Solanum is a genus which belongs to Solanaceae family, includes many species of cropsor medicinal plants as eggplant, tomato, potato, twoleaf nightshade, etc. Number of species are used as medicinal herbs of Solanum genus in Vietnam is up to 41, one of those is Solanum procumbens Lour., which is often used to treat hepatitis or cirrhosis. The needs of planting this plant is rising up, but it still lacks of studies based on DNA barcode of Solanum, in order to prevent the confusion of the raw materials in dry form of medicinal plants. This study provides sequencing and analysis the DNA barcode region trnL-trnF, in order to support further researches about identification, classification and evolution of Solanum procumbens species. The DNA covering the trnL-trnF region was amplified, sequenced and the nucleotide sequences from 10 samples of dry leaves Solanum procumbens species were analyzed with the reference sequences from GenBank. The results show that the similarity between these samples and others in previous publications of Solanum procumbens Lour. is 100%. Moreover, the estimated genetic distance on trnL-trnF region of the Vietnamese samples compared to few other species in Solanum genera varies between 0,0082 to 0,0399. The data from this research provides more information for any further studies about genome biodiversity of the Solanum genus as well as Vietnamese medicinal plants.


This paper examines the ongoing transition to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Japan with a particular focus on recent institutional developments and corporate concerns. While Japan has committed to the convergence of Japanese generally accepted accounting principles (J†GAAP) with IFRS it has not as yet formally adopted IFRS. This paper reports on Japanese corporate perceptions of the likely costs and benefits of adopting and implementing IFRS using survey data collected from senior financial executives of 292 Japanese listed companies in 2013–14. Our findings reveal that Japanese companies identify a number of major areas of general concern with the adoption and implementation of IFRS. Most importantly, uncertainty regarding the interpretation of standards followed by staff training, IT systems, technical knowledge and differences between J†GAAP and IFRS were reported as major concerns. Our survey also highlights that revenue recognition, depreciation, consolidated financial statements, financial statement presentation and the retrospective application of IFRS were viewed as key IFRS accounting issues. While the large majority of companies expected a moderate degree of benefits to arise from IFRS, substantial benefits were perceived more likely to apply to large and overseas listed companies mainly arising from improvements in the international comparability of financial statements.


Anxiety and pain are major concerns not only for children who undergo surgery, but also for their parents and health care professionals. A convenience sample of 74 adolescents who underwent major orthopedic surgery for repair of idiopathic scoliosis and their parents was used to investigate the relationships among children's and parents' preoperative and postoperative anxiety and children's postoperative pain. Age-appropriate versions of Spielberger's State-Anxiety scales measured children's and parents' anxiety, and a visual analog scale assessed children's pain intensities. Children's state anxiety increased from preoperative to postoperative levels, and their postoperative anxiety levels positively related to their pain intensities on days 2 and 4 following the operation. Parents' anxiety decreased from preoperative to postoperative levels, and their postoperative anxiety positively related to their children's postoperative anxiety. Studying both parents and children helped to explain the variance in children's self-reported anxiety. Parents' emotional states are important indicators of children's emotional states and, subsequently, their pain experience. The results of this study suggest that allowing children to assist in the assessment of their postoperative pain may help health care professionals better understand the subjective component of pain. The findings also emphasize the importance of including parents in future studies in which the aim is to understand children's behavioral responses and recovery outcomes.


The ablation is coupled with chemistry, heat and mass transfer. Based on multidisciplinary theories, the heat flow field and the ablation loss are studied with the given gaseous mixture and assumed activation energy of H2; Furthermore, the formula for impaction effect of a single particle are deduced with an elastic impact theory, by which the most dangerous attack angle can be obtained. As results prove, the most fragile part may be the convergence region in front of the throat, and then the concentration and the activation energy of H2 determine the ablation mechanism discrimination in the most fragile part.


Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. betlicola (Patel et al.) Vauterin et al. causes severe damage of betelvine (Piper betle L.) in West Bengal by producing different types of leaf spots (small to large, circular to irregular, angular), marginal leaf blight, stem lesion and wilting of vines. A selective medium was developed for isolation of this bacterium from diseased tissues and detection of this bacterium from the leaf surface, in soil and water. This bacterium grew best in Potato Sucrose Peptone Agar (PSPA) medium (Peeled potato 200 g, Sucrose 20 g, Peptone 5 g, Agar agar 20 g, and Water 1000 ml) and this medium was used as basal medium. Some fungicides and antibiotics (Carbendazim 25 mg, Copper oxychloride 25 mg, Metalaxyl 21 mg, Cycloheximide 50 mg, Pentid-200 100 mg, Nitrofurantoin 100 mg) were incorporated into the basal medium before use. Bavistin was used as source of Carbendazim, Blitox 50 as Copper oxychloride, Krilaxyl 35 WS as Metalaxyl, Furadantin capsule (human drug) as Nitrofurantoin. Pentid-200 is a human drug and it contains Penicillin-G potassium 2,00,000 units. The above fungicides and antibiotics were taken in a 25 ml sterilized conical flask plugged with cotton and 2 ml absolute alcohol was added to it. The flask was kept as such for 24 h to allow alcohol to evaporate. Then 20 ml of sterile water was added to the flask and shaken. The solution was kept in refrigerator for future use (30 days). The solution was mixed with the sterilized and melted PSPA medium prepared earlier at 4 ml/200 ml medium before use. Using this medium X. a. pv. betlicola was isolated successfully from the diseased tissue without surface sterilization.

 Key words: Bacterial disease, betelvine, selective medium, Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. Betlicola.


An opto-electronic oscillator (OEO) scheme which operates at "chirp oscillation" mode and generates low-phase-noise, frequency-swept microwave is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. This frequency-swept OEO is achieved by embedding a rapidly frequency-scanning microwave filter in an opto-electronic cavity. The filter has fixed passband while its center frequency scans rapidly and periodically at cavity round-trip time, covering a large frequency range (~GHz). Experimentally, the generated frequency-swept microwave is linear frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) which centers at 7 GHz with 1-GHz bandwidth. Its instantaneous frequency varies linearly from 6.5 GHz to 7.5 GHz, back and forth, in a period of 12.8 μs, resulting in a frequency scanning rate of ~156 MHz/μs. The single-side-band (SSB) noise of the generated FMCW is -104 dBc/Hz at 10 kHz offset frequency, which is much lower than that from a commercial electronic arbitrary waveform generator (E-AWG). Improvement as large as 23 dB is experimentally reported.


Studies of marrow regulation were carried out in two families with recessively expressed erythrocytosis. The erythrocytosis in the affected individuals was associated with increased erythropoietin (ESF) production. However, hormone production was uninfluenced by alterations in the O2 carrying capacity of the blood when the hematocrit was lowered acutely by phlebotomy. Hemoglobin and red cell function (p50; 2, 3-diphosphoglycerate) in the affected, as well as the unaffected, family members were normal. Renal arteriography revealed no mass lesions and no anatomic abnormalities of the renal macro- or microvasculature. Antisera capable of neutralizing the biological activity of normal human ESF completely inhibited the erythropoietic activity in the serum and urine of those studied. Since increased production of ESF occurred in the absence of recognizable physiologic requirements and since the normal reciprocal relationship between O2 delivery and hormone production was absent, the most likely explanation for this clinical constellation is a cellular defect in the regulation of production of ESF or of its precursor substances.


Compressive sensing and processing handles high-resolution delay-Doppler radar measurements using a low sampling rate, simple receiver design, and inexpensive processing when Nyquist rate sensing and processing becomes impractical. The benefits of compressive sensing and processing are, however, offset by an increase in estimation error that is introduced when processing compressed measurements versus measurements sampled at the Nyquist rate. In this work, an adaptive compressive sensing and processing method is proposed for the radar tracking problem. The adaptive scheme naturally incorporates information on target state that is readily available from a particle filter based tracker. The proposed method is shown to improve tracking performance over nonadaptive compressive sensing and processing, while maintaining low-sampling rates, a computationally inexpensive operation, and a simple receiver design.


As Java becomes a viable platform for server applications, performance becomes a greater concern. An important aspect of Java Virtual Machine performance is its dynamic memory management system (garbage collection or GC). Traditional GC benchmarking often focuses on a set of fixed applications. As a result, when an actual appli-cation's memory behavior differs from that of the standard benchmarks, the benchmark results do not help the user judge which GC implementation suits her application the best. In this paper, we present HBench:JGC, an application-specific benchmarking suite, based on the idea that a system's performance be measured in the context of a specific application. HBench:JGC employs a methodology that characterizes the application memory usage and the GC implementation independently and carefully combines both characterizations to form a single metric that reflects a particular application's performance in the presence of a particular GC implementation. We evaluate our approach on Sun Microsystems's JDK1.2.2 classic JVM with a sequential mark-sweep GC. Our results demonstrate HBench:JGC's unique predictive power and its ability to provide meaningful metrics that lead to a better understanding of GC performance.


: Solid-phase affinity chromatography has been used to search for tumor-associated proteins of bronchogenic carcinomas. All of the apparently normal proteins were removed from extracts of squamous cell carcinoma, large cell carcinoma, and adenocarcinoma of the lung. The remaining soluble proteins were partially characterized as to heat stability, approximate molecular size, electrophoretic mobility, and biologic function. These tumor-associated proteins were not tumor-specific by current definition. Neither lung cancer patients' lymphocytes nor serum proteins were specifically reactive with these tumor-associated proteins.


