Taking the machining efficiency and surface quality as the optimization objective, a multi-objective and multi-constrained optimization model of the high-speed milling parameters based on the matching of lengthened shrink-fit holder (LSFH) and cutter was established using fuzzy optimization theory. In this model, the contact performance, grip rigidity and dynamic characteristics of the matching of LSFH and cutter were taken into account. Subsequently, the optimization problem of the fuzzy domain was transformed into the optimization problem of the ordinary domain using the Optimal Level Cut Set Method. The optimization results show that the processing time reduced by 5.95% and 8.54%, the surface roughness decreased by 5.42% and 6.85% compared to conventional optimization model and the parameters recommended by the tool manual respectively. The effectiveness and practicality of this optimization method was further proved by processing examples.


In super-resolution imaging techniques based on single-molecule switching and localization, the time to acquire a super-resolution image is limited by the maximum density of fluorescent emitters that can be accurately localized per imaging frame. In order to increase the imaging rate, several methods have been recently developed to analyze images with higher emitter densities. One powerful approach uses methods based on compressed sensing to increase the analyzable emitter density per imaging frame by several-fold compared to other reported approaches. However, the computational cost of this approach, which uses interior point methods, is high, and analysis of a typical 40 µm x 40 µm field-of-view super-resolution movie requires thousands of hours on a high-end desktop personal computer. Here, we demonstrate an alternative compressed-sensing algorithm, L1-Homotopy (L1H), which can generate super-resolution image reconstructions that are essentially identical to those derived using interior point methods in one to two orders of magnitude less time depending on the emitter density. Moreover, for an experimental data set with varying emitter density, L1H analysis is ~300-fold faster than interior point methods. This drastic reduction in computational time should allow the compressed sensing approach to be routinely applied to super-resolution image analysis.


This paper proposes a realistic low cost fault coverage metric targeting both global and local delay faults. It suggests the test strategy of generating a different number of the longest paths for each line in the circuit while maintaining high fault coverage. This metric has been integrated into the CodGen ATPG tool. Experimental results show significant reductions in test generation time and vector count on ISCAS89 and industry designs.


The author gives a narrative chronologic explanation for the early inclusion of African Americans and other minorities into the Yale University Orthopaedic Surgical Residency Training Program. The author's early isolation from racial problems living in rural Nebraska and the paucity of racial friction at the University of Nebraska gave him a more neutral or positive view of other cultures. Sudden exposure to the racial tension and police brutality toward African Americans in Boston followed by the well defined racial bias in the Southern city of Baltimore showed the plight of minorities. At that same time the author encountered many gentle and extremely intelligent African Americans who performed outstanding medical tasks for the Johns Hopkins Hospital hospital with little educational background. The author's experience with Shirley Moore and Augustus White at Yale made it possible to recruit a diverse group of gifted and loyal resident staff. The high number of academic appointments in minority and majority residents has evolved from the Academic Training and Research Program and a special selection process for choosing residents.


In many pilot research and development (R&D) microgrid projects, engine-based generators are employed in their power systems, either generating electrical energy or being mixed with the heat and power technology. One of the critical tasks of such engine-based generation units is the frequency regulation in the islanded mode of modernized microgrid (MMG) operation; MMGs are microgrids equipped with advanced controls to address more emerging scenarios in smart grids. For having a stable and reliable MMG, we need to synthesize an optimal, robust, primary frequency controller for the islanded mode of MMG of the future. This task is challenging because of unknown mechanical parameters, occurrence of uncertain disturbances, uncertainty of loads, operating point variations, and the appearance of engine delays, and hence nonminimum phase dynamics. This article presents an innovative primary frequency control for the engine generators regulating the frequency of an islanded MMG in the context of smart grids. The proposed approach is based on an adaptive optimal output-feedback control algorithm using adaptive dynamic programming (ADP). The convergence of algorithms, along with the stability analysis of the closed-loop system, is also shown in this article. Finally, as experimental validation, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test results are provided in order to examine the effectiveness of the proposed methodology practically. Note to Practitioners—This article was motivated by the problem of primary frequency controls in modernized microgrids (MMGs) using engine generators, which are still one of the prime sources of regulating frequency in pilot research and development (R&D) microgrid projects. Although MMGs will be integral parts of the smart grid of the future, their primary controls in the islanded mode are not advanced enough and not considering existing theoretical challenges scientifically. Existing approaches to regulate frequency using industrially accepted methods are highly model-based and not optimal. Besides, they are not considering the nonminimum phase dynamics. These dynamics are mainly associated with the engine delays—an inherent issue of mechanical parts—for islanded microgrids. This article suggests a new adaptive optimal output-feedback control approach based on the adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) to the abovementioned problem under consideration. By using the proposed methodology, MMGs can deal with the issues mentioned earlier, which are challenging. The proposed approach is optimally rejecting uncertain disturbances (considering the load uncertainty and operating point variations) and reducing the impacts of nonminimum phase dynamics caused by the engine delay. Based on our currently available hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) device's capability of modeling power systems' components in real time, our HIL-based experiments demonstrate that this approach is feasible.


Objective: The objective of the present study was to evaluate the cognitive enhancing and antioxidant activity of Hibiscus rosa sinensis. Materials and Methods: The learning and memory was impaired by administration of scopolamine (1 mg/kg, i.p.) in mice which is associated with altered brain oxidative status. The object recognition test (ORT) and passive avoidance test (PAT) were used to assess cognitive enhancing activity. Animals were treated with an ethyl acetate soluble fraction of the methanol extract of H. sinensis (25, 50 and 100 mg/kg, p.o). Results: The ethyl acetate soluble fraction of the methanol extract of H. sinensis (EASF) attenuated amnesia induced by scopolamine and aging. The discrimination index (DI) was significantly decreased in the aged and scopolamine group in ORT. Pretreatment with EASF significantly increased the DI. In PAT, scopolamine-treated mice exhibited significantly shorter step-down latencies (SDL). EASF treatment showed a significant increase in SDL in young, aged as well as in scopolamine-treated animals. The biochemical analysis of brain revealed that scopolamine treatment increased lipid peroxidation and decreased levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione reductase (GSH). Administration of extract significantly reduced LPO and reversed the decrease in brain SOD and GSH levels. The administration of H. sinensis improved memory in amnesic mice and prevented the oxidative stress associated with scopolamine. The mechanism of such protection of H. sinensis may be due to augmentation of cellular antioxidants. Conclusion: The results of the present study suggested that H. sinensis had a protective role against age and scopolamine-induced amnesia, indicating its utility in management of cognitive disorders.


The economic approach to determine optimal legal policies involves maximizing a social welfare function. We propose an alternative: a consent-approach that seeks to promote consensual interactions and deter non-consensual interactions. The consent-approach does not rest upon inter-personal utility comparisons or value judgments about preferences. It does not require any additional information relative to the welfare-approach. We highlight the contrast between the welfare-approach and the consent-approach using a stylized model inspired by seminal cases of harassment and the #MeToo movement. The social welfare maximizing penalty for harassment in our model can be zero under the welfare-approach but not under the consent-approach.


This paper presents the acquisition of heart sound signals and its separation from lung sounds based on the adaptive filtering technique. After signal acquisition, normal linear filtering techniques is not capable separated the two sounds, as both the sounds overlap in the spatial as well as temporal domains. Because of the signal tracking and noise elimination capability of adaptive line enhancer (ALE) it can be used for denoising the heart sounds. Here two methods of ALE have been discussed; using least mean square (LMS) and recursive least square (RLS). A comparative analysis has been carried out in terms of their power spectrum density (PSD) and percentage of heart sound recovery for their evaluation and finally both the algorithms have been implemented on MSP430 platform for designing a standalone diagnostic system to assist the cardiologists in their diagnosis. The scope of this study includes incorporation of the different diagnostic features into a single system for properly classifying the abnormal cardiac conditions.


June was 9 years old when she came home from school and her schizophrenic mother met her at the door, angrily demanding to know, Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my house? Tess's mother would wait outside church, then scream at family friends as they emerged, accusing them of spying and plotting to kill her. Five-year-old Tess and her 7-year-old brother would cry and beg their mother to take them home as onlookers stared. These are just two of the stories among dozens gathered for this book. The children, now adults, grew up with mentally ill mothers at a time when mental illness was even more stigmatizing than it is today. They are what Nathiel calls the daughters of madness, and their young lives were lived on shaky ground. Telling someone that there's mental illness in her family, and watching the reaction is not for the faint-hearted, the therapist says, quoting another's research. Nathiel adds, Telling them it is your mother who's mentally ill certainly ups the ante. A veteran therapist with 35 years experience, Nathiel takes us into this traumatic world-each of her chanpters covering a major developmental period for the daughter of a mentally ill mother-and then explains how these now-adult daughters faced and coped with their mothers' illness. While the stories of these daughters are central to the book, Nathiel also offers her professional insights into exactly how maternal impairment affects infants, children, and adolescents. Women, significantly more than men, are often diagnosed with serious mental illness after they become parents. So what effect does a mentally ill mother have on a growing child, teenager or adult daughter, who looks to her not only for the deepest and most abiding love, but also a sense of what the world is all about? Nathiel also makes accessible the latest research on interpersonal neurobiology, attachment, and the way a child's brain and mind develop in the contest of that relationship.


