Most NGO's in Kenya have shifted focus to budgetary control as a way of enhancing effectiveness in their services. Recognizing the role of budget and budgetary control has gained attention which has led some organizations to establish departments for implementation. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of budgetary control on the performance of NGO's in Mombasa County. Specifically the study looked into the following objectives: effect of budget planning on the performance of Non-Governmental Organizations; effect of budget supervision on performance of Non-Governmental Organizations; effect of participative budgeting on performance of Non-Governmental Organizations; and effect of funds availability on performance of Non-Governmental Organizations. Chapter two gives theoretical review of the study by discussing capital budgeting theory, budgetary control theory and budget forecasting theoryand a conceptual study is introduced to inform and guide the study. Literature review and empirical review are also conducted. Chapter three discusses the study research methodology where descriptive survey study research design will be used. This study examined the role of budgetary control on the performance of Non-Governmental Organizations in Mombasa County. The research target population consisted of 115 NonGovernmental Organizations. Fifty two Non-Governmental Organizations were selected using stratified random sampling technique, both local and international organizations with operations in Mombasa County. A descriptive survey (questionnaires) was used in the data collection. The statistical package for social sciences version 21.0 was used to analyze the data using descriptive statistics, including means and standard deviation. The relationship between budgetary controls and performance of the NGOs was analyzed using correlation and regression analysis. The research findings established that there is a positive effect of budgetary control on performance of Non-Governmental Organizations in Kenya measured by R square at 0.776. Thus this study recommends other studies be undertaken that take into account other factors like the employee characteristics, NGO turnover and age of the organization on performance. It also recommends that a study should be carried out that underscores the contribution of these factors on financial performance since the current study limited to non-financial performance indicators only. © 2017 Elixir All rights reserved. Elixir Fin. Mgmt. 110 (2017) 48439-48448 Finance Management Available online at www.elixirpublishers.com (Elixir International Journal) Kitaria Eva Jepchirchir Maina and Onyiego George / Elixir Fin. Mgmt. 110 (2017) 48439-48448 48440 The World Bank reports that projects with some degree of civil society' involvement increased from six percent in the late 1980s to over 90 percent in 2012 (Werker & Ahmed, 2014). NGOs all over the world render welfare services and help in all such sectors of society, which aim to improve the life of the people in the community. NGOs can perform a major role because of having features for the promotion of microlevel development (Nzimakwe, 2014). NGOs are often seen as more trustworthy and credible than governments or private firms (Todaro, 2011). NGOs also provide public goods to sections of the population that might be socially excluded. A study conducted by Fade and Shades (2013) in Denmark focusing on challenges confronting budget process in multinational NGOS found that budgeting among this international NGOS faced challenges by the most board members not taking ownership or not being accountable, there being a lack of cooperation and/or participation and a lack of understanding of the budgeting process or what's required. This was compounded by the inability to meet, deadlines, padding their budgets/providing unrealistic numbers and sheer ignorance of the importance of budgeting by the business owners. In most African countries the local NGOs play a huge role by bringing the much needed services to the communities in which they operate (Hans, 2013). Helen et al.,(2015) identified the strengths of the local NGOs as being flexible as opposed to government bureaucrats to respond to community needs and priorities. Diamond & Khemani (2011) studied accounting systems among NGOs in the developing countries, focusing on Africa deduced that budget execution and accounting processes were either manual or supported by very old and inadequately maintained software applications and hardware. He found that this had damaging effects on their functioning due to the consequent lack of reliable and timely revenue and expenditure data for budget planning, monitoring, expenditure control, and reporting negatively impacting budget management. Further, Diamond & Khemani (2011) study found that there was poorly controlled commitment of resources. This meant that the nature of the computerization of accounting affected the budgeting process. In Kenya NGOs mushroomed in the 1970s and 1980s,they mushroomed to: Intervene in emergencies resulting from drought, mitigate effects of famine and provide alternative development delivery machinery owing to the apparent failure of direct bilateral or multilateral aid programs. The latter was particularly strong owing to government bureaucracy and apparent corrupt practices, privatization and trimming of the public sector in roles, functions; manpower and resources that followed at the instigation of the World Bank and international monetary fund accelerated the pace at which NGOs came up (Muleri, 2011). Today NGOs plays crucial roles in three major fields; Emergency mitigation for example, Nairobi Bomb Blast, Tana river clashes victims, post-election chaos, Natural disasters like floods, HIV/AIDs pandemic ,rehabilitation of street children, care for refugees and famine; Development facilitation like promote agriculture, health, religion, security, environment, education, water and sanitation and natural resource management and democracy through civic education ,promotion of human rights and advocacy (Muleri, 2011). According to a report by Kenya NGO co-ordination Board (2014), the last decade has witnessed substantial growth in the number of organizations registered under the NGOs Coordination Act of 1990 in Kenya. The sector recorded significant growth between 2001 and 2007 which could be attributed to the impact of globalization and the opening up of democratic space in Kenya. Since 2001, the sector has been growing at the rate of 400 organizations per year. By August 2013, the Board had cumulatively registered 9,743 organizations. The current statistics by the NGO Bureau as at June 2016 stands at 11,127 Organizations. These organizations are spread all over the country and vary from small organizations operating locally, to international ones with regional programs (Kenya NGO co-ordination Board, 2014). Copious previous studies have examined the various aspects of budgets and its effectiveness on organizational performance; some researchers have concluded that there is generally a positive relationship while others contradict this view. For example, Brownell (2010) found out that the applications that include budgetary controls have no direct effect on performance directly but in cases where budgetary control is high there is a positive relationship between organizational effectiveness and budgetary participation although Otley & Pollanen (2010) reveal that budgetary participation, control and task ambiguity directly affect organizational effectiveness negatively. This study therefore anticipates further examination of the relationship between budgetary controls and the organizational performance with special references to the NGOs in Kenya Mombasa Country. NGO's are increasingly being held to account for their performance and uses of funds .Indeed the funding they obtain is more likely based on having sufficient competencies to use the funds in the best possible way. Sounds like a business but NGO's are not businesses you might say, and they usually have a non-profit objective. This study tends to discover the effects of budgetary controls on the performance of NGO's in Kenya. On the global front studies have been done in relation to budgetary control globally: Carolyn, et al., (2014) examined the association between effects of budgetary control on performance using a sample of large US cities Financial Bonds and found that effective level of budgetary control is significantly and positively related to bond rating. Epstein and McFarlan (2011) carried out a study in Denmark on measuring efficiency and effectiveness of a nonprofit's performance, it was found that budgetary control was one of the important tools in achieving efficiency of in nonprofit making organizations. The results of the study revealed that effective budgetary control improves performance of local authorities. Many previous studies have been done on budgeting practices locally. Mwaura (2010) concluded that budgetary participation affects return on capital employed, return on assets to a great extent. Omwenga (2010) investigated on budgetary control in NGOs in Kenya and concluded that budgetary practices in relief organization are different from developmental Organizations due to different donor funding and reporting requirements, but his study was specific as it dwelt on one Organization. Kiragu (2010) in her study on budget practices in private/mission hospitals in Nairobi and its Environment suggests that further studies should be done on relationship between budgeting and performance evaluation. Gacheru (2012) in her study of the effects of the budgeting process on budget variance in NGOs in Kenya found out that budget preparation, budgetary control and budget implementation significantly influence budget variance. Most NGO's in Kenya have shifted focus to budgetary control as a way of Kitaria Eva Jepchirchir Maina and Onyiego George / Eli


The invention provides a sheet processing system, including a banding machine (60) and a bundle processing device (2), the banding machine uses a large band (K2) to bundle first collected bundles fed out by a bundle collecting device (11) and then feeds out the bundled first collected bundles as a first bunch of sealed five bundles (S1), the banding machine then uses the large band to bundle again second collected bundles (K2) fed out by the bundle collecting device (11) and then feeds out the bundled second collected bundles as a second bunch of sealed five bundles (S2); the band processing device (2) feeds out the first and second bunches of sealed five bundles (S1, S2) fed out by the banding machine (60) on top of each other in a manner different from the small bundles (K1) thereof.


On the Inducibility of Rooted Trees A. A. V. Dossou-Olory Department of Mathematical Sciences Mathematics Division University of Stellenbosch Private Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa. Dissertation: PhD (Mathematics)


Generally, for physical, technological, and/or security reasons, any physical system is subject to functional limitations, and moreover, the adopted models are often subject to uncertainties. These uncertainties may find their origin in the modeling and measurement errors or on the computation approximations (see [1–5] and the references therein).As a consequence, the simultaneous presence of uncertainties and constraints in general physical systems has interested many authors to combine the techniques of robust control and constrained control [6, 7]. With the same objective and as an extension to the uncertain case of [8], the first part of this chapter is devoted to design and study robust-constrained regulators. Necessary and sufficient conditions of positive invariance of polyhedral domains with respect to motion of uncertain continuous-time systems are derived. Further, one has to concede that there are several approaches proposed in the literature to solve this problem [6, 8–15] and others. From these approaches, the positive invariance approach is selected in the second part to calculate robust constant state feedback controllers [6, 10, 16, 17]. But from a different point of view for computation techniques in the design of such controllers, the idea is to translate the results found within the framework of positive invariance to algorithms of linear programming [18–20]. To this end, necessary and sufficient conditions of positive invariance are re-formulated in this part. This enables one to use linear programming algorithms to find robust-constrained regulators for both continuous-time and discrete-time linear systems.


