Big data and machine learning are IT methodologies that are bringing substantial changes in the analysis and interpretation of scientific data. By adding GPU processing resources to the typical equipment of a server host, it is possible to speed up queries performed on large databases and reduce training time for deep learning architectures. A recent pairing of the big data technologies, applied to old and new data, and artificial intelligence techniques has enabled a team of scientists to create an interactive virtual globe that shows a color mosaic of the seabed geology. This interactive model allows us to obtain robust reconstructions and predictions of climate changes and their impacts on the ocean environment. We suggest a possible evolution of such a model by means of the expansion of functionalities and performance improvements. We refer respectively to the implementation of isochronic layers of seabed lithologies and the addition of GPU resources to speed up the learning phase of the support vector machine (SVM) model. These additional features would allow us to establish broader correlations and extract additional information on large-scale geological phenomena. INTRODUCTION The Earth system generates continuous data, and our acquisition capacity has significantly increased over time. The growing availability of acquired geological data and the methods developed in the field of information technology make it possible to identify associations and understand patterns and trends within data (Big Data), solve difficult decision problems (artificial intelligence), and provide acceleration to data processing (GPU computing). Big Data is a term that indicates very large databases (often by order of zettabytes, i.e., billions of terabytes) that can contain huge amounts of heterogeneous, structured and unstructured data (text, numerical values, images, e-mail, GPS data, and data acquired from social networks), which can be extrapolated, analyzed, and correlated with each other. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science that studies the way in which the combination of hardware and software systems can simulate typical behaviors of the human brain. One of the most important applications consists of a complex algorithm, called machine learning, which is able to learn and make decisions. GPU Parallel Computing (GPGPU) involves the processing of data by the processors present in the graphics card (GPU) and has allowed the computation, in relatively short times, of huge amounts of data with an efficiency of at least two orders of magnitude greater compared to the past. There are several cases in which these technologies have been applied both in the field of potential earthquakes (RouetLeduc et al., 2017), volcanic eruptions (Ham et al., 2012), and to solve the problems of spatial modeling in the field of the assessment of landslide susceptibility (Korup and Stolle, 2014). The following describes a mixed approach (AI and Big Data) in the field of geosciences—analyzing potentials and possible future developments. CASE STUDY: BIG DATA AND AI MAP WORLD'S OCEAN FLOOR An example of an application combining Big Data and machine learning technologies was implemented by a team of Australian scientists who created the first digital map of seabed lithologies (Dutkiewicz et al., 2015) through the analysis and cataloging of ~15,000 samples of sediments found in marine basins. Before such a map, the most recent map of oceanic lithologies was hand drawn ~40 years ago, at the beginning of ocean exploration. Since then, the map has undergone few changes, with at most six types of sediment dominant in the ocean basins. The digital map was created using an AI method consisting of the support vector machine (SVM) model. Through a crossvalidation approach, the classifier was trained by adding new data gradually so as to allow its learning. Learning the parameter values, which optimize the classifier's performance on withheld data, is an important step in the workflow. In this way, the vast set of point data has been transformed into a continuous digital map with very high accuracy (up to 80%). The new lithological map of the seabed is very important for the interpretation of global phenomena related to the evolution of ocean basins. An example of this is diatoms, siliceous phytoplankton that live in the oceans and that through chlorophyll photosynthesis produce about one-quarter of the oxygen present in the atmosphere, contributing to reduce global terrestrial warming. At their death, these organisms precipitate through the water column, accumulating on the underlying sea floor. Satellite surveys over the years have identified places where diatomaceous activity is more productive; that is, the marine areas in which there are the maximum concentrations of chlorophyll, considering that they should also correspond to the areas of maximum accumulation of these organisms in the sea floor. Surprisingly, the digital map of the seabed has revealed that there is a decoupling between the productivity of diatoms and the corresponding accumulation areas in the sea floor. The possibility of diatom ooze formation is however favored by the low surface temperature (0.9–5.7 °C), by salinity (33.8–34 PSS), and by the high concentration of nutrients, and therefore can represent an important indicator of the oceanographic variables of the surface of the sea (Cunningham and Big Data and Artificial Intelligence Analytics in Geosciences: Promises and Potential Roberto Spina, Geologist and DCompSci, CNG (National Council of Geologists), Rome, Italy, firstname.lastname@example.com GSA Today, https://www.doi.org/10.1130/GSATG372GW.1. Copyright 2019, The Geological Society of America. CC-BY-NC. Leventer, 1998). For this reason, the map will help scientists better understand how our oceans have responded and will respond to environmental changes. POTENTIAL AND FUTURE PROSPECTS Big Data and AI are having an impact on every commercial and scientific domain, and their application in the field of geosciences is making a great impact in the analysis and understanding of natural phenomena. The intensive use of CPUs required by these two technologies has stimulated the search for alternative solutions to improve performance by using a mixed CPU-GPU approach. In this way it is possible to obtain rapid results from huge databases and the acceleration of the learning process for neural networks. These techniques are the basis of deep learning, an alternative model of machine learning, which achieves a very high degree of accuracy in recognizing objects and is able to learn features automatically from data without the need to extract them manually. The joint application of Big Data– machine learning, described as a case study, allowed researchers to demonstrate the absence of correlation between diatom productivity and the corresponding diatom oozes: The accumulation of these organisms in the seabed seems rather to be linked to specific variations in sea-surface parameters. This is one of many cases where the integrated analysis of various parameters allows a different interpretation from what could be assumed by their disjoint analysis. A possible evolution is to represent, on a similar map, in addition to the current surface lithologies, those present within the lithostratigraphic succession, making geochronological correlations between chronostratigraphic units. Using surveys carried out in various parts of the world, different layers could be defined, each corresponding to a specific age expressed in millions of years, representing the ocean lithologies existing in that particular geological period. Similarly to the previous case, the transition from a punctual to a continuous display could be obtained, for each layer, by applying the existing SVM model or an even more efficient version using GPU computing. Figure 1 shows a possible switching between current ocean Figure 1. Example of a layered implementation of seabed lithology maps (modified from https://portal.gplates.org). lithologies (https://portal.gplates.org) placed below and those existing respectively 500,000 and one million years ago (above). The oldest layers were made only for demonstration purposes and reproduce an artificial lithology of the seabed. A system of this kind allows the carrying out of various operations that can be summarized as follows: • display/hide isochronous levels obtaining different instantaneous representations of the ocean basins during the geological eras; • using Big Data analytics to pair data sets (oceanographic, stratigraphic, paleontological, and micropaleontological) with one or more isochronous layers to analyze geological phenomena on a global scale (eustatic oscillations, glacial and interglacial periods...) and perform stratigraphic correlations between oceanic crustal sectors to identify evolutionary patterns. The optimization introduced by IT methods lets us perform analyses on large heterogeneous data to discover hidden models and unknown correlations that allow for more solid reconstructions and forecasts on natural phenomena that have had and will have a major impact on the ecosystems of our planet. REFERENCES CITED Cunningham, W.L., and Leventer, A., 1998, Diatom assemblages in surface sediments of the Ross Sea: Relationship to present oceanographic conditions: Antarctic Science, v. 10, p. 134–146, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954102098000182. Dutkiewicz, A., Müller, R.D., O'Callaghan, S., and Jónasson, H., 2015, Census of seafloor sediments in the world's ocean: Geology, v. 43, no. 9, p. 795–798, https://doi.org/10.1130/G36883.1. Ham, M.F., Iyengar, I., Hambebo, B.M., Garces, M., Deaton, J., Perttu, A., and Williams, B., 2012, A neurocomputing approach for monitoring Plinian volcanic eruptions using infrasound: Procedia Computer Science, v. 13, p. 7–17, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2012.09.109. Korup, O., and Stolle, A., 2014, Landslide prediction from


Starting from Bourdieu's critique to Foucault on the lack of a conception of the embodiment of schemes of perception, thought and action which the notion of habitus could instead allow to think, this paper aims at exploring the difference between Bourdieu's and Foucault's perspectives by highlighting the tension between two key ideas of their theoretical path, that is, habitus and ethos (understood as critical attitude). After comparing habitus and the Foucauldian notion of discipline, it deals with the alternative ways to approach power relationships depending on whether we use, in order to describe them, the notion of field or the theme of government by truth. This analysis allows to come back to the problem of the embodiment of social norms, of subjection, and of obedience in order to highlight how Bourdieu's and Foucault's insights bifurcate: while the former focuses on the notion of symbolic violence, the latter insists on the obligation of truth-telling about oneself. Finally, this paper shows how such an unevenness between habitus and ethos culminates in two divergent views on critique and on its relation to subjectivity and truth.


