BACKGROUND
Histometric assessments are routinely used to evaluate biologic events ascertained in histologic sections acquired from animal and human studies. The objective of this study was to evaluate the intra- and inter-examiner reproducibility of histometric assessments in the supraalveolar periodontal defect model.

METHODS
Histometric analysis using incandescent and polarized light microscopy, an attached digital camera system, and a PC-based image analysis system including a custom program for the supraalveolar periodontal defect model was performed on histologic sections acquired from one jaw quadrant in each of 12 dogs. The animals had received an experimental protocol including implantation of a coral biomaterial and guided tissue regeneration (GTR) barrier devices, and were evaluated following a 4-week healing interval. Histometric parameters were recorded and repeated within a 3-month interval by two examiners following brief training. Intra- and inter-examiner reproducibility was assessed using the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC).

RESULTS
Most parameters showed high intra-examiner ICCs. Parameters including defect height, connective tissue repair, bone regeneration (height/area), formation of a junctional epithelium, positioning of the GTR device, ankylosis, root resorption, and defect area yielded an ICC> or 0..9. The ICCs for bone density and biomaterial density were somewhat lower (0.8 and 0.7, respectively). The inter-examiner reproducibility was somewhat lower compared to the intra-examiner reproducibility. Nevertheless, the ICCs were generally high (ICC range: 0.6-0.9).

CONCLUSIONS
Histometric evaluations in the supraalveolar periodontal defect model yield highly reproducible results, in particular when a single examiner performs the histometric measurements, even when the examiner was exposed to limited training.


Names are provided for two allopatric species of Optivus occurring in shelf waters of southeastern and southwestern Australia that have been treated in recent Australian literature. Optivus agastos n.sp., distributed from southern Queensland to central Victoria and northeastern Tasmania, and at Lord Howe Island, differs from the very similar O. elongatus, which is limited to New Zealand, in having fewer gill rakers (22-24, rarely 25, versus 25-27, rarely 24), slightly smaller eye, longer snout, and enlarged teeth along the inner margin of the premaxilla. Optivus agrammus n.sp., distributed from western South Australia to southwestern Western Australia, can be distinguished from congeners most readily by the lack of stripes on its caudal-fin lobes, curved dorsal outline of its nape and head in lateral profile, relatively deeper and shorter caudal peduncle, and lower dorsal and anal fins.


Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between commercial bank lending terms, financial literacy and access to formal credit by small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach - – In this cross-sectional study, the authors surveyed 384 business owners or managers of SMEs in Uganda. The authors applied confirmatory factor analysis to reduce the number of factors and identify the important elements that capture commercial lending terms, financial literacy and access to formal credit. The authors put forward and tested two hypotheses relating to the significance of the relationship between perceived commercial bank lending terms, financial literacy and access to formal credit using structural equation modelling with analysis of moment structures 18. Findings - – The results suggest a positive and significant relationship between perceived commercial bank lending terms, financial literacy and access to formal credit. Moreover, the ANOVA results serendipitously show that access to formal credit varies with type of business and turnover. However, collateral and loan repayment periods are not observed variables for commercial bank lending terms. The most significant observed variable for commercial bank lending terms is interest rates. This, together with financial literacy, explains 31 per cent of the variances in access to formal credit by SMEs in Uganda. Research limitations/implications - – The study is limited to the SME firms registered and operating in Kampala, Uganda and it is possible that the results are only applicable to these firms in Uganda. Nevertheless, the findings have implications to commercial banks wishing to improve the turnover of their micro-lending schemes. Practical implications - – Efforts by the stakeholders to improve financial literacy of SMEs owners and managers must be matched with favourable interest rates if access to formal credit is to be enhanced. Social implications - – The findings also have implications for governments aiming at improving access to finance to overcome income inequality problems, and also improve their growth. Originality/value - – The results provide initial evidence of the aggregate explanatory power of interest rates and financial literacy for the criterion variable, access to formal credit by SMEs.


The federal government collects the majority of taxes through business entities that are required to withhold taxes from wages or collect excise taxes at the time of providing services. These business entities hold the taxes they collect in trust for the United States. The vast majority of business entities pay over the taxes held in trust in a timely and appropriate manner; however, a sizeable amount, in dollar terms, does not get paid. Aside from passing criminal laws at or near the passage of the 1954 code, Congress has done little to create a structure that provides incentives for business entities acting as trustees to pay over these collected taxes. This article explores the literature that has primarily developed with respect to the tax gap seeking to find structural answers to the problem. Most of the literature addresses issues concerned with underreporting taxes rather than the underpayment of taxes but certain ideas on how to influence taxpayer behavior are transferable to underpayment. Applying appropriate structural principles to the problem, the article explores some of the solutions adopted by states to see if importing those solutions could assist the federal government in collecting these taxes. Five specific recommendations follow from the study and these recommendations range from information gathering to monetary incentives for timely compliance to requiring bonds. The range of proposed solutions is intended to address the range of reasons for the non-compliance. Through the implementation of these solutions or similar ideas that create the proper structure for taxpayers serving as trustees, this corner of the tax gap should be reduced.


Lack of sleep can cause detrimental effects on athletic performance, induce alterations in glucose, carbohydrate and protein metabolism, appetite, food intake, and neuroendocrine function. Other detrimental consequences include changes in cognition, pain perception, immunity, inflammation, metabolism and endocrine function. Today's high-performance athlete is also subject to frequent travel across several time zones on a regular basis adding further complications to sleep patterns. Hence good sleep hygiene habits cannot always be achieved, challenging clinicians to find natural alternatives to pharmacological interventions which are intrinsically problematic. Tryptophan (Trp) is a dietary source precursor to the neurotransmitter serotonin and the neuro-secretory hormone melatonin. Evidence exists for beneficial effects of increased Trp intake on cognition, memory, mood and improved sleep. Traverse of dietary Trp through the blood-brain barrier (BBB) is favoured by a higher plasma concentration of Trp in comparison to other competing large neutral amino acids (LNAAs). However, if the diet contains plenty of LNAAs, Trp transport through the BBB is reduced. Promotion of insulin release from the pancreas, especially by the presence of carbohydrates in the gut lumen, mediates the uptake of LNAAs into muscle but not Trp. Consequently, the Trp/LNAA ratio remains high, and concentrations of other competing LNAAs are reduced, thereby selectively enhancing brain concentrations of Trp. A 2 week pilot study-sleep diaries ascertained sleep patterns in week 1 and the impact of the intervention in week 2 in 19 subjects of a night-time beverage containing protein-source Trp (derived from de-oiled pumpkin seeds) fortified with dextrose to facilitate BBB traverse, demonstrated a significant 9% increase in total sleep time and a 38% reduced sleep disruption. This natural Trp rich source formula merits further investigation to determine its benefits in performance athletes. Abstract PP19 Figure 1 Total work completed during time trial Abstract PP 19 Figure 2 Rating of perceived exertion *p = 0.022 compared to PLA. Main effect for trial (CC vs. PLA) p = 0.32


This paper introduces a state estimation framework for legged robots that allows estimating the full pose of the robot without making any assumptions about the geometrical structure of its environment. This is achieved by means of an Observability Constrained Extended Kalman Filter that fuses kinematic encoder data with on-board IMU measurements. By including the absolute position of all footholds into the filter state, simple model equations can be formulated which accurately capture the uncertainties associated with the intermittent ground contacts. The resulting filter simultaneously estimates the position of all footholds and the pose of the main body. In the algorithmic formulation, special attention is paid to the consistency of the linearized filter: it maintains the same observability properties as the nonlinear system, which is a prerequisite for accurate state estimation. The presented approach is implemented in simulation and validated experimentally on an actual quadrupedal robot.


Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of increasing concentrations of the combination of tween 80 and ethanol to the formation and stability of the physical properties of eucalyptus oil micro-emulsion. Methods: This oil is formulated into a micro-emulsion by increasing the concentration of the combination of tween 80 and ethanol (1: 1) with various concentrations, ie 40%, 45%, and 50% as a component of surfactant and cosurfactant. The evaluation was done for 8 weeks covering organoleptic test, test phase separation, viscosity test, measurement of pH, density measurements, measurements of surface tension and particle size measurement. Results: The pH of micro-emulsion showed in the range 5.4 to 6.2. Viscosity results obtained viscosity values between 206.2 to 248 cps. Density measurement results were between 0.9839 to 0.9904 g/ml. The results of surface tension measurement results obtained between 35.83 to 37.10 dyne/cm. The results of particle size measurement results obtained from 23.83 to 30.43 nm. Conclusion: It can be concluded that the use of tween 80 and ethanol can form a micro-emulsion system of eucalyptus oil, and with increasing concentrations of the combination of tween 80 and ethanol can increase the stability of the physical properties of the micro-emulsion system. Key words:  Antibacterial, Ethanol, Eucalyptus oil, Micro-emulsion, Stability of the physical properties, Tween 80.