Polymeric membranes have been used for extraction of organic compounds from an aqueous matrix, where the analysis is carried out on-line using a GC, a HPLC, or a mass spectrometer. High extraction selectivity and permeation rate can be achieved by choosing an appropriate membrane and optimum operating conditions. The sample can be introduced either continuously or as a pulse into the membrane. The former approach is based on steady-state permeation, while the latter is not. In this paper, pulse introduction membrane extraction is presented for on-line gas chromatography using a sorbent trap as an interface. A mathematical model that incorporates boundary layer effects has been developed, and the process parameters that affect sensitivity and lag time have been studied. It is observed that there is a trade-off between sensitivity and lag time; larger sample volume and lower flow rate enhance sensitivity but also increase lag time.


ABSTRACT Enteric adenovirus types F40 and 41 (EAdVs) are a leading cause of diarrhea and diarrhea-associated death in young children and have recently been proposed to cause acute hepatitis in children. EAdVs have a unique capsid architecture and exhibit — unlike other human adenoviruses — a relatively strict tropism for gastrointestinal tissues with, to date, understudied infection mechanism and unknown target cells. In this study, we turn to potentially limiting host factors by comparing EAdV entry in cell lines with respiratory and intestinal origin by cellular perturbation, virus particle tracking, and transmission electron microscopy. Our analyses highlight kinetic advantages for EAdVs in duodenal HuTu80 cell infection and reveal a larger fraction of mobile particles, faster virus uptake, and infectious particle entry in intestinal cells. Moreover, EAdVs display a dependence on clathrin- and dynamin-dependent pathways in intestinal cells. Detailed knowledge of virus entry routes and host factor requirements is essential to understanding pathogenesis and developing new countermeasures. Hence, this study provides novel insights into the entry mechanisms of a medically important virus with emerging tropism in a cell line originating from a relevant tissue. IMPORTANCE Enteric adenoviruses have historically been difficult to grow in cell culture, which has resulted in lack of knowledge of host factors and pathways required for infection of these medically relevant viruses. Previous studies in non-intestinal cell lines showed slow infection kinetics and generated comparatively low virus yields compared to other adenovirus types. We suggest duodenum-derived HuTu80 cells as a superior cell line for studies to complement efforts using complex intestinal tissue models. We show that viral host cell factors required for virus entry differ between cell lines from distinct origins and demonstrate the importance of clathrin-mediated endocytosis. Enteric adenoviruses have historically been difficult to grow in cell culture, which has resulted in lack of knowledge of host factors and pathways required for infection of these medically relevant viruses. Previous studies in non-intestinal cell lines showed slow infection kinetics and generated comparatively low virus yields compared to other adenovirus types. We suggest duodenum-derived HuTu80 cells as a superior cell line for studies to complement efforts using complex intestinal tissue models. We show that viral host cell factors required for virus entry differ between cell lines from distinct origins and demonstrate the importance of clathrin-mediated endocytosis.


This thesis seeks to present the academic journey of how the concept of social and emotional development was re-theorised as social competence from a cultural-historical perspective. Emotional development in the field of early childhood education has traditionally been conceptualised as part of a suite of domains of child development – social-emotional, cognitive, language, and fine and gross motor. As such, emotional development has traditionally been studied independently of the other forms of development. Through exploring a range of impacts and contexts on children's emotional and personality development form trauma to cultural difference, the content of this staff thesis moves from the orientation of social and emotional development towards a cultural-historical conception of emotion regulation as a collective practice, where a new conception of social competence is theorised.


A Unified Bug Testing Software for Biological and Other Systems
Automatic bug testing is very crucial for software systems that are widely used. This is especially true when the system is very complex. Unexpected and undesired events could happen due to the presence of bugs. For instance, a web system might take a very long time on a specific query because of the presence of a bug. We cannot expect the creators of the web system to be continually monitoring the system looking for such events. It will greatly benefit the creators of the web system if such events can be automatically detected and if they are notified in a timely fashion. In this paper we report one such bug testing software that we have created for the MnM web system for motif search. MnM is widely used by biologists all over the globe. We feel that the architecture we have employed for our bug testing software is generic and can be applied to other software systems as well. There exist numerous conventional bug testing software tools which are designed to perform only functional or graphical user interface testing.


IEEE 802.16 is the standard for broadband wireless access. The security sublayer is provided within IEEE 802.16 MAC layer for privacy and access control, in which the Privacy and Key Management (PKM) protocols are specified. This paper models the PKM protocols using Casper and analyzes the CSP output with FDR, which are formal analysis tools based on the model checker. Later versions of PKM protocols are also modeled and analyzed. Attacks are found in each version and the results are discussed.


Percutaneous endoscopy for direct visualization of the cardiac interior, i.e., percutaneous cardioscopy, was developed in Japan in 1980. Approved by Japanese Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labor, this imaging technique has been used for diagnosis and evaluation of interventional and surgical treatment of various categories of heart diseases. This article reviews recent advances in percutaneous cardioscopy. Percutaneous cardioscopy has demonstrated that the endocardial surface exhibits various colors characteristic of different heart diseases. This imaging modality can now be used for evaluation of the severity of myocardial ischemia and staging of myocarditis. Myocardial blood flow (MBF) recovery induced by vasodilating agents or percutaneous coronary interventions can be clearly visualized. Subendocardial microvessels can be seen through the endocardium. Combined use of cardioscopy and intracardiac ultrasonography (ICUS) is useful for evaluation of morphological and functional changes in the cardiac chambers and valves. Cardioscope-guided endomyocardial biopsy enables pin-point biopsy of diseased myocardium. Dye-image and fluorescent cardioscopy were developed for evaluation of the subendocardial MBF or tissue fluid flow. These imaging techniques have demonstrated that myocardial microcirculation disturbance remains frequently after angiographic successful percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI). Cardioscopy is also useful for evaluation of percutaneous transseptal mitral commissurotomy or open-heart surgery of various categories of heart disease. In near future, cardioscope would be used for guidance of myocardial ablation, valvuloplasty, or transendocardial angiogenic or myogenic therapy. In conclusion, percutaneous cardioscopy has the potential to contribute to our understanding of heart disease and to assist intracardiac therapies.


We study the electronic current of a two-dimensional electron system confined to a thin strip and subject to a perpendicular, space homogeneous but time oscillating magnetic field. The geometry of the field producing magnet is chosen so that the resulting space and time dependent induced electric field points along the direction of the bar. Within the framework of the semiclassical Boltzmann equation we derive analytical expressions for the electric current density both in the longitudinal and transverse directions as a function of the magnetic field strength B{sub 0}, its oscillation frequency {Omega}, and the location of the bar center. It is found that the time dependence of the current density is expressed in terms of solutions of a Mathieu differential equation whose coefficients are functions of the time, B{sub 0}, {Omega}, and the bar confining potential strength {Omega}{sub 0}. As functions of these parameters, the solutions of the Mathieu equation are known to exhibit stable or unstable behavior which in turn imply similar results for the currents. Such distinct behavior yield interesting measurable physical effects. The inclusion of diluted impurities and Coulomb interelectron interaction are considered in this context and are shown not to change these results qualitatively.


The present article discusses the importance of deep word knowledge and reports on an empirical study on the effects of a new didactical approach in vocabulary teaching in kindergarten. All children need to learn a large number of words for adequate communication and learning at school. It is well known that there are huge differences between monolingual and bilingual children: not only in the number of words they know, but also in the depth of word knowledge. These differences have a profound effect on children's academic performances. Programs have been developed to enhance learning and vocabulary acquisition with young children, but the results in the word knowledge domain are not sufficient. The approach proposed in this article aims not only at learning more words , but also at improving the deep word knowledge. In this approach specific attention is given to concept building and the enlightening of lexical meaning relations (especially hierarchical relations, which are important in academic learning). Evaluation of the effects of this method shows that in a short period children not only learn significantly more words, but also acquire a deeper knowledge of the lexical meanings and meaning-relations between words. Both breadth and depth of vocabulary acquisition can thus be improved.


A cross-sectional study was carried out to determine the prevalence of hypertension in the Chinese elderly and to examine its relationship with various behavioural and nutritional risk factors. This study involved 243 Chinese aged 55 years and older in 2 randomly selected Chinese Villages in Seberang Prai Tengah, Penang. The study included an interview, anthropometric assessment and blood pressure measurement. The prevalence of hypertension was 48.1% and out of this, 65 (55.6%) were on anti-hypertensive treatment. There was a significant rise in the prevalence with age. Hypertension was found to be inversely related to per capita income and physical activity (p < 0.05). Hypertension was significantly more common in smokers than non-smokers. Alcohol intake in the elderly was low and not related to hypertension. Obesity was significantly associated with hypertension only among the elderly aged 55-64 years. The dietary intake of sodium, potassium and calcium did not differ significantly between the hypertensive and normotensive elderly.


This paper describes a collaborative process of identifying and prioritising current and future water research questions from a wide range of water specialists within South Africa. Over 1 600 questions were collected, reduced in number and prioritised by specialists working in water research and practice. A total of 59 questions were finally proposed as an outcome of the study and are categorised under the themes of change, data, ecosystems, governance, innovation and resources. The questions range in scale, challenge and urgency, and are also aligned with prevailing paradigms in water research. The majority of the questions dealt with relatively short- to medium-term research requirements and most focused on immediate issues such as water supply, service delivery and technical solutions. Formulations of long-term research questions were sparse, partly because some of the principles and methods used in this study were difficult to apply in the South African context, and also because researchers are influenced by addressing what are believed to be the more immediate, short-term water-related challenges in South Africa. This is the first initiative of its kind to produce a comprehensive and inclusive list of research priorities for water in South Africa.


