As more and more corporate ethnographic work is crossing international borders, we are increasingly collaborating with teams that are spread across the globe. As a result, we need tools that enable us to work across boundaries. Since early 2004, the authors have been collaborating on a research project developed by an American company seeking to develop solutions specific to the Indian market. One of us, an Indian sociologist, led a team of ethnographers in India, while the other, an American anthropologist, managed research and analysis for concept development in the US. While all of the US -based team members spent time in the field in India during the project, integrating the teams into the same "brainspace" was a challenge. This paper describes how we used social tools to enable each set of team members to understand the work being done on the other side of the world.


Comparing the results of two large-scale user surveys conducted in Flanders in 2004 and 2018 shows that the Flemish public library sector has successfully adapted to challenging circumstances, such as increasing budgetary stringency and the pervasive digitalization of society. However, it is also clear that attendance numbers have decreased in Flemish public libraries in the last two decades, especially among visitors with lower education levels, which is cause for concern. In this article, the authors present an overview of exploratory analyses that try to ascertain how many of the public libraries that took part in their study were considered to be significantly more (or less) 'inviting' by specific subgroups (age, gender, education level, etc.) of the visiting public. Moreover, regression analyses are presented, showing which library characteristics have a positive effect on the attendance of two under-represented groups among Flemish library users: men and the lower educated.


From the pungent smells of Khari Baoli Spice Market in New Delhi to soothing smells of Mayfair Lavender Farm in south London, smells bring distinct identities to places and can connect people emotionally to the surroundings (Porteous, 1985). Smells are powerful to influence our feelings and recall memories of the past. Experiences of smells enrich our understanding of places and behavioral responses in places (Classen et al., 1994; Henshaw, 2014; Xiao, 2018) (Figure 1). In light of aromatherapies, spaces with therapeutic smells can potentially bring positive impacts on human wellbeing. In service spaces, smells are important environmental cues to delight people. In artistic practice, smells are curated to create an immersive experience to connect the audience and artists' inner worlds. Conversely smells in the form of odor pollution deriving from waste, traffic, plants, and food districts can compromise the quality of life of residents, and negatively affect our experience of places and lead to behavior changes (Henshaw et al., 2018). In this Research Topic, we aimed to collect a range of contributions to understand the emotional and wellbeing responses resulting from smells in different public spaces (museums, highstreets, heritage buildings, food districts, neighborhoods, squares, etc.) to inform future spatial design and management. The articles in this Research Topic are presented according to three types of contributions: reviews and conceptual analyses, empirical research in fieldwork, in laboratory studies and technological applications.


With the discovering atomic nucleus, nuclear science started to be used in different fields and researcher focused on radiation protection as it is dangerous for human cell. Thus radiation physics and materials development becomes one of the important subject in science for this purposes. The developed material should be used for radiation shielding. In this work gamma ray shielding properties of some composite materials produced by polymer have been investigated.


The Mont-Blanc project follows a co-design approach to ensure the final hardware design meets real-world High-Performance Computing (HPC) application requirements. Simulation is widely used in system design for evaluating different design options, as well as to characterize how an application will run in that configuration. The main idea is to test the applications and evaluate future performance prior to silicon availability. One of the most widely used simulation tools in research and in the Mont-Blanc series project is the gem5 simulator. gem5 is an open source, modular platform for computer-system architecture that is flexible and highly configurable. It can model a whole system architecture as it includes different models for the cores and the memory hierarchy. The objective of this tutorial, is to present in a our simulation framework, and how it has help on the design of highly complex systems.


17 Abstract Various forms of intensive sport place stress on the musculoskeletal system of the horse, during both racing and training. The musculoskeletal system of the horse has an inherent ability to adapt to the demands of high speed exercise, but exceeding the threshold of adaptive capacity may result in some form of damage. Continuing racing or training may delay the repair process and put the horse at risk of more serious musculoskeletal injury. This study investigated injury in different breeds of horses involved in various types of activity in riding clubs in Tehran. Of the 400 horses that took part in various events during the race season from March 2008 to September 2009, 26 were injured. The most common injury was to the musculoskeletal system of the fore limbs (64%). The hind limbs suffered 16% of the injuries and the head and neck 4%. From a gender aspect, incident rates were higher in mares (54%) than in stallions (46%). From a breed point of view, Thoroughbred and Arab horses had higher incident rates (100% and 85% respectively) than a hybrid horse (50%). Findings of this study also showed the relationship between gender, breed and age of the horses to the injury site, type and outcome, and type of the events. Common injuries in athletic horses at in Tehran, Iran riding clubs


Event cameras have recently gained significant traction since they open up new avenues for low-latency and low-power solutions to complex computer vision problems. To unlock these solutions, it is necessary to develop algorithms that can leverage the unique nature of event data. However, the current state-of-the-art is still highly influenced by the frame-based literature, and usually fails to deliver on these promises. In this work, we take this into consideration and propose a novel self-supervised learning pipeline for the sequential estimation of event-based optical flow that allows for the scaling of the models to high inference frequencies. At its core, we have a continuously-running stateful neural model that is trained using a novel formulation of contrast maximization that makes it robust to nonlinearities and varying statistics in the input events. Results across multiple datasets confirm the effectiveness of our method, which establishes a new state of the art in terms of accuracy for approaches trained or optimized without ground truth.


Problem, research strategy, and findings: Do historic rehabilitation tax credits (RTCs) play a central force in ongoing urban revitalization? I examine the role that federal RTCs have played in transforming U.S. downtowns using a case study approach and geocoded, longitudinal data for 10 cities: Atlanta (GA), Baltimore (MD), Cleveland (OH), Denver (CO), Philadelphia (PA), Portland (OR), Providence (RI), Richmond (VA), Seattle (WA), and St. Louis (MO). I find intense concentrations of downtown RTC investments in these cities; these projects were relatively resilient through the recent recession. Federal RTCs play an important role in the ongoing, postindustrial transformation of U.S. downtowns. RTC-funded projects concentrate downtown and are a key factor in the reinvestment of declining cities. Takeaway for practice: Historic rehabilitation tax credits are an important tool for downtown revitalization efforts and will help local planners and urban policymakers develop robust strategies for downtown redevelopment. Unfortunately, the RTC program cannot be used for owner-occupied units, public schools, or government buildings; there are a finite number of eligible historic buildings; and planners have little control over the location of RTC-supported projects. Local planners, however, can facilitate the use of RTC financing by removing regulatory barriers to adaptive reuse and downtown mixed-use development, being cautious when considering demolishing older buildings, and working with local preservation groups to streamline the process.


In the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith argues that a country's national income depends on its labor productivity, which in turn hinges on the division of labor. But why are some countries able to take advantage of the division of labor and become rich, while others fail to do so and remain poor? Smith's answer, in an important but neglected theme of his work, is the security of property rights that enable individuals to "secure the fruits of their own labor" and allow the division of labor to occur. Countries that can establish a "tolerable administration of justice" to secure property rights and allow investment and exchange to take place will see economic progress take place. Smith's emphasis on a country's "institutions" in determining its relative income has been supported by recent empirical work on economic development.


This article aims to analyse the influence exercised by the performance of the cluster of mezcal in their competitiveness, in order to build a scale that allows you to measure the performance of industrial clusters. To do this, is reviewed the cycle of life and performance of cluster theory, proposed by Andersson, Schwaag, Sorvik y Wise, (2004), Solvell (2009) and De Langen (2004). The methodology ascribed to the mixed research paradigm, using the techniques of document review, observation, interview and questionnaire. The Statistical analyses include descriptive statistics, analysis of bivariate correlation and linear regression model. Arose as a working hypothesis, which, It was accepted since performance influences positively and significantly on the competitiveness of the cluster of mezcal. To test the hypothesis were selected 50 companies on-site, same, they are located in the central valley Region of Oaxaca. The results show that there is talk of a natural cluster in growth stage, where competitiveness is based on the comparative advantages that provides its local structure. Are currently recognized a change in the way of competing, condition that has generated the creation of competitive advantages in aspects such as; quality, technology, critical mass, value-added and diversification of products.


: Nonbacterial thrombotic endocarditis (NBTE) has been described as an important complication in patients affected by different kind of illnesses, above all underlying malignancies. Fifty % of the patients affected by NBTE will have embolic events in different organs. The poverty of specific symptomatology appears to difficult seriously its diagnosis. In fact, systemic embolic infarctions are usually asymptomatic, except when central nervous system is involved. We present a patient affected by NBTE with an asymptomatic cervical spinal cord infarction, which diagnosis was made by pathologic study. The difficulty to explore typical sings of spinal lesion and the absence of previous reported cases of NBTE with posterior spinal artery infarction, make this one fairly interesting. We think that fibrinoplatelet embolism from NBTE should be included in the etiology of the posterior spinal artery infarction.


Abstract Endothelin, a recently described vasoconstrictor, has been shown to be a mitogen for vascular smooth muscle cells from systemic arteries and might play a role in pulmonary vascular remodeling produced by chronic exposure to hypoxia. We examined the effects of endothelin on proliferation of pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells and the effects of hypoxia and normoxia on the synthesis and secretion of endothelin by endothelial cells. Our results indicate that endothelin significantly increased the incorporation of [3H]thymidine by porcine pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells (122 ± 4% to 168 ± 13% of controls, with concentrations of endothelin from 1 to 1000 ng/ml). When tested on bovine pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells, endothelin increased [3H]thymidine incorporation over controls by approximately 140%; cell counts were increased by 107 ± 4% and 122 ± 7% at doses of 100 ng/ml and 1000 ng/ml, respectively. The secretion of endothelin by porcine endothelial cells was not affected by hypoxia (3520 ± 138 pg/ml/106 cells in hypoxia vs 3770 ± 326 pg/ml/106 cells in normoxia). Transforming growth factor-β1 stimulated the release by normoxic, and to a lesser degree by hypoxic, porcine endothelial cells of endothelin (4716 ± 43 pg/ml/106 cells vs 4074 ± 106 pg/ml/106 cells). Taken together, our results indicate that endothelin is weakly mitogenic for pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells, but may not significantly contribute to the remodeling seen in hypoxic pulmonary hypertension.


