This paper studies the determinants of international students mobility at the university level, focusing specifically on the role of tuition fees. We derive a gravity model based on a Random Utility Maximization model of location choice for international students in the presence of capacity constraints of the hosting institutions. The last layer of the model is estimated using new data on students migration flows at the university level for Italy and the UK. The particular institutional setting of the two destination countries allows to control for the potential endogeneity of tuition fees. We obtain evidence for a clear and negative effect of fees on international student mobility and confirm the positive impact of quality of education. The estimations find also support for an important role of additional destination-specific variables such as host capacity, expected return of education and cost of living in the vicinity of the university.


This short note demonstrates that it is not necessary to assume the existence of exact solutions in an a-posteriori error analysis. If the residual of a stable numerical solution is sufficiently small there exists a nearby exact solution for which an a-posteriori error estimate holds.

We first develop the idea in an abstract Banach space setting and then demonstrate some further practical details at the nonlinear Laplace equation.

The author acknowledges the financial support received from the European research project HPRN-CT-2002-00284: New Materials, Adaptive Systems and their Nonlinearities. Modelling, Control and Numerical Simulation, and the kind hospitality of Carlo Lovadina (University of Pavia).


Identifiers - such as personal identification numbers, student numbers, and license numbers - are used for identifying individual objects and constitute an important part of the information infrastructures of organizations and society. The design, choice, assignment, withdrawal, and replacement of identifiers are significant economic and political issues with more profound consequences than are perhaps commonly perceived. Use of identifiers can result in significant costs because they may include descriptive information, because an inappropriate identifier may be chosen for the object in question, or because there may be a lack of institutional control of the identifier. The objective of this paper is to elaborate on these problems by explaining the identifier construct from a technical, institutional, ontological, and information infrastructural perspective. Based on this understanding, we provide guidelines for how identifiers should be designed, chosen, replaced, and controlled. Accordingly, we address the practical need for improved design principles relating to the increasingly important infrastructural character of computerized information systems that stems from the importance of appropriate identifiers for information infrastructures and society as a whole. In order to understand the role, function, and meaning of identifiers, it is important to acknowledge that the identifier is fundamentally a linguistic construct used when referring to socially constructed institutional objects. Institutional objects are symbolic entities that represent institutional and brute facts, which are the results of human actions.


We inquire into ways of understanding plant interaction through a triangulation of four approaches: a multispecies ethnography of people's ordinary practices and doings in relation to sakura trees during their short blossoming season; readings of theoretical works on human-plant relations and plants' urge to spread; a systematic review of how plants are involved in computing and computer systems; and finally a review study on how cherry blossoms are used in design and architecture. We bring these together and propose to discuss the involvement of florae in computer systems and design items through the lens of understanding plant interaction as temporally extended dissemination and agency to spread. The design intent within Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI) has been to develop systems where non-human species are seen as "users". If such an approach is applied to plants, then we need to frame research in a direction that aims to give us an understanding of what these sorts of users are doing. Since the most successful forms of dissemination are hedonic, we argue that researchers should focus more specifically on system design that supports aesthetic interaction, rather than supporting abstract contemplation, as has been common within Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).


crylonitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) composites are prepared from waste nylon 66 short fiber using a two-roll mill mixer. The effects of fiber content and bonding agent on the mechanical and morphological properties of the composites are studied. The curing characteristics of the composites have been studied by using cure rheometer. The cure and scorch time of the composites decrease while cure rate is increased when short fiber content is increased. The mechanical properties of the composites show improvement in both longitudinal and transverse directions with increase in short fiber content. The adhesion between the fiber and rubber is enhanced by using a dry bonding system consisting of resorcinol, hexamethylenetetramine and hydrated silica (HRH). The swelling behavior of the composites in N,N-dimethylformamide is tested to find the effect of bonding agent on adhesion strength of the matrix and fibers. Fracture surface morphology of composites is studied by scanning electron microscopy. The restriction to swelling is higher for composites containing bonding agent, especially, in the longitudinal direction. The morphology of the fracture surface shows less fiber pull out when the bonding agent is introduced.


From cooking to playing the piano, our activities consist of simple motions that we string together for specific purposes. When we learn a new recipe or piano sonata, we memorize the elemental gestures of the trade as well as the precise order in which they must occur to produce a coq au vin or "Moonlight Sonata." And when we start cooking or playing, we somehow summon the sequence of movements that will lead to our goal.

Scientists have long wondered how the brain stores in memory a sequence of movements. Ultimately, such memories result from connections that brain cells (neurons) establish among themselves and with the relevant muscles during the learning period. But precisely how the information is organized in the brain remains largely mysterious. A model called "associative chaining" proposes that a memory cell representing an early motion activates memory cells representing later motions in the sequence. In this model, a memory cell recalls at once the type of motion and its order of appearance in the sequence. But in a new study, Mark H. Histed and Earl K. Miller show that they can uncouple the memories for a sequence's components and for their serial order by manipulating a subset of cells in the brain of monkeys. Their observations suggest the existence of abstract forms of memory that store the goal of a sequence of movements.

The researchers focused on a small area near the surface of the brain's frontal lobe called the supplementary eye field (SEF). Within the SEF are cells that control small voluntary eye movements called saccades that animals use to track bright objects near the periphery of their field of vision. Stimulation of individual SEF neurons triggers saccades to separate locations, and SEF neurons have been found to fire sequentially while monkeys made serial saccades to visual targets, as if the cells controlled the saccade succession. The SEF therefore appeared like a logical place to look for neurons that harbor memories of learned saccade sequences.

Histed and Miller first trained two monkeys to saccade to successive locations on a screen. While the monkeys focused on a bright central spot, two additional spots (cues) would appear at random one after the other and disappear after half a second. The monkeys had to wait one more second before saccading to the two cued locations in the order of the cues' appearance. The task therefore required memorizing both the cues' location and order. The monkeys were rewarded each time they accomplished a saccade sequence correctly, and they eventually performed with a near-perfect score. In an experimental session, the researchers would stimulate various sites in the SEF with microelectrodes during the one-second delay period, and record the effect of these stimulations on the monkeys' performance.

Out of 55 SEF locations tested, the researchers found 25 that disrupted the monkeys' performance. The pattern of errors was always the same: the monkeys saccaded to the correct locations, but in incorrect order. For instance, if the sequence consisted of a cue at a 1 o'clock location followed by a cue at 3 o'clock, the monkeys would saccade to 3 o'clock first and then 1 o'clock. However, they never saccaded to 5 o'clock or 11 o'clock, or to any other wrong location. Therefore, the monkeys seem able to keep the memory of visual cues intact even when they forget the order of the cues' appearance, which shows that memories for the order versus the components of a sequence are held separately in the monkey's brain. More specifically, these results indicate that the SEF can reorganize a series of saccades.

Strong stimulation of the SEF can elicit eye movements. If you vertically divide the visual world in half, stimulating the right SEF causes saccades to the left field, and vice versa. But the stimuli Histed and Miller applied to the SEF were too weak to produce saccades. Nevertheless, their effects were similarly biased: they reordered saccade sequences such that the monkeys always seemed to aim for left field when receiving a stimulus in the right SEF, and to right field when receiving a left stimulus. The researchers conclude that rather than precisely ordering a sequence of saccades, the SEF codes for a spatial goal (left field or right field), regardless of whether it takes one or more saccades to reach that goal.

The implication of these results is that the brain might store complex sequences of movements in two forms: one for the sequence's goal and one for the details of its execution.


Factors affecting the site of investment, and the reliance on savings for arctic breeders: the capital–income dichotomy revisited. Ardea 94(3): 371–384. The extent to which migratory birds that breed in the Arctic and winter in southern biomes rely on residual body stores for reproduction is unre-solved. The short arctic summer and the limited availability of food early in the season constrain the time available for successful reproduction. Birds that are able to bring sufficient endogenous reserves to the breeding ground to meet, at least partially, the demands of egg-laying can initiate clutch production soon after arrival, thereby shortening the length of the breeding season and improving the chances of reproductive success. The amount of reserves available will be influenced by body size, the increased energetic and predation costs associated with carrying large stores, distances between staging sites and the location of the breeding grounds within the Arctic. Birds need not fly directly to the breeding grounds from the established temperate staging sites. Extensive feeding by migrants may occur in the Arctic, even within a few kilometres of the breeding sites as the birds track the retreating snowline. Irrespective of their size, birds are thus able to store some resources necessary for egg laying at local or regional scales. It is thus important to make a distinction between local capital and distant capital breeding. The extent to which a bird is characterized as a distant capital, local capital, or an income breeder not only varies between species, but also between individuals and seasons.


This article examines social, economic, and political factors influencing the distribution of resources to local governments under the EPA Brownfields Program, an innovative federal effort to encourage the remediation and redevelopment of contaminated properties. Signed into law in 2002, the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act provided the program with a congressional mandate, new tools to promote reuse such as liability protections, and increased funding up to a level of $250 million per year. This article contributes to research on environmental regulatory reform with an analysis of successful and unsuccessful local government applicants for EPA Brownfields Program support between 2003 and 2007. Building on prior research, we develop a series of expectations and an empirical model, and estimate the influence of program priorities, government and civic capacity, interest group pressures, and institutional politics. Results point to significant relationships between program priorities and award patterns. Contrary both to EPA's explicit commitments to equity and to analysis of pre-2003 award patterns, however, we find negative correlations between the proportions of local populations that are nonwhite or low-income and the likelihood of receiving an award. In addition, better-resourced governments and several dimensions of political representation show strong associations with the likelihood of winning awards. We conclude by discussing implications.