The quest to improve performance forces designers to explore flner-grained multiprocessor machines. Ever increasing chip densities based on CMOS improvements fuel research in highly parallel chip multiprocessors with 100s of processing elements. With such increasing levels of parallelism, synchronization is set to become a major performance bottleneck and e‐cient support for synchronization an important design criterion. Previous research has shown that integrating support for flne-grained synchronization can have signiflcant performance beneflts compared to traditional coarse-grained synchronization. Not much progress has been made in supporting flne-grained synchronization transparently to processor nodes: a key reason perhaps why wide adoption has not followed. In this paper, we propose a novel approach called Synchronization Coherence that can provide transparent flnegrained synchronization and caching in a multiprocessor machine and single-chip multiprocessor. Our approach merges flne-grained synchronization mechanisms with traditional cache coherence protocols. It reduces network utilization as well as synchronization related processing overheads while adding minimal hardware complexity as compared to cache coherence mechanisms or previously reported flne-grained synchronization techniques. In addition to its beneflt of making synchronization transparent to processor nodes, for the applications studied, it provides up to 23% improvement in performance and up to 24% improvement in energy e‐ciency with no L2 caches compared to previous flne-grained synchronization techniques. The performance improvement increases up to 38% when simulating with an ideal L2 cache system.


Abstract The ways in which government supports families and protects children are always a fine balance. In recent years, we suggest that this balance can be characterised increasingly as 'child-centric', less concerned with families and more focused on individual children and their needs. This article charts the changes in families and government responses over the last 40 years, and the way this is reflected in organisational and administrative arrangements. It notes in particular the impact on everyday practice of the introduction of information and communication technologies. Findings are reported from recent research which shows the struggles faced by practitioners who try to manage systems which separate children from their familial, social and relational contexts. As a consequence, we suggest, the work has become increasingly fragmented and less mindful of children's life within families. While the data and analysis draw on research carried out in England, we suggest that similar changes may be going on in other Western liberal democracies.


A residency is a conceptual space that typically sits within the physical space and networks of an organisation. The residency itself is intangible, yet exists through a structure of time, discussion, thought, action and proclamation. The residency provides space for creative practitioners to develop ideas within a supported environment, outside of their usual context. It enables immersion within different culture, exploration of practice with new people and a safe space to take risks. Practiced worldwide, the residency has become an invaluable resource for artists and the development of new work - but is its potential much greater? As producing organisations, can we work together to connect our individual residency spaces? Can we use this connection to increase value to artists and the development of art? Can we offer a more diverse cultural contribution? Can we open up our practice to new audiences? And in this unpredictable, global financial climate, can we offer greater stability by combining (often limited) resources?These were the leading questions that we posed ourselves five years ago. What happens if we go back to these outcomes and use them as a format for evaluating existing collaborative projects and testing and setting up new collaborative residencies? In this paper we will present the background, development and outcomes of our previous experience with collaborative residencies. At the same time we will focus on what we have termed the Collabora-tive Residency Life Cycle, a model that can serve as a means to start thinking and developing new collaborative residencies. At ISEA2018 we aim to test the model with the audience and exist-ing labs and individual artists/practitioners in Durban as well as the wider region of South Africa


Among the various energy storage systems, supercapacitors are considered to be the most promising alternative to batteries due to their high power density, long cycle life and fast charge–discharge process. Especially, flexible electrochemical supercapacitors with their unique advantages such as flexibility, shape-conformability, and light weight are attracting ever-increasing attention to meet the current requirements for portable and wearable electric devices in modern energy storage markets. In this perspective, we summarize the most recent progress in flexible all-solid supercapacitors from the point of view of flexible electrode materials. Various flexible electrode materials like carbon nanotubes, graphene, and pseudo capacitive materials are discussed and their performance is comprehensively analyzed. In addition, an overview of the latest progress in strategies to improve the energy and power density is discussed. Further research targets in multifunctional integrated systems and challenges in realizing idealized flexible energy storage systems are also proposed.


This paper details an extensible OpenCL framework that allows Stan to utilize heterogeneous compute devices. It includes GPU-optimized routines for the Cholesky decomposition, its derivative, other matrix algebra primitives and some commonly used likelihoods, with more additions planned for the near future. Stan users can now benefit from speedups offered by GPUs with little effort and without changes to their existing Stan code. We demonstrate the practical utility of our work with two examples -- logistic regression and Gaussian process regression.


Iron status was surveyed amongst 92 Winter Olympic sport athletes from Nordic and Alpine skiing, figure and speed skating and ice hockey. Haemoglobin and serum ferritin values were obtained by physicians as part of a monitoring programme, since iron deficiency would have an adverse effect on maximal performance. Four (7%) of 56 men were anaemic (Hb less than 14.0 g dl-1) and three (8%) of 36 women had haemoglobin values less than 12.0 g dl-1. Nine men (16%) and 14 women (39%) had prelatent iron deficiency (serum ferritin less than 30 ng ml-1). Ice hockey had the lowest while Nordic skiing had the highest incidence of sub-optimal iron status. A total of 50% of Nordic women skiers had prelatent iron deficiency and 7% were anaemic. An equal percentage of women speed skaters were low in serum ferritin as well. Only one of 20 male ice hockey players was low in serum ferritin. These results suggest there would be value in instituting screening procedures for iron status in Winter Olympic Sports.


ABSTRACT Putative cellobiose dehydrogenase (CDH) genes are frequently discovered in various fungi by genome sequencing projects. The expression of CDH, an extracellular flavocytochrome, is well studied in white rot basidiomycetes and is attributed to extracellular lignocellulose degradation. CDH has also been reported for plant-pathogenic or saprotrophic ascomycetes, but the molecular and catalytic properties of these enzymes are currently less investigated. This study links various ascomycetous cdh genes with the molecular and catalytic characteristics of the mature proteins and suggests a differentiation of ascomycete class II CDHs into two subclasses, namely, class IIA and class IIB, in addition to the recently introduced class III of hypothetical ascomycete CDHs. This new classification is based on sequence and biochemical data obtained from sequenced fungal genomes and a screening of 40 ascomycetes. Thirteen strains showed CDH activity when they were grown on cellulose-based media, and Chaetomium atrobrunneum, Corynascus thermophilus, Dichomera saubinetii, Hypoxylon haematostroma, Neurospora crass a, and Stachybotrys bisbyi were selected for detailed studies. In these strains, one or two cdh-encoding genes were found that stem either from class IIA and contain a C-terminal carbohydrate-binding module or from class IIB without such a module. In several strains, both genes were found. Regarding substrate specificity, class IIB CDHs show a less pronounced substrate specificity for cellobiose than class IIA enzymes. A pH-dependent pattern of the intramolecular electron transfer was also observed, and the CDHs were classified into three groups featuring acidic, intermediate, or alkaline pH optima. The pH optimum, however, does not correlate with the CDH subclasses and is most likely a species-dependent adaptation to different habitats.


Recurrent Laryngeal nerve paralysis was studied in 156 patients seen in our clinic from 1987 to 1992. There were 92 males and 64 females. The age distribution showed a peak at 60 years in men and at 40 years in women. The paralyzed left vocal cord was in 83 patients, the right in 42, and both cords in 29. The paralysis was paramedian in 53, median in 52 and intermediate in 20. The cause of the palsy was surgery in 76 patients (thyroidectomy in 41, intrathoracic surgery in 24, and intubation in 11), brain damege in 6, intrathoracic disease in 21, neck disease in 11, and idiopathic in 43.The incidence of recurrent laryngeal nerve paralysis in Japan was determined from a survey of 5832 cases reported by several different clinics. Recurrent laryngeal nerve paralysis ranged from 0.36% to 1.04%, mean value in 0.63% of all new outpatients. Post operative recurrent laryngeal nerve paralysis accounted for 41.1%: thyroidectomy 14.7±5.7%, intrathoracic operation 10.3±3.2%, and post-intubation palsy 6.7±2.4%. The non-surgical causes were idiopathic 33.2±11.8%, and malignant tumors of the neck or chest 16.2±9.4%.


ABSTRACT This study evaluates a continuing interprofessional education (CIPE) intervention designed to improve the skills and knowledge related to managing people with disabilities (PWD) in the educational, healthcare, and social insurance systems, and to improve shared knowledge and promote inter-organisational collaboration. The intervention comprised both on-site and online courses where participants could design their own curriculum based on their perceived needs. A longitudinal survey study was conducted with questions about knowledge of other organisations' work with PWD, knowledge concerning disability policies, competence in meeting PWD, shared values across organisations, and inter-organisational collaboration. Participants' knowledge about disability, disability policy, and how other organisations work with PWD significantly increased after the intervention. Changes in shared values, attitude towards inter-organisational collaboration, or effects on actual collaboration could not be determined. The results suggest that CIPE interventions where participants are allowed to form customised curriculums may increase general knowledge about disability among professionals. Results on knowledge of and collaboration with other organisations were less conclusive, where this may be explained by an educational setting that included little interaction between course participants. To promote professional exchange and experiential learning activities, contextualized educational settings that place more focus on interaction between participants may be advised.