Data loading can dominate deep neural network training time on large-scale systems. We present a comprehensive study on accelerating data loading performance in large-scale distributed training. We first identify performance and scalability issues in current data loading implementations. We then propose optimizations that utilize CPU resources to the data loader design. We use an analytical model to characterize the impact of data loading on the overall training time and establish the performance trend as we scale up distributed training. Our model suggests that I/O rate limits the scalability of distributed training, which inspires us to design a locality-aware data loading method. By utilizing software caches, our method can drastically reduce the data loading communication volume in comparison with the original data loading implementation. Finally, we evaluate the proposed optimizations with various experiments. We achieved more than 30x speedup in data loading using 256 nodes with 1,024 learners.


This study discusses ways of measuring and explaining the development of house prices. The goal of the research underpinning this dissertation was to develop a methodological framework for studying these developments. This framework relates, first, to correcting for changes in the composition of swellings and, second, to the fundamentals of the price development. Using the weighted repeat sales method and sale price apparaisal ratio (SPAR) method house price indexes wer developed for the Netherlands. Both the Dutch land registry office and Statistics Netherlands publish the SPAR based house price index monthly. To explain and predict changes in prices a house price model is presented. As suggested in literature on western housingmarkets, the Dutch house price developments can be explained by demand-oriented short-run term variables and a long-run term variable. Using the house price model, this work identifies the fundamental factors in the developmentof house prices, a long-run equilibrium between interest payments and income, and the weak relationship on an aggregated level between house prices and newly built dwellings.


Abstract Described is a physical organic study of the reduction of three sets of carbonyl compounds by the NADPH-dependent enzyme Clostridium acetobutylicum alcohol dehydrogenase (CaADH). Previous studies in our group have shown this enzyme to display broad substrate promiscuity, yet remarkable stereochemical fidelity, in the reduction of carbonyl compounds, including α-, β- and γ-keto esters (d-stereochemistry), as well as α,α-difluorinated-β-keto phosphonate esters (l-stereochemistry). To better mechanistically characterize this promising dehydrogenase enzyme, we report here the results of a Hammett linear free-energy relationship (LFER) study across three distinct classes of carbonyl substrates; namely aryl aldehydes, aryl β-keto esters and aryl trifluoromethyl ketones. Rates are measured by monitoring the decrease in NADPH fluorescence at 460 nm with time across a range of substrate concentrations for each member of each carbonyl compound class. The resulting v 0 versus [S] data are subjected to least-squares hyperbolic fitting to the Michaelis–Menton equation. Hammett plots of log(V max) versus σX yield the following Hammett parameters: (i) for p-substituted aldehydes, ρ = 0.99 ± 0.10, ρ = 0.40 ± 0.09; two domains observed, (ii) for p-substituted β-keto esters ρ = 1.02 ± 0.31, and (iii) for p-substituted aryl trifluoromethyl ketones ρ = –0.97 ± 0.12. The positive sign of ρ indicated for the first two compound classes suggests that the hydride transfer from the nicotinamide cofactor is at least partially rate-limiting, whereas the negative sign of ρ for the aryl trifluoromethyl ketone class suggests that dehydration of the ketone hydrate may be rate-limiting for this compound class. Consistent with this notion, examination of the 13C NMR spectra for the set of p-substituted aryl trifluoromethyl ketones in 2% aqueous DMSO reveals significant formation of the hydrate (gem-diol) for this compound family, with compounds bearing the more electron-withdrawing groups showing greater degrees of hydration. This work also presents the first examples of the CaADH-mediated reduction of aryl trifluoromethyl ketones, and chiral HPLC analysis indicates that the parent compound α,α,α-trifluoroacetophenone is enzymatically reduced in 99% ee and 95% yield, providing the (S)-stereoisomer, suggesting yet another compound class for which this enzyme displays high enantioselectivity.


Social Networking sites provides tremendous impetus for Big Data in mining people's opinion. Public API's catered by sites such as Twitter provides us with useful data for perusing writer's attitude apropos of a particular topic, product etc. To discern people's opinion, tweets are tagged into positive, negative or neutral indicators. This paper provides an effective mechanism to perform opinion mining by designing a end to end pipeline with the help of Apache Flume ,Apache HDFS, Apache Oozie and Apache Hive. To make this process near real time we study the workaround of ignoring Flume tmp files and removing default wait condition from Oozie job configuration. The underlying architecture employed here is not restricted only to opinion mining but also has a gamut of applications. This paper explores few of the use cases that can be developed into actual working models. Keywords—Opinion Mining, Big Data, Real time Tweet Analysis, Oozie workaround.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate methods of detecting various component in the trace sample of the gingival crevicular fluid (GCF).

METHODS
One sample of GCF was collected from four patients with mild or moderate periodontitis. At first, one half (group A)of every sample was measured for interleukin-6 (IL-6) by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and then detected for Interleukin-1beta (IL-1beta) in the same sample .Another half (group B) of the sample was used as control for the measurement of Interleukin-1beta (IL-1beta). Another sample of GCF was collected from nine patients with abutment and non-abutment because of the distal extension teeth lost resulted from the chronic periodontitis. At first, one half (group C) of the sample was detected for tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha ) by ELISA and then measured for elastase in the same sample. Another half (group D) of the sample was used as control for the measurement of elastase.

RESULTS
There was no significant difference of both the measured value of IL-1beta absorbency (group A and B are 0.5 +/- 0.4 and 0.5 +/- 0.4, respectively, P=0.136)and that of elastase absorbency (group C and D are 1.1 +/- 0.6 and 1.1 +/- 0.6, respectively, P=0.943) between the original elution and the sample after detection of IL-6 or TNF-alpha in the test 1 and test 2, respectively. Moreover, the values showed high correlation (r=0.993, P=0.000 in the group A and B; r=0.979, P=0.000 in the group C and D).

CONCLUSION
It is practicable that one sample of GCF can be reused to examine for several components of GCF.


One of the fastest growing fields of study in defense market currently is Integrated Vehicle Health Monitoring (IVHM). These systems perform collection and analysis of data concerning operating parameters and damage information of vehicles in real-time and periodically send them to the base station for appropriate action. Recent advances in materials and sensor networks and technologies promise development of such systems for land, water, and aerial vehicles. These IVHM systems are of immense use in defense services which require their vehicles and systems to operate normally even under hostile and harsh environments. This work will discuss various issues related to IVHMs and prominent sensor technologies available to build such systems. It will also include the structure of a general purpose IVHM of a vehicle which can be used to monitor its inner operating parameters and damage information of its components.


Relationships between classes and objects in object-oriented software are necessary in order for the parts of the systems to provide dynamic behavior. These inherent relationships also create dependencies which can give rise to problems for software evolution of object-oriented software systems. Dependencies in software make systems difficult to understand, reuse, change and verify.This thesis presents analytical and empirical investigations of dependency-related problems in software evolution of object-oriented software and on how such problems can be handled with dependency focused techniques, methods and processes.The research presented in this thesis includes: Development of a programming language construct for controlling dependencies; formal experiments on code inspection techniques; exploring change strategies' effects on test suites; an industrial case study of regression test selection techniques for object-oriented software; proving the efficiency and defect detection capabilities of a novel regression test selection technique.The thesis contributes to increased knowledge on the role of dependencies in software evolution of object-oriented software. Specific contributions are a programming language construct that can control access to dependencies in software. Other main contributions are insights on the efficiency of dependency focused code inspection techniques and contribution to the knowledge on dependency-based regression test selection techniques for large scale software. Another contribution is a novel change-based regression test selection technique.


To understand the effect of surface machining on the resistance of AISI 316L to SCC (stress–corrosion cracking) in marine environments, we tested nuts surface-machined by different methods in a seawater-spraying chamber. Two forms of cracks were observed: on the machined surface and underneath it. On the surface, cracks connected with the pitting sites were observed to propagate perpendicular to the hoop-stress direction, identifying them as stress–corrosion cracks. Under the surface, catastrophic transgranular cracks developed, likely driven by hydrogen embrittlement caused by the chloride-concentrating level of humidity in the testing environment. Under constant testing conditions, significantly different SCC resistance was observed depending on how the nuts had been machined. Statistical evaluation of the nut surface-crack density indicates that machining by a "form" tool yields a crack density one order of magnitude lower than machining by a "single-point" tool. Microstructural analysis of form-tool-machined nuts revealed a homogeneous deformed subsurface zone with nanosized grains, leading to enhanced surface hardness. Apparently, the reduced grain size and/or the associated mechanical hardening improve resistance to SCC. The nanograin subsurface zone was not observed on nuts machined by a single-point tool. Surface roughness measurements indicate that single-point-tool-machined nuts have a rougher surface than form-tool machined nuts. Apparently, surface roughness reduces SCC resistance by increasing the susceptibility to etch attack in Cl--rich solutions. The results of X-ray diffractometry and transmission electron microscopy diffractometry indicate that machining with either tool generates a small volume fraction (< 0.01) of strain-induced martensite. However, considering the small volume fraction and absence of martensite in regions of cracking, martensite is not primarily responsible for SCC in marine environments.