In this paper, we deal with resource allocation in the downlink of spatial multiplexing multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO)-orthogonal frequency-division multiple-access (OFDMA) systems. In particular, we concentrate on the problem of jointly optimizing the transmit and receive processing matrices, the channel assignment, and the power allocation with the objective of minimizing the total power consumption while satisfying different quality-of-service (QoS) requirements. A layered architecture is used in which users are first partitioned in different groups on the basis of their channel quality, and then channel assignment and transceiver design are sequentially addressed starting from the group of users with most adverse channel conditions. The multiuser interference among users belonging to different groups is removed at the base station (BS) using a Tomlinson-Harashima precoder operating at user level. Numerical results are used to highlight the effectiveness of the proposed solution and to make comparisons with existing alternatives.


This stud y contributes to the research on learner autonomy by examining the relationship between Little's (1991) notions of 'independent action' and 'decision-making', input, and L2 production in computer-assisted language learning (CALL). Operationalizing 'independent action' and 'decision-making' with Dam's (1995) definition that focuses on 'choice', the present study examines whether, while learners are engaged in a CALL task, their choices—termed autonomous moves—within a 3D environment and the subsequent input they receive predict the linguistic complexity and accuracy of their production in synchronous computer mediated communication (SCMC). A total of 58 third-year university-level learners of Spanish participated in two murder-mystery tasks coupling a 3D segment—containing embedded user-tracking features—with an SCMC segment. Four regression analyses examined the potential impact of learners' choices within the 3D environment and the input resulting from those decisions on their production. The results suggest that learners' linguistic complexity and accuracy while completing CALL-based tasks is influenced by both their autonomous moves and the linguistic characteristics of the input they receive (as a result of their autonomous moves).


Quantifying future increases in sea level around New Zealand arising from climate change is a key factor for determining decisions on adaptation, yet most projections are expressed in terms of a global-mean rise in sea level. The work presented here makes use of the data from the Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models (AOGCM) used in the 4th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report (IPCC AR4) of 2007 to estimate the possible regional changes in absolute sea level for the SW Pacific for the middle and end of this century for three future climate SRES scenarios (A1B, A2, B2). The AR4 models are initially assessed against satellite altimetry data and while the time mean characteristics of the dynamic topography are represented well, the representation of higher frequency variability is poor. Regional steric changes, determined from averaging several AR4 climate-ocean models, indicate departures of up to an additional 0.05 m, relative to the global average rise, may be applicable to the New Zealand region by the end of the century (2080–2099 relative to 1980–1999). The highest departures from the global mean rise in steric sea level would occur to the west of New Zealand (Tasman Sea) with the lowest departures in the deeper ocean areas (not the coast) to the south-east of the South Island (south of Chatham Rise). Of the three scenarios considered, the largest projected regional departures in sea-level rise around New Zealand for 2030–2049 occur in the A1B scenario and for 2080–2099 in the A2 scenario. However, the analysis presented here shows the projected regional increase in eustatic sea level will be relatively small compared to the global mean sea-level rise and supports earlier statements about departures in the region in more detail. Additionally, further regional contributions to sea-level rise will be influenced by future spatial changes in the gravitational field as melting of the Earth's polar ice sheets accelerates, producing a south-to-north gradient in sea-level rise for New Zealand from this process, with a lower contribution in the south relative to the north. It remains unclear what effects climate change will have on oceanic current circulation in the New Zealand region, and therefore on regional and local changes in sea-surface height. Locally, around the New Zealand coast, relative sea-level rise will also be influenced by spatial and temporal variations in rates of vertical land motion arising primarily from tectonic processes, such as the subsidence currently being experienced in the Wellington region.


Abstract Causes of admission to rehabilitation centers can provide valuable information about factors that cause mortality in the wild. We studied causes of admission to a rehabilitation center for 108 Andean Condors (Vultur gryphus) in Chile. Seventy-nine, 28, and one condor came from central, south, and northern Chile, respectively. From central Chile, an area with high human population, the majority of condors received were adults. The most frequent causes of admission to the rehabilitation center were poisoning (52%) and collisions with power lines (13%). Seventy-two percent of the radiographed birds showed ammunition in their bodies. Almost all the condors (85%) were received during the wintering period, when condors use the lowlands, thus increasing the probability of interaction with humans. The condors admitted from southern Chile, an area with low human pressure, were mainly juveniles. The most frequently admitted birds in the south were young birds that were trapped just after fledging (68%), which made up only 4% of the cases in central Chile. There were no poisonings or collisions with power lines. Only 25% of the radiographed birds were positive for ammunition. No seasonal variation in admissions was observed, indicating that risk factors in the southern zone did not operate on a seasonal basis. The sample of birds admitted from central Chile had similar sex and age structure as the wild population, with some bias toward juveniles, in contrast with the sample from southern Chile, in which young birds dominated. In conclusion, we observed an important anthropogenic effect on causal and temporal patterns of admissions to a rehabilitation center for Andean Condors; for the segment of the population in central Chile, the mortality pressure is apparently higher than expected under natural conditions, which could promote a demographic sink in this region.


Heat treated low-grade kaolin clays are now considered as a suitable pozzolanic material to metakaolins. However their suitability as a good pozzolanic material depends on the geochemistry and structure of the clay which is usually influenced by the geographical environment. This study investigated a low-grade kaolin clay from Nyamebekyere in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The influence of the calcined material on the early and late strength development of Portland cement was analyzed. The early 3- and 7-day strength as well as the late 28-day strength of Portland cement replaced with 20% by weight of the calcined material yielded the optimum strength values. Further analysis using Solid State Magic Angle Spinning Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (Ss MAS NMR) probed into the Aluminium (Al) environment to detect the presence and nature of Al hydrates using the optimum mixture proportion. The Ss MAS NMR results showed that the strength enhancement of the optimum mixture was due to the growth of stable monosulphate compounds at the octahedral environment resulting from metastable aluminate phases at the tetrahedral environment. For greater reliability on concrete strength performance, the study recommends the use of 20% calcined clay of Nyamebekyere clay as Portland cement replacement.


Analytic hierarchy process is a multiple-criteria tool used in applications related to decision-making. In this paper, analytic hierarchy process is used as guidance in information security policy decision-making by identifying influencing factors and their weights for information security policy compliance. The weights for intrinsic motivators are identified based on self-determination theory as essential criteria, namely, autonomy, competence, relatedness, along with behavioural intention towards compliance; and use four awareness focus areas. A survey of cyber-security decision-makers at a Fortune 600 organisation provided data. The results suggest that behavioural intention (52% of the weight of influencing factors) is more important than autonomy (21%), competence (21%) or relatedness (6%) in influencing behaviour towards information security policy compliance. Determining weights of intrinsic motivation, intention, and awareness focus areas can help security decision-making and compliance with policy, and support design of effective security awareness programmes. However, these weights may in turn be affected by local organisational and cultural factors.


The vaccination programs of the countries in the Region of the Americas have produced notable results over the last several decades. In recognition of those accomplishments, in June 2003 the 132nd session of the Executive Committee of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) called on the Member States of PAHO to prepare, within one year, national action plans for the elimination of rubella and congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) by the year 2010. During the Executive Committee discussions, praise was given for the sustained efforts of the countries of the Region in the struggle to eradicate measles. The Executive Committee discussions also reiterated the recommendation that the countries establish specific line items for immunization within their national budgets, in order to protect the investments in immunization that the Region's countries have made. The analysis of results of mass vaccination against rubella indicates that the benefits coming from accelerated control greatly exceed the costs associated with the treatment and rehabilitation of children with CRS. Various factors have created an environment that supports the goal of eliminating rubella and CRS from the Americas by the year 2010. These factors include the rapid reduction in morbidity that has come from the accelerated rubella control strategy; the availability of a safe, affordable, efficacious vaccine; the evidence of the cost benefit of vaccinating against rubella; and the broad support provided by the public and by health authorities in the Member States of PAHO.


The artificial bilayer single channel recording technique is commonly used to observe the detailed physiological properties of various ion channel proteins. It permits easy control of the solution and membrane lipid composition, and is also compatible with pharmacological screening devices. However, its use is limited due to low measurement efficiency. Here, we developed a novel artificial bilayer single channel recording technique in which solubilized ion channel proteins immobilized on a gold nano-electrode are directly incorporated into a lipid bilayer at the same time as the bilayer is formed at the tip of it on coming in contact with an aqueous-oil interface. Using this technique, we measured the single channel currents of several types of channels including KcsA, MthK, hBK and P2X4. This technique requires only one action to simultaneously form the bilayers and reconstitute the channels into the membranes. This simplicity greatly increases the measurement efficiency and allows the technique to potentially be combined with high-throughput screening devices.

publisher-specific, author manuscript: http://rsc.li/journals-terms-of-use


Despite being one of the most intensively explored prehistoric monuments in western Europe, Stonehenge continues to hold surprises. The principal elements of the complex are well known: the outer bank and ditch, the sarsen circle capped by lintels, the smaller bluestone settings and the massive central trilithons. They represent the final phase of Stonehenge, the end product of a complicated sequence that is steadily being refined (most recently in Darvill et al. 'Stonehenge remodelled', Antiquity 86 (2012): 1021–40). Yet Stonehenge in its present form is incomplete—some of the expected stones are missing—and it has sometimes been suggested that it was never complete; that the sarsen circle, for example, was only ever finished on the north-eastern side, facing the main approach along the Avenue. A chance appearance of parchmarks, however, provides more evidence.