The American Cancer Society estimates that by 2020 cancer survivors in the United States will increase by 31%, rising from 13.7 million in 2012 to nearly 18 million, if cancer incidence and survival rates remain stable. This does not include others indirectly impacted by a diagnosis, such as family caregivers. Health care workers, including oncology social workers, are also increasingly finding themselves among those diagnosed with and / or caring for someone who has cancer. As cancer increasingly "hits home", oncology social workers in such situations are also acquiring potentially valuable personal cancer coping experience. This theoretical dissertation explored how personal experiences with cancer (as patient or caregiver) influence oncology social work services. Social workers have had significant roles in research and theory development of therapist selfdisclosure. Recently developed decision-making models aid in effective self-disclosure, with attention to specific populations. Recent research has correlated therapist self-disclosure with patient's increased treatment satisfaction and a positive treatment outcome. However, to date, no such work addresses the unique needs of and opportunities for oncology social workers with personal cancer experiences, their patterns of selfdisclosure and / or related potential educational needs. Such therapist self-disclosure could become a valuable clinical resource and merits investigation. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Social Work (DSW) First Advisor Allison Werner-Lin, PhD, LCSW Second Advisor James Zabora, PhD, ScD, MSW


Pseudomonas is the bacterial genus of Gram-negative bacteria with the highest number of recognized species. It is divided phylogenetically into three lineages and at least 11 groups of species. The Pseudomonas putida group of species is one of the most versatile and best studied. It comprises 15 species with validly published names. As a part of the Genomic Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea (GEBA) project, we present the genome sequences of the type strains of five species included in this group: Pseudomonas monteilii (DSM 14164T), Pseudomonas mosselii (DSM 17497T), Pseudomonas plecoglossicida (DSM 15088T), Pseudomonas taiwanensis (DSM 21245T) and Pseudomonas vranovensis (DSM 16006T). These strains represent species of environmental and also of clinical interest due to their pathogenic properties against humans and animals. Some strains of these species promote plant growth or act as plant pathogens. Their genome sizes are among the largest in the group, ranging from 5.3 to 6.3 Mbp. In addition, the genome sequences of the type strains in the Pseudomonas taxonomy were analysed via genome-wide taxonomic comparisons of ANIb, gANI and GGDC values among 130 Pseudomonas strains classified within the group. The results demonstrate that at least 36 genomic species can be delineated within the P. putida phylogenetic group of species.


OF DISSERTATION STRUCTURES AND REACTIONS OF BIOMOLECULES AT INTERFACES This dissertation serves to study a protein's conformation-function relationship since immobilized proteins often behave differently from their solution-state counterparts. Therefore, this study is important to the application of proteinbased biodevices. Another aim of this dissertation is to explore a new approach to realize low voltage electrowetting without the help of oil bath. Utilizing this approach, a protein micro-separation was realized. Additionally, the interfacial properties of ionic liquid (IL) solid-like layer, which played a key role in electrowetting, was studied for further developments of IL-based applications. Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) was utilized in the study and played multiple roles in this dissertation. First, AFM was used as a fabrication tool. In the contact mode, conductive AFM tip was used to conduct the electrochemical oxidation to create a chemical pattern or to conduct an electrowetting experiment. Subsequently, AFM was used as a characterization tool in the tapping mode to characterize the surface structure, the thickness, and the surface potential. Furthermore, AFM in the contact mode was used as a measurement tool to measure the tribological force properties of sample. The results of the study concerning the conformational change in immobilized calmodulin showed that the immobilized CaM retained its activity. Additionally, the immobilization of CaM on a solid support did not interfere with the ability of the protein to bind calcium, as well as CaM kinase binding domain. For the electrowetting experiment, our data suggested that the ultra-high capacitance density of the IL dielectric layer leads to the low voltage electrowetting. We also successfully demonstrated the streptavidin and GFP proteins separation by Electrowetting-on-Dielectric (EWOD) force. The results of the surface properties study indicated that the charge and dipole of the substrate can influence the structures and properties of the IL interfacial layer. Our study would be beneficial in research and assay work involving engineered proteins, as well as the study and development of electrowetting applications.


Lane-keeping operation in automated vehicles used in the PATH* program, is performed with the help of two lateral error measuring sensors mounted on the front and rear bumpers of the vehicles. Prom a fault management perspective, it is natural to investigate the problem of lateral control with just one of these sensors. This paper documents the analysis, design and experimental testing of lateral controllers based on information from either one of these two sensors. In addition, this paper includes a discussion on the problem of lateral control with the help of information from just the rear sensor from a pedagogical perspective. This problem presents an application of control of a non-minimum phase system and leads to counterintuitive results.


: In this study, we report a first 226leucine (Leu) mutation to phenylalanine (Phe) in (PSEN1, CTC  TTC, L226F) in Asia from a Korean early-onset Alzheimer's disease (EOAD) patient. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)–single strand conformation polymorphism, sequencing, and in silico predictions were performed. Previously, L226F was reported in EOAD patients by Zekanowski et al and Gómez-Tortosa et al. Disease phenotypes appeared in their thirties, and family history was positive in both cases. In our patient, age of onset was similar (37 years of age), but the mutation seemed to be de novo, since no affected family member was found. This leucine to phenylalanine substitution may cause additional stresses inside the transmembrane region due to large aromatic side chain and increased hydrophobic interactions with hydrocarbon chains in the membrane and its binding partners. Clinical phenotype of the mutation was aggressive progression into neurodegeneration, resulting in rapid cognitive decline. One of the patients was initially diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, but the diagnosis was revised to AD upon postmortem studies in which A β plaques were seen. A second mutation, L226R, was found for the L226 residue. Similar to L226F, the patient with L226R also developed the first symptoms in his 30s, but EOAD was diagnosed in his 40s. These findings suggested that L226 might be an important residue in PSEN1, since mutations could result in neurodegenerative disease phenotypes at relatively young ages. There are mutations, such as L226F, which may not present clear clinical symptoms for the definitive diagnosis between frontotemporal dementia and AD. In addition, the similarities in the phenotypes could also be possible between AD and frontotemporal dementia, suggesting difficulties in differential diagnosis of various neurodegenerative


Objective. Automated behavioral state classification in intracranial EEG (iEEG) recordings may be beneficial for iEEG interpretation and quantifying sleep patterns to enable behavioral state dependent neuromodulation therapy in next generation implantable brain stimulation devices. Here, we introduce a fully automated unsupervised framework to differentiate between awake (AW), sleep (N2), and slow wave sleep (N3) using intracranial EEG (iEEG) only and validated with expert scored polysomnography. Approach. Data from eight patients undergoing evaluation for epilepsy surgery (age , three female) with intracranial depth electrodes for iEEG monitoring were included. Spectral power features (0.1–235 Hz) spanning several frequency bands from a single electrode were used to classify behavioral states of patients into AW, N2, and N3. Main results. Overall, classification accuracy of 94%, with 94% sensitivity and 93% specificity across eight subjects using multiple spectral power features from a single electrode was achieved. Classification performance of N3 sleep was significantly better (95%, sensitivity 95%, specificity 93%) than that of the N2 sleep phase (87%, sensitivity 78%, specificity 96%). Significance. Automated, unsupervised, and robust classification of behavioral states based on iEEG data is possible, and it is feasible to incorporate these algorithms into future implantable devices with limited computational power, memory, and number of electrodes for brain monitoring and stimulation.


This Guide organizes Shapiro Library and internet resources for the masters degree Program for TEFL in Vietnam and other locations around the world.


Abstract. To improve dust storm identification over the western United States, historical dust events measured by air quality and satellite observations are analyzed based on their characteristics in data sets of regular meteorology, satellite-based aerosol optical depth (AOD), and air quality measurements. Based on the prevailing weather conditions associated with dust emission, dust storm events are classified into the following four typical types: (1) The key feature of cold front-induced dust storms is their rapid process with strong dust emissions. (2) Events caused by meso- to small-scale weather systems have the highest levels of emissions. (3) Dust storms caused by tropical disturbances show a stronger air concentration of dust and last longer than those in (1) and (2). (4) Dust storms triggered by cyclogenesis last the longest. In this paper, sample events of each type are selected and examined to explore characteristics observed from in situ and remote-sensing measurements. These characteristics include the lasting period, surface wind speeds, areas affected, average loading on ground-based optical and/or air quality measurements, peak loading on ground-based optical and/or air quality measurements, and loading on satellite-based aerosol optical depth. Based on these analyses, we compare the characteristics of the same dust events captured in different data sets in order to define the dust identification criteria. The analyses show that the variability in mass concentrations captured by in situ measurements is consistent with the variability in AOD from stationary and satellite observations. Our analyses also find that different data sets are capable of identifying certain common characteristics, while each data set also provides specific information about a dust storm event. For example, the meteorological data are good at identifying the lasting period and area impacted by a dust event; the ground-based air quality and optical measurements can capture the peak strength well; aerosol optical depth (AOD) from satellite data sets allows us to better identify dust-storm-affected areas and the spatial extent of dust. The current study also indicates that the combination of in situ and satellite observations is a better method to fill gaps in dust storm recordings.


Since the introduction of the parameters and guidelines for office chairs, great effort has been put while designing, manufacturing and assembling well equipped ergonomic office chairs. Designing of these office chairs led to many new additions and advancements of various major components like the seat height, adjustable back rest and adequate thigh support. So, this study was planned and executed to check the usage of ergonomic office chairs by the faculty members and the prevalence of pain in various areas and joints among male faculty members under different colleges of Jazan University. Total of 150 male faculty members from different colleges under Jazan University participated in this study. All individuals have explained the need for the current study and their consent was taken. The data were collected from all the subjects and complied which was put for statistical analysis. The result after analysis showed the prevalence of pain in lower back in 63 subjects (42%) followed by pain in upper back for 37 subjects (24.67%), shoulder pain in 17 subjects (11.33%), buttock pain in 15 subjects (10%), elbow pain in 9 subject (6%), pain behind thighs in 5 subjects (3.33%), knee pain in 4 subjects only (02.67%) and no non-subject expressed pain in wrists, fingers and ankles as their prior most discomfort.


