variations and load fluctuations, SEIG generators are ideally suited to power the wind farm. A GTO based multi–level DSTATCOM is developed with Wind Energy System (WES) to maintain constant terminal voltage against various load scenarios as illustrated in this article, which demonstrates the effectiveness of multi-level DSTATCOM in voltage control and mitigation of voltage and current harmonics.


This paper reviews the effectiveness and application of computer controlled simulation for maintenance training, and discusses an approach to enhance the training cost-effectiveness and life-cycle affordability through the development of generic, "tailorable" software for simulation control and implementation. A multi-leveled, generic software architecture is described a high level of abstraction, and suggestions for developing an initial capability for generic simulation software are presented.


Raman spectrum of burgessite, Co2(H2O)4[AsO3OH]2.H2O was studied, interpreted and compared with its infrared spectrum. The stretching and bending vibrations of (AsO3) and As-OH units together with the stretching, bending and libration modes of water molecules and hydroxyl ions were assigned. The range of O-H...O hydrogen bond lengths was inferred from the Raman and infrared spectra of burgessite. The presence of (AsO3OH)2- units in the crystal structure of burgessite was proved in agreement with its recently solved crystal structure. Raman and infrared spectra of erythrite inferred from the RRUFF database are used for comparison.


- Chromatography is a non-destructive method that uses a porous material and solvents to separate a mixture of components into their individual components. UPLC is a modern analytical technique. UPLC refers to ultra-performance liquid chromatography. This technique improves three areas of liquid chromatography: Speed, resolution, and sensitivity. In this system, columns contain fine particle sizes (less than 1.7 m). Due to the small partical size, it decreases the length of the column, saves time, and reduces solvent consumption. The design of this system is such that it can withstand high system backpressures. In the twenty-first century, pharmaceutical industries and analytical laboratories mainly focused on reducing time and also decreasing cost in new drug development The Van Deemter relationship, which explains the link between flow rate and plate height (HETP), is the foundation of the UPLC method. This review shows the theories which are used in separation technology related with UPLC and also tells about its applications.


Plants imperatively have to cope with adverse conditions owing to their lack of mobility and to the high amounts of reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated from both respiration and photosynthetic metabolism. Although thiol redox homeostasis in plants is mainly preserved by the cellular glutathione pool, specific strategies have been adopted by the plant kingdom during evolution to manage these "extra" pro-oxidative conditions.


Performance measurement has become an important method of assessing and improving the efficacy of large organizations, including in Australian local government. This paper considers the extent and nature of performance measurement in Australian local government. The paper provides a synoptic review of the measurement of performance in the local public sector by examining its organisational context and by providing an appropriate conceptual framework. The discussion then focuses on performance measurement in Australian local government and assesses national performance indicators, state-based performance indicators, and process benchmarking. Editor: Professor Brian Dollery, University of New England Editorial Advisory Board: Joel Byrnes, University of New England Dr Lin Crase, La Trobe University Galia Akimova, University of New England Dr Craig Parsons, Yokohama National University Professor Lorenzo Robotti, Università Politecnica delle Marche Mayor Ian Tiley, Clarence Valley Council Professor Joe Wallis, American University of Sharjah Note: All papers in the WP series have been refereed Copyright © 2007 by the Centre for Local Government, UNE. All rights reserved. No part of this working paper may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission from the Centre. Centre for Local Government, School of Business, Economics and Public Policy, University of New England, Armidale NSW 2351. Phone: + 61 2 6773 2500, Fax: + 61 2 6773 3596. Email: email@example.com Centre for Local Government, University of New England


Ruzsa's equivalence theorem provided a framework for converting certain families of inequalities in additive combinatorics to entropic inequalities (which sometimes did not possess stand-alone entropic proofs). In this work, we first establish formal equivalences between some families (different from Ruzsa) of inequalities in additive combinatorics and entropic ones. Secondly, we provide stand-alone entropic proofs for some previously known entropic inequalities that we established via Ruzsa's equivalence theorem. As a first step to further these equivalences, we provide an information theoretic characterization of the magnification ratio that is also of independent interest.


The four qualified scholars from the PLA Military Academy ,the PLA Defense University and World Outlook half-monthly gathered to have an indepth analysis of the US new goverment's NMD policy.They have carefully reviewed the political and military implications of the NMD issue and pointed out the dangrous results if the system put into its miliraty deployment.They hold that the experiment and deployment of the system will not only inspire a new round of arms competition,but also will bring a painful comesout to the United States.


Microwaves are playing an ever-increasing role in the communications field. Over 30,000 route miles are already being used in the United States by communication companies, industrial and transportation concerns and the military agencies. Bell System microwave facilities alone provide more than 6,500,000 miles of telephone circuits and 48,000 miles of television channels. Thousands of miles of additional microwave facilities are either under construction or in the planning state. In addition to voice and television transmission, microwave systems are being used for services such as teletype, telemetering and remote control. The military agencies are installing an increasing amount of microwave equipment for national defense. With such expansion in the uses of microwave, those of us who are responsible for the design and installation of these systems must keep abreast of the art, in order that new systems may contain the latest advances, resulting in improved quality, greater dependability and lower cost.