This study attempts to identify and characterize glial cells and neuronal cells in avian brain and mammalian bone marrow, respectively. The project has four major objectives: (a) to culture and maintain avian glial and neuronal cells up to 20 days, (b) to examine cell cultures using selective cytological markers for gliaj and nerve cells, (c) to investigate the effects of the steroid hormone oestrogen on the growth of glial cells and (d) to investigate the presence of neuronal cell bodies in mammalian bone marrow using alternative approaches.
Glial cells were grown for 20 days, supplemented with oestrogen after the 10th day. Control cultures were grown for 20 days without oestrogen supplement. Consequently, the cultures were subjected in GFAP, Gal C, NSE and PR antibodies. The results have shown that oestrogen had no significant effect on the development of the cells. Staining of glial cells with Haematoxylin and Eosin and taking measurements for cell diameter, nucleus diameter and number of projections, the results demonstrated significant differences in the nucleus diameter and the number of projections in the cells treated with estrogen compared to non-treated cells. The neuronal cells were cultured for 10-15 days. Comparing to the glial cell cultures, it was found that neuronal cells were more difficult to grow and more vulnerable to contamination even when a modified medium was used to grow the cells. However, the results show that they can express immunoreactivity for NSE but not for either GFAP or Gal C. The expression of NSE was crucial since it positively showed that the cells grown were neuronal cells in nature. The final aim of this study was to identify and localize the innervation pattern within the bone marrow and the possible existence of neuronal cells bodies. Using either male or female young mice as animal model, perfused femurs were decalcified, sectioned with a cryostat and subsequently, stained using immunocytochemistry for different markers,
including Gal C, GFAP, NSE and antityrosine hydroxylase. Furthermore, sections were subjected to silver stain, which is capable in recognising neuronal cells bodies. In addition, Dii neuronal tracer was applied to post-fixed tissue for the same reason. The results showed that the tissue had NSE immunoreactivity revealing an extensive network of neuronal fibers running among the bone marrow. However, there was no expression of Gal C, GFAP or antityrosine hydroxylase. The results also revealed the presence of neuronal fibers within the bone marrow, running alongside with blood vessels. Unfortunately, no neuronal cell bodies were found in this present investigation. In conclusion, the results of this study have shown that (1) oestrogen can have marked effects on the morphology of glial cells and (2) neuronal fibers are present in bone marrow and they seem to be located near blood vessels.


Many remote sensing applications require high spatial resolution images, but the elevated cost of these images makes some studies unfeasible. Single-image super-resolution algorithms can improve the spatial resolution of a lowresolution image by recovering feature details learned from pairs of low-high resolution images. In this work, several configurations of ESRGAN, a state-of-the-art algorithm for image super-resolution, are tested. We make a comparison between several scenarios, with different modes of upsampling and channels involved. The best results are obtained training a model with RGB-IR channels and using progressive upsampling.


This week Northern Ireland made the news globally when a statute of a sea god in Binevineagh was cut down and stolen. There was a certain irony in someone breaking the 8th commandment to uphold the first commandment. Also, Apple announced record breaking profits of £12 billion in one financial quarter. For many, it is more likely that the forbidden fruit - Apple - will become the idol of the current age.
Finally, Fiona Bruce MP is trying to change the law to outlaw abortions based solely on the grounds of gender. The opposition to this injustice is coming from feminists who want to protect choice if that choice is to terminate the life of an unborn child simply because it is female. What stand are you taking against idolatry and injustice?


The paper presents simulation results for laterally-corrugated ridge-waveguide distributed-feedback (DFB) semiconductor lasers emitting at 980 nm, along with measured results. The effect of the corrugation on the laser output characteristics is discussed. Almost 50 dB side-mode suppression ratio was achieved for the laterally-corrugated ridge waveguide DFB lasers fabricated using nano-imprint-lithography.


Antibody deficiency is the most frequently encountered primary immunodeficiency disease (PIDD) and patients who lack the ability to make functional immunoglobulin require life-long replacement therapy to prevent serious bacterial infections. Human serum immunoglobulin manufactured from pools of donated plasma can be administered intramuscularly, intravenously or subcutaneously. With the advent of well-tolerated preparations of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) in the 1980s, the suboptimal painful intramuscular route of administration is no longer used. However, some patients continued to experience unacceptable adverse reactions to the intravenous preparations, and for others, vascular access remained problematic. Subcutaneously administered immunoglobulin (SCIg) provided an alternative delivery method to patients experiencing difficulties with IVIg. By 2006, immunoglobulin preparations designed exclusively for subcutaneous administration became available. They are therapeutically equivalent to intravenous preparations and offer patients the additional flexibility for the self-administration of their product at home. SCIg as replacement therapy for patients with primary antibody deficiencies is a safe and efficacious method to prevent serious bacterial infections, while maximizing patient satisfaction and improving quality of life.


For a long time, absolute calendrical dates for the Middle Bronze Age southern Levant were based on very general correlations with the historical chronology of Egypt (the Traditional Chronology). A significantly lower chronology was proposed from the 1980s onwards, mainly based on the excavation at Tell el-Dabaa (ancient Avaris) in the eastern Nile Delta (the Low Chronology). However, in recent years, radiocarbon sequences for several Middle Bronze Age sites have become available that challenge the Traditional as well as the Low Chronology and suggest a significantly higher dating for the Middle Bronze Age phases. This paper summarizes the radiocarbon evidence for the Middle Bronze Age chronology and proposes a new chronological framework for the Middle Bronze Age southern Levant.


The design of retrofitting strategies for historical buildings involves various challenges. The aim is often not only to save energy while providing acceptable indoor conditions for its users, but also to preserve the building and potential cultural artifacts, making it a multi-criteria issue, with multiple demands on the simulation tools and methods. This paper describes one way to fulfill on these demands through a serial, stepwise simulation process and a special tool, designed for that process. A case study, performed with the use of the method and tool, is presented. The results show that the method is workable and provides good agreement between simulated results and measured data.


The main goal of this dissertation is to introduce the alternate reality game as a new narrative for multiplatform. By new narratives are understood the forms of storytelling arising from the current development of digital technology; and for multiplatform the variety of means by which the contents of these stories can travel. For this main objective is reached, two main hypotheses are formulated: 1) ARGs are stories for multiple platforms using code-breaking with playful and narrative functions; and 2) they are developed from an intense transtextuality guided by pop mythology that flourished during the twentieth century. Based on this starting point, this thesis will examine two ARGs, Uncertain Zone and Why So Serious?, in a way that it contributes to the hypothesis that Alternate Reality Games are a native narrative form of convergence culture founded on an extensive base of pop culture references. In the chapter dedicated to Uncertain Zone will be listed the various media used during the performance of the ARG, that together with interviews with the developers and testimonials from participants will weave a more descriptive overview of how alternate reality games are composed as multiplatform narratives. In addition, a brief discussion on the playful and narrative functions of the code-breaking in ARGs will be outlined. With Why So Serious? the analysis will focus on the intense transtextuality that alternate reality games establish to what will be called pop mythology in this dissertation and in the relationship between ARGs and market. Incidentally issues related to participatory culture will be raised throughout the text, but without further reflection, since, worth reiterating, the main goal of this thesis is the demonstration of a contemporary narrative form from some elements previously submitted, this form is the alternate reality game.


Action description languages, such as A and B, are expressive instruments introduced for formalizing planning domains and planning problem instances. The paper starts by proposing a methodology to encode an action language (with conditional effects and static causal laws), a slight variation of B, using Constraint Logic Programming over Finite Domains. The approach is then generalized to raise the use of constraints to the level of the action language itself. A prototype implementation has been developed, and the preliminary results are presented and discussed.
To appear in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP)


Genetic contributions to plant morphology are not partitioned between shoots and roots. Yet, shoot and root architectures are rarely measured in the same plants. Even if shoot and root architectures are both studied, the application of mathematical methods flexible enough to accommodate the disparate topologies and shapes within a plant, and across scales, are lacking. Here, we advocate the use of persistent homology, a mathematical method robust to noise, invariant with respect to orientation, capable of application across diverse scales, and importantly, compatible with diverse functions to quantify disparate plant morphologies, architectures, and textures. To demonstrate the usefulness of this method, we apply persistent homology approaches to the shape of leaves, serrations, and root architecture as measured in the same plants of a domesticated tomato Solanum pennellii near-isogenic introgression line population under field conditions. We find that genetic contributions to morphology affect the plant in a concerted fashion, affecting both the shoot and root, revealing a pleiotropic basis to natural variation in tomato.