An outbreak of adult diarrhea causing more than 1,000 hospitalized cases among graduates in a university in Shi Jiazhuang city (Hebei province), occurred in 10-28, April, 1997. The non-bacterial pathogenic agent is confirmed as Rotavirus first by PAGE. Forteen samples have been demonstrated sharing the same nucleic acid electrophoresis pattern of 4-2-1-1-1-1-1. The positive rate was 47% (thirty samples have been checked) with no other RV pattern. Dada showed that RV with this kind of nucleic acid electrophoresis pattern were responsible for the outbreaks acute diarrhea in adults. The novel RV and known ADRV was RT-PCR with end-primers 5, 9 of typical ADRV, the positive control typical ADRV's results are positive, the novel RV's are negative. Experimental results showed that the novel RV did not belong to group B RV, totally different from all the known ARDV. This case was the first reported one in Hebei province with an outbreak of adult diarrhea not by any known ADRV.


ABSTRACT Asphaltene generally existed in colloidal form in cruds and will precipitate in non-equilibrium conditions. Asphaltene instability may take place in the reservoir leading to permeability damage and contributing to flow restriction issues. It may also occur in production strings and surface facilities causing pipe blockage. Any change in oil composition or pressure and temperature at any stage of production will destabilize crude oil producing asphaltene precipitation. In this paper, the stability of target crude oil under the influence of a direct current and contacting with polar fluid, water, is investigated. The amount of the asphaltene deposit and its electrical charge at various operating conditions are investigated. The fact that deposits form on the anode surface proves that asphaltene particles possess a positive charge. The amounts of asphaltenes precipitation were increased considerably by increasing water as polar component.


A total of 861 Middle school students (447 Mongols and 414 Hans) were investigated on tongue moving types in Alax League, Inner Monglia in Sept. , 1999. The results were as follows: (1)Mongols in Alax League showed the rolling, folding, twisting, pointed and clover-leaf tongues with the frequencies of 67.79% , 8.73%, 21.25%, 68.68% and 23.94%, respectively, while Hans with the frequencies of 71.50% , 9.42%, 30.43%, 77.05% and 15.70%. No significant difference was found in frequencies of rolling and folding tongues between Mongols and Hans. Hans showed a higher frequencies of twisting, pointed tongues, but a lower clover-leaf tongues than Mongols do. (2)The frequencies of five types expect pointed tongue in Mongols and clover-leaf tongue in Han nationality had no significant sexual difference. (3) Correlation occur between rolling and twisting, rolling and pointed, rolling and clover-leaf, twisting and folding tongues. (4)Compared with other population, Mongols in Alax League showed a lower frequencies of rolling, twisting and pointed tongues, while Hans had a lower frequency of clover-leaf tongue and a higher frequency of folding tongue.


Nd:LuLF, that is, Nd:LuLiF4, was grown with a Czochralski technique and characterized spectroscopically to include absorption and emission data and lifetime. Evaluation of this laser material for operation on the 4F3/2→4I11/2 and the 4F3/2→4I13/2 transitions was performed. Normal-mode laser performance was achieved on both the π and the σ polarizations for both transitions by use of a simple polarization-selective resonator. Both normal-mode and Q-switched performance was characterized on the 4F3/2→4I11/2 transition.


In this interview, which was recorded in 2007 to celebrate the receipt of an honorary doctorate from Warwick University, Avinash Dixit of Princeton University discusses why he is an economist and how he approaches economic research. He argues, among other things, for doing what you enjoy rather than what you feel you ought to do.


Abstract : Tests were made to observe the effect of high-frequency (13,000 vpm) and moderate-frequency (6800 vpm) vibration on concrete ranging from dry to wet consistency, containing 6-in. coarse aggregate, and having nominal air contents of 3, 6, and 9 per cent in that portion of the mix smaller than 1-1/2 in. Cores drilled from hardened specimens of the concrete with 6-per-cent air content were examined micrometrically for amount and distribution of air and coarse aggregate. (Author)


Magnetic granular films, which consist of magnetic fine particles of nanometer size and a nonmagnetic matrix, have been of great interest for new magnetic materials. Their magnetic characteristics strongly depend on the fine structures, besides the combination of magnetic and nonmagnetic constituents, especially their surface topology and the particles size. Although the relationship between these fine topological structures and the macro-magnetic characteristics has been investigated systematically by many researchers, there has remained a desire to observe magnetic microstructures directly. We succeeded in observing the magnetic structure of fine particles in granular films using Lorentz microscopy. Two kinds of specimens were observed. One was an Fe-Mo granular film. An amorphous film of Fe-Mo was prepared by dc magnetron sputtering on amorphous carbon thin films at a temperature below 180 K. The films were annealed at 770 K within an in-plane magnetic field. The other kind was an Fe-MgO granular film, where iron particles were embedded in a magnesium oxide single crystal.


First, we classify A, B and C according to their respective odevity, and ret rid of two kinds from AX+BY=CZ. Then, affirm AX+BY=CZ such being the case A, B and C have a common prime factor by concrete examples. After that, prove AX+BY≠CZ such being the case A, B and C have not any common prime factor by the mathematical induction with the aid of the symmetric law of odd numbers after the decomposition of the inequality. Finally, reached such a conclusion that the Beal's conjecture can hold water after the comparison between AX+BY=CZ and AX+BY≠CZ under the given requirements.


The present study investigated the genetic efficiency of enhancing populations of wild scallops using hatchery-produced seed scallops. Scallops from the Isle of Man (IOM), Irish Sea, and from a sca...


ABSTRACT This article captures the dynamics of the securitization process through which new Islamic movements were constructed as an existential threat in Azerbaijan. After mapping out various competing discourses on Islam that emerged in the post-independence period, I discuss, using insights from the post-structuralist approach to securitization theory, the process of securitization of these movements. First I discuss the construction, by the hegemonic discourses, of a uniform identity category of 'non-traditional religious movements', and representation of otherwise different religious groups and organizations within this much stigmatized category. Later I show how the movements were constituted as an existential threat to national security and national identity through forging chains of associations between these groups and instability, chaos, social degeneration and terror. In the final section, I show how the securitizing discourse found expressions in emergency measures that were designed to deal with the movements and confirm their identity as dangerous other.


The complex dynamics behaviour of the centrifugal flywheel governor system subjected to external disturbance is studied. The dynamical equation of the system is established using Lagrangian and Newton's second law. Poincare sections and Lyapunov exponents are presented to analyse hyperchaotic behaviour of the system. The hyperchaotic behaviour of system of two positive Lyapunov exponents along with one zero and one negative Lyapunov exponent is obtained. Routes from Hopf bifurcation to chaos are analysed by the bifurcation diagram and phase portraits, and the Lyapunov exponents corresponded to bifurcation diagrams of the system are confirmed. The hyperchaotic behaviour of the system is controlled by using proportional and different controller methods. Based on the non-linear feedback control, the different stable periodic orbits are obtained and by adjusting the feedback coefficients. The centrifugal flywheel governor system subjected to external disturbance is researched numerically. The results show that the method can control effectively the system, and the range of control is board.


In January 2011, eruptive activity resumed at Etna producing a new phase with frequent lava fountain episodes until April 2012. In November 2011, the first two borehole strainmeters were installed, which detected negative strain changes (~0.15–0.8 μstrain) during the paroxysmal events. A Finite Element Model was set up to estimate accurately the tilt and volumetric strain, taking into account the real profile of the volcano and the elastic medium heterogeneity. The numerical computations indicated an elongated depressurizing source located at 0 km b.s.l., which underwent a volume change of ~2 × 106 m3 which is the most of the magma volume erupted, while a smaller remaining part is accommodated by the magma compressibility. This shallow source cannot accumulate large magma volumes and, thus, favors short‐term periodic eruptive events with a fairly constant balance between the refilling and the erupted magma.


This paper develops a two-sector growth model in which institutional investors play a significant role. A necessary and suffi cient condition is established under which these investors own the entire capital stock in the long run. The dependence of the long-run growth rate on the behaviour of such investors, and the effects of a productivity increase are analysed. JEL classification. O41, O43 Acknowledgements. I am grateful to Stefano Zambelli for his advice, and to Waikato University, New Zealand, for a constructive research environment. Thanks also to the Carnegie Foundation for a grant which supported this research. Any remaining errors or omissions are entirely mine.


This study discusses the grave pilgrimage traditions that have long made the Java community in particular through a phenomenological approach with increasing pilgrim graves in 1 the last decade, although the level of jurisprudence still reap the pros and cons. The study revealed several factors causing the increase in the grave pilgrims. The survey results revealed that there are many aspects that influence the increased pilgrim grave. In addition, the grave pilgrimage as a tradition that has existed since before Islam, it's recognized that it has aspect of religious ritual worship (piety) with the normative arguments as an amplifier. Efforts of pilgrims who actually aimed at showing religious identity or religious symbols as the persistence of the abangan are still not understood in the perspective of religious pilgrimage and the orthodox clergy who rejected the implementation of the pilgrimage also affect many pilgrims. Another dimension is an important factor increasing the pilgrims grave is none other than the commercial factor, because many pilgrims could significantly increase the economic level of the community around the shrine grave, grave pilgrimage organizers and it can even be a source of local revenue. So that the improvement of infra structure grave shrine is also an important factor increasing the grave pilgrims.