This closely argued and thoughtful book offers a fresh and nuanced understanding of the function of the suffering theme in Philippians. A comprehensive survey of previous readings of Philippians is followed by a clear outline of the principles and practice of rhetorical criticism with particular reference to the study of letter-structure. The book concludes by considering in detail the shape and function of the theme of suffering in each of the rhetorical sections of the letter as identified by the author.


Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods were grown on aluminum nitride (AlN) buffer layer deposited on glass substrate as a photocatalyst for the degradation of dyes. Raman spectroscopy was done to confirm the grown ZnO on the sample. Raman peaks were found at 438 cm-1 and 1165 cm-1. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was done to study the surface morphology and geometric properties of the nanorods. The estimated diameter and length of the nanorods were 139 nm and 2.38 μm, respectively. The efficiency of the fabricated photocatalyst was then determined via photodegradation testing on organic dyes. Ultraviolet to visible (UV-vis) spectrometer was used to measure the photodegradation efficiency of the photocatalysts on methylene blue (MB) and rhodamine b (RhB). It was found that the ZnO nanorods has a photodegradation efficiency on MB and RhB of 91.77% and 96.24% under 1 hour exposure to UV light, respectively. The results have shown that ZnO nanorods have effectively degraded MB and RhB at 0.0505 μM/min and 0.0597μM/min, respectively.


Multi carrier CDMA (MC-CDMA) combines the CDMA and OFDM technologies together and potentially offers the advantages of both the technologies. It becomes a very attractive and promising multiple access technique for high-rate data transmission in the future wireless communication systems. To accomplish MC-CDMA aspirations with high capacity and low BER in multipath wireless environment, it is governed by two main functions: power allocation and subcarriers group assignment. Power allocation deals with the sharing of available power over each carrier to maximize the system capacity. Group assignment depicts selection of appropriate subcarriers to support data rate requirements of individual users. The Multiple Input and Multiple Output (MIMO) system is another technique to increase the transmission rate without expanding the signal bandwidth. This paper is focused on interference based subcarrier group assignment strategy for MCCDMAMIMO system to maximize the system capacity and minimize BER by restricting interference noise using water filling game theory based power control algorithm. The sub carrier group assignment is implemented by selecting best sub carriers with maximum SINR value and user's QoS requirements. The performances of mean capacity and BER of the MCCDMA-MIMO system are evaluated with and without water filling algorithm.


In spoofing detection, it is important to capture the attributes related to spoofing attacks from a speech signal. A speech signal has various information such as the speaker, phrase, and environment. When the time sequence of the speech signal is flipped (i.e., time reversal and an additional circular shift), phase spectrum is changed although magnitude spectrum is not changed. It has the effect of data augmentation showing additional attributes in phase spectrum which are not included in magnitude spectrum. We assume that those additional attributes in phase spectrum of time-flipped speeches are related to unseen intraclass conditions. Motivated by our assumption, we propose a method of using the phase spectrum based features from both the original and time-flipped speech signals together. If our assumption stands good, it has the effect of reducing intraclass variances because the previously unseen attributes in magnitude spectrum can be considered in phase spectrum. The additional attributes in phase spectrum are helpful to build more robust spoofing detection systems. The experimental results on ASVspoof 2019 logical and physical access scenarios exhibit significant performance improvements for both scenarios compared to that of the baseline.


Cold-formed steel members are extensively used in the building construction industry, especially in residential, commercial and industrial buildings. This paper presents an experimental and numerical study on the flexural behaviour of cold formed steel builtup section. Two built-up specimens were made using channel sections one with lip and the other without lip. The dimension of the channel is 200x80x2 mm. The length of the beam is kept constant for 1.25 m. All specimens are experimented under two-point loading with simply supported condition. The experimental result shows that the flexural capacity of the built-up cold formed steel beam with lip was higher than the beam without lip. The experimental results are also verified with finite element analysis using ABAQUS software. The analytical results obtained are in good agreement with the experimental results.


As the rapid growth of immigrant communities in recent years transforms the demography of the United States, language diversity is emerging as a critical feature of this transformation. Poor and low-wage workers and their families in the aggressively globalized U.S. economy increasingly are Limited English Proficient, renewing longstanding debates about language diversity. And yet, despite a growing awareness of the challenges posed by limited English proficiency to the social, economic, political, and cultural well-being of poor immigrants today, relatively little attention has been paid to the role of language difference in poverty lawyering. This Article confronts the complexities of lawyering across language difference. Starting with the principal model for poverty lawyering—client-centeredness—it suggests the inadequacy of the model for meeting the challenges of language difference, particularly when an interpreter is interposed in the paradigmatic lawyer-client dyad. After exploring the nature of interpretation and the role of interpreters, the Article argues in favor of a more collaborative relationship among lawyers, clients, and interpreters than is often seen in poverty law practice. Specifically, it suggests that the disruption effected by the introduction of an interpreter may be more productive than is typically realized, and invites a normative reconceptualiztion of the traditional lawyer-client relationship. Ultimately, the Article urges the embrace of an emerging set of practices known as community interpreting, and argues that its increased attention to cultural context, third-party relationships, and community involvement is consistent with the methods and goals of community lawyering.


Power consumption of digital systems is an important issue in nanoscale technologies and growth of process variation makes the problem more challenging. In this brief, we have analyzed the latency, energy consumption, and effects of process variation on different structures with respect to the design structure and logic depth to propose architectures with higher throughput, lower energy consumption, and smaller performance loss caused by process variation in application specific integrated circuit design. We have exploited adders as different implementations of a processing unit, and propose architectural guidelines for finer technologies in subthreshold which are applicable to any other architecture. The results show that smaller computing building blocks have better energy efficiency and less performance degradation because of variation effects. In contrast, their computation throughput will be mid or less unless proper solutions, such as pipelined or parallel structures, are used. Therefore, our proposed solution to improve the throughput loss while reducing sensitivity to process variations is using simpler elements in deep pipelined designs or massively parallel structures.


Cerebral ischemia or stroke is a cerebrovascular disease caused by a reduction of blood flow in a certain area of the brain. It is the leading case of disability in adults and the second leading cause of death worldwide (Jin et al., 2010). The blood failure in the brain causes changes in the neuronal metabolism, such as massive entry of intra-cellular calcium, caused by a lack of oxygen and nutrients (Guevara et al., 2004). The increase of calcium intra-cytosolic enables the release of several neurotransmitters such as glutamate and nitric oxide. A high concentration of these neurotransmitters has a toxic effect on the cell, because of the stimulation of calcium entry and the release of free radicals (RLO) which has the capability to degrade proteins, nucleic acids and phospholipids (Guevara et al., 2004).
Time is an essential factor in order to prevent brain damage, if a fast blood reflux happens time can prevent cell death. The recombinant plasminogenic tissue activator (rt-PA) is the only approved treatment for combating cerebral ischemia, although it has an important limitation: it is only effective up to a maximum of three hours from the beginning of the stroke (Fernandez-Gomez et al., 2008).
The main goal of this study is to analyse and quantify free amino acids presented in the plasma of patients who have suffered an ischemic stroke and have been supplied with the rt-PA treatment. The aminoacids' test is performed by a derivatization of the samples, followed by a high resolution chromatography determination in a reverse phase, with a Gemini NX-C18 column (250 x 4.4 mm) with 5μm in size of Particle and UV detection. A buffered acetate/phosphate solution, adjusted to pH 5.38, and a B acetonitrile (60%) organic solution has been used as a mobile phase.
In other studies (Tcherkas et al., 2001), non treated rt-PA patients show a gradual increase on glutamate, that can reach to 15 days. The results obtained by this study prove that the rt-PA treatment has a significant effect on certain amino acids, such as glutamate, because it keeps the concentration at a stable level. These results suggest that rt-PA not only acts dissolving formed clots but also, in a molecular level, acts evading the level increase of neurotransmitters (glutamat)


This document defines a mechanism for backhauling Digital Private
Network Signaling System 1 (DPNSS 1) and Digital Access Signaling
System 2 (DASS 2) messages over IP by extending the ISDN User
Adaptation (IUA) Layer Protocol defined in RFC 3057. DPNSS 1,
specified in ND1301:2001/03 (formerly BTNR 188), is used to
interconnect Private Branch Exchanges (PBX) in a private network. DASS
2, specified in BTNR 190, is used to connect PBXs to the PSTN. This
document aims to become an Appendix to IUA and to be the base for a
DPNSS 1/DASS 2 User Adaptation (DUA) implementation. [STANDARDS-TRACK]


Previous work on anonymous donations has looked almost exclusively at exogenous anonymity. This study considers endogenous anonymity, approaching it from two angles. We present stylised facts of anonymous giving, drawn from a large dataset of donations on behalf of runners in the London Marathon. We find not only that are anonymous donations likely to be larger than public ones, but that those who follow an anonymous donation donate around 4% more than had the same preceding donation been public. Our main contribution is to explain this phenomenon through a signalling model, where foregoing prestige through anonymity signals the charity's quality.