Bat wing morphology is considered in relation to flight performance and flight behaviour to clarify the functional basis for eco-morphological correlations in flying animals. Bivariate correlations are presented between wing dimensions and body mass for a range of bat families and feeding classes, and principal-components analysis is used to measure overall size, wing size and wing shape. The principal components representing wing size and wing shape (as opposed to overall size) are interpreted as being equivalent to wing loading and to aspect ratio. Relative length and area of the hand-wing or wingtip are determined independently of wing size, and are used to derive a wingtip shape index, which measures the degree of roundedness or pointedness of the wingtip. The optimal wing form for bats adapted for different modes of flight is predicted by means of mechanical and aerodynamic models. We identify and model aspects of performance likely to influence flight adaptation significantly; these include selective pressures for economic forward flight (low energy per unit time or per unit distance (equal to cost of transport)), for flight at high or low speeds, for hovering, and for turning. Turning performance is measured by two quantities: manoeuvrability, referring to the minimum space required for a turn at a given speed; and agility, relating to the rate at which a turn can be initiated. High flight speed correlates with high wing loading, good manoeuvrability is favoured by low wing loading, and turning agility should be associated with fast flight and with high wing loading. Other factors influencing wing adaptations, such as migration, flying with a foetus or young or carrying loads in flight (all of which favour large wing area), flight in cluttered environments (short wings) and modes of landing, are identified. The mechanical predictions are cast into a size-independent principal-components form, and are related to the morphology and the observed flight behaviour of different species and families of bats. In this way we provide a broadly based functional interpretation of the selective forces that influence wing morphology in bats. Measured flight speeds in bats permit testing of these predictions. Comparison of open-field free-flight speeds with morphology confirms that speed correlates with mass, wing loading and wingtip proportions as expected; there is no direct relation between speed and aspect ratio. Some adaptive trends in bat wing morphology are clear from this analysis. Insectivores hunt in a range of different ways, which are reflected in their morphology. Bats hawking high-flying insects have small, pointed wings which give good agility, high flight speeds and low cost of transport. Bats hunting for insects among vegetation, and perhaps gleaning, have very short and rounded wingtips, and often relatively short, broad wings, giving good manoeuvrability at low flight speeds. Many insectivorous species forage by `flycatching' (perching while seeking prey) and have somewhat similar morphology to gleaners. Insectivorous species foraging in more open habitats usually have slightly longer wings, and hence lower cost of transport. Piscivores forage over open stretches of water, and have very long wings giving low flight power and cost of transport, and unusually long, rounded tips for control and stability in flight. Carnivores must carry heavy loads, and thus have relatively large wing areas; their foraging strategies consist of perching, hunting and gleaning, and wing structure is similar to that of insectivorous species with similar behaviour. Perching and hovering nectarivores both have a relatively small wing area: this surprising result may result from environmental pressure for a short wingspan or from the advantage of high speed during commuting flights; the large wingtips of these bats are valuable for lift generation in slow flight. The relation between flight morphology (as an indicator of flight behaviour) and echolocation is considered. It is demonstrated that adaptive trends in wing adaptations are predictably and closely paralleled by echolocation call structure, owing to the joint constraints of flying and locating food in different ways. Pressures on flight morphology depend also on size, with most aspects of performance favouring smaller animals. Power rises rapidly as mass increases; in smaller bats the available energy margin is greater than in larger species, and they may have a more generalized repertoire of flight behaviour. Trophic pressures related to feeding strategy and behaviour are also important, and may restrict the size ranges of different feeding classes: insectivores and primary nectarivores must be relatively small, carnivores and frugivores somewhat larger. The relation of these results to bat community ecology is considered, as our predictions may be tested through comparisons between comparable, sympatric species. Our mechanical predictions apply to all bats and to all kinds of bat communities, but other factors (for example echolocation) may also contribute to specialization in feeding or behaviour, and species separation may not be determined solely by wing morphology or flight behaviour. None the less, we believe that our approach, of identifying functional correlates of bat flight behaviour and identifying these with morphological adaptations, clarifies the eco-morphological relationships of bats.


Analysis of the published research results allows us to identify the cognitive trend of reasoning associated with the transformation of cluster structures to supply chain structures. This is due to the evolution of the methodology of cluster formation, the increase in varieties of cluster manifestations and with different explanations of transformation processes in clusters. A cluster is a complex concept that researchers often study fragmentally. At the same time, the cluster, as a categorical concept, is located in the space of administrative and methodological formats. It is often used in the design and formation of conceptual approaches to the management of territorial or branch economic systems as one of the ways to improve the innovative environment of the region. But, at the same time, the innovation of regional management is found in the field of logistics, namely: a modern integrative tool for effective management of goods distribution is a conceptual approach from the point of view of supply chain management. The study of the authors allows us to formulate a common and different in essence of two innovative approaches to the management of logistics meso-systems and to identify the process of transformation of clusters into the format of integrated supply chains.


Supercapacitors represent one of the newest innovations in the field of electrical energy storage, and will find their place in many applications where energy storage is needed, or can help to the smoothing of strong and short-time power solicitations of a distribution network. Other system developments are going on, opening new fields in engineering sciences, based on new possibilities in the field of electrical energy storage. In comparison with classical capacitors, these new components allow a much more higher energy density, together with a high power density. Even if the energy density is not comparable with that one of electrochemical accumulators, the possible energy amount and storage time is compatible with many industrial requirements.


The FTC meeting comes six months after the May 15 entry into force of the Agreement. The two sides concluded that operation of the Agreement has gone smoothly and is already bringing benefits to both countries. According to U.S. Government statistics, U.S. exports to Colombia from May to September were over 20 percent higher than for the corresponding period last year. "All indications are that the Agreement is off to a successful start. The hard work of both our teams to prepare for entry into force appears to have paid off, as our respective exporters have begun to take advantage of the new opportunities the Agreement provides," said U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk. "Our statistics show a significant increase in trade in both directions – a classic win-win. In addition, the FTC meeting provides a public signal of the continuing importance both our governments attach to realizing the full potential of one of our closest trade relationships in the Hemisphere." At the FTC meeting the governments took decisions to launch consideration of tariff acceleration and to establish time frames for establishing the dispute settlement mechanism and updating the rules of origin. The parties also monitored fulfillment of commitments with a post-entry into force deadline and reviewed the work of the committees that recently met to date under the Agreement: Technical Barriers to Trade, Agriculture, and Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. The U.S. and Colombia also discussed the important engagement that is ongoing between the two governments to ensure that the Colombian Action Plan Related to Labor Rights continues to be fully implemented.


In this study, the authors examine the relationship between and the efficiency of different approaches to standard (univariate) differential power analysis (DPA) attacks. The authors first show that, when fed with the same assumptions about the target device (i.e. with the same leakage model), the most popular approaches such as using a distance-of-means test, correlation analysis and Bayes attacks are essentially equivalent in this setting. Differences observed in practice are not because of differences in the statistical tests but because of statistical artefacts. Then, the authors establish a link between the correlation coefficient and the conditional entropy in side-channel attacks. In a first-order attack scenario, this relationship allows linking currently used metrics to evaluate standard DPA attacks (such as the number of power traces needed to perform a key recovery) with an information theoretic metric (the mutual information). The authors results show that in the practical scenario defined formally in this study, both measures are equally suitable to compare devices with respect to their susceptibility to DPA attacks. Together with observations regarding key and algorithm independence the authors consequently extend theoretical strategies for the sound evaluation of leaking devices towards the practice of side-channel attacks.


Constructing more inclusive political spaces has been a central concern of social movements in postcolonial societies. This book engages with Ecuador's recent processes of political transformation by questioning to what extent these contribute to a decolonization of Ecuador's democracy.

Based on visual ethnographic research in Ecuadorian local politics, it interrogates the effect of women's and indigenous people's political participation on building more inclusive, intercultural political spaces. The volume develops a poststructuralist electoral geography capturing the embodied, emotional, and intersectional performances that produce political spaces.

In doing so, it breaks new empirical ground and expands the field of electoral geography, connecting it to current conceptual debates in human geography.


SYNOPSIS In order to certify the performance of box-type solar cookers, thermal performance evaluation has been carried out in terms of two figures of merit viz. F1 and F2 (IS 13429: 2000). The acceptable criterion to make the solar cooker eligible for the Indian Standards IS1 mark is that the value of F1 should not be less than 0.11, and that of F2 should be greater than 0.40. Further, the solar cooker is classified as "Grade A" if the value of F1 is determined to be 0.12 or higher; otherwise, it is classified as "Grade B". Determination of F1 and F2 comprises measurements of the associated climatic as well as operating parameters viz. temperatures of the cooking tray, water and ambient air, solar irradiance, mass of the water as load, dimensions of the cooker, etc. The effect of accuracy in these measurements assumes significance regarding grading of solar cookers. This paper analyses the effect of instrumentation which is normally employed for the testing on solar cookers of the values of F1 and F2. The analysis is supported by a large number of outdoor tests conducted on a box-type solar cooker, under stagnation as well as load test conditions, at the location of the Solar Energy Center, Gwalpahari (latitude: 28.17ON) round the year. The overall error due to instrumentation associated in determining F1 and F2 has been estimated by using the root sum square method. It has been observed that the variation of the absolute value of errors in F1 and F2 is in the range of 0.002 to 0.003 and 0.015 to 0.033, respectively. This corresponds to errors of the order of 2.5 to 3% in evaluation of F1 and 5.0 to 6.0% in F2.


The widespread adoption and ubiquity of smart devices equipped with microphones (e.g., cellphones, smartwatches, etc.) unfortunately create many significant privacy risks. In recent years, there have been several cases of people's conversations being secretly recorded, sometimes initiated by the device itself. Although some manufacturers are trying to protect users' privacy, to the best of our knowledge, there is not any effective technical solution available. In this work, we present Patronus, a system that can both prevent unauthorized devices from making secret recordings while allowing authorized devices to record conversations. Patronus prevents unauthorized speech recording by emitting what we call a scramble, a low-frequency noise generated by inaudible ultrasonic waves. The scramble prevents unauthorized recordings by leveraging the nonlinear effects of commercial off-the-shelf microphones. The frequency components of the scramble are randomly determined and connected with linear chirps, and the frequency period is fine-tuned so that the scramble pattern is hard to attack. Patronus allows authorized speech recording by secretly delivering the scramble pattern to authorized devices, which can use an adaptive filter to cancel out the scramble. We implement a prototype system and conduct comprehensive experiments. Our results show that only 19.7% of words protected by Patronus' scramble can be recognized by unauthorized devices. Furthermore, authorized recordings have 1.6x higher perceptual evaluation of speech quality (PESQ) score and, on average, 50% lower speech recognition error rates than unauthorized recordings.