HBO's hit series A GAME OF THRONES is based on George R R Martin's internationally bestselling series A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, the greatest fantasy epic of the modern age. A STORM OF SWORDS: STEEL AND SNOW is the FIRST part of the third volume in the series. 'A consummate storyteller' Jojo Moyes 'All men are fools, if truth be told, but the ones in motley are more amusing than the ones with crowns' The Seven Kingdoms are divided by revolt and blood feud. In the northern wastes, a savage horde is poised to invade the Kingdom of the North where Robb Stark wears his new-forged crown. Throughout Westeros, the war for the Iron Throne rages more fiercely than ever, but if the Wall is breached, no king will live to claim it.


This study was conducted in the English Language Teaching Department of a state university in Turkey. The aim of the study was to examine the differences in attitudes of teacher candidates before and after their short-term teaching experience with very young learners (VYL) of English. The study was performed during the first term of the educational year. Within the scope of this study, preservice English teacher candidates were provided the opportunity to practice teaching English to VYL under the supervision of their instructor. This study reports the results of their experiences and their attitudinal changes towards teaching English to VYL. The findings suggest that the attitudes of teacher candidates changed substantially after their practice teaching experiences. Other findings suggest that a colorful atmosphere in the classroom and a variety of activities attract students' interest and help create a more successful learning environment.


Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing systems such as Gnutella have been widely acknowledged as the fastest-growing Internet applications ever. The P2P model has many potential advantages, including high flexibility and serverless management. However, these systems suffer from the well-known performance mismatch between the randomly constructed overlay network topology and the underlying IP-layer topology. This paper proposes to structure the P2P overlay topology using a heterogeneity-aware multitier topology to better balance the load at peers with heterogeneous capacities and to prevent low-capability nodes from throttling the performance of the system. An analytical model is developed to enable the construction and maintenance of heterogeneity-aware overlay topologies with good node connectivity and better load balance. We also develop an efficient routing scheme, called probabilistic selective routing, that further utilizes heterogeneity-awareness to enhance the routing performance. We evaluate our design through simulations. The results show that our multitier topologies alone can provide eight to 10 times improvement in the messaging cost, two to three orders of magnitude improvement in terms of load balancing, and seven to eight times lower topology construction and maintenance costs when compared to Gnutella's random power-law topology. Moreover, our heterogeneity-aware routing scheme provides further improvements on all evaluation metrics, when used with our heterogeneity-aware overlay topologies


Aims: Enterococcus species are major nosocomial pathogens and they most commonly cause urinary tract infections (UTIs), exhibiting vancomycin and high-level aminoglycoside resistance (HLAR) with increasing frequency, resulting in high mortality of patients with serious enterococcal infections. Detection of resistance is thus of paramount importance. The present study aims to detect and determine the HLAR pattern of Enterococci isolated from urine samples of patients diagnosed with UTI at our hospital. Materials and Methods: This study was carried out at a tertiary care hospital in Bengaluru for a period of 1 year from January 2013 to December 2013. A total of 105 enterococcal strains were isolated from urine samples and speciated as per the scheme of Facklam and Collins. Antibiotic susceptibility was determined for various drugs by Kirby–Bauer disc diffusion method. The results were interpreted as per the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines. Results: Ninety-three of the 105 (88.6%) isolates showed high-level resistance to gentamicin and/or streptomycin. Combined resistance to both the aminoglycosides, high level gentamicin and streptomycin (HLAR), was seen only in Enterococcus faecalis 20/105 (19.04%). Of the two isolates of Enterococcus faecium, 1 (50%) was seen to be resistant to high level gentamicin. The HLAR E. faecalis and E. faecium isolates also showed concordant resistance to multiple antibiotics including vancomycin. Conclusion: This study highlights the need to screen for HLAR in patients suffering from enterococcal infections. Routine screening for HLAR is important to limit the spread of resistance and to have a surveillance program.


This presentation examines the didactic suitability of introducing a teaching sequence when teaching the concept of electrical capacitance in the context of charging a body. This short sequence targets first year university students and was designed following students' common conceptions on this topic. The evaluation is made by comparing the results with a control group using written questionnaires. The results show that the elements within the sequence help students to establish a connection between the movement of charges (micro frame) and the energetic analysis of the system (macro frame).


Concerns have been raised about the quality of care provided by professional caregivers to vulnerable older adults. However, little is known about the psychological mechanisms that may affect professional caregivers' ability to provide good care. This thesis presents four papers which sought to address this gap in our knowledge.

The first paper reports a proposed quantitative multilevel study, investigating the effects of nursing home manager-level and care assistant-level variables on psychosocial caregiving among care assistants. There were no effects of manager-level variables. However, structural equation modelling (SEM) analyses found care assistants' community aspirations and basic need satisfaction at work positively predicted the autonomy and relatedness support care assistants showed towards service users. No indirect effects were found.

The second paper presents a new measure of autonomy, relatedness, and competence satisfaction, which had improved construct validity compared to an existing measure and good external validity, being related to measures of well-being and ill-being in expected ways. The third paper reports the relationships between autonomy, relatedness, and competence satisfaction and prosocial behaviour. SEM analyses showed that a higher order factor of basic need satisfaction explained a small but significant amount of variance in prosocial behaviour, but that autonomy, competence, and relatedness satisfaction were not independent predictors.

The final paper presents a grounded theory analysis of semi-structured interviews with a range of individuals associated with nursing homes for the elderly. The findings highlight the role of a person-centred perspective at all levels of caregiving, with positive management practices interacting with the qualities and approaches of individual caregivers to support the provision of good care.

Overall, this body of research provides a preliminary understanding of the interplay between the personal qualities of professional caregivers and socio-environmental factors in the provision of good care. In addition, it has contributed meaningfully to the SDT literature and its application to real-world settings. These findings pave the way for future research to provide further beneficial insights for policy and practice in professional caregiving.


We present a general learning-based solution for restoring images suffering from spatially-varying degradations. Prior approaches are typically degradation-specific and employ the same processing across different images and different pixels within. However, we hypothesize that such spatially rigid processing is suboptimal for simultaneously restoring the degraded pixels as well as reconstructing the clean regions of the image. To overcome this limitation, we propose SPAIR, a network design that harnesses distortion-localization information and dynamically adjusts computation to difficult regions in the image. SPAIR comprises of two components, (1) a localization network that identifies degraded pixels, and (2) a restoration network that exploits knowledge from the localization network in filter and feature domain to selectively and adaptively restore degraded pixels. Our key idea is to exploit the non-uniformity of heavy degradations in spatial-domain and suitably embed this knowledge within distortion-guided modules performing sparse normalization, feature extraction and attention. Our architecture is agnostic to physical formation model and generalizes across several types of spatially-varying degradations. We demonstrate the efficacy of SPAIR individually on four restoration tasks- removal of rain-streaks, raindrops, shadows and motion blur. Extensive qualitative and quantitative comparisons with prior art on 11 benchmark datasets demonstrate that our degradation-agnostic network design offers significant performance gains over state-of-the-art degradation-specific architectures. Code available at https://github.com/humananalysis/spatially-adaptive-image-restoration.


This article examines a recent challenge to postcolonial studies: the emergence of species thinking. Species thinking calls for a shift away from postcolonial studies and its characteristic emphasis on racial, ethnic and cultural difference in favour of a new and fully inclusive concept of human collectivity that is attentive to our basic sameness and our common vulnerability to the forces that threaten our future on this planet. I suggest that the move to species thinking is too hasty, and I argue that its recourse to the rhetoric of life preservation warrants much deeper scrutiny. As I demonstrate, to uncritically portray life and its prolongment as the goal to which we all aspire is to ultimately profile new patterns of neocolonial domination where exploitation is legitimized not in the name of "progress" and the civilizing mission but in the name of longevity and the reproduction of the species.