The present work was aimed at increasing the fatigue life of laser powder bed fusion manufactured maraging steel (MS) using surface modification. Samples were manufactured to investigatethe mechanical properties of the material with two types of heat treatment routes that were both subjected to severe shot peening (SSP). In addition, bending fatigue testing was utilized to reveal theeffect of shot peening (SP) and SSP on fatigue resistance of the MS. Microhardness profiles weremeasured near the surface and electron backscatter diffraction analysis was used for microstructuralanalysis. A thin layer of austenite was noted on the surface making it a softer section, which SP orSSP was able to transform. The fatigue life of the MS was notably icreased by the SP processing andeven greater improvement was achieved with the SSP, which raised the fatigue limit of the materialfrom 200 MPa to nearly 500 MPa.


Over the last few years, both scientists and the biomedical industry have been showing increasing interest in bioincompatibility. One of the main problems, however, is that the definition may be different, depending on the interests of researchers involved. Most bioincompatibility problems are not related to a specific artificial organ system, but may be common to different domains. Biocompatibility, as the counterpart of bioincompatibility, may be defined as the absence of any reaction during or after the contact of the body, a body fluid or an organ with an artificial device or with a foreign surface (1). Biocompatibility per se does not exist: whatever the basic system or chemical structure, biochemical or biophysical reactions will always occur one way or another after contact with foreign structures. Differences are related more to the intensity and the type of reaction, than to its presence or absence. This paper will review seven bioincompatibility questions: clotting, complement and leucocyte activation, susceptibility to infection, leaching, surface alterations, allergic reactions and shear.


An integrated chip HIP6301 capable of generating four-phase interleaving pulse PWM is presented, which could implement a high-performance communication power supply with low voltage and high current.The internal structure,working principle,and component parameters design of HIP6301 are described in detail.Based on these, a power supply whit 1.50V output voltage and 40A rated current is developed.Test on experimental circuit is done, the experimental data and waveform are analyzed,and the corresponding results are given.The experimental results show that the design efficiency is improved and the developing cycle of product is shortened by using HIP6301.


Subsistence hunting for Cree of the western James Bay region of northern Ontario, Canada, is a way of life. In this study, it is shown that ∼15% of the radiographic charts examined had evidence of pellets contained in the gastrointestinal system, intraluminally, and/or in the appendix. It is assumed that the consumption of wildgame with lead shot embedded in the tissue was the source of the pellets. Because the presence of lead shot in the human gastrointestinal tract appears to increase the body burden of lead and considerable evidence is available on the occurrence of lead poisoning in waterfowl due to the ingestion of lead pellets,it is suggested that the use of lead shot should be discontinued nationwide in Canada. Although bismuth/tin shot has been growing in appeal because of several recent waterfowl studies demonstrating its nontoxic nature, caution is advised because of the uncertainty about the toxicity of bismuth in humans, especially when consumed as whole pellets or fragments in wildmeats. We maintain that the nontoxic alternative of choice at this time is steel shot.


The results of numerical calculation of the electron ground state energy and electron density in tunneled InAs/GaAs quantum dots forming a simple cubic superlattice are presented. The calculation is carried out in the framework of a modified effective mass method, taking into account the microscopic (atomic) structure of individual quantum dots, without taking into account the spin-orbit interaction and deformation effects. The dependence of the electron binding energy on the radius of the quantum dot R. It is shown that in the region R < 27 Å the electron binding energy is proportional to R in degree three.


Side Channel Analysis (SCA) is one of the most used and powerful cryptanalysis techniques nowadays. The technique monitors the power consumption or the electromagnetic radiation of a device during the execution of a cryptographic algorithm. The objective is retrieving sensitive information, as the secret key of the algorithm, by observing and conducting statistical analyses on the monitored operations. The objectives of this project consisted in the analysis of the AES algorithm and its characterization by SCA using electromagnetic radiation measures. AES is considered the most secure symmetric algorithm since the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standardized it in 2001. Analysis techniques were based on electromagnetic radiation measures using different probes with different sensitivities. Likewise, different filtering methods and signal post-processing techniques were studied. Electromagnetic radiation measures were conducted on an ASIC implementation of the AES. The given project is mainly experimental. However, it includes an introductive description of the concept of security in cryptography, a software implementation of the AES algorithm, and a description of the state of the art of SCA on AES.


In this stude composite materials based on polypropylene with UV-stability were obtained. IR spectroscopy was used to assess the degree of photodegradation of polypropylene and polypropylene-based composites. Chemical bonds brake and the material oxidizes during degradation of the polymer. These processes are reflected in the IR spectra. Also, the development of process of photodegradation of polymer can be studied by the change in the surface structure after effect of UV. This is reflected in the change of the contact angle. Polypropylene, stabilized by different UV-absorbers, was studied by IR spectroscopy and contact angle measurements. As a filler for polymer matrix there was used boron nitride, multiwall carbon nanotubes and carbon fibers. The infrared absorption spectra of polypropylene and polypropylene-based composites were obtained and analyzed. Concentrations of UV-filters in the polymer matrix, necessary to protect the material from photodegradation, were determined. The studies found that the fillers reduced the degradation of the surface and the crystal structure of composites.


(57) Abstract: The present invention, using at least one control device and data entry / display unit is concerned with a method and apparatus for active assist the vehicle driver in a motor vehicle. In this case the control device, and data from sensors associated with the vehicle state, is accessible to the control device and / or control device and / or the inner and outer data bank for improving comfort.


The determination of kinetic binding constants for antibody-antigen interactions is critical in many research and development applications. OpenSPR allows users to easily and accurately measure the binding kinetics of numerous ligand-antigen systems. In this application note, OpenSPR is used to determine the on and off rates and affinity constant for the interaction between prostate specific antigen (PSA) and its antibody (anti-PSA). Results are compared against industry standard surface plasmon resonance instruments.


In this thesis we explore the problem of resource management for multicomputer systems. A variety of algorithms were developed for different task graph models. We first present a suite of static resource management algorithms. For acyclic graphs, the LAST algorithm provides fast processor allocation and intelligent processor usage. For nondeterministic task graphs, the remap algorithm uses profiling data to iteratively improve the allocation decisions. The remap algorithm provides an efficient, distributed implementation with each processor analyzing the tasks assigned to it. Finally, the template strategy provided a static allocation to dynamic tree-based flow graphs.
Next we developed the concept of hybrid resource management, combining static and dynamic strategies. Profiling-based migration uses a migration algorithm to address runtime load imbalances for nondeterministic task costs. The algorithm uses profiled data to make migration decisions with data strictly local to each processor. For dynamic flow graphs, we developed two hybrid resource management techniques, t$\sb-$hybrid, and hybrid2. The t$\sb-$hybrid strategy is a decoupled hybrid strategy, where the static and dynamic portions of the management operate independently from one another. In the hybrid2 strategy, a coupled hybrid strategy, decisions in one strategy affect decisions taken in the other strategy.


A silicon-germanium hetero bipolar transistor comprising a silicon collector layer, a boron-doped silicon-germanium base layer, a silicon emitter layer and an emitter contact area. The transistor is fabricated using an epitaxy process on a Surface of pure silicon. An electrically inert material is incorporated into the epitaxial layers in order to link the defects in the semiconductor structure and to reduce the outdiffusion of the dopant. Thus, a transistor for high frequency applications can be fabricated in two ways: to increase the dopant dose of the base region or to reduce the thickness of the base layer. In particular, the concentration profile of germanium in the base layer has a general shape of a triangle or trapezoid.


This paper focuses on the particular channels of de-industrialization processes of Azerbaijan considering the Dutch disease syndrome as the theoretical framework. After the emergence of the Dutch disease hypotheses, many resource-rich countries have been the main research object of it. One consequence of the Dutch disease syndrome is a shrinking manufacturing sector compared to the booming sector and the services sector. In order to shed light on this aspect of the Azerbaijan economy, important literature examples were examined and mainly descriptive statistics applied to visualize the economy's most recent timeline. This research mainly brings back the actuality of the Dutch disease phenomena to Azerbaijan's economy, depicting and comparing policy responses of the national government.


This paper is concerned with the stability (gain and phase) margin of networked dynamical systems, e.g., vehicles in formation, each of which has access to the state of its neighbors and subsequently uses a state feedback gain <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$F$</tex-math></inline-formula> for a certain global objective such as attitude synchronization. Here, the network topology is directed and described by a generalized Laplacian matrix <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$L$</tex-math></inline-formula>. An individual dynamical system can adopt its own state feedback control law such as a linear-quadratic-regulator controller for an ample stability margin, but it may lose the stability margin to a great extent when the same control strategy utilizing relative state information is used after being interconnected with other dynamical systems. This paper reveals and elaborates upon the following four facts: First, the stability margin after interconnection is quantified via the minimum singular value of a frequency-dependent matrix made up of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$F$</tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$L$</tex-math></inline-formula>; Second, the stability margin of a networked dynamical system having a pole at the origin is at most the inverse of the zero-eigenvalue sensitivity of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$L$</tex-math></inline-formula>; Third, there exists an upper bound of the stability margin that has a computational merit, and asymptotically converges to the exact margin with respect to network size, probability of link existence, and control gain in a random network setting; and finally, <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$L$</tex-math></inline-formula> can be designed to maximize the stability margin. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the elaboration.


In his Retraction, Geoffrey Chaucer describes himself as a translator. However, while his texts clearly draw directly from antecedents, they do not easily align to the source-target parallels that are so familiar in translation studies. Using abductive reasoning, this article asks whether the evidence supplied by the constituent stories of the Canterbury Tales suggests that Chaucer's understanding of translation was fundamentally based on the notion of excogitatio. It observes features of Chaucer's translation practices that may appear surprising or idiosyncratic to a contemporary observer, and asks, whether an underlying conceptualisation of translation that actively avoids reflecting the source text would make these features a matter of course. The article demonstrates that abductive reasoning is a useful tool for the first stages of analysing a text as a translation, allowing a researcher to ask how the translator may have perceived the act of translation.


