A government job is what most job seekers look for in Pakistan. With a feudal background and job culture inherited from British India, government jobs are believed to provide security, permanency, status and privileged treatment in day to day affairs. But where entering into government jobs is attractive, working in a government atmosphere is often found to be boring, monotonous, and devoid of enthusiasm. Attending office is a matter of killing time. One comes late and leaves early. There is no incentive to work hard, as promotions and benefits depend on seniority not on performance. Coercion seems to be the only management technique, which at times fails or fires back if the manager is not very tactful. Management theories and motivational concepts are foreign names in government departments. Without including the motivational aspects of good governance it would be futile to try to improve performance.


Abstract Objective This study aims to compare the effects of early and late (routine) initiation of caffeine in nonintubated preterm neonates. Study Design A total of 21 neonates < 29 weeks gestational age were randomized to receive intravenous caffeine citrate (20 mg/kg) or placebo either before 2 hours of age (early) or at 12 hours of age (routine). This was an observational trial to determine the power needed to reduce the need for endotracheal intubation by 12 hours of age. Other outcomes included comparisons of cerebral oxygenation, systemic and pulmonary blood flow, hemodynamics, hypotension treatment, oxygen requirement, and head ultrasound findings. Results There was no difference in the need for intubation (p = 0.08), or vasopressors (p = 0.21) by 12 hours of age. Early caffeine was associated with improved blood pressure (p = 0.03) and systemic blood flow (superior vena cava flow, p = 0.04 and right ventricular output, p = 0.03). Heart rate, left ventricular output, and stroke volume were not significantly affected. Cerebral oxygenation transiently decreased 1 hour after caffeine administration. There were no differences in other outcomes. Conclusion This pilot study demonstrated the feasibility of conducting such a trial in extremely preterm neonates. We found that early caffeine administration was associated with improved hemodynamics. Larger studies are needed to determine whether early caffeine reduces intubation, intraventricular hemorrhage, and related long-term outcomes.


The prevalence of Listeria spp. in the skins of poultry legs (drumsticks), wings, and whole livers, representing 160 packages, three national brands, and purchased from three supermarkets in Davis, California was investigated first. Overall, Listeria spp., L. monocytogenes , L. innocua , and L. welshimeri were present in 40.6, 13.1, 26.3, and 1.3% of the chicken parts. For L. monocytogenes spp. the overall prevalence in the skins of wings, drumsticks, and livers was 10, 15, and 14% and varied extensively with sampling day. Next, we evaluated the presence of Listeria spp. in 12 locations and products collected from a slaughterhouse during four visits. A total of 188 samples were analyzed. No Listeria spp. were isolated from feathers (5 g composite sample from 10 birds), scalding tank water overflow (25 ml), chiller incoming water (25 ml), neck skin (5-9 g), whole liver after chilling, and cecum and large intestine content (1 g) samples. Listeria spp. were present in 18.8% of feather picker drip water (25 ml), 12.5% of chiller water overflow (25 ml), 37.5% of recycling water for cleaning gutters (25 ml), 25% of hearts, and 31.3% of mechanically deboned meat samples (25 g). The prevalence of L. monocytogenes in packaged livers and skins of drumsticks and wings at the end of the processing line was 33.3, 36.7, and 70.0%, respectively. After 4 d storage of the same packages at 4°C, L. monocytogenes was recovered from 40, 52, and 72% of the respective products. The prevalence of L. monocytogenes on the hands and gloves of the persons hanging birds after chilling, cutting carcasses, and packaging parts was 20, 45.5, and 59%. respectively. Overall, the study demonstrated the high prevalence of Listeria spp. and L. monocytogenes in poultry products and, that through certain improvements and innovations at the slaughterhouse level, contamination with Listeria can be minimized.


This paper explores the emergence of self-conscious Muslim identities a decade after 9/11 within a generally inclusive Scottish context. Qualitative fieldwork conducted among Muslims in Edinburgh between 2011 and 2013 suggests that Islam has come to the foreground of Muslims' multiple identities as a force that unites an ethno-culturally diverse community in a historical moment of perceived threat and exclusion. Muslims challenge the global post-9/11 negative climate and find in Islam a powerful tool of individual and collective survival. The global stigmatization of Muslimness has local ramifications in, but is not a specific function of, Scotland. Instead, Scotland generally appears to be a place of relative tolerance in which proudly Scottish Muslims can express their Muslimness with a certain degree of freedom. Scotland promotes a uniquely Scottish experience to be Muslim and acts as a conduit for positive, rediscovered religious experiences.


Employing additional prior knowledge to model local features as a final fine-grained object representation has become a trend for fine-grained object retrieval (FGOR). A potential limitation of these methods is that they only focus on common parts across the dataset (e.g. head, body or even leg) by introducing additional prior knowledge, but the retrieval of a fine-grained object may rely on category-specific nuances that contribute to category prediction. To handle this limitation, we propose an end-to-end Category-specific Nuance Exploration Network (CNENet) that elaborately discovers category-specific nuances that contribute to category prediction, and semantically aligns these nuances grouped by subcategory without any additional prior knowledge, to directly emphasize the discrepancy among subcategories. Specifically, we design a Nuance Modelling Module that adaptively predicts a group of category-specific response (CARE) maps via implicitly digging into category-specific nuances, specifying the locations and scales for category-specific nuances. Upon this, two nuance regularizations are proposed: 1) semantic discrete loss that forces each CARE map to attend to different spatial regions to capture diverse nuances; 2) semantic alignment loss that constructs a consistent semantic correspondence for each CARE map of the same order with the same subcategory via guaranteeing each instance and its transformed counterpart to be spatially aligned. Moreover, we propose a Nuance Expansion Module, which exploits context appearance information of discovered nuances and refines the prediction of current nuance by its similar neighbors, leading to further improvement on nuance consistency and completeness. Extensive experiments validate that our CNENet consistently yields the best performance under the same settings against most competitive approaches on CUB Birds, Stanford Cars, and FGVC Aircraft datasets.


Jet engines with boundary layer ingestion (BLI) could offer significant reductions in aircraft fuel burn compared with podded turbofans. However, the engine fans must run continuously with severe inlet distortion, which is known to reduce stability. In this paper, an experimental study has been completed on a low-speed rig fan operating with a BLI-type inlet distortion. Unsteady casing static pressure measurements have been made at multiple locations during stall events. Steady-state, full-annulus area traverses have also been performed at rotor inlet and exit at a near-stall operating point. The reduction in stability caused by BLI is found to be small. It is found that with BLI the fan can operate stably despite the presence of localized regions where the rotor operating point lies beyond the stability boundary measured in clean flow. With the BLI-type distortion applied, the measured rotor incidence varies around the annulus due to nonuniform upstream velocity and swirl. The measured amplitude of unsteady casing pressure fluctuations just prior to stall is found to correlate with the circumferential variation of rotor incidence, suggesting that rotor incidence is a key variable affecting the creation and growth of flow disturbances. In regions of high incidence, disturbances resembling local flow separations are initiated. However, in regions of low or negative incidence, any disturbances decay rapidly. Full rotating stall with BLI occurs when high incidence regions are widespread enough to sustain disturbances which can propagate around the entire annulus.


OBJECTIVE
To describe racial and ethnic disparities in the incidence of severe maternal morbidity during delivery hospitalizations in the United States.

METHODS
We conducted a pooled, cross-sectional analysis of 2012-2015 data from the National Inpatient Sample to define the prevalence of chronic conditions and incidence of severe maternal morbidity among deliveries to non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander, and Native American or Alaska Native women. We used weighted multivariable logistic regression and predictive margins to generate prevalence and incidence estimates. Adjusted rate ratios and differences were calculated to quantify disparities across racial and ethnic categories. Subgroup analyses were performed to examine the incidence of severe maternal morbidity among deliveries to women with comorbid physical health conditions, behavioral health conditions, and multiple chronic conditions within each racial and ethnic category.

RESULTS
The incidence of severe maternal morbidity was significantly higher among deliveries to women in every racial and ethnic minority category compared with deliveries among non-Hispanic white women. Severe maternal morbidity occurred in 231.1 (95% CI 223.6-238.5) and 139.2 (95% CI 136.4-142.0) per 10,000 delivery hospitalizations among non-Hispanic black and non-Hispanic white women, respectively (P<.001). When excluding cases in which blood transfusion was the only indicator of severe maternal morbidity, only deliveries to non-Hispanic black women had a higher incidence of severe maternal morbidity compared with deliveries among non-Hispanic white women: 50.2 (95% CI 47.6-52.9) and 40.9 (95% CI 39.6-42.3) per 10,000 delivery hospitalizations, respectively (risk ratio 1.2 [95% CI 1.2-1.3], risk difference 9.3 [95% CI 6.5-12.2] per 10,000 delivery hospitalizations; P<.001 for each comparison). Among deliveries to women with comorbid physical and behavioral health conditions, significant differences in severe maternal morbidity were identified among racial and ethnic minority compared with non-Hispanic white women and the largest disparities were identified among women with multiple chronic conditions.

CONCLUSION
Programs for reducing racial and ethnic disparities in severe maternal morbidity may have the greatest effect focusing on women at highest risk for blood transfusion and maternity care management for women with comorbid chronic conditions, particularly multiple chronic conditions.