Lifts are indispensable for the evacuation of mobility-impaired people from buildings in case of emergency. It is necessary to quantify the movement parameters of these people and describe the entire process using a suitable algorithm. The aim of the research was to quantify the times and speeds of movement for a person using a wheelchair and for an injured person. An experiment in situ was used. During the experiment, arrivals at the lift, cabin entries, and exits were monitored. The results include the times and speeds of a mobility-impaired person's movement. The experiments showed that a person using a wheelchair was slower than an injured person. The results can be used to expand computational models to account for the possibility of using lifts for evacuation.


Twelve mares were vaccinated with attenuated equine abortion virus (EAV) strain RAC-H. Two nonvaccinated mares served as controls. In at least three mares the vaccination appeared to coincide with a natural infection. This was indicated by characterization of the EAV isolated from nasal secretions of six vaccinated mares, a nonvaccinated control, and also from the lung, spleen, and liver of a fetus aborted by a vaccinated mare. The relative sensitivity of the isolated EAV to dithiothreitol was used to distinguish the RAC-H strain and wild-type virus. Of the 10 EAV isolates, four were recognized as being the vaccine strain while six were recognized as being wild-type strains. Three of the latter originated from two vaccinated mares and a nonvaccinated control, and three were recovered from the fetus. The ability of the EAV strains to form plaques in a cloned line of L cells proved to be unsuitable for use as a marker in this study.


The Impact of Resilience and Grit on Inductive and Deductive Reasoning Following Exposure to Combat-Like Environments Vasiliki Georgoulas-Sherry Cognitive processes have been shown to be severely affected by exposure to combat and war. While the negative impact of war on cognitive performance is apparent through numerous soldier narratives, the scientific investigation of this phenomenon is limited. Furthermore, the moderating influence of an individual's resilience and grit on cognitive functions following combat environments is unknown. Understanding this interaction is essential in further understanding individual cognitive performance. Because the psychological wounds inflicted by combat situations affect individuals' mental health, studying how such environments influence cognitive processes and performance can improve the training of our soldiers. This dissertation focuses on assessing how combat-like environments influence an individual's ability to effectively and efficiently reason, and further examines whether an individual's grit and resilience affect deductive and inductive reasoning in stressful environments. Participants were recruited from a private US military academy. The study used a pretestposttest mixed design to investigate possible cognitive decrements in individuals' ability to reason following exposure to war-like environments simulated by immersive and non-immersive technologies. Dependent measures included both inductive and deductive reasoning (as measured by The Letter Sets Test and Overton's (1990) version of the Wason Selection Task, respectively) by placing participants into the immersive or non-immersive conditions. Self-reported resilience and grit were tested for interaction effects to examine how an individual's resilience and grit influences an individual's ability to reason in war-like environments. These findings might give a richer understanding of the ways in which cognitive mechanisms are affected by stressful environments like


A framework is identified for modeling credit risk in agriculture. A CreditRisk+ type model is deemed most suitable for agricultural lending. The CreditRisk+ model is modified to overcome its drawbacks by incorporating recent research that accounts for sector correlations and uses a more stable and accurate algorithm. The model is applied to AgStar Financial Services, ACA, a cooperative agricultural lender, in order to determine how such a lender may adapt this model for portfolio risk analysis and to make capital and portfolio management decisions. The model generates a loan loss distribution, which is used to derive the lender's expected and unexpected losses for the overall portfolio and individual loans. The model shows that AgStar is more than adequately capitalized based on the parameters estimated using 1997-2002 data. Since AgStar's capital position is lower than that of most other associations, this raises the issue of overcapitalization within the Farm Credit System.


Daily schedules of many organisms, including birds, are thought to affect fitness. Timing in birds is based on circadian clocks that have a heritable period length, but fitness consequences for individuals in natural environments depend on the scheduling of entrained clocks. This chronotype, i.e., timing of an individual relative to a zeitgeber, results from interactions between the endogenous circadian clock and environmental factors, including light conditions and ambient temperature. To understand contributions of these factors to timing, we studied daily activity patterns of a captive songbird, the great tit (Parus major), under different temperature and light conditions. Birds were kept in a light (L)-dark (D) cycle (12.5 L:11.5 D) at either 8°C or 18°C with ad libitum access to food and water. We assessed chronotype and subsequently tested birds at the same temperature under constant dim light (LLdim) to determine period length of their circadian clock. Thermal conditions were then reversed so that period length was measured under both temperatures. We found that under constant dim light conditions individuals lengthened their free-running period at higher temperatures by 5.7 ± 2.1 min (p = .002). Under LD, birds kept at 18°C started activity later and terminated it much earlier in the day than those kept under 8°C. Overall, chronotype was slightly earlier under higher temperature, and duration of activity was shorter. Furthermore, individuals timed their activities consistently on different days under LD and over the two test series under LLdim (repeatability from .38 to .60). Surprisingly, period length and chronotype did not show the correlation that had been previously found in other avian species. Our study shows that body clocks of birds are precise and repeatable, but are, nonetheless, affected by ambient temperature. (Author correspondence: email@example.com)


The recent report of electrical conductivity in the alkali metal fullerides and the discovery of superconductivity at 18 K for KxC60 has raised fundamental questions about the electronic states on either side of the Fermi level, their occupancy with K intercalation, and the mechanism of superconductivity. Direct photoemission evidence is presented of filling of bands derived from the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital as a function of K incorporation for the metallic and insulating phases. This filling is not rigid band-like, and it reflects disorder in the K sites. Theoretical analysis indicates that KxC60 is a strong coupling superconductor, and we suggest that the enhanced electron-phonon interaction is related to the unique hybridization of the C sp-derived states.


Single crystals of dispersed trace pyrite from two igneous rocks were dated by using the 40 Ar- 39 Ar laser probe method, and the resulting ages were compared to step-heating ages of associated amphibole and phlogopite. The isochron ages for 0.1–0.3 mm cubes of pyrite agree well with the respective amphibole ages of these igneous samples. Preliminary step-heating analyses of single pyrite crystals yield internal isochrons with indistinguishable, although less precise, ages. Both pyrite and amphibole are significantly older than associated phlogopite in one sample, which has undergone postcrystallization alteration. These results suggest that pyrite can give reliable and precise 40 Ar- 39 Ar ages even in the presence of subsequent alteration. Given the ubiquity of pyrite in many geologic environments, this technique has great promise for application to the dating of ores, sediments, and hydrocarbon migration, all of which have been very difficult to date directly.


The primary motivation for using driving simulators for research is the ability to safely expose participants to traffic situations in a controlled and repeatable manner. The process by which a simulation is programmed to expose participants to consistent situations is typically referred to as scenario authoring. The ability to re-use, and in turn, replicate scenario events is critical in comparing results across studies and/or different simulators. Unfortunately, scenario event replication is often a time consuming and error prone process. This paper describes some fundamental issues involved in scenario replication and presents a technique that allows accurate replication of scenario events with minimal human effort.


The responses of two ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T) cell strains to the lethal effects of monochromatic far, mid and near ultraviolet radiations have been determined and compared with the responses of three normal human cell strains. Our results confirm a previous observation that the A-T cell strain AT4BI is abnormally sensitive to the lethal effects of mid u.v. (313 nm) radiation. After far u.v. (254 nm) radiation the strain AT4BI exhibits a small but statistically significant increase in sensitivity compared to the normal strains. Of most interest, in terms of a mechanistic interpretation of the sensitivity of A-T strains, the survival responses of neither A-T strain tested to near u.v. (365 nm) radiation differed significantly from the mean response of the normal strains, although it is of interest that one normal strain (48BR) was found to be significantly more resistant to near u.v. radiation than any of the other strains tested. The results are discussed in terms of the possible induction of radiogenic lesions in DNA by ultraviolet radiations and the possible mechanisms of radiation sensitivity in ataxia-telangiectasia.


I estimate the effect of retirement on housework by exploiting the discontinuity in pension eligibility generated by the Italian social security rules. Using microdata from the 2007 wave of the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC), I show that women increase their time spent on home production by more than 400 minutes per week. For men, there is on average no evidence of a significant change, which differs from the results of studies in other countries. However, estimates are heterogeneous by marital status, suggesting that married men do not increase time spent on household production because they can rely on their spouses. I also discuss other possible explanations, in particular men dedicating their time to 'semi-leisure chores' that do not fall under the definition of housework used in SILC. Overall, results suggest that retirement does not lead to a more equal distribution of 'core' household chores between genders.


The recent 'affect revolution' in strategic decision-making research has placed greater emphasis on the role of stress and emotions in decision-making, with new theorizing to highlight how leader decisions often differ from rational choice expectations. However, while existing theories add to our understanding of the interplay between affect and cognition, they have not yet explained why affect drives decisions in some situations and not others. Undertheorized connections between leaders' neurobiological windows of tolerance to affect arousal and their self-regulatory capacity—their capacity to regulate stress and emotions so that these phenomena do not drive resulting decisions—may hold the key to explaining this variation in affect's influence on decision-making. Furthermore, this article considers how leaders' windows of tolerance have unique ripple effects in their social environments, thereby affecting their groups' collective window of tolerance. While regulated leaders can convey a calming and creative influence in their organizations that helps the group access strategic decision-making, dysregulated leaders are likely to convey stress and emotion contagion—which may erode the group's ability to cooperate, adapt, and learn. It illustrates this argument using evidence from the upper echelons of governmental decision-making, comparing New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's and US President Donald Trump's responses to the coronavirus pandemic in their respective nations. It concludes by offering hypotheses for testing the argument in future empirical research.