The aims of the collaboration project, of which this project plays a key part, are to establish a new field of "low-dimensional chemistry" in order to synthesize manipulate and characterise the components of the photosynthetic system of Rhodobacter Sphaeroides. At a fundamental level, the physical processes involved in membrane biochemistry are to be investigated. Specifically, the environment in which the light harvesting components are found, their structure and function, including proton gradient formation, diffusion mechanisms, electron transport and the molecular association between them were to be studied. "The ultimate goal of the collaboration project was the reconstruction, on a chip in a synthetic low-dimensional system, of the complete photosynthetic pathway of the bacterium Rhodobacter Sphaeroides."

The creation of a homogeneous, fluid, polymer supported lipid bilayer to contain and maintain the integrity of these proteins, whilst under investigation, was a key part of the project.

To create this successful system many polymer brush supports were examined, which were anionic, cationic and zwitterionic polyelectrolytes. Some were pH responsive and some were fully charged and did not change with pH. The properties of a range of lipid vesicles were studied using DLS, so that the zeta potential of the liposomes could be measured and then tuned specifically to be attracted to the oppositely charged polymer brush surfaces. It was found that at very low charge (a zwitterionic lipid vesicle or surface) no vesicles were attracted. At very high charge (a highly cationic or anionic polymer or lipid vesicle) vesicles were attracted to the surface, but remained intact and did not fuse to form a bilayer. These highly charged combinations of surfaces and vesicles created an intriguing "de-quenching halo" effect, which is worthy of further investigation. At a specific point of low to mid-charge interaction a fluid bilayer was formed on a brush which had a surface of low charge and was interacting with a charged vesicle. The successful polymer brush support was created using a short novel amino acid polycysteine methacrylate brush, which is pH responsive and can be micro-patterned. The vesicles used were composed of 25 mol % DOTAP, a cationic lipid, in combination with a zwitterionic POPC lipid. The diffusion coefficient of the bilayer deposited on the brush was measured using FRAP and found to match the rates measured for lipid bilayers on glass, which is considered to be the "standard" for comparison. The mobile fractions also compared very well to this standard. AFM scans showed a homogeneous surface and break-through force measurement confirmed a bilayer of 5 nm in thickness, as expected for a single bilayer.

Attempts were subsequently made to incorporate proteins into this system by a number of methods, including creating proteoliposomes containing light harvesting components from the Rhodobacter Sphaeroides. The most promising of these was the development of a "one-step detergent depletion method" for creating a solubilised bilayer, adding protein and rinsing away the detergent in a single experiment. The characterisation of the system by TIRF, dark field and AFM microscopy was indicating success and paves the way for future work.

In testing the polymer brushes as candidates for supporting a lipid bilayer, one with the potential to be used to create compartments in a corral for segregating the individual protein components of a light harvesting bacterium was also confirmed. This protein and lipid resistant Poly(2-(methacryloyloxy)ethyl phosphorylcholine), will facilitate the study of their function, by micro-patterning. In conjunction with the PCysMA this system has the potential be used to create corrals between these compartments which allow the free movement of ions between the proteins. The long term goal is to generate energy following light absorption by the proteins.

The project is truly multidisciplinary and has presented the opportunity for collaboration between researchers in the disciplines of physics, chemistry and biology. The work presented here combines knowledge of membrane biophysics with polymer chemistry, and protein biochemistry.


In the period of socio-economic changes and the growing competition from the international market, value growth of the company's is treated as a strategic objective of its shareholders. In developed market economies, the role of real estate as assets creating and contributing to the value of the company is increasingly acknowledged. By appropriate modelling of real estate portfolios and implementation of real estate management strategies, it is possible to enhance the value of the real estate owned by the company, thus increasing the value of the company as such. Managing the real estate portfolio of the company is connected with the need to analyse and solve numerous issues, including the location of a new facility or a change in its current location. This is so because locating a company at a given spot in space is connected with specific, spatially variable expenditures, incurred both at the stage of construction and operation. The problem of location is complex, dynamic, and difficult. It requires studies and ongoing discussion of its nature, because, with the flow of time, the set of factors decisive for the location expands, and they are constantly being redefined. The location theory has its micro~ and macroeconomic aspects. In the former case, deliberation concerns a single facility, in the latter ii there is a search for efficient spatial structures. In both cases finding a general and specific location is of primary importance. General location choice, i.e. placing the enterprise in a specific region and settlement unit is largely decisive for the future spatial ties of the company. In the process of specific location choice, i.e. specific land lot, physical, economic, and institutional and legal characteristics of a given real estate are analysed. In an attempt to join in the discussion of the issue, the authors of the paper are going to describe the location decision-making process, taking into account numerous factors and conditions. The paper tries to present the most important elements in their macro~ and microeconomic aspects which affect the choice of location of various types of real estate. The deliberation will start with a presentation of real estate classification according to its purpose and will be followed by a discussion of important from the point of view of corporate strategies - factors, determining location decisions for various types of real estate investment projects.


We present a method of reducing the area of edge sampling circuits that employ the matched delay technique. The method uses the Chinese remainder theorem to decompose a long delay line of length L into n small and separate lines operating in parallel and having a total length proportional to n /sup n//spl radic/L. The area reduction is important because it allows lower power dissipation. It also yields higher measurement resolution because delay element variation along the line, which is a function of chip area, is reduced. We also present the design of an ASIC, called the CRT Sampler, using a 2 /spl mu/m, double metal, single poly CMOS process. We show its layout and give its performance results. We discuss several important design issues, including delay element implementation, maximum measurable delay, output encoding and turn-off delay effects.


Alemtuzumab is a highly effective treatment for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. It selectively targets the CD52 antigen to induce profound lymphocyte depletion, followed by recovery of T and B cells with regulatory phenotypes. We previously showed that regulatory T cell function is restored with cellular repletion, but little is known about the functional capacity of regulatory B-cells and peripheral blood monocytes during the repletion phase. In this study (ClinicalTrials.gov ID# NCT03647722) we simultaneously analyzed the change in composition and function of both regulatory lymphocyte populations and distinct monocyte subsets in cross-sectional cohorts of MS patients prior to or 6, 12, 18, 24 or 36 months after their first course of alemtuzumab treatment. We found that the absolute number and percentage of cells with a regulatory B cell phenotype were significantly higher after treatment and were positivity correlated with regulatory T cells. In addition, B cells from treated patients secreted higher levels of IL-10 and BDNF, and inhibited the proliferation of autologous CD4+CD25- T cell targets. Though there was little change in monocytes populations overall, following the second annual course of treatment, CD14+ monocytes had a significantly increased anti-inflammatory bias in cytokine secretion patterns. These results confirmed that the immune system in alemtuzumab-treated patients is altered in favor of a regulatory milieu that involves expansion and increased functionality of multiple regulatory populations including B cells, T cells and monocytes. Here, we showed for the first time that functionally competent regulatory B cells re-appear with similar kinetics to that of regulatory T-cells, whereas the change in anti-inflammatory bias of monocytes does not occur until after the second treatment course. These findings justify future studies of all regulatory cell types following alemtuzumab treatment to reveal further insights into mechanisms of drug action, and to identify key immunological predictors of durable clinical efficacy in alemtuzumab-treated patients.


&NA; Osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ) is a severe complication of therapy with antiresorptive agents (e.g. bisphosphonates and denosumab), which are used to manage bone metastases from cancer, to reduce the incidence of skeletal‐related events. Available data indicate that 0‐27, 5% of patients exposed to antiresorptive agents may develop ONJ, depending on the number of infusions and the duration of therapy. Besides antiresorptive therapy, a number of risk factors for osteonecrosis have been identified. Oral surgical procedures, tooth extractions and infection to the jawbones are considered the main risk factors for developing ONJ, when receiving antiresorptive therapy. However, a growing number of patients develop ONJ without apparent risk factors, raising concern for other predisposing factors. Jaw bone necrosis may be irreversible, resulting in a chronic disease with negative impact on the quality of patients' lives. The role of risk reduction strategies like meticulous dental screening and optimal oral hygiene is fundamental for preventing development of ONJ. ONJ is usually treated conservatively to relieve the symptoms and manage jaw bone necrosis. In certain cases, surgical intervention is required. Future research should emphasize individual predisposition to ONJ, more effective preventive measures and more efficient therapeutic procedures.


A contention-aware packet-scheduling scheme for slotted optical packet switching (OPS) networks is proposed, which employs edge-traffic shaping to reduce contention, coupled with a modified type of renegotiated service incorporating rate prediction. Queuing and scheduling of traffic is implemented electronically within the edge nodes, shaping user traffic into streams, which have a fixed bit rate only for a short period, which is renegotiated at regular intervals in response to user requirements and network conditions. Via an appropriate protocol, edge nodes gain knowledge of relevant network scheduling and topology information. This is used to schedule user-data packets appropriately, in order to reduce contention. Simulation and analytical results demonstrate that in the core, under typical conditions, packet loss below 10-8 may be obtained, with a load of 0.8 and with core optical-packet switch buffers having only 20-slot capacity. The tradeoffs between parameters affecting such results are investigated, demonstrating clearly that much more modest optical core buffers than previously thought necessary can provide acceptable performance. The performance and scalability of these proposals are investigated and discussed, demonstrating their feasibility


Chagas heart disease (CHD) results from infection with the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi and is the leading cause of infectious myocarditis worldwide. It poses a substantial public health burden due to high morbidity and mortality. CHD is also the most serious and frequent manifestation of chronic Chagas disease and appears in 20-40% of infected individuals between 10-30 years after the original acute infection. In recent decades, numerous clinical and experimental investigations have shown that a low-grade but incessant parasitism, along with an accompanying immunological response [either parasite-driven (most likely) or autoimmune-mediated], plays an important role in producing myocardial damage in CHD. At the same time, primary neuronal damage and microvascular dysfunction have been described as ancillary pathogenic mechanisms. Conduction system disturbances, atrial and ventricular arrhythmias, congestive heart failure, systemic and pulmonary thromboembolism and sudden cardiac death are the most common clinical manifestations of chronic Chagas cardiomyopathy. Management of CHD aims to relieve symptoms, identify markers of unfavourable prognosis and treat those individuals at increased risk of disease progression or death. This article reviews the pathophysiology of myocardial damage, discusses the value of current risk stratification models and proposes an algorithm to guide mortality risk assessment and therapeutic decision-making in patients with CHD.