The importance of science in development has been increasingly recognised in development discourses and policy since 2000. Engineering is less visible though engineering and engineers are important for the building and maintenance of transport, water, energy, industrial, informatics, urban and health systems. This article aims to investigate why engineering has not received more emphasis, including why development engineering has not been institutionalised like tropical medicine. It explores the nature of engineering in development, highlights recent efforts to headline engineering for development and, using analyses of what engineers know and do inside international development, suggests that its profile and effectiveness is emerging.


This paper presents new visualization techniques for 4D Quadrature-Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (Q2PSK), Saha's Constant Envelope (CE) Q2PSK, and Cartwright's CEQ2PSK in ideal bandlimited channels. The signal diagrams analyzed are: time-signal eye patterns for 4D passband signals, 2D complex trajectory diagrams of baseband signals, and time-signal eye patterns for the 1D outputs of the baseband matched filter. These methods may be applied to other multidimensional modulation systems to obtain insight into the effects of noise, interference, and channel filtering.


In this paper proposes an intelligent approach (Fuzzy logic) for the design of PI controller for power. DSTATCOM for power factor and harmonic compensation. The proposed control strategy has been introduced in order to enhance some steady-state performances besides its functional elimination of power quality disturbances. Power factor and harmonic current of a controlled feeder section are two vital roles in steady-state power distribution system operation. Utilizing an already installed D-STATCOM to achieve these additional control objectives can help system operators maximize overall system performances. In this paper, a control scheme with constant power and sinusoidal current compensation [1,2] is exploited. In order to correct the power factor, a power factor control loop is required and therefore included in the control block. To verify its use, a 22-kV power distribution feeder with a three-phase rectifier load was tested. Resultsshowed that integration of the proposed reactive power control loop can correct the power factor of the controlled feeder to be unity power factor.


Thermal performance and phase change stability of palmitic and stearic acids as a latent heat energy storage material has been study experimentally. In the experimental study, the thermal performance and heat transfer characteristics of the palmitic and stearic acid was tested and compared with other studies given in the literature. The present study included some parameters such as transition times, temperature range, and propagation of the solid-liquid interface as well as heat flow rate effect on the phase change stability of palmitic and stearic acid as phase change materials (PCMs). The results also show that better stability of the stearic and palmitic acids were accomplished at low inlet water temperature compared with the obtained results at high inlet water temperature. We also observed that while the heat exchanger tube is in the horizontal position, the PCMs have more effective and steady phase change characteristics than in the vertical position. Average heat storage efficiencies were found to be 50.3 and 53.3% for stearic and palmitic acids, respectively.


Deep metric learning aims to learn embeddings that contain semantic similarity information among data points. To learn better embeddings, methods to generate synthetic hard samples have been proposed. Existing methods of synthetic hard sample generation are adopting autoencoders or generative adversarial networks, but this leads to more hyper-parameters, harder optimization, and slower training speed. In this paper, we address these problems by proposing a novel method of synthetic hard sample generation called symmetrical synthesis. Given two original feature points from the same class, the proposed method firstly generates synthetic points with each other as an axis of symmetry. Secondly, it performs hard negative pair mining within the original and synthetic points to select a more informative negative pair for computing the metric learning loss. Our proposed method is hyper-parameter free and plug-and-play for existing metric learning losses without network modification. We demonstrate the superiority of our proposed method over existing methods for a variety of loss functions on clustering and image retrieval tasks.


Astragalus mongholicus is a Chinese traditional medicine. In this study, we sought to explore potential benefits in cardiovascular disorders associated with excess cholesterol and hyperlipidemia. We have investigated the effects of A. mongholicus extract as a dietary supplement on hyperlipidemia and oxidative stress in rats maintained on a high- cholesterol diet. Diets were supplemented with A. mongholicus extract at 0.4 and 0.8% for five weeks, while control animals received no supplement. A. mongholicus extract administration to hyperlipidemic rats resulted in a significant decline in serum levels of total cholesterol, triglycerides and low density lipoprotein-cholesterol, with an increase in serum high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol levels. Furthermore, A. mongholicus extract improved serum and heart antioxidant status as assessed by superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase activities and reduced levels of lipid peroxidation. These results suggest that A. mongholicus extract consumption can improve lipid profiles, inhibit peroxidation, and increase the activity of antioxidant enzymes, and is thereby likely to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease associated with hyperlipidemia and oxidative stress.

 Key words: Astragalus mongholicus extract, coronary heart disease, high- cholesterol diet.


During construction of large sandwich structures one of or perhaps the greatest difficulty lies increating good joints. The joint is often the first component to fail and constitute a large part of theweight of the structure and production workload. The study is focused on investigating if noveljoining methods could affect how military vessels are able to handle an internal blast withoutcatastrophic damage to the sections surrounding the area of the explosion. If the conventionalmethod of joining sandwich panels was to be used the result of an internal blast would mostprobably be a complete failure of the surrounding joints. This is based on that the conventional Xjointslacks continuous fibers through the joint in at least one direction and are therefore weak whensubjected to tensile forces in that direction. The belief is that a joint with continuous fibers wouldhave a smaller risk of failure or at least the failure would be less severe than with the conventionaljoints and could therefore maintain its structural integrity until reparations can be made.The purpose of this study is to manufacture small scale samples of novel X-joint design concepts.These concepts are then compared by manufacturability, tensile strength in either direction of thejoint and the joints flexibility. How well the promising novel concepts handle an internal blast cannotbe seen in this study, since full scale samples and advanced blast trials would be required.Six novel methods for joining of composite sandwich panels and a reference conventional joint,referred to as the standard joint, were manufactured and evaluated through three tensile tests. Outof the six concepts, all except the 3D-woven joint was found to have advantages over the standardtype, which only surpassed the novel joints in the aspect of bulkhead strength, and the lath and thebundle joint concepts were found to be the most promising. The tensile strength tests gave that theultimate strength of lath joint was 86% of the reference value in its deck direction and at least 75%in the bulkhead direction when reinforced with laths (49% unreinforced), where the reference value(100%) was the ultimate strength of the standard joint bulkhead. The tensile test results for thebundle joint, which did not have a reinforced bulkhead, reached 77% and 66% (deck respectivelybulkhead) of the reference strength value. These results supports the theory that the circular holesof the bundle concept has less impact on the strength of the bulkhead than the rectangular holes ofthe lath concept. The fiber bundles, however, are difficult and time consuming to work with,especially since the fiber bundles needs to be flattened and spread out to increase the area ofattachment when adhered to the sandwich panels. In contrast, the lath pieces are easy tomanufacture and work with during the final assembly and therefore more suitable to use whenreinforcement of the bulkhead is required.The joint flexibility test indicated that the most flexible joint was, as might be expected, the taperedfinger joint. If the tapered panel could be designed to counteract or avoid delamination of thetapering area and if the panels of the joint could be prevented from bending to the point fracture ofthe single skin laminates, this concept could be a suitable solution for confining a blast in terms ofrapidly developing membrane forces. The lath and the bundle joints were once again the strongestand reacted very similar. Unfortunately no difference could be found between the two jointconcepts because the hinges used to attach the samples in the test broke before the samples werebroken.Since the fiber properties and amounts were not compared it is not definite that either of the lath orthe bundle concept is better than the other in terms of mechanical properties. The conclusion is thatboth these two concepts work, are relatively easy to produce and have a far greater potential thanthat of the standard joint, in the internal blast situation and as a joining method in general.


We reviewed 9 cases of sarcomatoid carcinoma of the kidney from 233 cases of renal carcinoma that had undergone surgery over a period of 21 years (1970-1991). The principal characteristics (patient age, sex, diameter, clinical features, stage, grade, mitotic index, radiological features) were analyzed and compared with the rest of the series. This histological type is distinct from other types of renal carcinoma in that it carries a poor prognosis (with a mean survival of 6 months), it is usually diagnosed in the advanced stages, with a high mitotic index and tumor grade. It presents no special clinical and radiological features which make it distinct from the other histological types of renal carcinoma.


Ad hoc networks play important roles in next generation mobile systems. This kind of wireless networks do not have any wired infrastructure support. In ad hoc networks, nodes change their position frequently and each node can act as a router. Due to high mobility and frequently link breakage, selecting the reliable path is a critical challenge. Some well-known protocols such as DSR take advantages of caching and on-demanding mechanisms to increase performance and reduce overheads. In this paper, we propose a new factor added to routing table to address such problems. By exploiting routing table stability parameter (RTSP) in each node, we can predict fragile routes and thus provide a mechanism to select robust path to increase efficiency. Each node computes RTSP in a distribution mechanism and adds this factor to route request and reply packets. We use Global Mobile Simulation (GloMoSim) environment to simulate our method applied to Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) protocol. Simulation results demonstrate that considering RTSP factor improves throughput and reduce routing protocol overhead with increased mobility.