A novel quantitative shadow testing equipment is presented based on the digital imageprocessing technique for characterizing local surface deformations on optical surface. Two magnetic stepping motors control the positions of the knife-edge for cutting the wave-front reflected back from the aspheric surface separately. At each position of the knife-edge blocking the image on the focal plane, it is recorded and analyzed by an image-processing set-up behind the knife-edge under computer control. Based on a group of images recorded, the analysis of local slopes is performed by picking up characteristics of illumination levels. Further the relationship between the changes of illumination level and deformations on surface is built on the principle of Fourier Optics. The results of tests approve that the method is effective on determining the characteristics of two parabolic surfaces using magnetorheological finishing.


OBJECTIVE
To identify a postpartum lipidomic signature associated with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and investigate the role of the identified lipids in the progression to type 2 diabetes (T2D).

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
This prospective cohort study enrolled 1,409 women at 24-72 h after delivery of a singleton baby and followed them prospectively at the Boston Medical Center. The lipidome was profiled by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Diagnoses of GDM and incident T2D were extracted from medical records and verified using plasma glucose levels.

RESULTS
Mean (SD) age of study women at baseline was 28.5 (6.6) years. A total of 219 (16.4%) women developed incident diabetes over a median follow-up of 11.8 (interquartile range 8.2-14.8) years. We identified 33 postpartum lipid species associated with GDM, including 16 inverse associations (primarily cholesterol esters and phosphatidylcholine plasmalogens), and 17 positive associations (primarily diacyglycerols and triacyglycerols). Of these, four were associated with risk of incident T2D and mediated ∼12% of the progression from GDM to T2D. The identified lipid species modestly improved the predictive performance for incident T2D above classical risk factors when the entire follow-up period was considered.

CONCLUSIONS
GDM was associated with a wide range of lipid metabolic alterations at early postpartum, among which some lipid species were also associated with incident T2D and mediated the progression from GDM to T2D. The improvements attained by including lipid species in the prediction of T2D provides new insights regarding the early detection and prevention of progression to T2D.


During a number of years Swedish municipalities have work with improvment of competence and long-term quality in elderly care. The overall aim of the present study was to compare different learning activities (workplace improvement and/or courses), and to relate these activities to learning climate, learning strategies, and perception of care quality. In addition, the effect of organisational changes was tested. Four Swedish municipalities were selected and 219 nursing assistants filled in a questionnaire (response rate, 58%). Documentation of the learning activities was collected. A two-way multivariate analysis of variance was computed to answer the research questions. The results showed that there was a main effect for learning activities and organisational change on learning climate and learning strategies, but not on the perception of care quality. A combination of courses and workplace improvement practices yielded better results compared with only one of these activities, and organisational changes had a negative effect. The results suggest that the workplace should not only be regarded as an area for non-formal training but should also be included as a part of a training programme. Organisational changes should be avoided during the programme, otherwise the expected effects of the time and effort invested may be wasted.


The magnetocaloric effect (MCE) in many rare earth (RE) based intermetallic compounds has been extensively investigated during last two decades, not only due to their potential applications for magnetic refrigeration but also for better understanding of the fundamental problems of the materials. This paper reviews our recent progress of magnetic properties and MCE in some binary or ternary intermetallic compounds of RE with low boiling point metal(s) (Zn, Mg, and Cd). Some of them are exhibiting promising MCE properties which make them also attractive for low temperature magnetic refrigeration. Characteristics of the magnetic transition, origin of large MCE as well as the potential application of these compounds were thoroughly discussed. Additionally, a brief review of the magnetic and magnetocaloric properties in the quaternary rare earth nickel boroncarbides RENi2B2C superconductors is also presented.


ABSTRACT The optimal method for identifying respiratory viruses in adults has not been established. The objective of the study was to compare the sensitivities of three sampling methods for this purpose. One thousand participants (mean age, 63.1 ± 17.8 years) were included. Of these, 550 were patients hospitalized for acute febrile lower respiratory tract infections and 450 were controls. Oropharyngeal swabs (OPS), nasopharyngeal swabs (NPS), and nasopharyngeal washings (NPW) were obtained from each participant and were tested for 12 respiratory viruses by a multiplex hydrolysis probes-based quantitative real-time reverse transcription-PCR. Patients were defined as positive for a specific virus if the virus was identified by at least one sampling method. In all, 251 viruses were identified in 244 participants. For the detection of any virus, the sensitivity rates for OPS, NPS, and NPW were 54.2%, 73.3%, and 84.9%, respectively (for OPS versus NPS and NPW, P < 0.00001; for NPS versus NPW, P < 0.003). Maximal sensitivity was obtained only with sampling by all three methods. The same gradation of sensitivity for the three sampling methods was found when influenza viruses, coronaviruses, and rhinoviruses were analyzed separately. The three sampling methods yielded equal sensitivity rates for respiratory syncytial virus. We conclude that nasopharyngeal sampling has a higher rate of sensitivity than oropharyngeal sampling and that the use of NPW has a higher rate of sensitivity than the use of NPS with a rigid cotton swab for the identification of respiratory viruses in adults. Sampling by all three methods is required for the maximal detection of respiratory viruses.


Log-Polar transformation is an approximate model of human vision. If using it to recognize human faces, a reference point for the transformation is necessary, and the position of the reference point influences the recognition accuracy directly. However, it is difficult to extract an appropriate reference point from an image automatically. This paper proposes a face recognition method that detects the face center point as a reference point for Log-Polar transformation automatically. It is easier than before to recognize the faces by using Log-Polar transformation with the propose method.


The Roads of Roman Italy offers a complete re-evaluation of both the evidence and the interpretation of Roman land transport. The book utilises archaeological, epigraphic and literary evidence for Roman communications, drawing on recent approaches to the human landscape developed by geographers. Among the topics considered are:

* the relationship between the road and the human landscape

* the administration and maintenance of the road system

* the role of roads as imperial monuments

* the economics of road construction and urban development.


Podmarkova Anna - Senior Lecturer, Department of Entrepreneurial Law, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Candidate of Juridical Sciences. Address: 20 Myasnitskaya Str., Moscow, 101000, Russian Federation. E-mail: email@example.com article studies the special features of the Bank of Russia legal status and the related to it issues of applying exemptions by the Central Bank provided by the Russian Federation Tax Code (hereafter RFTC) to pay state duty in particular relief from it. The issue shows the ambiguity of the Bank of Russia legal status as a legal person and a state body, its attempts to apply the exemptions subject to RFTC for federal state bodies and other persons. The article analyzes judicial practice of arbitration courts, courts of common jurisdiction and the position of the body entitled to clear up RFTC application, which has been settled in recent years. The analysis has shown in particular the actions for which the Russian Federation Central Banl paid the duty and when the bank required to return it. The article examines the cases applied by lawyers for or against the decisionson on this issue, shows the ambiguity of their approaches and inconsistency. The author has paid attention to the recent change in the version of an RFTC norm prioviding the legal cause to exempt the Bank from paying state duty and a conclusion has been made that the decision on the legality of the exemption by the Russian Federation Central Bank is given to the disposal of courts. Finally, the conclusion has been made to amend the law to endsure a single approach to this issue including by fixing a list of cases when the Russian Federation Bank as a legal person acts in its own private interests when it must not be reliefed from state duty. The analysis concludes with the fact that the issue of exampting from state duty concerns not only the Russian Federation Bank but other subjects whose legal status combines with the elements of private and public law e.g. state corporations, state companies, which has been illustrated by judicial cases.


: Health and welfare problems of pigs in intensive husbandry systems are mainly caused by housing and management of the animals. The actual structure of these systems also gives rise to health and welfare problems. Solving these problems is very difficult to achieve in the existing systems. It will be necessary to create new structures and housing systems from a preventive veterinary point of view to avoid harm to health and welfare caused by specific stressors. Specific stressors which can be prevented are associated with the risk of infection, mixing and replacing animals, high density, inadequate house climate, handling of animals and the farmer's attitude towards his animals. The SSF-system specifies the method by which these specific stressors are prevented.


SUMMARY: Discrepancies found in the use of three previously published micromethods for fermentations were traced to at least three possible sources of error: contamination of the water used for making suspensions; contamination of capillary tests from non-sterilizable Perspex plates; chemical breakdown or contamination of certain sugar solutions. To overcome these discrepancies one of the methods was modified; the other two were abandoned.
Suspension concentration is important and, measured as opacity, should not be less than the equivalent of 109
Bacterium coli cells/ml. Sugar concentration is much less critical, and 0.1 m concentrations are recommended. Dilution of the test mixture with 0.5 ml. sterile water speeds up fermentations; the addition of formalin or thiomersalate inhibits certain enzyme systems but does not hinder glucose fermentation.


Large-scale deployment of a wide range of optoelectronic devices, including solar cells, critically depends on the long-term stability of their front electrodes. Here, we investigate the performance of Sn-doped In2O3 (ITO), H-doped In2O3 (IO:H), and Zn-doped In2O3 (IZO) electrodes under damp heat (DH) conditions (85 °C, 85% relative humidity). ITO, IO:H capped with ITO, and IZO show high stability with only 3%, 9%, and 13% sheet resistance (Rs) degradation after 1000 h of DH, respectively. For uncapped IO:H, we find a 75% Rs degradation, due to losses in electron Hall mobility (μHall). We propose that this degradation results from chemisorbed OH- or H2O-related species in the film, which is confirmed by thermal desorption spectroscopy and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. While μHall strongly degrades during DH, the optical mobility (μoptical) remains unchanged, indicating that the degradation mainly occurs at grain boundaries.