Brain stem tumors are special challenge because primarily of their location and the neurologic effect caused by these groups of tumors (Paul 1997).
Radiation therapy improves survival for brain stem tumors and stabilizes or reverses neurologic dysfunction in 75-90% of patients.
The main domain of applicability of hyperfractionation would be in tumor sites where the dose limiting tissue is late reacting and whose effective control requires the delivery of doses beyond tolerance (Awwad, 1990), hence the rationale for the use of hyperfractionation in brain stem lesions.
The purpose of this work is to find out the best radiation protocol in this group of patients comparing conventional fractionation and hyperafractionation.
This study included 46 patients which brainstem tumors treated in Radiation Oncology and Neurosurgery Departments Ain Shams University between February 1998 and May 2000.
These patients had been randomly distributed in 2 groups A and B. The first group treated by conventional radiotherapy protocol and the second group treated by hyperfractionation radiation protocol.
By the end of the study, the median over all survival and median time for disease progression were calculated for each group.
Age, neurologic status at presentation and anatomical location were significant prognostic factors.
By the end of this study clicinal evalualion had no significant difference between both groups but the median over all survival for the two groups was 10.5 months, the median survival for group A was 9.4 months and that for group B was 11.5 months which was statistically significant P < 0.02.
On the other hand the percentage of patient with one year survival for group A & B (22%, 32%) respectively.
The rate of acute (early) reaction of radiation is slightly higher in hyperfracticmaticm than conventional fractionation but the late reactions occur with same frequency with both regimens.


In this article suggested classifi cation method of voice signals what based on representation cepstr combination these signals and projection methods of multivariate data analysis. A show of possibility division speakers voices with help projection latent structure method based on compute speech processing of speakers for preliminary analysis of voice data. Suggested approach is perspective for voice person identification influence get results.


The aim of this paper is to present a basic framework which takes into account the importance of political governance and the media in influencing the economy and determining its actual course. In particular, this framework may be of help in elucidating the complex role of the media in contemporary democratic societies. For this purpose, a simple diagrammatic model is constructed and used for explanation. Its basis is a distinction among four main elements with potentially different interests: The political governance personnel, the business class, the wider public as consumers and oters, and the media. The first three form the three corners of a triangle while the media play an intermediating role among them. The presentation of the model is illustrated with examples from Greece.


The safety countermeasures of city open public space have been a key issue in urban planning study in many countries. Starting from the influence of environment characters on criminals' behavior, the design of city open public space should also be closely connected with the safety issues. The study on the danger aspect of environment is of far-reaching significance.


Aiming to the difficult area of surveying and mapping, such as Antarctic, it is difficult to guarantee favourable observation condition for traditional mapping methods. Large-scale block adjustment (BA) without ground control point (GCP) is carried out by using domestic high-resolution satellite remote sensing imagery. The key technologies of BA model construction based on virtual control point (VCP), gross error detection and elimination, and robust and fast method of large-scale BA are studied in this paper. On this basis, the experimental analysis and validation of 13pairs (39 images) of ZY-3 satellite imagery in Antarctic are carried out. The results show that the sparse matrix technology can effectively reduce the memory requirement. The combined matrix block and GPU parallel technology can solve the problem of large-scale BA computational efficiency. In addition, after BA, the maximum residual is 3.920 pixel, the root mean square error (RMSE) is 0.169 pixel in the X (flight) direction, the maximum residual error is 5.933 pixel, and the RMSE is 0.191 pixel in the Y (scan) direction. The proposed method has certain accuracy and stability in large-scale BA without GCP using high-resolution satellite remote sensing imagery in Antarctica. The relative positioning accuracy can reach sub-pixel level, which can meet the requirements of cartographic splicing.


CREATIVE PROJECT: Journalists on the move: How professional transitions impact a sense of identity, community and family. STUDENT: Gregory J. Lucid DEGREE: Master of Arts COLLEGE: Communication, Information and Media DATE: *December, 2013 PAGES: 65 This paper studies the lives of four current and/or former newspaper journalists who agreed to participate in a literary journalism-style project addressing social and psychological issues involving transitioning into and/or out of journalism jobs and/or journalism careers. The paper draws on oral history reporting conducted from a series of in-depth interviews (phone, email and/or in-person) between January 2013 and October 2013 individually with current and/or former journalist participants. Using primary and secondary research, findings suggest common factors contributing to journalists who make professional transitions include economics; news room burnout; stress; salary and impact to personal and family lives. The objective of the project was to learn about whether or not professional transitions involving newspaper journalists' careers have impacted a current and/or former journalist's sense of identity, community and/or family.


Infection rates and bloodmeal analyses are presented for Glossina medicorum Austen 1 9 1 1 , G. palpalis gambiensis Robineau-Desvoidy 1 83 0 , G. morsitans submorsitans New stead 1 9 1 0 and G. longipalpis Wiedemann 1 8 30 in Ivory Coast . These along with other previously published examples allow consideration of 1 7 species at 1 9 locations through out the tsetse range . A clear relationship is shown between % vivax-like infections and % bovid bloodmeals . No clear relationship could be demonstrated between infection and geographical position and thus presumably, temperature ; or between % congolense-like infections and % suid bloodmeals. These findings emphasise the need for dietary informa tion in studies concerning infection rates, challenge and thus when considering control strategies .


In recent years, environmental regulations caused that the FCC units have found very important roles in oil refineries for improve the quality of oil products. Thus, availability of a modeling program for FCC is a major importance in unit optimization and scale-up or reducing the problems of a FCC unit. In this article a onedimensional adiabatic model for riser reactor of FCC unit, was developed. The hydrodynamic model was described based on Patience et al. (1992) correlation .The chemical reactions were characterized by a four- lump kinetic model, (Han and Chung, 2001), (Juarez et al., 1997) and the optimization techniques applied to modify the kinetic parameters. Comparison of model prediction data with industrial ones shows that the model has been achieved adequately. Simulation studies are performed to investigate the effect of changing process variables, such input catalyst temperature and catalyst to oil ratio (COR).


The study suggests that the left-behind family didn't take a passive,but a positive response to the impact of social change.In the preschool life course of left-behind children,left-behind children's family took the family tending strategy of "valuing life tending,belittling social tending";In the school-age life course,"bilineal life tending,unilineal social tending".The family tending strategy not only was consistent with the "Normative Timetable" of the left-behind children's life course,but its' process and timing took the initiative to the shock of?social historical forces through the relational network and tending sources which had formed by the left-behind children and others.The left-behind children which was formulated by social historical forces,also constructed his own life track either by accepting passively his familys' bilineal tending which has been damaged,or by cooperating actively with "unilineal social tending",and playing the role of social expectations at the "right time".


Real estate involvements include citizenship responsibility, personal and business space use, investment, and for those whose work involvement is directly or indirectly dependent upon real estate markets, employment. Real estate strategies guide participants' decisionmaking in their multiple roles, and both highlight the issues and concerns common to these multiple roles as well as isolate those unique to particular roles. Although certain aspects of the decision processes for different participants in their multiple roles reflect the actions, circumstances and objectives unique to that participant, a meaningful part of everyone's real estate decisionmaking process is subject to common market forces. Strategic decision models provide a means to connect the micro-level tasks of property operations, the negotiation process of real estate transactions, and the larger forces that define space use and place decisions.


Abstract : This third "ROLLING THUNDER" CHECO report about air operations against North Vietnam is concerned primarily with the plans, statistics, and eventual results of the program for the years 1967 and 1968. Although the Air Force role is stressed, vital contributions from other services are recorded to achieve proper balance; basic trends and comparisons are valid In January 1967, air operations forced Hanoi to pay heavily for its aggression against the Republic of Vietnam. In addition, airstrikes had generated serious economic upheavals in North Vietnam, and had presented a dramatic picture of U.S. power and determination, culminating in the initiation of negotiations in Paris. Planning for airstrikes against North Vietnam began in June 1964, when the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) asked CINCPAC to prepare targets in North Vietnam for airstrikes. ROLLING THUNDER (RT) attacks began in March 1965, and are detailed in two earlier CHECO reports. References made to the ROLLING THUNDER Target List (RTTL) refer to JCS' Designated Targets that required JCS' authorization for a strike. The lists, constantly in a state of change, due to additions and deletions, were numbered: RT 1, 2, 3, etc. The Alpha Targets of the RTTL were those considered the most critical in Route Packages V and VIA (ROLLING THUNDER Handbook, July 1968). A more detailed explanation of the ROLLING THUNDER Target List is presented in Section II of this handbook.