A status report of dental implantology in Switzerland has already been performed in 1994 and 2006. The present study, based on these former surveys, aimed to update these results for the year 2016. To this end, a questionnaire was sent to all dentists in Switzerland who were members of the Swiss Dental Society (SSO) at the time of the survey. The questionnaire asked for personal background data and obtained information about the dentists' knowledge and concepts when using implants, the extent to which they used implants and about specific implant systems, which were selected based on the previous surveys. Out of 3,168 questionnaires, 1,446 were returned (return rate: 45.6%). Approximately 91% of the responding dentists had a practical involvement in implantology (implant placement only, superstructure insertion only, or both). Just over half of them (53%) placed more than twenty implants per year. Good handling was chosen by all dentists (100%) as a selection criterion for the implant system they used preferably. The current data suggested that the range of indications had widened, yet that the edentulous mandible was still the indication of choice. The percentage of dentists engaged in dental implantology doubled from 1994 to 2006 (1994: 42.2%, 2006: 82.2%). An increase of almost 10% in dentists involved in dental implantology was also apparent from 2006 to 2016 (2006: 82.2%, 2016: 91%). Our data show that, whilst the relative number of implant users had greatly increased among Swiss dentists, their rationale to place implants has remained similar.


Operative dental procedures may promote pulpal infections, such as tooth cavity, trauma and teeth abrasion, anaerobic microorganism colonization causing total pulp necrosis, and periapical lesions that result in bone destruction in the periapical region. Periapical radiographs are important tools for identifying periapical pathologies. However, given that the imaging system shows three-dimensional formations in two dimensions, the knowledge about the actual size of the lesion and the real relationship with the anatomic structures is limited. These limitations force clinicians to choose the high resolution and current imaging methods that show all the details of the oral structures, such as conic beam computed tomography (CBCT). CBCT is a highly effective diagnostic device for early period bone lesion detection in which the gray value for bone density is measured in Hounsfield unit (HU). Other than using CBCT, bone mineral density measurement can be done to assess the healing of existing lesions. When the periapical lesion is healing, a series of formation and destruction processes follow each other. On the one hand, mediators and tissues that must be removed from the region are destroyed by host defense cells; on the other hand, cells included in the repair process provide new tissue generation and remodelling to provide the pre-disease anatomic properties in the lesion region. This review discusses recent studies using current three-dimensional imaging methods, compared with traditional methods for bone damage due to periapical lesion formation and healing after suitable treatment. This study aims to investigate the advantages and shortcomings of existing treatment and diagnosis approaches in endodontic periradicular lesion diagnosis and treatment. The findings highlight promising diagnosis and treatment tools and suggest the expansion of minimally invasive approaches to eliminate the problems in periapical lesions.

How to cite this article:
How to cite this article: Akin Tartuk G, Tekin Bulut E. The effects of periapical lesion healing on bone density. Int Dent Res 2020;10(3):90-9. https://doi.org/10.5577/intdentres.2020.vol10.no3.5

Linguistic Revision: The English in this manuscript has been checked by at least two professional editors, both native speakers of English.


I am honored to participate in the dedication of this issue of State Constitutional Commentary to Justice Stanley G. Feldman of Arizona. He has long been an insistent voice urging lawyers with difficult problems to consult the state constitution for possible remedies. In part, at least, this view of the importance of the state constitution stems from his life-long fascination with political history. It also, no doubt, derives from the populist character of the Arizona Constitution. As an admiring friend of the justice--he was a member of the first law class that I taught in 1955 as a young lawyer called to substitute for a teacher who had fallen ill--I have followed his career with some care and know how strongly he has always felt that the state constitution frequently offers protection for individual rights that the federal constitution does not. Justice Feldman was appointed to the Arizona Supreme Court in 1982 by then-Governor Bruce Babbitt. He was elevated by his colleagues to chief justice in 1992 and served in that position for a five year term. He retired from the court at the end of 2002. By dint of his relentless energy, intellectual reach and powerful writing, he has had a profound effect on the Arizona court and its work. Part of that effect has grown naturally from his interpretations of various provisions of the Arizona Constitution. Adopted in 1912 during the Progressive Era, the Arizona Constitution is a populist document bearing the stamp of a coalition of a labor union and populist members of the constitutional convention. (1) It provided for the initiative, (2) the referendum, (3) the recall of public officials (including judges), (4) outlawing black lists, (5) abolishing the fellow servant defense in negligence actions, (6) directing the legislature to enact an employer's liability law and a worker's compensation law. (7) It also prohibited the abrogation of the right of action for damages for personal injuries and any limitation on the amount of such damages. (8) A unique provision required that the defenses of assumption of risk and contributory negligence be question of fact for the jury in "all cases whatsoever." (9) Justice Feldman's emphasis on state constitutional law is particularly important given the U.S. Supreme Court's creation of a new doctrine of federalism, something my colleague Professor Ana Maria Merico-Stephens has called "the mystical world of Supreme Court federalism." (10) In United States v. Lopez, (11) invalidating the Gun Free School Zone Act, and in United States v. Morrison, (12) holding unconstitutional the Violence Against Women Act, the United States Supreme Court found limitations on Congress's commerce power that would not have been found in years past. In a series of cases, the court, relying on a newly invigorated interpretation of the Tenth and Eleventh Amendments, has elevated the states' sovereign immunity to constitutional stature. It has held that Congress cannot abrogate that immunity in legislation under the Commerce Clause. (13) Subsequent cases have held that Congress's sole remaining authority for abrogating sovereign immunity, section five of the Fourteenth Amendment, is subject to severe and amorphous restrictions. (14) As a result of these developments, substantial power and responsibility of addressing social issues has shifted from the federal government to the states. Moreover, these restrictions on federal power make the interpretations of state constitutional provisions, which have always been important, even more critical than ever. In the course of his tenure on the Arizona court, Justice Feldman has written many opinions construing important provisions of the Arizona Constitution. One case in particular is instructive where protection for civil liberties is at stake. …


The realization of space-efficient support hardware for built-in self-testing (BIST) is of great significance in the design of present-day very large scale integration (VLSI) circuits and systems, particularly in the context of the recent paradigm shift from system-on-board to system-on-chip (SOC). A new approach in designing zero-aliasing space-compaction hardware, specifically in relation to embedded core-based SOC, is proposed in this paper for single stuck-line faults, extending the well-known concepts of conventional switching theory and of incompatibility relation to generate the maximal compatibility classes using graph theoretic concepts, based on optimal generalized sequence mergeability, as developed and applied by the authors in earlier works. This is novel in the sense that zero-aliasing is obtained without any modification of the original module under test, while a maximal compaction is achieved in almost all cases in reasonable time utilizing some simple heuristics. The method is illustrated with design details of space compactors for the international symposium on circuits and systems (ISCAS) 85 combinational and ISCAS 89 full-scan sequential benchmark circuits using simulation programs ATALANTA and FSIM, attesting to the usefulness of the technique for its relative simplicity, resulting in low area overhead, and full fault coverage for single stuck-line faults, thus making it suitable in a VLSI synthesis environment. With advances in computational resources in the future, the heuristics applied in the design algorithm may be further improved upon to significantly lower the simulation CPU time and storage.


Smart coatings based on polymer matrix doped with carbon nanoparticles, such as carbon nanotubes or graphene, are being widely studied. The addition of carbon nanofillers into organic coatings usually enhances their performance, increasing their barrier properties, corrosion resistance, hardness, and wear strength. Moreover, the developed composites provide a new generation of protective organic coatings, being able to intelligently respond to damage or external stimuli. Carbon nanoparticles induce new functionalities to polymer coatings, most of them related to the higher electrical conductivity of nanocomposite due to the formation of percolation network. These coatings can be used as strain sensors and gauges, based on the variation of their electrical resistance (structural health monitoring, SHM). In addition, they act as self-heaters by the application of electrical voltage associated to resistive heating by Joule effect. This opens new potential applications, particularly deicing and defogging coatings. Superhydrophobic and self-cleaning coatings are inspired from lotus effect, designing micro- and nanoscaled hierarchical surfaces. Coatings with self-healable polymer matrix are able to repair surface damages. Other relevant smart capabilities of these new coatings are flame retardant, lubricating, stimuli-chromism, and antibacterial activity, among others.


The theory of a historical and legal comparative method as a new way of special and scientific knowledge is investigated in this article. The theory place in the method structure is defined. The historical and legal comparative method is aimed at solving the main problem which content is analyzed. Historical, legal and comparative approaches which define the direction of realization of the main task in the theory of a historical and legal comparative method are considered. The principles underlying each approach are specified.


The naked delivery of nucleic acid vaccines is notoriously inefficient, and an enabling delivery technology is required to direct efficiently these constructs intracellularly. A delivery technology capable of enhancing nucleic acid uptake in both cells in tissues and in culture is electroporation (EP). EP is a physical delivery mechanism that increases the permeability of mammalian cell membranes and allows the trafficking of large macromolecules into the cell. EP has now been used extensively in the clinic and been shown to be an effective method to increase both the uptake of the construct and the breadth and magnitude of the resulting immune responses. Excitingly, 2014 saw the announcement of the first EP-enhanced DNA vaccine Phase II trial demonstrating clinical efficacy. This review seeks to introduce the reader to EP as a technology to enhance the delivery of DNA and RNA vaccines and highlight several published clinical trials using this delivery modality.