A comparative study of two types of optically controlled structures with a modulating liquid-crystal layer and antimonite (Sb2S3) or arsenic selenide (As40Se60) as the photoconductor has been carried out. It is shown that diffraction efficiency up to 42% was able to be obtained in the reversible thin-hologram recording regime, while the use of a photoconductor layer whose maximum spectral sensitivity is close to the radiation wavelength of a He-Ne laser provided sensitivity of 0.75 µW/cm2 at a recording wavelength of lambda=633nm. The structures considered here are characterized by the presence of a decreasing section of the modulation response, with a falloff of the diffraction efficiency to 0.05 epsilonmax (for an Sb2S3 photoconductor layer) and 0.01 epsilonmax (for an As40Se60 photoconductor layer), because of which they can be used in holographic correlation systems for implementing nonlinear information-processing algorithms. © 2005 Optical Society of America


Increasing competition for charity dollars has led many charities to reconsider their approach to fundraising. While donors are more likely to support charities they have a personal connection with, low psychological involvement with a charity influences the desire to switch. Local charities are commonly smaller and less resourced than state, national or international charities, but have the opportunity to increase and maintain donors by utilising strategies that increase community engagement. The current study, undertaken with people aged over 15 years in a regional area, found that most donors disliked guilt inducing techniques and telemarketing. Participants suggested more effective strategies including workplace giving, social media, local media partnerships and events that encourage community participation and connectedness. They preferred raising funds for discreet items and stressed the importance of regular communication with donors regarding positive achievements. The insights are useful for all charities in determining fundraising strategies and maintaining positive donor relationships.


A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO MY PH.D.: EXPLORING ISSUES AFFECTING ATTRITION AND COMPLETION IN THE DOCTORAL PROGRAM IN INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY AT A MAJOR RESEARCH UNIVERSITY by Carla Lanee' Williams This study sought to understand why some students at Eagle University (pseudo.) complete the doctoral program in instructional technology while others do not. The study explores factors and issues affecting doctoral attrition and completion of the Ph.D. in instructional technology (IT) in the College of Education at Eagle University, a major research university with very high research activity. Participants in the study were eleven former doctoral students from Eagle University (pseudo.), six of whom met the requirements for graduation (completers) and five of whom ended the pursuit of the doctoral degree in instructional technology at EU (non-completers). A qualitative study informed by phenomenology, the purpose of the study was to explore these phenomena from the perspective of the students. Postmodernism served as the theoretical framework. Participants were interviewed using the structured interview guide developed by the researcher. Two important findings were that only one of the eleven students knew what to expect from the program; and that completers were more likely to report that their primary motivation for pursuing the Ph.D. was for personal satisfaction. Recommendations were made based on student feedback, and included implications for students as well as implications for the university/program. Examples of advice for students were: 1) contemplate their goal(s) in pursuing the Ph.D. and consider the impact if something happened to alter that goal, and 2) seek out doctoral support groups and begin to establish relationships with current members. Two selected recommendations for the university/program were 1) develop a pre-application seminar or eLearning module to provide potential doctoral students with a realistic understanding of the program, and 2) consider developing a mentoring program that matched more experienced students or non-advisory professors to new students. Results of the study indicated that multiple factors affected both completers and non-completers; and these factors were often similar. However, among the key factors separating completers from non-completers were the determination of the student and the quality of the advisor relationship. A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO MY PH.D.: EXPLORING ISSUES AFFECTING ATTRITION AND COMPLETION IN THE DOCTORAL PROGRAM IN INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY AT A MAJOR RESEARCH UNIVERSITY by Carla Lanee' Williams


As part of our NSF funded collaborative project on Data Sharing within Engineering Education Community, we conducted an empirical study to better understand the current climate of data sharing and participants' future expectations of the field. We present findings of this mixed method study and discuss implications. Overall, we found strong support for sharing research data within the community but participants were cautious about ethical and privacy implications, as well as issues around ownership of data. Participants expressed the need for an easy to use system to support sharing research data.


Abstract Traits in Upper Palaeolithic art which are also seen in the work of talented artists with autism, including most obviously an exceptional realism, remain to be explained. However any association between the famously evocative animal depictions created in the European Upper Palaeolithic and what is commonly seen as a 'disorder' has always been contentious. Debate over these similarities has been heated, with explanations ranging from famous works of Upper Palaeolithic art having been created by individuals with autism spectrum conditions, to being influenced by such individuals, to being a product of the use of psychotropic drugs. Here we argue that 'autistic traits' in art, such as extreme realism, have been created by individuals with a cognitive extreme of local processing bias, or detail focus. The significance of local processing bias, which is found both as a feature of autism spectrum conditions and in artists with exceptional talent at realistic depiction who aren't autistic, has implications for our understanding of Upper Palaeolithic society in general, as well as of the roles played by individuals with autism spectrum conditions.


The IWR-MAIN water use forecasting system is a sophisticated and flexible computer program designed for estimating and forecasting municipal water requirements. The IWR-MAIN system is sectorally, spatially, and seasonally disaggregate. Water requirements are estimated separately for the residential, commercial/institutional, industrial, and public/unaccounted sectors of the study area. Within these major sectors, water use estimates are further disaggregated into individual categories such as metered and sewered residences, commercial establishments, and three-digit Standard Industrial Classification manufacturing categories. Definition of the study area as a city, county, or water utility service area provides for spatial disaggregation. Additionally, IWR-MAIN System can also produce water use forecasts which take into account long-term impacts of demand management or conservation practices that may be or have been implemented in the study area.


Loch Creran on the west coast of Scotland supports the most expansive reefs of the serpulid (Serpula vermicularis) in the world. It also supports flame shell (Limaria hians) and horse mussel (Modiolus modiolus) reefs, thereby ensuring this loch received designation as a European Special Area of Conservation in 2005. In 2015, environmental DNA of the invasive, non-native colonial tunicate Didemnum vexillum, which has a worldwide distribution, was detected in Loch Creran. Didemnum vexillum was confirmed as being present at an oyster farm in the sea loch, using the cytochrome oxidase I gene (COI), following rapid intertidal and dive surveys in early September 2016. The abundance and distribution range assessment carried out at the farm indicated an early-stage D. vexillum invasion. The follow up dive surveys and wider loch intertidal surveys carried out in 2017 and 2018 confirmed that the D. vexillum presence continues to be associated exclusively with the oyster farm. This is the first time that such a highly invasive species has been found within a protected area of global significance and it has significant biosecurity and policy implications regarding how to manage such invasive species.


Background Recent research highlights the importance of environment as a determinant of physical activity; however, evidence among Japanese is sparse. The aim of this study was to examine the association between perceived neighborhood environment and neighborhood walking for multiple purposes among Japanese. Methods We conducted a population-based, cross-sectional study of 1461 Japanese adults (age: 48.2 ± 14.1 years, men: 44.8%). Neighborhood environment and walking were assessed by a validated questionnaire. The odds ratio of active walkers was calculated in relation to environmental characteristics after adjustment for age, sex, and other potential confounders. Results Participants were more likely to walk when they perceived that there was high residential density (odds ratio, 1.47; 95% confidence interval, 1.11–1.96), fair land use mix–diversity (1.37, 1.04–1.81), good walking/cycling facilities (1.56, 1.19–2.04), and attractive aesthetics (1.49, 1.14–1.95). Environmental factors associated with walking differed with respect to the purpose for walking. The environmental characteristics associated with walking for daily errands and with walking for commuting were similar, and included residential density and land use mix. Walking for leisure was associated with walking/cycling facilities, aesthetics, and traffic safety. Stratified analyses showed some sex-specific associations. Among women, there was an unexpected inverse association of leisure walking with both residential density and land use mix–diversity. Conclusions The association between neighborhood environment and walking differed by walking purpose. The results were generally consistent with those of studies conducted in Western countries, except for the association of high residential density and good land use mix–diversity with less leisure walking in women. These results suggest possible targets for environmental interventions to promote walking.


Tectonic collision between South America and Panama began at 23–25 Ma. The collision is signifi cant because it ultimately led to development of the Panamanian Isthmus, which in turn had wide-ranging oceanic, climatic, biologic, and tectonic implications. Within the Panama Canal Zone, volcanic activity transitioned from hydrous mantle-wedge−derived arc magmatism to localized extensional arc magmatism at 24 Ma, and overall marks a permanent change in arc evolution. We interpret the arc geochemical change to result from fracturing of the Panama block during initial collision with South America. Fracturing of the Panama block led to localized crustal extension, normal faulting, sedimentary basin formation, and extensional magmatism in the Canal Basin and Bocas del Toro. Synchronous with this change, both Panama and inboard South America experienced a broad episode of exhumation indicated by (U-Th)/He and fi ssion-track thermochronology coupled with changing geographic patterns of sedimentary deposition in the Colombian Eastern Cordillera and Llanos Basin. Such observations allow for construction of a new tectonic model of the South America–Panama collision, northern Andes uplift and Panama orocline formation. Finally, synchroneity of Panama arc chemical changes and linked uplift indicates that onset of collision and Isthmus formation began earlier than commonly assumed. as doi:10.1130/G32237.1 Geology, published online on 4 October 2011


This paper analyzes effects of population aging on the labor market and determines their broad implications for public policy. It takes Germany as an example, but it equally applies to the other large economies in Continental Europe. The paper argues that, alongside the amply discussed, demographically-determined increase in the contribution and tax burden which is responsible for the ever widening gap between gross and disposable earnings, two other important areas of policy deserve greater attention. First, it is unlikely that the decline in the relative size of the economically active population will be offset by higher capital intensity. Labor productivity will need to increase over and above this mechanism in order to compensate for the impact of population aging on domestic production. Hence, we will need more education and training to speed up human capital formation. Second, the shift in the age structure will also change the structure of demand for goods. This, in turn, will have large effects on the pattern of employment across different sectors of the economy and will require a substantial increase in labor mobility in order to accomodate these structural changes.