BACKGROUND
Increased spinal cord perfusion and blood pressure goals have been recommended for spinal cord injury (SCI). Penetrating SCI is associated with poor prognosis, but there is a paucity of literature examining the role of vasopressor administration for the maintenance of mean arterial pressure (MAP) goals in this patient population.

OBJECTIVE
To elucidate this topic and to determine the efficacy of vasopressor administration in penetrating SCI by examining a case series of consecutive penetrating SCIs.

METHODS
We reviewed consecutive patients with complete penetrating SCI who met inclusion and exclusion criteria, including the administration of vasopressors to maintain MAP goals. We identified 14 patients with complete penetrating SCIs with an admission American Spinal Injury Association grade of A from 2005 to 2011. The neurological recovery, complications, interventions, and vasopressor administration strategies were reviewed and compared with those of a cohort with complete blunt SCI.

RESULTS
In our patient population, only 1 patient with penetrating SCI (7.1%) experienced neurological recovery, as determined by improvement in the American Spinal Injury Association grade, despite the administration of vasopressors for supraphysiological MAP goals for an average of 101.07 ± 34.96 hours. Furthermore, 71.43% of patients with penetrating SCI treated with vasopressors experienced associated cardiogenic complications.

CONCLUSION
Given the decreased likelihood of neurological improvement in penetrating injuries, it may be important to re-examine intervention strategies in this population. Specifically, the use of vasopressors, in particular dopamine, with their associated complications is more likely to cause complications than to result in neurological improvement. Our experience shows that patients with acute penetrating SCI are unlikely to recover, despite aggressive cardiopulmonary management.

ABBREVIATIONS
ASIA, American Spinal Injury AssociationMAP, mean arterial pressureSCI, spinal cord injury.


Good execution of data placement, caching and consistency policies across a user's personal devices has always been hard. Unpredictable networks, capricious user behavior with leaving devices on or off and non-uniform energy-saving policies constantly interfere with the good intentions of a storage system's policies. This paper's contribution is to better manage these inherent uncertainties. We do so primarily by building a low-power communication channel that is available even when a device is off. This channel is mainly made possible by a novel network interface card that is carefully placed under the control of storage system protocols.

The design space can benefit existing placement policies (e.g., Cimbiosys [21], Perspective [23], Anzere [22]). It also allows for interesting new ones. We build a file system called ZZFS around a particular set of policies motivated by user studies. Its policies cater to users who interact with the file system in an ad hoc way -- spontaneously and without pre-planning.


Background Limited health literacy is associated with worse physical function in cross-sectional studies. We aimed to determine if health literacy is a risk factor for decline in physical function among older adults. Methods A longitudinal cohort of 529 community-dwelling American adults aged 55–74 years were recruited from an academic general internal medicine clinic and federally qualified health centres in 2008–2011. Health literacy (Newest Vital Sign), age, gender, race, education, chronic conditions, body mass index, alcohol consumption, smoking status and exercise frequency were included in multivariable analyses. The 10-item PROMIS (Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System) physical function scale was assessed at baseline and follow-up (mean=3.2 years, SD=0.39). Results Nearly half of the sample (48.2%) had either marginal (25.5%) or low health literacy (22.7%). Average physical function at baseline was 83.2 (SD=16.6) of 100, and health literacy was associated with poorer baseline physical function in multivariable analysis (p=0.004). At follow-up, physical function declined to 81.9 (SD=17.3; p=0.006) and 20.5% experienced a meaningful decline (>0.5 SD of baseline score). In multivariable analyses, participants with marginal (OR 2.62; 95%CI 1.38 to 4.95; p=0.003) and low (OR 2.57; 95%CI 1.22 to 5.44; p=0.013) health literacy were more likely to experience meaningful decline in physical function than the adequate health literacy group. Entering cognitive abilities to these models did not substantially attenuate effect sizes. Health literacy attenuated the relationship between black race and decline in physical function by 32.6%. Conclusions Lower health literacy increases the risk of exhibiting faster physical decline over time among older adults. Strategies that reduce literacy disparities should be designed and evaluated.


This paper asks about the future of religion: (i) Will confirmation of extra-terrestrial intelligence (ETI) cause terrestrial religion to collapse? 'No' is the answer based upon a summary of the 'Peters ETI Religious Crisis Survey'. Then the paper examines four specific challenges to traditional doctrinal belief likely to be raised at the detection of ETI: (ii) What is the scope of God's creation? (iii) What can we expect regarding the moral character of ETI? (iv) Is one earthly incarnation in Jesus Christ enough for the entire cosmos, or should we expect multiple incarnations on multiple planets? (v) Will contact with more advanced ETI diminish human dignity? More than probable contact with extra-terrestrial intelligence will expand the Bible's vision so that all of creation—including the 13.7 billion year history of the universe replete with all of God's creatures—will be seen as the gift of a loving and gracious God.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Pain is associated with hazardous alcohol use. Drinkers have reported using alcohol for pain-coping, and negative affect may be a key mechanism in pain-induced motivation to drink. However, no previous study has examined pain severity in relation to alcohol consumption, dependence, and alcohol-related consequences. Moreover, no studies have examined pain-alcohol interrelations among tobacco cigarette smokers. These secondary analyses tested the hypotheses that greater past 4-week pain severity would be positively associated with indices of hazardous drinking (ie, quantity/frequency, harmful use, and dependence), and that the current pain intensity would be positively/indirectly associated with the urge to drink via negative affect.

METHODS
Participants included 225 daily smokers (43% female; MCPD  = 22) who completed the baseline session for a larger experimental study.

RESULTS
Every one-point increase in pain severity was associated with a 47% increased likelihood of hazardous drinking, and pain severity was positively associated with quantity/frequency of alcohol consumption, harmful patterns of drinking, and alcohol dependence level (Ps < .05). Pain intensity was indirectly associated with urge to drink via negative affect (P < .05).

CONCLUSIONS
These findings provide initial evidence that smokers with greater pain severity may also report hazardous patterns of alcohol use.

SCIENTIFIC SIGNIFICANCE
This is the first study to demonstrate that past 4-week pain severity may be one factor that maintains three conceptually distinct patterns of hazardous drinking among smokers. The current results also provide the first evidence that greater pain intensity may be associated with an increased urge to drink alcohol, via negative affect. (Am J Addict 2020;00:00-00).


The development of the root system of plants are a reflection of the level of physical and chemical soil properties. Siltpit (rorak) is a conservation pit of a certain size and layout which systematically provide benefits for soil remediation. Empty Fruit Bunch (Tan-kos) used as an alternative of organic fertilizer and also contribute to the improvement of physical - chemical and biological properties of soil. The experiments were conducted with four treatments and 4 replications . Experiment arranged in Radomized Completely Block Design with treatment EFB applications 750 kg on the soil surface with dimension 3mx2m (T0); siltpit size 3 m x 0.66 m x 0.75 m + 750 kg EFB (T1); siltpit size 5 m x 0.6 m x 0.5 m + 750 kg EFB (T2) and siltpit size 5 m x 1 m x 0.3 m + 750 kg EFB (T3). T2 treatment gives the most influence on the increase in the CEC of 4.8 cmol / kg then T0 of 2.8 cmol / kg. Improvement  P-dissolved  is found in T3 4:06 ppm followed by T0 3.96 ppm, K-total increase 0.75 cmol/kg and K-available in 0.9 cmol/kg.T0 treatment effect significant difference in diameter, wet weight, dry weight and root length tertiary depth of I, II and III. While treatment pit + 750 kg EFB (T1,T2 and T3) did not significant impact and significantly influence on the treatment T2 in parameter tertiary root length of 27.93 mm in depth III. Key words : Siltpit, EFB, root development and soil properties.


In this article, Professor Kenji Yoshino seeks to explain why the category of bisexuality has been erased in contemporary American political and legal discourse. He first argues that the invisibility of bisexuality relative to homosexuality does not reflect the incidences of those orientations in the population. Defining bisexuality as the possession of more than incidental desire for both sexes, Yoshino shows that the major sexuality studies demonstrate that the incidence of bisexuality is in fact greater than or comparable to the incidence of homosexuality. Yoshino explains the erasure of bisexuality by positing that both self-identified heterosexuals and self-identified homosexuals have overlapping interests in the erasure of bisexuality that lead them into an "epistemic contract" of bisexual erasure. These interests include: (1) the stabilization of exclusive sexual orientation categories; (2) the retention of sex as an important diacritical axis; and (3) the protection of norms of monogamy. Noting that such contracts tend to become visible only when they are challenged, Yoshino describes how bisexuals have increasingly contested their own erasure. Finally, Yoshino examines the effects of bisexual invisibility and visibility in the legal realm, focusing on the sexual harassment jurisprudence of recent decades.