Minahan, CL, Poke, DP, Morrison, J, and Bellinger, PM. Muscle damage and metabolic responses to repeated-sprint running with and without deceleration. J Strength Cond Res XX(X): 000-000, 2017-This study aimed to determine whether repeated-sprint running with deceleration aggravates markers of muscle damage or delays the recovery of performance compared with repeated-sprint running without deceleration. Fourteen male team-sport athletes performed 2 randomly ordered testing sessions on a nonmotorized treadmill with one session requiring participants to decelerate (TMd) within 4 seconds before stopping or immediately step to the side of the treadmill belt at the completion of each sprint (TMa). Peak and mean velocities, speed decrement, blood lactate concentrations, and oxygen uptake were monitored during the repeated-sprint running protocols. Countermovement vertical jump (CMJ) performance, perceived muscle soreness, sit-and-reach flexibility, plasma creatine kinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), and myoglobin (Mb) concentrations were quantified immediately before and after and 45 minutes, 24 and 48 hours after repeated-sprint running protocols. Although muscle damage was indicated by increases in CK, LDH, and Mb (p ≤ 0.05) in both groups, there was no significant effect of condition (TMa vs. TMd) on any of the measured performance or physiological variables (p > 0.05). The present study indicated that the removal of deceleration from repeated-sprint running on a nonmotorized treadmill has no effect on metabolism or performance during or after repeated-sprint running or markers of muscle damage.


Under free capital mobility, confidence crises can result in devaluations even when fixed exchange rates are viable, if fiscal authorities can obtain temporary money financing. During a crisis, domestic interest rates increase reflecting the expected devaluation. Rather than selling debt at punitive rates, fiscal authorities will turn to temporary money financing, leading to equilibria with positive probability of devaluation. These equilibria can be ruled out if the amount of debt maturing during the crisis is sufficiently small- a condition that can be met by reducing the stock of public debt, lengthening its average maturity and/or smoothing the time distribution of maturing issues.


New in situ observations on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge demonstrate that the along- and across-axis volcano-tectonic variability within second-order segments is larger than commonly acknowledged. In our study area, the segment center, far from being the place with present-day maximum volcanic activity, is dominated by extensive sedimentary cover, fissuring, and faulting. Furthermore, the area of most recent magmatic activity is located away from the segment center in a region of greater depth and thinner crust. Segment-tip magmatic oscillations are suggested by the distribution of rock types at both segment ends. Serpentinized peridotites and associated dolerites are exposed at the massifs located at the intersection with nontransform discontinuities (NTDs), whereas only basaltic rocks crop out on the nodal basin floors. We suggest that the combination of low magmatic budget and extension taking place at the NTDs during a segment retreat favors the uplift and exposure of ultramafic massifs.


Background: Ultraviolet A1(UVA1) phototherapy is increasingly being used in the treatment of morphea, atopic dermatitis, lupus and some other recalcitrant dermatoses. We present a retrospective review of our experience with this modality. Aim: To evaluate the treatment response rates for various dermatoses and adverse effects of UVA1 phototherapy. Methods: We reviewed phototherapy notes along with electronic and/or paper case records for all patients treated with UVA1 phototherapy from October 1996 to December 2008. Results: A total of 269 patients (outcomes available for 247) had 361 treatment courses (treatment data available for 317 courses) over this period. We found phototherapy to be benefi cial in 28 (53%) of 53 patients with atopic dermatitis and 19 (51%) of 37 patients with morphea. A benefi cial outcome was recorded in all six (100%) cases of urticaria and six (85.7%) of seven patients treated for a polymorphic light eruption. Benefi t was also recorded in systemic lupus erythematosus (8 (44.4%) of 18), lichen sclerosus (6 (42.9%) of 14), mastocytosis (2 (33.3%) of 6), necrobiosis lipoidica (4 (30.8%) of 13), granuloma annulare (2 (25%) of 8), scleroderma (2 (22.2%) of 9) and keloids (1 (7.7%) of 13). Overall, treatment was well tolerated with no patients having to stop treatment due to adverse effects. Limitations: This is a retrospective study with no control group. Subjective/recall bias is quite possible as a number of patients were followed up over the phone. Conclusions: Our data suggest that ultraviolet A1 can be considered for the treatment of selected dermatoses. However, long-term malignancy risk is as yet unknown.


OBJECTIVES
Investigation of the efficacy of zonisamide as an add-on therapy in dogs with refractory epilepsy.

METHODS
Thirteen dogs fulfilled the inclusion criteria of poor seizure control despite adequate serum levels of phenobarbital, potassium bromide or both. One further dog was treated with zonisamide as monotherapy because of severe blood dyscrasia due to phenobarbital treatment. Various seizure parameters were evaluated retrospectively for a four month period without zonisamide and prospectively for the same time period under zonisamide add-on therapy. The study time period was extended by up to 17 months to evaluate long-term outcome.

RESULTS
Data of 11 dogs could be evaluated: nine of them were responders. The median reduction of seizure frequency of all dogs on zonisamide add-on therapy was 70 per cent (range 14 to 100 per cent). Only transient central nervous system side effects were reported. No further increase of liver enzymes occurred. In three of the responder dogs, seizure control subsided after individual time periods (between 69 days and seven months).

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE
In dogs with refractory epilepsy, zonisamide may have a beneficial effect on seizure control. In three responder dogs, seizure activity relapsed possibly because of an induction of tolerance. Limiting factors are the high costs.


Negative expectancies derived from features of commercial drugs elicit nocebo effects The mysterious phenomenon known as the nocebo effect describes negative expectancies. This is in contrast to positive expectancies that trigger placebo effects (1). In evolutionary terms, nocebo and placebo effects coexist to favor perceptual mechanisms that anticipate threat and dangerous events (nocebo effects) and promote appetitive and safety behaviors (placebo effects). In randomized placebo-controlled clinical trials, patients that receive placebos often report side effects (nocebos) that are similar to those experienced by patients that receive the investigational treatment (2). Information provided during the informed consent process and divulgence of adverse effects contribute to nocebo effects in clinical trials (1). Nocebo (and placebo) effects engage a complex set of neural circuits in the central nervous system that modulate the perception of touch, pressure, pain, and temperature (1, 3, 4). Commercial features of drugs such as price and labeling influence placebos (5, 6). On page 105 of this issue, Tinnermann et al. (7) show that price also influences nocebo effects.


This paper presents a multitude of lessons learned during the 5 years spent on the design, manufacturing and delivery of the on- and off-vessel mooring components for the Appomattox semi-submersible.
 Appomattox is Shell's newest and largest deepwater oil & gas production asset in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM). It was successfully moored about 260 kilometers Southeast of New Orleans, in June 2018 using a 16-point chain-polyester-chain mooring system. It was the culmination of the work done by a dedicated team of Shell civil-marine engineers, mooring equipment suppliers and an offshore installation contractor. Shortly after completion of mooring lines hook-up operations, the polyester ropes were pre-stretched, and the FPS was moved into position for the start of the Steel Catenary Riser (SCR) system installation. Appomattox started production in May 2019. The mooring equipment has so far been performing as expected.
 The delivery of Appomattox mooring components was particularly challenging due to an unusually large number of stringent constraints including: 40-year design life, first application of fairleads with underwater chain stoppers in the GoM to mitigate out-of-plane chain link bending fatigue, polyester rope properties fine-tuned to ensure that installation and in-service requirements are met, stringent inspection oversight to enforce project-specific requirements, Thermal Spray Aluminum (TSA) on portions of the platform chains and novel chain handling equipment and method for mooring lines hook-up operations, just to mention a few. The design of the overall system and management of the mooring equipment vendors was performed using mostly in-house resources.
 The paper starts with some general information about the Appomattox development. The three subsequent sections present the mooring system, the delivery team and the overall timeline. The lessons are then organized in sections by mooring component types (on-vessel, polyester ropes, chains, and various connectors). Some reflections on how stakeholders influenced certain characteristics of the mooring components are disseminated throughout the paper. The paper also includes some observations about how the equipment performed in the field even though the lessons learned about the commissioning and offshore installation are left for a separate future paper.


In this modern age of technology advancement, the computers have played a pivotal role in bringing a revolution to all the fields including teaching and learning. Learning a new programming language is not an easy task as beginners often face problems in understanding the syntax, semantics and logic of the new language. Books are not sufficient to clear concepts and some alternate methods of learning are required. As Computer Aided Learning Software (CALS) has proven to improve the teaching and learning process, therefore, we propose software, "Programming Teaching Aid", which facilitates teachers as well as self-learners to learn a new language. It has an easy to use graphical user interface (GUI) which helps the user in understanding a pre-written code to be learnt or understood. The language being focused is C++. The proposed software truly supports the pedagogical methodologies. The use of this software will make the learning of C++ language more effective and instill self-study skills among students.