The analysis of Heart Rate Variability (HRV), the beat to beat fluctuation in the heart rate, is a non-invasive technique with a main aim in gaining information about the autonomic neural regulation of the heart. Assessment of HRV has been shown to aid clinical diagnosis
and intervention strategies. However, there are quite a few conflicting reports on HRV that perhaps impede its use as a reliable clinical tool. The complex nature of different mechanisms that affect the HRV and the large number of signal processing techniques that have been used for HRV analysis are the contributing factors of these conflicting results. The aim of this study was to investigate for the first time the effect of HRV during
Brachial plexus block (local anaesthesia), applied using the axillary approach. The hypothesis was that, such investigation will enable the detection of possible changes in the dynamics of the cardiovascular system due to the intravenous introduction of anaesthetic drugs during local anaesthesia. For this purpose advanced HRV signals processing techniques were developed and evaluated on data collected before and after the application of the Brachial plexus block from fourteen patients undergoing local anaesthesia. Signal processing techniques for R-wave detection, signal representation, ectopic beat detection and detrending were first developed and validated with the help of simulated signals and physiological signals from Physionet data base. After the validation stage these methods were then used to analyse the data from the locally anaesthetised patients.

The ECG R-wave peak detection was carried out using the wavelet transform with first derivative of Gaussian smoothing function as the mother wavelet. The algorithm achieved accuracy and sensitivity of over 90%. The heart timing signal was used for the HRV signal representation and also for the correction of missing and/or ectopic beats. The results obtained from the ectopic beat correction algorithm showed that the algorithm managed to significantly reduce the error caused by missing and/or ectopic beats. Detrending of the HRV signal was carried out using the wavelet packet analysis algorithm which was specifically developed for this study. The respiration signal was also estimaited from the ECG signal using the ECG Derived Respiration (EDR) technique. In order
to take better account of slow respiration rates and/or irregular respiratory patterns in the HRV analysis, a new method for the estimation of the variable boundaries associated with the LF and the HF band of the HRV signal was implemented. This method relies on the frequency contents of both the HRV signal and the respiration signal and uses the cross-spectrum between these two signals to obtain the boundaries related to the HF band of the signal. The boundaries related to the LF band were defined using the HRV signal spectrum alone. The boundary estimation technique was applicable in all the spectral analysis methods that were used in this study.

After the pre-processing steps the clinical data was analysed using frequency and timefrequency analysis methods to obtain the parameters related to the HRV signals. Initially spectral analysis was carried out using the traditional non-parametric (Welch's periodogram) and parametric (Autoregressive modelling) methods. Statistical analysis of the parameters obtained from both the non-parametric and the parametric methods showed significant decrease in the LF/HF ratio values within an hour of application of the block in nine out of fourteen patients. In order to overcome the inability of these methods to deal with non-stationary, time-frequency analysis techniques were used to further analyse the HRV signals. The three time-frequency analysis methods used were the ContinuousWavelet Transform (CWT), theWigner-Ville Distribution (SPWVD) and the Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD). The analysis of the parameters estimated from these three techniques on the clinical data showed that the CWT and the EMD techniques have
performed equivalently, meaning that both these methods have detected significant decrease in thirteen out of fourteen patients for the ratio values after the application of the,anaesthetic block. The presence of interference terms has caused the degradation in the
performance of the SPWVD method and due to this reason it was only able to detect significant changes in the LF/HF ratio values in ten of the fourteen patients. The results
suggest that due to anxiety and/or adrenaline present in the local anaesthetic mixture, the LF/HF ratio values showed a transient increase shortly after the application of the block. After this transient increase the ratio values decreased considerably and remained low as compared to the values before the application of the block. This decrease could represent the shift of the sympathovagal balance towards parasympathetic predominance and/or inhabitation of sympathetic activity due to local anaesthesia. The use of timefrequency
analysis such as EMD and CWT could provide useful information about the changes caused in the dynamics of the cardiovascular system when a local anaesthetic
drug is administered in a patient.


Signal intensities and elemental fractionation under different ambient gas conditions (He, Ar and a pre-mixed He–Ar mixture) were investigated using 257 nm femtosecond (fs)-LA-ICP-MS. The experiments show that the change of ablation carrier gases from argon to helium increases the sensitivities of refractory elements (e.g. rare earth elements) in NIST SRM 610 by a factor of 1.05–1.20, whereas, the signal intensities of volatile elements (e.g. Tl, Cd, Se, Sn, Te, Zn, Pb, Bi, Ge, Ga, Sb, Ag, and Cu) were increased by a factor of 1.5–3.0. The much less deposited aerosol particles around the ablation craters produced in helium when compared to argon may partly account for this phenomenon. Our results also suggest that volatile elements may be enriched in small aerosol particles produced by femtosecond laser ablation whose transport efficiencies are increased when using He instead of Ar. The calculated elemental fractionation indices (with respect to Ca) of volatile elements (B, Cu, Zn, Ga, Ge, As, Cd, Mo, Ag, Sn, Sb, Pb and Bi) rapidly increased to 1.1–1.2 with increasing the spot size from 24 μm to 60 μm when using helium as the carrier gas. In contrast, they remain nearly constant at spot sizes of 24–60 μm when using argon as the carrier gas. However, the indices of volatile elements (Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Ga, Ge, As, Ag, Cd, Sn, Sb, Pb, and Bi) are less than 1 for all the spot sizes investigated. The signal intensities of all elements obtained in the pre-mixed He–Ar mixture is similar to the sensitivities acquired in pure helium. Meanwhile, the calculated elemental fractionation indices of all elements generally remain constant and closer to 1 than those obtained in pure He or Ar at different spot sizes. The technique of using the pre-mixed He–Ar mixture as the carrier gas has been successfully used for the determination of major and trace elements in USGS and MPI-DING glasses by using fs-LA-ICP-MS.


This study is focused on the evaluation of mechanical properties and microstructure of fabricating Ni-free CoCrWalloy. Samples were prepared by additive manufacturing technology – selective laser melting. The chemical composition of used metal powder was – 60.5% Co, 28% Cr and 9%W. Parameters of SLM were given by powder supplier. The shape of thesampleis designed according to MPIF. After recommended heat treatment, the static tensile test was carried out at Tinius Olsen machine, the microstructure and porositywere observed, also. In results is interpreted the relations between porosity, microstructure, and mechanical properties. This report is the basis for further experiments aimed at improving the mechanical properties about manufacturing conditions.


A functional methyl group donor is essential for the epigenetic regulation of all biological events due to the importance of DNA methylation and histone methylation as an epigenetic marker. However, the epigenetic alterations in the immune system due to methyl donor deficiency are not well known. In this study, we tried to address this question by studying the lymphocyte development and DNA methylation changes caused by a methyl-deficient diet (MDD). We fed one group of C57BL/6J mice with a methyl-sufficient diet (MSD) and the other group with an MDD for 5 months. Flow cytometry analyses of their immune systems showed a decrease in B220+ IgM+ (immature B) cells and an increase in B220+ IgM– (pro/pre-B) cells in the bone marrow of mice fed an MDD. By means of an in vitro OP9 coculture system, we recognized that this B220+ IgM– cell fraction from the MDD has an intrinsic developmental defect. When we quantitatively measured the mRNA expression levels of transcription factors and recombination machinery related to B cell development in the B220+ IgM– cell fraction of their bone marrow, we found that ADA, EBF1, DNTT and Pax5 mRNA expression levels were significantly downregulated in mice fed with an MDD. In addition, there was a drastic decrease in histone methylation profile H3K4me3 in the Pax5 and EBF1 promoters in these B220+ IgM– B cells. However, CpG-DNA methylation profiles had not changed and this revealed that these two promoters are demethylated even under an MSD condition. We also found changed expression levels of the Polycomb group genes (mel18, bmi1, Pc1, Pc2, Ring1A, Ring1B, Ph1) on semi-quantitative RT-PCR. These results indicate that under an MDD condition, early B cell development in bone marrow is easily affected by epigenetic alterations.


From the benighted Old Man with a Beard to the erudite Perpendicular Purple Polly, Edward Lear's world is inhabited by a bewildering variety of oddities. One of the world's most loved writers, Lear's verse has delighted whole generations of readers. Here, after 140 years, is the original edition of A Book of Nonsense, from the original publishers. Complete with Lear's own remarkable illustrations, this treasure trove of nonsense is guaranteed to hold readers spellbound for generations more!


The widespread use of wearables for self-tracking activities despite potential privacy risks is an intriguing phenomenon. For firms, the data collected from individuals' wearable use are highly valuable for generating in-depth customer insights. Accordingly, firms have an increasing desire for these data. Despite the undisputed relevance of self-tracking activities in practice, there is scarce knowledge among information systems (IS) scholars about the perceived values of wearables that drive individuals' use and the reasons why these values prevail over the privacy risks. Against this background, our research set out to better understand why people use wearables despite privacy risks by investigating the perceived values of wearables that drive individuals' use and disclosure of data and the reasons why these values prevail over privacy risks of wearable use. Based on the concept of the privacy calculus and concepts from behavioural decision-making, we conducted in-depth interviews with 22 wearable users from Switzerland. As a result, we reveal eight values that individuals perceive through the use of wearable devices. Furthermore, we illustrate the low awareness regarding privacy risks and explain how the reliance on prominent dimensions and heuristics are influencing individuals' value-risk assessment.