A batch of transgenic carps and a "super" carp were obtained by microinjecting growth hormone gene of salmon.It is turned out that the foreign gene could integrate into the genome of receptor fish and expressed foreign growth hormone in vivo by using molecular detection method.The data collected from growth experiments of consecutive years in pool rearing demonstrate that the rapid growth effect of transgenic carps is more remarkably than that of normal carps.Among all tested populations,growth rates of the biggest individuals from transgenic population increase over 52 5%,46 0% and 76 0% respectively,compared to the biggest ones from control population.Moreover,F 1 and F 2 generation produced by super carps are of characteristic of rapid growth as yet.


—Evacuation planning is a crucial part of disaster management where the goal is to relocate people to safety and minimize casualties. Every evacuation plan has two essential components: routing and scheduling. However, joint optimization of these two components with objectives such as minimizing average evacuation time or evacuation completion time, is a computationally hard problem. To approach it, we present MIP-LNS , a scalable optimization method that combines heuristic search with mathematical optimization and can optimize a variety of objective functions. We use real-world road network and population data from Harris County in Houston, Texas, and apply MIP-LNS to find evacuation routes and schedule for the area. We show that, within a given time limit, our proposed method finds better solutions than existing methods in terms of average evacuation time, evacuation completion time and optimality guarantee of the solutions. We perform agent-based simulations of evacuation in our study area to demonstrate the efficacy and robustness of our solution. We show that our prescribed evacuation plan remains effective even if the evacuees deviate from the suggested schedule upto a certain extent. We also examine how evacuation plans are affected by road failures. Our results show that MIP-LNS can use information regarding estimated deadline of roads to come up with better evacuation plans in terms evacuating more people successfully and conveniently.


A large deformation rock mass with a volume of 1 000 m3 is in the right bank of Longkaikou hydropower station,whether it is stable or not can directly affect the construction of the project and its permanent safe operation,so the stability and deformation of the plasmodium needs to be analyzed and studied completely.Using the strength reduction method based on FLAC finite difference,in this paper,the stress-strain relation of the plasmodium s typical section plane III–III is respectively analyzed under the primitive condition and the earthquake circumstance.Studies show that,comparing with the traditional grid limit equilibrium method,this paper can define the distortion pattern of land-side,the plastic yielding area.The study result is of great significance to the stability and the safe operation of Longkaikou Hydropower Hinge.


Here, we present the controllable synthesis of dendrimer-encapsulated Pt nanoparticles (Pt DENs) utilizing repetitively coupled chemical reduction and galvanic exchange reactions. This facile method allowed controllable synthesis of the Pt DENs with fair homogeneity in size and composition. In particular, in contrast to the conventional dendrimer-templating methods, the proposed synthesis method allowed substantial increase in the applicable number of Pt atoms up to 1320 in Pt DENs without being limited by the fixed number of complexation sites for the Pt2+ precursor ions in dendrimers. We also present a detailed investigation on the oxidase-mimetic activity of the Pt DENs for catalytic oxidation of Amplex Red to resorufin with O2. Importantly, after clarifying intrinsic oxidase-mimetic activity of the Pt DENs, we disclosed that the Pt DENs' oxidase-mimetic activity was tailorable for the oxidation of Amplex Red to resorufin especially with fine-tuning of the Pt2+/dendrimer ratios by using the proposed synthesis method.


A novel approach is proposed, which allows for an efficient reduction of the amount of visual data required for representing structural information in the image. This algorithm is tolerant to minor structural changes and can be used for automatic face recognition. The approach is based on a multistage architecture, which investigates partial clustering of structural image components. The initial grey-scale representation of the input image is transformed into a structural representation, so that each image component contains information about the spatial structure of its neighbourhood. The output result is represented as a pattern vector, whose components are computed one at a time to allow the quickest possible response. The input pattern is identified as the best match between the output pattern vector and the model vectors from the database.


The regulatory role of physiological glucagon (Gcg) in the cardiovascular system remains uncertain. Employing a mouse model harboring a functional deficiency of the preproglucagon gene (GCG-null), we found that lack of endogenous Gcg caused hypertension and systolic left ventricular (LV) dysfunction due to abnormal rise in circulating epinephrine (Ep) level, which was completely restored by the supplemental injection of Gcg (Sup-Gcg) or adrenergic β1-receptor blockers. More interestingly, GCG-null exhibited adrenal hypertrophy with the upregulation of phenylethanolamine N-methyltransferase (PNMT), a key enzyme that synthesizes Ep. Gcg directly facilitated mRNA decay via augmentation of enhancer of mRNA decapping protein 4 (EDC4) in a PKA-dependent fashion, thereby suppressing PNMT in adrenal chromaffin cells. Our data unveiled the novel action of Gcg like a circuit breaker against the Ep surge in the context of disease condition.


In pig the pregnancy depends on the interdigitations of villi formed between fetal trophoblastic and maternal uterine epithelia, where a high quantity of blood vessels of different size is present. The aim of this study was to analyze the level of dependency between number and size of materno-fetal blood vessels of placental villi and different gestational periods to understand the development of both variables during swine placentation. Histological samples of 20 swine placentas of 28, 55, 70 and 114 days of gestation were used. A VIDAS ®