The ISP market in Ireland is relatively immature. Although Ireland's first Service Provider IEUnet was established in 1991, it is only in the last two or three years that a choice of provider and access price points has emerged under the regulatory regime of the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (OTDR). This has been achieved through the introduction of a telecommunications licensing regime by the ODTR, the specifics of which are available from the ODTR website.2 From a position where there was only one telecommunications operator, the former PTO3 namely Eircom, there are currently 77 other licensed operators (OLOs) in the State. The regulation imposes on ISPs that provide the initial connection to the Internet the need to obtain a licence. ISPs that provide portal sites and search engines but not the telecommunication access to the user like international companies Yahoo and Alta Vista, or Irish companies like Ireland.com are not required to obtain a telecommunications licence. This form of ISP provides services after the initial connection to the Internet is made. The ISPs under investigation here are those that supply the initial physical connection to the Internet as well as access to the World Wide Web. This level of Internet connectivity constitutes a telecommunications service and thus an operator requires a telecommunications licence.4 We further focus on the market specifically for residential Internet service provision.


Metal in tree rings Researchers can reconstruct historical metal loads from annual tree rings if one assumes that the ring formed at a certain time reflects the environmental conditions of that period. M. Eklund studied the distribution of cadmium and lead in oak {Quercus robur L.) tree rings, comparing them with the emissions records from an industrial site. Cadmium concentrations in the tree rings correlated well with the emissions records and continued increasing after the site was closed in 1974. This indicates continued uptake of cadmium from the soil. Lead concentrations also correlated well with emissions, and the concentrations decreased after the emissions stopped. The authors conclude that analysis of tree rings can be used to study the temporal and spatial distributions of historical metals emissions. (/. Environ. Qual. 1995, 24, 126-31)


The Avian Convergence Hypothesis states that avian–honeydew associations are likely to develop when biogeographic and/or climatic factors limit the formation of ant–honeydew associations (the dominant association in tropical ecosystems). In this study we examine a honeydew-influenced forest system in an island archipelago where ant diversity is low but invasive Vespula wasp species (Vespidae) are present. We found honeydew production was highly seasonal, with both standing crop and 24-h production peaking in summer. When Vespula wasps were abundant (summer and autumn) they preferentially visited infested trees and fed regularly on honeydew droplets on infested branches. Two ant species occasionally fed on honeydew. No other insects or birds were observed feeding on honeydew during the study period. With the exception of Vespula, honeydew does not appear to be a preferred food source in this community, possibly because of the range of other food resources available in surrounding forest, farmland and gardens. The abundance of Vespula wasps at the site may also have disrupted bird–honeydew associations. We suggest the Avian Convergence Hypothesis could be restated to explicitly include both nectar availability and invasive social insects as both are likely to influence bird use of honeydew.


Atherosclerosis at the carotid bifurcation resulting in cerebral emboli is a major cause of ischemic stroke. Most strokes associated with carotid atherosclerosis can be prevented by lifestyle/dietary changes and pharmacological treatments if identified early by monitoring carotid plaque changes. Sensitive monitoring of plaque changes in volume and morphology requires that 3D ultrasound (US) images of carotid plaque obtained at different time points be registered and evaluated for change. This registration technique should be non-rigid, since different head positions in image acquisitions cause relative bending and torsion in the neck, producing non-linear deformations between the images. We modeled the movement of the neck using a "twisting and bending model" with only six parameters for non-rigid registration. We used a Mutual Information (MI) based image similarity measure with the Powell optimization method as they have been used effectively in US image registration applications. For evaluation of our algorithm, we acquired 3D US carotid images from three subjects at two different head positions to simulate images acquired at different times. Then, we registered each image set using our "twisting bending model" based non-rigid registration algorithm. We calculated the Mean Registration Error (MRE) between the segmented vessel surfaces in the target image and the registered image using a distance-based error metric. We repeated the experiment with only rigid registration to compare the capabilities of the proposed algorithm in improving registration of 3D carotid US images. The average registration error was 1.03plusmn0.23 mm using our non-rigid registration technique, while it was 1.50plusmn0.50 mm when we applied the rigid registration alone


Lysozyme is one of the most important anti-bacterial effectors in the innate immune system of animals. Besides its direct antibacterial enzymatic activity, lysozyme displays other biological properties, pointing toward a significant anti-inflammatory effect, many aspects of which are still elusive. Here we investigate the perturbation of gene expression profiles induced by lysozyme in a monocyte cell line in vitro considering a perspective as broad as the whole transcriptome profiling. The results of the RNA-seq experiment show that lysozyme induces transcriptional modulation of the TNF-α/IL-1β pathway genes in U937 monocytes. The analysis of transcriptomic profiles with IPA® identified a simple but robust molecular network of genes, in which the regulation trends are fully consistent with the anti-inflammatory activity of lysozyme. This study provides the first evidence in support of the anti-inflammatory action of lysozyme on the basis of transcriptomic regulation data resulting from the broad perspective of a whole-transcriptome profiling. Such important effects can be achieved with the supplementation of relatively low concentrations of lysozyme, for a short time of exposure. These new insights allow the potential of lysozyme in pharmacological applications to be better exploited.


Small isolated late Cenozoic basaltic lava flows, dikes, and plugs are widely distributed on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada (Figs. 1 and 2). More voluminous basalt, commonly associated with rhyolite, is present along the east escarpment of the Sierra Nevada and farther east within the Basin and Range Province. All of these basaltic rocks are alkalic in composition. The most alkalic volcanic rocks, which predominate west of the Sierra Nevada crest, are highly potassic and include leucite-bearing varieties. The recent discovery of leucite-bearing rocks at nine new localities demonstrates that this region, principally the west slope of the Sierra Nevada, is an important province of mafic, potassic-alkalic magmatism. The presence of potassium-rich volcanic rocks in the Sierra Nevada was documented by Nockolds and Allen (1954). Hamilton and Neuerburg (1956) described potassic lavas in the Huntington Lake area and attributed their origin to assimilation of the granitic rocks. Moore (1962) demonstrated that this potassic suite is restricted to a region of low Bouguer gravity and thick crust. Nash and Nelson (1964) and Tidy (1970) described leucite-bearing rocks from Deep Spring Valley, and Peck (1976) reported similar rocks in the San Joaquin River drainage of the western Sierra Nevada. Van Kooten and Peck (1977) and Van Kooten (1980) suggested that the potassic lavas could have been produced by deep-seated incongruent melting of a phlogopite-bearing ultramafic source. Moore (1978) mapped small occurrences of leucite phonolite in the Marion Peak quadrangle, and Moore and Dodge (1977) described potassic lavas in the Kings River drainage of the western Sierra Nevada and compared them to other occurrences within the Sierra Nevada. In this study, we describe the geographic distribution and composition of volcanic rocks of the southern Sierra Nevada and the extreme western Basin and Range Province and explore the origin of the highly potassic basalt. We also examine the petrology and distribution of rock types and, in a companion paper (Dodge and Moore, in prep.), we consider the variations in their major and minor chemical constituents.


Essential oils, which may be extracted from several parts of plants, have different biological activities. The Brazilian Cerrado has a large variety of plants that yield essential oils, even though many have not been studied yet. Taking into account the biodiversity of this biome, this study aimed at evaluating the antiproliferative activity of essential oils extracted from three species of plants of the Cerrado in Goiás state: Campomanesia adamantium (Cambess.) O. Berg, Protium ovatum (Engl. in Mart.) and Cardiopetalum calophyllum (Schltdl.). Essential oils were extracted from both C. adamantium and C. calophyllum leaves and from P. ovatum leaves and green fruits by hydrodistillation carried out by a Clevenger-type apparatus. The chemical composition of the essential oils was determined by Gas Chromatography coupled to Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). The following major chemical constituents were identified in the essential oils under investigation: β-myrcene (62.00%), spathulenol (28.78%), germacrene-B (18.27%), β-caryophyllene oxide (16.40%), β-caryophyllene (14.00%), α-pinene (11.30%), viridiflorol (9.99%), limonene (7.30%) and (Z,E)-pharnesol (6.51%). The antiproliferative activity was evaluated in different human tumor cell lines: breast adenocarcinoma (MCF-7), cervical adenocarcinoma (HeLa) and glioblastoma (M059J). A normal human cell line was included (GM07492A, lung fibroblasts). Results showed that essential oils from C. adamantium leaves got the lowest values of IC50 in all strains of tumor cells under evaluation. They were significantly lower than the ones of the normal cell line, an evidence of selectivity. It is worth mentioning that this is the first report of the antiproliferative activity of essential oils from C. adamantium , P. ovatum and C. calophyllum against human tumor cells.


Several questions about social support and its relation to mental health over the course of psychotherapeutic intervention are investigated. These include: how do different measures of social support relate to each other at entrance to therapy (time 1) and three months later (time 2), how does social support vary with mental health over time, and how do strategies of therapists affect social support of patients? Forty patients and their therapists (27) at two community mental health centers were interviewed. Four quantitative standardized measures of social support were used: Donald and Ware's social integration measure (1982), McFarlane's (1980) measure of social networks, Kaplan's perception of social support (Turner and Noh 1983), and Instrumental/Expressive Support developed by Dean et al. (1981). Finally, Goldberg's (1972) General Health Questionnaire measured psychological status. In addition, intensive qualitative interviews concerning the meaning of social support were conducted with patients and their therapists. The research design incorported several elements of triangulation (Denzin 1970a) including (a) collection of data at two time points, (b) the use of multiple indicators of social support, (c) systematic comparison between our patient sample and nonpatients studied by other researchers, (d) use of multiple informants on the same cases, and (e) quantitative standardized measures of the main variables combined with detailed qualitative interviews. Only some measures of support varied with psychological health: network multiplexity and instrumentalexpressive support. Perception of social support was most consistently related with other social support measures at both time points. Social networks and social integration were unrelated to instrumental/ expressive support. Support needs of patients varied with stage in treatment. New patients sought unreciprocated support but were unlikely to receive it. Patient's psychological health after time in treatment was related to financial resources, having close friends, and fewer demands made on them. Financial help at intake to therapy was especially predictive of psychological health at time 2. Patients' social support was also influenced by therapist's orientations. Therapists who focused on relations with others helped patients reconnect with others who cared about them.