Background: γ-Glutamyl transferase (GGT) is a widely used index of liver induction and a marker of alcohol overconsumption. Obesity has also been suggested to elevate serum GGT activities. Objective: The aim was to examine the links between moderate ethanol consumption, obesity, and GGT activities. Design: GGT values were recorded from 2490 persons (1184 men and 1306 women) who reported either no alcohol use (abstainers) or 1-40 g ethanol consumption per day (moderate drinkers). The study population was additionally classified according to body mass index (BMI; in kg/m 2 ) as follows: <19 (underweight), ≥19 and <25 (normal weight), ≥25 and <30 (overweight), and ≥30 (obese). Results: Significant main effects of sex (P < 0.0001), drinking habits (P < 0.01), and BMI (P < 0.001) on serum GGT activities were observed. The values were higher in the men than in the women and higher in those with higher BMIs. The highest activities were found to occur in persons with moderate drinking combined with overweight or obesity. A significant positive correlation between GGT and BMI (P < 0.0001) was observed, which was stronger for the men (r = 0.24) than for the women (r = 0.15, P < 0.05 for the difference between correlations). Conclusion: The data indicate that serum GGT activities may respond to moderate drinking and overweight in an additive manner; this should be considered in the clinical use of GGT measurements and when defining normal GGT values in health care.


This study was conducted to measure the effect of teacher performance evaluation on school effectiveness in public high schools in Pakistan. Teacher evaluation is a formal and systematic process of evaluating teacher performance that plays an important role in enhancing school effectiveness. School effectiveness is a process that ensures that a particular school has effectively maintained a safe and orderly environment, implemented an instructional framework and curriculum that focuses on enhancing student learning, where the school monitoring system is highly responding, and where a competency-based system is in practice that ensures increased student achievement. A correlational research design was used to conduct this study. Using multistage sampling techniques, data were collected from 580 secondary school teachers in district Okara. Self-Assessment Instrument for Teacher Evaluation (α=.88) and School Effectiveness Questionnaire ((α=.86) were used for data collection. The Pearson correlation coefficient showed that teacher evaluation scores and school effectiveness were significantly correlated with each other (r=.69). As teacher performance evaluation scores increased, the score on school effectiveness also increased. Multiple linear regression analysis revealed that teacher performance evaluation score significantly predicted 46% of variance in school effectiveness. Further, female teachers were better on teacher performance evaluation score and school effectiveness. Teachers in urban schools showed higher scores on teacher performance evaluation scores and school effectiveness as compared to rural school teachers.


The magnetic resonance (MR) appearance of a spontaneous dissection of the cervical internal carotid artery (ICA) in a 53-year-old male is described. Cerebral angiograms demonstrated a long-segment stenosis of the left cervical ICA beginning above the common carotid bifurcation and extending to the skull base (“string sign”). T1-, T2-, and proton density-weighted MR images of the upper neck reveal ed a high-intensity crescent mass expanding the arterial wall and narrowing the arterial lumen of the left ICA. This high-intensity mass was considered to represent the mural hematoma of the involved ICA. Gradual improvement of the dissection was confirmed by both angiography and MR imaging. Cerebral angiograms have shown pathognomonic findings such as double lumen and intimal flap in only some patients with ICA dissection. Our experience suggests that MR demonstration of the mural hematoma is specific and important for diagnosis and follow-up in cases of spontaneous dissection of the cervical ICA.


Abstract. Ocean color (OC) monitoring using satellite imageries provides an appropriate tool for a better understanding of marine processes and changes in the coastal environment. Radiance measurements in the range of visible light of the electromagnetic spectrum provides information of ocean color that is associated with the water constituents. This measurements are used to monitor the level of biological activity and the presence of particles in the water. Ocean features such as the concentration of chlorophyll, suspended sediment concentration and sea surface temperature have a significant impact on the dynamics of the ocean. The concentration of chlorophyll (chla), active pigments of phytoplankton photosynthesis, as a key indicator applied for assessment of water quality and biochemistry. Experimental algorithms chla related to internal communication various optical components in the water that may be change in space and time in the water with different optical characteristics. Therefore, the algorithms have been developed for one area may not work for other places and each region according to its specific characteristics needs that determined by an algorithm may be appropriate to local. We have tried treatment several algorithms for determination of chlorophyll, including experimental algorithms with a simple band ratio of blue-green band (i.e. OCx) and algorithms includes two bands ratio with variable 𝑅𝑟𝑠(λ2)/𝑅𝑟𝑠(λ1), the three bands ratio with variable [𝑅𝑟𝑠(λ1)−1−𝑅𝑟𝑠(λ2)−1]×𝑅𝑟𝑠(λ3) and four bands ratio with variable [𝑅𝑟𝑠(λ1)−1−𝑅𝑟𝑠(λ2)−1]/[𝑅𝑟𝑠(λ4)−1−𝑅𝑟𝑠(λ3)−1] that desired wavelength (i.e. λ1, λ2, λ3 and λ4) in the range of red and near-infrared wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum are in the region of the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea look. Despite the high importance of the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea which can have up basin countries, to now few studies have been done in this area. The focus of this article on the northern part of Oman Sea and Persian Gulf, the shores of neighboring Iran (case 2 water). In this paper, by using Landsat 8 satellite imageries, we have discussed chla concentrations and customizing different OC algorithms for this new dataset (Landsat-8 imagery). This satellite was launched in 2013 and its data using two sensors continuously are provided operating one sensor imager land (OLI: Operational Land Imager) and the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS: Thermal InfraRed Sensor) and are available. This sensors collect image data, respectively, for the nine-band short wavelength in the range of 433-2300 nm and dual-band long wavelength thermal. Seven band of the nine band picked up by the sensor information of OLI to deal with sensors TM (Thematic Mapper) and ETM+ (Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus) in previous satellite Landsat compatible and two other band, the band of coastal water (433 to 453 nm) and Cirrus band (1360 to 1390 nm), short wave infrared provides to measure water quality and high thin clouds. Since OLI sensor in Landsat satellite 8 compared with other sensors to study OC have been allocated a much better spatial resolution can be more accurate to determine changes in OC. To evaluate the results of the image sensor MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) at the same time satellite images Landsat 8 is used. The statistical parameters used in order to evaluate the performance of different algorithms, including root mean square error (RMSE) and coefficient of determination (R2), and on the basis of these parameters we choose the most appropriate algorithm for the area. Extracted results for implementing different OC algorithms clearly shows superiority of utilized method by R2=0.71 and RMSE=0.07.


A speaker verification system automatically accepts or rejects a claimed identity of a speaker based on a speech sample. Recently, a major progress was made in speaker verification which leads to mass market adoption, such as in smartphone and in online commerce for user authentication. A major concern when deploying speaker verification technology is whether a system is robust against spoofing attacks. Speaker verification studies provided us a good insight into speaker characterization, which has contributed to the progress of voice conversion technology. Unfortunately, voice conversion has become one of the most easily accessible techniques to carry out spoofing attacks; therefore, presents a threat to speaker verification systems. In this paper, we will briefly introduce the fundamentals of voice conversion and speaker verification technologies. We then give an overview of recent spoofing attack studies under different conditions with a focus on voice conversion spoofing attack. We will also discuss anti-spoofing attack measures for speaker verification.


A 3-year-old sexually intact male Bull Mastiff underwent splenectomy for splenic thrombosis; prior to and after splenectomy, multiple blood transfusions were administered. Two weeks after the procedure, T-cell lymphoproliferative disease was diagnosed. Treatment with prednisone and chlorambucil was initiated, and 2 weeks later, cytologic examination of a blood smear revealed small (0.3 microm), coccoid basophilic bodies on the surface of approximately 70% of the RBCs. Morphologically, these resembled "Candidatus Mycoplasma haemominutum." A polymerase chain reaction assay was used to amplify a partial 16S rRNA sequence in blood obtained from the dog; the product was sequenced and compared with 16S rRNA gene sequences of other hemotropic mycoplasmas. The sequence was 98% homologous to that of "Candidatus M haemominutum", but only 77% homologous to that of M haemocanis and M haemofelis.


Introduction Measurement of microalbuminuria (MAU) is an important diagnostic tool in renal and vascular disease. This survey assessed the level of awareness of physicians in five European countries of the clinical value of MAU and its correlation with cardiovascular risk factors, disease progression and organ damage. Methods Participants of the survey were general practitioners, cardiologists and diabetologists from France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. The survey was performed via computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATIs) to ensure consistency and high quality. Participants were asked questions on MAU, its role as a risk factor, the assessment of related organ damage and measurement of these factors. Results Results are presented as percentage ranges between countries and specialities. The association of MAU with kidney damage is well recognized (93.8–99.4%); however, its relationship to damage in other organs was relatively poor. Renal function is usually assessed in at-risk patients in all countries surveyed. In only 33.9–42.5% of diabetic patients treated by a diabetologist MAU was measured. The rate and method of MAU assessment varies between countries, in terms of type of urine sample, frequency of tests and number of tests required to yield a positive result. Conclusion Physicians have an incomplete understanding that MAU is not only a risk factor but also an important diagnostic tool for renal and cardiovascular damage. There are methodological inconsistencies in the way that MAU is currently assessed and standardization is required.


Abstract Introduction The determination of recent cannabis use is of forensic interest in the investigation of automotive crashes, workplace incidents and other mishaps. Because Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol may persist in blood after psychoactive effects of intoxication resolve, particularly in regular users, short-lived minor cannabinoids such as cannabigerol have merited examination as adjunct indicators of recent cannabis inhalation. Methods As part of an observational cohort study, whole blood cannabinoids including cannabigerol were measured in whole blood by liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry at baseline, and 30 minutes after initiation of a 15-minute supervised interval of ad libitum cannabis smoking in occasional (1–2 days/week over the past 30 days) (n = 24) and daily cannabis smokers (n = 32). Per protocol, subjects self-reported abstention from inhaling cannabis (>8 h) or ingesting cannabis (>12 h) prior to baseline measurement. Results At baseline, none of the occasional users had detectable cannabigerol (limit of detection = 0.2 µg/L), whereas cannabigerol was detectable post-smoking in 7 of 24 (29%). Among daily cannabis users, 2 of 32 (6%) had detectable cannabigerol at baseline, increasing to 21 of 32 (66%) post-smoking. The odds ratio for recent cannabis smoking associated with a detectable cannabigerol was 27 (95% confidence interval: 6.6, 110.3). In this mixed cohort of occasional and daily cannabis users, receiver operator characteristic curve analysis indicated that whole blood cannabigerol concentration of ≥ 0.2 µg/L had 96% specificity, 50% sensitivity, and 73% accuracy for identifying a 15-minute interval of ad libitum cannabis smoking initiated 30 minutes earlier. Post smoking blood Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (median = 5.6 µg/L in occasional users, 21.3 µg/L in daily users) was significantly correlated with post-smoking cannabigerol (P < 0.0001). Conclusion Whole blood cannabigerol may have forensic utility as a highly specific albeit insensitive biomarker of recent cannabis smoking.


The paper primarily attempts to investigate the level of efficiency at which public hospitals are operating in Ethiopia by taking eight sample hospitals from selected regions of the country. The study employs both descriptive and regression analyses. While the former method mainly focuses on the description of the sample hospitals' major characteristics and the relationships among them, the latter one tries to measure technical efficiency by conducting production frontier analyses on two major health care service areas: outpatient and inpatient services. The major variables included in the production frontier function are the labour time of the technical staff (that consists of physicians, nurses, health assistants, laboratory and X-ray technicians, and pharmacists), the labour time of the administrative and support staff, and values attached to depreciation and supply of drugs. The preliminary tests undergone reveal that some degree of inefficiencies are observed in the provision of outpatient services of three hospitals and inpatient services of only one hospital. According to the production frontier result, the outpatient visits in the efficiently operating hospitals tend to increase with the increase in the labour input of the technical staff and decrease with that of the non-technical staff. But in the inefficiently operating hospitals, the activities of both the technical and non-technical staff are seen to produce a positive impact on the outpatient visits. On the other hand, the values attached to depreciation and costs of drugs are found to strongly and directly affect the production process of only two of the efficiently operating health care providing units and one of the inefficient ones. The inadequate remuneration provided to the technical staff is the main cause for the inefficiency of the outpatient services. With regards to the inpatient services, the activities of the technical staff and depreciation and drug costs are found to positively contribute to the number of inpatient days in the majority of efficiently functioning hospitals. But the production of inpatient health care in the only inefficient hospital is highly and negatively affected by the labour time of the non-technical staff. It can thus be suggested that improving the number and quality of the professional health staff and upgrading the physical and technical capabilities of hospitals increases the efficiency with which they are producing health care services. It would also be necessary to take further policy measures in order to reduce the burden of public hospitals and improve the quality of health care services in the country.


Subsea Power Cable are used to carry electric power in marine environment, where are commonly installed on the seabed. The internal conductor is wrapped by electric insulation and several protective layers, among these a lead sheathing insulates the conductor from sea water. The characterization of the lead alloy with respect to load condition is a challenging procedure, that involve several experimental efforts. Testing procedure is complicated by the high ductility of the material along with time dependent deformation at room temperature. Digital Image Correlation has been used during the test for numerically reconstruct the strain pattern on the specimen's surface and avoid errors due to the deformation induced by the clamping system. Several models have been proposed in literature for predict the response of material that undergo creep deformations. The development of power generation and aviation industry has made extensive effort in the characterisation of creep-fatigue behaviour of steels in the high temperature range. On the other hand, extensively research has been made for predict creep-fatigue life of solder joints used in microelectronic industry. Most of the models developed in the past years are already implemented in commercial Finite Element Code such as Abaqus or Ansys. In the present work is provide an overview of the creep mechanism and numerical model that are used for replicate creep response. considering the reliability of the approach and comparing the result of different models. Then the lead alloy actually used in SPC is investigated trough tensile, relaxation and cyclic tests. The test campaign is performed on three different specimen's geometries, having different thickness in order to investigate the influence of thickness on alloy's response. Stress-strain plot, obtained through tensile tests with different imposed value of strain rate are used, in conjunction with relaxation and cyclic tests to develop numerical model, focus on finite element approach and its implementation into commercial code. Purpose of the last part of the project is investigate the fatigue life of the material and provide an overview of the failure mechanism, analysing the dependence with frequency and strain range


The paper presents a 36-year-old patient in whom giant fusiform aneurysm of the M1 segment of the MCA was successfully clipped using intravascular aspiration technique. EEG was intraoperatively monitored. At surgery, the lumen of the deformed M1 segment was newly shaped by a series of 3 fenestrated clips. Intravascular aspiration of blood from the ipsilateral ICA significantly helped decrease blood volumes within the aneurysm and its size which facilitated dissection and clipping of the aneurysm. Since intravascular aspiration have been previously used during surgery of giant and large paraclinoidal aneurysms, this case demonstrates the benefits of the technique in the surgery of aneurysms located in the areas other than paraclinoid one.


Abstract. Moral sensitivity, understood as an individual's capability of identifying and ascribing importance to moral issues when they arise, is often considered a key competence in professional life and a precondition of ethical behavior. With a focus on business settings, this article presents a new measure to assess individual's sensitivity to moral and business values. The measure was developed using a vignette-based domain-specific approach and validated in two studies. In Study 1, we compared our instrument and various convergent and divergent scales to obtain the first evidence of the construct validity of the instrument. Study 2 provides evidence of criterion validity by comparing the sensitivity to moral and business-related issues between a sample of business managers/bankers and employees of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The results demonstrate that business managers/bankers reveal lower scores of moral sensitivity than employees of NGOs. Further directions for moral sensitivity research and limitations are discussed.


In this paper, we construct a dataset of annual expected forest profits in New Zealand from 1990–2008 at a fine spatial resolution. We do not include land values in any of our profit calculations. We estimate four measures of expected forest profits based around net present value (NPV), land expectation value (LEV), equal annual equivalent (EAE), and internal rate of return (IRR). Our estimates of expected profits are based on the assumption that land owners form their expectations adaptively; that is, they use recent data on prices and costs to form expectations. We illustrate our data by showing regional variation in each of our measures, changes over time in NPV on land in forest in 2008, and variation in NPV over space in 2008. The final dataset, working datasets, and the code used in this work are publicly available to the research community and can be accessed from the authors' website: http://www.motu.org.nz/building-capacity/dataset/u10073_forest_profit_expectations_dataset.


Craniospinal irradiation (CSI) is a complex radiation therapy technique that is used for patients, often children and teenagers/young adults, with tumors that have a propensity to spread throughout the central nervous system such as medulloblastoma. CSI is associated with important long-term side effects, the risk of which may be affected by numerous factors including radiation modality and technique. Lack of standardization for a technique that is used even in larger radiation oncology departments only a few times each year may be one such factor and the current ad hoc manner of planning new CSI patients may be greatly improved by implementing a dose-volume histogram registry (DVHR) to use previous patient data to facilitate prospective constraint guidance for organs at risk. In this work, we implemented a DVHR and used it to provide standardized constraints for CSI planning. Mann-Whitney U tests and mean differences at 95% confidence intervals were used to compare two cohorts (pre- and post-DVHR intervention) at specific dosimetric points to determine if observed improvements in standardization were statistically significant. Through this approach, we have shown that the implementation of dosimetric constraints based on DVHR-derived data helped improve the standardization of pediatric CSI planning at our center. The DVHR also provided guidance for a change in CSI technique, helping to achieve practice standardization across TomoTherapy and IMRT.


Occupational stress has become a major issue of the modern world, and is one of the most common
work-related health problems in Europe. It has become a growing concern in many industries, not to
mention the construction industry. As the construction industry is known to be challenging and highly
competitive, it is important to ensure that personnel have the ability to perform at its best. Work-related
stress has been identified as a major factor that impacts the success of an organization, as it negatively
affects the organization's productivity and efficiency, which in turn is costly to the company. Besides
this, it is also believed to be a large contributor to reduced work satisfaction and increased absenteeism.
Considering that most individuals spend a significant amount of time at work, their behavioural-,
physiological- and psychological health are playing an important role both to the organization and the
employees themselves.
Nevertheless, managing work-related stress is a complex and challenging task for organizations. One
difficulty in understanding how pressures and occupational stress impacts the personnel within the
construction industry is the scarcity of empirical research in the area. Due to the importance of people
management and the well-being of construction personnel for the success of an organization, this study
aims to investigate the main causes and effects of occupational stress. A case study of a well-known
construction company in Sweden is conducted, in order to get a better understanding of the perceptions
of construction personnel. The thesis is based on a mixed methodology, with the combination of a
qualitative and quantitative research approach. The study involves both face-to-face semi-structured, in
depth interviews as well as an online staff survey, in order to acquire reliable, in-depth responses as
well as to receive a higher response rate that could reflect the current situation.
The main findings of this study were that construction personnel suffer from a high level occupational
stress, particularly those who work on site. There are many various work-related risk factors within this
industry, and the factors that were recognized as the most problematic are (i) amount of work, (ii)
amount of overwork, (iii) not enough experienced personnel and (iiii) lack of organizational support.
However, lack of control over one's work was identified as being the factor that caused most
employees' distress, especially for construction professionals who work on sites and need to deal with
unexpected events on a frequent basis.
The work-life balance is low, especially among the personnel working on site, and many of them have
suffered from negative consequences as a direct result of their jobs. The major issue seems to be the
insufficient recovery among construction employees. There are no strategies that are sufficient and
adequate enough at the time, and this calls for a change. It is necessary to create and implement
workable strategies that can reduce the occupational stress levels and increase the level of employee
satisfaction and retention. For those strategies to be successful, they cannot focus on an individual's
behaviour in isolation, instead more efforts should focus on the organizational environment and the
industry as a whole. Especially as it has been recognized that the stress levels and well-being of
construction personnel have not improved, rather retrograded.


Facilitated by Web 2.0 applications, contemporary internet-savvy readers are increasingly turning to online outlets in an effort to prolong the experience of reading novels. Fan fiction and slash fiction websites are proliferating, and readers are becoming more and more creative and proactive in their efforts to interact with previously published narrative material. This article looks at a so-far under-researched phenomenon: the websites created and maintained by the authors themselves, which allow readers to delve deeper into the world of novel and novelist, offering fans interaction with both the author and other readers, as well as an extension of the novel's world through games and additional materials. These online novel communities are models of a bridge between print and digital storytelling conventions. They expand the dynamic between author, text, and reader, providing a space for discourse between author and reader, opportunities for readers to influence and form the texts the author is creating, and reader-contributed material in the form of fan fiction and games. The digital format of these communities also introduces the print-oriented reader to digital storytelling elements, such as online games, multimedia, and hypertext. This article uses two communities as models: NeilGaiman.com and JasperFforde.com. It examines the discourse between these bestselling authors and their readers, reader contributions on the sites, the expanded author—reader dynamic created through these interactions, and how these sites introduce readers to digital storytelling conventions.


: Metastasis in invasive carcinoma is closely associated with the production of extracellular matrix cata-bolic enzymes, such as matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs). It is known that ets proto-oncogenes exist in transcriptional regulation refions of the MMP gene and enhance or inhibit MMP transcription. In this study, we restrained the ets-1 gene expression of an oral squamous carcinoma cell line by means of RNA interference (RNAi) and examined the change in invasion ability from a molecular biological perspective. An oral squamous carcinoma cell line (HSC-3) was transfected with short interfering RNA (siRNA) of ets-1. The invasive ability of the transfected cells was determined by a matrigel invasion assay, and MMP-9 production was measured by gelatin zymography. These data were compared with those of normal cultured cells. Matrigel invasion assay demonstrated that the transfected cells had a lower invasive ability than HSC-3, and gelatin zymography demonstrated that the MMP-9 production in these cells had decreased. These results suggested that transfection of siRNA ets-1 would inhibit tumor invasion through down-regulation of MMP-9.


Background—Long QT syndrome (LQTS) is the most common cardiac channelopathy with 15 elucidated LQTS-susceptibility genes. Approximately 20% of LQTS cases remain genetically elusive. Methods and Results—We combined whole-exome sequencing and bioinformatic/systems biology to identify the pathogenic substrate responsible for nonsyndromic, genotype-negative, autosomal dominant LQTS in a multigenerational pedigree, and we established the spectrum and prevalence of variants in the elucidated gene among a cohort of 102 unrelated patients with "genotype-negative/phenotype-positive" LQTS. Whole-exome sequencing was used on 3 members within a genotype-negative/phenotype-positive family. Genomic triangulation combined with bioinformatic tools and ranking algorithms led to the identification of a CACNA1C mutation. This mutation, Pro857Arg-CACNA1C, cosegregated with the disease within the pedigree, was ranked by 3 disease-network algorithms as the most probable LQTS-susceptibility gene and involves a conserved residue localizing to the proline, gltamic acid, serine, and threonine (PEST) domain in the II-III linker. Functional studies reveal that Pro857Arg-CACNA1C leads to a gain of function with increased ICa,L and increased surface membrane expression of the channel compared to wild type. Subsequent mutational analysis identified 3 additional variants within CACNA1C in our cohort of 102 unrelated cases of genotype-negative/phenotype-positive LQTS. Two of these variants also involve conserved residues within Cav1.2's PEST domain. Conclusions—This study provides evidence that coupling whole-exome sequencing and bioinformatic/systems biology is an effective strategy for the identification of potential disease-causing genes/mutations. The identification of a functional CACNA1C mutation cosegregating with disease in a single pedigree suggests that CACNA1C perturbations may underlie autosomal dominant LQTS in the absence of Timothy syndrome.


Atypical lung carcinoids are intermediate-grade neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) with malignant potential. They are often detected incidentally on imaging done for non-related causes, as the patients are frequently asymptomatic. Histopathology is required to confirm the diagnosis with immunohistochemistry (IHC). Due to their indolent nature, these are often diagnosed only in the advanced stages. Treatment options include chemoradiation for widespread disease versus surgery for local or minimally invasive disease. This article describes a nonsmoker female with enlarging solitary pulmonary nodule who was initially lost to follow up, subsequently operated and with final pathology revealing atypical lung carcinoid. This case stress on the schematic follow up of these incidentally detected pulmonary nodules. Inspired from the mandatory lay mammography report letters recommended by ACR, this article proposes sending lay letters to patients for pulmonary nodule follow up, directly from the Radiology Department to reinforce the importance of timely follow up, which will complement the information provided to the patient from their primary care physician or pulmonologist's office.


One of the features of the SAAB Variable Compression engine (SVC) is its possibility to change the compression by tilting the top of the engine. Due to the change in geometry, the standard equation used to calculate the cylinder volume as function of crank angle may not give sufficiently accurate result. A new cylinder volume function, that is specially designed for the SVC, is derived and described. It is written on the form V(theta,v) = V_c(v)+V_d(theta,v), where theta is the crank angle, v the tilt angle, V_c the clearance volume, and V_d the volume displaced by the piston. It is shown that the biggest relative deviation between the standard volume function and the SVC volume function is approximately 6%. It is also shown that by adjusting the crank angle input to the standard volume function so that the TDC coincide with the actual TDC, that is V(theta,v) = V_c(v)+V_std(theta-theta_TDC), the relative error caused by using the standard volume function is reduced by a factor 10.


Coaching in different forms is prevalent in many European organisations. However, individuals typically receive coaching in the traditional dyadic form. Groups are generally formed only for training. In this article, it is argued that coaching executives in groups to leverage collective experience in an experiential encounter and provide ongoing support, is an efficient and potent way for executives to transform. Drawing on elements of psychoanalytic theory and group dynamics, the article presents a model which practitioners at educational establishments and in organisations can deploy with sustainable results


Decolonial thought has wrought a devastating critique on the Academy and wide-ranging fields within it. Decolonial critique entails undeniable and multiple ethico-political orientations arising from concrete struggles within the 'unfinished project of decolonization' (Maldonado-Torres), as well as recent articulations of decolonial ethics. This article argues that, as decolonial critique, and calls for decolonial ethics, begin to find their way into broader theoretical discussions in the social sciences and humanities, it may be more fruitful to insist on the question of decolonial ethics. It encourages retaining the disruptive potential of decolonial critique by resisting its immediate translations into available ethical registers and traditions that unwittingly reassert, and remain bound to, forms of ethical expression dependent on generalised narratives, which occlude their histories of violent and racialised exclusion and masterful figurations of ethical subjectivity. Outlining Sylvia Wynter's excavation of prominent figurations of the human as 'Man', I argue that our conceptions of ethical subjects too rest on such figurations. The article, therefore, discusses three prolegomena to any future decolonial ethics: the decolonial critique and displacement of the figure of 'Man' as ethical subject within racialised coloniality; the development of a decolonising poetics, whose ethos of irreverence seeks forms of poetic revolt that draw on struggles to question systems of ethical thought and knowledge; finally, a discussion of the contours of a praxis of being hybridly human through the development of 'education' as an incessant and 'unfinished' project.


The automotive industry is constantly trying to reduce exhaust emissions and to introduce alternatives to fossil fuels. Pressure from increasingly environmentally aware consumers and UK/EU emissions targets, mean that understanding the physics of the behaviour of various alternative fuels in the internal combustion engine is of huge importance to the automotive industry. One suggested alternative is to use alcohols as fuels. At present in Europe there is some crop based ethanol added to unleaded fuel, but as further legislation is considered the percentage of alcohols may to increase. At present even the well-established consumers of alcohol fuels such as Brazil run their vehicles using port fuel injection (PFI) systems and as direct injection spark ignition (DISI) becomes more popular within the automotive industry, for reasons of reported increases in efficiency and greater possibilities in combustion control due to injection strategies, the question of how this type of injection system can be best matched with the alcohol fuels is still not fully answered. This research aims to increase understanding of the physics involved in the ingestion and combustion of alcohol fuels in modern engine geometries. The use of an optical research engine allows images of DI spray formation, as well as PFI and DI combustion, to be captured and analysed by image processing techniques. In particular, the injection process of blends of alcohols with fossil fuels from a DI pressure-swirl injector is examined to determine the thermo-fluid dynamics and flow interactions affecting the spray development. The use of laser-based optical techniques further allows quantification of the in-cylinder air flow and fuel mixing processes to achieve an insight into how differing alcohol fuels effect DI in-cylinder air flow characteristics. Specifically in-cylinder PIV is undertaken to examine flow evolution both with and without alcohol fuels. Fuel effects are also discussed with regard to future optimization of engines to operate on these alternatives. Comparisons are made between different blends of alcohols and fossil fuels in terms of combustion images and incylinder rates of heat release. These are undertaken both visually in the optical engine, and thermodynamically in a thermodynamic engine of the same geometry, allowing greater insight into real-world combustion and exhaust emissions.