Background: Accumulation of fat in the liver is known as liver steatosis which occurs as a result of obesity. Ginsenoside is glycosylated saponins easily found in Asia, Egypt and China. The aim of this study is to determine the role ginseng in treating fatty changes of liver measured by weight, size, and enzymes.
Methodology: It was an experimental study on animals. Ginseng root extract was prepared under expert supervision. Fifty male rats were divided into five groups each has to contain ten animals. Group 1 on balanced diet (control), Group 2 on high fat diet (HFD) obese control, Group 3 on HFD + Ginsenoside (100mg/kg body weight), Group 4  on HFD + Ginsenoside (200mg/kg body weight) and Group 5 on HFD + Ginsenoside (400mg/kg body weight). Animals were weighted at commencement then weekly and finally before sacrifice. Animals were sacrificed under chloroform anesthesia, the liver was isolated and removed. Liver weight and size were measured.  Blood was collected through cardiac puncture and sent to DDRRL for LFT.
Results: By giving HFD, increase in liver weight, as well as the liver size and liver enzymes, was observed.  Ginsenoside when given to HFD induced liver steatosis leads to decrease in liver weight, liver size, and liver enzymes. It had a prompt effect on reducing body weight as well as liver weight by reducing fat contents of the body.
Conclusion: The study provides evidence that Ginsenoside has hepatoprotective effects by reducing the weight, size, and enzymes of the liver.


Jurassic strata in west-central New Mexico encompass part of the southern edge of the Jurassic outcrop belt in the Western Interior. Some of the Jurassic units pinch out or are truncated southward in west-central New Mexico, so that in the southernmost reaches of the Jurassic outcrop belt the entire Jurassic section is merged eolian sandstones. Therefore, a dual lithostratigraphic nomenclature needs to be used for Jurassic strata in west-central New Mexico, one that refl ects the two different lithofacies belts. For convenience, we refer to these as the water-deposited and the eolian lithofacies belts. The Jurassic section in the water-deposited lithofacies belt is (in ascending order) the Entrada Sandstone (Dewey Bridge and Slick Rock members), Todilto Formation (Luciano Mesa and Tonque Arroyo members), Summerville Formation, Bluff Sandstone (main body and Recapture Member), Acoma Tongue of the Zuni Sandstone and Morrison Formation (Salt Wash, Brushy Basin and Jackpile members). In the eolian lithofacies belt, the entire Jurassic section is assigned to the Zuni Sandstone. The "Iyanbito Member" of the Entrada Sandstone is Triassic strata of the Wingate Sandstone and thus is removed from the Entrada, and the name Iyanbito Member is abandoned. The lithostratigraphy we advocate for Jurassic strata in west-central New Mexico is parsimonious; it refl ects regional lithostratigraphic geometry, embodies sound application of stratigraphic principles and is both practical and useful to geologists. It provides a sound basis for a Jurassic sequence stratigraphy in west-central New Mexico that recognizes four regional unconformities: J-2 (base of Entrada and Zuni sandstones), J-3 (base of Todilto Formation), J-5 (base of Salt Wash Member of Morrison Formation) and K-0 (base of Cretaceous Dakota Sandstone).


We usually consider literary thinking to be peripheral and dispensable, an activity for specialists: poets, prophets, lunatics, and babysitters. Certainly we do not think it is the basis of the mind. We think of stories and parables from Aesop's Fables or The Thousand and One Nights, for example, as exotic tales set in strange lands, with spectacular images, talking animals, and fantastic plots-wonderful entertainments, often insightful, but well removed from logic and science, and entirely foreign to the world of everyday thought. But Mark Turner argues that this common wisdom is wrong. The literary mind-the mind of stories and parables-is not peripheral but basic to thought. Story is the central principle of our experience and knowledge. Parable-the projection of story to give meaning to new encounters-is the indispensable tool of everyday reason. Literary thought makes everyday thought possible. This book makes the revolutionary claim that the basic issue for cognitive science is the nature of literary thinking. In The Literary Mind, Turner ranges from the tools of modern linguistics, to the recent work of neuroscientists such as Antonio Damasio and Gerald Edelman, to literary masterpieces by Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Proust, as he explains how story and projection-and their powerful combination in parable-are fundamental to everyday thought. In simple and traditional English, he reveals how we use parable to understand space and time, to grasp what it means to be located in space and time, and to conceive of ourselves, other selves, other lives, and other viewpoints. He explains the role of parable in reasoning, in categorizing, and in solving problems. He develops a powerful model of conceptual construction and, in a far-reaching final chapter, extends it to a new conception of the origin of language that contradicts proposals by such thinkers as Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker. Turner argues that story, projection, and parable precede grammar, that language follows from these mental capacities as a consequence. Language, he concludes, is the child of the literary mind. Offering major revisions to our understanding of thought, conceptual activity, and the origin and nature of language, The Literary Mind presents a unified theory of central problems in cognitive science, linguistics, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. It gives new and unexpected answers to classic questions about knowledge, creativity, understanding, reason, and invention.


AIMS
This cross-sectional observational study was designed to evaluate the uptake and outcome of patient education after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

METHODS AND RESULTS
A questionnaire containing 41 items was handed out to consecutive patients from randomly selected Swedish hospitals after PCI. Questions concerned the patient's attribution of the cause of the cardiac event, perception of the information provided by physicians and nurses, and a self-assessment of changes in lifestyle post PCI regarding tobacco, physical activity, food habits and stress. Replies were obtained from 1,073 patients (reply rate 67%). Non-modifiable risk factors (age, heredity) were attributed a higher rate as the cause of disease compared to modifiable factors (smoking, physical activity, food habits). Most patients (67%) perceived they were cured, and 38% perceived from the given information that there was no need to change their habits. A mere 27% reported that they still had cardiovascular disease and needed behavioural change. After PCI, 16% continued to use tobacco; half of these were offered smoking cessation support. In spite of an 80% referral rate to cardiac rehabilitation, one out of two patients did not enrol. Fewer than half were regularly physically active. Nutritional counselling was provided to 71%, but only 40% changed food habits. Stress management programmes were rarely provided.

CONCLUSIONS
Current preventive practice scarcely meets the challenge posed by the progress in modern invasive cardiology. The Study of Patient Information after percutaneous Coronary Intervention (SPICI) motivates an in-depth revision and adaptation of cardiac rehabilitation programmes in order to improve patient understanding of the disease, and to support greater compliance with a cardioprotective lifestyle.


BACKGROUND: In the United States, venous leg ulcers (VLUs) are commonly associated with substantial disability, impaired quality of life, and high economic costs. Compression therapy, which has remained the standard care for VLUs over several decades, is often insufficient to heal VLUs in a timely manner. VLU-related treatment costs are directly related to time to achieve complete wound closure. Advanced wound care matrices (AWCMs) developed to stimulate wound healing may reduce VLU-related costs associated with delayed healing. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have evaluated the wound-healing efficacy of several AWCMs in patients with VLUs. However, comparisons of products' clinical and cost efficacy, which may guide clinical and formulary determinations, are lacking. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate, in terms of number needed to treat (NNT), the comparative clinical and cost efficacy of targeted AWCMs as adjuncts to compression therapy for the treatment of chronic VLUs from the U.S. health care system (payer) perspective. METHODS: A review of published articles (from the earliest available Medline publication date to June 1, 2011) identified RCTs evaluating complete wound closure rates for up to 24 weeks in patients with VLUs treated with targeted AWCMs (Apligraf, Oasis, or Talymed) plus compression therapy compared with compression therapy alone. The most favorable estimates of product efficacy (i.e., those that were statistically significant compared with compression therapy) were used. These included statistically adjusted results for Apligraf as reported in the product insert and the biweekly application for Talymed. Based on the reported efficacy of targeted AWCMs, we calculated the NNT to achieve 1 additional treatment success (i.e., complete wound closure) over that which was achieved with standard therapy alone; 95% CIs were estimated using the Wilson score method proposed by Newcombe. Cost efficacy, defined as the incremental cost per additional successfully treated patient, was then calculated by multiplying the NNT associated with each treatment by the product acquisition cost per treated VLU episode. RESULTS: One study for each of 3 targeted AWCMs (Apligraf [n = 130 treatment, n = 110 control]; Oasis Wound Matrix [n = 62 treatment, n = 58 control]; and Talymed [n = 22 treatment, n = 20 control]) met inclusion criteria. Study designs and wound characteristics varied. Average VLU sizes were 1 cm2, 10-12 cm2, and 10-13 cm2 in the studies of Apligraf, Oasis, and Talymed, respectively. Ulcer duration exceeded 12 months for 50% of patients in the Apligraf study and was at least 7 months for 47% of patients in the Oasis study; patients with ulcers exceeding 6 months were excluded from the study of Talymed. Length of follow-up was 24 weeks for Apligraf, 12 weeks for Oasis, and 20 weeks for Talymed. NNT point estimates of clinical efficacy were 2 for Talymed, 5 for Oasis, and 6 for Apligraf; 95% CIs ranged from 2 to 8 for Talymed, 3 to 24 for Apligraf, and 3 to 39 for Oasis. Incremental costs (95% CIs) per additional successfully treated patient were $1,600 ($1,600-$6,400) for Talymed, $3,150 ($1,890-$24,570) for Oasis, and $29,952 ($14,976-$119,808) for Apligraf. CONCLUSIONS: The most expensive AWCM for the treatment of VLUs did not appear to provide the greatest comparative clinical or cost efficacy. Conclusions must be tempered by the small number of available studies (n = 3), variability in trial duration (from 12 to 24 weeks) and baseline wound characteristics, and limitations in study quality. Given the high prevalence, economic burden, and substantial disability of VLUs, and the wide variation in costs for AWCMs, payers need more high-quality head-to-head comparisons to guide coverage and reimbursement determinations for these products.