Background: Some studies have shown that greater perceived vulnerability to HIV is associated with less involvement in risk taking. We evaluated prevalence and correlates of HIV risk perception among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Nigeria.
Methods: A cross sectional study using respondent driven sampling (RDS) was conducted in six Nigerian states in 2010. Weighted HIV risk perceptions were calculated using an RDS analytic tool. Logistic regression was used to determine correlates of HIV risk perception, stratified by state.
Results: The total number of MSM ranged from 217 in Abuja to 314 in Cross River state. Median age ranged from 22 years in Cross River state to 26 years in Kano. HIV risk perception ranged from 10% in Cross River state to 58% in Kaduna state and was 38%, 44%, 19% and 20% in Kano, Lagos, Abuja and Oyo states respectively. Factors associated with HIV risk perception include purchasing sex (AOR: 3.11, 95% CI: 1.09-8.88) and never being tested for HIV (AOR = 0.34, 95% CI: 0.14 - 0.85] in Cross River; no comprehensive knowledge of HIV (AOR = 0.21, 95% CI: 0.05 - 0.90) and receptive anal partners (AOR = 10.07, 95% CI: 2.07 - 49.02) in Abuja; being older than 25 years (AOR = 0.16, 95% CI: 0.03 - 0.98) in Kano; no exposure to peer education in Kaduna (AOR = 0.08, 95% CI: 0.01 - 0.89); never being tested for HIV in Lagos (AOR = 0.11, 95% CI: 0.03 - 0.40) and Oyo state (AOR = 0.21, 95% CI: 0.06 - 0.80) and selling sex (AOR = 3.24, 95% CI: 1.00 - 10.61) in Oyo state.
Conclusion: This study shows that HIV risk perception and comprehensive HIV knowledge are very low among MSM in Nigeria. Heterogeneity in associated factors suggests that targeted interventions are needed to increase HIV risk perception in the different states. The role of HIV counseling and testing in increasing risk perception needs further evaluation.


OBJECTIVE
To compare the clinical, laboratory, and demographic variables of women in our clinic with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) who have had a pregnancy resulting in a live birth and identify any correlations with either term or preterm delivery.

METHODS
Pregnancies in women with SLE from 1999 to 2001 were retrospectively reviewed. We recorded demographic data, disease activity (SLE Disease Activity Index, SLEDAI), obstetric history, prednisone dosage, other medications taken during pregnancy, history of renal disease, and autoantibody status [including antinuclear antibody, anti-DNA, anticardiolipin IgG (aCL), and lupus anticoagulant (LAC)]. Preterm delivery was defined as gestational age at delivery < 37 weeks. We performed a literature survey using PubMed and the key words SLE, pregnancy, and outcome.

RESULTS
Of the 72 pregnancies, 28 (38.9%) resulted in preterm deliveries. There were no significant differences in any demographic or disease variables measured comparing term versus preterm delivery groups. More women in the preterm group were taking > or = 10 mg/day prednisone during their pregnancy (50.0% vs 22.2%; p = 0.028), and the mean dose was significantly higher than the term group taking > or = 10 mg/day (24.8 vs 16.7 mg/day; p = 0.047). There was a higher prevalence of women with aCL IgG in the preterm group (p = 0.023). The mean weeks gestation was shorter for women positive for aCL IgG compared to the group negative for aCL (34.9 +/- 4.4 vs 37.5 +/- 3.2 weeks, respectively; p = 0.032). There was no difference in second trimester disease activity between the term and preterm groups (33.3% and 36.4% of each group had a SLEDAI of 0). However, significantly more women in the term group received no medication during their pregnancies compared to women in the preterm group (20.0% vs 0.0%; p = 0.031).

CONCLUSION
The rates of preterm deliveries, premature rupture of membranes, intrauterine growth restriction, and aPL in SLE pregnancies vary considerably in published reports, most of which are retrospective analyses. Our rates closely approximate the median values for all measures. We found preterm deliveries to be associated with disease activity (as determined by the use of any medication throughout pregnancy vs no medication, and prednisone dose > or = 10 mg/day) and the presence of aCL IgG but not LAC. Our results suggest that inactive disease rather than controlled disease at the onset of pregnancy may be the determining factor in extending SLE pregnancies to full term, thereby decreasing maternal and fetal morbidity.


This study investigated how seventh grade students performed on a measure of online critical evaluation in science (the ORCA). The analysis included evaluating the extent to which critical evaluation also appeared to be an aspect of other elements of online research and comprehension, including reading to locate information, reading to synthesize information, and reading and writing to communicate information. Additionally, this study examined the extent to which several important individual difference variables affected students' ability to critically evaluate information during online reading in science. The individual difference variables evaluated in this study included prior knowledge, gender, socioeconomic status, and offline reading ability. Participants (n = 1,434) included seventh grade students from two states in the Northeast United States. This study used a multiple theoretical perspectives approach (Labbo & Reinking, 1999) to frame the study. Three theoretical perspectives were employed that included theories of offline (RAND Reading Study Group, 2002; Anderson & Pearson, 1984) and online reading (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, Cammack, & Henry, 2013), perspectives on individual differences (Afflerbach, 2015), and a disciplinary literacy framework (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008) for science. These perspectives are integrated in a way that forms the basis for a framework of Elena Forzani – University of Connecticut ii critical evaluation of online information in science, a framework that takes into account the role of individual differences in the reading comprehension process. Multiple regression analysis was used to evaluate the shared variance among critical evaluation and the three other skill areas. Multilevel modeling (MLM) was used to compare mean differences in scores between critical evaluation and the other three skill areas. MLM also was used to evaluate the effects of the four individual difference variables on students' online critical evaluation abilities. Both student-level and school-level effects were evaluated. Findings suggest that critical evaluation is a somewhat unique and difficult dimension of online research and comprehension. Findings also suggest that student-level prior knowledge, gender, and offline reading, as well as school-means for offline reading, have a significant effect on students' ability to evaluate online information in science. Results are discussed in the context of theory development, research, assessment, and instruction. Individual Differences in Evaluating the Credibility of Online Information in Science: Contributions of Prior Knowledge, Gender, Socioeconomic Status, and Offline Reading Ability


Cognitive radio is widely expected to be a promising technology to efficiently exploit underutilized spectrum. Regulatory committees in many countries are taking into account the spectrum policy of dynamic spectrum access using this technology. The TV band is under consideration as a first step to share the spectrum resource. As a result, many activities to specify a standard using this band have been shown. In this paper, an overview on the physical layer of Ecma-392 standard and IEEE 802.11af draft standard is presented together with software simulated performance results. Furthermore, the effect of the frequency diversity on different number of subcarriers and channel bandwidth is analyzed and discussed.


Increased surface temperatures (0.7°C per decade) in the Arctic affects polar ecosystems by reducing the extent and duration of annual snow cover. Monitoring of these important ecosystems needs detailed information on snow cover properties at resolutions (<100 m) that influence ecological habitats and permafrost thaw. A machine learning method using topographic parameters with the Random Forest (RF) algorithm previously developed in alpine environments was applied over an arctic landscape for the first time. The topographic parameters used in the RF algorithm were Topographic Position Index (TPI) and up‐wind slope index (Sx), which were estimated from the freely available Arctic DEM at 2 m resolution. Addition of an ecotype parameter (proxy for vegetation height) showed minimal predictive improvement. Using RF, snow depth distributions were predicted from topographic parameters with a root mean square error = 8 cm (23%) (R2 = 0.79) at 10 m resolution for an arctic watershed (1500 km2) in western Nunavut, Canada.


Satisfiability (SAT) and Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT) have been leveraged in solving a wide variety of important and challenging combinatorial search problems, including automatic test generation, logic synthesis, model checking, program synthesis, and software verification. Though in principle SAT and SMT solvers simplify the task of developing practical solutions to these hard combinatorial search problems, in practice developing an application that effectively uses a SAT or SMT solver can be a daunting task. SAT and SMT solvers have limited support, if any, for queries described using the wide array of features developers rely on for describing their programs: procedure calls, loops, recursion, user-defined data types, recursively defined data types, and other mechanisms for abstraction, encapsulation, and modularity. As a consequence, developers cannot rely solely on the sophistication of SAT and SMT solvers to efficiently solve their queries; they must also optimize their own orchestration and construction of queries. This thesis presents Smten, a search primitive based on SAT and SMT that supports all the features of a modern, general purpose functional programming language. Smten exposes a simple yet powerful search interface for the Haskell programming language that accepts user-level constraints directly. We address the challenges of supporting general purpose, Turing-complete computation in search descriptions, and provide an approach for efficiently evaluating Smten search using SAT and SMT solvers. We show that applications developed using Smten require significantly fewer lines of code and less developer effort for results comparable to standard SMT-based tools. Thesis Supervisor: Jack B. Dennis Title: Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Emeritus