The encounter of a nanodrop with a nanoprotrusion on a hysteresis-free surface is explored by many-body dissipative particle dynamics (MDPD) and surface evolver (SE). On a smooth surface, a nanodrop exhibits random motion but will be captured as it encounters a protrusion. For both lyophilic and lyophobic systems, there exists an attraction between the drop and the protrusion. The potential energy profiles associated with the detachment processes with and without crossing the protrusion are acquired by the determination of the displacement of the captured drop responding to the externally applied forces. It is found that the critical force and depth of the energy well of the lyophilic system are greater than those of the lyophobic system. Moreover, the drop straddling on the protrusion symmetrically is stable for the lyophilic system but becomes unstable for the lyophobic system. Our results can shed some light on the effect of surface roughness on droplet wetting.


Cytochrome P450 monooxygenase CYP6G1 of Drosophila melanogaster was heterologously expressed in a cell suspension culture of Nicotiana tabacum. This in vitro system was used to study the capability of CYP6G1 to metabolize the insecticide methoxychlor (=1,1,1‐trichloro‐2,2‐bis(4‐methoxyphenyl)ethane, 1) against the background of endogenous enzymes of the corresponding non‐transgenic culture. The Cyp6g1‐transgenic cell culture metabolized 96% of applied methoxychlor (45.8 μg per assay) within 24 h by demethylation and hydroxylation mainly to trishydroxy and catechol methoxychlor (16 and 17%, resp.). About 34% of the metabolism and the distinct formation of trishydroxy and catechol methoxychlor were due to foreign enzyme CYP6G1. Furthermore, methoxychlor metabolism was inhibited by 43% after simultaneous addition of piperonyl butoxide (458 μg), whereas inhibition in the non‐transgenic culture amounted to 92%. Additionally, the rate of glycosylation was reduced in both cultures. These results were supported by the inhibition of the metabolism of the insecticide imidacloprid (6; 20 μg, 24 h) in the Cyp6g1‐transgenic culture by 82% in the presence of piperonyl butoxide (200 μg). Due to CYP6G1 being responsible for imidacloprid resistance of Drosophila or being involved in DDT resistance, it is likely that CYP6G1 conveys resistance to methoxychlor (1). Furthermore, treating Drosophila with piperonyl butoxide could weaken the observed resistance phenomena.


A 61-year-old patient presented with an eczematous patch on the left wrist, suspect of a contact dermatitis to his watch. This lesion did not respond to the usual topical treatment. On the contrary, new lesions appeared on both forearms. A fungous culture was positive and confirmed the diagnosis of tinea circinata. Appropriate treatment allowed a complete cure within 1 month.


Body: Patients with AMD, a glycogen storage disease resulting in loss of skeletal muscle function, become ventilator dependent when respiratory muscles, particularly the diaphragm, are significantly involved. To identify predictive factors of diaphragmatic weakness in AMD, we studied 10 untreated AMD patients and 8 healthy controls. Supine postural drop of vital capacity (ΔVC) was measured by spirometry, while rib cage (RC) and abdominal (AB) volume variations by opto-electronic plethysmography during quite breathing and slow vital capacity in seated and supine posture. RC and AB contributions to tidal volume (V T ), inspiratory capacity (IC) and expiratory reserve volume (ERV) were derived. Diaphragmatic weakness, defined as ΔVC>25% (Fromageot et al,2001), was present in 3 patients (DW). Posture had a significant effect on IC and AB volume changes during IC and ERV (left and central panel) in controls and patients without DW (noDW). Conversely, in DW patients IC and AB volume changes during IC did not vary with posture, while AB contribute paradoxically (negative values) to ERV in supine position. DW patients also showed negative (i.e., paradoxical inward movement) AB contribution to V T which correlated with ΔVC (right panel). AB volume variations in both DW and noDW patients were generally lower than controls. In conclusion, abdominal displacement during V T and VC maneuver is a good indicator of diaphragmatic weakness in AMD.


Efficiency of brace treatment for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis is correlated to how the brace has been worn. The more often the patients wear their braces to the prescribed tightness as well as to the prescribed length of time each day, the better the treatment outcomes. This paper describes an active intelligent brace system designed to maintain the interface pressure between the brace and body within the prescribed range during daily activity. The intelligent system consists of a microcomputer, a force transducer and a force feedback component. A subject who has no scoliosis volunteered to test the system for a few hours. Preliminary trials indicate that wearing the system increases the amount of time which a subject wears his brace in the prescribed range of tightness. The test subject wore the brace without feedback within the prescribed range of tightness for 28% of the time, whereas when the air bladder feedback system was activated, the subject wore the brace effectively for 47% of the time.


This article presents the design of a simple hardware-controlled, high performance cache system. The design supports fast access time, optimal utilization of temporal and spatial localities adaptive to given applications, and a simple dynamic fetching mechanism with different fetch sizes. Support for dynamically varying the fetch size makes the cache equally effective for general-purpose as well as multimedia applications. Our cache organization and operational mechanism are especially designed to maximize temporal locality and spatial locality, selectively and adaptively. Simulation shows that the average memory access time of the proposed cache is equal to that of a conventional direct-mapped cache with eight times as much space. In addition, the simulations show that our cache achieves better performance than a 2-way or 4-way set associative cache with twice as much space. The average miss ratio, compared with the victim cache with 32-byte block size, is improved by about 41% or 60% for general applications and multimedia applications, respectively. It is also shown that power consumption of the proposed cache is around 10% to 60% lower than other cache systems that we examine. Our cache system thus offers high performance with low power consumption and low hardware cost.


ABSTRACT Set within the context of a global pursuit towards the internationalisation of higher education, this paper critically examines student discourse in a globally connected classroom between learners in the USA and Singapore. It makes salient some of the cultural assumptions and tensions that undergird students' discourse in collaborative international exchanges. We argue that technological innovation can enhance campus internationalisation efforts by providing opportunities for groups of students to intersect and interact across cultures. Such opportunities for social connection can bring about a transformative third space wherein domestic students and their international peers can engage in meaningful and productive dialogic exchanges. However, as this analysis suggests, the mere opportunity for connection will not necessarily manifest outcomes consistent with ideals of internationalisation and may instead result in superficial exchanges and reified stereotypes. Specifically, findings from this study demonstrate several tensions in US students' discourse, revealing ways in which they simultaneously reject and represent American identity, challenge and reify national stereotypes, and pursue open-mindedness while maintaining 'strong convictions'. Finally, as a practical application of findings, we suggest training students to self-reflect through critical examination of their own and others' discourse as a means for pushing beyond the superficial towards genuine cultural learning.


This study utilizes mortar specimens, to design 3 different a/c ratios of 2.25, 2.75, and 3.25. The aggregate volume ratios (Vf) are 46 %, 52 %, and 57 %, respectively, while the w/c ratio is 0.5, and undergoing a 9, 12, and 15 A/m2 constant current density Accelerated Lithium Migration Technique after curing for 3 months. Results show that, on specimens applied with the same current density, the time of Li+ to pass through the specimen, and steady state flux and migration coefficient all exhibit a positive linear correlation with Vf. At the same time, the non-steady state migration coefficient for Li+ have a negative linear correlation with Vf.


A strategy profile of a game is called robustly stochastically stable if it is stochastically stable for a given behavioral model independently of the specification of revision opportunities and tie-breaking assumptions in the dynamics. We provide a simple radius–coradius result for robust stochastic stability and examine several applications. For the logit-response dynamics, the selection of potential maximizers is robust for the subclass of supermodular symmetric binary action games. For the mistakes model, the weaker property of strategic complementarity suffices for robustness in this class of games. We also investigate the robustness of the selection of risk-dominant strategies in coordination games under best-reply and the selection of Walrasian strategies in aggregative games under imitation.


Background—The plasma kallikrein-kinin (K-K) system is activated in acute and chronic relapsing intestinal inflammation induced in Lewis rats by intramural injection of exogenous bacterial components. Aims—To determine whether this eVect is model specific, K-K system activation was investigated in a modified indomethacin induced enterocolitis model, as well as bradykinin 2 (B2) receptor distribution in the normal and acutely inflamed intestine. Methods—Lewis rats injected with daily sublethal doses of indomethacin for two days developed acute (two days) and chronic (14 days) intestinal inflammation. Plasma prekallikrein (amidolytic), high molecular weight kininogen (HK, coagulant) and cleavage of HK (western blot) were assayed to detect K-K activation. Results—Liver and spleen weights were significantly higher, and body weights and haematocrit values were significantly lower in the indomethacin group than in the control group. During both acute and chronic phases, rats displayed K-K system activation manifested by a significant decrease in plasma prekallikrein and HK functional levels, and by HK cleavage. Plasma T kininogen (a major acute phase protein) was significantly elevated. B2 receptors were identified in both normal and inflammatory intestine with more prominent specific immunohistochemical staining in the acutely inflamed tissue. Conclusions—K-K system activation occurs in association with both acute and chronic phases of intestinal injury, regardless of the triggering agent, suggesting that activation of this system is integrally involved in intestinal inflammation in genetically susceptible hosts. Localisation of B2 receptors across intestinal layers provides a structural basis for the kinin function in the intestine. (Gut 1998;43:365–374)


The oxygen-evolving complex (OEC) catalyzes water-splitting through a reaction mechanism that cycles the OEC through the "S-state" intermediates. Understanding structure/function relationsships of the S-states is crucial for elucidating the water-oxidation mechanism. Serial femtosecond X-ray crystallography has been used to obtain radiation damage-free structures. However, it remains to be established whether "diffraction-before-destruction" is actually accomplished or if significant changes are produced by the high-intensity X-ray pulses during the femtosecond scattering measurement. Here, we use ab initio molecular dynamics simulations to estimate the extent of structural changes induced on the femtosecond time scale. We found that the radiation damage is dependent on the bonding and charge of each atom in the OEC, in a manner that may provide lessons for XFEL studies of other metalloproteins. The maximum displacement of Mn and oxygen centers is 0.25 and 0.39 Å, respectively, during the 50 fs pulse, which is significantly smaller than the uncertainty given the 1.9 Å resolution of the current PSII crystal structures. However, these structural changes might be detectable when comparing isomorphous Fourier differences of electron density maps of the different S-states. One conclusion is that pulses shorter than 15 fs should be used to avoid significant radiation damage.