The work presented here seeks to compare different means of providing uniflow scavenging for a 2-stroke engine suitable to power a US light-duty truck. Through the 'end-to-end' nature of the uniflow scavenging process, it can in theory provide improved gas-exchange characteristics for such an engine operating cycle; furthermore, because the exhaust leaves at one end and the fresh charge enters at the other, the full circumference of the cylinder can be used for the ports for each flow and therefore, for a given gas exchange angle-area demand, expansion can theoretically be maximized over more traditional loop-scavenging approaches. This gives a further thermodynamic advantage.
 The three different configurations studied which could utilize uniflow scavenging were the opposed piston, the poppetvalve with piston-controlled intake ports and the sleeve valve. These are described and all are compared in terms of indicated fuel consumption for the same cylinder swept volume, compression ratio and exhaust pressure, for the same target indicated mean effective pressure and indicated specific power.
 A new methodology for optimization was developed using a one-dimensional engine simulation package which also took into account charging system work. The charging system was assumed to be a combination of supercharger and turbocharger to permit some waste energy recovery.
 As a result of this work it was found that the opposed-piston configuration provides the best attributes since it allows maximum expansion and minimum heat transfer. Its advantage over the other two (whose results were very close) was of the order of 8.3% in terms of NSFC (defined as ISFC net of supercharger power). Part of its advantage also stems from its requirement for minimum air supply system work, included in this NSFC value.
 Interestingly, it was found that existing experiential guidelines for port angle-area specification for loop-scavenged, piston-ported engines using crankcase compression could also be applied to all of the other scavenging types. This has not been demonstrated before. The optimization process that was subsequently developed allowed port design to be tailored to specific targets, in this case lowest NSFC. The paper therefore presents a fundamental comparison of scavenging systems using a new approach, providing new insights and information which have not been shown before.


Abstract The introduction of engineered beams offers long span, low cost and light weight joists in comparison to traditional solid timber sections. However, the vibration criteria in the design codes may significantly reduce the permissible span of the joists for domestic construction. This paper investigates the influence of geometric and material variability on permissible spans of a series of multi-webbed composite joists, which are designed in accordance with the requirements of Eurocode 5 and its UK National Annex. Geometric variability comprises four different profiles, namely; I-beams, Double I-beams, Box beams and Box I-beams/joists. The variations between the profiles are web-flange connection details and the number of webs, which vary from one to three depending on the profile. Material variability involves two different web materials, OSB and plywood, which are considered together with two different flange materials, C16 and C24. This study shows that serviceability would in general govern design requirements in UK timber flooring systems. Out of four different sub-criteria defined under the serviceability conditions, the deflection under unit point load is the governing condition in most cases. It was found that the correct choice of materials and beam profile can enhance the permissible span by up to 34%. When lateral restraint is not provided, lateral stability becomes the controlling criterion as beam depth increases. An inverse relationship has been found between the permissible span and the beam depth for an I-beam profile, whereas for the Double I-beams a constant permissible span was observed for varied beam depths. For the Box beams and Boxed I-beams, the permissible span will increase in proportion to beam depth. This study also shows that the effect of lateral stability on solid timber joists is less pronounced than for engineered beams.


The application of digital technologies (DT) has been on the increase within the manufacturing industries since a decade ago. It has been widely suggested that the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of DT in manufacturing industries worldwide, as countries have tried to contain and mitigate the spread of infection through lockdowns and stringent standard operating procedures (SOPs). Hence, a study was undertaken to evaluate this trend in the Malaysian wood products industry, and to identify the key DT used. A questionnaire-based survey was implemented and targeted at the furniture, moldings, and builder's joinery and carpentry sub-sectors, with the assistance of the relevant trade associations. A total of 477 responses were obtained, and it was found that digital technologies, such as computer aided design (CAD), computer numerical control (CNC), digital communication, digital marketing, and enterprise resources planning (ERP) systems, were highly adopted, but they did not significantly differ in terms of company size or product type. However, the rate of adoption was not uniform, as 5% of the respondent companies did not adopt any digital technologies. The study revealed that wood products companies adopted digital technologies that boosted their production and marketing, while those with limited DT adoption were more severely impacted during the pandemic.


This paper reviews the substantial body of research on workplace bullying with a view to developing a regulatory framework for controlling and preventing bullying problems. The paper argues that  Top down approaches in dealing with workplace bullying are unlikely to be effective;  Local knowledge, understanding and capacity are crucial to managing workplace bullying;  Workplace bullying is an interpersonal issue that can be triggered and sustained by a host of factors including the personalities of the people involved, the norms of the workplace, structural features of the work, management style and emotional well-being;  Workplace bullying can be understood as a competitive struggle of oneupmanship that locks individuals into bullying/victim roles;  Better management of shame is at the heart of workplace bullying problems;  Because of the complex set of factors leading to shame and shaping bullying, a multipronged approach is necessary that engages all levels of the organization. This might include organizational policy, organizational backing of local plans for managing bullying, mentoring, counselling, restorative justice conferencing, overhaul of work structures and practices, and mediation;  Where workgroups communicate well, show respect for each other, are fair and open in their dealings with each other and are supported by their senior officers, compliance with policies such as anti-bullying is likely to be higher.


Abstract We present a new approach to understanding credit relationships between commercial banks and quoted firms, and with this approach, examine the temporal change in the structure of the Japanese credit network from 1980 to 2005. At each year, the credit network is regarded as a weighted bipartite graph where edges correspond to the relationships and weights refer to the amounts of loans. Reduction in the supply of credit affects firms as debtor, and failure of a firm influences banks as creditor. To quantify the dependency and influence between banks and firms, we propose a set of scores of banks and firms, which can be calculated by solving an eigenvalue problem determined by the weight of the credit network. We found that a few largest eigenvalues and corresponding eigenvectors are significant by using a null hypothesis of random bipartite graphs, and that the scores can quantitatively describe the stability or fragility of the credit network during the 25 years.


The slow growth in the number of states that have enacted legislation to permit what is often referred to as "death with dignity" legislation—and more frequently referred to popularly as "physician assisted suicide" laws—has begun to accelerate in the past few years since the enactment of the first such statute in Oregon in 1994.

Like much other social reform legislation, there is a long history behind it. In this case, the history in the United States dates back at least to the latter part of the nineteenth century. Not until the 1980s, however, did these efforts gain any traction in courts and legislatures. What is probably more responsible than anything else for reviving interest in and providing momentum for legalization is the recognition by state courts, beginning with the Karen Ann Quinlan case in New Jersey in 1975, that the right to be free from unwanted interference with one's bodily integrity encompasses a right to refuse even life-sustaining medical treatment. The recognition of this so-called right to die was only a short conceptual step—though a long political one—from recognizing that competent adults also should have the right to actively end their lives under certain conditions.

As of the end of 2019, the efforts of a small number of advocacy groups through lobbying, litigation, and public education have resulted in the enactment of death with dignity legislation in nine states and recognition of the right by one state supreme court. Despite dire warnings from opponents of legalization, it has not resulted in either wholesale abuse of the dying or the legalization of active euthanasia (either voluntary or involuntary).


The purpose of this study was to characterize, differentiate and correlate visual field and brain activation in visual cortex for normal, glaucoma suspect (GS) and primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) participants using Standard Automated Perimetry (SAP) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) respectively. The fMRI scans and SAP test were both carried out in Pusat Perubatan Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (PPUKM). Two types of black-and-white checkerboard pattern were displayed to the participants during the fMRI scans. The fMRI data were analyzed using WFU pickatlas toolbox targeting visual cortex area. The results showed that there was no significant difference in number of activated voxel between the three groups in visual cortex (BA 17, 18 and 19) while viewing all the given stimuli (p > 0.05). The pattern standard deviation (PSD) of SAP for visual field also revealed no significant differences (p > 0.05) in all groups of participants. However, negative correlation between PSD and fMRI activation was observed. The PSD values increased with a decrease in fMRI activation. With reference to visual field analysis, the results suggest that glaucomatous neuropathy of POAG patients has led to a gradual decrease in visual cortex activation and a gradual increase in PSD. DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.17576/JSKM-2017-1501-04


The basic idea in science is that our knowledge progresses slowly and that we build on the results of each others' work. Some have argued that paradigm changes are much more important for scientific progress, but it seems difficult to influence such a paradigm change (1). In the meantime, we can do nothing other than slowly improve our knowledge. That is why reviews are important. From reviews to systematic reviews

Reviews have been published for a very long time. The most popular form of review used to be the narrative in which an expert tells what is known on a topic supported by references from the literature. In the 1980s, Mulrow and her co-workers (2) and Oxman & Guyatt (3) drew attention to the fact that this type of review is highly susceptible to bias and not very informative in practice. Their comments laid the foundation for methodological improvement resulting in systematic reviews. A systematic review is defined as a review of the literature that has been prepared using a systematic approach minimizing biases and random errors documented in a material and methods section (4). Limited searching, selective inclusion of studies, unclear formulated questions, language restriction, or unreliable extraction of data from studies can be sources of such bias.

MMethods for combining research results in a more numerical way, as in a meta-analysis, have also been around for over 100 years (5). Meta-analysis is defined as the statistical or mathematical synthesis of study results. The idea is that a meta-analysis too often happens without regard of biases in the primary studies and then results in "mega-silliness". Therefore, the term systematic review is usually preferred over meta-analysis, even though the review can include a meta-analysis. A slightly different development took place in the 1970s in social science in the form of a more systematic approach to meta-analyses (6). The approach relies primarily on summarizing study results quantitatively, for example, in the form of effect sizes. Meta-analyses can be very useful as they can result in a more precise estimate of the effect of an intervention or exposure and can "adjust" for the influence of study size. However, basically, meta-analyses should follow the same principles as systematic reviews.