We determined the source process of the 1994 Northridge earthquake in relation to the aftershock mechanisms. To study the source complexity of the mainshock, we inverted the P and SH waveforms recorded by the IRIS and IDA/IRIS networks, using the method of Kikuchi and Kanamori (1991) in which the rupture is represented by a series of discrete subevents with varying mechanisms. The waveforms show that the rupture consisted of several subevents with about 2 sec in between. Our solution consists of three subevents with essentially the same mechanism, viz., strike, dip, and slip of 130°, 42°, and 116°, respectively. The first subevent occurred at a depth of about 19 km, followed after 2 sec by the second and largest subevent at a depth of 17 km and the third subevent again 2 sec after the second at a depth of about 13 km. The total moment from the body waves of this sequence is about 1.1 × 1026 dyne · cm (Mw = 6.6) with a source duration of 7 sec.
 The large depths of these subevents explain the lack of any surface rupture. Furthermore, the upward propagation of the subevents is consistent with the depth of the hypocenter and the distribution of the aftershocks, which are shallower and more northerly than the mainshock hypocenter.
 The aftershocks were analyzed using data from the TERRAscope network. We inverted short-period surface waves to determine the moment tensor for 70 events with Mw > 3.5. The aftershocks can be grouped into three regions based on the mechanisms: the eastern part of the aftershock zone, where we find thrust events with mechanisms very similar to the main event; a central area with predominantly strike-slip events; and an area to the west, where we find oblique thrust events but with more northerly P axes than in the eastern region. This distribution suggests that the fault system on which the Northridge earthquake occurred is segmented and that the extent of the Northridge rupture is controlled by a change in geometry of the fault. We find a high stress drop (270 bar) for the mainshock; we propose that the changes in the fault geometry prevented a slip pulse from propagating, thereby causing a high ratio of slip-to-rupture length.


Insect pest management is a challenge to many growers and advisers because the suite of pests they deal with changes constantly. The outputs from this project have contributed significantly to providing increased knowledge and capacity among advisers and growers to manage their insect pests profitably and sustainably. Research and development (R&D) on pest biology, ecology, economic thresholds, sampling methods and effective control options have contributed to building a robust integrated management strategy for insect pests. The management endeavours of industry have been supported through the provision of diagnostics, responsive R&D, training, and broad-based communication.


With the increasing needs to adopt nighttime construction strategies in order to avoid disruption of traffic flow, state agencies are currently experimenting with a new class of light towers known as balloon lights. Compared to regular lighting tower, balloon lights have been reported to reduce glare significantly and to provide more uniform lighting conditions at the site. The objective of this study was to measure light and glare characteristics of two balloon lighting systems in the field. Glare and lighting characteristics of this new class of light towers were compared to a conventional lighting system. For this purpose, field measurements were made of the pavement luminance and the horizontal and vertical illuminance on a predefined experimental grid. Results of this study indicated that while being comparable in terms of wattage and luminous flux, the tested balloon light systems differed in terms of light and glare characteristics. In addition, while conventional light tower provided greater illuminance intensity at the light source than balloon lights, the disability glare was greater for conventional light tower than balloon lights when mounted at the same height. Results of this study revealed that optimum conditions should be sought in the work zone, through which adequate lighting conditions are provided for workers while disability glare is kept below a safe threshold for drive-by motorists. Plotting the maximum veiling luminance ratio (disability glare) against the workable distance provides a simple approach to consider the two factors concurrently in the design of work zone lighting.


Seventeen undergraduates participated in five single-case experiments that investigated whether the provision of handheld tools, to manipulate objects specified by instructions, would facilitate or inhibit instruction following. Participants were presented with stimulus arrays accompanied by either ambiguous or unambiguous instructions. Ambiguous instructions could be interpreted as specifying either of two actions and unambiguous instructions could be interpreted as specifying only one action. The study was designed to test whether tools would constrain participants' possibilities for action and clarify ambiguous instructions as a result. Experiment 1 showed that tools do not clarify instructions that are ambiguous, as participants emitted more incorrect responses with a tool than with their hands. Experiment 2 strengthened that claim by showing that the structure of stimulus arrays alone did not control the incorrect responding observed when participants wielded a tool in the first experiment. Experiment 3 showed that the emission of incorrect responses with a tool could be remedied with the addition of verbal contextual cues that rendered ambiguous instructions unambiguous. Given unambiguous instructions, correct responses were emitted on all trials with a tool. Experiment 4 was a replication of Experiment 1 with positive results and Experiment 5 tested whether tools that do not constrain possibilities for action would still result in a decrement in correct responses. Experiment 5 showed that when constraints on responding by tools are absent, listeners do not emit the incorrect responses observed in Experiments 1 and four. Altogether these experiments provide evidence that tools that constrain possibilities for action inhibit instruction following unless a speaker's utterances are fully unambiguous.


The success of hydraulic fracturing application in stimulating gas drainage from coal seams is influenced by the ground stress conditions and the effective installation of straddled packers. A total of five holes were drilled in the Bulli Seam in a mine (Mine A) and tested for increased gas stimulation by hydraulic fracturing. Parameters examined included casing material integrity for cutability and ability to resist the external collapse during grouting and hydraulic fracturing. Changes made to the injection pressure, casing wall thickness, slot orientation (circumferential instead of axial) and controlled pressure release rate post-treatment improved the hydraulic fracturing treatment. However, the water management challenges of the test site remained inconclusive because of the location of trial site in the coal seam deposit.


In this paper, we consider a special case of a new type of mixed integer programming problem: the Transportation Network with Supply Eating Arcs. This problem arises from an application in intelligent [telecommunications] networks (IN). It contains within its definition many classical mixed integer programming problems. The problem is defined as a transportation network with an additional condition. For an arc to have positive flow, the node capacity of its originating node (i.e., a supply node) is decreased by a fixed amount depending on the arc. The special case that we consider is where this fixed amount is solely dependent on the demand node to which the arc is incident. In studying this problem, we are mainly interested in the feasibility of such problems and focus our attention on this aspect here. We discuss why finding a feasible solution is potentially difficult as well as various methods for finding one. In particular, we describe a set of solutions (in terms of solution structure) that always contains a feasible solution, if one exists. We then describe a method for finding a feasible solution based on enumerating this set. The main advantage of the solution procedure is that at no time do we need to explicitly solve an LP (or even a transportation problem).


The relationship between politics and the digital has largely been characterized as one of epochal change. The respective theories understand the digital as external to politics and society, as an autonomous driver for global, unilateral transformation. Rather than supporting such singular accounts of the relationship between politics and the digital, this article argues for its specificity: the digital is best examined in terms of folds within existing socio-technical configurations, and as an artefact with a set of affordances that are shaped and filled with meaning by social practice. In conceptualizing the digital as numeric, countable, computable, material, storable, searchable, transferable, networkable and traceable, fabricated and interpreted, it becomes clear that the digital cannot be divorced from the social. These affordances of the digital are discussed in relation to specific political, digital practices that are further developed in the different contributions in this special issue, such as predictive policing (Aradau and Blanke, this issue), data protection (Bellanova, this issue), extremist recruitment videos (Leander, this issue), political acclamation (Dean, this issue), and pandemic simulations (Opitz, this issue).


Handbook of Gynecologic Oncology, edited by Drs. Barakat, Bevers, Gershenson, and Hoskins, is a first-edition clinical handbook formulated primarily for fellows in gynecologic oncology as well as for interested fellows in medical oncology and radiation oncology. The textbook presents concise summaries of the critical issues in the care of gynecologic cancer patients and would also be of interest to residents preparing for their gynecologic oncology rotations, obstetrician/gynecologists, other physicians who care for gynecologic cancer patients, and practicing gynecologic oncologists.


This paper reports on an analysis of original data from a cross-national survey in 17 countries of couples and their social relationships. The survey focused on cohabiting couples, who have the Internet at home. Each member of each couple was asked how they met their partners, what dating strategies they used before they met, how they maintain their current relationships and social networks, and how these individuals use the Internet in everyday life and work. The survey was conducted online, using a professional pool of respondents to draw our samples. There is wide variety across the world and within nations, such as in approaches to online relationships, to friendships, and to the Internet. However, several general patterns are clear. First, slightly over a third of the sample has some experience with online dating, while 15 percent are currently in a relationship that started online. Beginning in 1997, coinciding with the rise of Web 2.0 technologies, online dating starts to gain prominence. This rise in prominence continues until 2009, when over 30% of Internet-enabled couples appear to have met through online dating. A similar growing prominence of the Internet is also occurring around the maintenance of relationships, and the development of social relations more generally. In these and other ways, it is clear that the Internet has become a new place to look for relationships, and that the Internet is important for strong as well as weak ties within social networks.


The ability to control properties such as wettability and bio-molecule immobilisation onto self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) has many potential biological and medical applications. The aim of this project was to produce mixed biotinylated peptide monolayers that are responsive to an electric potential, thus providing a system in which the conformation of the biotinylated peptides could be switched. This allows for controlled protein immobilisation onto a mixed monolayer. Fluorescence images indicated that less binding took place between the neutravidin and the biotinylated peptide under a negative potential due to decreased image intensity. Control experiments were also carried out using non-biotinylated peptides to show there was minimal non-specific binding and that binding was only taking place on the biotin binding sites. Stability studies were also carried out using cyclic voltammetry on pure and mixed monolayers to further understand the stability range of the monolayers. High currents were observed in cyclic voltammograms of pure and mixed SAMs. In order to identify the cause of the high current readings, further samples were investigated of well known SAMs. Cyclic voltammograms of nitrophenolthiol and octadecanethiol suggested that a combination of polycrystalline gold and the use of PBS as an electrolyte caused excessive hydrogen evolution which overlapped with the reductive desorption peaks thus, generating high currents and unrealistic charge densities.