Regardless of the merits of Ukrainian criticisms of the European Neighbourhood Policy, its reception in Ukraine indicates that the EU has already missed one opportunity to foster the reforms in Ukraine that the EU ultimately seeks. Yet the presidential election in Ukraine on 31 October represents another opportunity for change, as the country will decide between a pro-reform candidate and a pro-government, authoritarian one. As Ukraine prepares to vote, the EU needs to ensure that it sends the appropriate signals concerning the conduct of the elections. If the elections are not free and fair and the government uses the administration machinery inappropriately to guarantee the victory of pro-government candidate, this should have clear and immediate consequences for relations between the new Ukrainian president and the EU. If on the other hand the elections are free and are followed by steps towards pro-European reform, the EU should reciprocate, above all by making sure that the Action Plan between the EU and Ukraine moves the bilateral relationship significantly and noticeably beyond the current state of affairs.


Lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC) accounts for a significant proportion of lung cancer and there have been few therapeutic alternatives for recurrent LUSC due to the lack of specific driver molecules. To investigate the prospective role of lncRNAs in the tumorigenesis and progression of LUSC, the aberrantly expressed lncRNAs were calculated based on The Cancer Genome Atlas RNA-seq data. Of 7589 lncRNAs with 504 LUSC cases, 884 lncRNAs were identified as being aberrantly expressed (|log2 fold change| >2 and adjusted P<0.05) by DESeq R. The top 10 lncRNAs with the highest diagnostic value were SFTA1P,LINC00968, LINC00961, LINC01572,RP1-78O14.1, FENDRR, LINC01314,LINC01272, GATA6-AS1, and MIR3945HG. In addition to the significant roles in the carcinogenesis of LUSC, several lncRNAs also played vital parts in the survival and progression of LUSC. SFTA1P, LINC01272, GATA6-AS1 and MIR3945HG were closely related to the survival time of LUSC. Furthermore, LINC01572 and LINC01314 could distinguish the LUSC at early stage from that at advanced stage. The prospective molecular assessment of key lncRNAs showed that a certain series of genes could be involved in the regulation network. Furthermore, the OncoPrint from cBioPortal indicated that 14% (69/501) LUSC cases with genetic alterations could be obtained, including amplification, deep deletion and mRNA upregulation. More interestingly, the cases with genetic alterations had a poorer survival as compared to those without alterations. Overall, the study propounds a potentiality for interpreting the pathogenesis and development of LUSC with lncRNAs, and provides a novel platform for searching for more capable diagnostic biomarkers for LUSC.


UP TO DATE AND PROGRESSIVE WINCHESTER AND FREDERICK COUNTY VIRGINIA, 1870–1980 Mary Sullivan Linhart, Ph.D. George Mason University, 2014 Dissertation Director: Dr. Zachary Schrag Between 1870 and 1980, leaders in Winchester and Frederick County, Virginia, successfully encouraged industry, diversified agriculture, improved local institutions and infrastructure, and promoted the community and its products. In 1870, the community was recovering from the devastation caused by the Civil War. In succeeding years, Winchester and Frederick County did not decline as the United States transitioned from an agricultural to an industrial economy. Unlike many other small American communities, Winchester and Frederick County achieved economic stability as farmers diversified crop production and business leaders organized to attract industry and encourage commerce and tourism. Leaders became community boosters and extended their goals to improve community life. Progressive leaders strengthened and expanded government, improved education and medical care, supported better transportation, and upgraded the civic infrastructure. This dissertation examines progressive business leaders for more than a century and focuses on efforts to achieve economic stability. Farmers developed apples as an important commercial crop. In the business sector, leaders attracted outside industry and developed local industries to provide jobs. Leaders coped with many challenges, including the legacy of the Civil War, the impact of external forces, national economic downturns, the Great Depression, and two World Wars. Most Winchester and Frederick County leaders between 1870 and 1980 were independent businessmen and believed there was a congruence of their interests and those of the region. They understood the community and were actively involved in civic life. Leaders influenced and reacted to the attitudes of fellow citizens. Leaders of Winchester and Frederick County were ordinary citizens who cooperated to expand and diversify the economy and meet the challenges of change.


The author attempts to define professional library tasks by surveying small Bible college librarians to discover the tasks on which they spent the most time performing directly and which tasks they considered "professional." Respondents generally spent most of their time directly performing many tasks that they considered professional in nature. They apparently were unaware that they directly performed many tasks that they did not consider professional and did not directly perform many tasks that they considered professional. The author concludes that most professional tasks of small Bible college librarians tend to be indirect and long-range and that most of their time and energy should be spent on these tasks.


There is an ever growing need for community or public service interpreting around the world yet there is great disparity between both the quality and availability of educational courses for community interpreters. This chapter focuses on the Australian context and assumes a community interpreter is qualified in interpreting with an undergraduate degree or postgraduate qualification in interpreting/translating, has national accreditation and is subject to the ethics of AUSIT. The AUSIT code of ethics is examined to reveal its operational code which allows the interpreter to coordinate the metalingual function of the interpreted dialogue, permission for which can emanate from the contract, a specific stage of the genre of the interpreted consultation. Empirical data from a major project in medical interpreting are discussed to show how this metalingual function is used to coordinate and repair talk or interpreting that has broken down due to human error and frailty. Such explicit coordination can work nearly as well as implicit coordination, the normal work of an interpreter. The two types of coordination are considered successful interpreting as distinct from intentional interference by the interpreter who would add or omit or attempt to coordinate beyond the specific professional role of the interpreter.


This technical report addresses how to hide secrets from an operating system. The authors provide a detailed design for the VM blackbox and some microarchitecture level simulation derived performance data. They also describe a compiler directed prefetch scheme that uses both instruction and data prefetches to obfuscate the address traces on the address bus between on-chip L2 cache and memory.


Abstract A growing body of historical scholarship has demonstrated that the Cold War had a profound impact on the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The rise of newly independent nations in African and Asia, coupled with Americas quest to lead the ""free world"" against the Soviet Union, made American racism an international liability and created conditions that fostered civil rights reforms at home. Yet the Cold War9s influence on the movement is largely absent at the nation9s leading civil rights museums. This article surveys the ways in which four civil rights museums present the relationship between the movement and the Cold War, and suggests some reasons that museums have yet to internationalize their history of the movement. The Cold War interpretation shows how foreign policy concerns and elite whites9 self-interest both helped generate and limit civil rights reforms. This interpretation, however, stands at odd with the celebratory narrative of the movement as a triumph of democratic ideals that these museums present.


This paper focuses on the determinants of infant and child mortality in Kenya. It specifically examines how infant and child mortality is related to the household's environmental and socio-economic characteristics, such as mother's education, source of drinking water, sanitation facility, type of cooking fuels and access to electricity. A hazard rate framework is used to analyze the determinants of child mortality. Duration models are easily applicable to the problem of child mortality as this class of models straightforwardly accounts for problems like right-censoring, structural modeling and time varying covariates which traditional econometric techniques cannot handle adequately. Household's environmental and socio-economic characteristics are found to have significant impact on child mortality. Policies aimed at achieving the goal of reduced child mortality should be directed on improving the household's environmental and or socio-economic status if this goal is to be realized.


This paper presents an end-to-end learning-based video compression system, termed CANF-VC, based on conditional augmented normalizing flows (CANF). Most learned video compression systems adopt the same hybrid-based coding architecture as the traditional codecs. Recent research on conditional coding has shown the sub-optimality of the hybrid-based coding and opens up opportunities for deep generative models to take a key role in creating new coding frameworks. CANF-VC represents a new attempt that leverages the conditional ANF to learn a video generative model for conditional inter-frame coding. We choose ANF because it is a special type of generative model, which includes variational autoencoder as a special case and is able to achieve better expressiveness. CANF-VC also extends the idea of conditional coding to motion coding, forming a purely conditional coding framework. Extensive experimental results on commonly used datasets confirm the superiority of CANF-VC to the state-of-the-art methods. The source code of CANF-VC is available at https://github.com/NYCU-MAPL/CANF-VC.


Contextual advertising supports much of the Web's ecosystem today. User experience and revenue (shared by the site publisher and the ad network) depend on the relevance of the displayed ads to the page content. As with other document retrieval systems, relevance is provided by scoring the match between individual ads (documents) and the content of the page where the ads are shown (query). In this paper we show how this match can be improved significantly by augmenting the ad-page scoring function with extra parameters from a logistic regression model on the words in the pages and ads. A key property of the proposed model is that it can be mapped to standard cosine similarity matching and is suitable for efficient and scalable implementation over inverted indexes. The model parameter values are learnt from logs containing ad impressions and clicks, with shrinkage estimators being used to combat sparsity. To scale our computations to train on an extremely large training corpus consisting of several gigabytes of data, we parallelize our fitting algorithm in a Hadoop framework [10]. Experimental evaluation is provided showing improved click prediction over a holdout set of impression and click events from a large scale real-world ad placement engine. Our best model achieves a 25% lift in precision relative to a traditional information retrieval model which is based on cosine similarity, for recalling 10% of the clicks in our test data.


This map of Robben Island shows streets, Varney's Fort, Edmund's Pool, the lighthouse, Ladies' Rock, the slaughter house, Irish town, the boat house, restaurant, convict station, nurses' home, buildings housing the male lepers, tramway, kennels, the White House, buildings housing the female lepers, the quarry, sanitary tip, a spring, the old lime kiln and Wreck House. Also marked in a numbered key are the Chief and Medical Superintendent's quarters, workshops, the parsonage, the English Church, male asylum, a masonry tank, the female asylum. the Assistant Medical Officer, offices, the store, the library and billiard room, the Dutch parsonage, the Magistrate's quarters, the Works Department recreation room, the tram line, water pipes, drains and burial ground. Some colour. Scale 1 inch to 600 feet.


A method has been devised whereby the transplanted epidermis of mouse embryos can be selectively exposed to the action of a chemical carcinogen. Scharlach R was dissolved in olive oil with the aim of stimulating and attracting the epidermal cells, methylcholanthrene was added to the solution, and numerous fine globules of it were injected into the thigh muscles of adult mice together with fragments of embryo skin. Much of the oil underwent primary inclusion in the resulting cysts, and the proliferating epidermis, while forming them, extended to not a few of the outlying droplets with result that they too were added to the cyst contents. During these activities the methylcholanthrene came into direct contact with many of the epithelial cells, and later on the layer lining the cyst was continually exposed to the influence of the carcinogen. The epidermis underwent neoplastic changes with great rapidity; often in less than 4 weeks papillomas and carcinomas had arisen like those deriving from adult epidermis. The growths were punctate in origin and usually multiple. Many were transplanted to adults of the same homologous breed of mice that furnished the embryo material (mice of C strain). The grafts did not uniformly succeed as was the case with those of normal skin of embryos of the same stock,—which regularly grew at first in the new hosts and remained alive long after. The benign papillomas failed to live or barely survived, and the apparently malignant papillomas, though rapidly forming nodules of considerable size, usually regressed later. Some of the carcinomas also regressed or wholly failed, while others gave rise to progressively enlarging tumors. The best results were obtained with grafts in which several neoplasms were intermingled, these flourishing together in the new hosts. Methylcholanthrene in olive oil exerts an influence on epidermal cells like that of Scharlach R, stimulating them to multiply, attracting them, and causing them to mimic carcinomatous elements.


Background: Dermatophytosis is caused by dermatophytes, which attack and grow on dead animal keratin. Dermatophytes belong to three genera, namely, Epidermophyton, Microsporum, and Trichophyton. Objective: The objective of this study is to detect the types and the frequencies of the dermatophytes infections in Babylon Province. Materials and Methods: In this study, 200 specimens of dermatophytic patients are collected in Babylon Province. Collection of Specimens includes skin scrapings, hair fragments, and nail clippings. The specimens were diagnosed by direct microscopic examination and culture. Results: One hundred and sixty-four (83%) specimens of dermatophyte infection were positive in culture and used in phenotypic diagnosis. Tinea corporis was the predominant infection in 83 (41.5%) patients, Trichophyton rubrum showed the highest frequency of dermatophytes isolates 29 (17.68%), Trichophyton mentagrophytes 26 (15.85%), and Microsporum canis 24 (14.63%). Fifty-six cases were positive in direct microscopic examination, and the invasion of hair was ectothrix type, forming masses of arthroconidia on the outside of the hair shaft in 44 (78.57%) specimens, while the invasion of hair was endothrix type, and abundant sporulation inside the hair shaft causes breakage of the hair near the surface of the scalp in 12 (22.43%) specimens (P < 0.05). The age group of 21–30 years revealed tendency for dermatophytosis of tinea corporis while the age group of 1–10 years showed tendency for dermatophytosis of tinea capitis. Conclusion: Tinea corporis was the predominant infection. T. rubrum, T. mentagrophytes, and M. canis showed the highest frequency of dermatophyte isolates. Positive direct microscopic examination and culture isolates (phenotypic diagnosis) could be used in the diagnosis of dermatophytosis.


The paper proposes and optimizes a partial recovery training system, CPR, for recommendation models. CPR relaxes the consistency requirement by enabling non-failed nodes to proceed without loading checkpoints when a node fails during training, improving failure-related overheads. The paper is the first to the extent of our knowledge to perform a data-driven, in-depth analysis of applying partial recovery to recommendation models and identified a trade-off between accuracy and performance. Motivated by the analysis, we present CPR, a partial recovery training system that can reduce the training time and maintain the desired level of model accuracy by (1) estimating the benefit of partial recovery, (2) selecting an appropriate checkpoint saving interval, and (3) prioritizing to save updates of more frequently accessed parameters. Two variants of CPR, CPR-MFU and CPR-SSU, reduce the checkpoint-related overhead from 8.2-8.5% to 0.53-0.68% compared to full recovery, on a configuration emulating the failure pattern and overhead of a production-scale cluster. While reducing overhead significantly, CPR achieves model quality on par with the more expensive full recovery scheme, training the state-of-the-art recommendation model using Criteo's Ads CTR dataset. Our preliminary results also suggest that CPR can speed up training on a real production-scale cluster, without notably degrading the accuracy.


There has been considerable discussion about the influence of high-frequency electromagnetic fields (HFEMF) on the human body. In particular, HFEMF used for mobile phones may be of great concern for human health. In order to investigate the properties of HFEMF, we have examined the effects of 2.45-GHz EMF on micronucleus (MN) formation in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO)-K1 cells. MN formation is induced by chromosomal breakage or inhibition of spindles during cell division and leads to cell damage. We also examined the influence of heat on MN formation, since HFEMF exposure causes a rise in temperature. CHO-K1 cells were exposed to HFEMF for 2 h at average specific absorption rates (SARs) of 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, and 200 W/kg, and the effects on these cells were compared with those in sham-exposed control cells. The cells were also treated with bleomycin alone as a positive control or with combined treatment of HFEMF exposure and bleomycin. Heat treatment was performed at temperatures of 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, and 42°C.The MN frequency in cells exposed to HFEMF at a SAR of lower than 50 W/kg did not differ from the sham-exposed controls, while those at SARs of 100 and 200 W/kg were significantly higher when compared with the sham-exposed controls. There was no apparent combined effect of HFEMF exposure and bleomycin treatment. On heat treatment at temperatures from 38–42°C, the MN frequency increased in a temperature-dependent manner. We also showed that an increase in SAR causes a rise in temperature and this may be connected to the increase in MN formation generated by exposure to HFEMF.


Contributing scientific solutions to the challenges of landslides and earthquakes, minerals and
mining, water supply and flooding, pollution and erosion, and — not least — climate change
and energy supply, depends absolutely on geological data. Like most things environmental,
few of these challenges respect national or scientific domain frontiers and if we want to
assess and address these environmental challenges holistically then we need access to
holistic data too. Rich environmental data does exist in each nation, but when it is available,
and in many instances it is exceptionally difficult to discover, then it exists in different formats
and via different services, with different access conditions. OneGeology is a global initiative
to improve the accessibility of one fundamental environmental dataset — geological map
data. In addition it is improving the interoperability of those data and the exchange of knowhow
and experience. OneGeology has been hugely successful and today 116 nations are
participating, with 50 of those nations serving geological data to a dynamic web map portal.


The problem of optimal control of power distribution systems is becoming increasingly compelling due to the progressive penetration of distributed energy resources in this specific layer of the electrical infrastructure. Distribution systems are, indeed, experiencing significant changes in terms of operation philosophies that are often based on optimal control strategies relying on the computation of linearized dependencies between controlled (e.g. voltages) and control variables (e.g. power injections). As the implementation of these strategies in real-time controllers imposes stringent time constraints, the derivation of analytical dependency between controlled and control variables becomes a non-trivial task to be solved. With reference to optimal voltage and power flow controls, this paper aims at providing an analytical derivation of node voltage and line current flows as a function of the nodal power injections. Compared to other approaches presented in the literature, the one proposed here is based on the use of [Y] compound matrix of a generic multi-phase unbalanced network. In order to estimate the computational benefits of the proposed approach, the relevant improvements are also quantified versus traditional methods. The validation of the proposed method is carried out by using both IEEE 13 and 34 node test feeders. The paper finally shows the use of the proposed method for the problem of optimal voltage control applied to the IEEE 34 node test feeder.