BACKGROUND
Anorectal malformations (ARM) are associated with congenital anomalies and other risk factors, yielding a poor prognosis, especially in neonatal life.

OBJECTIVES
This study was performed to identify the congenital anomalies as a factor of poor prognosis (mortality) in such patients.

SETTINGS
Department of Pediatric surgery, The Children's Hospital and The Institute of Child Health, Lahore.

DESIGN
Prospective observational study, with statistical support.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The information on the demography, clinical features, investigations, management performed, and outcome was entered in the designed proforma and analysed with the help of statistical software EpiInfo version 3.5.1. Statistical test: Chi-square test was used to determine statistical significance of the results.

RESULTS
Of 100 neonates with ARM, 77 were male and 23, female (3.4:1). The mean age at presentation was 3.4 days (range, 12 hrs to 28 days). In 60 patients (60%), the presentation was imperforate anus without a clinically identified fistula. In 28 patients (28%), associated anomalies were present. The common associated anomalies were urogenital (10%), cardiovascular (8%), and gastrointestinal (6%). Down's syndrome was present in 8 (8%) patients. A total of 15 (15%) deaths occurred in this study. In patients having associated congenital anomalies, 11 deaths occurred, whereas, 4 deaths were in patients without associated anomalies (P < 0.5).

CONCLUSION
The mortality is higher in neonates with ARM having associated congenital anomalies.


On-the-fly adaptability and reconfigurability are recently becoming an interest in real-time communications. To assure a continued real-time behavior, the admission control with a quality-of-service mechanism is required, that screen all adaptation and reconfiguration requests. In the context of switched Ethernet networks, the FTT-SE protocol provides adaptive real-time communication. Recently, we proposed two methods to perform the online reconfiguration in multi-hop FTT-SE architectures. However, the methods lack the experimental evaluation. In this paper, we evaluate both methods in terms of the reconfiguration time.


Large-sized extended formulations have the potential for providing high-quality bounds on some combinatorial optimization problems where the natural formulations perform poorly. This chapter discusses the use of some families of cuts that have been recently applied on extended formulations that are obtained by the discretization of the continuous variables occurring in the natural formulation of the Fixed Charge Network Flow Problem. By interpreting the flows as being link capacities, loads or times, similar cuts can be used on problems like the Capacitated Minimum Spanning Tree, Vehicle Routing and Parallel-Machine Scheduling.


Large arrays of RF coils with 16 or more channels are becoming commercially available. However, most MR scanners have eight or fewer receiver channels. In order for these scanners to achieve the SNR benefits of these large arrays, the signals from the array elements must be combined. In this paper, strategies for combining the array elements into 8 or fewer channels are discussed and an analysis of the expected SNR improvement is presented. We expect these results to scale to cases such as 32 channels with 128 array elements


Objectives: To determine the prevalence and clinical associations of a history of events during sleep in patients with psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES, pseudoseizures), and to compare the prevalence of a history of sleep events with that in poorly controlled epilepsy. Methods: Prospective study by semistructured interview of the history of event patterns and their clinical associations in 142 patients with video EEG confirmed PNES, and 100 patients with poorly controlled epilepsy. Results: 84/142 patients with PNES (59%) and 47/100 with epilepsy (47%) gave a history of events during sleep (p = 0.062). In patients with PNES, significant associations were found between a history of sleep events and: convulsive clinical semiology, antiepileptic drug treatment, fatigue, suicide attempts, mood disorder, and physical abuse. A particularly strong association with social security benefit was also found (odds ratio 4.0, p<0.001). Conclusions: The prevalence of a history of sleep events is similar in PNES and epilepsy, and is of no value in discriminating between the two, although a history of events occurring exclusively during sleep does suggest epileptic seizures. The clinical associations found indicate that a combination of psychopathological and external influences may be important in determining whether or not a patient with PNES gives a history of events during sleep.


Objective To investigate the effects of antithrombotic therapy on target lesion revascularisation (TLR) and major adverse cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events (MACCEs) at 12 months after femoropopliteal intervention with second-generation bare metal nitinol stents. Methods A total of 277 lesions in 258 limbs of 248 patients with de novo atherosclerosis in the above-the-knee femoropopliteal segment were analysed from the Japan multicentre postmarketing surveillance. Results At discharge, dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) was prescribed in 68.5% and cilostazol in 30.2% of patients. At 12 months of follow-up, prescriptions of DAPT significantly (p=0.0001) decreased to 51.2% and prescription of cilostazol remained unchanged (p=0.592) at 28.0%. Prescription of warfarin also remained unchanged (14.5% at discharge, 13.3% at 12 months, p=0.70). At 12 months, freedoms from TLR and MACCE were 89.4% and 89.7%, respectively. In a multivariate Cox proportional hazards model, neither DAPT nor cilostazol at discharge was associated with both TLR and MACCE at 12 months. However, warfarin at discharge was only independently associated with TLR at 12 months. Kaplan-Meier estimates demonstrated that warfarin at discharge yielded a significantly (p=0.013) lower freedom from TLR at 12 months than no warfarin at discharge. Freedom from TLR at 12 months by the Kaplan-Meier estimates was 77.8% (95% CI 59.0% to 88.8%) in patients with warfarin at discharge and 91.2% (95% CI 86.3% to 94.3%) in those without warfarin at discharge. Conclusions Clinical benefits of DAPT or cilostazol might be small in terms of TLR and MACCE at 12 months. Anticoagulation with warfarin at discharge might increase TLR at 12 months.


This article highlights the answer to the question »Is the hotel for the elderly the need of Slovenian tourism?« Nowadays, it is clear that the familiarization with the needs and understanding of the behaviour of a consumer – an elderly customer – contributes to higher business success, therefore to better and less risky business decisions at all levels of the organisation. The proportion of elderly population is growing; elderly people are a heterogeneous group of people who differ one from another according to their health and functional status, personal characteristics as well as their socio-economic situation. Although a group of elderly people can be quite heterogeneous, it is, however, important to take into consideration some of their characteristics, which have to be adapted to their needs. According to the raising of the retirement age, hotels for the elderly have to offer services to people aged 50 and above, which means that such hotels should not sell vacation arrangements to people younger than 50 years, ensuring the peace required for the elderly. Using a qualitative study, namely a survey questionnaire, we evaluated whether the elderly wanted a hotel which would offer services for people aged 50 and above only; what kind of service they would want and under what conditions they would choose such a hotel. This is a relevant contribution, since it scientifically highlights the understanding of elderly passengers, taking into account their needs and expectations in using tourist services.


Computing grid are an approach for building dynamically constructed collaborative problem solving environment using geographically and organizationally dispersed high performance computing and data handling resources. It provides a novel computation mode for power system simulation and modeling. This paper put out a grid computing infrastructure for load modeling, thus to provide the computation capacity needed in measurement based load modeling with disturbed data logged by WAMS (wide area measurement system). The infrastructure is practical and is of good scalability, highly automation, and huge computation capacity.


Aneurysm of the sinus of Valsalva is a rare cardiac disease. It is usually an asymptomatic anomaly, however when it ruptures, symptoms appear and patient's condition deteriorates rapidly. We describe a case of a 24-year female with a ruptured aneurysm of the non-coronary sinus of Valsalva. The aneurysm ruptured in the right atrium causing severe hemodynamic complications. The diagnosis was made by transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiography.


The experimental data concerning the 58Ni+48Ca reaction at Elab(Ni)=25A MeV, collected by the CHIMERA 4π device, have been analyzed in order to investigate the competition among different reaction mechanisms for central collisions in the Fermi energy domain. The method adopted to select such central collisions, by means of construction of the kinetic energy tensor and, consequently, the evaluation of the "flow angle" event by event is presented. Some global variables, able to characterize the pattern of central collisions, have been constructed, and the main features of the reaction products are analyzed in terms of some observable, like mass and velocity distributions, as well as their correlations. Much emphasis was devoted to the competition between fusion-evaporation processes with consequent identification of a heavy residue and multifragmentation of a well defined (if any) transient nuclear system formed in central collisions.


Boehmite silica sulfuric acid (boehmite-SSA) has been prepared for the first time via an efficient sequential synthetic procedure. Initially, boehmite nanoparticles were prepared, coated by silica, and then reacted with chlorosulfonic acid to obtain boehmite-SSA. A simple, inexpensive, environmentally friendly and efficient procedure for the synthesis of polyhydroquinoline and 2,3-dihydroquinazolin-4(1H)-one derivatives using this compound as an efficient and novel nanocatalyst has been described. Boehmite-SSA is a stable, heterogeneous, cost-effective, easy to handle, and recoverable catalyst and can be reused for several consecutive runs without a significant loss of catalytic activity. Its structure was characterized by FT-IR spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM).