Alchemy, the "Noble Art," conjures up scenes of mysterious, dimly lit laboratories populated with bearded old men stirring cauldrons. Though the history of alchemy is intricately linked to the history of chemistry, alchemy has nonetheless often been dismissed as the realm of myth and magic, or fraud and pseudoscience. And while its themes and ideas persist in some expected and unexpected places, from the Philosopher's (or Sorcerer's) "Stone of Harry Potter" to the self-help mantra of transformation, there has not been a serious, accessible, and up-to-date look at the complete history and influence of alchemy until now. In "The Secrets of Alchemy", Lawrence M. Principe, one of the world's leading authorities on the subject, brings alchemy out of the shadows and restores it to its important place in human history and culture. By surveying what alchemy was and how it began, developed, and overlapped with a range of ideas and pursuits, Principe illuminates the practice. He vividly depicts the place of alchemy during its heyday in early modern Europe, and then explores how alchemy has fit into wider views of the cosmos and humanity, touching on its enduring place in literature, fine art, theater, and religion. In addition, he introduces the reader to some of the most fascinating alchemists, such as Zosimos and Basil Valentine, whose lives dot alchemy's long reign from the third century to the present day. Through his exploration, Principe pieces together closely guarded clues from obscure and fragmented texts to reveal alchemy's secrets, and-most exciting for budding alchemists-uses them to recreate many of the most famous recipes in his lab, including those for the "glass of antimony" and "philosopher's tree." A concise but illuminating history, "The Secrets of Alchemy" is written for anyone drawn to the alchemical arts, those who are fascinated by the science as well as the fantastic stories and mysterious practitioners.


Endemic human coronaviruses (HCoVs) and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are members of the family Coronaviridae. Comparing the findings of the infections caused by these viruses would help reveal the novel characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 and provide insight into the unique pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 infection. This study aimed to compare the clinical and radiological characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 and endemic HCoVs infection in adult hospitalized patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). This study was performed at a university-affiliated tertiary hospital in the Republic of Korea, between January 1, 2015, and July 31, 2020. A total of 109 consecutive patients who were over 18 years of age with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 and endemic HCoVs were enrolled. Finally, 19 patients with SARS-CoV-2 CAP were compared to 40 patients with endemic HCoV CAP. Flu-like symptoms such as cough, sore throat, headache, myalgia, and prolonged fever were more common in SARS-CoV-2 CAP, whereas clinical findings suggestive of bacterial pneumonia such as dyspnea, leukocytosis with left shift, and increased C-reactive protein were more common in endemic HCoV CAP. Bilateral peripherally distributed ground-glass opacities (GGOs) were typical radiologic findings in SARS-CoV-2 CAP, whereas mixed patterns of GGOs, consolidations, micronodules, and pleural effusion were observed in endemic HCoV CAP. Coinfection was not observed in patients with SARS-CoV-2 CAP, but was observed in more than half of the patients with endemic HCoV CAP. There were distinctive differences in the clinical and radiologic findings between SARS-CoV-2 and endemic HCoV CAP. Further investigations are required to elucidate the mechanism underlying this difference. Follow-up observations are needed to determine if the presentation of SARS-CoV-2 CAP changes with repeated infection.


This thesis reports an analytical investigation into the import¬ ance of local stresses in influencing the behavior of concrete beams under combined moment and shear* A method of analysis which has recently become available was used to make calculations predicting the behavior of certain beams which were tested earlier by others and reported in the literature. Results of these calculations were com¬ pared with test results and also with computations made earlier which neglected the effect of local stresses. In all of the beams consid¬ ered, the local stresses were created by the application of loads and reactions through bearing on the top and bottom surfaces of the beams. All of these beams were rectangular beams with longitudinal rein¬ forcement but without web reinforcement. This investigation indicates that local stresses created by bearing tend to stabilize the propagation of tensile cracks as they approach the load points, and to increase predictions of beam ultimate load capacity, but usually the magnitude of the influence is small. One particular beam and crack path were studied for which consideration of local stresses gave rise to a significantly differ¬ ent prediction of failure from that predicted when local stresses were neglected, but in all other cases the predictions of behavior at failure were very similar, both with and without local stresses. As expected from a consideration of Saint-Venants principle, the quantitative effect of local stresses is negligible at considerable distances from the loads and reactions. In overall effect, the in¬ fluence of local stresses on beam behavior seems less important than certain other factors, for example, the amount of shearing force transferred across a tensile crack by dowel action of the longi¬ tudinal reinforcement.


Abstract Understanding the environmental conditions that shape the physical support for developing social sustainability requires analysing the symbiotic relationship of people and place. Place is considered an essential aspect in shaping social identity, identification and cohesion. Thus, this paper explores the role of the physical realm in enabling co-design practices within community initiatives. It outlines two PhD research projects focused on strengthening community engagement using co-design approaches. It evidences its findings analysing two different settings. Firstly, a PhD research project exploring the mutual influences between spatial and service design also through the investigation of public spaces as platforms for strategic interventions with experimentations in the urban fabric of Milan (Italy). Secondly, a doctoral research exploring the value of community co-design on rural areas in the Highlands and Islands (Scotland) associated with Leapfrog, a three-year-funded project by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Conducted by two different research teams, we analyse to what extent participatory processes can strengthen communities and their identities, as well as reflecting on place-based approaches for design strategies of territories.


Vascular dysfunction is recognised as an integrative marker of CVD. While dietary strategies aimed at reducing CVD risk include reductions in the intake of SFA, there are currently no clear guidelines on what should replace SFA. The purpose of this review was to assess the evidence for the effects of total dietary fat and individual fatty acids (SFA, MUFA and n-6 PUFA) on vascular function, cellular microparticles and endothelial progenitor cells. Medline was systematically searched from 1966 until November 2010. A total of fifty-nine peer-reviewed publications (covering fifty-six studies), which included five epidemiological, eighteen dietary intervention and thirty-three test meal studies, were identified. The findings from the epidemiological studies were inconclusive. The limited data available from dietary intervention studies suggested a beneficial effect of low-fat diets on vascular reactivity, which was strongest when the comparator diet was high in SFA, with a modest improvement in measures of vascular reactivity when high-fat, MUFA-rich diets were compared with SFA-rich diets. There was consistent evidence from the test meal studies that high-fat meals have a detrimental effect on postprandial vascular function. However, the evidence for the comparative effects of test meals rich in MUFA or n-6 PUFA with SFA on postprandial vascular function was limited and inconclusive. The lack of studies with comparable within-study dietary fatty acid targets, a variety of different study designs and different methods for determining vascular function all confound any clear conclusions on the impact of dietary fat and individual fatty acids on vascular function.


The railways of Manchuria offer an intriguing vantage point for an international history of northeast Asia. Before the completion of the Trans-Siberian railway in 1916, the only rail route from the Imperial Russian capital of St. Petersburg to the Pacific port of Vladivostok transited Manchuria. A spur line from the Manchurian city of Harbin led south to ice-free Port Arthur. Control of these two rail lines gave Imperial Russia military, economic, and political advantages that excited rivalry on the part of Japan and unease on the part of weak and divided China. Meanwhile, the effort to defend and retain that strategic hold against rising Japanese power strained distant Moscow. Control of the Manchurian railways was contested in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 Japan's 1931 invasion and establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo the second Sino-Japanese War and World War II in Asia and, the Chinese civil war that culminated in the Communist victory over the Nationalists. Today, the railways are critical to plans for development of China's sparsely populated interior. This volume brings together an international group of scholars to explore this fascinating history.


This paper explores functional decomposition in early design. In the first part of this study, we explore how the three most common methods (top-down, energy-flow, enumeration) affect concept generation for novice design teams (n=25). We found that nearly all the features in the final concept could be mapped to the function diagram, though not all the functions mapped to the actual concept. This suggests that there is not much change in system functionality between these two phases, despite being separated by a few weeks. We also found that teams who used top-down and energy-flow performed nearly the same, and teams who used enumeration performed worse than those who used energy-flow. Based on these results, we recommend using either top-down or energy-flow, but not enumeration in early design. We also observed that teams used the diagramming process to reach a consensus and support team communication. The second part of this study evaluates design reports (n=78) from industry engineers taking a distance learning design course. Even though roughly half of the reports used functional decomposition, there was no correlation between using functional decomposition and final design quality as measured by various grade components. We also observed that half of the function diagrams were tree diagrams. This supports prior findings that a top-down, tree-based approach is more intuitive for engineers. Together, these results suggest that functional decomposition is helpful for team communication, but show no direct correlation with design outcome. We also recommend training strategies for teaching decomposition based on differences between the two datasets.Copyright © 2015 by ASME


The carrier-envelope phase (CEP) shift of few-cycle pulses along a focal region is evaluated without neglecting the pulse reshaping inherent to any focusing process. The CEP shift is then found to strongly depend on the chirp of the focused pulse. Based on this effect, realistic optical systems for focusing few-cycle pulses are proposed to control their focal CEP shift for their phase-sensitive interactions with matter.


Of the 1,705 post-conviction DNA and non-DNA exonerations that have occurred from 1989 to the end of 2015, approximately 13 percent of these wrongful convictions were due to false confessions, and virtually all of these occurred in either homicide or rape cases. This chapter discusses why false confessions occur and discusses the ways that law enforcement training can be modified to avoid false confessions. False confessions primarily occur due to a lack of proper training, poor investigative practices, and the use of scientifically invalidated and/or high risk interrogation techniques and strategies. To safeguard against false confessions, the author argues that investigators should receive training on the following topics: 1) the existence, variety, causes and psychology of false confessions; 2) the indicia of reliable and unreliable statements and how to distinguish between them; 3) the need to obtain corroborating evidence to verify suspects' confessions; and 4) avoidance of inadvertent contamination of interrogations by disclosure of non-public case facts to suspects.


The Indian shield represents a vast repository of the Palaeoproterozoic geological record. Built over the four large amalgamated Archaean nuclei (Dharwar, Bastar, Singhbhum and Aravalli–Bundelkhand) the major and minor Palaeoproterozoic sedimentary basins and supracrustal sequences in India are comparable in scale, and perhaps also in development, to those of North America, Africa, Australia and Brazil. The deformation of these supracrustal sequences, attendant metamorphism and emplacement of plutonic bodies hold important clues to their connection with major orogenies. Research in these areas has led to investigations into global correlation, which in turn has had a direct bearing on refining models of Palaeoproterozoic supercontinent assembly and break-up. This book covers various aspects of regional geology as well as broader issues of the Indian Palaeoproterozoic geology and its global context. It is an outcome of the UNESCO-IGCP 509 Palaeoproterozoic Supercontinents and Global Evolution research project.


On the Modeling of Signaling Networks with Petri Nets by Natalie Berestovsky The whole-cell behavior arises from the interplay among signaling, metabolic, and regulatory processes. Proper modeling of the overall function requires accurate interpretations of each component. The highly concurrent nature of the inner-cell interactions motivates the use of Petri nets as a framework for the whole-cell modeling. Petri nets have been successfully used in modeling of metabolic pathways, as it allows for a straightforward mapping from its stoichiometric matrix to the Petri net structure. The Boolean interpretation and modeling of transcription regulation networks also lends itself easily to Petri net modeling. However, Petri net modeling of signal transduction networks has been largely lacking, with the exception of simple ad hoc applications to specific signaling pathways. In this thesis, I investigate the applicability of Petri nets to modeling of signaling networks, by systematically analyzing initial token assignments, firing strategies, and robustness to errors and abstractions in the estimates of molecule concentrations and reaction rates.


Abstract Background: Little is known about domestic violence in Qatar due various cultural factors. Further, the studies that exist ignore victims' social and cultural factors that prevent the victims from seeking help. That is, there are factors related to family dynamic, gender roles, and culture constraints which make it difficult for victims of domestic violence form seeking help or protection. Methods: Data collected from 50 cases of domestic violence in Qatar. The data were collected via face-to-face interview in-depth interviews with individuals who experienced various forms of domestic violence in Qatar. Results: The study found that young married females with low level of educational attunement were more likely than other women to experienced domestic violence. Also, most cause of domestic violence started in early childhood. The predators of domestic violence such as sexual abuse tends to be a close family members who usually not suspected of such activities. Conclusions: This study in one of th...


Powdered international reference materials and samples with previously obtained conventional geochemical data were analysed using a benchtop portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) spectrometer to test the abilities of pXRF in silicate rock lithogeochemistry. Results from international reference materials illustrate that pXRF can provide very precise data for many major, minor, and trace elements, generally with RSD values of <7.5 % and many <5 %, except at very low concentrations (i.e. approaching the limit of detection). Despite good precision, accuracy is highly variable and ranges from excellent to reasonable for many major and minor elements (±15–20 % relative difference, RD, for Al2O3, SiO2, K2O, CaO, Fe2O3, TiO2, and MnO±S), base metals (±20 % for Cu, Zn), the low field strength (LFSE) and high field strength elements (HFSE) (±15 % RD for Rb, Ba, Zr; ±20 % RD for Nb). Poor accuracy was obtained for MgO, P2O5, and the transition elements (V, Cr, Ni); Sr shows variable accuracy. Comparison of pXRF results to independent samples with data from conventional analyses illustrates very poor correlation for MgO, P2O5, V, Cr, and Ni, suggesting they have poor accuracy by pXRF. Aluminum (Al2O3), SiO2, and Zn have r2 values of c. 0.6–0.7 illustrating reasonable correlation, whereas most other elements (S, K2O, CaO, TiO2, MnO, Fe2O3, Co, Cu, Pb, Rb, Sr, Ba, Zr, Nb, U, As, and Mo) have very good to excellent correlation between pXRF data and conventional analysis (i.e. r2 >0.80). In addition, many of the elements with r2 >0.8 have slopes that are close to 1 or within 20 % of ideal, indicating that pXRF is replicating the results of conventional analyses and likely within ±20 % of what can be obtained by conventional methods. Down-hole profiles of pXRF data and element ratios replicate the geometry of the profiles from conventional analyses and illustrate the ability of the pXRF to discriminate rock type, alteration, and mineralization in unknown samples. Portable XRF can provide fit-for-purpose data that is useful in discriminating lithogeochemical variations related to lithology, alteration, and mineralization. However, pXRF should be considered a preliminary screening tool for sample selection and not a substitute for conventional lithogeochemical methods (e.g. XRF, fusion ICP-ES and ICP-MS), particularly when important economic decisions are to be made using such data (e.g. NI-43-101 resource calculations). Supplementary Material: Collated data for repeat analyses of reference materials in Mining Plus (Table 1) and Soil 3 Beam (Table 2) modes. Tables 3-9 contain plots comparing results from pXRF to accepted values for various reference materials. All tables are available at at www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18735


Gas turbine operations with liquid and gaseous fossil fuels are an established route for power generation. Use of low calorific value fuel like producer gas in gas turbine is not well established and currently there are no Gas turbines designed for this fuel. This paper focuses on the work done at the Combustion Gasification and Propulsion Laboratory of Indian Institute of Science to develop a high pressure gasifier to handle variety of biomass and fuel a gas turbine. The gas turbine explored in this work is Rover's gas turbine designed for Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) operation. The adaptation of combustion chamber to accept producer gas as fuel is also discussed. The combustion chamber of the Rovers turbine was retained and the liquid fuel injector was replaced with gas distributor. Experiments on the combustor were conducted with producer gas at ambient pressure and elevated pressure to test the ease of ignition and stability. Several distributor designs were experimented to establish the right type for obtaining stoichiometric air and fuel mixing at the spark plug. The gas turbine was run with producer gas, the efficiency with aviation turbine fuel and with biomass was found to be roughly same.


All along the ripening period, the radiative and thermic stresses of the grapevine may be reinforced by the use of a reflective soil cover (aluminized film). Such a treatment leads to repercussions on the berries, on the must composition and finally on the wine quality. During such a preliminary experiment, we demonstrated that the temperature increase and/or the reinforcement of the reflected ultraviolet radiations (measured at 254 nm) at the level of grape berries severely impaired the development of yeast cells at their surfaces. By means of an artificial inoculation of grapes at the beginning of the ripening period with a mixture of four different yeast genera ( Saccharomyces cerevisiae , Hanseniaspora uvarum , Pichiafermentans and Schizosaccharomyces pombe ), we demonstrated that the repartition of yeast genera amongst this population was affected by the treatment of stocks with the aluminized film: during the experiment presented in this paper, the Saccharomyces genus was favoured. One may consider by extension similar effects resulting from the reflective properties of some natural soils. Such effects may considerably influence the distribution of wild yeast flora during the spontaneous fermentation of musts. If such an hypothesis is confirmed at a local or regional level, it will represent a first significant piece of the definition of one of the aspects of the" terroir" effect on the characteristics of wines.


Background : A regular proprioception training programme leads to significant improvement in the proprioceptive ability of athletes.
Research subject : The purpose of this study was to investigate the suitability of the knee joint proprioception for active taekwondo athletes and to examine the effects of an eight-week training proprioception programme on knee joint proprioception.
Type of study : Randomised controlled trial.
Methods : A total of 42 healthy taekwondo athletes participated in this study voluntarily. They were randomly divided into two groups: An experimental group of males (N=13) and females (N=13) undertaking a proprioception training programme and a control group of males (N=8) and females (N=8) who did not undertake the proprioception training programme during the eight-week period. The proprioception training programme was applied to the subjects three days per week for eight weeks. The measurement of the proprioception of subjects was taken using the Multi-joint System Biodex System 3 Pro isokinetic testing. Knee joint proprioception was evaluated twice: before and after the proprioception training programme.
Results : After the eight-week proprioception training programme, significant differences were observed in both the dominant (differences of mean 1.76±0.41 for 30° and 2.83±1.52 for 70° in female; 1.86±0.66 for 30° and 2.96±2.4 for 70° in male) and non-dominant (differences of mean 1.99±1.4 for 30° and 2.94±1.16 for 70° in female; 1.67±0.64 for 30° and 4.44±2.89 for 70° in male) knee joint proprioception scores in the experimental group (p 0.05).
Conclusion : The proprioception training programme improved knee joint proprioception based on the detection of positional sense for female and male taekwondo athletes.


Locally advanced breast cancer (LABC) comprises a heterogeneous group of diseases. It incorporates a subset of stage IIB (T3N0) disease, stage III disease and inflammatory breast cancer. In the developed world, 7% of breast cancer patients have stage III disease at diagnosis. In developing countries, LABC constitutes about 30 - 60% of all cases, most probably attributable to a lack of education and poor socioeconomic status. The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program of the National Cancer Institute, USA demonstrates a median survival of 4.9 years, while the 5-year relative survival rate for this group of women is 55% with multimodality treatment, excluding biologics.


Law in modern market societies serves both democratic and economic functions. In its economic function, law is a service, a means of enhancing the value of transactions and organizations. Yet modern market economies continue to rely on the state, rather than the market, to provide this service. This article investigates whether private provision of law may be superior to public provision. We look in particular at corporate law, where there is a substantial literature exploring the efficiency implications of "regulatory competition" and compare this competition with market competition between private providers. Drawing from the well-known framework of spatial models of imperfect competition, we argue that while neither public nor private competition may lead to the optimal corporate law regimes, there are at least some reasons to believe that private provision may be preferable. Specifically, we present a model that demonstrates when regulatory competition is likely to produce widespread emulation and little innovation. Private competition, in contrast, is more likely to lead to greater "product" differentiation, which benefits heterogeneous consumers of corporate law services in the short term. Moreover, such differentiation also has long-term benefits, as providers are able to "learn" more about business organizations' demand-side characteristics and can thus tailor their services to business needs more effectively. Copyright 2006, Oxford University Press.


This summer, an academic consortium led by Tapio Schneider, a German-born climate dynamicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and backed by prominent technology philanthropists, including Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, will launch an ambitious project to create a new climate model. Their upstart project seeks to leverage breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, satellite imaging, and high-resolution simulation to change how climate models render small-scale phenomena, such as sea ice and cloud formation, that have long bedeviled efforts to forecast climate. A focus will be on the major source of uncertainty in current models: the decks of stratocumulus clouds that form off coastlines and populate the trade winds. A shift in their extent by just a few percentage points could turn the global thermostat up or down by a couple of degrees or more within this century—and current models can9t predict which way they will go.


Problem statement: As distributed real-time multimedia services are accessed by users from different locations, the run-time performance must be managed and monitored to get a clear view of how media web services perform within their operational environments and to perform control actions to modify and adjust the their behavior. Otherwise it will provide negative effects on the reputation of service provider. Therefore the main objective of this study was to design and implement a media web service composed dynamically and to monitor the Dynamically Composed Media Web Services (DCMWS) through Parallel Performance Monitoring Service (PPMS). The PPMS is a web service that executed in parallel with media web service using multi threading technology. Approach: The PPMS monitors the run-time performance of Dynamically Composed Media Web Services (DCMWS) which were represented as BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) processes. The run-time performance of the media web services such as timeouts, external errors, percentage of successful completion of individual media web services and the occurrence of fault were monitored and using this result the corrective actions were taken by service providers. Results: The effectiveness of PPMS had been evaluated for media-on-demand composite web service and its results showed an improvement on the performance of run time monitoring of media web services. Conclusion: To facilitate management decisions and media web service behavior modifications, service providers need to monitor the run-time performance of DCMWS. In this context, the approach outlined in this study was most appropriate, convenient and efficient. The proposed PPMS herein played a crucial role in monitoring run-time performance of DCMWS.


BACKGROUND
Our objective was to systematically review the incidence of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and the efficacy of thromboprophylaxis in critically ill adults, including patients admitted to intensive care units and following trauma, neurosurgery, or spinal cord injury.

METHODS
Two authors independently searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, abstract databases, and the Cochrane database. Data were extracted independently in triplicate.

RESULTS
Ten percent to 30% of medical and surgical intensive care unit patients develop DVT within the first week of intensive care unit admission. The use of subcutaneous low-dose heparin reduced the rate by 50% compared with no prophylaxis. Approximately 60% of trauma patients developed DVT within the first 2 weeks of admission. Use of unfractionated heparin appears to decrease the incidence of DVT by only 20%, whereas low-molecular-weight heparin decreases the incidence by a further 30%. The estimated prevalence of DVT in neurosurgical patients not given prophylaxis is 22% to 35%. Mechanical prophylaxis is efficacious, with a pooled odds ratio in 5 randomized trials of 0.28. Use of low-molecular-weight heparin has been investigated as an adjunct to mechanical prophylaxis with a pooled odds ratio of 0.59 compared with graduated compression stockings alone. The incidence of DVT without prophylaxis in acute spinal cord injury patients is likely in excess of 50% to 80%. Studies of prophylaxis in these patients are too sparse to come to any definitive conclusion.

CONCLUSIONS
Critically ill patients commonly develop DVT, with rates that vary from 22% to almost 80%, depending on patient characteristics. Methods of prophylaxis proven in one group do not necessarily generalize to other critically ill patient groups. More potent prophylactic regimens other than unfractionated or low-molecular-weight heparins alone may be needed with higher-risk groups.


Hazelnut meal as a substitute for soybean meal in extruded feeds of rainbow trout was investigated. The performance of extruded feeds containing hazelnut meal as a substitute for 20% of soybean meal (Diet 2) and 30% of soybean meal (Diet 3) was compared to a nutritionally balanced control (Diet 1) (a commercial trout feed formulation). Each diet was fed to 3 replicate groups (initial BW: 36 ± 1.37 g; mean ± SD); the fish were fed the equivalent of 2% of their body weight, 2 times daily (0800 and 1600) for 64 days at 15 ± 0.11 °C under a natural photoperiod. There was no significant difference in weight gain between the control (Diet 1) and Diet 2. Diet 1 produced significantly higher weight gain than Diet 3. The carcass fat content of fish fed a fishmeal and soybean meal diet was significantly higher than that of fish fed the other diets. Weight gain, feed efficiency ratio, relative growth rate, and apparent net protein retention data showed that hazelnut meal had the potential to substitute 20% and 30% of soybean meal in extruded trout feeds.


In this paper, we achieved hysteresis controlled boost converter. We used the architecture of the charge pump with hysteresis comparator for low output ripple to achieve boost convert purpose. The characteristic of hysteresis comparator is to efficiently decrease output ripple, at the same time limit output ripple about 50 mV to 55 mV. Under circumstances of output load adjust, will still provide fine transient response performance. The peak efficiency is 81.95 % and the power consumption is 14.46 mW. We used TSMC 0.18 μm CMOS 1P6M process for HSPICE simulation and finished the work of tape out service. This design in the post-layout simulation with HSPICE under different variation of environment, the simulation results show that this circuit is functioning properly. The chip area is 0.723 mm x 0.723 mm. KeywordsHysteresis, Voltage Booster, Peak Efficiency, Voltage Converter.


Pasifika mental health continues to be a growing concern in New Zealand. This article reviews and presents online available research concerning the mental health of Pasifika in New Zealand. A comprehensive online literature search was conducted. In total, 967 online articles were identified, and 58 met the criteria to be included in the final review. The review identified overarching research themes related to Pacific mental health in New Zealand, specifically regarding mental health prevalence, mental health services, mental health perceptions, mental health prevention or intervention, and suicide. Further, this review explores the role that education, culturally appropriate services, and engaging community activities can play in preventing further mental health disparity among Pasifika in New Zealand.


OBJECTIVE
To describe the cognitive instrument used in the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS) in Mexican individuals aged 60 and over and to provide normative values for the Cross Cultural Cognitive Examination test and its modified versions (CCCE).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The CCCE was administered to 5,120 subjects as part of a population-based sample free of neurologic and psychiatric disease from the MHAS 2012 survey. Normative data were generated by age and education for each test in the cognitive instrument as well as for the total cognition score. Pearson correlations and analysis of variance were used to examine the relationship of scores to demographic variables.

RESULTS
Results present standardized normed scores for eight cognitive domains: orientation, attention, verbal learning memory, verbal recall memory, visuospatial abilities, visual memory, executive function, and numeracy in three education groups within three age groups.

CONCLUSION
These findings highlight the need for population-based norms for the CCCE, which has been used in population-based studies. Demographic factors such as age and education must be considered when interpreting the cognitive measures.


'I long to study the purely national, natural character of an Irishwoman' When Horatio, the son of an English lord, is banished to his father's Irish estate as punishment for gambling debts and dissipated living, he adopts the persona of knight errant and goes off in search of adventure. On the wild west coast of Connaught he finds remnants of a romantic Gaelic past a dilapidated castle, a Catholic priest, a deposed king and the king's lovely and learned daughter, Glorvina. In this setting and among these characters Horatio learns the history, culture and language of a country he had once scorned, but he must do so in disguise for his own English ancestors are responsible for the ruin of the Gaelic family he comes to love. Written after the Act of Union, The Wild Irish Girl (1806) is a passionately nationalistic novel and a founding text in the discourse of Irish nationalism. The novel proved so controversial in Ireland that Sydney Owenson, later Lady Morgan, was put under surveillance by Dublin Castle. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.


Extracted from text ... THE QUALITY EDGE September 2005 29
Moving the quality brand
in South Africa
At SAQI we believe that quality in an organisation should be
seen as an investment and not as a cost structure. We believe
this also applies to nations.
Certainly it has been this Institute?s philosophy and business
approach since our inception in 1993. Indeed our recently published
Annual Report for 2003/04 (see www.saqi.co.za) highlights
many projects and innovations that SAQI developed during
the past year in the sphere of quality in spite of the financial
constraints of the small, annual government grant.
A grant which in any case is coming to an end in March
2006.
For some time SAQI has ..


A 46-year-old male with a fixed stenosis in the mid-segment of the left anterior descending artery underwent balloon angioplasty. The procedure included the placement of two Wiktor stents because of severe dissection. Five months later he complained of Prinzmetal angina with ST elevation in the anterior wall. A metilergobasine test during the coronary arteriogram showed a discrete, severe spasm on the proximal segment of the left anterior descending artery. Because of a lack of symptomatic improvement with high-dose nitrates and calcium blockers, a Wiktor coronary stent was successfully implanted in the proximal left anterior descending artery, resulting in complete relief of the angina.


The articles by well-known international experts intend to facilitate more elaborate expositions of the research presented at the seminar, and to collect and document the results of the various discussions, including ideas and open problems that were identified. Correspondingly the book will consist of two parts. Part I will consist of extended articles describing research presented at the seminar. This will include papers on tracking, motion capture, displays, cloth simulation, and applications. Part II will consist of articles that capture the results of breakout discussions, describe visions, or advocate particular positions. This will include discussions about system latency, 3D interaction, haptic interfaces, social gaming, perceptual issues, and the fictional "Holodeck".


This paper argues that the Roberts Court's preemption decisions suggest a pattern of deferring to state laws in "regulatory" contexts while presumptively preempting them in "commercial" contexts. As I use these terms, "commercial" contexts involve federal and state laws having the purpose of defining the rules for bargaining and remedies for breach of bargains, while "regulatory" contexts involve state and federal laws defining the baseline entitlements over which the parties bargain. The "mailbox rule" defining when a contract is accepted is an example of a "commercial" law, while a prohibition on filling a wetlands or building a cement plant in a residential zone are examples of "regulatory" laws. I suggest that, in "commercial" contexts so defined, the Court's decisions seem to favor preemption. In "regulatory" contexts, the decisions lean against preemption. In both contexts, the Court enforces the independence of each level of government from the other, striking blows for states' control over their own property and personnel by refusing to give federal agencies exclusive control over the enforcement of state law in Cuomo v. Clearing House Association. The flip side of state autonomy is federal supremacy: Despite the exhortations of some scholars, the Court seems to have continued to resist the idea that state law can be justified by its utility in reforming federal administrative processes. Put simply, the Roberts Court's decisions seem to follow a traditional script of dual federalism – that is, carving out separate spheres for state and federal governments and enforcing norms of mutual non-interference between these spheres. The paper concludes with speculation about whether there might be any normative justification for this pattern. One might argue that preemption is less costly when the state and federal rules in question define the framework for bargaining as opposed to the assignment of entitlements. By contrast, preemption of state laws defining entitlements to health, safety, bodily integrity, and property more generally tend to raise culturally and politically divisive issues that are best handled subnationally in a federal regime.


Language experience systematically constrains perception of speech contrasts that deviate phonologically and/or phonetically from those of the listener's native language. These effects are most dramatic in adults, but begin to emerge in infancy and undergo further development through at least early childhood. The central question addressed here is: How do nonnative speech perception findings bear on phonological and phonetic aspects of second language (L2) perceptual learning? A frequent assumption has been that nonnative speech perception can also account for the relative difficulties that late learners have with specific L2 segments and contrasts. However, evaluation of this assumption must take into account the fact that models of nonnative speech perception such as the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM) have focused primarily on naïve listeners, whereas models of L2 speech acquisition such as the Speech Learning Model (SLM) have focused on experienced listeners. This chapter probes the assumption that L2 perceptual learning is determined by nonnative speech perception principles, by considering the commonalities and complementarities between inexperienced listeners and those learning an L2, as viewed from PAM and SLM. Among the issues examined are how language learning may affect perception of phonetic vs. phonological information, how monolingual vs. multiple language experience may impact perception, and what these may imply for attunement of speech perception to changes in the listener's language environment. Commonalities and complementarities 3


This paper addresses the problem of the phase noise induced spectral spread in an OFDMA uplink scenario. Accompanied with power differences between the users at the receiver in a multiuser case, the phase noise induced spread causes performance degradation for users with low signal powers. This paper proposes a receiver-side digital signal processing methods to estimate and mitigate the spread caused by the transmitter-side phase noise. The introduced methods show a significant gain when compared with other conventional phase noise estimation and mitigation methods that are not designed especially for the multiuser scenario.


With the proliferation of computers in today's workplaces, work processes have changed: Especially in the field of knowledge work, which heavily relies on the use of information sources, electronic documents have become commonplace. However, despite the advantages of digital systems, like global access to information or advanced search facilities, physical media have not yet vanished. The amount of paper used is even still increasing. Even digitally available documents are often printed in order to leverage the unique affordances of printed paper (e.g., its flexibility, low weight, etc.). Another particular advantage of physical media on physical desks is their aptitude to support the spatial layout of sets of documents (e.g., piling or spreading them out or assigning categories to them through their spatial position, e.g., by placing them in the storage area vs. working area, or even more specialized areas on the desk for categories like "to be read" or "urgent"). As a result, most work processes do not only require the use of either digital or physical documents but the concurrent use of both types. We use the term "hybrid" to denote this concurrent use.

As of today, there is still only quite limited support for work practices that encompass digital and physical documents concurrently. According to common practice at stationary workplaces, digital documents are stored on a computer and viewed on a monitor in front of the user, while physical documents are placed on a desk, leading to a strict separation of digital and physical documents.

For several years, so-called digital tabletops have been available: desks with a large flat display acting as the desk surface, supplemented with touch-sensing capabilities. In principle, it is now possible for digital and physical documents to coexist on the table surface, laying the foundation for more sophisticated working practices. However, more than a decade since the advent of tabletops, the integration of digital and physical knowledge work still leaves a lot to be desired. Where digital tabletops are used today, their surface is always kept entirely clean of physical objects so as not to obstruct any of the interactive display surface. Since this is a quite alien use pattern for desks, tabletops have not yet gained a reasonable market share.

The primary goal of this thesis is to foster tighter integration between the digital and physical worlds. To do so, it first contributes the PeriTop concept, a two-class display concept that leverages the surfaces of objects as a secondary peripheral display in addition to the primary tabletop display. PeriTop serves as a basis for several further contributions presented in this thesis. All further contributions together are categorized into three main areas, namely, stationary hybrid knowledge work, layout for hybrid environments, and mobile workspaces.

In the first area, stationary hybrid knowledge work, this thesis contributes (1) ProjecTop, a novel concept for leveraging the surface of occluding objects to resolve occlusion "in situ" without the need for using additional display space on the tabletop, and (2) the StackTop concept for hybrid stacking, which allows arbitrary interweaving of digital and physical documents in a coherent stack.

In the second area, layout for hybrid environments, this thesis contributes (1) FreeTop, a flexible approach for assessing projection quality on surfaces in order to facilitate projection-based augmentation of physical objects, and (2) the FlowPut concept, an environment-aware layout system for interactive tangibles based on FreeTop.

In the third area, mobile workspaces, the aspect of mobile work in the context of hybrid work environments is tackled by contributing PiraTop, a concept for augmented reality (AR)-based remote access to stationary hybrid workspaces. It leverages the idea of spatial memory to facilitate access.

The final contribution of this thesis is the OverTop concept. OverTop combines the advantage of AR and the knowledge gained with PiraTop with the contributions on stationary desks, particularly PeriTop. Therefore, it considers head-mounted augmented reality displays as an addition to stationary tabletops, making the space above the desk surface and above the objects that populate the desk available for hybrid knowledge work.

The thesis concludes with a summary and an outlook on future work directions.


The present research examined how mode of play in an educational mathematics video game impacts learning, performance, and motivation. The game was designed for the practice and automation of arithmetic skills to increase fluency and was adapted to allow for individual, competitive, or collaborative game play. Participants (N 58) from urban middle schools were randomly assigned to each experimental condition. Results suggested that, in comparison to individual play, competition increased in-game learning, whereas collaboration decreased performance during the experimental play session. Although out-of-game math fluency improved overall, it did not vary by condition. Furthermore, competition and collaboration elicited greater situational interest and enjoyment and invoked a stronger mastery goal orientation. Additionally, collaboration resulted in stronger intentions to play the game again and to recommend it to others. Results are discussed in terms of the potential for mathematics learning games and technology to increase student learning and motivation and to demonstrate how different modes of engagement can inform the instructional design of such games.


HUBENOVA, T., A. ZAIKOV, E. KATSAROV and D. TERZIYSKI, 2015. Weaning of juvenile pikeperch (Sander lucioperca L.) from live food to artifi cial diet. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., Supplement 1, 21: 17–20 The aim of the experiment was to test two methods of juvenile pikeperch weaning from live food to artifi cial diet: variant 1: 8 days co-feeding with dry feed and frozen chironomids, followed by dry feed feeding and variant 2: two days feeding with frozen chironomids, followed by dry feed feeding. 1560 individuals of juvenile pikeperch with mean initial total length (TL) 2.540 ± 0.04 cm, weight (W) 0.181 ± 0.01 g and condition factor (K) 1.107 ± 0.03 from a earth pond were randomly distributed into 4 plastic tanks in a fl ow water system. The study was performed at stocking density of 6 ind.l-1 in double repeat. The weaning success was evaluated after 20 day rearing period. In the variant 1 there was achieved signifi cantly higher survival rate (mean 52.95%) in comparison with the variant 2 (mean 26.80%). The values of specifi c growth rate, body weight and body length are better in variant 1 than in variant 2, respectively: 2.184%/0.502%; 0.487 ± 0.02 g/0.377 ± 0.02 g; 3.711 ± 0.07 cm/3.356 ± 0.05 cm.


We present a method for the identification and classification of local symmetries in biological images. We aim at obtaining a precise estimate of symmetric junctions in a scale and rotation invariant way. The proposed method is template-free, which allows the test of any combination of arbitrary symmetry orders in an effective way. Our measure of local symmetry is derived from a circular harmonic wavelet analysis. The basis functions exhibit different symmetry orders. We use this measure to formulate a classifier to label the different junctions into one of several symmetry classes. We present experimental results, and validate our method using both on synthetic images and biological micrographs.


Objectives Subjects with rheumatoid factor positive infl ammatory polyarthritis (IP) are known to have increased mortality from cardiovascular disease (CVD). A study was undertaken to examine the risk and baseline predictors of admission with CVD in patients with recent-onset IP. Methods Subjects are recruited by the Norfolk Arthritis Register if they present to primary or secondary care with ≥2 swollen joints lasting ≥4 weeks. This analysis includes subjects recruited between 1995 and 1999. Baseline data on lifestyle, demographic characteristics, disease and treatment characteristics were collected. CVD admissions were identifi ed through record linkage with the only acute care hospital in the study region. First-episode hospitalisation rates were compared with those of the general population. Poisson regression was used to calculate the relative risk (RR) of admission for patients with IP (overall and for each risk factor). Death certifi cates were obtained from the national death register. Results 800 patients with recent-onset IP were followed for a median of 7.0 years. 64 CVD-related hospitalisations were observed (11.7 per 1000 person-years). Patients with IP were twice as likely (RR=2.0; 95% CI 1.5 to 2.5) to be hospitalised for CVD as the general population. Diffi culty walking at baseline was a signifi cant predictor of CVD admission and baseline non-steroidal anti-infl ammatory drug use was associated with a reduced risk of CVD admission. Conclusions Patients with IP are at increased risk of CVD-related hospitalisation, within 7 years of symptom onset. Informing patients about lifestyle modifi cation may reduce the risk of CVD.


Pre-eminent author and art historian Simon Schama has written widely on art for many years to great acclaim. In Hang-Ups, a personal selection of his articles from, amongst others, The New Yorker, appears in Britain for the very first time. Brilliantly and lucidly written by one of the most singular voices in non-fiction, this volume of provocative and often idiosyncratic essays makes hugely satisfying reading for lovers of both art and social history. In contains pieces on artists as diverse as David Hockney, Rembrandt and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and on such subjects as the unforgettable peculiarity of Stanley Spencer. From the author whose writing has been called sublime and whose ability to bring art and history vividly to life has earned him admiration worldwide, Hang-Ups is Schamas rallying cry for the art lover to look at familiar works of art and their artists and embrace a new way of seeing.


In essential hypertension sympathetic nerve firing is commonly increased. A central nervous system origin has been presumed but not tested directly. To estimate cerebral norepinephrine release in essential hypertension, spillover of norepinephrine into the cerebrovascular circulation was measured by isotope dilution, with high internal jugular venous sampling. Norepinephrine was released into the cerebrovascular circulation in both hypertensive patients and healthy volunteers and was present after administration of the ganglion blocker trimethaphan and in patients with sympathetic nervous failure, indicating that brain neurons and not cerebrovascular sympathetic nerves were the probable source. Although differing among hypertensive patients, norepinephrine spillover on average was higher in the hypertensive patients (153 +/- 41 pmol/min) than in healthy subjects (59 +/- 12 pmol/min; p less than 0.05), and was elevated in six of 17 patients, in whom the accompanying whole body norepinephrine spillover rate was higher than in the remaining 11 patients (p less than 0.01). To test for a possible link between brain norepinephrine release and human sympathetic nervous function, the effect of the tricyclic antidepressant desipramine (0.3 mg/kg i.v.) on both brain and whole body norepinephrine spillover was measured in healthy volunteers. Desipramine lowered the cerebrovascular spillover of norepinephrine, its precursor dihydroxyphenylalanine, and its metabolite dihydroxyphenylglycol by 50-80% and produced a mean fall of 35% in whole body norepinephrine spillover. One interpretation of these results is that human sympathetic nerve firing is dependent on norepinephrine release within the brain and that increased cerebral norepinephrine release may possibly be present in some patients with essential hypertension, underlying their higher sympathetic nerve firing rates.


Abstract. Methane (CH4) variations on orbital timescales are often associated with variations in wetland coverage, most notably in the summer monsoon areas of the Northern Hemisphere. Here we test this assumption by simulating orbitally forced variations in global wetland emissions, using a simple wetland distribution and CH4 emissions model that has been run on the output of a climate model (CLIMBER-2) containing atmosphere, ocean and vegetation components. The transient climate modeling simulation extends over the last 650 000 yr and includes variations in land-ice distribution and greenhouse gases. Tropical temperature and global vegetation are found to be the dominant controls for global CH4 emissions and therefore atmospheric concentrations. The relative importance of wetland coverage, vegetation coverage, and emission temperatures depends on the specific climatic zone (boreal, tropics and Indian/Asian monsoon area) and timescale (precession, obliquity and glacial-interglacial timescales). Despite the low spatial resolution of the climate model and crude parameterizations for methane production and release, simulated variations in CH4 emissions agree well with those in measured concentrations, both in their time series and spectra. The simulated lags between emissions and orbital forcing also show close agreement with those found in measured data, both on the precession and obliquity timescale. We find causal links between atmospheric CH4 concentrations and tropical temperatures and global vegetation, but only covariance between monsoon precipitation and CH4 concentrations. The primary importance of the first two factors explains the lags found in the CH4 record from ice cores. Simulation of the dynamical vegetation response to climate variation on orbital timescales would be needed to reduce the uncertainty in these preliminary attributions.


This Working Paper is concerned with the use of co-design and co-production approaches in policymaking in the fields of agriculture and the environment. It draws together evidence and key findings from the
social sciences on co-design, co-production and related participatory
approaches and discusses their differences, strengths, and weaknesses. It
outlines why these approaches are considered to add value to policymaking and
explains why they have become increasingly popular in recent decades. The paper
also looks at the principles of different participatory approaches and some of the
methods they use. It makes policy recommendations, and highlights evidence
gaps.


The global downturn in demand for IT skills has not left Singapore unscathed. While the demand for information systems graduates has not been as adversely affected as that for traditional computer science ones, there appears to be a drop in the entry quality of students seeking to do information systems degrees. While there appears to be some turnaround on the horizon, to better prepare for the future it is timely to examine the current state of IS as a discipline in Singapore and understand what might be the driving forces that shape it. Using Whitley's theory of scientific change as a theoretical framework [1984a, 1984b], this case study seeks to explore the degree of professionalization and the maturity of IS as a discipline in Singapore through analysis of data gathered from in-depth interviews and secondary data sources. It is found that of the four constructs proposed by Whitley for determining if a discipline is a mature, distinct scientific one, the IS discipline in Singapore clearly satisfies three: the discipline has a high level of professionalization, strong scientific reputation, and well-established research competence and skills. While the IS researchers agree that the discipline has a common vocabulary with which to communicate with one another, they also agree that it is not unknown to the researchers outside the discipline and thus, in this aspect, the discipline only satisfies part of the fourth construct in Whitley's theory.


Macroporous hydrogels based on acrylamide, as well as on 2‐acrylamido‐2‐methylpropane sulfonic acid monomers, were prepared using N,N′‐methylenebis(acrylamide) crosslinker in frozen aqueous solutions. The cryogelation reactions at temperatures as low as −25°C were carried out isothermally by use of two techniques. First, after addition of the polymerization initiator into the reaction solution, the system was immediately cooled down to −196°C using liquid nitrogen and then, the system was immersed into a thermostate at the desired subzero temperature T prep . It was found that the precooling of the reaction system before the onset of the reactions provides formation of superfast responsive hydrogels at temperatures close to the freezing point of water. The precooling step however destroyed the regularity of the pores in the hydrogel networks. As a second technique to achieve isothermal cryogelation, hydroquinone as the polymerization inhibitor was included into the reaction solution. It was shown that, the addition of hydroquinone produces more monodisperse and smaller pores. The hydrogels obtained by both techniques exhibit size‐independent superfast swelling behavior in response to the external stimuli.


Genome sequencing has affected studies into the biology of all classes of organisms and this is certainly true for filamentous fungi. The level with which biological systems can be studied since the availability of genomes and post-genomic technologies is beyond what most people could have imagined previously. The fungal genera Aspergillus and Penicillium contain some species that are amongst the most widely used industrial microorganisms and others that are serious pathogens of plants, animals and humans. These genera are also at the forefront of fungal genomics with many genome sequences available and a whole genus genome sequencing project in progress for Aspergillus. This book highlights some of the changes in the studies into these fungi, since the availability of genome sequences. The contributions vary from insights in the taxonomy of these genera, use of genomics for forward genetics and genomic adaptations, to specific stories addressing virulence, carbon starvation, sulphur metabolism, feruloyl esterases, secondary metabolism and pH modulation, to the development of novel methodology for use in parallel to genome sequencing. It therefore provides a taste of the current status of research in Penicillium and Aspergillus and a promise of many more things to come. An essential reference for everyone working with Aspergillus and Penicillium and other filamentous fungi and the book is also recommended reading for everyone with an interest in fungal genomics.


Contemporary warfare is increasingly waged in urban settings and is often characterized by asymmetry between the parties. This trend is only likely to continue in light of a more and more urbanized world. It is compounded by the fact that belligerents often avoid facing their enemies in the open, intermingling instead with the civilian population, putting civilian lives and infrastructure at risk. Eyal Weizman is an architect and academic who has spent much of his career writing and thinking about the interaction of violence and the built environment. He has worked extensively on the ways in which war is fought in built-up areas and on how architecture can design an environment that is either more or less conducive to urban warfare. Most recently, he has been developing the new field of forensic architecture, which aims to research incidents that unfold in urban areas, examine the architectural aspects involved and draw patterns from those stories. In this interview, Professor Weizman shares some of his reflections on war in cities with the Review.


A great deal of understanding into the behaviour of composite steel-concrete structures in fire has been developed since the Cardington frame fire tests (UK) 1990s. This has now been broadened so that structures in fire design has a real engineering basis and is not reliant on results from single element testing in the standard furnace. Several projects involving office buildings in the UK and abroad have highlighted the need for developing the understanding of whole frame behaviour in fire. Since 9-11 robust engineering solutions where the response of the building to an event like fire is known are in great demand. The basics of structural mechanics at high temperatures can be used in design to understand many structures with the aid of computer modelling. This paper provides a direct comparison between the structural response of an 11-storey office building now constructed in the city of London, when designed in a prescriptive manner, with applied fire protection on all the load bearing steelwork, and the response of the same structure designed using a performance based approach leaving the majority of secondary steelwork unprotected. The intent is to demonstrate that structural stability during the fire limit state can be maintained in specific cases without relying on passive fire protection. This paper contributes to the field of structural fire engineering by extending the research work previously conducted by the authors 1 to a real design case and addresses the issues raised by approving authorities, insurers and the client when a fire engineered approach is used to calculate structural response to fire. It also demonstrates the use of advanced analysis to understand beam-core connection response in fire, as part of a series of global finite element analyses to ensure that the unprotected structure proposed provides structural stability and maintains compartmentation for the design fires agreed with the necessary stakeholders in this project.


In industry today, there is a need for designing modem instruments for quantitative and
qualitative inspection of wood, wood-based materials and finished products.
Development of technologies using electric fields requires a profound knowledge of the
dielectric properties of wood. One of the promising techniques is the Electrical
Capacitance Tomography (ECT).
Constructing a capacitive tomographic profile of wood and fiberboards has several
applications in industry and agriculture. In this study a technique based on multifrequency
square- wave pulse signal is being used to probe the sample. The output signal
is amplified, filtered and used to build property surface profiles for different local
lumber samples. Analysis of the effect of different stimulating frequency on the overall
contour shape of different samples is compared and the appropriate frequency is singled out. Details on how this technique can be utilized to develop a capacitive sensor are also
explained.
Two capacitive sensors were designed with different dimensions for the sensing plate.
The capacitive output of the sensors can be related to the different properties of the
material under test (MUT). In this study, the sensors were tested for moisture content,
thickness variations and local defects present in the sample material.
Both sensors were tested on local lumber samples and fiberboards. Contour plots were
obtained for the output of the system, which represent the gradient changes in the wood
moisture content as the probe moves across the material under test. The sensor with the
smaller dimension probe proved to be superior in resolving the details of the sample and
distinguishing the knots and defects of the sample. The larger probe is more accurate in
determining the bulk moisture of the samples and more sensitive to thickness variations.
The measurement accuracy of the moisture content percentage and thickness variation is
about f 2.88% and +_ 0.035 cm respectively.
Even though the proposed sensors offer less accuracy than expensive LRC laboratory
analyzers and limited in frequency selection and voltage input to MUT, nonetheless they
are inexpensive to make, lighter in weight and can be easily implemented in -site or online
processing.


Objectives This objective of the study was to report the prevalence of internet addiction, sleep quality, depression, anxiety, and stress in undergraduate medical students. Methods A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study was conducted among 221 undergraduate medical students at Government Doon Medical College, Dehradun, Uttarakhand. Data pertaining to internet addiction, sleep quality, and depressive symptoms were also collected using validated and reliable questionnaires (Young Internet Addiction Test, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale 21). Results The prevalence of poor sleep quality, severe anxiety, and severe depression was 33.9%, 7.3% and 3.6%, respectively. The place of residence was significantly associated (p = 0.006) with internet addiction. The mean Young Internet Addiction Test score was higher in students residing in hostels compared with students staying with families. Stress was associated with age. The mean stress score was higher in the age group 17–20 compared with the 21–24 age group. Stress and depression were independent predictors of sleep quality. Conclusion Quality sleep is the key for good health. Based on limited samples, this study showed that poor sleep quality was associated with stress and depression. Hence, continuous counselling is suggested for supporting students managing their stress and depression.


Abstract No Child Left Behind has highlighted the need for new types of assessments that not only provide high-quality evidence about what students know and can do, but also help to move learning forward. This paper describes a linked set of formative and summative reading assessments designed to address the tradeoffs inherent in these two goals. Targeted skills include the full range of competencies underlying proficient reading at the middle-school level, including both lower-order skills such as oral reading fluency and decoding, and higher-order skills such as the ability to integrate and synthesize information from multiple texts. Data collected in pilot administrations of two prototype test forms are presented. Analyses suggest that this new approach yields acceptable measurement properties while simultaneously addressing crucial learning outcomes. This paper was presented June 23, 2009 at the National Conference on Student Assessment, Los Angeles, CA. Key words: NCLB, scenario-based assessments, reading comprehension, 21st century skills


The Home Energy Rating System (HERS) Building Energy Simulation Test (BESTEST) is a method for evaluating the credibility of software used by HERS to model energy use in buildings. The method provides the technical foundation for ''certification of the technical accuracy of building energy analysis tools used to determine energy efficiency ratings,'' as called for in the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (Title I, Subtitle A, Section 102, Title II, Part 6, Section 271). Certification is accomplished with a uniform set of test cases that Facilitate the comparison of a software tool with several of the best public-domain, state-of-the-art building energy simulation programs available in the United States. The HERS BESTEST work is divided into two volumes. Volume 1 contains the test case specifications and is a user's manual for anyone wishing to test a computer program. Volume 2 contains the reference results and suggestions for accrediting agencies on how to use and interpret the results.


Single crystal X-ray structure determinations are reported for eleven compounds all of which are either biologically active or potentially biologically important. The compounds fall into two distinct classes:- 1. Substituted diaminopyrimidines 2. Substituted aminopyrimidinones The first class of compounds were all selected on the basis of their common diaminopyrimidine nucleus which has been demonstrated to be a vital requirement for antifolate activity. They may all be described as non-classical or small molecule lipophilic dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) inhibitors, as opposed to the classical folate analogues, having the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier, enter cells via a rapid passive diffusion process, and achieve high intracellular concentrations. Thus they are an excellent choice in the search for crystallography in the solid state, providing geometrical and distance data not available from any other analytical techniques to date; supporting and enhancing data obtained in the lower resolution studies of protein crystallography. The biological importance of these compounds is discussed and an attempt is made to relate/predict their pharmacological activity to observed structural features in the crystalline environment. Special attention is focussed on hydrogen bonding, confirmational flexibility and hydrophobicity of substituents; each of which appear to make contributions to tight binding in the enzyme active site. Chapter 9 describes the use of data from the literature and the solid state modelling of an observed enzyme-substrate interaction in an attempt to define it more accurately in terms of its geometric flexibility. Of the second class, one compound (ABPP) is reported; studies in two different crystal forms. In demonstrating both antiviral and high interferon inducing activity it is possible that this compound could be useful against cancer and also viral infections.


Oncolytic virotherapy has recently emerged as a promising strategy for inducing tumor-specific cell death. Adenoviruses are widely and frequently used in oncolytic virotherapy. The mechanism of oncolytic adenovirus-mediated tumor suppression involves virus-induced activation of the autophagic machinery in tumor cells. Autophagy is a cytoprotective process that produces energy via lysosomal degradation of intracellular components as a physiologic response to various stresses, including hypoxia, nutrient deprivation, and disruption of growth signaling. However, infection with oncolytic adenoviruses induces autophagy and subsequent death of tumor cells rather than enhancing their survival. In this review, we summarize the beneficial role of autophagy in oncolytic adenoviral therapy, including the roles of infection, replication, and cell lysis. Numerous factors are involved in the promotion and inhibition of oncolytic adenovirus-mediated autophagy. Furthermore, recent evidence has shown that oncolytic adenoviruses induce autophagy-related immunogenic cell death (ICD), which enhances the antitumor immune response by inducing the activation of danger signal molecules and thus represents a novel cancer immunotherapy. Understanding the precise role of oncolytic adenovirus-induced autophagy and ICD could enhance the therapeutic potential of oncolytic adenoviral therapy for treating various cancers.


For the last two decades the idea of design patterns has been a useful abstraction for computer scientists and programmers. As computer scientists, and scientists of all fields, are more than just programmers, we can apply the patterns concept to more than just program design. Indeed, the meta-creative processes and research methods which generate the code can also be viewed through the patterning abstraction to identify research method patterns and the contexts where they can be applied. One example of a research pattern is Iterative Research. Two examples of this Iterative Research method will be presented: the first investigating the vehicle, interface, and team CONOPS for small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) used during Urban Search And Rescue (USAR) operations, and the second working to develop a multi-operator team HRI metric and robot usability evaluation method.


This article critically examines the re-entrenchment of formalism in European international legal thought. It does so by looking at how such a theory (and ideas more generally) may come to seem natural and persuasive within the discipline. Narrative analysis may be used as a critical method to look at how theories persuade, how they are 'sold' and how they produce certain mentalities. Formalism generally (and specifically, source formalism) is broken down as part method, part aesthetics, and part ideology (Section I). The theory is also critiqued for its concern with coherence and determinacy, its own imminent intellectual necessity, and with disciplinary progress. These narrative tactics are exposed as geared towards establishing theoretical dominance within the discipline (and in relation to other theories) (Section II). Specific variants of formalism also tend to eschew any analysis of the multitude of historical conditions and struggles from and for which it emerged. The contemporary European stance emerges against a background of anxiety over disciplinary autonomy and theories that have become dominant in US legal thought. It is a theory of resistance that often slips into essentializing the discipline (Section III). Finally, a specific thesis for formalism in the sources of international law is critiqued as one that cannot work on its own intellectual and theoretical terms. Source formalism (as argued through a Hartian positivist thesis and Wittgenstein) cannot fulfill the relative determinacy it seeks, nor (and more importantly) is such a determinacy required for the legitimacy and normativity of international law. This theory of formalism, whilst operating through ideas that are easily accepted in legal circles, is one that can only sustain itself through intellectual vagueness and contradictions. Five such 'intellectual arrests' are worked through (Section IV). Despite its popularity, there is no necessity for such a theory in contemporary legal thought. Whilst this article is a critique of a specific variant of formalism, it is also a demonstration of how certain dominant theories can constrain and shape our imagination in a multitude of ways. The ploys of marketing an idea remain, after all, predominantly liberal.


Dinoflagellate species such as Gymnodinium catenatum, Alexandrium
minutum and Alexandrium catenella produce potent neurotoxins, the causative
agents of Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP). Molecular genetic research on
these species is complicated by factors such as their symbiotic association
with bacteria, unusual chromosome structure, tough cellulose cell walls
(Alexandrium), and large amount of genomic and repetitive DNA. Little is
known about how, where and when PSP toxins (PSTs) are synthesised. The
basic precursors of the PST molecule(s) have been hypothesised, but no
genes coding for toxin production have been definitively identified. The
application of molecular methods to study armoured and unarmoured marine
dinoflagellates was assessed and techniques successfully refined, including
DNA and RNA isolation, flow cytometry, primer design, PCR, quantitative real
time PCR, molecular cloning and sequence analysis.

Methods for detecting intra- and extra-cellular bacteria were examined,
including fluorescence in situ hybridisation, light microscopy, agar plating and
PCR. Prolonged antibiotic treatment of G. catenatum, A. minutum and A.
catenella cultures reduced bacterial load but resulted in poor growth and cell
death of dinoflagellates. Close bacterial associations with dinoflagellates
may have an important and as yet poorly understood role in dinoflagellate
health and toxicity. A dinoflagellate (eukaryotic) origin of candidate PST
genes was confirmed by development of methods to isolate polyadenylated
RNA not contaminated with prokaryotic (bacterial) genes. This technique
was also crucial for gene expression studies.
Production of S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) is catalysed by the enzyme SAM
synthetase, which is encoded by Sam. This enzyme is involved in many
cellular metabolic processes, including the biosynthesis of PSTs. Sam was
characterised for the first time in toxic dinoflagellates, with multiple copies of
Sam present in individual strains. The most frequently identified copy of Sam
was highly conserved between dinoflagellates, but dissimilar to Sam
sequences from non-dinoflagellates. Two other candidate PST genes,
S-adenosylhomocysteine hydrolase (Sahh) and methionine aminopeptidase (Map), previously identified in the PSP dinoflagellate Alexandrium fundyense
were cloned in A. catenella.
Toxin dynamics and expression of Sam, Sahh and Map were examined
concurrently over the cell division cycle in A. catenella. The toxin profile was
constant over the cell cycle but cellular toxin content decreased during
division, suggesting that toxin was partitioned in dividing cells. Expression of
Map and Sahh appeared to follow a similar pattern to rate of endocellular
toxin production throughout the cell cycle. Positive toxin production occurred
in the absence of light, suggesting that light was not a direct trigger for toxin
production. The molecular techniques developed and sequence information
and knowledge of cellular toxin dynamics gained will facilitate further
characterisation of novel dinoflagellate genes.


The inclusion of caregivers in a holistic care approach represents a basic principle in palliative care. However, many palliative care professionals have a lack of understanding of difficulties or unmet needs among caregivers. To enhance the quality of life of caregivers and the quality of care for patients, healthcare professionals should be better informed about the constructs of caregiver burden. The aim of this study is to synthesize the concept of caregiver burden in palliative care, providing implications for the caregivers and their support systems. This concept analysis study adopts the integrative review approach and the basic text analysis method (ie, word frequency). The PubMed, CINAHL, Embase, and PsycINFO databases are explored for eligible studies. From this literature search, 66 articles from 1998 to 2018 are located. After data collection is completed, the two authors independently evaluate the quality of studies published before 1 September 2018. The caregiver burden is then redefined with its attributes, antecedents, consequences, empirical referents, and facilitators. It is recommended that the multidimensional concept of caregiver burden in palliative care be measured by considering caregiver characteristics and the caregiving context.


Besides trademarks, there are a number of different legal
instruments protecting food indications in Europe. By their
very nature, these food indications act like intellectual
property, while their primary purpose, it is claimed, is to
protect consumers. The paper focuses on the theoretical
teleology of food indication law and compares it to the actual
local, European and international legal, economic and technical
effects. It analyses these types of indications that are
specifically implemented in European law, i.e. Protected
Designations of Origin (PDO), Protected Geographical
Indications (PGI) and Traditional Specialties Guaranteed (TSG).


Hydroxyrubicin, a synthetic doxorubicin analog in which the basic amino group at C-3' is replaced by a hydroxyl group, was used as a prototype compound to study the effects of basicity of the sugar moiety on the toxicity and antitumor activity of anthracycline antibiotics. Compared with doxorubicin, hydroxyrubicin showed similar or superior in vitro cytotoxicity against P388, L1210, and M5076 cells, as determined by an MTT assay, and against 8226 and CEM cells, as determined by a growth inhibition assay. Hydroxyrubicin was 5 and 13 times more effective than doxorubicin in inhibiting the growth of multidrugresistant CEM (CEMvbl) and 8226 (8226R) cells, respectively. Hydroxyrubicin was not cross-resistant with doxorubicin in a cytotoxicity assay against KB 3-1 and KB V1 cells (resistance index 1.1 for hydroxyrubicin versus > 15.6 for doxorubicin). Cellular uptake and retention of hydroxyrubicin were studied by flow cytometry in parent and multidrug-resistant 8226 cells, and compared with those of doxorubicin. In 8226 sensitive cells, 2 h uptake and retention of doxorubicin were similar or higher than those of hydroxyrubicin. In 8226R cells, uptake and retention of hydroxyrubicin were about 3-fold higher than those of doxorubicin. In mice, the acute LD50 of hydroxyrubicin was about 3-fold higher than that of doxorubicin (79.1 versus 25.7 mg/kg). At equitoxic doses, hydroxyrubicin was as myelosuppressive as doxorubicin but less cardiotoxic, as assessed by the Bertazzoli test. In contrast to doxorubicin, hydroxyrubicin, due to the lack of basic amine function, showed no selective interaction with negatively-charged cardiolipin (CL). The observed decrease of affinity to CL might be responsible for the reduced cardiotoxicity of hydroxyrubicin. In in vivo antitumor activity studies, hydroxyrubicin at the optimal dose (37.5 mg/kg, i.p., on day 1) had significant activity against intraperitoneal P388 leukemia resistant to doxorubicin, whereas doxorubicin (10 mg/kg, i.p., on day 1) was inactive (%T/C 1637ndash;200 versus 118–120). These studies indicate that: (i) the amino group at position 3' is not essential for doxorubicin to exert its biological activity, (ii) removal of the basic center (deamination at the C-3') results in an increased cellular uptake and retention, (iii) the increased cellular uptake and retention of hydroxyrubicin in multidrug-resistant cells correlate with a partial or total lack of cross-resistance of this analog with the parent compound, doxorubicin, and (iv) deamination at position 3' confers a reduced cardiotoxicity and diminished affinity for CL.


Objective: Patients with homonymous hemianopia are disabled on everyday exploratory activities. We examined whether explorative saccade training (EST), compared with flicker-stimulation training (FT), would selectively improve saccadic behavior on the patients' blind side and benefit performance on natural exploratory tasks. Methods: Twenty-eight hemianopic patients were randomly assigned to distinct groups performing for 6 weeks either EST (a digit-search task) or FT (blind-hemifield stimulation by flickering letters). Outcome variables (response times [RTs] during natural search, number of fixations during natural scene exploration, fixation stability, visual fields, and quality-of-life scores) were collected before, directly after, and 6 weeks after training. Results: EST yielded a reduced (post/pre, 47%) digit-search RT for the blind side. Natural search RT decreased (post/pre, 23%) on the blind side but not on the seeing side. After FT, both sides' RT remained unchanged. Only with EST did the number of fixations during natural scene exploration increase toward the blind and decrease on the seeing side (follow-up/pre difference, 238%). Even with the target located on the seeing side, after EST more fixations occurred toward the blind side. The EST group showed decreased (post/pre, 43%) fixation stability and increased (post/pre, 482%) asymmetry of fixations toward the blind side. Visual field size remained constant after both treatments. EST patients reported improvements in social domain. Conclusions: Explorative saccade training selectively improves saccadic behavior, natural search, and scene exploration on the blind side. Flicker-stimulation training does not improve saccadic behavior or visual fields. The findings show substantial benefits of compensatory exploration training, including subjective improvements in mastering daily-life activities, in a randomized controlled trial.


Email triage involves going throughunhandled emails and deciding what to do with them. This familiar process can become increasingly challenging as the number of unhandled email grows. During a triage session, users commonlydefer handling emails that they cannot immediately deal with to later. These deferred emails, are often related to tasks that are postponed until the user has more time or the right information to deal with them. In this paper, through qualitative interviews and a large-scale log analysis, we study when and whatenterprise email users tend to defer. We found that users are more likely to defer emails when handling them involves replying, reading carefully, or clicking on links and attachments. We also learned that the decision to defer emails depends on many factors such as user's workload and the importance of the sender. Our qualitative results suggested that deferring is very common, and our quantitative log analysis confirms that 12% of triage sessions and 16% of daily active users had at least one deferred email on weekdays. We also discuss severaldeferral strategies such as marking emails as unread and flagging that are reported by our interviewees, and illustrate how such patterns can be also observed in user logs. Inspired by the characteristics of deferred emails and contextual factors involved in deciding if an email should be deferred, we train a classifier for predicting whether a recently triaged email is actually deferred. Our experimental results suggests that deferral can be classified with modest effectiveness. Overall, our work provides novel insights about how users handle their emails and how deferral can be modeled.


Yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares; YFT) represents one of the most important seafood commodities in the world. The rationale of this Ph.D. project was identified by prioritizing key issues as objectives for contributing to the conservation of YFT and helping to develop a more realistic stock assessment and sustainable management of this species. Specifically, in this work the current mismatch between the biology and/or ecology and the realized management strategies was highlighted, putting particular emphasis on YFT population structure, which is currently characterized by a high degree of uncertainty at both local and global scale. This general pattern was confirmed by the results obtained using a panel of microsatellite loci, which cannot reject the null hypothesis of the existence of only one panmictic population at the global scale. On the contrary, the access to more powerful and cost effective genetic tools would represent the first step for resolving YFT population structure at both global and local scale. After having evaluated the efficiency and usefulness of 2b-RAD genotyping technique for investigating population genetic structure in highly migratory fish species, a panel of 972 SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) was generated. Using this panel, three distinct populations were identified in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. Additionally, it was possible to define a subset of 33 outlier loci putatively under selection to delineate and separate sub-populations within both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans (following an east-west division). Finally, it was emphasized for the first time that in the Atlantic Ocean larger YFT females allocate a greater fraction of surplus energy to egg production than smaller ones, improving noticeably the spawning quality. This result sheds light on the important contribution that larger and most experienced spawners have for the YFT productivity.


Abstract Electoral disinformation has become one of the most challenging problems for democratic states. All of them are facing the phenomenon of - both online and offline - dissemination of false information during pre-electoral period, which is harmful for individual and collective rights. As a consequence, some European countries adopted special measures, including summary judicial proceedings in order to declare that information or materials used in electioneering are false and to prohibit its further dissemination. There are already three rulings of the ECtHR concerning this expeditious judicial examination provided in the Polish law. In December 2018 France passed complex regulation against manipulation of information that include similar mechanisms. This article, basing on the ECtHR's case law and some national experiences, attempts to define the minimal European standard for measures targeted at electoral disinformation, especially judicial summary proceeding. It contains the analysis of the notion of electoral disinformation, defines the state's positive obligations in this sphere, and indicates mayor challenges for the legal framework. The principal argument is that summary judicial proceedings – if adequately designed – cannot be questioned from the Convention standpoint and provide a partial solution to the problem of electoral disinformation.


This paper presents the development of a methodology to manage the mechanic vibration and temperature from Small Wind Turbine (SWT). The objective with this research is propose a new diagnostic and protection tool through analysis and monitoring signals of vibration and temperature from wind turbines, aiming predict a need of preventive maintenance and mostly avoids catastrophic failures. For this feature the system will be composed of a Triple Axis accelerometer who will identify vibration, thermocouples to identify the temperatures at critical points of wind turbine, a microcontroller hardware which will make acquisition and processing of signals from sensors and finally a wireless transmission system using technology ZigBee. The post processing is performed remotely through a computer that receives the data submitted via wireless network presenting them to the user via graphical interface. The software of User friendly interface will have the functionality plus online display of received data also the possibility of storing and reporting data rates of vibration and temperature obtained during monitoring. Finally featuring the prototype of the hardware and software as well as some results obtained in experimental scale.


Metacognition, or the capacity to introspect on one's own mental states, has been mostly characterized through confidence reports in visual tasks. A pressing question is to what extent the results from visual studies generalize to other domains. Answering this question allows determining whether metacognition operates through shared, domain-general mechanisms, or through idiosyncratic, domain-specific mechanisms. Here, we report three new lines of evidence for decisional and post-decisional mechanisms arguing for the domain-generality of metacognition. First, metacognitive efficiency correlated between auditory, tactile, visual, and audiovisual tasks. Second, confidence in an audiovisual task was best modeled using supramodal formats based on integrated representations of auditory and visual signals. Third, confidence in correct responses involved similar electrophysiological markers for visual and audiovisual tasks that are associated with motor preparation preceding the perceptual judgment. We conclude that the domain-generality of metacognition relies on supramodal confidence estimates and decisional signals that are shared across sensory modalities.


Breaking The Ice: The Story of Mary Ann Shadd, directed by Sylvia Sweeney; produced by Peter Raymont, Lindalee Tracey, and Maria Pimentel. Distributed by First Run/Icarus Films, 1999. 23 minutes, color. $225, video Reviewed by Jane Rhodes, Ethnic Studies, University of California-San Diego. This short documentary, made by Canadian filmmaker Sylvia Sweeney, tells the story of Mary Ann Shadd Cary the first African American woman to publish a newspaper in North America and a colorful figure in 191 century African Canadian history. The film is part of a series on unknown Canadian immigrants called "A Scattering of Seeds: The Creation of Canada" funded by several Canadian media agencies. This fact bears keeping in mind as one considers the content of the video. Shadd Cary (1823-1893) was born in Delaware to a family of prominent freeborn abolitionists. She was educated by Quakers and taught Black children across the northeastern United States before crossing the border into Canada in 1851 as part of the growing Black emigrationist movement. She set up a school for the children of fugitive slaves and became an influential figure in the communities established by expatriated African Americans. In March 1854 she began publishing the Provincial Freeman, which became the main voice for Canada's Black communities and a forum for debate over abolitionist strategies. Eventually, much of Shadd Cary's immediate family joined her in Canada, and her father Abraham Shadd became one of that nation's first Black elected officials. In an era in which free Black Americans were haunted by the Fugitive Slave Act, barred from attending school, and limited to the most menial jobs, life in Canada offered the promise of freedom and opportunity. Mary Ann Shadd Cary, however, left Canada after the outbreak of the Civil War, and resettled in Washington, D.C. during Reconstruction. This documentary focuses on the 10-year period when Shadd Cary lived in Canada, and it uses her life to illustrate the experiences of African Canadians in the 1850s. Translating this story onto film is a difficult task as there are few photographs to illustrate the narrative, and limited documentary sources. Thus, this filmmaker resorts to historical reenactment to create some visual impact. Actors portray Shadd Cary and her associates, while a narrator tells the story. The film does a good job of explaining some of the issues confronting these Black communities established by missionaries and settled by former slaves. …


This guide will serve as a fundamental resource for information on library services and policies geared toward DePaul Law Review and Specialty Journals and their specific research needs.


This paper surveys evidence from recent randomized evaluations in developing countries on the impact of price on access to health and education. The debate on user fees has been contentious, but until recently much of the evidence was anecdotal. Randomized evaluations across a variety of settings suggest prices have a large impact on take-up of education and health products and services. While the sign of this effect is consistent with standard theories of human capital investment, a more detailed examination of the data suggests that it may be important to go beyond these models. There is some evidence for peer effects, which implies that for some goods the aggregate response to price will exceed the individual response. Time-inconsistent preferences could potentially help explain the apparently disproportionate effect of small short-run costs and benefits on decisions with long-run consequences.


Abstract Background. Reporting of surgical complications is common, but few provide information about the severity and estimate risk factors of complications. If have, but lack of specificity. Methods. We retrospectively analyzed data on 2795 gastric cancer patients underwent surgical procedure at the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University between June 2007 and June 2012, established multivariate logistic regression model to predictive risk factors related to the postoperative complications according to the Clavien-Dindo classification system. Results. Twenty-four out of 86 variables were identified statistically significant in univariate logistic regression analysis, 11 significant variables entered multivariate analysis were employed to produce the risk model. Liver cirrhosis, diabetes mellitus, Child classification, invasion of neighboring organs, combined resection, introperative transfusion, Billroth II anastomosis of reconstruction, malnutrition, surgical volume of surgeons, operating time and age were independent risk factors for postoperative complications after gastrectomy. Based on logistic regression equation, p=Exp∑BiXi / (1+Exp∑BiXi), multivariate logistic regression predictive model that calculated the risk of postoperative morbidity was developed, p = 1/(1 + e(4.810–1.287X1–0.504X2–0.500X3–0.474X4–0.405X5–0.318X6–0.316X7–0.305X8–0.278X9–0.255X10–0.138X11)). The accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of the model to predict the postoperative complications were 86.7%, 76.2% and 88.6%, respectively. Conclusions. This risk model based on Clavien-Dindo grading severity of complications system and logistic regression analysis can predict severe morbidity specific to an individual patient's risk factors, estimate patients' risks and benefits of gastric surgery as an accurate decision-making tool and may serve as a template for the development of risk models for other surgical groups.