Presented in the paper is an interdisciplinary capstone design project course with the support of distributed and integrated manufacturing processes. This project course provides students with the experience of integrating the technical knowledge they have learned from other courses. The project highlights include 1) Integration of business and engineering skills through a two-semester, team-based capstone manufacturing project course; 2) Development of a distributed product design and manufacturing environment including a realistic supply-chain network; 3) Development of modular courseware to support the capstone design project; 4) In-depth understanding of product quality and manufacturing process control; 5) Implication of various decisions such as make/buy, purchasing, vendor selection on the bottom line; and 6) real world industrial projects supported by various industrial partners. Presented in the paper is the integration of the existing campus manufacturing resources and those available from industries to provide distributed manufacturing experiences for students. The collaboration between the University of Missouri-Rolla and St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley integrates engineering and technology to solve real problems in industry. An interdisciplinary team provides the students with the experience of solving a problem using various team members' expertise. This capstone design project provides opportunities for students to design, manufacture, and actually market a product, are able to stimulate students' interest in real-world product realization. Business knowledge and skill are naturally incorporated into consideration in students' design and manufacturing. Both the program model and actual class implementation are summarized in this paper. This model can also be adapted at other institutions that have limited manufacturing process facilities.


Over recent years, many forms of inter-organisational collaboration have gained in popularity. IT outsourcing is a particular form of collaboration and, while cost savings and other benefits forecast in the early days of the outsourcing boom have not always eventuated, the approach has retained much of its popularity. It is becoming increasingly apparent, however, that we still have some way to go in understanding how outsourcing arrangements actually work in practice. In particular the many failed ventures indicate that managing these partnerships is no trivial matter. Here, we report on an IT outsourcing venture, where interface management's failure to take into account the needs of one of its most successful Divisions destroyed a major source of that Division's competitive advantage – its information systems support function. We describe how that Division developed and attempted to employ a system dynamics model to protect its operations and functions. We then use a further model based on the same paradigm to illustrate how power/ political considerations meant that its efforts were always likely to fail.


Research interest in biomass conversion to fuels and chemicals has increased significantly in the last decade as the necessity for a renewable source of carbon has become more evident. Accordingly, many different reactions and processes to convert biomass into high-value products and fuels have been proposed in the literature. Special attention has been given to the conversion of lignocellulosic biomass, which does not compete with food sources and is widely available as a low cost feedstock. In this review, we start with a brief introduction on lignocellulose and the different chemical structures of its components: cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. These three components allow for the production of different chemicals after fractionation. After a brief overview of the main reactions involved in biomass conversion, we focus on those where bimetallic catalysts are playing an important role. Although the reactions are similar for cellulose and hemicellulose, which contain C(6) and C(5) sugars, respectively, different products are obtained, and therefore, they have been reviewed separately. The third major fraction of lignocellulose that we address is lignin, which has significant challenges to overcome, as its structure makes catalytic processing more challenging. Bimetallic catalysts offer the possibility of enabling lignocellulosic processing to become a larger part of the biofuels and renewable chemical industry. This review summarizes recent results published in the literature for biomass upgrading reactions using bimetallic catalysts.


Coatings based on TiO2 are extensively investigated material for the preparation of surfaces which are referred as self-cleaning. Under solar illumination these coatings catalyze pollutants degradation and enhance their removal from the surface due to photoinduced superhydrophilicity [1]. There are two main drawbacks of using pure TiO2 (anatase) as a photocatalyst; i) its band gap lies in the UVA region so it can exploit only a part of the sunlight spectrum, and ii) it has a high degree of recombination between photo generated electrons and holes on the surface. There are various strategies to improve the photocatalytic efficiency of TiO2, one of them is the modification with transition metals.
Based on our previous experiences with sol-gel synthesis of low-temperature TiO2 thin films [2], we prepared a series of Sn modified TiO2 photocatalysts. As a starting material only organic (Ti and Sn alkoxide) precursors were used. The loadings of Sn cations were varied in the range of 0.05 to 20 mol.%. The coatings, deposited on glass substrates by dip-coating technique, were dried at 150 oC. In addition, another set of photocatalyst coatings was prepared by further calcination at 500 °C in air. The comparison of photocatalytic activities of Sn modified TiO2 to unmodified TiO2 showed that Sn loadings in the range of 1-10 mol.% improved photocatalytic activity up to 8 times. At lower loadings of Sn, the photocatalytic activity was improved only by 30 %. After the coatings are calcined, their photocatalytic activity was significantly reduced.
The objective of the research was to examine the mechanism responsible for photocatalytic properties of Sn modified TiO2 and to to clarify the role of Sn cations in the TiO2 photocatalytic process. For this purpose, Sn and Ti K-edge XANES and EXAFS analysis was used to precisely determine the local structure and the site of incorporation of Sn cations on titania nanoparticles in the coatings. We examined the hypothesis that the solid-solid interface was a crucial structural feature that facilitates charge separation and enhances photocatalytic efficiency of titania.


The CD22 B lymphocyte-surface Ag is an important component of the B cell-surface IgM (sIgM)/B cell receptor complex and has been shown to regulate B cell activation. In addition, this molecule has been shown to be an effective target for immunotherapy of B cell malignancies using immunotoxins and radioimmunoconjugates. In this report we describe the internalization and metabolic degradation of this molecule under constitutive conditions and after stimulation of B cells with phorbol dibutyrate or mAbs binding to sIgM, CD19, and CD22. Flow cytometry, "neuraminidase protection," and "neuraminidase shift" assays demonstrated that CD22 is internalized constitutively by unstimulated B cell lines and subsequently degraded in an acidic intracellular compartment (presumably lysosomes) without detectable recycling of the molecule back to the cell surface. Ligation of CD22 with anti-CD22 mAbs markedly increased CD22 internalization but did not affect the rate of intracellular degradation of CD22, suggesting that anti-CD22 mAbs perturb the intracellular trafficking of CD22. In contrast, CD22 internalization and degradation was unaffected by stimulation of B cell lines with phorbol dibutyrate or ligation of other components of the B cell receptor complex (e.g. CD19, sIgM) with mAbs. These patterns of internalization and degradation under constitutive and stimulated conditions contrast with those reported for other lymphoid differentiation Ags (e.g., the TCR, CD3, CD4, and the transferrin receptor), and may help explain the utility of this molecule as a target for immunoconjugate therapy.


The kinetic mechanisms by which enzymes interact with inhibitors and activators, collectively called modifiers, are scrutinized and ranked taxonomically into autonomous species in a way similar to that used in the biological classification of plants and animals. The systematization of the mechanisms is based on two fundamental characters: the allosteric linkage between substrate and modifier and the factor by which a modifier affects the catalytic constant of the enzyme. Combinations of the physically significant states of these two characters in an ancestor-descendant-like fashion reveal the existence of seventeen modes of interaction that cover the needs of total, partial and fine-tuning modulation of enzyme activity. These interactions comprise five linear and five hyperbolic inhibition mechanisms, five nonessential activation mechanisms and two hybrid species that manifest either hyperbolic inhibition or nonessential activation characteristics depending on substrate concentration. Five essential activation mechanisms, which are taxonomically independent of the mentioned basic species, complete the inventory of enzyme modifiers. Often masked under conventional umbrella terms or treated as anomalous cases, all seventeen basic inhibition and nonessential activation mechanisms are represented in the biochemical and pharmacological literature of this and the past century, either in the form of rapid or slow-onset reversible interactions, or as irreversible modification processes. The full potential of enzyme inhibitors and activators can only be appreciated after elucidating the details of their kinetic mechanisms of action exploring the entire range of physiologically significant reactant concentrations. This book highlights the wide spectrum of allosteric enzyme modification in physiological occurrences as well as in pharmacological and biotechnological applications that embrace simple and multiple enzyme-modifier interactions. The reader is guided in the journey through this still partly uncharted territory with the aid of mechanistically-oriented criteria aimed at showing the logical way towards the identification of a particular mechanism


Introduction The primary objective of this paper is to draw attention to the needs of disabled people and the importance of accessible tourism. Providing tourism services and holidays for those who demand assistance has become a financially successful business all over the world, nevertheless this segment is in its infancy in Hungary, providing a market niche for entrepreneurs. The primary research focuses on the potential of this segment both from the service providers' and from the customers' point of view. The results of the questionnaire analysis reveal that this special target group does have demands for better, more sophisticated and higher level accessible tourism services. For the sake of clarity it is important to define the basic notions of disabilities and equal opportunity even if they are not directly linked to tourism. The Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly at its 48th session on 20 December 1993 (Resolution 48/96). It defines disability as follows: The term "disability" summarises a great number of different functional limitations occurring in any population in any country of the world. People may be disabled by physical, intellectual or sensory impairment, medical conditions or mental illness. Such impairments, conditions or illnesses may be permanent or transitory in nature (Chikan, 2001; Udo, 2002; Vegh, 2004). Disability or handicap refers to the permanent state or feature when a person's organ of sense or locomotion, intellectual or communication skills considerably lags behind the average and this hinders or even prevents a person from participating in social life. The imparity can be congenital or may be caused by accident, illness or ageing (Chikan, 2001). The resolution of the Parliament on the New National Program of Disability Affairs (2006). With this decision, the following disability categories are distinguished: * Physical disability * Visual impairment (blindness, poor eyesight) * Hardness of hearing (deafness, hard of hearing) * Mental disability * Speech impairment Basic principles to be applied concerning disabled tourists: * Disability cannot always be noticed. * A disabled person is not necessarily ill. * Many people, especially the elderly, are often unwilling to admit their disability. * Many expressions may be insulting for the disabled. * There are a number of types of physical disabilities that cannot be placed into one category. * Most disabled people do not like being treated in a distinguished way. * Tour operators are not legally obliged to provide assistance to the disabled (Wilken, 2002; Smith & Puczko, 2010). Equal opportunities and accessible tourism Equal opportunity is a relatively new concept reflecting a significant change in attitude. Towards the end of the 1970s the demand that the disabled should be helped to lead an independent life as much as possible was formulated--this positive discrimination was necessary because the disabled are not usually ill, but they are people in a disadvantageous position who need more attention, different treatment and occasionally help (Ollos, 2003; Ratz, 2001; Michalko, 2004; Michalko, 2009). The barrier-free development of tourism service chains is one of the characteristics of quality tourism. Barrier-free tourism is a continuous endeavour towards making all destinations, tourism products and services available for all people regardless of physical limitations, disabilities or age. It includes publicly and privately owned tourist locations. Accessibility is important not only for the disabled but also for senior citizens, families with young children and the handicapped. It is also a human rights question. The number of disabled people is continuously growing, which may create a new segment in tourism (Dezsi, 2004). …


The privacy and confidentiality of library patrons concerned many public libraries after September 11, particularly because of the passage and enforcement of the Patriot Act. Theresa Chmara, a litigator who has represented the American Library Association, the Freedom to Read Foundation, and the American Bookseller's Association, provides concise and useful guidelines for libraries about these and other related issues in Privacy and Confidentiality Issues: A Guide for Libraries and Their Lawyers. This work is highly recommend for public library directors but should be required professional reading for all library directors. Additionally, library schools, which have an obligation to educate future librarians about the First Amendment concept of privacy in the context of the library, should purchase this book. It also serves as a great edition to a law school's First Amendment collection for the same reasons as well as to bolster an academic collection that may lack practice oriented sources in this area.


LOGAN'S RUN: AFTERMATH continues Logan's epic journey as he races towards an uncertain destiny.The Thinker is destroyed, the world is in chaos, and Logan wants nothing to do with it. But the world isn't done with him yet and when the lives of Jessica and his son Jaq are put in jeopardy, Logan must once again don his armor.LOGAN'S RUN: AFTERMATH continues Logan's epic journey as he races towards an uncertain destiny.The Thinker is destroyed, the world is in chaos, and Logan wants nothing to do with it. But the world isn't done with him yet and when the lives of Jessica and his son Jaq are put in jeopardy, Logan must once again don his armor.


Buildings currently account for 30–40 percent of total global energy consumption. In particular, commercial buildings are responsible for about 12 percent of global energy use and 21 percent of the United States' energy use, and the energy demand of this sector continues to grow faster than other sectors. This increasing rate therefore raises a critical concern about improving the energy performance of commercial buildings. Recently, researchers have investigated ways in which understanding and improving occupants' energy-consuming behaviors could function as a cost-effective approach to decreasing commercial buildings' energy demands. The objective of this paper is to present a detailed, up-to-date review of various algorithms, models, and techniques employed in the pursuit of understanding and improving occupants' energy-use behaviors in commercial buildings. Previous related studies are introduced and three main approaches are identified: (1) monitoring occupant-specific energy consumption; (2) Simulating occupant energy consumption behavior; and (3) improving occupant energy consumption behavior. The first approach employs intrusive and non-intrusive load-monitoring techniques to estimate the energy use of individual occupants. The second approach models diverse characteristics related to occupants' energy-consuming behaviors in order to assess and predict such characteristics' impacts on the energy performance of commercial buildings; this approach mostly utilizes agent-based modeling techniques to simulate actions and interactions between occupants and their built environment. The third approach employs occupancy-focused interventions to change occupants' energy-use characteristics. Based on the detailed review of each approach, critical issues and current gaps in knowledge in the existing literature are discussed, and directions for future research opportunities in this field are provided.


Capsaicin, a natural compound in chili peppers that produces a burning sensation in the mouth, acts through a pain receptor in the mammalian peripheral nervous system, the TRPV1 ion channel. Neurons expressing TRPV1 also perceive pain associated with stimuli such as high temperature and acidity. TRPV1 is activated by the hydrolysis of a membrane phospholipid called phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2). Prescott and Julius have identified a direct binding site on TRPV1 for PIP2 and show that the strength of this interaction determines the activation threshold of the channel. E. D. Prescott, D. Julius, A modular PIP2 binding site as a determinant of capsaicin receptor sensitivity. Science 300, 1284-1288 (2003). [Abstract] [Full Text]


The aesthetic aspect of a functional product is growing to be an important reason for the consumer's choice to buy the product. Despite this importance, aesthetics has not generally been incorporated into engineering design which makes much sense of functional and ergonomic designs. The study presented in this thesis aims to remedy this observed gap. The study focuses on the integration of aesthetic attributes with functional attributes of a product and on the quantification of the aesthetic principle from fine arts into design variables of the product. In particular, two hypotheses underlie this study: (1) design variables can be classified in terms of their relevance to functional, ergonomic, and aesthetic attributes, and (2) a particular aesthetic principle, namely visual balance, helps to achieve an improved aesthetic product.The cell phone is used to ground this study. A statistic experiment using the cell phone product positively tests the first hypothesis, resulting in two design variable which are only related to the aesthetic attribute of the cell phone product. The study of the visual balance principle results in a more general formula which relates design variables to visual balance with consideration of both geometry and color of the cell phone product. Finally, another statistic experiment is designed, which positively tests the second hypothesis.This study concludes: (1) the effective integration of aesthetics with function and ergonomics requires an analysis and classification of design variables, and (2) there is a potential to quantify all aesthetic principles from fine arts into design variables.


ASTANA – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev held bilateral talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, participated in the Third Meeting of the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council and met with Turkish business leaders during a Sept. 13 official visit to Turkey. "Relations between Kazakhstan and Turkey are developing in the spirit of strategic partnership, an important component of which is trade and economic interaction," Nazarbayev said during the visit. Turkey is among Kazakhstan's top 10 trading partners and trade between the two countries grew 27 percent in 2017. Nazarbayev said Kazakhstan should utilise the intergovernmental commission between Kazakhstan and Turkey, develop new conditions for investment partnership and optimise Kazakhstan's transit potential under the Nurly Zhol infrastructure programme to make Kazakhstan a leading logistic hub in Central Asia. Following a visit to the Kulliye presidential complex in Ankara and meeting with his Turkish counterpart, the two leaders, Kazakh and Turkish delegations sat for the Strategic Cooperation Council meeting. The council with the heads of state and government ministers reviewed cooperation in oil and gas, military industries, transit and education and agreed to develop closer agricultural, tourism, science and technology cooperation. At a joint press briefing, both leaders praised Kazakh-Turkish relations rooted in common history and shared values. "Kazakhstan is one of Turkey's most important strategic partners," Erdogan said. Calling Nazarbayev a 'patriarch of the Turkic world,' he said relations would grow in all sectors after the visit. Nazarbayev congratulated Erdogan on his reelection in June. "When Kazakhstan declared its independence on Dec. 16, 1991, late President of Turkey Turgut Ozal was the first to call me, just two hours after the announcement, to inform me Turkey recognises our sovereignty," Nazarbayev recalled. "Since that day, our relationship is only growing." Nazarbayev also praised the discussions with Erdogan. "Astana and Ankara are open to each other in discussing the regional and international topics, our positions are similar," he said. He said both countries want to strengthen the political dialogue and friendship between the fraternal peoples. Nazarbayev also met during his trip with Turkish business leaders and noted that 1,800 businesses operating in Kazakhstan with Turkish capital, and annual trade volume has reached $2 billion. He said the sides agreed on a new goal of $5 billion. Nazarbayev met with CEO of Oyak Holding Suleiman Erdem, Board Chairman of Yıldırım Group Robert Yüksel Yıldırım and Board Chairman of Koc Holdings Ali Yildirim Koc, among other business persons. The Kazakh President and Turkish industry leaders reviewed the interim results of New Synergy Joint Programme, which supports entrepreneurs. The programme has helped launch 23 projects totaling $800 million and created 3,000 jobs. Nazarbayev also invited Turkish companies to invest in transportation and logistics businesses at Kazakhstan's Aktau and Kuryk ports. One day before Nazarbayev's visit, a Kazakh delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister Askar Mamin participated in the KazakhTurkish Investment Forum and signed 24 commercial agreements totaling $1.7 billion. The agreements are in the non-resource sector of Kazakhstan's economy and are expected to create 3,000 jobs. The agreements involve chemical industries in Zhambyl region, real estate projects to develop Almaty's downtown, as well as a large greenhouse project in Turkestan region. Turkish companies expressed interest in exploring opportunities offered by Kazakhstan's political stability, growing infrastructural capacity in conjunction with China's Belt and Road Initiative and the opportunities of the Astana International Financial Centre. President appoints new finance minister, security council secretary, economic aide


The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of four corporate entrepreneurship determinants; structure, management, culture and environment on organizational performance of public higher education institutions in Pakistan. Hypotheses were developed to determine the relationships between these determinants and performance of the institutions. Data were collected by means of structured mail survey questionnaires from the 225 faculty deans of the 74 state-owned universities in Pakistan, and multiple regression analysis was conducted to identify the predictive ability of the four determinants as independent variables on organizational performance. The findings reveal positive and significant relationships between management, culture and environment and performance. No significant relationship was found between structure and performance. The findings ultimately enhance the field of corporate entrepreneurship which focuses on improving the performance of the higher education institutions in Pakistan.


THE anthropologist has become so familiar with the diversity of ways in which different peoples behave in similar situations that he is not apt to be surprised by even the most exotic customs. In fact, if all of thelogically possible combinations of behavior have not been found somewhere in the world, he is apt to suspect that they must be present in some yet undescribed tribe. This point has, in fact, been expressed with respect to clan organization by Murdock (1949: 71). In this light, the magical beliefs and practices of the Nacirema present such unusual aspects that it seems desirable to describe them as an example of the extremes to which human behavior can go. Professor Linton first brought the ritual of the Nacirema to the attention of anthropologists twenty years ago (1936:326), but the culture of this people is still very poorly understood. T h w r e a North American group living in the territory between the Canadian Cree, the Yaqui and Tarahumare of Mexico, and the Carib and Arawak of the Antilles. Little is known of their origin, although tradition states that they came from the east.


In this study the usefulness of the ALOS optical and radar data for landslide monitoring is examined. ALOS contains three sensors, commonly referred to as the "three eyes" of ALOS. These sensors are: the Panchromatic Remote-Sensing Instrument for Stereo Mapping (PRISM), the Advanced Visible and Near Infrared Radiometer type 2 (AVNIR-2), and the Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR). The area of study is located in a small village named Sykies near to the city of Andritsena in Western Peloponnese. The area suffered during the last years from enormous fires. As a result many lan-slides have been recorded. One of the latest Landslides has been recorded on January 2009 as a consequence of heavy rains. That landslide was mapped in situ using differential GPS. The possibility of detecting and mapping the specific landslide using ALOS data is examined in this study and the results are presented. Thirty ALOS radar images within a period of three years, two ALOS Prism data sets and two ALOS AVNIR collected over the same area within a year were used.


Arguments about the importance of democracy for international behavior assume that states rely on military organizations rather than "hired guns." With the growth of the private security market this assumption no longer holds true. Focusing on the United States, we use original data to compare the impacts of using private military/security forces and military forces on attributes identified as endemic to democracies: constitutionalism, transparency, and public consent. Our evidence indicates that forces raised via contract are harder to learn about and thus less transparent than military forces. Largely due to lowered transparency, Congress has a harder time exercising its constitutional role, which impedes constitutionalism. Finally, though the public is just as sensitive to the deaths of private forces as it is to military deaths, it is less likely to know about them. Thus the lack of transparency also circumvents meaningful public consent. We conclude with a consideration of the potential implications of these changes for U.S. foreign policy.


The study utilizes the data from the first round of Indonesian Family Life Survey conducted in the eastern part of the country (IFLS East) during 2012 to identify child-mother pairs which experience the Double Burden of Malnutrition (DBM) - a situation where overnutrition of the mother and undernutrition of the child coexist within the same household. The analyisis is done using several cross tabulations and comparisons to determine outcomes for the two separate Body Mass Index (BMI) measurement classifications; the Global-Cut off and the Asian Cut-off. The study also explores the difference in household characteristic as factors contributing to DBM. The results showed that the prevalence of child undernourishment within the IFLS East is considerably high, especially for the stunting prevalence (44%). The results also showed that the use of the Asian-Cut off for classification of BMI raises the prevalence of mothers in the categories of overweight and obese from 32% to 46%, consequently raising the prevalence of DBM child-mother pairs by 6 percentage points. The study was able to detect a significant risk factor for DBM of maternal short stature, but was not able to detect other significant factors leading to the presence of the DBM child-mother pair. The paper argues that more research is required into the special characteristics of the women in between the two cut-off classifications, as well as their children. Findings of the additional research may lead to a determination of the appropriateness of the Asian Cut-off as more accurately capturing the severity and prevalence of double burden of malnutrition amongst the population. Several policy recommendations for the further monitoring and analysis of DBM and obesity amongst women of child bearing age are provided.


A series of corpus-based case studies on the availability of metonymically used proper names in the language of media, where the name of a capital is used to refer indirectly to the government, shows that this particular type of metonymy is available in Hungarian and Croatian but underused in comparison with English and German. The picture is all the more puzzling because the distribution of metonymies is very uneven in Hungarian and Croatian – some texts exhibiting hardly any such metonymies while they abound in some other texts. When examined along the temporal dimension, the data reveal a cyclic variation in the availability of these metonymies, with productivity regularly peaking at the weekend. These contrasts appear to be ultimately motivated by the workings of a cultural model whose essential ingredient is a correlation obtaining between two very general conceptual metaphors: time is space and social and mental world is physical world.


Uncomplicated lower urinary tract infections are extremely common in women. Antibiotic treatment for acute episodes and for recurrence prophylaxis has its drawbacks and alternative therapies are sought in order to reduce the antimicrobial resistance phenomenon and the intestinal dismicrobism expansion. There are few studies on the effect of combination of cranberry extract with D-mannose in acute urinary tract infection management. In a pilot, randomized study 93 non-pregnant, otherwise healthy women, were enrolled with mean age of 39.77±10.36, diagnosed with uncomplicated lower urinary tract infection. Medical history, clinical examination, urine culture and a list of complaints were noted at the baseline visit. In a first phase of the study, treatment with either guideline recommended antibiotic alone or in association with the investigated product (cranberry extract plus D-mannose) was prescribed and all patients were clinically examined at day 7. All ameliorated and cured patients received in a second phase of the study, in a double-blind manner, prophylaxis with the investigated product or placebo for another 21 days, then a second clinical examination and a check of the list of complaints were performed. The cure rates were higher at day 7 when investigated product was added to antibiotic (91.6 vs. 84.4%). In resistant strains, a significantly higher cure rate was shown when the investigated product was added to antibiotic prescribed (88.8 vs. 37.5%, P<0.0001). The effect of cranberry extract plus D-mannose combination in acute urinary tract infection episodes seems to be promising. The significant cure rate registered in the patients with antibiotic-resistant urine cultures may be explained by a beneficial influence of the product on the antimicrobial sensitivity. Further studies are needed on this subject.