A new method that employs a cerebral perfusion imaging agent, 99mTc-HMPAO, is described for identifying those patients who clinically pass an internal carotid artery balloon test occlusion but who then may develop a cerebral infarction after permanent occlusion. Test balloon occlusion of the internal carotid artery was performed in 17 patients, and 99mTc-HMPAO was injected intravenously while the balloon was inflated. The balloon was deflated and removed approximately 15-20 min later, and single-photon emission CT (SPECT) imaging of the brain was performed. In patients with an area of focal hypoperfusion, the 99mTc-HMPAO study was repeated the next day to determine if the hypoperfusion was due to the temporary balloon occlusion or to a preexisting abnormality. All 17 patients had normal neurologic examinations at the time of the balloon test occlusion. Fifteen had symmetric perfusion on the 99mTc-HMPAO SPECT scans. Five of these had permanent internal carotid artery occlusion, and four did not develop a neurologic deficit. One patient developed an ipsilateral watershed infarction after internal carotid artery occlusion during significant intraoperative hypotension. Two patients had ipsilateral regions of hypoperfusion with the test occlusion. Both these patients had repeat nonocclusion 99mTc-HMPAO SPECT studies that were normal. One patient is being followed. The second patient had ipsilateral EEG changes associated with temporary intraoperative occlusion of the internal carotid artery during aneurysm surgery. Although the numbers are relatively small, this study suggests that this protocol may be able to predict a good outcome after permanent carotid artery occlusion as well as to identify patients who are at greater risk for developing cerebral infarction after permanent occlusion.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


The flexibility or force method of analysis of structural frames is complicated by the choice of appropriate unknowns. A mixed approach is presented in which member-end moments and sway deflections are adopted as unknowns, thereby providing uniformity of approach for computer analysis. The corresponding rotation-compatibility and sway-equilibrium equations are described in an example of linear frame analysis. The theory is amplified to include the influence of axial force on member flexibility and P-A effects. Results of examples of elastic instability are compared-with established solutions. A simple transition to plastic analysis is made by replacing plastic end-moments by hinge rotations as unknowns. The method is extended to represent more general material non-linearity and combined elastic-plastic instability analysis. This formulation represents a consistent and relatively simple solution to linear and non-linear analysis of frames based on a mixed flexibility and sway-deflection method.


This dissertation is divided into two parts. In the first portion, we study inflection points in bi-objective variants of the traveling salesman problem (TSP) related to health care applications. In the second portion, we use a variety of techniques from operations research to improve hospital efficiency. We used a TSP variant that prioritizes the ability to return to the depot, in addition to the standard distance, to study the collection of blood from remote collection sites. In an application related to emergency response, we looked into behavior of tours generated using the target visitation problem, a TSP variant that also includes node priority in the objective function. Working with the University of Maryland Medical Center, we did three projects related to hospital efficiency. We used stochastic modeling and simulation to optimize the throughput of a cardiac surgery post-operative unit. We found that altering the mix of post-operative beds could significant increase the effective capacity. After unsuccessfully attempting to use data mining and survival analysis to predict hospital census, we performed a statistical analysis of patient length of stay patterns and discovered surgeons were improving their chances of having available beds for incoming cases by adjusting their discharge practices by day of week. In the final project, we used integer programming and heuristics to develop schedules that match incoming surgical patients with the discharge of earlier patients. The results indicate that altering the surgical schedule can substantially improve the flow of patients through the hospital.


Soil fertility depletion is considered the main biophysical limiting factor to increasing per capita food production for most smallholder farmers in Africa. The adoption and diffusion of sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs), as a way to tackle this impediment, has become an important issue in the development policy agenda for sub-Saharan Africa. This paper examines the adoption decisions for SAPs, using multiple cross-sectional plot-level observations, collected in 2010 from 681 farm households and 1,539 plots, in 4 districts and 88 villages of rural Tanzania. We employ a multivariate probit technique to model simultaneous adoption decisions by farm households. Our study reveals that rainfall shocks, insects and disease shocks, government effectiveness, tenure status of plot, social capital, plot location and size, and asset ownership, all influence the adoption decision of sustainable practices. Policies that target SAPs and are aimed at organizing farmers into associations, improving land tenure security, and enhancing skills of civil servants can increase the likelihood that smallholder farmers will adopt SAPs.


We propose a new method to analyze the temporal brittleness of task networks, which allows the detection and enumeration of activities that, with modest task execution duration variation make the execution of the task network dynamically uncontrollable. In this method, we introduce a metric for measuring an activity brittleness – defined as the degree of acceptable deviation of its nominal duration – and describe how that measurement is mapped to task network structure. Complementary to existing work on plan robustness analysis which informs how likely a task network is to succeed or not, the proposed analysis and metric go deeper to pinpoint the sources of potential brittleness due to temporal constraints and to focus either human designers and/or automated task network generators (e.g. scheduler/planners) to address sources of undesirable brittleness. We apply the approach to a set of task networks (called sol types) in development for NASA's next planetary rover and present common patterns that are sources of brittleness. These techniques are currently under evaluation for potential use supporting operations of the Mars 2020 rover.


A miniature gas chromatography (GC) system has been designed and fabricated using silicon micromachining and integrated circuit (IC) processing techniques. The silicon micromachined gas chromatography system (SMGCS) is composed of a miniature sample injector that incorporates a 10 (mu) l sample loop; a 0.9-m long, rectangular-shaped capillary column coated with a 0.2-micrometers thick copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) stationary-phase; and a dual- detector scheme based upon a CuPc-coated chemiresistor and a commercially available, 125- micrometers diameter thermal conductivity detector bead. Silicon micromachining was employed to fabricate the interface between the sample injector and the GC column, the column itself, and the dual-detector cavity. A novel IC thin-film processing technique was developed to sublime the CuPc stationary-phase coating on the column walls that were micromachined in the host silicon wafer substrate and Pyrex cover plate, which were then electrostatically bonded together. The SMGCS can separate binary gas mixtures composed of parts-per-million (ppm) concentrations of ammonia and nitrogen dioxide when isothermally operated (55-80 degrees C). With a helium carrier gas and nitrogen diluent, a 10 (mu) l sample volume containing ammonia and nitrogen dioxide injected at 40 psi (2.8 X 105 Pa) can be separated in less than 30 minutes.


The role of the flame folding, induced by the classical Darrieus-Landau instability, on the transition from deflagration to detonation is studied by numerical simulations of premixed gas combustion spreading from the closed end of a semi-infinite, smooth-walled channel. It is found that in sufficiently wide channels the Darrieus-Landau instability may invoke nucleation of hot spots within the folds of the developing wrinkled flame, triggering an abrupt transition from deflagrative to detonative combustion. The mechanism of the transition is the temperature increase due to the influx of heat from the folded reaction zone, followed by autoignition. The transition occurs when the pressure elevation at the accelerating reaction front becomes high enough to produce a shock capable of supporting detonation. This requires the fold to be sufficiently narrow and deep. The influence of adhesive and rough walls on the transition is discussed.


The instinctive reaction of many Christians, as well as other religious people, is negative when they think of big business or profits . We explore why business firms make good organizations for the production and supply of goods and services. To do so, we utilize some insights from Christian realism, a concept associated with the theology of Reinhold Niebuhr. We argue that human finitude is the root cause of the existence of such organization. Human finitude leads to specialization in production, and specialization creates the need to coordinate the actions of many people. The coordination problem is also affected by human finitude but is affected by human sin as well. We explore why the factors of human finitude and sin result in the current model of business enterprise's being the more successful model as a means of production and why Christians do not need to see this as a necessary evil. John Lunn and Vicki TenHaken, "Human Finitude and Specialized Production: A Christian-Realist Rationale for Business Entreprises," Journal of Markets & Morality 11, no. 2 (Fall 2008): 255-273


Data items in a database are semantically related. Thus, the access control mechanism of a database system must be concerned with the possibility that access to one item may violate a denied access to another item. This study concentrates on two basic semantic relations for protection requirements. By utilizing a graph-theoretic approach, some of the fundamental properties of the protection relations can be readily identified. These properties can then be used as a basis for understanding more general context dependent protection requirements. Two fundamental properties of the two protection relations are found. The first property addresses the question: given a database with a set of protection relations, is it possible to find a maximal subset of the database such that access to one item of the subset will not lead to any violation of a denied access to another item? The second property addresses the question: given a database with a set of protection relations, is it possible to find a sequence of accesses such that the protection requirement is enforced with no violation?


Recent trends in indexing emphasize mechanical, not intellectual, developments. Mechanized operations have produced indexes in depth (1) of information on limited areas of science or (2) utilizing limited parameters for analysis. These indexes may include only citations or both useful data and citations of source literature. Both keyword-in-context and citation indexing seem to be passing the test of the marketplace. Mechanical equipment has also been successfully used to manipulate EAM cards for production of index copy. Information centers are increasingly being used as control devices in narrowly defined subject areas. Authors meet growing pressures to participate in information control work by preparing abstracts of their own articles. Mechanized image systems persist, although large systems are scarce and the many small systems may bring only limited relief for information control and retrieval problems. Experimentation and limited development continue on theory and technique of automatic indexing and abstracting.