Various spectral emission lines from the star-forming molecular cloud core L1517B manifest red asymmetric double-peaked profiles with stronger red peaks and weaker blue peaks, in contrast to the oft-observed blue-skewed molecular spectral line profiles with blue peaks stronger than red peaks. Invoking a spherically symmetric general polytropic hydrodynamic shock model for the envelope expansion with a core collapse (EECC) phase, we show the radial flow velocity, mass density, and temperature structures of a self-similar evolution for L1517B in a dynamically consistent manner. By prescribing simple radial profiles of abundance distribution for pertinent molecules, we perform molecular excitation and radiative transfer calculations using the publicly available RATRAN code set for the spherically symmetric case. Emphatically, the spectral profiles of line emissions from the same molecules but for different line transitions as well as spectra of closely pertinent isotopologues strongly constrain the self-similar hydrodynamics of a cloud core with prescribed abundances. Our computational results show that the EECC model reproduces molecular spectral line profiles in sensible agreement with the observational data of the Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM), Five College Radio Astronomical Observatory, and Effelsberg 100 m telescopes for L1517B. We also report the spatially resolved observations of the optically thick line HCO+(1 − 0) using the Purple Mountain Observatory 13.7 m telescope at Delingha in China and the relevant fitting results. Hyperfine line structures of NH3 and N2H+ transitions are also fitted to consistently reveal the dynamics of the central core collapse. As a consistent model check, radial profiles of 1.2 mm and 850 μm dust continua observed by the IRAM 30 m telescope and the Submillimeter Common-User Bolometer Array, respectively, are also fitted numerically using the same EECC model that produces the molecular line profiles. L1517B is likely undergoing an EECC shock phase. For future observational tests, we also predict several molecular line profiles with spatial distributions, the radial profile of the sub-millimeter continuum at wavelength 450 μm, as well as the radial profiles of the column density and visual extinction for L1517B.


This paper mathematically analyses the varying magnitude of production loss, which may occur due to idle time (inprocess waiting time and traveling time) on a linear walking worker assembly line. Within this flexible and reconfigurable assembly system, each worker travels down the line carrying out each assembly task at each station; and each worker accomplishes the assembly of a unit from start to finish and then travels back to the first station to start the assembly of a new product. This strategy of system design attempts to combine the flexibility of the U-shaped moving worker assembly cell with the efficiency of the conventional fixed worker assembly line. The paper aims to evaluate the effect of idle time that may offset the labor efficiency of each walking worker providing an insight into the mechanism of such a flexible and reconfigurable assembly system.


Objectives: The objective of this study was to determine the efficacy of modified thermal balloon ablation using Foley's catheter in the treatment of heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB). Materials and Methods: Twelve patients with HMB aged 35–55 years underwent modified thermal balloon ablation using Foley's catheter. Patients were selected after complete clinical evaluation and investigations. The procedure was undertaken in the operation theater under general anesthesia/intravenous sedation. Three cycles of modified thermal balloon ablation using Foley's catheter were performed to ablate the endometrium. The time given to each cycle was 7 min. All the cycles were performed in the same setting. The main outcome measures that were studied were reduction in the menstrual flow, the need for further treatment, and relief of dysmenorrhea if present. Outcome measure regarding reduction in menstrual flow was statistically analyzed using Fisher's exact test. Statistical significance was determined at a level of P < 0.05. Results: Eighty-two percent of patients experienced a reasonable reduction in menstrual blood flow at 3-month follow-up. Eighteen percent observed no change in bleeding pattern and needed further treatment after failure of the procedure. Forty-two percent of patients complained of minor side effects such as cramp lower abdominal pain and fever. Rupture of balloon during the procedure occurred in only one case (8%). Conclusion: Modified thermal balloon ablation with Foley's catheter can be a promising management of HMB in resource-poor settings. It is a cost-effective alternative to the original endometrial ablation techniques.


In this paper, a new time-domain method for detecting structural local damage has been developed, which is based on the measured strain signals. The "pseudo strain energy density (PSED)" is defined and used to build two major damage indexes, the "average pseudo strain energy density" (APSED) and the "average pseudo strain energy density changing rate" (APSEDR). A probability and mathematical statistics technique is utilized to derive a standardized damage index. Afterwards, these indexes are used to establish the damage identification strategies for beam structures and plate structures respectively. Furthermore, the wavelet packet transform is used to pre-process the measured dynamic strain signals. Then, the effectivity of the new damage identification method is confirmed by numerical simulations. Finally, a laboratory beam model experiment is conducted to verify this method examine the feasibility and applicability of the new method.


Monodispersed γ-Fe2O3@SiO2 ellipsoids are prepared by the three-step approach of hydrothermal synthesis, reduction–oxidation and SiO2 coating. The magnetic field induced self-assembly processes are designed and carried out in different conditions. Influences of magnetic field strength, solvent, temperature, concentration and substrate are carefully investigated and evaluated by SEM and reflective spectra. The optimal self-assembly conditions of γ-Fe2O3@SiO2 ellipsoid ordered structures are confirmed to be dispersed in ethanol at 0.06 mol L−1 followed by evaporation on a glass substrate in a magnetic field of strength 5000 Oe at 35 °C. Finally, an air–liquid interfacial mechanism is suggested to understand the self-assembly processes.


Many traditional beliefs regard "human energy" as an integral component in human health and positive life experience. A number of areas in the realm of complementary and alternative medicine, as well as consciousness research in general, have explored the potential for these subtle energies in a myriad of experiments and applications. The FieldREG experiments previously conducted by a number of researchers have demonstrated an apparent effect of novel or emotional group activities on the statistical deviations of a proximal Random Event Generator device. In the present study, further exploration of this phenomenon was employed in both novel and relatively mundane group settings. Furthermore, a directional hypothesis was pursued whereby positive emotional experiences were expected to produce upward (positive) trends in the random data, while negative emotional settings would produce downward (negative) deviations. Finally, an overall comparison between random data from positive and negative settings was investigated. Results tended to support current theories that emotional or novel group experiences appear to influence the statistical performance of a random physical device, and that the emotional valence may further affect the overall direction of the random data obtained.


Many perception problems involve datasets that are naturally comprised of multiple streams or modalities for which supervised training data is only sparsely available. In cases where there is a degree of conditional independence between such views, a class of semi-supervised learning techniques that are based on maximizing view agreement over unlabeled data has been proven successful in a wide range of machine learning domains. However, these `co-training' or `multi-view' learning methods have had relatively limited application in vision, due in part to the assumption of constant per-channel noise models. In this paper we propose a probabilistic heteroscedastic approach to co-training that simultaneously discovers the amount of noise on a per-sample basis, while solving the classification task. This results in high performance in the presence of occlusion or other complex observation noise processes. We demonstrate our approach in two domains, multi-view object recognition from low-fidelity sensor networks and audio-visual classification.


: Anterior displacement of the second cervical vertebral body over that of the third in the adolescent occurs because of the hypermobility of these segments. This pseudosubluxation may be confused with true subluxation or dislocation of the cervical spine in a youthful patient. Failure to recognize this normal variation may lead to unnecessary treatment.


Flight initiation distance is the distance separating predator and prey when escape begins. The optimal flight initiation distance occurs where expected postencounter fitness is maximized, which depends on the prey's initial fitness, benefits obtainable by not fleeing, energetic escape costs, and expected fitness loss due to predation risk. In current optimal escape theory, prey die when contacted by a predator. We explore effects of variable lethality, L, the probability of being killed on contact. Optimal flight initiation distance increases as lethality increases, matching expectations that prey should not flee when contact entails no fitness loss but should be increasingly wary as expected fitness loss on contact increases. Addition of lethality improves the ability of optimal escape theory to predict effects of factors affecting escape ability. Autotomy, the voluntary shedding of tails or other expendable parts as a last-ditch defense to permit escape, provides an example. After autotomy, running speed decreases in many prey, lethality increases because autotomy cannot be used again until the lost part has regenerated, and ability to obtain benefits may decrease due to reduced social status and foraging ability. These changes favor longer flight initiation distance but lowered initial fitness after autotomy has the opposite effect. Optimal escape theory including a lethality term clarifies how autotomy may lead to increase or decrease in flight initiation distance depending on the balance of its multiple effects. Effects of additional factors that may alter multiple parameters of the model, including age, sex, reproductive condition, injury, disease, and parasitism are discussed. Copyright 2009, Oxford University Press.


Examines the political and ideological significance of measures of quality of life, specifically Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs). Briefly reviews recent developments in the debate surrounding the economic and political functions of quality of life measures. The dialectic between conceptions of the quality of life and the implicit realpolitik of socio‐economic pressures, ecological conditions, political ethos and cultural norms and expectations, is conceived as a powerful means for the critique of our aspirations concerning health. Argues that existing approaches to assessing quality of life, in denying this dialectic, have jeopardized their potential contribution to the planning, implementation and evaluation of health care policy. Resource allocation challenges us to develop openly ideological strategies and measures.


Tuberculosis is usually treated with multiple drugs and these drugs are known to cause various side effects like hepatic abnormality, skin rashes, peripheral neuropathy, and vision disturbances. Autoimmune hemolytic anemia is very rare with anti-tuberculosis drugs with only fifteen cases reported till date worldwide. Hence, we report a case of Rifampicin induced autoimmune hemolytic anemia in a patient, a known case of Gilbert's syndrome from a tertiary care hospital in Southern India.


The processor allocation problem requires recognizing and locating a free subcube that can accommodate a request for a subcube of a specified size for an incoming task. Methods reported in the literature fall into two strategies: bottom-up or bit mapped technique (BMT) and top-downer available cube technique (ACT). Our algorithm that solves the allocation problem in faulty hypercubes falls into the category of ACT's which offer the advantage over BMT's of quickly recognizing whether or not a requested subcube is available in the list of fault-free subcubes. We introduce new algebraic functions and the concept of separation factor to select a subcube for allocation. The notion of overlap-syndrome, defined in the text, quantifies the overlap among free subcubes. Our technique has full subcube recognition ability and thus recognizes more subcubes as compared to bit mapped techniques: Buddy, Gray code and its variants. The advantages of our approach over some of the existing ACT's in terms of fragmentation and overall completion time are described in the text and in simulation results. >


The purpose of this study was to evaluate cardiopulmonary responses of individuals with different fitness levels according to predetermined rating of perceived exertion (RPE) scores and to investigate the correspondence between the heart rate reserve percentage (HRR%) and the RPE scale by using fit and unfit subjects. Materials and methods: RPE scores of sedentary volunteers were recorded at different HRR% levels during graded exercise tests on a cycle ergometer. Following the tests, subjects were divided into 2 groups, high metabolic equivalent [(MET) MET >= 10; n = 9] and low MET (MET < 10; n = 11), according to maximal O2 uptakes (VO2max). Participants performed the steady-state exercise test at the 13th-14th level of their perceived exertion 48 h after the first test. Variance and regression analyses were performed. Results: For all HRR% values, RPE levels were not different between groups. During the graded exercise test, perceived exertion was significantly higher in the low MET group than in the high MET group. Predetermined RPE score results were significantly greater in the low MET group with relative O2 consumption as compared to the high MET group (P < 0.05-0.001). Conclusion: In individuals with different VO2max levels, exercise intensity can be prescribed using HRR% or RPE scale methods while adjusting for individual differences in oxygen consumption.


During a quiet spell in June Maigret is called to investigate the disappearance of a reputable businessman. When a body is discovered near the famous Pere Lachaise cemetery Maigret struggles to find any clues to the perpetrator and loses his temper when his own reputation is threatened by the case. Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels in new translations. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret Loses His Temper. 'His artistry is supreme' John Banville 'One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories' Guardian


Over the last few years, the number of remote patient monitoring (RPM) products and of videoconferencing systems has exploded. There is also a significant number of research initiatives addressing the use of service robots for assistance in daily living activities. From a technological standpoint, providing telehomecare services is certainly feasible. However, one technological barrier is to have access to a telecommunication platform that can be adapted to address the broad range of specifications and requirements of clinical and telehealth applications. Handling the full spectrum of possibilities requires a telecommunication framework that can transmit vital sign data from patients to clinicians, bidirectional audio-video from a standard computing device, and also multiple video streams and bidirectional transmission of control data. This paper presents a framework that integrates such capabilities. It also illustrates the versatility of the framework by presenting custom-designed devices allowing integration of capabilities ranging from RPM to video visits and robot telepresence.


Biorelevant metal ions such as Cu2+ and Fe2+/Fe3+ participate in various biological events which include electron transfer reactions, delivery and uptake of oxygen, DNA and RNA syntheses, and enzymatic catalysis to maintain fundamental physiological processes in living organisms. So far, several analytical techniques have been investigated for their precise detection; however, luminescence-based sensing is often superior due to its high sensitivity, selectivity, fast and easy operation and convenient cellular imaging. Owing to their immense photophysical and photochemical properties stemming from large Stokes shift, absorption in visible region, good photostability and long excited state lifetimes, Ru(II)-polypyridyl-based complexes have gained increasing interest as luminophores. Over past few decades, several Ru(II)-polypyridyl based chemosensors have rapidly been developed for detection of different biorelevant and other metal ions. The main object of this book chapter is to cover a majority of Ru(II)-polypyridyl based chemosensors showing a selective and sensitive detection of bio-relevant Cu2+ and Fe2+/Fe3+ ions. The photophysical properties of Ru(II) complexes, detection of metal ions, sensing mechanism and applications of these sensors are discussed at a length.


Increased myelopoiesis is a hallmark of many chronic inflammatory diseases. However, the mechanisms involved in the myeloid skewing of hematopoiesis upon inflammation are still incompletely understood. Here, we identify an unexpected role of bone-resorbing osteoclasts in promoting hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) proliferation and differentiation towards myeloipoiesis in the early phases of chronic colitis. RNAseq analysis revealed that osteoclasts in colitis differ from control ones and overexpress genes involved in the remodeling of HSC niches. We showed that colitic osteoclasts modulate the interaction of HSCs with their niche and promote myeloid differentiation. Increased osteoclast activity was correlated with an augmentation of myelopoiesis in patients with chronic colitis. Therapeutic blockade of osteoclasts reduced HSC proliferation and myeloid skewing and resulted in a decreased inflammation and severity of colitis. Together, these data identify osteoclasts as potent regulators of HSCs and promising target in chronic colitis.


Although its dependence on the target cell type is well established, the cytopathogenicity of parvoviruses has remained elusive to date as far as its mechanism is concerned. However, indirect evidence suggested that parvoviral non‐structural (NS) proteins may be the cytotoxic effectors. In order to test this hypothesis, a molecular clone of parvovirus MVMp was modified, by replacing the P4 promoter of the NS transcription unit by the glucocorticoid‐inducible promoter of the mouse mammary tumour virus. Clones of neoplastic human cells that had incorporated this construct and that were induced to produce NS proteins by dexamethasone, showed a cytopathic effect and eventually died. Our data strongly suggest that the intracellular accumulation of parvoviral NS products jeopardizes the survival of the cells, which cannot be detected unless a threshold protein concentration is reached. Interestingly, a cell variant could be isolated which resisted dexamethasone‐induced killing, although it was fully inducible for the production of NS proteins. This variant was also unusually resistant to infection with MVMp virions, thus confirming the essential role played by the NS proteins in the parvoviral cytotoxicity and indicating that the cytocidal activity of the parvoviral NS products is modulated by cellular factors that may vary from one cell to another.


Coarse aggregate structure or interlock is critical for resistance to rutting, and recent work has shown that it can also play a significant role in resistance to damage and fracture. Therefore, large enough aggregates should engage dominantly in the structure for good mixture performance. This study focused on the development of a conceptual and theoretical approach to evaluate coarse aggregate structure based on gradation.In soil mechanics, it has been well established that the porosity of granular materials in the loose state is approximately constant between 45% and 50%, regardless of size or gradation. This implies that one can use porosity as a criterion to assure contact between large enough particles within the mixture to provide suitable resistance to deformation and fracture. Calculations performed for gradations associated with typical dense graded mixtures indicated that the porosity of particles retained on any single sieve was significantly greater than 50%, even for gradations associated with the maximum density line. Since many dense graded mixtures are known to provide suitable resistance to deformation and fracture, then there must be a range of contiguous coarse aggregate particle sizes that form a network of interactive particles with a porosity of less than 50%.A theoretical analysis procedure was developed to calculate the center to center spacing between specific size particles within a compacted assemblage of particles of known gradation. Calculations performed with this procedure indicated that the relative proportion of two contiguous size particles, as defined by the standard arrangement of Superpave sieves, can be no greater than 70/30 in order to form an interactive network. Thus, the 70/30 proportion can be used to determine whether particles on contiguous Superpave sieves can form an interactive network of particles in continuous contact with each other. The range of particle sizes determined to be interactive was referred to as the dominant aggregate size range (DASR) and its porosity must be no more than 50% for the particles to be in contact with each other.It was concluded that porosity of the DASR may provide a good criterion for determining the suitability of gradation for dense-graded asphalt mixture.


The literature on inventory control discusses many methods to establish the level of decision parameters -like reorder levels or safety factors-, necessary to attain a prescribed service level. In general, however, these methods are not easy applicable: they often use time-consuming iterations, requiring specific software. In particular, large-scale application on huge numbers of stock keeping items are a heavy burden on the computer system. In this paper, we consider a periodic review fully back-ordered order up-to level (R,S)-system with stationary gamma distributed demand, and constant lead time. Two service level constraints are treated simultaneously: the stock-out probability and the fill rate. For the case that, in addition, the demand distribution parameters are known, we (i) calculate exact safety factors, depending on three model parameters, (ii) present simple expressions that give nearly exact safety factors. The latter expressions are valid for a wide range of parameter values; since implementation is straightforward, our method is appropriate for routine operational use. For unknown demand parameters, estimates obtained from past observations can be plugged in. The behaviour of the resulting order up-to levels is studied by simulation and appears to be quite satisfactory. A comparison with the standard - normality based - approach is made; an indication of the robustness of our method is given. Our most important message, however, is that this two-step procedure turns out to be applicable to a much wider range of inventory problems; to illustrate this remark, preliminary results on a specific (R,s,S)-system are mentioned.