BACKGROUND
Hemodialysis patients with mineral and bone disorders (MBDs) have an abnormally high relative risk of death, but their absolute risk of death is unknown. Further, previous studies have not accounted for possible time-dependent confounding of the association between MBD markers and death due to the effect of markers of MBD on treatments, which subsequently may affect MBD markers.

STUDY DESIGN
Multicenter, 3-year, prospective, case-cohort study.

SETTING & PARTICIPANTS
8,229 hemodialysis patients with secondary hyperparathyroidism (parathyroid hormone level ≥180 pg/mL and/or receiving vitamin D receptor activators) at 86 facilities in Japan.

PREDICTORS
Serum phosphorus, calcium, and parathyroid hormone levels.

OUTCOME
All-cause mortality.

MEASUREMENTS
Marginal structural models were used to compute absolute differences in all-cause mortality associated with different levels of predictors while accounting for time-dependent confounding.

RESULTS
The association between phosphorus level and mortality appeared U-shaped, although only higher phosphorus level categories reached statistical significance: compared to those with phosphorus levels of 5.0-5.9 mg/dL (1.61-1.93 mmol/L), patients with the highest (≥9.0 mg/dL [≥2.90 mmol/L]) phosphorus levels had 9.4 excess deaths/100 person-years (rate ratio, 2.79 [95% CI, 1.26-6.15]), whereas no association was found for the lowest phosphorus category (<3.0 mg/dL [<0.97 mmol/L]; rate ratio, 1.54 [95% CI, 0.87-2.71]). Similarly, hypercalcemia (≥10.0 mg/dL [≥2.50 mmol/L]) was associated with excess deaths, and the highest level of hypercalcemia (≥11.0 mg/dL [≥2.75 mmol/L]) was associated with 5.8 excess deaths/100 person-years (rate ratio, 2.38 [95% CI, 1.77-3.21]) compared to those with levels of 9.0-9.4 mg/dL (2.25-2.37 mmol/L). Abnormally high parathyroid hormone levels were not associated with excess deaths.

LIMITATIONS
Possible residual confounding.

CONCLUSIONS
These results reinforce the idea that serum calcium (in addition to phosphorus) level is an important predictor of the absolute risk of death in hemodialysis patients with secondary hyperparathyroidism.


We report a new all-optical flip-flop (AOFF) with a quite simple structure, using optical beating in an injection-locked Fabry-Perot laser diode (FP-LD) with optical bistability. While conventional AOFF methods using an injection-locked FP-LD require additional devices such as secondary FP-LDs or polarization controllers for reset operation, the proposed method can be implemented using only a single commercially available FP-LD with set and reset signals. The optical beating induces intensity fluctuations inside the FP-LD, and releases the locking state to the reset state. Even though we demonstrated the AOFF at 100 Mbit/s, we expect that its operation rate could extend to 10 Gbit/s, according to the limit of the FP-LD's frequency response.


A bifunctional reagent of terephthaloyl chloride was initially adopted as a spacer reagent to prepare the bonded types of chiral stationary phase (CSP) with cellulose derivatives. (3,5-dimethylphenyl)carbamates of cellulose (CDMPC) regioselectively bonded to small pore (3-aminopropyl)silica gel (APS) were prepared with terephthaloyl chloride as a spacer at the 6-position of the primary hydroxyl group on the glucose unit of cellulose. Enantioseparations of five racemic samples are evaluated on the prepared CSP under normal-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic mode with hexane- isopropylalcohol as the mobile phase. The influence of flow rates and mobile phase compositions on the resolution were investigated. The prepared stationary phase was exhibited an effective chiral recognition.


Harpagophytum procumbens, commonly known as Devil's Claw, is indigenous to southern Africa, and extracts of the tubers have been used for centuries in the treatment of a variety of inflammatory disorders. Its major active components, harpagoside (1), harpagide (2), 8-coumaroylharpagide (3), and verbascoside (4), are believed to interact either synergistically or antagonistically in modulating the enzymes responsible for inducing inflammation, although this has not been probed hitherto. In the current work, the ability of these compounds to inhibit the expression of COX-2 following administration to freshly excised porcine skin has been investigated. An ethanol-soluble extract of H. procumbens tubers and two of the pure compounds tested showed promising activity in Western blotting and immunocytochemical assays, with harpagoside (1) and 8-coumaroylharpagide (3) exhibiting greater reductions in COX-2 expression than verbascoside (4). Harpagide (2) caused a significant increase in the levels of COX-2 expression after 6 h of topical application. The data suggest that the efficacy of H. procumbens is dependent upon the ratios of compounds 1-4 present, which is inconsistent with some current official monograph specifications based solely on harpagoside (1) content.


A medical publication may or may not present an outcome. When an outcome is present, its polarity may be positive, negative or neutral. Information about the polarity of an outcome is a vital one, particularly for practitioners who use the outcome information for decision making. We model the problem of automatic outcome polarity identification as a three-way document classification problem and attempt to solve it via supervised machine learning. We combine domain knowledge and linguistic features of medical text, and apply natural language processing to extract features for the chosen classifiers. We introduce two novel features — Relative Average Negation Count and Sentence Signature — and show that they are effective in improving classification accuracy. We also include features, such as n-grams and semantic orientation of terms, that have been used for similar text classification problems in other domains. Using these features, we obtain a maximum accuracy of 74.9% for the classification problem. Our experiments suggest that through careful feature selection, machine learning can be used to solve this problem.


Domain adaptation nowadays attracts increasing interests in pattern recognition and computer vision field, since it is an appealing technique in fighting off weakly labeled or even totally unlabeled target data by leveraging knowledge from external well-learned sources. Conventional domain adaptation assumes that target data are still accessible in the training stage. However, we would always confront such cases in reality that the target data are totally blind in the training stage. This is extremely challenging since we have no prior knowledge of the target. In this paper, we develop a deep domain generalization framework with structured low-rank constraint to facilitate the unseen target domain evaluation by capturing consistent knowledge across multiple related source domains. Specifically, multiple domain-specific deep neural networks are built to capture the rich information within multiple sources. Meanwhile, a domain-invariant deep neural network is jointly designed to uncover most consistent and common knowledge across multiple sources so that we can generalize it to unseen target domains in the test stage. Moreover, structured low-rank constraint is exploited to align multiple domain-specific networks and the domain-invariant one in order to better transfer knowledge from multiple sources to boost the learning problem in unseen target domains. Extensive experiments are conducted on several cross-domain benchmarks and the experimental results show the superiority of our algorithm by comparing it with state-of-the-art domain generalization approaches.


We generalize Deng-Du's folding argument, for the bounded derived category D(Q) of an acyclic quiver Q, to the finite dimensional derived category D(Gamma Q) of the Ginzburg algebra Gamma Q associated to Q. We show that the F-stable category of D(Gamma Q) is equivalent to the finite dimensional derived category D(Gamma\SS) of the Ginzburg algebra Gamma\SS associated to the specie \SS, which is folded from Q. Then we show that, if (Q,\SS) is of Dynkin type, the principal component Stab_0 D(Gamma\SS) of the space of the stability conditions of D(Gamma\SS) is canonically isomorphic to the principal component Stab_0^F D(Gamma Q) of the space of F-stable stability conditions of D(Gamma Q). As an application, we show that, if (Q,\SS) is of type (A_3, B_2) or (D_4, G_2), the space Stab^N D(Gamma Q) of numerical stability conditions in Stab^0 D(Gamma Q), consists of Br Gamma Q/Br Gamma\SS many connected components, each of which is isomorphic to Stab^0 D(Gamma\SS) \cong Stab^F D(Gamma Q).


A demonstration unit for the Solar-Assisted Large-Scale Cleaning System (SALSCS), with a solar collector 43 × 60 m2 in horizontal dimensions and a tower 60 m in height, was built in Xi'an, China, to study its effectiveness in terms of urban air pollution remediation. To simulate an urban-scale SALSCS with dimensions ranging 10–120 m that was proposed for installation on urban blocks, we first performed experimental measurements on the demonstration unit and used the experimental data to validate a numerical model that we developed. This paper presents the field measurements conducted during three days in Jan. 2017 in Xi'an. The experimental and numerical results of the system flow rate and temperature showed good agreement for six of the eight measurement cases, with average discrepancies of 1.63 m3 s–1 for the flow rate and 0.78°C for the temperature. Larger discrepancies for the other two cases were observed, and the reasons were analyzed. During the measurements, the filtration efficiency of the filter media installed in the north section of the system with regard to PM2.5 was evaluated to be 73.5%. The validated numerical model was applied to study the performance characteristics of the urban-scale SALSCS, and these results will be presented in Part II.


An interplanetary dust particle contains a submicrometer crystalline silicate aggregate of probable supernova origin. The grain has a pronounced enrichment in 18O/16O (13 times the solar value) and depletions in 17O/16O (one-third solar) and 29Si/28Si (<0.8 times solar), indicative of formation from a type II supernova. The aggregate contains olivine (forsterite 83) grains <100 nanometers in size, with microstructures that are consistent with minimal thermal alteration. This unusually iron-rich olivine grain could have formed by equilibrium condensation from cooling supernova ejecta if several different nucleosynthetic zones mixed in the proper proportions. The supernova grain is also partially encased in nitrogen-15-rich organic matter that likely formed in a presolar cold molecular cloud.