The enormous progress that has been made in the past 20 years can easily be seen if we compare reviews on similar topics from before 1990 with more recent reviews. For example, the question of whether noise leads to a rise in blood pressure has been reviewed many times in the past, as well as in the present (7, 8). In contrast to the oldest review, the most recent one addresses a specific question, specifies the search strategy, has specific inclusion criteria, and uses a clear method for synthesizing the studies. It is a nice example of how the methods used in systematic reviews have developed.

The creation and development of the Cochrane Collaboration in the beginning of the 1990s has also greatly contributed to the improvement of systematic reviews. The Cochrane Collaboration is an international network of researchers and practitioners with the aim of producing systematic reviews about health care intervention and disseminating their results. The rules are presented in a freely available, extensive handbook that can be regarded as a quality handbook for Cochrane systematic reviews (9). An extensive review process ensures that the reviews meet the set methodological and quality standards. It has been repeatedly shown that this process leads to higher quality reviews (10).

Recently the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health started an entity in the Cochrane Collaboration to further systematic reviews on occupational health topics, the Cochrane Occupational Health Field (www.cohf.fi). It has led to a dozen new occupational health reviews being prepared, of which some are already available (11, 12).

Cochrane systematic reviews are published electronically only in the Cochrane Library. The format is such that it does not fit a paper journal because of the extensive summing up of the results of the included studies. With most paper journals an agreement is made allowing the same review to be published.

 Is there still room for other reviews?

The concept of a clinical review or tutorial again differs from that of systematic reviews. The idea is that, an expert in the field describes, also on the basis of a systematic approach to the literature, the general approach to a particular medical problem, such as, for example, back pain, lung cancer, or sore throat. I feel that they have a value of their own for practitioners who need a quick overview. However, they can be highly influenced by the expert's preference for a certain intervention or diagnosis, especially if they are not fully based on evidence from the literature.

 Occupational health reviews

Reviews about work-related or occupational causes of disease have a long history in occupational health journals. However, it seems that the dialectics of progress are at work. We have not yet adopted the recently developed systematic review methodology as much as we should. For example, assessments of the quality of observational studies are not commonplace, and there is no instrument to rate the quality of these studies objectively (13).

Another area of concern is toxicology, a field in which there is a high reliance on expert judgment and no convincing system of synthesizing evidence exists (14, 15). It has been shown that reliance on expert opinion alone can differ considerably from inferences based on evidence in the literature (16, 17).

To me, it seems that there is still ample room for occupational health reviews especially outside the traditional area of work-related etiology. Currently, many occupational health intervention studies have been performed, and many of them have been collected by the Cochrane Occupational Health Field (18). They are available from the website www.cohf.fi. The prognosis concerning return to work after sickness, the diagnosis of occupational diseases, and the prevalence of exposure are other areas in which studies seem to be begging for review.

 Occupational health reviews in the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health

In this issue, Tompa et al (19) have made one of the first attempts to review the effectiveness of incentives to prevention through insurance and regulations. This is clearly not an easy, although highly relevant, area for review, with unclearly defined outcomes and interventions, few studies, and widely varying methodological quality. These authors did well in coping with all of these challenges in defining concrete inclusion and quality criteria and using best evidence synthesis. For me, it was a surprise to learn that the introduction of occupational safety and health regulations did not have a clear impact on the level of occupational injuries, but that penalties for violating the law did have an impact. More and higher quality studies are certainly needed to support the findings of this review.

I hope that you will reach the same conclusion that I did. There is still ample room for reviews in the Scandinavian Journal of Work Environment & Health , both in terms of topics and in terms of methodological quality. We are looking forward to your contributions.


Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes are one of the block coding techniques that can approach the Shannon's limit within a fraction of a decibel for high block lengths. In many digital communication systems these codes have strong competitors of turbo codes for error control. LDPC codes performance depends on the excellent design of parity check matrix and many diverse research methods have been used by different study groups to evaluate the performance. In this research work finite fields construction method is used and diverse techniques like masking, dispersion and array dispersion for the construction of parity check matrix H. These constructed codes are then simulated to make the performance evaluation. The key interest of this research work was to inspect the performance of LDPC codes based on finite fields. A comprehensive masking technique was also an objective of this research work. Simulation was done for different rates using additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. In MATLAB a library of different functions was created to perform the task for base matrix construction, dispersion, masking, generator matrix construction etc. Results give an idea that even at BER of 10-6 these short length LDPC codes performed much better and have no error floor. BER curves are also with 2-3dB from Shannon's limit at BER of 10-6 for different rates.


My thesis aims to improve the modes through which corporate responsibility is attributed. Doing so is essential to facilitating corporate liability doctrines that are capable of responding to and regulating corporate power. Corporate responsibility is often treated as an analogue of human responsibility, with a necessary condition of corporate liability often thought to be corporate intentional action. Such a requirement places substantial conceptual and practical limits on the reach and effectiveness of corporate liability, as the legal entity of an organisation appears to lack the necessary characteristics and capacities. However, such insistence on intentional action as a prerequisite for responsibility is misguided. An analysis of the practice of responsibility in which corporate responsibility attributions are situated reveals that responsibility can be attributed, and liability imposed, in a way that responds to the full extent of corporate misconduct. Responsibility attributions matter because of the expressive, moral, and legal responses they facilitate, and the practice of responsibility enables more than just individual acts to fill this role. The status of responsible agent within the practice of responsibility is a consequence not just of human action, but also agents' traits. Organisations possess responsible traits in their corporate structures. They are more than just legal creations. They are employers, holding authority over the individuals working within their bounds. Employees are subjected by the organisation, as their employer, to a system of work, and inherent in this system are structures that impose pressures and constraints upon members of the organisation. Whether formally expressed or not, corporate structure determines the direction and boundaries of behaviour within its confines. The corporate traits of structure, through directing action, attract attributions of responsibility and liability. Organisations become responsible in their own right. Responsibility attributions can account for the responsibility of organisations. As is evidenced through examination of the English law of corporate manslaughter, such an understanding of responsibility enables the introduction of legal responses with broader relevance and applicability, and greater conceptual coherence.


Well-funded and well-staffed agricultural research systems with efficient allocation of research resources are important for improving agricultural productivity and for meeting other agricultural development goals. Assessing research system funding adequacy and staffing, as compared to alternative investments, and allocating research resources within systems require data on agricultural research investments. The Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) initiative at IFPRI is the most comprehensive source of agricultural research statistics for low- and middle-income countries. Since 2001, building on an earlier International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR) effort, ASTI has developed a network of institutional collaborators at national and regional levels who assist in implementing surveys to collect agricultural research investment data in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. ASTI compiles, processes, and publicizes the data at national, regional, and global levels. It has published a broad set of country briefs, notes, and regional synthesis reports that have been cited in national and international policy documents.


This project considers how the slow, rhythmic and repetitive movements inherent in the embodied actions of walking, printmaking and drawing generate sensitive responses to place. This project aims to acknowledge the complexity within place relationships that bear witness to the imprint of settler-colonialism. The project addresses the growing need to consider how we come to terms with the discomfort of contradictory sets of experiences that are part of walking in contested lands. Walking enables a slowed-down and embodied attentiveness to navigate relationships with place. Perceptions of linear time dissolve to reveal a complex merging and co-mingling of observations, memories and imaginings. This methodology develops a sense of a simultaneously moving internal and external passage; an entangled or knotted time which is reflected in the conceptual, visual and material explorations within this project. lutruwita / Tasmania is a place with vibrant and resistant Aboriginal culture. It has a strong and diverse community made up of interconnected narratives; people who are finding and testing new ways to voice the stories of this place. I relocated from Canberra to Hobart in 2014 to undertake this project and began my relationship by enacting a daily ritual of stepping out my front door and into relation with my immediate environment. Over four years I have walked a web of connection between my place of dwelling and a number of key locations in and around the Hobart region. Informed by a material knowledge of printmaking and drawing, and expanded through 3D-fabrication technologies, sound and video, the studio research has engaged an iterative making process mirroring the repetitive looping motions and the entangling of thought embedded in the walking body. Two forms emerged as central to the work during the early stages of the project: the holdfast, from the giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) found on Bruny Island, and a series of stick shelters encountered in the Knocklofty Reserve on the flanks of kunanyi / Mount Wellington. Gaston Bachelard's notion of the image cluster has been used in relation to these two forms to communicate my shifting feelings of entanglement, attachment and dislodgement. This research is situated within the interdisciplinary fields of walking-based practice and critical place inquiry. Led by place philosophers, Indigenous scholars, artists and sociologists, research and pedagogies from these fields re-emphasise the importance of embodied knowledge, notions of motility, porosity and heterogeneity in our conceptualisations of place. These ideas counter dominant colonising ideas of fixity, impermeable boundaries and monologue. Arriving in Hobart to undertake the project, I was met by an unfamiliar sense of place panic, described by philosopher Edward S. Casey as a feeling of estrangement or displacement commonly associated with separation from one place and the experience of a new and unfamiliar place. This experience directed the project towards a deeper investigation of philosophical concepts of place, home-place attachment, and desires for lost intimacy with land. This discussion has been supported by the writings of contemporary Australian philosopher Val Plumwood, writer Ross Gibson, and anthropologist Deborah Bird-Rose. By investigating the work of artists Marlene Creates, Richard Long, James Tylor, Simryn Gill and Julie Gough, the project further explores the ways in which our personal and cultural desires, losses and longings inherently shape our conceptualisations of and relationships with place. Within the field of walking-based practice, my work contributes to the linkage between settler-colonial places and the use of walking methodologies to support the development of dialogical relations. Whilst acknowledging that walking is not exempt from contestation, this project presents new knowledge in regard to these ideas and the use of walking-based practice through the development of strategies and approaches to navigating concerns around trespass and invasion. This methodology opens up a form of embodied and relational dialogue that leads to meaningful ongoing relationships with place, including important intercultural connections. The research outcomes contribute to decolonising modes of practice by developing an ethical relationship and methodology for approaching contested ground as a settler Australian artist through process. The research proposes that such approaches and practices are both critically necessary and central to acknowledging the complex histories that lie within our land.