Drying R&D is at a crossroads after nearly three decades of incessant cumulative growth around the world. The growth rates have ranged from negative to zero to positive, depending upon the location of countries but the overall growth is positive, which is a good sign for those of us who have loyally committed a significant portion of our professional career to advancing this discipline. Indeed, even the baseline of technical publications devoted to science and engineering of drying was vanishingly small just three decades ago; so the initial high growth rates are not surprising given the relevance of energy costs to drying and its omnipresence in almost all industrial sectors. As Dr. Carl W. Hall noted in a communication to me, few highly specialized disciplinary conferences and journals have survived, let alone prospered over a period stretching three decades. This is highly creditable to those true visionaries who helped to pioneer and strategize the development of this multiand interdisciplinary field of drying R&D. Despite the continuing successes, I see the need for a paradigm shift in drying R&D. The old adage, ''no man is an island'' applies equally well to drying technologies. As the focus of industrial sectors and government granting bodies, which in turn influence the direction of academic research, shifts to areas such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, microelectronics, and life sciences, drying researchers need to identify niche areas in these fields where drying can be a critically important but often overlooked stage. These applications for drying are not governed by the need to save energy, because of their low unit production rates, but by the need to produce high-quality products such as wafers, nanoparticles for controlled drug delivery, new superconducting materials, novel high surface area catalysts, new extremely porous aerogels, etc. Drying of very high-value pharmaceutical products is also critical due to the formation of polymorphs. Different drying techniques can yield different polymorphs, so reproducing test tube conditions on a larger scale can be a major challenge. Such work needs to be multidisciplinary, requiring collaboration with physicists, chemists, biochemists, biologists, electronic engineers, etc. Indeed, this is within the realm of the new engineering science programs. Computerassisted innovation of dryers is another area that needs major attention. We cannot yet simulate the complex flow, heat, and mass transfer processes occurring in spray dryers or indirectly heated drum dryers, for example. Growth in drying R&D will need to be both organic and inorganic. The former is a result of stretching application areas and scientific fundamentals of drying. The latter requires that we look at closely related operations and processes that often precede or follow the drying operation. Non-thermal dewatering and crystallization as well as coating are illustrations of unit operations that we could integrate with drying and consider drying systems rather than dryers. Indeed, it is preferable to design and optimize drying systems rather than dryers. This also gives us opportunities to make new contributions that maybe economically more relevant. The above discussion does not imply that we do not need significant R&D in areas such as drying of papers, wood, food, grains, etc. There are still numerous unresolved issues in these areas as well. What I suggest is that we broaden our scope and cover new product and process areas. The half-life of drying technologies is very long, so what we do now will remain relevant and useful for a few decades to come. To maintain and even boost the momentum of the IDS movement, it will be necessary to have infusion of new, younger blood with initiative and resourcefulness and an aptitude for seeking out challenging multidisciplinary research topics in thermal as well as nonthermal drying. Much remains to be done in trying to come up with a unifying drying theory and ability to predict both the transport phenomena and the coupled effects of quality transformation during drying. The best CFD codes today cannot handle even relatively common drying operations. Who says there are no real challenges left in drying R&D? Arun S. Mujumdar Singapore Drying Technology, 26: 155, 2008 Copyright # 2008 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0737-3937 print/1532-2300 online DOI: 10.1080/07373930701830988


is charged with prejudices and stigmas. The aim of this study is to describe and analyze the structure of the representation of cancer among patients. This qualitative study, based on social representation theory, was conducted at a cancer treatment center in inland Rio de Janeiro State during the second semester of 2002 with 100 cancer patients. Data were collected by free evocation from the stimulus-term "cancer" and analyzed by EVOC software. The central nucleus is basically negative (illness, death and fear), while positive elements are observed in the contrast area (tranquility and life) and in the first peripheral area (cures and God). The representation can be seen to be constructed of tensions and oppositions. It was concluded that the representation may be undergoing a process of change and that it has four dimensions: conceptual, feelings, imagery and expectations.


This paper is a note on a very simple and elementary fact having to do with reasoning about relations. The kinds of reasoning that we have in mind come from two different areas: extended syllogistic logics and description logics. In extended syllogistic logic, one wants to reason about terms formed from binary relations and terms. We illustrate with some examples from the recent paper van Rooij [11]. He symbolizes "Some man loves every woman" (with the wide-scope reading: some man is such that he loves every woman) as Mi(WaL). In this example, M and W are the terms for "man" and "woman", and L is the binary relation "loves." The i and a are from traditional logic: i for "some" and a for "all." So the term WaL is intended to denote the set of things who love all women. And then our sentence Mi(WaL) would be true if some man belongs to the denotation of WaL. For us, the crucial point is that WaL has the semantics that we said it has. This kind of semantics is the source of later work, including presentations of logical calculi for the relational syllogistic in works such as [10]. We contrast this with the situation in description logics (e.g., [1]). In that field, we have atomic concepts such as W for woman, and binary roles such as L for loves. And then ∀R.W would denote the set of objects with the property that everything which they love is a woman. To compare and contrast, and to anticipate notation which we shall use later in the paper, WaL is love all women, and ∀R.W is love only women.


Modeling the dispersion and attenuation of seismic waves in partially saturated rocks is important for quantitative interpretation of seismic data. To observe the partial saturation effects on modulus and attenuation, three sandstone samples with different porosities were used in the laboratory experiment. The samples were measured by ultrasonic testing system under different water saturation using drainage process. The experimental results show that the bulk modulus more rapidly increased at higher saturations (>80 per cent), and attenuation peaks could be observed. Then we develop a new partial saturation model based on Chapman's theory and poroelastic theory. The new model is consistent with the Gassmann equation when the water saturation is 0 per cent or 100 per cent. By analyzing the characteristic frequency, the new model can be concluded in the form of a standard linear solid model. A comparison of the new model with the White model and the measured data is conducted. The results show that the model performed well at predicting the effective bulk modulus and attenuation of the rock with different water saturation. Finally, we discussed the impact of frequency, fluids and pore structures on the new model. The results reveal that the new model will be helpful in discussing partial saturation in rocks.


This is a rich and ambitious book in which the author attempts to &dquo;trace the contours of ... transformations in ... the social organization of symbolic power.&dquo; These transformations had, Thompson proposes, a profound effect in the constitution of modernity-&dquo;the institutional characteristics of modern societies and the life conditions created by them&dquo; (pp. 2-3) and which consequentially imply a central role for the communication media-a role Thompson argues has been relatively neglected by social theorists. So far so familiar-as Thompson recognizes by explicitly rooting his own propositions (p. 18) in ground cleared and tilled by Habermas and Innis. Thompson's case is persuasively made. If individuals' interpretation of a shared symbolic repertoire is central to the way they think of themselves, as Thompson plausibly proposes, then the historical development of the media may well produce &dquo;a restructuring of the ways individuals relate to one another and to themselves&dquo; (p. 11). Literacy is but one of the examples the author adduces to exemplify and support his proposition. Clearly, literacy does hold out the possibility of thinking things might be otherwise and, within the architecture of Thompson's thought, points toward a Giddensian


Nicotinamide (a form of vitamin B3) reduces the incidence of nonmelanoma skin cancers (NMSCs) in high-risk adults, according to study results released


The sale and use of substandard drugs is a major health problem in many developing countries where strict drug control legislation does not exist. The study investigates pharmaceutical quality of different brands of cefixime 400mg capsules marketed in Karachi (Pakistan). Compendial standards and government regulations require that all drug products, whether prescription or OTC products, meet strict standards of identity, potency, and purity. Each type of dosage form requires careful study of the physical and chemical properties of drug substances to achieve a stable and effective product. The different brands were subjected to various tests like uniformity of weight, diameter, length, disintegration, dissolution and chemical assays. The susceptibility test of drug was also carried out using agar dilution method along different isolates obtained from health care set ups. All the 6 brands had satisfactory drug content, antimicrobial activity and all passed the USP drug release test. The six brands are physically and chemically equivalent and could be interchanged. The study reinforces the need for constant monitoring of proprietary products of the same generic drugs to ensure quality and consequent efficacy with pharmacoeconomy, which would help in the selection of the most appropriate brand in terms of Pharmacoeconomy and quality.


There are some cracks in structures that they can make a flaw or reduce their usfull life. Most of the dams experience an intensity earthquake in their life without fail in them but they are cracked due to intolerance of tensile stress by concrete. In this thesi, the investigation of the fracture mechanic in concrete gravity dams by using probabilistic analysis and Monte Carlo simulation is done for safety and optimum design using ANSYS software. For this purpose, Koyna concrete gravity dam was chosen as case study by applying El Centro, San-Fernando, Northridge and Koyna scale earthquakes. In 1967 the mentioned dam experienced an earthquake of magnitud 6/5 on Richter and was cracked widely. Computational procedure for two–dimensional finite element analysis of the base–case model is carried out in time domain considering the dynamic excitation and dam–reservoir–foundation interaction. Sommerfeld boundary condition is used for the reservoir and Newmark method which is unconditionally stable, is seleted for the numerical integration in computations of dynamic analysis. The analyses are used to investigate the propagation of crack and discrete crack. For evaluation of the effect of different parameters, the output results containing the maximum hydrodynamic pressure, dam crest displacement, tensile stress in heel and compressive stress in the toe of dam, as critical response, are investigated and the obtained results are evaluated by means of curves.


The concept of scientific development is centered on humanism.Humanism,an axiology proposition,reflects three value dimension of concept of scientific development: direction,practice tropism and evaluation scale,whose trinity constitutes the value direction mechanism,value criterion mechanism and value adjustment mechanism of development system and forms the nerve center of development organization evolvement.


This paper studies the realization methods of float arithmetic and trigonometric functions based on fixed-point DSP TMS320F2407,which use the mantissa and factorial method to calculate addition,subtraction,multiplication and division,and apply the power series spread and arithmetic operation to realize float trigonometric functions.The paper compiles the arithmetic on TMS320F2407.The experimental data of sine are given,which show the arithmetic with high precision and rapid speed,can be used on other single-chip microprocessor.


In the past decade, libraries of iridium organometallic arene compounds have expanded rapidly, with the majority of their applications aimed towards effective catalysts and potential anti-cancer dr...