This study assessed the fish community structures and influences of water quality on fish occurrences in Pahang and Tembeling rivers, Pahang. Fish samplings and water quality measurements were conducted in Kuala Mai, Pahang River and Ulu Tembeling, Tembeling River from 12 and eight different sampling points, from October 2007 to September 2008, and August 2006 to August 2007, respectively. The fish diversity, richness and evenness indices were determined, while the water quality parameters were compared for both rivers. Multivariate analyses were then used to explore the effects of water physicochemical parameters on the fish occurrences. A total of 2,391 individuals were collected from this study, comprising of 20 families and 65 species of fish. Using the gill nets, cast nets and fishing rods, a total of 55 fish species from 17 families were recorded in Kuala Mai, Pahang River, compared to 47 species from 15 families in Ulu Tembeling, Tembeling River. There were significant differences (p < 0.05) for fish diversity (H and 1-D), but not for fish evenness (e) and richness (D) between both rivers. The mean water temperature, ammonia nitrogen and total suspended solids were significantly different (p < 0.05) in both rivers. Apart from the influences of pH, alkalinity and phosphate in both rivers, the results showed that the temperature, dissolved oxygen and conductivity were the major influencers on the fish occurrences in Nur Farhanim Mohd Sukeri, Zulkafli Abd. Rashid, Abdulwakil Olawale Saba, Muhammad Rasul Abdullah Halim and Mohammad Noor Azmai Amal 164 Pertanika J. Trop. Agric. Sc. 43 (2): 163 182 (2020) Kuala Mai, Pahang River, while ammonia nitrogen and total suspended solids in Ulu Tembeling, Tembeling River. Fish conservation and stock management efforts are urgently needed due to the decreasing number of near-threatened, endangered and critically endangered fish species in both rivers.


Background:Postoperative cognitive dysfunction is common, but it remains unclear whether there are long-term adverse cognitive effects of surgery combined with anesthesia. The authors examined the association between exposure to surgery and level of cognitive functioning in a sample of 8,503 middle-aged and elderly twins. Methods:Results from five cognitive tests were compared in twins exposed to surgery, classified as major, minor, hip and knee replacement, or other, with those of a reference group without surgery using linear regression adjusted for sex and age. Genetic and shared environmental confounding was addressed in intrapair analyses of 87 monozygotic and 124 dizygotic same-sexed twin pairs in whom one had a history of major surgery and the other did not. Results:Statistically significantly lower composite cognitive score was found in twins with at least one major surgery compared with the reference group (mean difference, −0.27; 95% CI, −0.48 to −0.06), corresponding to one tenth of an SD, that is, a negligible effect size. In the intrapair analysis, the surgery-exposed co-twin had the lower cognitive score in 49% (95% CI, 42 to 56%) of the pairs. None of the other groups differed from the reference group except the knee and hip replacement group that tended to have higher cognitive scores (mean difference, 0.35; 95% CI, −0.18 to 0.87). Conclusions:A history of major surgery was associated with a negligibly lower level of cognitive functioning. The supplementary analyses suggest that preoperative cognitive functioning and underlying diseases were more important for cognitive functioning in mid- and late life than surgery and anesthesia.


Melanoma is the most common cause of skin cancer deaths, and individuals who have had melanoma have an increased risk of developing new melanomas. Doing regular self-examinations of skin enables one to detect thinner melanomas earlier when the disease is more treatable. The aim of this systematic review is to characterize and evaluate the existing literature on the prevalence and correlates of skin self-examination (SSE) behaviors among adult melanoma survivors in the USA and Canada. A computerized literature search was performed using PubMed, Google Scholar, and ScienceDirect. The inclusion criteria for the studies were: (a) reported results for adult melanoma survivors in the USA or Canada, (b) papers described empirical research, (c) assessed SSE and related behaviors, and (d) papers were published in a peer-reviewed journal in the past 20 years. Key phrases such as "skin self-examination/SSE in melanoma survivors in the United States" and "correlates of skin self-examination/SSE" were used. Based on the inclusion criteria, 30 studies were included in the systematic review. SSE prevalence varied depending on how SSE was defined. Demographics and factors (gender, education level, patient characteristics, partner assistance, and physician support) associated with SSE were identified. Findings of this review show evidence for the need to have a consistent way to assess SSE and suggest different types of correlates on which to focus in order to promote SSE and reduce the risk of melanoma recurrence in survivors. This systematic review and its protocol have been registered in the international database of prospectively registered systematic reviews in health and social care (PROSPERO; ID: 148878).


In contrast to abundant theoretical literature, there are almost no empirical studies on how individuals actually deal with cash. In this paper we analyze euro transactions, made during various games of Monopoly® (European edition), where in some games we deliberately left out one of the notes. We find that not having access to 100-euro or 10-euo notes is not as problematic for payment behavior as it is for not having 200-euro and 20-euro notes. We also find that the 50-euro note plays a crucial role in actual payments.


This paper presents a systematic solution to efficiently estimate the traffic state of large-scale urban road networks. We first propose the new approach to construct the exact GIS-T digital map. The exact digital map can lay the solid foundation for the traffic state estimation with the data from Global Positioning System (GPS) probe vehicles. Then, we present the following two effective methods based on GPS probe vehicles for the traffic state estimation: (1) the curve-fitting-based method and (2) the vehicle-tracking-based method. Finally, we test the proposed solution with a large number of real data from GPS probe vehicles and the standard digital map of Shanghai, China. In the experiments, data from thousands of GPS-equipped taxies were taken as the probe vehicles. The estimation accuracy and operation speed of the two different methods were systematically measured and compared. In addition, the coverages of the GPS sampling points were also investigated for the large-scale urban road network in the spatial and temporal domains. For the accuracy experiment, the ground truth was obtained by repeating the videos that were recorded on 24 road sections in downtown Shanghai. The experimental results illustrate that the proposed methods are effective and efficient in monitoring the traffic state of large-scale urban road networks.


Introduction: There is a generalized impairment of mind–body functioning due to old age, resulting in disintegration, leading to diseases, and yoga is a boon to the elderly as it has preventive, curative, as well as rehabilitative potential. Reaction time (RT) is a simple, noninvasive index of processing ability of the central nervous system. Aim: This study planned to investigate changes in auditory RT (ART) and visual RT (VRT), respectively, before and after 12 weeks of yoga training in elderly woman inmates of a hospice in Puducherry. Subjects and Methods: Forty woman inmates were randomized to two groups of twenty each. Group A (yoga group) received training in integrated Silver Yoga program, while Group B (wait-listed control group) did not. ART and VRT were measured before and after study period using RT apparatus. Data passed normality testing, and parametric statistical methods were applied for intra and inter-group comparisons using Student's paired and unpaired t-test, respectively. A p < 0.05 was considered to indicate significance. Results: Baseline values were comparable between both groups. Intra-group comparison of pre-post data showed statistically significant (p < 0.001) differences in Group A, for both ART and VRT. Actual p values have been given for unpaired t-test and the intergroup comparison of ART and VRT showed significant differences (p = 0.001 and p = 0.018, respectively). Discussion: The influence of yoga in the reduction of ART and VRT in elderly females is evident as has been reported in earlier studies and may be attributed to enhanced central processing ability resulting from improved alertness and awareness. Significant shortening in ART and VRT signifies faster reactivity and enhanced sensory motor function in the elderly. Limitations: It is limited by smaller sample size and single center. Further multi-centric studies with larger populations can deepen understanding. Conclusion: Yoga training can enhance RT in senior citizens, increasing their agility and alertness, which is dulled with aging. Results of this study give preliminary evidence that incorporation of yoga as part of senior's lifestyle can help in promoting health modifying age-related disorders. We suggest that yoga should be part of health-care facilities for the elderly as it can enhance quality of life and improve overall health status.


Anxiety is common in autism spectrum disorder. Many anxiety symptoms in autism spectrum disorder are consistent with Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.) anxiety disorders (termed "common" anxieties), but others may be qualitatively different, likely relating to autism spectrum disorder traits (herein termed "autism-related" anxieties). To date, few studies have examined both "common" and "autism-related" anxiety experiences in autism spectrum disorder. We explored caregiver-reported Spence Children's Anxiety Scale-Parent version data from a multi-site (United Kingdom, Singapore, and United States) pooled database of 870 6- to 18-year-old participants with autism spectrum disorder, of whom 287 provided at least one written response to the optional open-ended Spence Children's Anxiety Scale-Parent item 39 ("Is there anything else your child is afraid of?"). Responses were thematically coded to explore (a) common and autism-related anxiety presentations and (b) their relationship with young people's characteristics. Nearly half of the responses were autism-related anxieties (mostly sensory, uncommon, or idiosyncratic specific phobias and worries about change and unpredictability). The other half described additional common anxieties not covered in the original measure (mostly social, weather and environmental disasters, and animals). Caregivers of participants who were more severely affected by autism spectrum disorder symptoms reported more autism-related, as compared to common, additional anxieties. Implications for the assessment and understanding of anxiety in autism are discussed.


Background and Objective: Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which is the most common cause of nosocomial infection, has been a major cause of morbidity and mortality around the world. This study was carried out to find out the resistance pattern and staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) typing among MRSA. Materials and Methods: This descriptive work was done on 87 Methicillin resistant taphylococcus aureus isolates which were collected from the patients with infections in a teaching hospital in Kashan, Iran, during the period of 2009. The isolates were tested for antibiotic resistance by the disc-diffusion method, covering 10 antimicrobials. The genotypes of SCCmec subtypes were determined by multiplex PCR. Results: Amomg 87 MRSA isolated tested; the highest resistance was shown against erythromycin, clindamycin, sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim, and tetracycline respectively. By contrast, the highest sensitivity was shown to amikacin. All of the isolates were resistant to Beta-lactams. All of the isolates were resistant to at least three classes of antibiotics, and all of the isolates were sensitive to vancomycin. Three (3.4) MRSA strains were SCCmec type I, 12 (13.8) were type II, 8 (9.2) were type IV-b, 4 (4.6) were type IV-d, and 3 (3.4) were typeV. Overall, 57 (65.5) MRSA strains could not be typed. Conclusion: The rising trend of multi-resistance to antibiotics poses an alarming threat to treatment of MRSA infections. Our findings show that clinical isolates of MRSA in our hospital carrying various kinds of staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) types. SCCmec typse II and IV were the predominant strain of MRSA identified.


Strides in computer technology and the search for deeper, more powerful techniques in signal processing have brought multimodal research to the forefront in recent years. Audio-visual speech processing has become an important part of this research because it holds great potential for overcoming certain problems of traditional audio-only methods. Difficulties, due to background noise and multiple speakers in an application environment, are significantly reduced by the additional information provided by visual features. This paper presents information on a new audio-visual database, a feature study on moving speakers, and on baseline results for the whole speaker group. Although a few databases have been collected in this area, none has emerged as a standard for comparison. Also, efforts to date have often been limited, focusing on cropped video or stationary speakers. This paper seeks to introduce a challenging audio-visual database that is flexible and fairly comprehensive, yet easily available to researchers on one DVD. The Clemson University Audio-Visual Experiments (CUAVE) database is a speaker-independent corpus of both connected and continuous digit strings totaling over 7000 utterances. It contains a wide variety of speakers and is designed to meet several goals discussed in this paper. One of these goals is to allow testing of adverse conditions such as moving talkers and speaker pairs. A feature study of connected digit strings is also discussed. It compares stationary and moving talkers in a speaker-independent grouping. An image-processing-based contour technique, an image transform method, and a deformable template scheme are used in this comparison to obtain visual features. This paper also presents methods and results in an attempt to make these techniques more robust to speaker movement. Finally, initial baseline speaker-independent results are included using all speakers, and conclusions as well as suggested areas of research are given.


Nowadays the great companies use intelligent systems of business generally for company management, supervision of business activities, reporting, planning and supporting activities as well as for optimizing relationships with customers and facilitating management decision making process, because this strategy seeks for providing information analysis and access capabilities, so that abundant data can be provided consistently from different sources. Business intelligence plays significant role in effective management of the organizations, so that it allows individuals at any organizational level to have access to the information, to have interaction and analyze them, to manage the business, to promote efficiency, to discover success factors and to realize organizational operations effectively. In the current research work, Mostazafan Foundation of Islamic Revolution is the statistical population and directors of this organization constitute the statistical sample in this work. Current work aims at investigating business intelligence at this organization level and answering following question: how a new combined model using Analytic Network Process (ANP), Decision-MakingTrialand Evaluation Laboratory(Dematel) and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) can be proposed for business intelligence evaluation.


First of all, we are in the era of digital multimedia. Because Images, Videos & Audios are the global information sources now. Intellectual property protection & copyright protection in digital multimedia is the core driving force behind this research area. Also watermark can be some verification or hidden messages. Exceptionally successful watermarking innovations have been executed for images and videos. Though, very few algorithms have been proposed for audio behind audio watermarking. This is because of the way that, the human audio framework is a great deal more unpredictable and touchy than visual framework. In this paper we have designed novel and efficient approach based on hybridization of two existing techniques DCT & DWT. Critical performance evaluation with different attacks & different types of audios has been done to demonstrate superiority & robustness of the technique. Also we have compared it with traditional techniques DCT and DWT.


In 1998, Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand opened to the public. The new national museum is strongly bicultural in terms of its architecture, organization, and management – and in the way it represents history and society in exhibitions. In the past year political developments have seen a decisive shift in public opinion away from tolerance of Maori land claims made on the basis of the Treaty of Waitangi. Given that the museum's founding policies and mission are organized around the authority of the Treaty, Te Papa now finds itself in a challenging position: in what ways do its current permanent exhibitions communicate "biculturalism" – the awkward marriage between Maori and Pakeha – the latter far from universally accepted as a proper noun describing New Zealanders of (mainly British) colonial descent? I explore those exhibitions that explicitly deal with issues of land and territory in order to gauge the extent to which Te Papa can engage with New Zealand's current shift in political mood.


Based on the method of nodal voltage circuit analysis, a complex DC-fed traction power network with multibranched lines has been modelled. The model also incorporates detailed return circuits so that rail potentials can be calculated, a requirement which arises because of safety and stray current considerations. The introduction of branch joints and divided rail cells greatly increases the quantity of circuit nodes and gives rise to a large sparse conductance matrix. After establishing a set of simultaneous linear equations describing the behaviour of the network, consideration is given to the most suitable method of solution to prevent excessive computation times and storage requirements. Sample calculation results for train, substation busbar and branch joint voltages and currents are given, together with rail potential profiles.


Recently, international scholars found two factors that account for partisanship with right-wing populist parties: feelings of economic insecurity and perceived cultural threat. When explaining increasing partisanship with the Alternative fur Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, AfD), the first successful right-wing populist party on the state level in Germany, results remain somewhat unclear, especially when it comes to longitudinal analyses. Based on social psychological explanations of party identification and data from the German Socio-Economic Panel 2014 till 2016, this research problem will be tackled throughout this paper. Descriptive analyses show that party identifications among AfD-partisans as well as among partisans of other established parties in the German Bundestag remain stable throughout the observation period. There is a trend of increasing feelings of cultural threat among partisans of all parties, not only of the AfD. To test both explanatory variables, fixed effects and pooled OLS-regressions were used. Only the cultural threat indicator proves to be a significant predictor for strong identification with the AfD.


We present results from dynamical models of core-collapse supernovae in one spatial dimension, employing a newly developed Boltzmann neutrino radiation transport algorithm, coupled to Newtonian Lagrangian hydrodynamics and a consistent high-density nuclear equation of state. The transport method is multigroup, employs the Feautrier technique, uses the tangent-ray approach to resolve angles, is implicit in time, and is second-order accurate in space. We focus on shock breakout and follow the dynamical evolution of the cores of 11, 15, and 20 M☉ progenitors through collapse and the first 250 ms after bounce. The shock breakout burst is the signal event in core-collapse evolution, is the brightest phenomenon in astrophysics, and is largely responsible for the initial debilitation and stagnation of the bounce shock. As such, its detection and characterization could test fundamental aspects of the current collapse/supernova paradigm. We examine the effects on the emergent neutrino spectra, light curves, and mix of species (particularly in the early postbounce epoch) of artificial opacity changes, the number of energy groups, the weak magnetism/recoil corrections, nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung, neutrino-electron scattering, and the compressibility of nuclear matter. Furthermore, we present the first high-resolution look at the angular distribution of the neutrino radiation field both in the semitransparent regime and at large radii and explore the accuracy with which our tangent-ray method tracks the free propagation of a pulse of radiation in a near vacuum. Finally, we fold the emergent neutrino spectra with the efficiencies and detection processes for a selection of modern underground neutrino observatories and argue that the prompt electron-neutrino breakout burst from the next galactic supernova is in principle observable and usefully diagnostic of fundamental collapse/supernova behavior. Although we are not in this study focusing on the supernova mechanism per se, our simulations support the theoretical conclusion (already reached by others) that spherical (one-dimensional) supernovae do not explode when good physics and transport methods are employed.


Taking into account the negative searches for New Physics at the LHC, electroweak effective theories are appropriate to deal with current energies. Tracks of new, higher scales can be studied through next-to leading order corrections of the electroweak effective theory. We assume a generic non-linear realization of the electroweak symmetry breaking with a singlet Higgs and a strongly-coupled UV-completion. We further consider a high-energy Lagrangian that incorporates explicitly a general set of new heavy fields. After integrating out these heavy resonances, we study the pattern of low-energy constants among the light fields, which are generated by the massive states.


Inoculation of chickens with live Escherichia coli N6405 transformants containing a plasmid which encodes ampicillin resistance and an immunodominant p250 surface antigen of Eimeria acervulina merozoites induced partial protection against challenge with live coccidia. The inoculation with E. coli transformants induced antigen-specific immunoglobulin and cell-mediated immune responses. Challenge with infective oocysts of Eimeria acervulina enhanced both immune parameters, indicating that administration of live E. coli transformants served to prime the immune system for recognition of specific epitopes on the 250-kilodalton protein. Although the mechanism of antigen presentation is unclear, the data suggest that in vivo expression of recombinant merozoite antigen is operative. After administration, no E. coli N6405 transformants could be recovered from intestinal or fecal materials of inoculated chickens, as assessed by enumeration on selective medium. However, ampicillin-resistant E. coli originating from the normal flora and harboring the gene sequences for both antibiotic resistance and Eimeria acervulina merozoite surface protein could be recovered from these chickens. Furthermore, normal-flora E. coli transformants were capable of generating functional beta-lactamase product, as evidenced by their resistance to ampicillin, and immunoreactive E. acervulina merozoite recombinant antigen, as revealed by immunofluorescence staining with p250-specific antiserum.


Translator's preface In his famous essay on the uncanny, first published in 1919, Sigmund Freud begins by complaining that aesthetics has hitherto not paid much attention to the aberrant and the repulsive. This complaint is also an expression of anticipatory pleasure on the part of Freud the writer, in so far as the uncanny in particular has no "literature" with which to contend – but he has to admit that there is one exception, namely the essay translated below ("The 'Uncanny'" 219). Jentsch emphasises that the uncanny arises from a certain experience of the uncertain or undecidable, and this seems intolerable to Freud. Freud decides, in other words, that the undecidable cannot be tolerated as a theoretical explanation, but it nonetheless recurs in his own essay, undecidably (see 221 and 230-31). He also pays close attention to Jentsch's argument about the uncanniness of automata (226-27 and 233). Dr. Ernst Jentsch was born in 1867. The diversity of his cultural and psychological interests can be seen in his published works. His study of mood (1902) includes a sympathetic account of affect in the Studien über Hysterie of Freud and Breuer (Die Laune 49-51); in his two-part Musik und Nerven (1904 and 1911), 5 he notes how uncanny effects are readily produced in music (2: 5657); and, amongst other works, he produced German translations of Havelock Ellis and Cesare Lombroso. Reference has often been made to Jentsch's essay on the uncanny, in the vast secondary literature of psychoanalysis after Freud, as if its content were already known, familiar and thus not requiring to be read. The essay had never before been translated into English; inasmuch as it now appears both familiar and unfamiliar, its reappearance here can be called 'uncanny.' This translation first appeared in Angelaki 2.1 (1995), and I remain deeply grateful to Sarah Wood, the issue editor and one of the founders of the journal. For their advice, I would also like to thank Peter Krapp, Robert White, and especially Forbes Morlock – whose "Doubly Uncanny," which immediately followed my translation on its first publication, remains a good starting point for further research.


Lyme neuroborreliosis has a protean clinical spectrum and a complex and still obscure pathogenesis. Central and peripheral nervous system involvement may occur, with several different mechanisms acting together or separately. Invasion of the nervous system by Borrelia burgdorferi occurs early in the course of the infection. Direct interaction of the spirochete with neural cells may result in neurological damage, as may the immune response elicited against the organism. Both T- and B-cell autoreactivity against endogenous neural structures is present and there seems to be a crossreaction between neural antigens and the flagellin of Borrelia burgdorferi. Meningitis is probably due, at least in part, to inflammatory mechanisms elicited by the presence of spirochetes in the CSF. Inflammatory and angiopathic peripheral nerve changes may lead to axonal damage resulting in peripheral neuropathy. The elaboration of proinflammatory mediators provides another possible pathway for nerve cell injury. There is still a lack of a suitable animal model to recreate the neurological manifestations paralleling human disease. However, rat and mouse models and, more recently, nonhuman primates have so far provided important information on the pathogenesis of this infection and hopefully will provide the opportunity to elucidate many still unclear mechanisms.


Deep functional maps have recently emerged as a successful paradigm for non-rigid 3D shape correspondence tasks. An essential step in this pipeline consists in learning feature functions that are used as constraints to solve for a functional map inside the network. However, the precise nature of the information learned and stored in these functions is not yet well understood. Specifically, a major question is whether these features can be used for any other objective, apart from their purely algebraic role in solving for functional map matrices. In this paper, we show that under some mild conditions, the features learned within deep functional map approaches can be used as point-wise descriptors and thus are directly comparable across different shapes, even without the necessity of solving for a functional map at test time. Furthermore, informed by our analysis, we propose effective modifications to the standard deep functional map pipeline, which promote structural properties of learned features, significantly improving the matching results. Finally, we demonstrate that previously unsuccessful attempts at using extrinsic architectures for deep functional map feature extraction can be remedied via simple architectural changes, which encourage the theoretical properties suggested by our analysis. We thus bridge the gap between intrinsic and extrinsic surface-based learning, suggesting the necessary and sufficient conditions for successful shape matching. Our code is available at https://github.com/pvnieo/clover.


Scheduling transactions with real-time requirements presents many new problems. In this paper we discuss solutions for two of these problems: what is a reasonable method for modeling real-time constraints for database transactions? Traditional hard real-time constraints (e.g., deadlines) may be too limited. May transactions have soft deadlines and a more flexible model is needed to capture these soft time constraints. The second problem we address is scheduling. Time constraints add a new dimension to concurrency control. Not only must a schedule be serializable but it also should meet the time constraints of all the transactions in the schedule.


See Article on Page 93-99

The five hallmark capabilities of cancer cell for invasion and metastasis are self sufficiency in growth signal, insensitivity to growth inhibitory signals, evasion of apoptosis, limitless replicative potential and sustained angiogenesis [1]. There were several consistently appeared metastsasis risk factors of primary tumor with poor prognosis such as poor histologic grade, depth of invasion, and lymphovascular invasion. The stromal compartment is a complex arrangement of stromal cells and extracellular matrix, plus associated growth factors, regulatory molecules, and remodeling enzymes. Blood vessels, nerves, and immune cells are also integral parts of the stroma. These stromal components regulate cell function and maintain overall tissue homeostasis [2]. In cancer, the tumor microenvironment directly influences the growth of the tumor and its ability to progress and metastasis.

Several proteins such as E-cadherin, matrix metalloproteinase were changed during invasion and metastasis. Down regulation of E-cadherin stimulated by many growth factors such as epidermal growth factor receptor, c-MET, fibroblast growth factor receptor, Src-family kinase, insulinlike growth factor-I receptor in tumor cells promote tumor invasion and metastasis.

SPARC is one of the matricellular proteins and has the important role in interaction between the cells and matrix. The apparent contradictory functions of SPARC were reported in angiogenesis, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition and invasion through matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) according to different sites of cancers.

Expression of SPARC was significantly correlated with the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and microvessel density in colon cancer tissues [3]. In ovarian cancer, the absence of SPARC upregulated the expressions of VEGF, VEGFR2, MMP-2, and MMP-9, thereby promoting the angiogenic and metastatic potential of these cancers [4]. SPARC is also able to inhibit VEGF-induced integrin activation and down regulation of MMP-2 and MMP-9.

There were several reports on the role of SPARC as a prognostic factor of colon cancer patients. A survival analysis of colorectal carcinoma patients revealed a poorer prognosis for patients lacking SPARC expression than for patients with normal SPARC expression [5]. Patients with low or absence expressing SPARC had significantly worse overall survival and disease-free survival. The role of SPARC in colorectal cancer cell and stroma as prognostic makers need further study after evaluation of monoclonal antibodies of SPARC because of different results [6].

SPARC has been shown to modulate response to chemotherapy. Addition of exogenous SPARC and/or forced expression of endogenous SPARC improved colon cancer cell response to chemotherapy in vitro [7]. Lower levels of SPARC expression in colorectal cancers may represent a "therapy-resistant" phenotype, and that biologically, low levels of SPARC negatively impacts a tumor's response to chemotherapy [8]. In the future, manipulating host-tumor interactions with the matricellular proteins such as SPARC may be important in preventing carcinogenesis or metastasis, and in treating carcinoma by re-establishing normal control mechanisms [9] or reducing drug resistance.


A primary cause of morbidity and mortality following cervical spinal cord injury (SCI) is respiratory compromise, regardless of the level of trauma. In particular, SCI at mid-cervical regions targets degeneration of both descending bulbospinal respiratory axons and cell bodies of phrenic motor neurons, resulting in deficits in the function of the diaphragm, the primary muscle of inspiration. Contusion-type trauma to the cervical spinal cord is one of the most common forms of human SCI; however, few studies have evaluated mid-cervical contusion in animal models or characterized consequent histopathological and functional effects of degeneration of phrenic motor neuron-diaphragm circuitry. We have generated a mouse model of cervical contusion SCI that unilaterally targets both C4 and C5 levels, the location of the phrenic motor neuron pool, and have examined histological and functional outcomes for up to 6 weeks post-injury. We report that phrenic motor neuron loss in cervical spinal cord, phrenic nerve axonal degeneration, and denervation at diaphragm neuromuscular junctions (NMJ) resulted in compromised ipsilateral diaphragm function, as demonstrated by persistent reduction in diaphragm compound muscle action potential amplitudes following phrenic nerve stimulation and abnormalities in spontaneous diaphragm electromyography (EMG) recordings. This injury paradigm is reproducible, does not require ventilatory assistance, and provides proof-of-principle that generation of unilateral cervical contusion is a feasible strategy for modeling diaphragmatic/respiratory deficits in mice. This study and its accompanying analyses pave the way for using transgenic mouse technology to explore the function of specific genes in the pathophysiology of phrenic motor neuron degeneration and respiratory dysfunction following cervical SCI.


Human action recognition, also known as HAR, is at the foundation of many different applications related to behavioral analysis, surveillance, and safety, thus it has been a very active research area in the last years. The release of inexpensive RGB-D sensors fostered researchers working in this field because depth data simplify the processing of visual data that could be otherwise difficult using classic RGB devices. Furthermore, the availability of depth data allows to implement solutions that are unobtrusive and privacy preserving with respect to classic video-based analysis. In this scenario, the aim of this chapter is to review the most salient techniques for HAR based on depth signal processing, providing some details on a specific method based on temporal pyramid of key poses, evaluated on the well-known MSR Action3D dataset.


Smoking is a major preventable risk factor for atherosclerosis. However, the causative link between cigarette smoke and atherosclerosis remains to be established. The objective of this study is to characterize the role of GTP cyclohydrolase 1 (GTPCH1), the rate‐limiting enzyme for de novo tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4) synthesis, in the smoking‐accelerated atherosclerosis and the mechanism involved. In vitro, human umbilical vein endothelial cells were treated with nicotine, a major component of cigarette smoke, which reduced the mRNA and protein levels of GTPCH1 and led to endothelial dysfunction. GTPCH1 overexpression or sepiapterin could attenuate nicotine‐reduced nitric oxide and ‐increased reactive oxygen species levels. Mechanistically, human antigen R (HuR) bound with the adenylateuridylate‐rich elements of the GTPCH1 3′ untranslated region and increased its stability; nicotine inhibited HuR translocation from the nucleus to cytosol, which downregulated GTPCH1. In vivo, nicotine induced endothelial dysfunction and promoted atherosclerosis in ApoE−/− mice, which were attenuated by GTPCH1 overexpression or BH4 supplement. Our findings may provide a novel and promising approach to atherosclerosis treatment.


AimsTo investigate the current use of thrombolytic therapy in the management of patients with acute myocardial infarction and to determine the potential for an increased use of thrombolysis or percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA). Methods and resultsAll hospitalised cases of acute myocardial infarction were identified in three health districts in the UK (population of 960 000) in patients under the age of 76 years during a 2-year period; 2439 patients had acute myocardial infarction, of whom 1264 (52%) received thrombolytic therapy. Failure to administer thrombolytic therapy was a result of the absence of diagnostic electrocardiograms in 712 (29.2%) patients, late presentation in 127 (5.2%), therapeutic error in 112 (4.6%), presence of a bleeding risk in 139 (5.7%) and other miscellaneous reasons in 80 (3.3%) patients. Thirty-eight of the 139 patients in whom bleeding risk was reported as a contra-indication could, in retrospect, have received thrombolytic therapy and a further 76 would have been suitable for primary PTCA. ConclusionsThe potential for increasing the use of thrombolytic therapy seems to be limited and is unlikely to make a major impact on the in-hospital mortality from acute myocardial infarction. However, primary PTCA should be considered in those who are ineligible for thrombolysis because of bleeding risk as a contra-indication.


We present a new volume rendering algorithm using raycasting and texture mapping formulations for parallel projection in this paper. The volume is represented and stored in an eecient octree data structure. The octree blocks are adaptively chosen to minimize unnecessary processing of empty voxels. The algorithm exploits the uniform shape, orientation and size of the octree blocks by building templates for ray/block intersections in the case of raycasting and Z-plane/block intersections in the case of texture mapping. Such templates are then pasted to all the octree blocks thereby avoiding the costly intersection computation. While Octree is an established technique to accelerate volume visualization, it has never been used in conjunction with templates and texture mapping. Together as an integrated acceleration tool, it is much more eecient than using octree alone. We have found that the use of template speeds up the rendering by a factor of three for raycasting and by a factor of six for texture mapping. The algorithm is also eecient in terms of memory requirements, can generate high quality images, and is very suitable for parallelization.


Developing countries are being flooded with foreign products as a consequence of globalization and free trade. This study investigates country-of-origin effects on the perceptions, attitudes and behavior of consumers in Mauritius with respect to products imported from twelve developing and developed countries. This is an important study that investigates whether country of origin biases consumer decision making and purchase of products. It has managerial implications for companies who need to understand the COO perceptions of the population from developing countries. A structured questionnaire was administered to 204 respondents over two months. Analysis of the data show that a developed COO product was associated with quality, design, branding, packaging, status, and value for money, whereas products from a developing COO scored well only on price and value for money. The managerial implications of these findings for exporters and importers are discussed, and directions of further research suggested.


†† Summary Network-on-Chip (NoC) is a new paradigm for designing core based System-on-Chip. Network-on-Chip has been proposed as a solution for addressing the design challenges of future high performance nanoscale architectures. Innovative system-level performance models are required for designing NoC based architectures. In this paper, we discuss the possibility of achieving the energy-aware NoC architecture based on the mathematical notion of Perfect Difference sets (PDS). We present the analytical energy model for NoC platform using Perfect Difference Network (PDN). The proposed energy model is then validated against the simulation results obtained with Inter-tile link geometry and PDN circular geometry for NoC architecture. Significant energy saving is achieved for Perfect Difference Network with circular geometry in comparison with inter-tile geometry of NoC architecture on the basis of our proposed energy model.


Modulation of Synaptic Plasticity: Endocannabinoids and Novel G-protein Coupled Receptors Expression and Transcriptional Effects in Interneurons Katrina M. Hurst Department of Physiology and Developmental Biology, BYU Doctor of Philosophy Learning and memory are important processes that occur in the brain. The brain is comprised of neurons that make connections with each other known as synapses. Synaptic plasticity is widely believed to be the physiologic mechanism by which learning and memory occur. Synapses can either be strengthened through a process known as long-term potentiation (LTP) or weakened through long-term depression (LTD). The area of the brain that is most studied for its role in learning and memory is the hippocampus, which has been shown to be involved in memory consolidation. The detection of endocannabinoids and their receptors has opened a whole new field of study in regards to synaptic plasticity. Cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1) and transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) are among the commonly studied endocannabinoid receptors found in the central nervous system. In the brain, these receptors' natural ligands, anandamide and 2-arachidonylglycerol (2-AG), are found in abundance. Yet not all forms of observed plasticity are accounted for by just these two receptors, so studies into other G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) continues. One GPCR, GPR55 is found in many regions of the brain, as well as lysophosphatidylinositol (LPI), its specific ligand. Here we have researched the role of GPR55 in modulating synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus. Using quantitative reverse transcription PCR and immunohistochemistry, we have found GPR55 to be expressed in the hippocampus with highest expression in pyramidal cells, the main excitatory neurons in the hippocampus. Using field and whole cell electrophysiology, we have investigated its effects on synaptic plasticity, discovering that activation of GPR55 by LPI significantly enhances LTP. In memory behavioral assays there are no significant differences between GPR55 KO mice and wild type littermates, indicating that it may not be involved in endogenous memory processes. However, our electrophysiology data makes GPR55 a potential target for treating memory disorders such as dementia. We have also investigated GPR18 and GPR119 for their potential roles in synaptic plasticity. First, we confirmed their expression in the hippocampus and then investigated the effects of their agonists on plasticity. Another receptor, TRPV1 has been studied to alter plasticity. However, the study of how protein translation and RNA transcription involvement in TRPV1 plasticity in mammals has not been investigated. While translation and transcription are known to be important in many forms of LTP, it is unknown whether these processes are important for TRPV1-induced LTD. We are investigating their necessity via whole cell patching and using translation and transcription inhibitors Anisomycin and Actinomycin D, both previously used in slice electrophysiology.


ABSTRACT In track sprinting, acceleration performance is largely determined by the ability to generate a high ratio of forces (RF), but the technical features associated with this remain unknown. This study therefore investigated the relationships between selected kinematic characteristics and RF during the initial acceleration phase. Fourteen male sprinters completed two maximal 60 m sprints from a block start. Full-body kinematic and external kinetic data were obtained from the first four steps, and the relationships between selected kinematic characteristics and mean RF over the first four steps were determined. Placing the stance foot further behind (or less far in front of) the whole-body centre of mass at touchdown was significantly related to greater RF (r = −0.672), and more anterior orientation of the proximal end of the foot (r = −0.724) and shank (r = −0.764) segments at touchdown were also significantly related to greater RF. Following touchdown, greater ankle dorsiflexion range of motion during early stance was significantly related to greater RF (r = 0.728). When aiming to enhance RF during initial acceleration, practitioners should be encouraged to focus on lower leg configurations when manipulating touchdown distance, and the role of dorsiflexion during early stance is also an important consideration.


Ṭuqūs al-išārāt wa-l-taḥawwulāt (Rituals of Signs and Transformations), published in 1994, is a play which can be attributed to the last phase of Saʿd Allāh Wannūs's literary production. At this stage, the Syrian author's political commitment is no longer expressed through the interest for the collective dimension, but it focuses on the individual, considered as a pivotal element for social change. In Ṭuqūs, Saʿd Allāh Wannūs revisits history from an individual point of view, fragmenting it into a multiplicity of micro-narratives. During the 1880s in Damascus, the muftī, the chief religious legal authority, and the leader of the ašrāf, the descendants of the Prophet, are involved in a feud that splits the city into factions and brings it on the verge of anarchy. When the chief of police arrests the leader of the ašrāf while he is engaged in lovemaking with his mistress in his semi-private garden, the muftī concocts a scheme to save his enemy's reputation, but his real aim is to subdue him and get rid of him. This event triggers a series of transformations involving the identities of the characters. Thus, the leader of the ašrāf, a regular of prostitutes and assiduous drinker, suddenly becomes a mystic with ascetic ambitions, while the upright muftī loses his head for a high-ranking woman who leaves her respectable life to become a prostitute. The whole society is destabilized by the desires of the characters. Desire not only affects their individual identity, but it also exerts influence on their social position, undermining a system of norms based on hypocrisy and on the division between the 'latent' and the 'manifest'.


The paper examines the interdisciplinary issues of reconstruction of Cubist symbolical structures. The author considers Picasso's art as the field of convergence of different ideological and philosophical discourses (anarchism, racism, vitalism, sexism a. o.). Rhetoric and mythopoetical potential of these «secular religions» are explored in the article in the context of general theory of avant-garde. Special attention is paid to metahistorical interpretation of Cubism, its Renaissance connotations: the author focuses on the history of conceptualization of uncertainty in European art in connection with Picasso's critique of «metaphysics of presence». The author draws the conclusion that the «political» level of Picasso's art is inseparable from the so-called philosophical or artistic planes. «Les Demoiselles d'Avignon» drifts, changing its contexts, from the discriminative masculine and racist conceptions to anti-colonialism and feminism. Paradoxically in Cubist art intellectualism meets «life philosophy», social constructivism is combined with conservatism, the optimism of pre-war Europe — with negativism of Counterculture. The main issue of the paper are the complex relations of anarchist and Cubist mythologies. Anarchism with its totalitarian and conservative connotations is given an original intellectualist interpretation in Analytic Cubism. Maintaining its critical attitude towards highly influential at the edge of 19–20 centuries ideas of vitalism and primitivism, Picasso's art of that period is a unique example of deconstruction in the fields of political and philosophical thought. Melancholia of Cubism, its Buddhist, solipsist tendency together with its Utopian image of new, transparent, fluid world create the skeptical futurology of Picasso.


The 2007-2008 food crisis and current food price swings led economists to re-evaluate the potential for policy instruments to manage food price volatility. When world prices are unstable, the use of import tariffs in importing countries to stabilize price is theoretically not the first best policy. But in practice many countries use import tariffs with intention to stabilize price - and other reasons-, which sometimes achieve some price stabilization, sometimes not. We address the question why is this policy sometimes a success and sometimes a failure? In the context of Kenya, we show that while domestic price levels are mainly explained by seasonal cycles, pluri-annual cycles, and international prices, domestic price volatility is mainly explained by inconsistent moves of trade policy. Thus, the ability of a policy regime to lower food price volatility does not depend on the nature of the policy instrument only, but also on the government ability to implement it. We define a consistent policy adjustment as a tariff decrease when world price increases and a tariff increase when world price is decreasing. We use an autoregressive conditionally heteroskedastic model of price determination in which prices and prices volatility are jointly estimated, using monthly data over the 1994-2009 period in Kenya.


Current frameworks for describing the processes of technology tend to be from the viewpoint of a 'technologist'. Within these frameworks, the philosophy that underpins the analysis of technology derives from the sciences and engineering. Technological criteria are used to question and judge the role of technology in human affairs. Views today on what it means to be 'technologically literate' rest on such technical frameworks. A major drawback is the emphasis placed on the distinctions between society and technology; representations do not necessarily show what influences the 'effect' of technology on the society in which it is situated. We need to look behind the 'processes' which drive technological innovation, accumulation, diffusion and adjustment in a society. This paper outlines an ethnographic study currently looking at how culture and personality affect cognition and values in the way certain social groups construct their interpretation of technology. The implications of these findings for educating for technological literacy will be discussed. Culture is the ...conventional patterns of thought, activity and artefact that are passed on from generation to generation in a manner generally assumed to involve learning...


Open-ended problem solving is a skill that is central to engineering practice. As a consequence developing skills in solving such problems is imperative for engineering graduates. Open-ended problems are ill-defined and can have more than one viable solution. Solving openended problems therefore requires consideration of a complex array of constraints and the paths to a solution are many. The qualitative study presented in this paper explores the approaches taken by eight materials science students to solving an open-ended problem. A think aloud method was used to collect data and analyze the problem solving approaches of each student. Each student described their actions and thought processes aloud as they worked through the problem and these think aloud sessions were video recorded and transcribed for analysis. In addition, each participant"s final written solution was graded for quality. Among the eight participants a spectrum of solution paths and problem-solving processes was apparent. Through the use of script analysis, three approaches to solving the problem were identified (extreme fixation/overwhelmed, fixated and uncertain, and systematic and linear). The participants with the lowest solution scores had difficulty making important decisions due to extreme fixation on a single task, whereas the participants with the highest scores took very systematic and linear approaches to the problem, avoided fixations on irrelevant concepts or reconceptualizations, and were able to identify critical decision points in the problem solving process. Results suggest that performance on open-ended problems is related to the processes students use. Thus, careful attention must be paid to the way in which open-ended problem solving is taught.


Various multitasking approaches are investigated for optimization of large space structures. Judicious combination of microtasking, macrotasking, and autotasking is explored with the goal of achieving a vectorized and multitasked algorithm for optimization of a large structure with maximum speedup performance. Speedup results are presented and compared for three space truss structures with 526, 1046, and 3126 members.<<ETX>>


Unsupervised completion of real scene objects is of vital importance but still remains extremely challenging in preserving input shapes, predicting accurate results, and adapting to multi-category data. To solve these problems, we propose in this paper an Unsupervised Symmetric Shape-Preserving Autoencoding Network, termed USSPA, to predict complete point clouds of objects from real scenes. One of our main observations is that many natural and manmade objects exhibit significant symmetries. To accommodate this, we devise a symmetry learning module to learn from those objects and to preserve structural symmetries. Starting from an initial coarse predictor, our autoencoder refines the complete shape with a carefully designed upsampling refinement module. Besides the discriminative process on the latent space, the discriminators of our USSPA also take predicted point clouds as direct guidance, enabling more detailed shape prediction. Clearly different from previous methods which train each category separately, our USSPA can be adapted to the training of multi-category data in one pass through a classifier-guided discriminator, with consistent performance on single category. For more accurate evaluation, we contribute to the community a real scene dataset with paired CAD models as ground truth. Extensive experiments and comparisons demonstrate our superiority and generalization and show that our method achieves state-of-the-art performance on unsupervised completion of real scene objects.


The purpose of the current study was to investigate the mutation status of KIT in feline mast cell tumours (MCTs) and to examine the effects of tyrosine kinase inhibition on the phosphorylation of mutant kit in vitro and in clinical cases of cats. Sequence analysis of KIT identified mutations in 42/62 MCTs (67·7%). The vast majority of the mutations were distributed in exons 8 and 9, both of which encode the fifth immunoglobulin‐like domain (IgD) of kit. All five types of kit with a mutation in the fifth IgD were then expressed in 293 cells and examined for phosphorylation status. The mutant kit proteins showed ligand‐independent phosphorylation. The tyrosine kinase inhibitor imatinib mesylate suppressed the phosphorylation of these mutant kit proteins in transfectant cells. In a clinical study of 10 cats with MCTs, beneficial response to imatinib mesylate was observed in 7/8 cats that had a mutation in the fifth IgD of kit in tumour cells. Mutations in the fifth IgD of kit thus appear to be common and potentially sensitive to imatinib mesylate in feline MCTs. These data provide an in vivo model for paediatric mastocytosis where mutations in the fifth IgD of kit also occur.


A method has been developed in this paper to gain effective speckle reduction in medical ultrasound images. To exploit full knowledge of the speckle distribution, here maximum likelihood was used to estimate speckle parameters corresponding to its statistical mode. Then the results were incorporated into the nonlinear anisotropic diffusion to achieve adaptive speckle reduction. Verified with simulated and ultrasound images, we show that this algorithm is capable of enhancing features of clinical interest and reduces speckle noise more efficiently than just applying classical filters. To avoid edge contribution, changes of contrast-to-noise ratio of different regions are also compared to investigate the performance of this approach.


1. Poly(A)+ mRNA from mouse submaxillary gland encodes a polypeptide of molecular weight 48 000 (48K polypeptide) which is abundant in the male. 2. This polypeptide is selectively absent in the translation products of mRNA from a strain of genetically renin-deficient mice C57 BL/10J. 3. The 48K polypeptide binds and co-elutes in identical fashion with pure authentic renin on pepstatin affinity chromatography. 4. Immunoprecipitation of translation products of male glandular mRNA with renin-specific antibody yielded this 48K band upon analysis by SDS/polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and fluorography. Pure renin of molecular weight 37 000 blocked the binding of this polypeptide to antirenin antibody. 5. Mouse submaxillary gland synthesizes a renin precursor. The renin mRNA is androgenically regulated.


Renal revascularization by splenic artery implantation into the kidney was studied in 11 dogs. Renal function and blood flow were evaluated after creation of stenosis of the ipsilateral renal artery. It was concluded that the method can be used to revascularize an ischemic kidney resulting in a sufficient renal blood flow with an adequate distribution of blood and maintenance of a reasonably good renal function after contralateral nephrectomy and division of the ipsilateral renal artery.


Background Clinical guidelines on instrumental deliveries are mainly skill based. The objective of this study was to identify factors which influence clinicians' decision making in conducting an instrumental delivery. Methods The study has utilised a qualitative case-study approach comprising observation of the decision-making process during deliveries and follow-up interviews with clinicians. Interview data were transcribed and used alongside observational notes to analyse decision making in each case. Results Data were collected from 23 cases, the majority of which (n=16) were forceps deliveries. A range of factors related to equipment, training and hospital culture were identified as being discouraging to the use of ventouse. Conclusion Hospital context and culture have a central role in influencing clinician's decision making. Understanding these factors is a crucial first step in assessing appropriate practice and identifying interventions to change practice.


low power is a key element in the design of a wireless sensor node. It is necessary to know the power consumption details of sensors, microcontroller, transceiver, and other components before optimization. However, different application has different configuration. It isn't convenient to create theoretic model for each platform. We proposed a portable power consumption monitoring testbed for wireless sensor nodes (WSN), which can real-time acquire the information of current and voltage change. First of all, the system architecture is described, special for the current-sense amplifier (ADM4073), ADC (AD7705). Then, give out the schematic, flowchart and algorithm of AD7705 and microcontroller (Atmega16L). Finally, experiment results and analysis are given out based on wireless sensor networks (WSNs) platform 'MicaZ'. It is shown that this testbed can well monitor the power consumption of WSN.


Civil Aviation standardization bodies (ICAO, RTCA, EUROCAE) aim at standardizing GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) for aircraft navigation. For safety reasons, on-board receivers must guarantee integrity and accuracy performance within the specified environment. The corresponding requirements are stated in the SARPS and MOPS (Minimum Operational Performance Specification), published by the quoted standardization bodies. Future use of Galileo E5a (or GPS L5) band raises among others interference issues. Indeed, pre-existent RF systems emit in this band, thus interfering with the E5a/L5 signals. The main threat was identified as being DME/TACAN ground beacons. These systems disturb the operation of on-board GNSS receivers in a non bearable manner if no mitigation is implemented. Two interference mitigation techniques (IMT) are proposed to fight this threat, and their performances are studied in the following. First, a baseline technique called temporal blanker is used as a reference. Its performances had already been assessed in [Bastide, 2004] and were shown to be compatible with civil aviation requirements. The idea is to detect and remove pulsed interference by looking at the signal?s power. Taking into account that the input signal (in absence of interference) should be equivalent to a Gaussian noise, the user can assume with low false detection rate that if the incoming signal?s power is relatively high, it is corrupted by an interference. Then, an innovative technique called Frequency Domain Adaptive Filtering (FDAF) is investigated, and is expected to provide better performance than the baseline technique. The idea is to detect and remove pulsed interference in the frequency domain by looking at the amplitude of the signal?s Fourier transform because the frequency spectrum may be less distorted than the temporal signal. Nevertheless, the second technique is highly constrained by implementation issues, while the first one is not. Hence, its performance and the possible benefits brought by the technique will be presented as a function of the technique?s design.


We apply the framework of kernel dimension reduction, originally designed for supervised problems, to unsupervised dimensionality reduction. In this framework, kernel-based measures of independence are used to derive low-dimensional representations that maximally capture information in covariates in order to predict responses. We extend this idea and develop similarly motivated measures for unsupervised problems where covariates and responses are the same. Our empirical studies show that the resulting compact representation yields meaningful and appealing visualization and clustering of data. Furthermore, when used in conjunction with supervised learners for classification, our methods lead to lower classification errors than state-of-the-art methods, especially when embedding data in spaces of very few dimensions.


Social media is often described as both reflecting and distorting real-life debates. Indeed, social division occurs not only offline but also online on various political topics. Several studies propose tools to identify and quantify online controversies through stance detection or polarization measures. While polarization is typically studied as a "snapshot" in time of a social network, we consider it as a temporal process. Moreover, the recent evolution in temporal graph representation learning provides new tools to directly combine time, content and graph topology. Current techniques that characterize polarization are beginning to use these tools, typically using a Lagrangian description which focuses on user trajectories. In this article, we make a case for approaching these problems with a Eulerian description, the concurrent description in fluid mechanics. In this description, the temporal evolution of nodes embeddings is represented with a deformation of velocity vector fields. Finally, we validate our method on a retweet graph from the last French presidential election campaign.


Physio-chemical changes in oyster shell were examined, and fresh and composted oyster shell meals were compared as lime fertilizers in soybean cultivation. Structural changes in oyster shell were observed by AFM and FE-SEM. We found that grains of the oyster shell surface became smoother and smaller over time. FT-IR analysis indicated the degradation of a chitin-like compound of oyster shell. In chemical analysis, pH (12.3±0.24), electrical conductivity (4.1±0.24 dS m−1), and alkaline powder (53.3±1.12%) were highest in commercial lime. Besides, pH was higher in composted oyster shell meal (9.9±0.53) than in fresh oyster shell meal (8.4±0.32). The highest organic matter (1.1±0.08%), NaCl (0.54±0.03%), and moisture (15.1±1.95%) contents were found in fresh oyster shell meal. A significant higher yield of soybean (1.33 t ha−1) was obtained by applying composted oyster shell meal (a 21% higher yield than with fresh oyster shell meal). Thus composting of oyster shell increases the utility of oyster shell as a liming material for crop cultivation.


The academic "organizational and tourism sustainable development" body analyzed methodological tool of the mesh of the logical framework, establish consistency in the phenomenon to analyze and emphasizing the object of study in this case is highlighted as a Agritouristic development. This had as a product the reality of a scene of natural areas, somewhere neglected by the authorities, the name of this place is hot water and is located in the foothills of the TacanAi volcano, it belongs to the municipality of CacahoatAin, state of Chiapas. (Abstract) theoretical dimensions of sustainability in tourism, agro-tourism were taken into account. From the field of scientific research of sustainable tourism and agro-tourism studies noted a scenario of opportunities for the development of agro-tourism with focus on regional growth in the town that it is.


We propose a proximity probabilistic model (PPM) that advances a bag-of-words probabilistic retrieval model. In our proposed model, a document is transformed to a pseudo document, in which a term count is propagated to other nearby terms. Then we consider three heuristics, i.e., the distance of two query term occurrences, their order, and term weights, and try four kernel functions in measuring a positiondependent term count, which can be viewed as a pseudo term frequency. Finally, we integrate term proximity into the probabilistic model BM25 by using the pseudo term frequency to replace term frequency. Experimental results on TREC data sets indicate that the proximity probabilistic model with the reverse kernel function consistently improves the BM25 model by 5% 11%, in terms of Mean Average Precision.


This study tested the hypothesis that the oxygen capacity of blood, indexed by hematocrit, affects the body temperature (Tb) selected by toads (Bufo marinus) in a thermal gradient. Anesthetized toads (Brevital sodium; 40 mg/kg im) were fitted with a cloacal thermistor and femoral artery cannula. After recovery, they were placed in a thermal gradient ranging from approximately 10 to 40 degrees C. Tb was measured for 24 h. Then 1-2 ml blood were withdrawn and replaced with an equal volume of either 0.66% saline or packed red cells from donor toads. Selected Tb was measured for the next 24 h. The mean Tb selected by B. marinus (n = 33) was 24.9 degrees C. Cross-sectional analysis showed no correlation between selected Tb and hematocrit. However, each toad rendered anemic showed a reduction of selected Tb (mean = 22.9 degrees C). The degree of Tb reduction was correlated with the hematocrit reduction, (r = 0.86; P = 0.013). Blood doping did not have a significant effect on selected Tb. The reduction of Tb could be adaptive by reducing oxygen consumption.


The 1995 Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) established a global norm to recognize the economic value of unpaid care work across the world. In 1999, Venezuela became the first of three South American countries to enshrine a similar norm with its Constitution in its Article 88. I argue that despite the temporal proximity of the two events and the global significance of the BPfA, the global norm only served partially as a tipping point for Venezuela. Taking an analytical framework that underscores the role of norm-takers, this article demonstrates that other, national, regional and transnational interactions led by national actors in national and regional arenas were as important as Beijing '95 for the development of Article 88.


Forest spatial information is regularly established and managed as basic data for national forest planning and forest policy establishment. Among them, the grade of vegetation conservation shall be investigated and evaluated according to the value of vegetation conservation. As the collection of field data over large or remote areas is difficult, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly being used for this purpose. Consequently, there is a need for research on UAV-monitoring and three-dimensional (3D) image generation techniques. In this study, a new method that can efficiently collect and analyze UAV spatial data to survey and assess forests was developed. Both UAV-based and LiDAR imaging methods were evaluated in conjunction with the ground control point measurement method for forest surveys. In addition, by fusing the field survey database of each target site and the UAV optical and LiDAR images, the Gongju, Samcheok, and Seogwipo regions were analyzed based on deep learning. The kappa value showed 0.59, 0.47, and 0.78 accuracy for each of the sites in terms of vegetation type (artificial or natural), and 0.68, 0.53, and 0.62 accuracy in terms of vegetation layer structure. The results of comparative analysis with ecological natural maps by establishing vegetation conservation levels show that about 83.9% of the areas are consistent. The findings verified the applicability of this UAV-based approach for the construction of geospatial information on forests. The proposed method can be useful for improving the efficiency of the Vegetation Conservation Classification system and for conducting high-resolution monitoring in forests worldwide.


The time it takes for clinical innovation and evidence-based practices to reach patients remains a major challenge for the health care sector. In 2015, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) launched the Diffusion of Excellence Initiative aimed at aligning organizational resources with early-stage to midstage promising practices and innovations to replicate, scale, and eventually spread those with greatest potential for impact and positive outcomes. Using a 5-step systematic approach refined over time, frontline VHA staff have submitted more than 1676 practices since the initiative's inception, 47 of which have been selected as high-impact, Gold Status practices. These Gold Status practices have been replicated more than 412 times in Veterans Affairs hospitals across the country, improving care for more than 100,000 veterans and approximately $22.6 million in cost avoidance for the VHA. More importantly, practices such as Project HAPPEN (Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia Prevention by Engaging Nurses to complete oral care) and rapid availability of intranasal naloxone have saved veterans' lives. Several practices are now being implemented across the country, and the Diffusion of Excellence Initiative is playing a pivotal role as the VHA works to modernize its health care system. This initiative serves as a promising model for other health care systems seeking to accelerate the spread and adoption of clinical innovation and evidence-based practices.


This paper revisits the state-of-the-art resampling detector, which is based on periodic artifacts in the residue of a local linear predictor. Inspired by recent findings from the literature, we take a closer look at the complex detection procedure and model the detected artifacts in the spatial and frequency domain by means of the variance of the prediction residue. We give an exact formulation on how transformation parameters influence the appearance of periodic artifacts and analytically derive the expected position of characteristic resampling peaks. We present an equivalent accelerated and simplified detector, which is orders of magnitudes faster than the conventional scheme and experimentally shown to be comparably reliable.


Extracts obtained from sweatweed and licorice roots, flax seeds, milfoil, bur-marigold, plantain, coltsfoot, nettle, Indian corn stigmas, laminaria produced a stimulating effect on the growth of Candida albicans test strain and Streptococcus pyogenes test strain Dick 1. Sweatweed, licorice, Aerva lanata and violet extracts influenced the growth of Corynebacterium xerosis 1911, while sweatweed, violet, horse-tail, bur-marigold, camomile, plantain, and nettle extracts influenced the growth of shigellae. The stimulating effect could be supposedly produced by biologically active substances contained in medicinal plants (organic acids, alkaloids, carotinoids, vitamins, microelements). Further studies aimed at the identification of substances producing the stimulating effect are planned.


In this paper, a deep learning (DL)-based method for automatic feature extraction and classification of voltage dips is proposed. The method consists of a dedicated architecture of Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), which is a special type of Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs). A total of 5982 three-phase one-cycle voltage dip RMS sequences, measured from several countries, has been used in our experiments. Our results have shown that the proposed method is able to classify the voltage dips from learned features in LSTM, with 93.40% classification accuracy on the test data set. The developed architecture is shown to be novel for feature learning and classification of voltage dips. Different from the conventional machine learning methods, the proposed method is able to learn dip features without requiring transition-event segmentation, selecting thresholds, and using expert rules or human expert knowledge, when a large amount of measurement data is available. This opens a new possibility of exploiting deep learning technology for power quality data analytics and classification.


1 In the absence of treatment, 50% of patients with severe alcoholic hepatitis (AH) [Maddrey function (DF) ≥ 32] die 2 months later. Among patients with severe AH treated by corticosteroids, 80% had 2‐month survival. Pentoxifylline is considered by some investigators to be an alternative option to corticosteroids. 2 Non‐responders to corticosteroids (NRCs) have poor survival and require new strategies. Liver transplantation should be considered in order to improve survival of non‐responders to therapeutic agents. 3 Prognostic models such as the Model for End‐Stage Liver Disease (MELD) and DF are useful tools for predicting short‐term mortality of patients with severe AH. Specific models taking into account the particular settings of treated patients are warranted. 4 In an era of organ shortage, use of liver transplants in patients with severe AH may negatively affect the public attitude on transplantation and organ donation, and may cause reluctance on the part of clinicians to modify guidelines for alcoholic patients. 5 Therefore, a reasonable approach would be to carry out only pilot studies on only a small cohort of patients to determine whether transplantation improves survival in patients with severe AH. (Liver Transpl 2005;11:S21–S24.)


Against the backdrop of depopulation and the shift toward Big Society, citizens' initiatives in rural areas are believed to be able to mitigate the decline of service provision in rural regions. Consequently, this mitigation requires the continuity of such initiatives. However, so far, we lack an initiators' perspective on the relevance of this continuity and the factors influenc- ing it. From a theoretical standpoint, continuity of citizens' initiatives can be understood at three levels: the participant, group, and initiative levels. Based on empirical data obtained from 157 questionnaires distributed to a variety of initiatives, and using regression analysis, the focus of this paper is twofold. First, how and at which level the initiators understand continuity of an initiative is considered. Second, factors influencing the expected continuity of an initiative are researched. The results reveal that continuity differs from merely being successful and is influenced by other factors as well. Furthermore, continuity on the initiative level—the realization of a certain goal—is most prominent in analyzing expected continuity. In conclusion, we explore the roles that citizens' initiatives can be expected to play in service provision and which levels of continuity align with these expectations.


As the title suggests, this book is an introduction to the care and education of young children, set in an English context. In four parts it covers a number of topics, all very relevant to the New Zealand context, from conception and the developing foetus to creative approaches to teaching and learning. Strongly supported by research, the book is clearly organised, highlighting key ideas, providing reflective activities, case studies, and useful websites, and suggesting further readings. Each topic has an introduction which gives an overview of the contents of the chapters featured within that topic. The chapters are designed to promote learning in clearly identified areas with clear links to the recent supporting research.


This article focuses on direct reported speech, investigating its use in a conversation between two employees of a gas supply company. First, the design of the device is considered, beginning with the observation that it claims to reproduce former utterances, and noting that this underpins a number of other closely related features: that it provides evidence of what was said; that it can be used to portray a series of utterances; that it gives 'access' to them in a seemingly objective fashion; and that prosody can be used to convey how the reported locution was uttered. This leads to a consideration of how the device contributes to the sequence of speech activities embedded within the conversation. Second, the sequential position of the reported speech is considered in terms of the recipient's responses. This further illuminates how features of the device contribute to its role within the ongoing sequence of actions, and consequently the kinds of actions that appropriately follow it. Thus, the contribution of the reported speech in terms of the institutional tasks conducted by the speakers is considered, and the nature of 'institutional' versus 'ordinary' talk. It is suggested that a central use made of the device is to generate affiliation.


One possibility presented by novel communication technologies is the ability for remotely located experts to provide guidance to others who are performing difficult technical tasks in the real world, such as medical procedures or engine repair. In these scenarios, video views and other visual information seem likely to be useful in the ongoing negotiation of shared understanding, or common ground, but actual results with experimental systems have been mixed. One difficulty in designing these systems is achieving a balance between close-up shots that allow for discussion of detail and wide shots that allow for orientation or establishing a mutual point of focus in a larger space. Achieving this balance can be difficult without disorienting or overloading task participants. In this article we present results from two experiments involving three automated camera control systems for remote repair tasks. Results show that a system providing both detailed and overview information was superior to systems providing only one or the other in terms of performance but that some participants preferred the detail-only system.


Alignment of Spatial Perspective Elena Andonova University of Bremen Abstract: Alignment of Spatial Perspective The interactive alignment framework (Pickering & Garrod, 2004) posits that much of language production in a dialogic situation can be explained via automatic priming mechanisms. Whereas previous studies have shown lexical priming and syntactic priming effects in confederate studies of alignment between interlocutors, little is known about conceptual alignment. This confederate paradigm study examined alignment of spatial perspective building upon a recent finding that speakers choices between a route and a survey perspective can be primed by a preceding speakers bias. The results revealed that participants responses on an early experimental block were indeed affected by confederate priming. The alignment effect, however, did not emerge on the later experimental block. Spatial perspective alignment appears to occur when a speaker encounters consistent perspective choices by the interlocutor and is weakened if the interlocutor lacks a stable preference or switches perspectives.


The amount of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow to Kenya has fluctuated since independence with adverse repercussions upon the growth of the industrial sector. FDI inflows have dropped to as low as US $ 0.39 and risen to as high as US $ 729 in the year 1988 and 2007, respectively. This study sought to explain the fluctuation from the stand point of national policy orientation regarding the contribution of FDI in national development. The study has in so doing discussed the factors that curtail FDI inflows and thereby shed light on the influence of FDI in the national economy. The study is preced on the view that FDI transcends national boundaries and hence blurs the distinction between national and international affairs. As a result the relationship between host-governments and FDI is dynamic and open-ended with regards to the future trajectory. Therefore, the form and function of the State are compelled to adapt as host-governments seek coherent strategies of engaging with FDI in a more interconnected world. The study analyses the content in primary documents specifically the government policy papers and statements and statistical abstracts to obtain the levels and identify the policy on FDI. The study conclude? that the policy of Kenya government, since independence has consistently been to promote FDI. Specifically the government has displayed four main policy objectives in promoting FDI in the country's industrial sector: investment incentives, liberal FDI entry regime, moderate nationalization and privatization of the economy. The government selects FDI Undertakings' that it considers beneficial to the nation. This explains the annual variations of FDI inflows to Kenya.


Since thermoplastic starch can not be used directly due to its poor properties in processing, thermoplastic starch /ethyl cellulose composite is prepared by blending method in this work. The effect of the composition and the structure on the properties of the composite is studied. The results indicate that glycerin is a better plasticizer in the processing of the thermoplastic starch compared to glycol. The mechanical properties of the thermoplastic starch are improved obviously after blending with ethyl cellulose. The composite exhibits comprehensive properties as the content of the ethyl cellulose is kept at 10%, which also has a reasonable cost.


In this thesis Marsili back-arc basin and Palinuro Volcanic Complex (Southern
Tyrrhenian Sea) have been investigated by using magnetic, bathymetric and
gravimetric data. A new velocity model of opening of the Marsili basin has
been proposed, highlighting the transition from the horizontal spreading of the
back-arc to the vertical accretion of the Marsili seamount. Introducing gravity
data, Marsili's internal structure has been modeled and a huge portion of the
volcano with low density and vanishing magnetization has been detected.
Forward modeling of Palinuro Volcanic Complex showed as Palinuro
represents the shallowest evidence of a deep tectonic discontinuity and the
possible transition domain between the oceanic crust of Marsili Basin and the
continental crust related to the Appenninic chain.


Peering back through the ages for a glimpse of the first nervous systems is no easy trick. In the seventh essay in Science9s series in honor of the Year of Darwin, Greg Miller discusses some tantalizing clues that scientists have recently gained about the evolutionary origins of nervous systems. They9ve found that some of the key molecular building blocks of neurons predate even the first multicellular organisms. By looking down the tree of life, they are concluding that assembling these components into a cell a modern neuroscientist would recognize as a neuron probably happened very early in animal evolution, more than 600 million years ago. Most scientists agree that circuits of interconnected neurons probably arose soon thereafter, first as diffuse webs and later as a centralized brain and nerves. But the resolution on this picture is fuzzy. The order in which early branches split off the animal tree of life is controversial, and different arrangements imply different story lines for the origins and early evolution of nervous systems. Scientists also disagree on which animals were the first to have a centralized nervous system and how many times neurons and nervous systems evolved independently.


Both column acetabular fractures are challenging articular injuries. Majority of them are treated operatively. The concept of "secondary congruence" was introduced by Letournel. Despite this, biomechanical data on secondary congruence indicate that nonoperative treatment leads to an increase in peak pressures in the supra-acetabular region with the potential risk of developing posttraumatic degenerative osteoarthritis. Operative management is therefore justified. A cohort of 10 patients having both column (anterior and posterior) acetabular fractures managed using bicolumnar plating between Jan 2016 and Dec 2017 were enrolled in the study and were analyzed during follow-up period. Eighty percent of the patients had excellent to good result. Average postoperative score was 85.7. Assessment was done using Modified Harris Hip score.