Spatial locality brings the advantages of computation speed-up and sequence reuse to molecular computing. In particular, molecular walkers that undergo localized reactions are of interest for implementing logic computations at the nanoscale. We use molecular spider walkers to implement logic circuits. We develop an extended multispider model with a dynamic environment wherein signal transmission is triggered via localized reactions, and use this model to implement three basic gates (AND, OR, and NOT) and a cascading mechanism. We develop an algorithm to automatically generate the layout of the circuit. We use a kinetic Monte Carlo algorithm to simulate circuit computations, and we analyze circuit complexity: our design scales linearly with formula size and has a logarithmic time complexity.


A Project Labor Agreement (PLA) is a form of "pre-hire" collective bargaining agreement between building trades unionsand the construction clients that typically requires any firm that bids on a project hire workers through union hallsand follow union rules on pensions, work conditions and dispute resolution. In return, unions agree not to strike for theduration of the project. Opponents argue that PLAs raise construction costs; proponents dispute this and say that laborpeace ensures that PLA projects are finished on time. We measure the cost effect of PLAs using data on constructioncosts for 126 schools in Massachusetts between 1995 and 2003; our regression results show that PLAs raise the cost ofschool building by between $12 and $20 per square foot, or by between 9 and 15% of total costs. This is in line withanecdotal evidence on the PLA effect. However, a study by Belman et al. (2005), using fewer (70) observations but afuller econometric specification, found no statistically significant PLA effect; we argue this imprecision is due to the smallsample. We suspect that in this case the larger sample with fewer variables is more revealing than a smaller sample withmore variables.


Historically, the goal of forest inventories has been to determine the extent of the timber resource. Predictions of how the resource was changing were made by comparing differences between successive inventories. The general view of the associated sample design was with selection probabilities based on land area observed at a discrete point in time. Time was not considered to be part of the sample design because it was not considered to be an element of the sampled population. Over the last few decades, the general goal of many national-scale forest inventories has been changing to monitoring the dynamic forest ecosystem. Here, we explore the inferential advantages of replacing the two-dimensional areal probability paradigm with a three- dimensional spatiotemporal probability paradigm. Our general discussion is augmented with a simulated example for estimating annual growth by diameter classes. Two assumptions of temporal indifference and remeasurement interval length indifference, which arose because of the two-dimensional view, are investigated through a simulation. The simulation compares and contrasts five estimators that differ in their reliance on those assumptions to make annual estimates. The results of the simulations often show those assumptions to be bias inducing. FOR .S CI. ❚❚(❚):000-000.


Abstract. Transient oscillations occur in a self-mixing interferometry (SMI) due to moderate or strong feedback. Such transient dynamics appear in the form of impulsive noises and degrade the sensing performance of an SMI-based sensing system. However, due to the complexity of the dynamics of the system, it is difficult to eliminate such impulse-like transients using conventional filtering techniques. A signal processing technique based on myriad filter is proposed to eliminate the transients. By numerically investigating the influence of the parameters of myriad filter on the transients, an adaptive algorithm is developed to ensure that the parameters are suitable for effectively eliminating the transients. The proposed technique is verified by experiments, and the results show that the transients can be effectively removed, leading to improved sensing performance for the SMI-based sensing system.


A principle that host states not regress from existing environmental protections in their domestic legal systems to promote foreign investment has quietly begun to establish itself in international investment law in the last decade. With origins in the North American Free Trade Agreement, more than 130 countries now subscribe to this idea in at least one of their international investment agreements. The simplicity of the concept of non-regression and the evident legitimacy of environmental objectives mask deep complexities in measuring levels of environmental protection and identifying reductions in those levels. These complexities are exacerbated by the wide variety of drafting of non- regression clauses, with significant implications for their operation and potential enforcement through investment treaty disputes. Despite the increasing popularity of non-regression clauses as evidenced by an extensive survey of existing treaties, states' current approaches to these clauses leave major questions unresolved, creating the potential for unintentionally increasing host state liability without necessarily enhancing environmental or economic goals.


Brain tumour is a group of abnormal cells that grows inside of the brain or around the brain. Tumours can directly destroy all healthy brain cells. In order to detect the tumour part, image segmentation plays a significant role in computer vision systems. It aims at extracting meaningful objects lying within the image. Generally, there is no particular system or method for image segmentation. Clustering is a robust approach that has been reached in image segmentation. The cluster analysis is to partition image information set into a number of disjoint groups or clusters. In this work we used adaptive k-means clustering for segmentation, this is one among the standard methods because of its simplicity and computational efficiency, GLDM (Grey Level Difference Method) for features extraction and interpolation for feature selection. RBF-SVM (Radial Basis Function Support Vector Machine) classifier is used for the classification of the brain tumor part in image. Keywords-Adaptive k-means Clustering, GLDM features, RBF-SVM Classifier.


We consider the problem of optimal design of flow domains for Navier–Stokes flows in order to minimize a given performance functional. We attack the problem using topology optimization techniques, or control in coefficients, which are widely known in structural optimization of solid structures for their flexibility, generality, and yet ease of use and integration with existing FEM software. Topology optimization rapidly finds its way into other areas of optimal design, yet until recently it has not been applied to problems in fluid mechanics. The success of topology optimization methods for the minimal drag design of domains for Stokes fluids (see the study of Borrvall and Petersson [12]) has lead to attempts to use the same optimization model for designing domains for incompressible Navier–Stokes flows. We show that the optimal control problem obtained as a result of such a straightforward generalization is ill‐posed, at least if attacked by the direct method of calculus of variations. We illustrate the two key difficulties with simple numerical examples and propose changes in the optimization model that allow us to overcome these difficulties. Namely, to deal with impenetrable inner walls that may appear in the flow domain we slightly relax the incompressibility constraint as typically done in penalty methods for solving the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. In addition, to prevent discontinuous changes in the flow due to very small impenetrable parts of the domain that may disappear, we consider so‐called filtered designs, that has become a "classic" tool in the topology optimization toolbox. Technically, however, our use of filters differs significantly from their use in the structural optimization problems in solid mechanics, owing to the very unlike design parametrizations in the two models. We rigorously establish the well‐posedness of the proposed model and then discuss related computational issues.


Since the events of 9/11 in the US in 2001 and, four years later, the 7/7 London bombings in the UK, warnings of terrorist attacks are high on the public agenda in many western countries. Politicians and tabloid press in the UK have continued to make direct and indirect connections between asylum seekers, terrorism and crime. This has increasingly resulted in harsh policy responses to restrict the movement of 'third-world' nationals, criminalisation of immigration and asylum policy, and making the violation of immigration laws punishable through criminal courts. This paper largely highlights the narratives of five asylum seekers who committed 'crime' by breaching immigration laws and were consequently treated as 'dangerous criminals' by the state authorities. More importantly it shows how these individuals experienced this treatment. The aim of this paper is to give voice to the victims of state abuse, claim space for victim agency, gather victim testimonies, challenge official explanations and in the process confront criminal and racist state practices.


In this paper, we present a single voltage-window count-based seizure onset detection algorithm and its associated hardware implementation. The proposed algorithm combines the advantages associated with voltage-window count-based and event-based threshold-voltage detections. The result is an algorithm that is more tolerant to noise, dc offsets, baseline energy variations, and seconds-long nonseizure related sharp activities. In addition, only one parameter (one threshold voltage) needs to be optimized per patient, and for that, only one seizure per patient is used for training, making the process of optimizing the patient-specific detector a simple task. The time evaluation period when counting is performed is kept constant across all patients studied, and is fixed at 5 s in this work. A novel dual path digital signal processing unit in the back-end of the detector is included and is shown to decrease the detection latency by 14%. Experimental results on a printed circuit board using commercially available discrete components confirm the correct functionality of the proposed detector. The proposed algorithm achieves 100% sensitivity, 10.7 s average detection delay, and a single false alarm when evaluated on a total of 25 seizures and 24 nonseizure datasets of intracerebral electroencephalographic (icEEG) recordings from five patients from the epilepsy monitoring unit of Notre-Dame Hospital in Montréal. In addition, monolithic integration of the overall system, including bio-amplification and comparison, is also carried out in a TSMC 0.18-$\mu$ m complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor technology. Simulations show that a static power dissipation of 7  $\mu {\rm W}$, 99% of which is consumed by the front-end bio-amplifier, is achieved, showing the potential of using the proposed seizure detector in a closed-loop brain–prosthesis device interface for seizure control and treatment.