For a profitable cabbage production, growers should reduce losses in the field, enhance quality and safety of the produce after harvesting, and supply the produce at its best possible condition to the consumers. After harvesting, the quality of produce usually cannot be improved, but can only be maintained. The most basic factor affecting good quality is harvesting at proper stage of maturity. The most important quality characteristics of fresh market cabbage are colour, firmness, crispness, and freedom from decay and rot. High temperatures during post-harvest period and the use of non-protective packages are the major sources of high level damage and deterioration, which greatly reduces the potential post-harvest life of all fresh produce including cabbage. Assessing post-harvest losses of fresh produce provides benchmark information for determining loss reduction interventions to increase profitability and competitiveness of farming and marketing ventures. The most common post-harvest problems of cabbage in the supply chain are physical damage, bacterial soft rot, leaf yellowing, and wilting. Storage of cabbage at 4-10 C, can effectively delay leaf yellowing and maintain leaf chlorophyll content. Low temperature or cold storage is the single most effective method of prolonging the post-harvest life of fresh produce. Weight loss, respiration rate and ethylene production can also be reduced at low temperatures and the head firmness maintained. In many developing countries, the fresh produce industry is hampered by lack of efficient and effective supply chains. The supply chains are generally not organised, are fragmented, and losses in product quality and quantity are usually high, which are absorbed by farmers as reduced farm-gate price and by consumers as increased purchase price.


Marijuana, the common name for Cannabis sativa, is a widely distributed hemp plant whose dried flowering tops and leaves have been used for medicinal purposes for 12,000 years by some estimates (1). The article by Malfait et al. (2) in this issue of PNAS is relevant to the question of whether such traditional uses of marijuana could be clinically justifiable today.


Background: Cyberbullying and cyber-victimization are rising problems and are associated with increased risk for mental health problems in children. Methods for addressing cyberbullying are limited, however, interventions focused on promoting appropriate parental mediation strategies are a promising solution supported by evidence and by guided by the Theory of Parenting Styles.

Objective: To provide an educational session to parents of middle school students that promotes effective methods of preventing and addressing cyberbullying incidents. Design: The educational sessions were provided to eight parents middle school student. Surveys to assess parent perception of and planned response to cyberbullying incidents and Parent Adolescent Communication Scale (PACS) scores were collected pre-presentation, post-presentation, and at one-month follow up.

Results: Data analysis of pre- and post-presentation PACS using a Wilcoxon test found no significant difference (Z = -.405, p >.05). There was not enough response to the 1-month follow-up to perform a data analysis on follow-up data.

Conclusions: Due to low attendance and participation in the follow-up survey the results of this project are limited. However, parents did appear to benefit from communicating concerns about cyberbullying with school officials. Future studies should examine if a school-wide anti-cyberbullying program that actively involves parents effects parental response to cyberbullying.


The design, development and validation of vehicle powertrains is performed in concurrent cycles, involving various teams, working on a wide range of fields, and relying on modeling and simulation. However, there are still limitations that reduce models exchange and exploitation. After reviewing the main limitations of current simulation tools and methodologies, this paper introduces a new software platform, code named xMOD, and ambitioning to improve models exchange and exploitation. The main idea of xMOD is to combine in the same platform, a heterogeneous model integration environment, as well as a virtual instrumentation and experimentation laboratory. xMOD allows model developers, on one hand, to make their models easily understandable and exploitable, thanks to its virtual instrumentation functionalities, and to protect any con dential know-how. On the other hand, xMOD makes it possible for engineers and scientists, regardless of their experience and pro ciency in a given modeling language or environment, to rapidly and easily integrate and exploit heterogeneous models. xMOD enables an increase of simulation speed due to its ability to exploit multi-core processors. Finally, the application of xMOD to the design and validation of a hybrid vehicle is presented, in order to illustrate its functionalities and to demonstrate its effectiveness.


Porphyria cutanea tarda (PCT), the condition resulting from a deficiency of hepatic uroporphyrinogen decarboxylase activity, is the commonest form of porphyria. Both acquired and familial form exist and are commonly associated in adults with liver disease and hepatic iron overload. The condition is extremely rare in children; most cases of childhood PCT are familial and some particularly severe cases have been shown to have a hepatoerythropoietic porphyria or homozygous uroporphyrinogen decarboxylase deficiency. A case is described of hepatoerythropoietic porphyria in which the disease was first precipitated at the age of two by a coincidental hepatitis A infection and improved as the hepatitis cleared. This paper reviews the evidence that viral hepatitis may precipitate overt PCT in children in a manner analogous to the precipitation of PCT in adults by alcohol associated liver disease.


BACKGROUND
Efficacy of mechanical debridement (MD) with adjunctive probiotic therapy (PT) in the treatment of peri-implant mucositis (PiM) in cigarette-smoking and never-smoking subjects remains uninvestigated.

PURPOSE
The aim was to assess the efficacy of MD with adjunctive PT in the treatment of PiM in cigarette-smoking and never-smoking individuals.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Patients with (group I) and without PiM (group II) were included. Demographic data was collected using a questionnaire. Treatment-wise, patients in groups I and II were subdivided into: (a) Patients that underwent MD with adjunct PT (using Lactobacillus reuteri); and (b) MD alone. In all groups, probing depth (PD), plaque index (PI), and bleeding on probing (BOP) were measured at baseline and compared after 3- and 6-months. Baseline peri-implant crestal bone levels were also measured. Sample-size estimation was performed, and statistical comparisons were done using one-way analysis of variance and Bonferroni post-hoc adjustment tests. P values under .05 were deemed significant.

RESULTS
Eighty individuals (group I: 40 cigarette-smokers and group II: 40 never-smokers) with PiM participated in this study. At all-time intervals, no significant difference in PD, PI, and BOP were observed in all patients in group I. At 3-months' follow-up, the differences in BOP (P < .05), and PI (P < .05) were significantly higher in group II that underwent MD + PT than MD alone. At 6-months' follow-up, there was no difference in the changes in BOP and PI among subjects that underwent MD with and without adjunct PT.

CONCLUSION
On a short-term basis, MD with adjunct PT is more effectual in the treatment of PiM than MD alone in never-smokers. Cigarette-smoking compromises peri-implant soft tissue healing following MD with or without adjunct PT.


In recognition of the biological and social connections in demographic processes, demographers have integrated biological factors into their models of population variation. This new effort has tended to focus on the analysis of fertility and mortality. Edwin J.C.G. van den Oord and David C. Rowe's article, "Racial Differences in Birth Health Risk: A Quantitative Genetic Approach," published in the August 2000 issue of Demography, is part of this effort. These authors use race as a proxy for genetic variation, which subverts even the most positive attempts to understand the impact of genetic variation on demographic processes. The authors' statistical results restate their anachronistic theory of race using latent variables that are not open to empirical testing. Although new data increase the opportunities for the examination of the relationship between biology and demographic processes researchers must be vigilant not to commit the errors of the past by misusing race as a variable.


The authors provide the data on the clinical picture and methods of diagnosis, conservative treatment of ischemic lesions of the alimentary organs in 152 patients suffering from abdominal atherosclerosis. Present a systematized description of the visceral syndromes of the ischemic genesis which can be used in the clinical practice for diagnosing abdominal atherosclerosis and specification of the site of arterial occlusion of the branches of the abdominal aorta.


PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine changes in firms' level of information asymmetry in emerging market of Malaysia for the period of 2000-2016. Specifically, the study focuses on changes in the quoted spread and quoted depth following the fraud announcement.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a unique set of fraud sample using enforcement action releases (EARs) identified from the Security Commission of Malaysia and Bursa Malaysia. To estimate the result, the authors use event study methodology, OLS regression and simultaneous model on a set of 67 fraudulent firms.FindingsThe results of event study, OLS regression and simultaneous equation models suggest that information asymmetry increases on fraud discovery. The authors also use the analysis on subsamples classified by the type of regulator (who issued the enforcement release) and type of fraud committed. However, the authors find no evidence of a difference in information asymmetry across these groups. Overall, the results support the reputational view of fraud that it damages the firms' reputation and increases uncertainty in the capital market.Research limitations/implicationsThese findings provide valuable insights into understanding the information asymmetry around fraud announcements, especially for Malaysia, where the majority of the public-listed companies are family-controlled and under significant state control. The results of this study call for the active role that regulators can play to achieve a transparent and liquid capital market.Practical implicationsThe research has practical implications. Specifically, for Malaysia, fraud is the primary area for National Results Areas (NKRA) in the Government Transformation Program (GTP). Therefore, for regulators and policymakers to ensure a liquid and transparent capital market, identifying the factors that elicit the fraudulent behavior and improving the related governance mechanism are necessary steps to prevent the fraudulent practices.Social implicationsDue to increased information asymmetry on fraud announcements, the demand for equity decreases that may affect not only the fraudulent firms but also results in negative externality for non-fraudulent firms, thus impairing their ability to fund equity.Originality/valueA significant majority of studies have focused on corporate frauds in developed countries such as the USA that is characterized by dispersed ownership system and a strong capital market. One of the vocal critics of the agency theory is that it neglects the social and institutional framework within which companies operate. In emerging markets, such as Malaysia, the published academic papers on fraud and information asymmetry are very limited. As emerging markets practice different cultures, corporate governance mechanisms and market regulations, the study is significant to investigate the behavior of investors in such markets.


Open innovation in networks has been a popular topic for long, this paper rethinks the concepts of innovation network and network organization, and clarifies the differences between them based on the network perspective. Network perspective means that: network is the context of firms; market and hierarchy can be analyzed from a network approach. Within a network perspective, there are different levels of network, and a firm may not always has the power to "manage" innovation networks due to different levels of power. Based on the strength of a firm's power, its role may varies from manager, to orchestrator, coordinator, and then to participator and adaptor.


