Lethbridge County introduced a new business tax on confined feeding operations (CFO), notably feedlots, in 2016. It was expected to bring in $2.5 million for county road maintenance in 2017. However, the tax could have a detrimental impact on feedlot owners and is not the fairest way to amass revenue for road repairs. Four criteria can be used to evaluate a particular form of taxation. They are fairness, efficient resource allocation, compliance and administration costs, and revenue stability. This paper examines the potential impacts of the tax and proposes three alternative methods for financing Lethbridge County road maintenance that meet those criteria. These alternatives create less of an impact on feedlot owners and share the tax burden more equitably. They also reduce the potentially negative ripple effects that the CFO levy may have on feed producers, cattle producers, meat packers and consumers. The current tax is based on livestock storage capacity, rather than on production volume. It's counter-productive in the long run because the feedlot's fixed costs of production are increased, while its variable costs remain unaffected. This permanent increase in fixed costs, estimated to be as high as 20 per cent of the average operating margin per head of cattle, lowers the return on feedlot investments. Thus, the new tax could result in some feedlots being closed for lack of a high enough return on investment. A more equitable revenue source for road maintenance would be user fees imposed on the trucking industry. This system is already in use in Oregon and New Zealand. It uses GPS technology to track trucks on the roads and then charges the trucking companies a fee based on road use. It would certainly be worthwhile for the province to initiate a pilot program to test the system's efficacy on Alberta roads. Lethbridge County could also implement a usage levy that would be based on how much it spends on roads, combined with a feedlot's capacity plus its distance from a provincial highway. Contributions to road maintenance would thus be directly tied to road usage. The new CFO tax does not distinguish between feedlots with a heavy use of county roads and those that don't use the county roads as much because they are close to provincial highways. The current CFO levy creates an unfair distribution of the tax burden. Under a usage-levy system, 94 feedlots, or 72 per cent of feedlots in the county, would have their tax burdens lessened, while 18 feedlots located on provincial highways would pay no tax. The third option would be a tax based on an equation of how many livestock per feedlot exceed the actual capacity of that farm's own crops to feed them. Those feedlots relying more heavily on trucked-in crops, and thus dependent on greater use of county roads to feed their animals, would pay higher taxes accordingly. The three alternatives would generate the same amount of revenue as the current levy and with similar degrees of predictability. However, these alternatives are fairer, more equitable and more efficient than the CFO levy. In the interests of maintaining both county roads and a healthy feedlot industry, Lethbridge County should replace the CFO levy with one of them.


Many automotive safety applications in modern cars make use of cameras and object detection to analyze the surrounding environment. Pedestrians, animals and other vehicles can be detected and safety actions can be taken before dangerous situations arise.To detect occurrences of the different objects, these systems are traditionally trained to learn a classification model using a set of images that carry labels corresponding to their content. To obtain high performance with a variety of object appearances, the required amount of data is very large. Acquiring unlabeled images is easy, while the manual work of labeling is both time-consuming and costly. Semi-supervised learning refers to methods that utilize both labeled and unlabeled data, a situation that is highly desirable if it can lead to improved accuracy and at the same time alleviate the demand of labeled data. This has been an active area of research in the last few decades, but few studies have investigated the performance of these algorithms in larger systems.In this thesis, we investigate if and how semi-supervised learning can be used in a large-scale pedestrian detection system. With the area of application being automotive safety, where real-time performance is of high importance, the work is focused around boosting classifiers. Results are presented on a few publicly available UCI data sets and on a large data set for pedestrian detection captured in real-life traffic situations. By evaluating the algorithms on the pedestrian data set, we add the complexity of data set size, a large variety of object appearances and high input dimension.It is possible to find situations in low dimensions where an additional set of unlabeled data can be used successfully to improve a classification model, but the results show that it is hard to efficiently utilize semi-supervised learning in large-scale object detection systems. The results are hard to scale to large data sets of higher dimensions as pair-wise computations are of high complexity and proper similarity measures are hard to find.


Choline, an essential dietary component, is a selective α7 nicotinic acetylcholine (ACh) receptor agonist. It plays an important role in various metabolic and non-metabolic pathways including inflammatory pathways. Systemic inflammatory response syndrome activated by bacterial endotoxins is a critical clinical condition associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality and related multiple organ dysfunction; immunological imbalance is associated with deteriorated outcome of septic patients. Choline-deficiency can be seen in different physiological and pathological states, and can be linked to the pathway of a septic condition. Assessment of the nutritional status has a significant impact on improving treatment output, healing process and prognosis of septic patients. The aim of this review is to explore the significant impact or the protective and supportive role of choline on selective pathological and/or inflammatory pathways in experimental or clinical models of sepsis.


Business process modeling is commonly used to document information about structure and behavior of a business process. However, current business process modeling notations do not support well the expression of quality information relating to business processes. Organizations are interested in the capturing of quality information for quality improvement of business processes and supporting IT systems. We are developing an approach to capture quality information comprehensively within business process models. In contrast to existing approaches, our notation allows the capturing of a broad range of quality characteristics as well as detailed attributes and measures. The approach is implemented as an extension of a CASE tool. Moreover, we discuss lessons learned from the application of the approach to a business process from practice.


——————————————————————————————————— This paper shows that new trade models with different micro-level margins—estimated to fit the same moments in the data—imply lower trade elasticities and, hence, larger welfare gains from trade relative to models without these margins. The key feature of the estimation approach is to focus on common moments where new micro-level margins, such as an extensive margin or variable markups, alter the mapping from the data to the estimate of the trade elasticity. We find that the introduction of an extensive margin as in Eaton and Kortum (2002) or Melitz (2003) increases the welfare cost of autarky by up to 50 percent relative to Armington or Krugman (1980) which feature no extensive margin. Variable markups in Bernard, Eaton, Jensen, and Kortum (2003) further increase the welfare cost of autarky by 50 percent relative to Eaton and Kortum (2002) which features perfect competition. —————————————————————————————————————————– JEL Classification: F10, F11, F14, F17


Abstract 66 Background Cutaneous T cell Lymphoma (CTCL) is a heterogeneous group of non-Hodgkin9s lymphomas characterized by skin-homing malignant T cells. The etiology of CTCL remains enigmatic, but constitutive Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3 (STAT3) activity is characteristic of this malignancy. CTCL cell lines undergo growth arrest and apoptosis following inhibition of STAT3 signaling, suggesting that STAT3 may be a pro-survival factor in these cells. STAT3 phosphorylation is also required for the initiation and maintenance of the Th17 differentiation program, a recently identified subset of CD4+ T helper cells, implicated in a number of chronic inflammatory conditions including rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. Furthermore, we know that Histone Deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) namely Vorinostat and Romidepsin are very active agents for treatment of CTCL but their mechanism of action is still to be elucidated. Our goal is to probe the contribution of Th17 mediated inflammation in CTCL and to examine whether HDAC inhibitors work by modulating Th17 inflammation in the context of this malignancy. Methods Using conditional gene targeting approach we have generated a transgenic 100% penetrant mouse model of CTCL wherein expression of a hyper-active STAT3 mutant protein (STAT3C) selectively in T lymphocytes results in skin pathology highly reminiscent of this human malignancy. To have a better understanding of the contribution of STAT3 in CD4 T cell differentiation program and CTCL, we used lymphocytes and splenocytes from 8 weeks old STAT3Cstopfl/fl (without CD4Cre, thus no pathology) and control YFPstopfl/fl (Yellow Fluorescent Protein floxed) mice (Figure 1a). We isolated naive CD4 cells using Dynabeads and treated these CD4 cells with a transducible Cre enzyme (Tat-Cre) to delete the upstream stop cassette ex-vivo. These cells were then plated with stimulating α CD3/CD28 antibodies in various cytokine cocktails as shown in Figure 1b. These cells were harvested after 84 hours and stimulated with PMA/Inomycin for 4 hours for flowcytometric analysis. We are now using this in-vitro approach as well as our mouse model and primary tissue samples from CTCL patients to explore the impact of HDAC inhibitors on Th17/Treg balance. Results Upon Tat-Cre treatment we were able to analyze GFP+ (and therefore STAT3C expressing) vs. GFP- (control) T cells in the same differentiation conditions. Hyperactive STAT3C mutant protein favored TH17 differentiation as GFP Positive cells had significantly augmented IL17A production (Figure 1b). On the other hand, STAT3C expressing GFP positive cells in Th0 and Th1 differentiation conditions had less IFN-γ production compared to the GFP negative cells and control YFP fractions. Even the GFP negative fraction of STAT3C had less IFN-γ and more IL17A production than the control YFP fractions due to the cytokine milieu created by STAT3C expressing cells present in the same well. Conclusions: These results highlight an intriguing possibility that STAT3 dependent Th17 cells play a role in CTCL pathogenesis. Using our newly developed mouse model and CTCL patients9 blood and skin samples (IRB approved), we are trying to distinguish whether Th17 cells are instigators of chronic inflammation that contributes to the malignant transformation of T cells or that Th17 cells may actually be the cells of origin in this malignancy. Our ongoing experiments also include the effects of HDACi on this ex-vivo CD4 T cell differentiation. In addition, we are studying the hallmarks of Th17 differentiation namely IL-17A, IL-22 and pSTAT3 positivity in the skin biopsy and blood samples of CTCL patients before and after treatment with HDACi. These experiments will help us determine the impact of HDAC inhibition on STAT3 activity and Th17 differentiation and have a better understanding of their mechanism of action in CTCL. Our hope is that our study will guide us to comprehend the contribution of chronic inflammation in carcinogenesis and potentially identify novel treatment targets and strategies in the field of hematological malignancies. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Humans constantly engage in automatic and rapid analysis of spatial scene structure when navigating an environment or searching for objects. This chapter draws on current research from computational, behavioral and neuroscience perspectives aimed at understanding how the human brain perceives, represents, and remembers the shape of space. Space can be described with both structural descriptions, which reflect layout of surfaces in the physical world, and semantic descriptions, which incorporate an observers understanding of the environment. We first review two formal approaches which can quantify the structural properties of scene layout: the isovist representation and the spatial envelope representation. Next we explore how space is experienced by observers, by reviewing behavioral results in which different factors distort the perceived space away from a veridical representation. Finally, we examine how representations of specific views of space are maintained in memory, and discuss potential neural mechanisms involved in integrating views into larger environments. Gaining a formal understanding of how geometric aspects of space map onto human perceptual, cognitive, and neural systems will help to create efficient functional spaces for our daily interactions with the world.


Methadone, a potent long-acting opioid analgesic, is only seldom prescribed for postoperative pain relief in Germany. It was the aim of the present investigation to evaluate its efficacy and to establish an adequate dose range using intravenous patient-controlled analgesia (PCA), as well as to determine possible drug interactions with the antipyretic analgesk metamizol (dipyrone). 120 patients recovering from elective major abdominal, gynaecological or orthopaeclic surgery under standardized balanced anaesthesia were randomly allocated to three groups to self-administer intravenous 1-methadone. Demand doses were 0.573 mg (group LD), 1.145 mg (group HD) or 0.573 mg to which 50 mg metamizol (dipyrone) were added (group LM). Infusion rate was Set to 0.137 mg I-methadonelh in every group, lockout time was 1 min. Hourly maximum dose was Set to 5.95 mg I-methadonelh. During an average PCA duration of 21 hours patients demanded mean dosages of 16.4 mg (LD), 18.7 mg (HD) or 13.4 mg (LM) I-methadone. Althoug individual variation in drug consumption was high, effective pain relief was possible in all cases. Cardiovascular and respiratory Status during the observation period was always normal. 88-93 % of patients preferred PCA in comparison with earlier ex~erienced conventional DostoDerative pain treatment. It is concluded that patients are able to control adequate drug consumption, i.e. to avoid overdosage, by adjusting demand frequency if variable demand dosages are offered. Thus 13-19 mg 1-methadone per day can be recommended as reasonl able dose range for pain relief during the early postoperative period. Although the addition of the antipyretic analgesic metamizol (dipyrone) could be shown to reduce overall opioid consumption and to improve analgesic efficacy, this interaction did not proof statistically significant. Zusammenfassung


The properties of different grades of concrete produced with Portland limestone Cement (PLC) grades 32.5N and 42.5R was compared in the study. Initial and Final setting time tests were perform on cement paste. Slump and compacting factor test were performed on fresh concrete. Mix ratios of  1:2:4  and  1:3:6 (Cement: Sand: Granite) by volume and mix proportions for Grades 30 and 40 concrete used in different aspect of rigid pavements, were used to cast  concrete cubes  and beams that were subjected to compression and flexural strength test after curing for 7, 14, 28 and 56 days respectively. Compressive and flexural strength values of concrete produced with PLC grade 42.5R were higher than values obtained with grade 32.5. The 28 day compressive strength values of concrete produced with PLC grade 42.5R  were, 28.0, 30.0, 35.0, and 40.0 N/mm, 2 while values of 22.0, 28.0, 33.0 and 35.0 were obtained with PLC grade 32.5, for mix ratios of 1:3:6, 1:2:4 and Grade 30 and 40 concrete respectively. Similar trend was observed with flexural strength values.  Based on result of test PLC grade 42.5R is an improvement over grade 32.5 and its usage in rigid pavement construction work is recommended as it ensures higher strength and economy in concrete work.


A review is presented of advances and challenges in fully integrated systems for personalised medicine applications. One key issue for the commercialisation of such systems is the disposability of the assay-substrate at a low cost. This work adds a new dimension to the integrated circuits technology for lab-on-a-chip systems by employing 3D integration for improved performance and functionality. It is proposed that a disposable biosensing layer can be aligned and temporarily attached to the 3D CMOS stack by the vertical interconnections, and can be replaced after each measurement.


The WHO recognizes Pakistan to be on of the top contributors to mortalities related to accidents and road trafiic injuries. The lack of awareness and education in the general population and lack of adequate training about Basic Life Support (BLS) and trauma management in healthcare professionals in Pakistan play a pivotal role in causing this grim situation. Lack of funds allocated to healthcare system specfically the Emergency services is one of the many root causes leading to a significant number of preventable mortalities.
These injuries lead to lifelong and irreversible effects on both the physical and mental health of those involved. Moreover, it leads to unnecsserary strain on the already burdened healthcare system. Thus,immediate nationwide efforts are needed to create a system which is updated and capable enough to filter, classify and handle the emergencies. This system must be centralized, should be able to train people and make its own policies. This will ultimately lead to a better management at the emergency site and swift transitioning to the healthcare facility.
Continuous.....


BACKGROUND
The complexity of both natural and managed ecosystems involves various forms of interaction among organisms. Two or more species that exploit the same resource can engage in competitive behaviours, usually referred to as intraguild interactions. These can be direct, i.e. one species feeds directly upon the competitor (intraguild predation) or indirect, e.g. when the dominant organism competes for a food source that another organism is feeding upon (kleptoparasitism). We investigated the potential for such interactions in a biological model composed by the South American tomato pinworm, Tuta absoluta, and three of its newly associated natural enemies: the zoophytophagous predator Nesidiocoris tenuis and the two idiobiont ectoparasitoids Bracon nigricans and Necremnus tutae.

RESULTS
N. tenuis was shown (i) to scavenge on parasitised T. absoluta larvae and (ii) directly to attack and feed upon larvae of both parasitoid species, although at a higher percentage in the case of N. tutae. In the presence of the host plant, the predator reduced the emergence of both B. nigricans and N. tutae adults significantly.

CONCLUSION
This study stresses the ecological success of a generalist predator over indigenous parasitoids attacking an invasive pest. Moreover, these findings provide potential elements for better design of biological control programmes against T. absoluta. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.


Ankylosing spondylitis is a form of painful, ongoing joint inflammation (chronic inflammatory arthritis) that primarily affects the spine. Early symptoms of ankylosing spondylitis typically begin between the ages of 15 and 30. Most commonly, affected individuals first experience chronic back pain and stiffness. This pain worsens with rest or inactivity, and tends to be relieved with physical activity or exercise.


Objective To evaluate prospectively the relationship between radiologic findings and lung function impairment in COPD. Methods The data of 38 consecutive patients with COPD were examined. All patients were divided into group I (GOLD I and II, n=20) and group II (GOLD III and IV, n=18) based on post-bronchodilator FEV 1 . The patients underwent CT scanning and comprehensive examination of the respiratory function. Results The difference of the amounts of pulmonary emphysema, cysts, bronchiectasis, and pneumofibrosis among the patient groups was not statistically significant. Moreover, there were no statistically significant differences of TLC, VC, RV, DLCO indices between groups during disease remission. However, we have observed a significant increase of TLC, RV, and pCO 2 indices, as well as the decrease of DLCO, pO 2 , and sO 2 values of group II patients comparing to group I patients during exacerbation of the disease (p Presence of bronchiectasis and emphysema had correlation with exacerbations rate (r = 0.4, p Conclusions Our study showed that relationship between radiologic findings and lung function impairment in COPD is variegated. Deterioration in DLCO values reflected emerging pneumofibrosis in COPD patients. Repeated exacerbations were associated with bronchiectasis and emphysema. The patients with more severe airflow obstruction ( group II ) during remission had more severe respiratory function status during exacerbation comparing to group I patients.


There is a need to maximise rural clinical fieldwork placement to build health workforce capacity. This study investigated allied health professionals' (AHPs) experience of supervising students as part of work-integrated learning in public and private rural health settings. An anonymous postal questionnaire with 30 questions was used to collect quantitative and qualitative data about the barriers and enablers that AHPs encounter when supervising students in their clinical setting. A total of 113 public and private AHPs from Southwest Victoria, Australia, returned the questionnaire. The AHPs were trained in the disciplines of occupational therapy, physiotherapy, speech pathology, dietetics, podiatry or psychology. The majority of respondents (75%) had previously supervised students. Most respondents had only provided fieldwork education in the public sector. Allied health professionals working in public and private sectors had positive experiences with clinical fieldwork education and often had increased job satisfaction while supervising students. They experienced similar enablers to involvement in clinical fieldwork education programs, however the barriers they encountered were different. The findings highlight the differing issues between rural public and private settings that need to be addressed for successful clinical fieldwork education and work-integrated learning. Strategies to address the identified barriers need to be specific to the work conditions of each setting.


The formation of aflatoxicols (AFL) by 9 strains of Aspergillus flavus isolated from moldy corn, which was naturally contaminated with both aflatoxins (AF) and AFL, and by 2 strains of A. parasiticus from buckwheat flour was investigated.All of the AF-producing A. flavus and A. parasiticus strains showed activity to form both AF and AFL. The accumulation of AF and AFL in three substrata (corn grits, polished rice and peanuts) by an AF-producing strain of A. flavus was investigated. In each substratum, the largest amount of AF was detected at 6 to 10 days' incubation, and the amounts of both AFL A and B rapidly increased thereafter.


Hungary's history was as troubled as Eric Hobsbawm stated Europe's past in Age of Extremes. The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991. Dictatorships followed each another right from the end of WWI until the system change in 1989, but among all the authoritarian regimes socialism existed longest. After the thawing atmosphere of the second half in the 1960s, critical tone was articulated in the Neo-Avant-Garde's "second public sphere". A form of criticism against any kind of hierar- chical repression arose from performative and intermedial artworks and still didn't disappear even in postmodern times long after the fall of the wall. The paper will focus on three-dimension of hierarchical bondage: being chained through the other, trough the authorities and through history. All artists' works (that of El Kazovszkij, Tamas St. Auby and Little Warsaw) are meant to show inner relations between the body, its representation, authoritarian practice of control respectively performance and intermedia art.


Development![Figure][1]

FGF5 controls eyelash length

PHOTO: KAREN ROE/FLICKR

The length of your eyelashes probably differs from the length of the hair on your head—and unlike your hair, your eyelashes can never reach your shoulders. What controls how long hair can get? To find out, Higgins et al. studied people with a rare disorder called familial trichomegaly, who have very long eyelashes and longer hair on the arms. They found that these people had a mutation in the gene that encodes fibroblast growth factor 5 (FGF5). When human hair follicles produce FGF5, they stop growing hair. Targeting FGF5 could potentially control the growth and rest phases of hair follicles, preventing unwanted hair from sprouting or growing longer lashes and locks.

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 10.1073/pnas.1402862111 (2014).

 [1]: pending:yes


Introduction There is evidence that hypertension in midlife can increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia in late life. In addition, some treatments for hypertension have been proposed to have cognitive benefits, independent of their effect on hypertension. Consequently, there is potential to repurpose treatments for hypertension for dementia. This study systematically compared seven antihypertensive drug classes for this purpose, using data on over 849,000 patients from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink. Methods Treatments for hypertension were assessed in an instrumental variable (IV) analysis to address potential confounding and reverse causation. Physicians' prescribing preference was used as a categorical instrument, defined by the physicians' last seven prescriptions. Participants were new antihypertensive users between 1996-2016, aged 40 and over. Findings We analysed 849,378 patients with total follow up of 5,497,266 patient-years. Beta-adrenoceptor blockers and vasodilator antihypertensives were found to confer small protective effects – for example, vasodilator antihypertensives resulted in 27 (95% CI: 17 to 38; p=4.4e-7) fewer cases of any dementia per 1000 treated compared with diuretics. Interpretation We found small differences in antihypertensive drug class effects on risk of dementia outcomes. However, we show the magnitude of the differences between drug classes is smaller than previously reported. Future research should look to implement other causal analysis methods to address biases in conventional observational research with the ultimate aim of triangulating the evidence concerning this hypothesis. Funding This work was supported by the Perros Trust and the Integrative Epidemiology Unit. The Integrative Epidemiology Unit is supported by the Medical Research Council and the University of Bristol [grant number MC_UU_00011/1, MC_UU_00011/3]. RESEARCH IN CONTEXT Evidence before this study A recent systematic review and meta-analysis has collated the evidence for treating hypertension to prevent dementia. Seven comparable observational studies were identified that used either case-control designs with logistic regression or cohort designs with survival analysis. These studies suggested that some classes, such as angiotensin-II receptor blockers, may prevent dementia. However, conventional observational analyses, such as these, can be subject to confounding and reverse causation. Added value of this study We have provided new evidence about the potential effects of antihypertensives on risk of dementia through the novel application of instrumental variable analysis to this research question and have shown that the magnitude of the differences between drug classes is smaller than many observational studies have previously reported. Implications of all the available evidence Further research is needed to triangulate this evidence with other sources and to understand the inconsistencies between the studies conducted to date. Ultimately, this will inform the prioritization of antihypertensive drug classes for dementia prevention.


BACKGROUND
Regular seafood consumption is recommended in dietary guidelines. The aim of this study was to investigate the importance of seafood as a nutrient source in adolescents' diet and the extent to which seafood consumption can increase the intake of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and vitamin D.

METHODS
Consumption data recorded during seven consecutive days for 341 adolescents selected in Ghent (Belgium) were used to estimate the intake of vitamin D, linoleic (LA), alpha-linolenic (LNA), arachidonic (AA), eicosapentaenoic (EPA), docosapentaenoic (DPA) and docosahexaenoic (DHA) acid.

RESULTS
The adolescents consumed on average 3.21 microg/day vitamin D, 11.7 g/day LA and 1.4 g/day LNA. The mean intakes of AA, EPA, DPA and DHA were 83.2, 55.9, 18.4 and 111.4 mg/day respectively. The major source of vitamin D was fortified margarine. Fats and oils were the main sources for LA and LNA. The intake of AA was mainly contributed by meat, poultry and eggs. Fish and seafood contributed for 84.1%, 59.3% and 64.4% respectively for EPA, DPA and DHA.

CONCLUSION
Flemish adolescents would benefit from increased seafood consumption, as this would lead to a higher intake of EPA and DHA as well as of vitamin D. Moreover, replacement of foods rich in saturated fat (SFA) by seafood products can help to reduce SFA intake.


Objectives Educate physicians on the need for monitoring of Aciclivir levels in renal failure. Design Retrospective case report. Subjects 59 year old woman presented with acute psychosis following recent herpes zoster treated with oral Aciclovir. Methods Data collection from; original casenotes, electronic laboratory records, electronic picture archiving and communication system (PACS). Results Lumbar puncture showed raised protein (0.92 g/L), CSF:serum glucose ratio(0.9), 36 WBCs/cmm(72% polymorphs) and detection of VZV DNA. MRI brain only revealed intracranial-hypotension secondary to lumbar puncture. Despite absence of VZV DNA on surveillance lumbar puncture, she remained minimally responsive. Aciclovir levels were significantly elevated post-dose at 32.7 mg/L (cutoff 10.8 mg/L) and a sedation hold revealed temporal correlation of pre-dose levels (6.4 mg/L) with improvement of GCS, strongly implicating Aciclovir as causative agent. Rapid resolution of encephalopathy occurred upon cessation with no residual neurological compromise. Conclusions Aciclovir neurotoxicity mimics zoster-related encephalitis and VZV DNA is commonly detected in cerebrospinal fluid of patient's with herpes zoster (Rudzek et al. 2007). Our case highlights the need for vigilance of Aciclovir-neurotoxicity in renal failure patients. Reference Rudzek D, Piskunova N, Zampachova E. High variability in viral load in cerebrospinal fluid from patients with herpes simplex and varicella-zoster infections of the central nervous system. Clinical Microbiology and Infection2007;13(12):1217–1219.


A memetic algorithm, a novel approach for solving NP-hard problems, has been applied in this paper for grammatical inference in the field of domain-specific languages (DSLs). DSLs are often designed by domain experts who have no knowledge about the syntax and semantics of programming languages. However, they are able to write sample programs to accomplish their goals and illustrate the features of their language. Grammatical inference is a technique to infer a context-free grammar from a set of positive (and negative) samples. This paper shows that grammatical inference may assist domain experts and software language engineers in developing DSLs by automatically producing a grammar, which describes a set of sample DSL programs. A memetic-algorithm-based tool is developed, which greatly improves results and robustness of the inference process.


The implementation of the seven-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, PCV7, has resulted in significant changes in the pneumococcal population being carried and causing disease. We aimed to determine the invasive disease potential of serotypes causing invasive paediatric disease in the era of conjugate vaccines in Catalonia, Spain, and their potential coverage by the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, PCV13. As a secondary objective, we evaluated whether implementation of PCV7 had resulted in significant changes in the invasive disease potential of the most frequent serotypes circulating in the area. Two pneumococcal collections obtained from children admitted to the University Hospital Sant Joan de Déu (Barcelona, Spain) between 2007 and 2011 were compared: a first set of 159 invasive disease isolates, and a second set of 209 nasopharyngeal isolates recovered from healthy children admitted for minor surgery. The most common invasive serotypes were 1 (24.5%, n = 39), 19A (21.2%, n = 34), 5 (8.8%, n = 14), 7F (8.8%, n = 14) and 3 (5%, n = 8). The most common serotypes in carriage were 19A (10%, n = 21), 6C (9%, n = 19), 23B (8.1%, n = 17), 6A (7.6%, n = 16) and 19F (6.2%, n = 13). A significantly higher propensity to cause invasive disease was observed for serotypes 1, 3, 5, 7F and 19A, all of which are included in PCV13. After false-discovery-rate correction, the results were robust for serotypes 1, 5, 7F and 19A. Non-PCV13 serotypes had a low invasive disease potential. Our data reinforce the need for continuous surveillance and should encourage efforts to introduce universal vaccination with PCV13 in children in our region.


Concatenative speech synthesis is increasing in popularity, as it offers higher quality output than previous formant synthesisers. However, it is based on recorded speech units, concatenative synthesis offers a lesser degree of parametric control during resynthesis. Consequently, adding pragmatic effects such as different speaking styles and emotions at the synthesis stage is fundamentally more difficult than with formant synthesis. This paper describes the results of a preliminary attempt to add emotion to concatenative synthetic speech (using BT's Laureate synthesiser), initially using techniques already applied successfully to formant synthesis. A new intonation contour (including both pitch and duration changes) was applied to the concatenated segments during production of the final audible utterance, and some of the available synthesis parameters were systematically modified to increase the affective content. The output digital speech samples were then subject to further manipulation with a waveform editing package, to produce the final output utterance. The results of this process were a small number of manually-produced utterances, but which illustrated that affective manipulations were possible on this type of synthesiser. Further work has produced rule-based implementations which allow automatic production of emotional utterances. Development of these systems will be described, and some initial results from listener studies will be presented.


Predictive modeling program identifies high-risk patients before complications lead to skyrocketing costs. It's a new-generation effort, but it has already proven its worth in a large population, producing savings of $1 million to $2 million per month. The effort begins with the development of a constantly evolving registry of high-risk patients. Specialized case management efforts are then focused on stabilizing individuals within this group. See how traditional interventions have been combined with new technology to deliver results.


The causative agent of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is steadily mutating during continuous transmission among humans. Such mutations can occur in the spike (S) protein that binds to the angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 (ACE2) receptor and is cleaved by transmembrane protease serine 2 (TMPRSS2). However, whether S mutations affect SARS-CoV-2 infectivity remains unknown. Here, we show that naturally occurring S mutations can reduce or enhance cell entry via ACE2 and TMPRSS2. A SARS-CoV-2 S-pseudotyped lentivirus exhibits substantially lower entry than SARS-CoV S. Among S variants, the D614G mutant shows the highest cell entry, as supported by structural observations. Nevertheless, the D614G mutant remains susceptible to neutralization by antisera against prototypic viruses. Taken together, these data indicate that the D614G mutation enhances viral infectivity while maintaining neutralization susceptibility.


Online Oil debris detection is a complex and systemic issue that multiple requirements should be met for a practical application. When severe wear or tear happens, more accurate detection is needed for higher debris concentration. Aiming at promoting detection accuracy under the practical high debris concentration conditions, in this work, an experimental study is carried out to test the performance of an inductive oil debris detection method using a multi-channel sensor based on dual excitation sources with serial layout. Ferrous powders with different sizes and amounts are used for the experiment. Data processing methods including band-pass filter and anti-aliasing techniques are used for optimizing the estimation. The tested results indicate that the counting accuracy of coarse iron powder with 2.5 g/L concentration hydraulic oil at a flow rate of 40 L/min is higher than 85.8% and by data processing, the accuracy is promoted by 21.4% averagely.


AbstractIn this thesis, the possibilities for Citco Fund Services (CFS) to expand its presence in the Swedish market have been investigated. CFS is the world largest fund administrator and provides its services to hedge funds, fund of hedge funds, private equity funds and real estate funds. Real estate funds have however been excluded from this thesis since this market is very small in Sweden. In an index containing 75 Swedish hedge funds only 9% had outsourced their administrational work to CFS. Sweden is a country in the northern part of Europe with a population of 9.5 million. Sweden has its own currency, Swedish Krona, and had in 2013 a GDP of approximately 400 billion Euros. This thesis consists of a theoretical framework, a deep review of Sweden and CFS as well as an outlook of the Swedish and European economies. All the chapters have been analysed which has resulted in a conclusion and finally a recommendation for CFS.The research question in this thesis was: What is the potential for CFS to expand its presence in the Swedish market? To simplify to answer this question, three sub questions were composed as stated below:What is the status of the Swedish financial market?Which services does CFS provide?What is the outlook of the Swedish financial market?For each sub question there is one chapter that deeply describes the information needed to answer it. The theoretical framework gives the reader a deep understanding needed to be able to interpret the chapters.The status of the financial market in Sweden is good. The financial crisis in 2008 did not have as large impact on Sweden as on other countries because of numerous reasons. Some reasons discovered in this thesis are that Sweden learned the lesson from its bank crisis in early 1990s, and that the Swedish currency weakened in an early phase of the crisis in 2008, which led to increasing export.CFS has 40 years' experience of administrational services to hedge funds and 20 years to private equity funds. CFS offers independent valuations of assets, which became more important after the Madoff scandal was reviled.In this thesis four interviews have been conducted, in which three of the interviewees were professionals from the Swedish financial market and one was a manager at CFS. All four had a positive view of the future but noted that there are some threats to the Swedish economy.CFS is recommended to look into the possibilities of expanding its presence in Sweden. The Swedish economy is relatively strong and has proven to handle a crisis, such the one in 2008, fairly well. It is also likely that it will be a growing demand for independent administrational services in the future and that the fund market in Sweden will grow. CFS is also recommended to focus more on funds that perform their valuation in-house, fund of hedge funds and new start-up funds.


The infrared absorption coefficient of H2SO4 vapor has been measured for the first time. The vapor was obtained from liquid acid held at the azeotrope. The temperature dependence of the absorption confirmed that the azeotrope concentration was accurate to better than 1%. The P, Q, and R branches of the measured band cover a spectral range of 1190 to 1260 cm−1. The peak absorption coefficient of 4.16 ±0.15 atm−1 cm−1 occurred at 1222 cm−1 within the Q branch, with an integrated absorption coefficient of 120 atm−1cm−2 over the entire band. Within the resolution of the experiment, 0.5 cm−1, no fine structure was observed on this band.


Twenty-seven species of ostracodes are listed from the Tubara formation, south of the village of Tubara, near Barranquilla, Colombia. Twenty-one of the species have been described before from the Caribbean Miocene. Two new species are described, Cytherelloidea impages and Isocythereis? redmondi. The distribution of ostracodes suggests correlation with the upper Miocene of Trinidad and northeastern Venezuela.


In today's 'more for less' culture, the expectations of project management and delivery are no longer limited to budgets, schedules and quality. For projects to make an impact and have lasting value, the project manager must be able to strategize, innovate, motivate, empower and collaborate - in other words, project managers must learn how to lead.The Power of Project Leadership helps you transform into an effective project leader by shifting your managerial mindset into one of inspiration, motivation and influence. The book describes what good project leadership looks like and explains how to make the transition using concrete tools and strategies. With underlying theories to help the reader understand how teams and individuals are motivated, it ensures that project managers lead with vision, continuously improve and innovate, work with intent, empower the team, get closer to stakeholders, remain authentic and establish a solid foundation for their projects.The book has a practical and engaging approach and draws on over 25 interviews with leading experts who have made the transition from project managers to project leaders. These experts come from a variety of sectors and companies; including Expedia, British Gas, Standard Bank, Verizon Enterprise Solutions, Liquid Planner, and the UK Government.


Computer science graduates often find software engineering knowledge and skills are more in demand after they join the industry. However, given the lecture-based curriculum present in academia, it is not an easy undertaking to deliver industry-standard knowledge and skills in a software engineering classroom as such lectures hardly engage or convince students.Overcoming Challenges in Software Engineering Education: Delivering Non-Technical Knowledge and Skills combines recent advances and best practices to improve the curriculum of software engineering education. This book is an essential reference source for researchers and educators seeking to bridge the gap between industry expectations and what academia can provide in software engineering education.


Evaluation study was conducted for seismic interpretation using two-dimensional seismic data for Subba oil field, which is located in the southern Iraq. The Subba oil field was discovered in 1973 through the results of the seismic surveys and the digging of the first exploratory well SU-1 in 1975 to the south of the Subba oil field. The entire length of the field is 35 km and its width is about 10 km. The Subba oil field contains 15 wells most of them distributed in the central of the field.  This study is dealing with the field data and how to process it for the purpose of interpretation; the processes included conversion of field data format, compensation of lost data and noise disposal, as well as the application of normal moveout correction for the purpose of improving the quality of seismic sections, using Omiga software at the processing department/ Petroleum Exploration Company After processing RMS velocity map was done also constructed from the processing data and showed a low velocity compatibility north of the study area and an increase in velocity to the south of the oil field


The flapping dynamics of an inverted plate in a uniform flow has been widely used to study the energy harvesting system stability and efficiency. Different motion modes have been observed in previous numerical studies when the plate vibrates freely without any obstacles in proximity. This paper uses immersed boundary method (IBM) to numerically study the wall effect on the flapping motion of an inverted plate, investigate the effect of the Reynolds number, the flexibility and wall distance, and relevant symmetric/asymmetric flow patterns, research the influence of vortex generating and shedding to the force change, explore the key distance to the wall and reveal the mechanism of different modes. Three vibration modes: straight, flapping and deflected will be affected differently by the distance to the wall. The maximum mean strain energy is also found at a certain distance. Such research could theoretically support the development energy harvesting system.


A 54-YR-OLD woman with intractable leg pain secondary to lumbar stenosis elected to undergo L4–L5 decompressive laminectomy. General anesthesia was induced with fentanyl, lidocaine, and propofol (200 mg) and maintained with isoflurane and nitrous oxide. Tracheal intubation was facilitated with succinylcholine, and neuromuscular blockade was maintained with vecuronium. Within the first hour of the surgery, without any additional medications administered besides vancomycin, the urine color changed from yellow to green. The discoloration then resolved by the end of the 2.5-h operation. The patient was discharged home 2 days later without complication. An uncommon side effect of propofol is green urine discoloration, which is reported most frequently after prolonged infusions. The 4-sulfate and 1or 4-glucuronide conjugates of 2,6-diisopropyl-1,4-quinol are renally excreted and may rarely result in green urine discoloration, as seen in this case. Alkalinization of the urine favors the formation of these phenolic metabolites. In addition, several colors of urine have been reported with propofol use, including pink, white, red, and brown. Other causes of green urine discoloration include obstructive jaundice, Pseudomonas infection, Hartnup disease (abnormal amino acid transport), indicanuria, triamterene, amitriptyline, indomethacin, methocarbamol, promethazine, cimetidine, food coloring, Listerine mouthwash, Clorets mints, indigo dyes, and methylene blue. (Our patient was taking none of these medications). This case demonstrates the pronounced urine discoloration that may occur after a single induction dose of propofol in a patient undergoing elective surgery. The transient presence of green urine that resolves after propofol discontinuation is benign and self-limited. Unnecessary testing should be avoided.


Braincomputer interfaces (BCIs) allow their users to communicate or control external devices using brain signals rather than the brain's normal output pathways of peripheral nerves and muscles. Motivated by the hope of restoring independence to severely disabled individuals and by interest in further extending human control of external systems, researchers from many fields are engaged in this challenging new work. BCI research and development has grown explosively over the past two decades. Efforts have begun recently to provide laboratory-validated BCI systems to severely disabled individuals for real-world applications. In this paper, we discuss the current status and future prospects of BCI technology and its clinical applications. We will define BCI, review the BCI-relevant signals from the human brain, and describe the functional components of BCIs. We will also review current clinical applications of BCI technology and identify potential users and potential applications. Lastly, we will discuss current limitations of BCI technology, impediments to its widespread clinical use, and expectations for the future.


In this paper we report the distribution of Salmonella Typhi isolates in Italy and their resistance patterns to antibiotics. The data were collected by the Italian SALM-NET surveillance system in a pilot retrospective study of the period 1980-96. Data on drug-resistance were available for 82 isolates out of 176 S. Typhi isolated in Italy. Of these 82 isolates, 32 (39%) were resistant or intermediate to 1 or more antibiotics. Eight isolates were resistant and 7 intermediate to streptomycin; 4 isolates were resistant to ampicillin alone or in association with other antibiotics; only 2 strains (1 isolated in Lombardia in 1993 and the other 1 in Lazio in 1994) were resistant to chloramphenicol, and 2 (isolated in Sardegna and Piemonte in 1995 and 1996, respectively) showed intermediate resistance to chloramphenicol. The strains showing resistance to 3 or more antibiotics were very scarce: 1 (with 5 complete resistances) was isolated in Lazio in 1994, and another 1 (with complete resistance to 10 antibiotics and intermediate resistance to 2 antibiotics) was isolated in Molise in 1988. In conclusion, besides the routine activities to control typhoid fever, an accurate and continuous surveillance is necessary in order to quickly identify multidrug-resistant (MDR) S. Typhi strains and prevent their spread, even though their level, in our country, is still quite low.


Eddy current pulsed thermography (ECPT), a new emerging nondestructive testing and evaluation (NDT&E) technique, has been applied for a wide range of conductive materials. The acquired image sequences contain valuable information in both spatial and time domain. ECPT techniques mainly use a specific frame to detect and quantify the defects. However, selection of specific frame from transient thermal image video to maximize the contrast of thermal variation and defect pattern from complex geometrical samples remain a challenge. In order to accurately find anomalous patterns from the transient thermal pattern for defect detection and further quantitative NDE, this paper employs a single channel blind source separation algorithm. This method enables spatial and time patterns to be extracted according to the whole transient response behavior without any training knowledge. In this paper, both mathematical and physical models are discussed, and the basis of the proper selection of contrast image is given. In addition, the artificial slot and thermal fatigue natural crack are applied to validate the proposed method.


The study was conducted to determine the haematological and biochemical indices and the naturally occurring haemo and gastrointestinal microbes of 150 matured street pigeons in Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria. The PCV, WBC, MCV, MCH and total bilirubin values of the female pigeons were significantly (p 0.05) between the two group. Out of 150 street pigeons examined for prevalence of parasites, 70 (46.70%) of them were infected with gastro-intestinal parasites of which 30 (42.93%) were males and 40 (57.1%) were females. Four gastro-intestinal parasites were identified with Trichomonas sp . giving the highest prevalence rate (42%), followed by Eimeria sp. (28%), and whereas Coccidia sp . and Ascaridia sp . returned the least with each having the prevalence rate of (14%). Results of haemo -parasitological examination of thin blood smears revealed haematozoa of two genera: Haemoproteus sp. which was more common gave a prevalence rate of 40 (66%) for the male and 70 (87%) for the female pigeons. Plasmodium sp. with prevalence of 20 (33%) and 10 (12%) in male and female pigeons respectively. Fecal cultures recorded high growth of bacterial organisms, of which Proteus sp . returned 50 (83%) and Enterococcus sp . returned 10 (16%). In totality, 40% of the pigeons had bacterial infections. In conclusion, the prevalence of gastrointestinal and haemoparasites in street pigeons in Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria. However, these parasites did not cause any visible deleterious effects in the blood parameters of the pigeons examined.


Abstract Nowadays, conservation, maintenance and monitoring of natural resources according to estimated benefits and costs, plays an important role in economic growth and sustainable development. Economic development along with environmental protection, while preserving economic competitiveness by providing eco-friendly technologies, will prevent of loss and waste of environmental resources. One of the most comprehensive and complete environmental indicators which today used to provide a clear and comprehensive picture of environment in each country is Environmental Performance Index (EPI). Therefore, the main purpose of this study is investigation of affecting factors on environmental performance index in selected OPEC countries during the period 2000-2012 by using panel data approach. The results show that governance index, internet users and natural resource abundance index variables have positive and significant effect and openness and the carbon dioxide emissions per GDP have negative and significant effect on environmental performance index in selected OPEC countries. Also the coefficient of human development index (HDI) is positive and insignificant and value added of industry sector is negative and insignificant.


The time-domain equaliser (TEQ) is a commonly used device to shorten the channel impulse response in a discrete multitone (DMT) receiver. Many methods have been proposed to design the TEQ with a capacity maximisation criterion. An implicit assumption used by existing methods is that circular convolution can be conducted for the noise signal and the TEQ. This assumption is not valid because the noise vector, observed in a DMT symbol, does not have a cyclic prefix. A similar assumption is also made for the residual inter-symbol interference (ISI) signal. Because of these invalid assumptions, the TEQ-filtered noise and residual ISI powers in each subcarrier were not properly evaluated. As a result, optimum solutions derived are not actually optimal. This paper attempts to resolve this problem. We first analyse the statistical properties of the TEQ-filtered noise signal and the residual ISI signal in detail, and derive precise formulae for the calculation of the TEQ-filtered noise and residual ISI powers. Then, we re-formulate the capacity maximisation criterion to design the true optimum TEQ. Simulations show that the proposed method outperforms the existing ones, and its performance closely approaches the theoretical upper bound.


Information Security in the cyber world is a major cause for concern, with significant increase in the number of attack surfaces. Existing information on vulnerabilities, attacks, controls, and advisories available on the web provides an opportunity to represent knowledge and perform security analytics to mitigate some of the concerns. Representing security knowledge in the form of ontology facilitates anomaly detection, threat intelligence, reasoning and relevance attribution of attacks, and many more. This necessitates dynamic and automated enrichment of information security ontologies. However, existing ontology enrichment algorithms based on natural language processing and ML models have issues with the contextual extraction of concepts in words, phrases and sentences. This motivates the need for sequential Deep Learning architectures that traverse through dependency paths in text and extract embedded vulnerabilities, threats, controls, products and other security related concepts and instances from learned path representations. In the proposed approach, Bidirectional LSTMs trained on a large DBpedia dataset and Wikipedia corpus of 2.8 GB along with Universal Sentence Encoder was deployed to enrich ISO 27001 [8] based information security ontology. The approach yielded a test accuracy of over 80% when tested with knocked out concepts from ontology and web page instances to validate the robustness.


This thesis examines the syntax of the sentence and the style of three of Alberto Arbasino's early works: Le piccole vacanze (1957), Il ragazzo perduto (1959) and Fratelli d'Italia (1963). The period in which these works were written and published was one of great linguistic changes, with Italian starting to become the language spoken by the majority of the population and the consequent formation of a new variety, the italiano dell'uso medio. This social evolution has also consequences for the language of narrative: whereas some authors embrace the lingua media and a clear, communicative style (stile semplice), others reject it and opt for linguistic experimentation. Although Arbasino is typically placed in this second slant of narrative writing, one cannot so easily assign him to a group or stream, since from the beginning of his career he developed a personal poetics influenced by modernist writers, as well as his own ideas on language and style. The aims of this study are first of all to chart the birth and diachronic evolution of Arbasino's style, and evaluate the influence of his syntactic choices on it. Then investigate how the syntax of each work compares to the lines of development of contemporary Italian and to the language of contemporary narrative. My analysis begins with a comprehensive outline of the features of contemporary Italian and of the styles of writing in post-war narrative, ending with a focus on the character of Arbasino's poetics and ideas on language and style in the decade 1954-1964. A brief chapter then illustrates the methodology used, based on quantitative analysis of syntactic aspects, and clarifies terminology. Thereafter, the core of the thesis is composed of three case studies that examine thoroughly the syntax of the sentence and other important syntactic devices of the three works separately, comparing data with corpora of Italian and with studies on narrative language. Finally, a concluding chapter highlights the lines of development of syntax and style in the three works. On the basis of this research, it is clear that the syntax of the sentence places Arbasino among experimental writers tending to break with the linguistic standard. Moreover, Arbasino's syntactic choices in the three works reflect an increasing distance from traditional literary modes of representation and the progressive affirmation of his own literary project, founded in the poetics of realismo critico.


In this study several most commonly used statistical techniques for examining cross-cultural differences and similarities, together with an analysis of measurement equivalence, were described and demonstrated. The sample was composed of 4327 students (3045 females and 1282 males) from 11 countries and four continents: Croatia, Finland, Sweden, Slovenia, Spain, Serbia, Japan, China, India, Argentina, and United States of America. The Emotional Skills and Competences Questionnaire (ESCQ-45) was used as a measure of trait emotional intelligence. It was developed in Croatia using Mayer and Salovey's model and consists of three subscales which assess perceiving and understanding emotions, expressing and labeling emotions, and managing and regulating emotions. The three-dimensional structure of the ESCQ was confirmed in all cultural contexts. The existence of two factors (Perceiving and understanding emotions and Expressing and labeling emotions), using different testing techniques, was replicated consistently across cultures. However, the third dimension, Managing and regulating emotions, showed significant variations in certain cultures. The strongest cross-cultural effect (etacoefficient) was evident in the Japanese sample. Due to the specific way of responding, this sample differed in the mean values on the respective subscales, factor structure (congruency coefficients) and goodness-of-fit measures (AGFI, CFI, NNFI, RMSSR) in comparison to 'the rest of the World'. Results of students from other ten countries, across different statistical indicators, were much more similar.


This paper describes the development of a CLARIN-compatible repository solution that fulfils both the long-term preservation requirements as well as the current day discoverability and usability needs of an online data repository of language resources. The widely used Fedora Commons open source repository framework, combined with the Islandora discovery layer, forms the basis of the solution. On top of this existing solution, additional modules and tools are developed to make it suitable for the types of data and metadata that are used by the participating partners.


The urban artificial wetland is an important component of an urban green space system, and the adoption of quantitative method for studying the evaluation of urban wetland landscape proposal is of great significance to promote the construction of urban artificial wetland. In this study, the evaluation system of urban artificial wetland landscape proposal was established by selecting 6 indicators such as technology, bio-diversity, landscape function, maintenance, construction cost and artistic effect, and adopting the methods of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), and empirical evaluations of 30 urban artificial wetland landscape proposals have been conducted to verify the feasibility of the model. The results showed that: AHP-TOPSIS model was applied to the evaluation of urban artificial wetland landscape proposal with a good differentiation degree, which can be used for a comprehensive, reasonable and accurate assessment on the comprehensive quality of an urban artificial wetland landscape proposal as a simple and effective evaluation method. This method also can be applied to evaluation and classification on landscape proposals of other types of green space.


We conduct evolutionary programming experiments to evolve artificial neural networks for forecast combination. Using stock price volatility forecast data we find evolved networks compare favorably with a naive average combination, a least squares method, and a kernel method on out-of-sample forecasting ability-the best evolved network showed strong superiority in statistical tests of encompassing. Further, we find that the result is not sensitive to the nature of the randomness inherent in the evolutionary optimization process.


Spatial panel data models are widely used in empirical studies. The existing theories of spatial models so far have largely confine the analysis under the assumption of parameters stabilities. This is unduely restrictive, since a large number of studies have well documented the presence of structural changes in the relationship of economic variables. This paper proposes and studies spatial panel data models with structural change. We consider using the quasi maximum likelihood method to estimate the model. Static and dynamic models are both considered. Large-$T$ and fixed-$T$ setups are both considered. We provide a relatively complete asymptotic theory for the maximum likelihood estimators, including consistency, convergence rates and limiting distributions of the regression coefficients, the timing of structural change and variance of errors. We study the hypothesis testing for the presence of structural change. The three super-type statistics are proposed. The Monte Carlo simulation results are consistent with our theoretical results and show that the maximum likelihood estimators have good finite sample performance.


BI4Dynamics is a business intelligence solution for the Microsoft Dynamics NAV transactional system based on the SQL Server platform and .NET Framework. Step-by-step analytical system's deployment wizard deploys a fully functional data warehouse and analytical database on the SQL Server. The NAV data is pumped into the staging area of the data warehouse by a group of ETL processes where it gets cleaned, restructured and in the end stored into the presentation area of the data warehouse. Analytical database consists of a group of dimensions and cubes, which reads the data from the data warehouse presentation area. The BI4Dynamics architecture was not designed in a way to provide a modular structured data model. Therefore, every BI4Dynamics implementation comes with six standard analytical areas, which are deployed by the deployment wizard. All additional analytical areas need to be integrated into the BI4Dynamics analytical system manually. When BI4Dynamics entered the worldwide market, the need of a modular data model, which allows deployment of any group of BI4Dynamics modules using the deployment wizard, grew stronger and stronger.
In the analysis of the old BI4Dynamics data model, I described the entire architecture where I pointed out the key architectural qualities that need to be kept in the new architecture. I also pointed out some obsolete architectural parts that need to be discarded in the new architecture. The biggest changes were implemented in the data warehouse staging area architecture. The process of building the staging area in the old architecture was too complex to provide modular deployment of the data warehouse. In the new architecture, I minimized the number of setup tables and procedures which are used during the deployment of the staging area. The presentation area of the data warehouse did not undergo many architectural changes due to the nature of the dimensional data model, which provides modularity by default. The presentation area objects underwent some minor changes in the form of changing the naming convention, which is more user-friendly in terms of locating the objects on the SQL Server in a timely fashion.
In the old BI4Dynamics version, the entire analytical database was deployed from an XMLA document, which was sent to the analysis services server by BI4Dynamics deployment wizard. The new architecture manages all dimensions and cubes into XML structured objects, which can be serialized into .NET Framework AMO objects. These objects are then deployed on the analysis services server by the new BI4Dynamics .NET client.
All data warehouse and analytical database objects of the new BI4Dynamics data model, which conflate into the BI4Dynamics module (dimension or cube), are structured into XML files, which provide multi-versioning ability for each object. Deployment of the correct version of the object and the right deployment order is managed by the MEF framework implemented in the BI4Dynamics .NET client.
The new BI4Dynamics data model brought benefits both in the trade and technical fields. The sales teams use a new tailored-based package sales model that allows adapting to the needs of the worldwide market. From the technical point of view, the new architecture provides a platform which can be easily expanded to other transactional data sources, such as Dynamics CRM and Dynamics AX.


Integrating electronic health records (EHR) with health administrative data offer opportunities for enhanced decision support, health systems evaluations and research for improved patient care. We describe the process of integrating EHR data from 12 hospitals in Southwestern Ontario, Canada and present a health systems evaluation enabled by this linkage.
With support and buy-in from the hospital Chief Executive Officers, a data sharing agreement (DSA) with ICES was executed, outlining the process to approve data transfer requests. Due to the complexity and volume of the EHR, complete data were not immediately transferred to ICES; instead, a project subcommittee comprising of physician leadership, local and regional privacy and risk officers, and ICES staff was assembled to review and approve project-specific data integration requests. An evaluation of the adoption of an electronic medication reconciliation system within the EHR on potentially inappropriate prescribing after hospital discharge was conducted using interrupted time-series analyses.
The data integration request process begins with confirmation of data availability and accuracy within the EHR, enabled by a dedicated health information analyst and institutional decision support teams. Once data feasibility is confirmed, project rationale is submitted to the project subcommittee approval. Following approval, the request undergoes privacy and legal assessment as per the DSA and a project-ready dataset is submitted for linkage.
An evaluation of the adoption of an electronic medication reconciliation system demonstrated an immediate and dramatic reduction in inappropriate medication prescribing and associated adverse events such as a fall or fracture among elderly patients discharged following acute inpatient stays.
Administrative data are valuable at assessing population-based health, but often lack key clinical information present in EHRs. Integrating both data sources offers a more comprehensive picture of patient care and allows for robust analyses. Rigorous investigations generate trusted evidence for decision makers to inform policy and quality improvements within the healthcare system.


Novel Algorithms for Merging Computational Fluid Dynamics and 4D Flow MRI by Ali Bakhshinejad The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, 2018 Under the Supervision of Professors Roshan M. D'Souza And Vitaliy L. Rayz Time-resolved three-dimensional spatial encoding combined with three-directional velocity-encoded phase contrast magnetic resonance imaging (termed as 4D flow MRI), can provide valuable information for diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of vascular diseases. The accuracy of this technique, however, is limited by errors in flow estimation due to acquisition noise as well as systematic errors. Furthermore, available spatial resolution is limited to 1.5mm 3mm and temporal resolution is limited to 30-40ms. This is often grossly inadequate to resolve flow details in small arteries, such as those in cerebral circulation. Recently, there have been efforts to address the limitations of the spatial and temporal resolution of MR flow imaging through the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). While CFD is capable of providing essentially unlimited spatial and temporal resolution, numerical results are very sensitive to errors in estimation of the flow boundary conditions. In this work, we present three novel techniques that combine CFD with 4D flow MRI measurements in order to address the resolution and noise issues. The first technique is a variant of the Kalman Filter state estimator called the Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF). In this technique, an ensemble of patient-specific CFD solutions are used to compute filter gains. These gains are then used in a predictor-corrector scheme to not only denoise the data but also increase its temporal and spatial resolution. The second technique is based on proper orthogonal decomposition and ridge regression ii (POD-rr). The POD method is typically used to generate reduced order models (ROMs) in closed control applications of large degree of freedom systems that result from discretization of governing partial differential equations (PDE). The POD-rr process results in a set of basis functions (vectors), that capture the local space of solutions of the PDE in question. In our application, the basis functions are generated from an ensemble of patient-specific CFD solutions whose boundary conditions are estimated from 4D flow MRI data. The CFD solution that should be most closely representing the actual flow is generated by projecting 4D flow MRI data onto the basis vectors followed by reconstruction in both MRI and CFD resolution. The rr algorithm was used for between resolution mapping. Despite the accuracy of using rr as the mapping step, due to manual adjustment of a coefficient in the algorithm we developed the third algorithm. In this step, the rr algorithm was substituted with a dynamic mode decomposition algorithm to preserve the robustness. These algorithms have been implemented and tested using a numerical model of the flow in a cerebral aneurysm. Solutions at time intervals corresponding to the 4D flow MRI temporal resolution were collected and downsampled to the spatial resolution of the imaging data. A simulated acquisition noise was then added in k-space. Finally, the simulated data affected by noise were used as an input to the merging algorithms. Rigorous comparison to state-of-the-art techniques were conducted to assess the accuracy and performance of the proposed method. The results provided denoised flow fields with less than 1% overall error for different signal-to-noise ratios. At the end, a small cohort of three patients were corrected and the data were reconstructed using different methods, the wall shear stress (WSS) was calculated using different reconstructed data and the results were compared. As it has been shown in chapter 5, the calculated WSS using different methods results in mutual high and low shear


By adopting technique for forming colloid to manufacture Al2O3 Ceramic Substrate, the effect of aggregation reaction which is caused by pH value, temperature for shaping, evocating agent and some other factors of slurry has been researched in the processes for shaping Substrate. The result addresses that the substrate with well-proportioned in density, contractibility and over 78MPa intensity is able to be made while the pH is about 9, the temperature is between 60 and 70°, the shaping duration is no more than 30 minutes, in glass mold, and with 120 item undersize α-Al2O3 powder. To dunk the desiccating substrate for 20 minutes, it would gain the good flexibility, moreover, it is able to be cut. After it is desiccated again, it becomes firm again, this kind of characteristic can be repeated numbers of times.


Aim: To investigate whether liver fibrosis can be predicted by quantifying the deformity of the liver obtained based on computed tomographic (CT) images scanned under respiratory control. Materials and Methods: For dynamic CT of 47 patients, portal venous and equilibrium phases were scanned during inspiration and expiration, respectively. After rigid registration of the two images, non-rigid registration of the liver was performed, and the amount and direction of each voxel's shift during non-rigid registration was defined as the deformation vector. The correlation of each CT parameter for the obtained deformation vectors with the pathologically-proven degree of liver fibrosis was assessed using Spearman's rank correlation test. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was conducted for prediction of liver fibrosis. Results: The standard deviation, coefficient of variance (CV) and skewness were significantly negatively correlated with the degree of liver fibrosis (p=0.030, 0.009 and 0.037, respectively). Of these measures, CV was best correlated and significantly decreased as liver fibrosis progressed (rho=−0.376). CV showed accuracies of 66.0-70.2%, and the areas under curves were 0.654-0.727 for prediction of fibrosis of grade F1 or greater, F2 or greater, F3 or greater and F4 fibrosis. Conclusion: The deformation vector is a potential CT parameter for evaluating liver fibrosis.


Modern Integrated Circuits (ICs) employ several classes of countermeasures to mitigate physical attacks. Recently, a powerful semi-invasive attack relying on optical contactless probing has been introduced, which can assist the attacker in circumventing the integrated countermeasures and probe the secret data on a chip. This attack can be mounted using IC debug tools from the backside of the chip. The first published attack based on this technique was conducted against a proof-of-concept hardware implementation on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). Therefore, the success of optical probing techniques against a real commercial device without any knowledge of the hardware implementation is still questionable. The aim of this work is to assess the threat of optical contactless probing in a real attack scenario. To this end, we conduct an optical probing attack against the bitstream encryption feature of a common FPGA. We demonstrate that the adversary is able to extract the plaintext data containing sensitive design information and intellectual property (IP). In contrast to previous optical attacks from the IC backside, our attack does not require any device preparation or silicon polishing, which makes it a non-invasive attack. Additionally, we debunk the myth that small technology sizes are unsusceptible to optical attacks, as we use an optical resolution of about 1 um to successfully attack a 28 nm device. Based on our time measurements, an attacker needs less than 10 working days to conduct the optical analysis and reverse-engineer the security-related parts of the hardware. Finally, we propose and discuss potential countermeasures, which could make the attack more challenging.


Video processing and computer vision communities usually employ shot-based or object-based structural video models and associate low-level (color, texture, shape, and motion) and semantic descriptions (textual annotations) with these structural (syntactic) elements. Database and information retrieval communities, on the other hand, employ entity-relation or object-oriented models to model the semantics of multimedia documents. This paper proposes a new generic integrated semantic-syntactic video model to include all of these elements within a single framework to enable structured video search and browsing combining textual and low-level descriptors. The proposed model includes semantic entities (video objects and events) and the relations between them. We introduce a new "actor" entity to enable grouping of object roles in specific events. This context-dependent classification of attributes of an object allows for more efficient browsing and retrieval. The model also allows for decomposition of events into elementary motion units and elementary reaction/interaction units in order to access mid-level semantics and low-level video features. The instantiations of the model are expressed as graphs. Users can formulate flexible queries that can be translated into such graphs. Alternatively, users can input query graphs by editing an abstract model (model template). Search and retrieval is accomplished by matching the query graph with those instantiated models in the database. Examples and experimental results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed integrated modeling and querying framework.


The carpo-metacarpal joint is important for thumb function and for strong pinching and grasping. Inadequately treated fracture of the trapezium can produce long term morbidity. Solitary fracture of the trapezium are uncommon, compose less than 3% of all carpal fractures in adults. However such fractures are very rare in growing patients. Routine anteroposterior (AP) and lateral radiographs of the wrist often fail to show these fractures because of the overlapping trapezoid. Special radiographic views have been described (Robert's view) to detect this fracture. Computer tomography (CT) was found to be essential for the diagnosis and proper treatment of the described injury. We report a case of sagittally split fracture of the trapezium associated with a subluxated carpo-metacarpal joint of the thumb that occurred while playing golf, which was treated by open reduction and percutaneous pinning using two K-wires.


Denmark has since the late 1980ties significantly reduced the N-leaching from agriculture, but must further decrease the N-load to coastal waters from agriculture areas to comply with the Water Framework Directive. Farmers are, however, already fertilizing below economical optimum and new regulatory strategies are required. A new spatially targeted regulation, taking spatial variation in natural N-reduction in groundwater into account, is under development. The objectives of this study were to analyse the potential benefits of a spatially targeted regulation based on detailed N-reduction maps and to analyse how uncertainty in the N-reduction maps affects the efficiency of such a regulation. Two ways of spatially targeting was examined: (i) Identification of target areas with low N-reduction where mitigation measures must be applied to reduce N-leaching to a defined level and (ii) redistribution of N-leaching on non-target areas according to the N-reduction maps, so that high leaching rates are relocated to areas with high N-reduction and vice versa. The study illustrates that there are potential benefits of implementing a spatially targeted regulation based on detailed groundwater N-reduction maps. The potential benefits are larger in Odense study catchment than in Norsminde catchment. The results show, that an increase in N-leaching can be allowed on non-target areas without increasing the N-load to surface water, if farmers at the same time implement a spatially targeted regulation. If spatially targeting is solely done by redistributing the present N-leaching a reduction of 8% in N-load can be obtained in Norsminde and 26% in Odense. Uncertainty on the N-reduction maps due to geological uncertainty is found to lower the efficiency of spatially targeted regulation since wrong target areas can be identified. The study shows that using the mean of an ensemble of N-reduction maps can lower this error. The uncertainty of the N-reduction maps decrease with increasing spatial resolution of the maps, but the study also shows that the spatial resolution greatly influences the efficiency of spatially targeted regulation. * firstname.lastname@example.com, firstname.lastname@example.com, email@example.com Depart. of Hydrology, Øster Voldgade 10, DK-1350 Copenhagen K ** email@example.com, email@example.com: Dept. of Agroecology, Blichers Allé 20, DK-8830 Tjele


IL-10 is a pleiotropic cytokine with stimulatory and inhibitory properties, and is thought to have a protective role in rheumatoid arthritis and collagen-induced arthritis (CIA). In this study, we investigated how IL-10 deficiency affects CIA and anti-collagen type II (CII) Ab-transferred arthritis in C57BL/10.Q (B10.Q) mice. The B10.Q.IL-10(-/-) mice had an 8-cM 129/Ola fragment around the IL-10 gene. The mice were treated with antibiotics, appeared healthy, and had no colitis. T cells from IL-10(-/-) mice expressed similar levels of IFN-gamma, IL-2, and IL-4 after mitogen stimulation; however, macrophages showed a reduced TNF-alpha production compared with IL-10(+/-) littermates. IL-10(-/-) mice had an increased incidence, and a more severe CIA disease than the IL-10(+/-) littermates. To study the role of IL-10 in T cell tolerance, IL-10(-/-) were crossed into mice carrying the immunodominant epitope, CII(256-270), in cartilage (MMC) or in skin (TSC). Both IL-10(-/-) and IL-10(+/-) MMC and TSC mice were completely tolerized against CIA, indicating that lack of IL-10 in this context did not break tolerance. To investigate whether IL-10 was important in the effector phase of CIA, arthritis was induced with anti-CII Abs. Surprisingly, IL-10(-/-) were less susceptible to Ab-transferred arthritis, as only 30% showed signs of disease compared with 90% of the littermates. Therefore, IL-10 seemed to have a protective role in CIA, but seemed to exacerbate the arthritogenicity of anti-CII Abs. These data emphasize the importance of studying IL-10 in a defined genetic context in vivo, to understand its role in a complex disease like arthritis.


The purpose of the study was to enhance the understanding of what is affected and eligible technology and the direct supervision of the offices on the basis of the employee's perspective. Where the issues were the following: What legitimizes the technology and the direct supervision according to the workers?How does the integrity of the employee's effekt the acceptance of the technology and the direct supervision of the open plan offices? To carry out the study, participated twelve workers from two different organizations. The material consisted of previous research, surveillance and privacy as well as two theories. The theories consisted of Michel Foucault's theory of panopticism and Erving Goffman's theory, self in everyday life. The method had a qualitative approach where individual interviews were used as the basis for the results.The study showed that workers felt the monitoring to be legitimated when it was preceded by acceptable arguments, such as increased security and improved economy. The study showed that the surveillance was accepted easier if the employee had to be involved in the implementation of new monitoring, as well as receive information on the monitoring presence and purpose. The study also showed that workers on the basis of individual perspective, was more difficult to accept especially technological monitoring as it increasingly considered to be a threat to the integrity than the direct monitoring. However, there was a greater acceptance of the direct monitoring based on organizational perspective, because it was considered more important to protect the organization than to protect the individual's privacy. If the individual deviated from the norm it could damage the organization and therefore other workers.


Introduction: Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosis among women across the world. Successful breast cancer treatment depends on the early diagnosis of the disease. Mammography is a 'gold standard' screening method for breast cancer. The present study aimed to evaluate the demographic factors and health beliefs associated with screening mammography in the female employees aged 35 years and more in the state and Azad schools of medical sciences in Abadan, Iran. Methods: This descriptive study was conducted on 90 female employees in Abadan School of Medical Sciences and School of Nursing and Midwifery at Islamic Azad University of Abadan in 2017. Participants were selected via census sampling. Data collections tools were demographic and health beliefs questionnaires. Data analysis was performed in SPSS version 21 using Spearman's and Pearson's correlation-coefficient, and P-value of less than 0.05 was considered significant. Results: Significant associations were observed between the frequency of mammography and perceived sensitivity, as well as the education level of the spouse and perceived sensitivity (P=0.003). Mean perceived barriers in the subjects with a history of breast cancer in the first-degree relatives was higher compared to the perceived barriers in those with no history of breast cancer in their first-degree relatives. Moreover, mean perceived sensitivity was higher in the employees with a degree in medical sciences compared to those educated in humanities. Conclusion: According to the results, lack of knowledge on mammography was the main cause of the low rate of this screening method among the studied women. Therefore, it is recommended that codified educational programs be implemented in order to raise awareness regarding breast cancer screening.


The advance in semiconductor technologies presents the serious problem of parameter variations. They affect threshold voltage of transistors and thus circuit delay also has variations. Recently, variable latency adders and long latency adders are proposed to manage the variation problem. Unfortunately, replacing a variation-affected adder with the long latency one has severe impact on processor performance. In order to maintain performance, the present paper proposes an instruction scheduling technique considering instruction criticality. By issuing and executing only uncritical instructions in the long latency ALU, we can maintain processor performance. From detailed simulations, we find that the proposed scheduling technique improves processor performance by 12.5% on average over the conventional scheduling and that performance degradation from a variation-free processor is only 4.0% on average, when 2 of 4 ALU's are affected by variations.


Cellobiose lipids (CL) are extracellular glycolipids that are produced by many microorganisms from the family Ustilaginaceae. The sugarcane smut fungus Sporisorium scitamineum has been long known as a producer of the glycolipids mannosylerythritol lipids (MEL) and was recently described to additionally secrete CL as a byproduct. In fact, we identified 11 homologous genes in S. scitamineum by in silico analysis sharing a high similarity to the CL biosynthesis gene cluster of Ustilago maydis. We here report the first systematic cultivation of S. scitamineum targeting the synthesis of CL with high product titers and its transfer to the bioreactor. In an initial screening we examined different fermentation media compositions, consisting of a mineral salts solution with vitamins and/or trace elements, three carbon sources (glucose, fructose, sucrose), three pH values (2.5, 4.0, 6.7) and three levels of C/N values (42.2, 83.8, 167.2 molC⋅molN–1) with urea as nitrogen source. A pH of 2.5 proved to result in the highest product titers. An increase of urea concentration from 0.6 to 1.2 g⋅L–1 had a positive effect on biomass formation, however the glycolipid formation was favored at a C/N ratio of 83.8 molC⋅molN–1, using 0.6 g⋅L–1 urea. Amongst the examined carbon sources, sucrose resulted in an increase in the secretion of cellobiose lipids, compared to glucose. Comparing different media compositions, vitamins were identified as not necessary for CL synthesis. We obtained a concentration of cellobiose lipids of 8.3 ± 1.0 g⋅L–1 in shaking flasks. This increased to 17.6 g⋅L–1 in the 1 L bioreactor with additional feeding of carbon source, with a final purity of 85–93%. As a side product, erythritol and mannosylerythritol lipids (MEL) were also synthesized. Via HPTLC coupled MALDI-TOF MS we were able to analyze the secreted CL structures. S. scitamineum produces a mixture of acylated low molecular weight D-glucolipids, linked to a 2,15,16-trihydroxy-hexadecanoic acid via their ω-hydroxyl group (CL-B). The produced cellobiose lipids precipitate as needle like crystals at an acidic pH value of 2.5.


Abstract. We examine six accounting-based stock price anomalies using two sets of tests to determine the extent to which the anomalies (1) represent market mispricing or (2) reflect premia for unidentified risks. Market mispricing is indicated if the anomalous returns are concentrated around subsequent earnings announcements in patterns suggesting that the earnings information causes traders to re-examine their prior (incorrect) beliefs. Mispricing is also indicated if anomalous returns on zero-investment portfolios are positive, period after period. Our results indicate that an anomaly based on earnings momentum probably reflects market mispricing, but that two value-glamour anomalies (based on the book-market ratio and the earnings-price ratio), and two anomalies based on computerized fundamental analyses (from Ou and Penman 1989 and Holthausen and Larcker 1992) are more likely to reflect risk premia than indicated by prior research. Evidence on a sixth anomaly, based on price momentum, is mixed.


Hampel and Tracey and Helms, Patterson, and Hudson offer contrasting perspectives regarding whether stigma and legitimacy belong on a single continuum or different continua altogether. To clarify the high stakes involved when society stigmatizes actors, I argue that all stigmas have moral overtones and that, while stigmatization upholds systems of values, norms and ideologies, the moralizing often comes with a significant price not only for the stigmatized but for society itself. I then argue that the contrasting perspectives can be reconciled if scholars restrict the definitions of both stigma and legitimacy to group-specific judgments of specific practices or attributes. However, I ponder if the definitional precision gained by collapsing both stigma and legitimacy to the same narrow focus costs us, as scholars, more than it benefits. I close with two cautionary notes. First, scholars should avoid being seduced by society's crass demand for simplistic labels when it comes to moral fitness and thinking that stigma and legitimacy are inherently binary states (black vs. white) rather than the continuous states (shades of gray) they usually are. Second, scholars should be wary of viewing the midpoint of a stigma or legitimacy scale as representing indifference or neutrality when it may actually represent ambivalence – a far different phenomenological experience. Rather than assessing stigma/legitimacy with a single scale that varies from positive/high to negative/low – with indifferent or neutral as the midpoint – scholars should consider assessing them with dual scales for legitimacy and illegitimacy or stigmatized and non-stigmatized.


Cholera remains a threat to public health in many developing countries, including Mozambique. Although the disease is easily preventable by practices of hygiene and sanitation, cases are reported in the country every year, as for example in the Lago district in 2015. This qualitative research project set out to explore in what ways the promotion of hygiene and sanitation practices on district level in Mozambique is carried out. Therefore, actors, messages and channels involved in these communication processes were explored via a field study in Lago and a review of relevant literature. Subsequently, the results of the field study and literature review were analysed by applying the concepts of one-way and two-way communication which are part of public relations theory. This analytical framework allowed the researchers to fill a gap identified in the existing literature about hygiene and sanitation promotion, which did not seem to include communication theories linked to public relation practices when it came to hygiene and sanitation promotion in developing countries as a method to prevent cholera.It has been found that the one-way communication approach towards the public was successful in handling the recent cholera outbreak of 2015, however, the approach is not substantial and should be improved into a two-way communication approach, which would allow the local population to express their needs in hygiene and sanitation, as well as their capabilities to implement change in these matters.Simultaneously, a lack of resources within the district authorities involved in hygiene and sanitation promotion seems to encourage one-way communication towards the public from their side, as two-way communication would demand further resources for research into the above mentioned needs and capabilities of communities.


In this study, roll lock-in phenomena of freely spinning tailfins were investigated by a CFD code. To analyze a motion of freely spinning tailfins, this research use a Chimera method, an Euler code and a 6 degrees of freedom analysis. The numerical results of aerodynamic characteristics and roll rates of a canard-controlled missile with freely spinning tailfins show a good agreement with wind tunnel test results. Using the roll rates calculation result of freely spinning tailfins, roll lock-in phenomena is confirmed. Roll lock-in phenomena and Roll lock-in states can be predicted through effects of the induced vortex of the canards control and the analysis of the rolling moments of tailfins due to the bank angle.


Global-scale data management (GSDM) empowers systems by providing higher levels of fault-tolerance, read availability, and efficiency in utilizing cloud resources. This has led to the emergence of globalscale data management and event processing. However, the Wide-Area Network (WAN) latency separating datacenters is orders of magnitude larger than typical network latencies, and this requires a reevaluation of many of the traditional design trade-offs of data management systems. Therefore, data management problems must be revisited to account for the new design space. In this paper, we revisit the problem of supporting strongly-consistent transaction processing for GSDM. This includes providing an understanding of the limits imposed by the WAN latency on transaction latency in addition to a design of a system framework that aims to reduce response time and increase scalability. This infrastructure includes a transaction processing component, a fault-tolerance component, a communication component, and a placement component. Finally, we discuss the current challenges and future directions of transaction processing in GSDM.


Abstract Very few prehistoric cave deposits in Western Europe contain visible hearth remains, even though there is abundant evidence of fire use by cave inhabitants. Grotte XVI (Dordogne, France) is exceptional in this respect, in that it contains a most conspicuous layer (Couche C) characterized by a series of brightly coloured bedded sediments. The formation of Couche C has previously been ascribed to the ash and charcoal produced by the cave's Mousterian occupants burning mainly lichens. The Mousterian sedimentary layers below Couche C, and the Upper Palaeolithic sediments unconformably overlying Couche C, are quite different in texture and colour, and show no visible evidence of ash deposits. Analyses of the minerals, microstructures and phytoliths in Couche C are consistent with the notion that these sediments were derived mainly from ash produced by burning wood and to a lesser extent grass. The original calcite component of the ash has been diagenetically altered to carbonated apatite around the cave periphery, and to even more insoluble phosphate minerals in the centre. One such mineral, newberyite, most likely formed by the reaction between guano degradation products and the ash. Under these circumstances bone preservation is also affected. The overlying Upper Palaeolithic sediments contain calcite. One of these layers (Abb) contains much more calcite than all the other layers, as well as abundant phytoliths derived from wood and grass. This layer also contained many artifacts and bones. It is thus concluded that ash is a major component of Layer Abb, even though it is not visible to the maked eye in the form of hearths.