How do some pathogenic bacteria adapt to new host plants? How can we quickly detect and respond to new pathogen variants? The advent of genomics, defined as the analysis of the structure and function of genomes, has led to important advances in many fields of phytobacteria research. Comparative genomics has made it possible to compare the different sequenced genomes to better understand their biological functions through their commonalities and differences, and to study evolutionary history of pests. The Ralstonia solanacearum species complex provides a unique model for studying plant-pathogen interactions, including basic biology of pathogenesis and non-host resistance in the context of an unusually broad host range and latent (asymptomatic) infection. This species complex has a high genetic diversity associated with a high phenotypic diversity that results in a host range comprising about 250 plant species, distributed in 50 botanical families (Hayward, 1991). Extensive knowledge on species and subspecies assignment is not only of interest in the world of taxonomy but is particularly important when one considers key strategic areas such as plant breeding in agronomy, development of diagnostic methods, and epidemiology. The use of genomic data, mainly through comparative genomics, contributed to: i) taxonomically reviewing species, mainly through High Throughput Sequencing and mass spectrometry ii) unravelling the genetic background of well-known characterized phylogenetic lineages and identify lineage-specific features potentially involved in host range variation iii) redefining plant-host relationship for specific lineages through genome sequencing and RNA sequencing (expression profiling) iv) producing massive amounts of data on gene content to study epidemiology and for diagnostic applications. These four main thematic areas will be presented through practical cases to demonstrate the potential of metagenomic data to derive information on pest biology, and to provide information for pest risk analyses. The omics era has provided the opportunity to study in-depth the mechanisms that underline infection processes and those involved in host colonization by plant pathogens. Only by understanding these processes will it be possible to develop effective pest management strategies. In addition, detection and identification are essential to any phytosanitary measures. Advances in genomics can contribute to a better understanding of the biology of plant pathogenic bacteria and genomic tools have become crucial for accurate classification of these pests. The presentation will provide examples of how genotypic analysis can be used to develop diagnostic tests based on bacterial virulence factors. Xanthomonas arboricola pv. pruni (Xap), the causal agent of bacterial spot of stone fruits and almond, is a quarantine pest already present in several EPPO countries. As in other pathosystems, Xap coexists in Prunus spp. with non-pathogenic Xanthomonas that show distinct genotypic and phenotypic characters. Genomic analysis confirmed differences in the genes involved in strain virulence and population establishment in plants between these two intraspecific groups. Moreover, comparison with other Xanthomonas isolated from non-Prunus spp. allowed identification of virulence genes associated with infection in specific hosts. Taking advantage of gene variation, PCR tests can be developed to differentiate pathogenic and non-pathogenic strains or bacterial strains that are pathogenic to different plant species. A real-time PCR test for Xap was developed that showed high analytical specificity and high analytical sensitivity. The test is a valuable molecular tool for the diagnosis of bacterial spot of stone fruit and represents a good example of how genomics can support plant pathology. This work was supported financially by Instituto Nacional de Invesigación Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA) projects RTA2014-0018 and RTA 2011-0040 (cofounded by FEDER). High Throughput Sequencing (HTS) technologies are capable of processing large numbers of samples and producing even larger volumes of genomic data. By mining the genomes of closely-related pests and comparing them to one another, it is possible to design molecular markers that can be used to distinguish pests. These technologies can also be used to obtain genetic information from environmental samples thereby allowing the trajectory of plant diseases to be traced. Genome-Enhanced Detection and Identification (GEDI) techniques involve using DNA-based tools such as real-time PCR, SNP markers, and AmpliSeq technologies for the purpose of detecting and assessing the genetic diversity of pathogens in plant samples from the species to intra-lineage levels. A proof-of-concept integrated method and bioinformatic pipeline was used to design some Fusarium and Phytophthora spp. and Lachnellula willkommii - specific markers to demonstrate the utility and applicability of HTS for the detection of targeted species. Metagenomics tools and a custom bioinformatics pipeline can also be used to focus pest monitoring efforts. We have demonstrated that it is possible to use these genomic tools associated with bioinformatic pipelines to quickly develop molecular markers that can be used to facilitate detection and identification of fungal pathogens and improve regulatory activities. Wheat rusts have been associated with crop failures and famine throughout history. Recent outbreaks of stem and yellow (stripe) rust in Europe have been linked to expansions in pathogen geographic distribution, exotic incursions and increased virulence. To achieve effective disease management, timely and accurate diagnosis are required to guide control measures. Furthermore, the capacity to distinguish between individuals in a pathogen population with specific properties such as fungicide resistance, toxin production and virulence profiles is often essential for the choice of control methods. The genomics revolution has provided technologies that can rapidly generate genome-scale genetic information to define individual variants of a pathogen species. However, their application to fungal plant pathogens has, to date, remained limited due to their frequent obligate biotrophy and large genome sizes. We developed a portable, genomics-based, point-of-care approach that utilizes the nanopore sequencer and is specifically tailored for identifying individual strains of the wheat yellow rust pathogen. Using targeted sequencing, we overcame the limitations associated with applying such strategies to fungal pathogens. This new method called Mobile And Real-time PLant disEase (MARPLE) diagnostics enables rapid identification of both newly emergent strains and those with specific properties such as fungicide resistance. Generating results within 48 h of field sampling, this new strategy has the potential to revolutionise plant disease diagnostics, changing how plant health threats are identified and tracked in the future.


Fistulous communication between a coronary artery and a cardiac chamber is an uncommon congenital anomaly. The diagnosis is usually suspected because of an atypical continuous murmur and is confirmed by angiography. Cross-sectional and pulsed-Doppler echocardiography can be useful when the involved coronary artery is dilated and the shunt is large. Our experience in two patients with small coronary artery to right ventricular fistulae indicates that color flow mapping can identify fistulae that cannot be demonstrated by means of other noninvasive diagnostic techniques.


Abstract : The problem of the acoustic admittance of burning surfaces of condensed explosives and the effect of reflected sound waves on the combustion stability were studied theoretically. The exothermic reaction in the condensed phase, its effect on the burning velocity, and the change in the condensed phase surface temperature under nonsteady-state conditions were taken into account. A theoretical model of the combustion process was used in which the burning zone consisted of 5 regions: a heating region in the condensed phase without a chemical reaction, a chemical reaction region in the condensed phase, a heating region of the gas phase also without a chemical reaction, a chemical reaction region in the gas phase, and a region with gaseous combustion products. Equations describing the linear perturbation of the combustion parameters in regions 1-4 at a harmonic pressure change were derived. (Author)


Non-governmental organizations (NGO) appear as a part of social sensivity and organization. Activity areas of NGOs in Turkey have expanded in the Republican era and their number increased in 2000s. Today, with the support of virtual communication opportunities NGOs on cultural heritage and conservation have become widely known and thus strengthened the relations between central and local authorities and public. On the other hand, local authorities are institutions that fulfill the needs and demands of public with a crew that is employed by election. Projects on protection of cultural heritage are also among their realm of authority. It is obvious that NGOs that oversee the benefits of general public and local authorities that are obliged to serve general public should be in mutual relations in accordance with their interests and realms of authority. It is important that they form firm bonds in the area of conservation of cultural heritage. For NGOs and local authorities to be in cooperation in this area will help the consciousness of conservation to spread from local to national scale and turn into action. This study first of all examines the roles and activity areas of NGOs and local authorities in Turkey, on conservation of cultural heritage. To understand the quality and efficiency of their relations with each other, questionnaires had been applied to chosen NGOs and local authorities. Also by examining conservation projects that both NGOs and local authorities took part cooperatively, reflections on applications are studied. After that the results are evaluated that are taken from the analyses of the questionnaire and examining of sample projects. By evaluating the results, it is aimed to provide data on improving the relations between non-governmental organizations and local authorities on area of conservation of cultural heritage in Turkey. Keywords: Cultural Heritage, Conservation, Public Awareness, Non-Governmental Organizations, Local Authorities


The task of optimizing engineering and configuration management solutions to take into account commercial, technical and legal risk management requirements is not simple, particularly when the assets operate near or past their anticipated design life. Only by identifying the risk profiles associated with each hazard scenario over the lifetime of the installation will the analysis and resultant strategies be meaningful. Electric shock safety criteria and earthing system design methods should provide a level of safety that appropriately reflects the probability of a hazard occurring within the operating environment. This paper provides a risk management framework for the process of hazard identification and modelling the probability of death for a range of hazards associated with the electrical power network. The use of Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) techniques demonstrate that the level of risk associated with power system installations under earth fault conditions is at times unacceptable, although some situations are revealed where compliance with standard safety criteria is overly conservative.


This conceptual paper examines the implementations of some of the innovations in governance strategies and its impact in Malaysia. Innovations of governance strategies are divided into technological and non-technological. The technological innovations focused on the implementation of e-government in Malaysia, whilst non-technological innovations are Look East Policy (LEP), reducing bureaucratic red tape and counter service innovations. Factors that determined the success or failure of these implementations are discussed by analysing the current situation from the time the strategy has been implemented.


Germline pathogenic mutations in DNA repair genes have been linked to prostate cancer risk and aggressiveness. This observation was facilitated by tumor sequencing of men with advanced prostate cancer and has important implications for clinical management. In addition, cascade testing will identify at-risk individuals who should be assessed for cancer risk.


The principal objective of the present study is to develop suitable models to predict aromaticity of coals on the basis of atomic ratios of the H/C, O/C, O/H, and weight percentage volatile matter (V.M.) in coals. Based on dry mineral matter free (dmmf) basis, aromaticity (fa) of coal is computed through the following expressions: \eqalignno{{\rm fa}_1&= 1.202913 - 0.0126^{\ast} {\rm V.M}.,&(2)\cr{\rm fa}_2&= 1.36396 - 0.53715^{\ast} {\rm O}/{\rm C} - 0.7846^{\ast} {\rm H}/{\rm C},&(3)\cr{\rm fa}_3&= 1.365615 - 0.51187^{\ast} {\rm O}/{\rm C} - 0.02108^{\ast} {\rm O}/{\rm H} - 0.78645^{\ast} {\rm H}/{\rm C},&(4)\cr{\rm fa}_4&= 174.4405 + 621.6823^{\ast} {\rm O}/{\rm C} - 856.495^{\ast} {\rm O}/{\rm H} - 629.617^{\ast} {\rm H}/{\rm C}&(5) \cr& \quad+ 9.133897^{\ast} {\rm V.M}.} The absolute average % error of estimate and correlation coefficients of the developed models (Equations (2), (3), (4), and (5)) were found to be 7.48,0.91; 6.23, 0.92; 6.24, 0.92; and 6.23, 0.92 on (dmmf) basis, respectively.


Background: In Forensic practice and research, the Gustafson technique is the most popular dental age estimation method that uses six variables, among which Root Dentin Translucency (RDT) is considered to be the best single parameter for dental age estimation as it is the least affected by environmental and pathological factors. Dental age estimation by RDT has been tested on different geographic groups in order to determine its applicability and it has been found that there was an under/overestimation of the age of the subjects in different populations. No systematic review of these studies has yet been published to check the reliability and accuracy of this novel method in estimating chronological age. Objective : To assess the accuracy and reliability of RDT-based dental age estimation in different academic and forensic scenarios by qualitatively summarising the results of RDT-based dental age estimation studies in diverse population samples.


Equity crowdfunding represents a relatively novel way of alternative funding for entrepreneurial initiatives. The presented paper aims at providing evidence that crowdfunding had developed into an acknowledged, sustainable adequate means of funding and its suitability for investments in commercial real estate projects. For this reason we provide (i) an overview of risks associated with equity crowdfunding from the viewpoint of entrepreneurs, of investors and of platforms, (ii) a selection of equity crowdfunding applications and its industry sectors, (iii) evidence from literature that equity crowdfunding is an acknowledged approach in research which is elaborated on in various scientific disciplines, (iv) an analysis of success factors for crowdfunding campaigns on basis of nine empirical studies, and (v) a detailed discussion of advantages and disadvantages from an investor's viewpoint based on a SWOT analysis.


Objectives: This study examined the characteristics and nutritional risk of the elderly who receive home delivery services. We then analyzed the effects of the characteristics of the elderly who receive the home-delivery meal service on their nutritional risk. Methods: A total of 220 respondents who receive home-delivery meal service in Seoul participated in the survey. The survey consisted of the characteristics of the elderly (health status, tooth condition, physical activity, social participation activity, depression and relationship with neighbors), nutritional risk assessment and other general matters. The data was analyzed by using the SPSS program. Cross-tabulation analysis, t-test, correlation analysis and regression analysis were all conducted. Results: 47.0% of the subjects were under 80 years old and 53.0% were over 80 years old, The nutritional risk score, as evaluated by a Nutrition Screening Initiative (NSI) checklist was 10.7 points, and the high nutrition risk group was 91.5% of the subjects. The subjective self-health status score was 2.24 points (out of a total of 5 points) and the tooth status score was 3.30 points. The physical activity level was 2.17 points for the under 80 years old group and 1.76 points for the over 80 years old, and there was a significant difference according to age (p<0.01), The higher the health status, tooth condition, physical activity and social participation activity level, the lower was the nutritional risk. Further, the higher the degree of depression, the higher was the nutritional risk. Conclusions: For the healthy life of the elderly in the community, various welfare policies should be planned to increase social participation as well as to promote physical health and reduce depression.


We study the a(0) and sigma mesons with the overlap fermion in the chiral regime with the pion mass as low as 182 MeV in the quenched approximation. After the eta(')pi ghost states are separated, we find the a(0) mass with the q (q) over bar interpolation field to be almost independent of the quark mass in the region below the strange quark mass. The chirally extrapolated results are consistent with a(0)(1450) being the u (d) over bar meson and K(0)(*)(1430) being the u (s) over bar meson with calculated masses at 1.42 +/- 0.13 GeV and 1.41 +/- 0.12 GeV, respectively. We also calculate the scalar mesonium with a tetraquark interpolation field. In addition to the two-pion scattering states, we find a state at similar to 550 MeV. Through the study of volume dependence, we confirm that this state is a one-particle state, in contrast to the two-pion scattering states. This suggests that the observed state is a tetraquark mesonium which is quite possibly the sigma(600) meson.


We comment on a recent letter by Amini et al. (EPL 87, 37002 (2009)) concerning the existence of a mobility edge in disordered graphene.


This chapter explores what is involved in being a doctor. It includes details of the Foundation Programme and how to apply, the curriculum and assessment, healthcare in the UK, starting life as an F1, what to do before you start, your first day, occupational health, what to carry, organization and efficiency, patient-centred care, communication and conduct, breaking bad news, cross-cultural communication, outside agencies, quality and ethics, clinical governance/quality, medical ethics, patient confidentiality, capacity, consent, what to do when things go wrong, medical errors, complaints, incident reporting, colleagues and problems, hating your job, relaxation, causes of stress, pay and contracts, making more money, debt, NHS entitlements, career, specialty training applications, options, and competition, career structure, choosing a job, specialties in medicine, your curriculum vitae, post-Foundation Programme CV, interviews, membership exams, continuing your education, audit, presentations and teaching, teaching medical students, and research and academia.


From the Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, Clifton, Bristol, UK; yLiverpool Clinical Trials Centre (LCTC), University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK; zFaculty of Medicine, Cancer Sciences Unit, University of Southampton, Somers Cancer Research Building, University Hospital Southampton, Southampton, UK; §Department of Plastic Surgery, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, Coventry, UK; Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham, UK; jjBreast Unit, Worcester Royal Hospital, Worcester, UK; Nightingale Breast Unit, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, UK; yyLinda McCartney Centre, Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospital, Liverpool, UK; and zzBristol Breast Care Centre, North Bristol NHS Trust, Bristol, UK. firstname.lastname@example.com. Members of the iBRA Steering Group and Breast Reconstruction Research Collaborative are PUBMED citable collaborators on this study and are listed at the end of the manuscript. Authors' contributions: SP, CH, ST, JS, NB, RIC, and LW conceived the study; SP, NT, and ES planned the analysis; NT and EJC supported ES in undertaking the analysis; all authors contributed to data interpretation. ES and SP wrote the first draft of the manuscript. SP is the guarantor. All authors reviewed and critically revised the manuscript and approved it before submission. The authors had full access to the data contained in this manuscript. Authorship statement: This manuscript has 10 authors and is submitted on behalf of a research collaborative group. This is a large multicentre project which recruited patients from 81 breast and plastic surgical units across the UK. All named authors contributed to the design of the study; optimized participation and recruitment; were involved in data analysis and have critically revised the manuscript for publication. The group is multidisciplinary including statisticians and methodologists and breast and plastic surgeons. All authors meet the required criteria for authorship This work was funded by an NIHR Research for Patient Benefit Grant (PB-PG0214-33065), pump-priming funding from the Association of Breast Surgery (ABS) and the British Association of Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons and a Research Development Award from ABS (2019) and supported by the MRC ConDuCT-II (Collaboration and innovation for Difficult and Complex randomized controlled Trials In Invasive procedures) Hub for Trials Methodology Research (MR/K025643/1) and the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Bristol. Shelley Potter is an NIHR Clinician Scientist (CS-2016-16019). The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the National Institute for Health Research or the Department of Health and Social Care. The funders had no role in the design, conduct or decision to publish the study. No sponsor was required for this study as it was undertaken as a service evaluation. The authors report no conflicts of interest. Supplemental digital content is available for this article. Direct URL citations appear in the printed text and are provided in the HTML and PDF versions of this article on the journal's Web site (www.annalsofsurgery.com). Copyright 2020 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN: 0003-4932/16/XXXX-0001 DOI: 10.1097/SLA.0000000000004245


Aortitis, which is well described in patients with other spondyloarthritides, has been rarely cited in relation to psoriatic arthropathy (PsA). Two patients with known PsA, who developed aortitis, are reported herein. The PubMed database was searched using the following keywords: aortitis, Takaysu arteritis, PsA, ankylosing spondylitis, reactive arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease. The relevant articles were critically reviewed and pertinent data organized. Analysis of 5 cases of aortitis in patients with PsA, including the 2 cases reported herein, revealed no specific pattern of PsA joint involvement in the patients who developed aortitis. All aortic segments can be involved and complications, such as insufficiency of the aortic valve and stenosis of the major aortic branches, have been described. The genetic association involving the IL12B locus may be involved in the clinical association of aortitis and spondyloarthritis.


The principle of public interest review has been established by the newly amendment to China's antidumping legislation. It is necessary for applying such principle rightly to understand the purposes of public interest review correctly. After making an analysis, the authors think that the public interest review has three main purposes. The first is to strengthen the legislative control of antidumping. The second is to provide a mechanism to harmonize the conflicting interests. The third is to strengthen the reasonable acceptability of antidumping legislation.