Globally, there has been an increase in the number of
people with anxiety disorders and depression which is confirmed by particular Russian
data. Despite overall improvements in the global economic situation in recent
decades, general stress levels have not decreased. University freshmen are particularly
vulnerable to stress. Therefore, this pilot study assesses the effectiveness of
mindfulness training aimed at maintaining Russian students' mental and physical
health. The participants were 83 freshmen from the Psychology Department of Ural
Federal University named after B.N. Yeltsin. Data collection was completed in
November 2019. A non-randomized controlled trial was conducted using a mindfulness-based
cognitive therapy (MBCT) program. Results show that MBCT reduced depression and
increased subjective happiness among first-year psychology students. Frequent mindfulness
meditation practice and studying theoretical materials is associated with
higher rates of positive results. The findings suggest that MBCT can be
effective in working with first-year students in the Psychology Department of
Ural Federal University. Nevertheless, further research is required before implementing
the program on a broad scale in Russian universities.


Abstract. Numerical modeling provides an opportunity to quantify
the reaction of lakes to alterations in their environment, such as changes
in climate or hydrological conditions. The one-dimensional hydrodynamic
General Lake Model (GLM) is an open-source software and widely used within
the limnological research community. Nevertheless, no interface to
process the input data and run the model and no tools for an automatic
parameter calibration yet exist. Hence, we developed glmGUI, a graphical user
interface (GUI) including a toolbox for an autocalibration, parameter
sensitivity analysis, and several plot options. The tool is provided as a
package for the freely available scientific code language R. The model
parameters can be analyzed and calibrated for the simulation output
variables water temperature and lake level. The glmGUI package is tested for two sites (lake Ammersee, Germany, and lake
Baratz, Italy), distinguishing size, mixing regime, hydrology of the
catchment area (i.e., the number of inflows and their runoff seasonality),
and climatic conditions. A robust simulation of water temperature for both
lakes (Ammersee: RMSE =1.17 ∘ C; Baratz: RMSE
 =1.30 ∘ C) is achieved by a quick automatic calibration. The
quality of a water temperature simulation can be assessed immediately by
means of a difference plot provided by glmGUI, which displays the distribution of
the spatial (vertical) and temporal deviations. The calibration of the lake-level simulations of lake Ammersee for multiple hydrological inputs
including also unknown inflows yielded a satisfactory model fit (RMSE =0.20  m). This shows that GLM can also be used to estimate the water balance
of lakes correctly. The tools provided by glmGUI enable a less time-consuming and
simplified parameter optimization within the calibration process. Due to
this, i.e., the free availability and the implementation in a GUI, the presented R
package expands the application of GLM to a broader field of lake modeling
research and even beyond limnological experts.


When I was asked to write an opinion on the Downtown One building in Tirana designed by MVRDV I hesitated to give it. I hesitated because I remembered a piece of advice from my mom when I was young that always told me "if you can not talk about something well, it is better not to talk". I do not know how much I have followed this advice in my life but but, at least, I try to remember it often. My mom's advice was valuable at the time and I believe it is probably still valid today. Immediately after that, I started thinking about the reasons that lead a person to come out and give such advice. I found the answer to the fact that my mother was born immediately after the Second World War where in Albania the fascist and Nazi regimes had passed and then with a life spent in the communist dictatorship she could not build and could not have a critical spirit towards what surrounded her. This is because the critical spirit was suppressed and always denounced as agitation and propaganda. Immediately after this reasoning I set out to analyze the aspects of Fascism and Nazism that in a certain way formed the main ideologies of the first half of the 20th century and which, together with communism, must have influenced my mother's mentality and a major part of the society that was born in the second half of the last century.


Exposure to electric light has little or no effect on the bacilli. Freeze-dried vaccine does not deteriorate with storage for lengthy periods and is unaffected by changes of temperature. It is readily reconstituted and its use minimizes the differences in potency experienced with fresh liquid vaccines. Clumping of the bacteria may occur with the reconstituted freezedried vaccine, though it is claimed that this difficulty has been overcome with the latest lyophilized vaccines. Freeze-dried vaccines are of especial value in tropical countries, in places where deliveries of liquid vaccine are difficult, or uncertain, and also as a reserve in case supplies of liquid vaccines fail or are delayed. In France it is claimed that lyophilized vaccine produces tuberculin conversions and is followed by a tuberculosis morbidity practically equal to those noted after the usc ofIiquid vaccine, but work in this country suggests that conversions develop more slowly and in a smaller percentage of cases when lyophilized vaccine is employed. Owing to its nature the production of B.C.G. vaccine must be strictly controlled. As it consists of live bacilli it must be prepared and bottled in a laboratory devoted exclusively to this work and to which access is restricted to a special staff. This staff must be employed exclusively in the work and must undergo medical examinations at three-monthly intervals. No one in close contact with any open case may be employed in the laboratory, no animal test may be performed in it and each batch of vaccine must be fully tested before issue. As supplies of Danish liquid vaccine are readily available in this country and can be used well within 14 days of manufacture, and as supplies if lyophilized vaccine can be held against emergencies, it would not appear to be reasonable to incur the expenditure or loss of trained staff which would result from the establishment of a B.C.G. Institute in this country.


Modeling technologies can provide strong support to existing emission management systems, by means of what is known as a Predictive Emission Monitoring System (PEMS). These systems do not measure emissions through any hardware device, but use computer models to predict emission concentrations on the ground of process data (e.g., fuel flow, load) and ambient parameters (e.g., air temperature, relative humidity). They actually represent a relevant application arena for the so-called Inferential Sensor technology which has quickly proved to be invaluable in modern process automation and optimization strategies (Qin et al., 1997; Kadlec et al., 2009). While lots of applications demonstrate that software systems provide accuracy comparable to that of hardware-based Continuous Emission Monitoring Systems (CEMS), virtual analyzers are able to offer additional features and capabilities which are often not properly considered by end-users. Depending on local regulations and constraints, PEMS can be exploited either as primary source of emission monitoring or as a back-up of hardware-based CEMS able to validate analyzers' readings and extend their service factor. PEMS consistency (and therefore its acceptance from environmental authorities) is directly linked to the accuracy and reliability of each parameter used as input of the models. While environmental authorities are steadily opening to PEMS, it is easy to foresee that major recognition and acceptance will be driven by extending PEMS robustness in front of possible sensor failures. Providing reliable instrument fail-over procedures is the main objective of Sensor Validation (SV) strategies. In this work, the capabilities of a class of machine learning algorithms will be presented, showing the results based on tests performed actual field data gathered at a fluid catalytic cracking unit.


Recently the first author studied multi-gradings for generalised cluster categories, these being 2-Calabi-Yau triangulated categories with a choice of cluster-tilting object. The grading on the category corresponds to a grading on the cluster algebra without coefficients categorified by the cluster category and hence knowledge of one of these structures can help us study the other.
In this work, we extend the above to certain Frobenius categories that categorify cluster algebras with coefficients. We interpret the grading K-theoretically and prove similar results to the triangulated case, in particular obtaining that degrees are additive on exact sequences.
We show that the categories of Buan, Iyama, Reiten and Scott, some of which were used by Geiss, Leclerc and Schroer to categorify cells in partial flag varieties, and those of Jensen, King and Su, categorifying Grassmannians, are examples of graded Frobenius cluster categories.


Toxicity is an important factor in failed drug development, and its efficient identification and prediction is a major challenge in drug discovery. We have explored the potential of microscopy images of fluorescently labeled nuclei for the prediction of toxicity based on nucleus pattern recognition. Deep learning algorithms obtain abstract representations of images through an automated process, allowing them to efficiently classify complex patterns, and have become the state-of-the art in machine learning for computer vision. Here, deep convolutional neural networks (CNN) were trained to predict toxicity from images of DAPI-stained cells pre-treated with a set of drugs with differing toxicity mechanisms. Different cropping strategies were used for training CNN models, the nuclei-cropping-based Tox-CNN model outperformed other models classifying cells according to health status. Tox-CNN allowed automated extraction of feature maps that clustered compounds according to mechanism of action. Moreover, fully automated region-based CNNs (RCNN) were implemented to detect and classify nuclei, providing per-cell toxicity prediction from raw screening images. We validated both Tox-(R)CNN models for detection of pre-lethal toxicity from nuclei images, which proved to be more sensitive and have broader specificity than established toxicity readouts. These models predicted toxicity of drugs with mechanisms of action other than those they had been trained for and were successfully transferred to other cell assays. The Tox-(R)CNN models thus provide robust, sensitive, and cost-effective tools for in vitro screening of drug-induced toxicity. These models can be adopted for compound prioritization in drug screening campaigns, and could thereby increase the efficiency of drug discovery. Author summary Visualization of nuclei using different microscopic approaches has for decades allowed the identification of cells undergoing cell death, based on changes in morphology, nuclear density, etc. However, this human-based visual analysis has not been traslated into quantitative tools able to objectively measure cytotoxicity in drug-exposed cells. We asked ourselves if it would be possible to train machines to detect cytotoxicity from microscopy images of fluorescently stained nuclei, without using specific toxicity labeling. Deep learning is the most powerful supervised machine learning methodology available, with exceptional abilities to solve computer vision tasks, and was thus selected for the development of a toxicity quantification tool. Two convolutional neural networks (CNN) were developed to classify cells based on health status: Tox-CNN, relying on prior cell segmentation and cropping of nuclei images, and Tox-RCNN which carries out fully-automated cell detection and classification. Both Tox-(R)CNN classification outputs provided sensitive screening readouts that detected pre-lethal toxicity and were validated for a broad array of toxicity pathways and cell assays. Tox-(R)CNN approaches excel in affordability and applicability to other in vitro toxicity readouts and constitute a robust screening tool for drug discovery.