Abstract: An AI fitness trainer is a computer application that utilizes the capabilities of Python, OpenCV, and MediaPipe to guide users through physical fitness routines. The application uses computer vision techniques provided by OpenCV to track the user's movements and provide feedback on form and technique. MediaPipe is used to process the video data and provide realtime analysis. The application also utilizes machine learning algorithms to provide personalized fitness recommendations and progress tracking. The combination of these technologies provides a highly interactive and effective way for users to improve their physical fitness


T HE FACT THAT INSTABILITY in the export markets of underdeveloped countries poses grave economic and social problems for these countries is now widely recognized. Each primary producing country can do little, individually, to influence its export and import prices expressed in foreign currencies. However, it is generally maintained that each country can adopt domestic contracyclical monetary and fiscal policies to insulate, to a large extent, its economy from the adverse effects of such instability. In view of the importance of government transactions in the total economic activity of most underdeveloped countries, and because of the lack of well-organized and integrated monetary systems, the responsibility for formulating and implementing public contracyclical policies will rest primarily on the fiscal authorities. The problems and limitations of monetary policy in underdeveloped countries have been discussed widely, but little attention has been given to the difficulties which are likely to arise in the application of contracyclical fiscal policy. The objective of this paper is to analyze the role of such policy in underdeveloped export economies, and to use the budgetary experience of Ceylon in the period from 1948 to 1957 to illustrate some of the difficulties which may be encountered in its adoption and operation.


This paper presents a new `voltage differencing' active building block called voltage differencing differential difference amplifier (VDDDA). The usefulness of the introduced device is demonstrated on novel resistorless voltage-mode first-order all-pass filter and voltage-mode quadrature oscillator design. The pole frequency of the filter can be easily controlled by means of internal transconductance and it provides both high-input and low-output impedances, which is important for cascading. In the oscillator the condition of oscillation and frequency of oscillation can be tuned independently. The theoretical results are verified by SPICE simulations using TSMC 0.18 μm level-7 SCN018 CMOS process parameters with ±0.9 V supply voltages.


Council The 20th session of the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organization was held in Rome from September 27 through October 8, 1954, under the chairmanship of Mr. G. Ugo Papi (Italy). The Council considered various aspects of the world food situation and heard an oral report by the Director-General (Cardon) on the 1953–1954 crop year and prospects for 1954–1955. Mr. Cardon reported that, while agricultural production in the world as a whole had increased at a pace faster than the rate of population increase, the increase had been uneven, both in terms of geographical distribution and in terms of crops and commodities produced. The situation had now been reached, Mr. Cardon observed, where the need to expand agriculture existed in one part of the world while serious surpluses existed elsewhere. Another disturbing feature, Mr. Cardon noted, was that the somewhat eased problem of surpluses of some commodities had resulted from decreased production rather than increased consumption. The over-all stability of the price of agricultural products had been a striking feature of the past year, Mr. Cardon added, resulting mainly from the fact that the main surplus stocks were under government control and had not been unloaded in an uncoordinated way on the world market. One serious problem which Mr. Cardon pointed out was that, while the wholesale price had followed the international price closely, retail prices had been rigid. Mr. Cardon emphasized that in order for the benefits of programs for agricultural efficiency to be realized, marketing and processing would also have to be rationalized.


Kamiyama et al. (1) recently reported a case of a 79-year-old woman with a history of a Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) on her right cheek who underwent wide excision followed by adjuvant chemoradiation, and remained disease-free for 10 years, before presenting with a MCC on the left cheek. The tumour type was confirmed via histology and immunostaining, and both tumours were positive for Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV) DNA by real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) as well as immunostaining for the MCPyV large T antigen. The authors state that the two MCCs represent distinct primary tumours, and that their report is the first case of two primary MCCs of the skin with documented MCPyV infection. They reject the possibility that the second tumour could be a metastasis, based on the facts that: (


The application of ultrasonic assisted sol-gel method at various % amplitude ultrasonic energy (AS) and reaction time of 4080% and 1-4 hrs, respectively for preparation of nano-TiO2 crystals was carried out. Synthesized nano-TiO2 was characterized for its structure, particle size, morphology, adsorption energy, and functional groups using X-ray diffraction (XRD), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), ultraviolet-visible (UV-VIS) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrophotometries. A best nano-TiO2 crystal (6.8 nm), was observed at 40% AS for 1 hr showed the highest methylene blue degradation yield of 80%.


Provided are a method for breaking a nucleic acid and adding an adaptor by means of a transposase, and a reagent. The method comprises the following steps: conducting random breaking of a nucleic acid by using a transposase-embedded complex, wherein the transposase-embedded complex comprises a transposase and a first adaptor comprising a transposase identification sequence, and two ends of the broken nucleic acid are separately connected to the first adaptor and are separately provided with a gap; by means of purification or chemical reagent treatment, eliminating the influence of the transposase in the system on a follow-up reaction; connecting to a second adaptor at the gap by using a ligase, wherein a sequence of the second adaptor is different from a sequence of the first adaptor; and conducting a PCR reaction by using primers targeted to and combined with the first adaptor and the second adaptor respectively, so as to obtain a product whose two ends are respectively connected to different adaptor sequences.


A priori inequalities are derived which can be used to compute norm error bounds of approximate solutions to a boundary value problem which arises in the study of diffusion of "imprisoned" resonant radiation from a gas.


black goats were chosen and divided into three groups at random.Under the totally grazed condition,the control group was given no other feed whereas treatment group one and treatment group two were supplied with corn meal by 100 gram per day per animal and feeding brick of compound urea nutrient respectively.After 70 days' treatment,daily gain in group two was 55.17% higher than in the control(P0 05) and 23.29% higher than in group one(P0 05);average revenue for each goat in group two was 4.01 yuan(RMB) more than in the control and 2.58 yuan(RMB) more than in group one, thus distinct economic effect being achieved.


In order to overcome large impedance discontinuities and crosstalk issues observed in the low-cost QFP, a new design scheme called inductive return path co-planar waveguide is proposed, which distributed circuit structure works a passive impedance equalizer at the same time reduces crosstalk necessary to achieve over-10Gbps signal transmission. The proposed design scheme has been applied to an exposed die-pad type TQFP, which has achieved successful 12.8Gbps differential signal transmission. Because this distributed circuit design needs only a small layout space, it is suitable to achieving compact and low-cost consumer device packaging. Additionally this design scheme is applicable not to only the TQFP but also to normal QFP.


Ascites requiring paracentesis is a relatively common emergency department presentation. The incidence of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) in asymptomatic outpatients undergoing large-volume paracentesis is relatively low (2.5%) compared with the incidence in inpatient populations (12% to 18%). In a prospective observational study, researchers evaluated …


The tetra-isopropyl ethers of calix[4]arene and p-t-butylcalix[4]arene have been isolated in the cone conformation, and structurally characterised as chloroform solvates. Thermogravimetric analysis demonstrated that the parent isopropylcalix[4]arene solvate is significantly more stable than the p-t-butylcalix[4]arene analogue, retaining the solvent up to a temperature of 125°C. It was found that the calix[4]arene ether sublimes at atmospheric pressure, and solvent-free crystals appropriate for structure determination were produced at reduced pressure. The p-t-butylcalix[4]arene ether was also isolated without solvent in the lattice, but in this case the calixarene was crystallised from acetone, as sublimation did not produce crystals of sufficient quality.


Neuro-Ophthalmic Literature Review Carmen K. M. Chan, Evan Price, John H. Pula, Michael Vaphiades, An-Guor Wang, Sui Wong CLINICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PARAINFECTIOUS OPTIC NEURITIS IN CHILDREN AND ADULTS Rappoport D, Goldenberg-Cohen N, Luckman J, Leiba H. Parainfectious optic neuritis: manifestations in children vs adults. J Neuroophthalmol 2014;34:122–129. In this retrospective case series, the authors described the clinical features of 18 patients with parainfectious optic neuritis who presented to two neuro-ophthalmology practices in Israel between 2005 and 2012. In this study, parainfectious optic neuritis was defined as acute optic neuritis within 1 month after an infectious disease. Patients with multiple sclerosis and other causes of optic neuropathy were excluded. Of the 18 patients, 10 were children (mean age 12.7 years, 50% bilateral) and 8 adults (mean age 31 years, 38% bilateral). The male:female ratios in both groups were 1:1. All the patients had disc swelling. The most common pathogen for the preceding infection was Mycoplasma pneumoniae in the paediatric group, whereas no organism predominated in the adult group. Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis was diagnosed in 4/10 children but none in adults. The final visual outcome was good (20/30 or better) in all patients and was not affected by whether the patient was treated with corticosteroids or not. None of the patients had a recurrence within the follow-up period. This study demonstrated that the clinical course of parainfectious optic neuritis is quite different from that of demyelinating optic neuritis. Carmen Chan CHILDREN WITH OCULAR TICS—WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM IN THE LONG TERM? Bisker ER, McClelland CM, Brown LW, Liu GT. The long-term outcomes of ocular tics in a pediatric neuroophthalmology practice. J AAPOS 2014;18:31–35. Tics are involuntary, rapid, repetitive, purposeless, and stereotyped intermittent muscle movements or vocalizations. They are not associated with alterations in consciousness and can partially be suppressed voluntarily. Although transient tic disorder has been described in up to 3% of school-aged children, the symptoms can still be alarming for the parents. Therefore, it would be very helpful to let them know the long-term clinical outcome of these children. In this retrospective case series, the authors described the clinical features of 43 children (63% boys) who presented to a paediatric neuro-ophthalmology practice with idiopathic ocular tics, and provided follow-up information for 32 of them (mean follow-up period 6.1 years). The mean age of presentation was 7.8 years, and the most common ocular tics were eye blinking and eye rolling. Amongst the group with follow-up information, 14/32 (44%) had persistent ocular tics during the follow-up period, 10 of which had improvement. Out of the 32 patients, 1 was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome and 3 diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactive disorder; all