This book presents a comprehensive view of high performance ac drives. It may be considered as both a text book for graduate students and as an up-to-date monograph. It may also be used by R & D professionals involved in the improvement of performance of drives in the industries. The book will also be beneficial to the researchers pursuing work on multiphase drives as well as sensorless and direct torque control of electric drives since up-to date references in these topics are provided. It will also provide few examples of modeling, analysis and control of electric drives using MATLAB/SIMULINK.


In this paper, we present discriminative approaches to histogram-based image thresholding, in which the optimal threshold is derived from the maximum likelihood based on the conditional distribution p(y|x) of y, the class indicator of a grey level x, given x. The discriminative approaches can be regarded as discriminative extensions of the traditional generative approaches to thresholding, such as Otsu's method and Kittler and Illingworth's minimum error thresholding (MET). The generative approaches assume a model for the data-generating process for each class whereas the discriminative approaches do not. As illustrations, we develop discriminative versions of Otsu's method and MET by using discriminant functions corresponding to the original methods to represent p(y|x). These two discriminative thresholding approaches are compared with their original counterparts on selecting thresholds for a variety of histograms of mixture distributions. Results show that the discriminative Otsu method consistently provides relatively good performance. Although being of higher computational complexity than the original methods in parameter estimation, robustness and model simplicity can justify the discriminative Otsu method for scenarios in which the risk of model mis-specification is high and the computation is not demanding.


Increasingly, biomedical scientists and engineers are involved in projects, design, or research and development that involve humans or animals. The book presents general concepts on professionalism and the regulation of the profession of engineering, including a discussion on what is ethics and moral conduct, ethical theories and the codes of ethics that are most relevant for engineers. An ethical decision-making process is suggested. Other issues such as conflicts of interest, plagiarism, intellectual property, confidentiality, privacy, fraud, and corruption are presented. General guidelines, the process for obtaining ethics approval from Ethics Review Boards, and the importance of obtaining informed consent from volunteers recruited for studies are presented. A discussion on research with animals is included. Ethical dilemmas focus on reproductive technologies, stem cells, cloning, genetic testing, and designer babies. The book includes a discussion on ethics and the technologies of body enhancement and of regeneration. The importance of assessing the impact of technology on people, society, and on our planet is stressed. Particular attention is given to nanotechnologies, the environment, and issues that pertain to developing countries. Ideas on gender, culture, and ethics focus on how research and access to medical services have, at times, been discriminatory towards women. The cultural aspects focus on organ transplantation in Japan, and a case study of an Aboriginal child in Canada; both examples show the impact that culture can have on how care is provided or accepted. The final section of the book discusses data collection and analysis and offers a guideline for honest reporting of results, avoiding fraud, or unethical approaches. The appendix presents a few case studies where fraud and/or unethical research have occurred. Table of Contents: Introduction to Ethics / Experiments with Human Subjects or Animals / Examples of Ethical Dilemmas in Biomedical Research / Technology and Society / Gender, Culture, and Ethics / Data Collection and Analysis


Review Objectives: The primary objective of this review is to find the best available practices and information in relation to the monitoring of patient vital signs in hospitals and also to summarise the findings of relevant studies. The specific objectives of the review are to determine: • the purpose of monitoring patients' vital signs; • how to measure vital signs (methods); • accuracy of the methods used; • the optimal frequency for monitoring vital signs; and • limitations of vital signs measurements. In addition to this, the review will seek to identify additional issues of importance such as the value of vital signs as indicators of serious illness and the role of new technology in patient monitoring. This review will also seek to find whether the traditional four vital signs can be extended to include a fifth vital sign, such as pulse oximetry or pain. Criteria for considering studies for this review: Types of participants:  Studies that include neonatal, paediatric and adult hospital patients will be included in the review. Types of intervention:  Interventions of interest are those related to the determination of: • the optimal frequency of vital sign measurement; • the limitations of vital signs; and • the measurements needed to ensure patient safety or adequate monitoring. Types of outcome measures:  Outcomes of interest include accuracy, the required frequency of or the need for vital signs.


Effective optimization is essential for interactive systems to provide a satisfactory user experience. However, it is often challenging to find an objective to optimize for. Generally, such objectives are manually crafted and rarely capture complex user needs accurately. Conversely, we propose an approach that infers the objective directly from observed user interactions. These inferences can be made regardless of prior knowledge and across different types of user behavior. Then we introduce: Interactive System Optimizer (ISO), a novel algorithm that uses these inferred objectives for optimization. Our main contribution is a new general principled approach to optimizing interactive systems using data-driven objectives. We demonstrate the high effectiveness of ISO over several GridWorld simulations.


The Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, was critical in making gender equality a development goal and adopted gender-mainstreaming as its primary mechanism to achieve this. Effective implementation of gender-mainstreaming involves changing both the internal organization and the external operations of development agencies to ensure that gender is integrated throughout the life cycle of all policies, programmes and practices. This paper assesses gender-mainstreaming in the development co-operation strategies and activities of three Nordic countries–Denmark, Finland, and Sweden–in two aspects. The first aspect focuses on the central level of development agencies in terms of strategies, operations, and structures while the second component examines gender-mainstreaming at the embassy level, in terms of gender-mainstreaming in implementation and interventions for advancing gender equality.


Although designers use diagrams as an aid to think and to communicate problems and situations in their practice and although some leading institutions have used them in their teaching, many design schools have not yet incorporated diagramming in their programs. This article proposes the use of diagrams to quickly facilitate the understanding of complex problems to design students. It proposes that creating diagrams helps students integrate information gathered from different sources and communicate their understanding to the class. The paper illustrates the concept describing a three-hour workshop with students from medicine and communication design, and analyzing the benefits of using diagrams in the class.


Fostriecin, a structurally unique phosphate ester, is presently under evaluation in clinical trials to determine its potential use as an antitumor drug in humans. Fostriecin has been reported as having inhibitory activity against DNA topoisomerase type II and protein phosphatases implicated in cell-cycle control. However, the relative contribution of these mechanisms to the antitumor activity of fostriecin has not yet been elucidated. In this study, after confirming that fostriecin is a potent inhibitor of serine/threonine protein phosphatase type 2A and a weak inhibitor of serine/threonine protein phosphatase type 1, we show that fostriecin inhibits approximately 50% of the divalent cation independent serine/threonine protein phosphatase (PPase) activity contained in whole cell homogenates of Chinese hamster ovary cells at concentrations associated with antitumor activity (1-20 microM). Investigations into the cellular effects produced by fostriecin treatment reveal that 1-20 microM fostriecin induces a dose-dependent arrest of cell growth during the G2-M phase of the cell cycle. Immunostaining of treated cells indicates that growth arrest occurs before the completion of mitosis and that fostriecin-induced growth arrest is associated with the aberrant amplification of centrosomes, which results in the formation of abnormal mitotic spindles. The "mitotic block" induced by fostriecin is reversible if treatment is discontinued in <24 h. However, after approximately 24-30 h of continuous treatment, growth arrest is not reversible, and treated cells die even when placed in fostriecin-free media. Correlative studies conducted with established PPase inhibitors reveal that, when applied at concentrations that inhibit PPase activity to a comparable extent, both okadaic acid and cantharidin also induce aberrant centrosome replication, the appearance of multiple aberrant mitotic spindles, and G2-M-phase growth arrest. These studies add additional support to the concept that PPase inhibition underlies the antitumor activity of fostriecin and suggest that other type-selective PPase inhibitors should be evaluated for potential antitumor activity.


The joys of new technologies are many and varied. There are now ways of communicating even within NHS hospitals which were apparently designed to block all mobile phone signals, to see veins where none appear to exist and to allow a child within a radiotherapy fixation mask to become a superhero. Technologies are brilliant; they brought us in primate days from being able to see the tasty ant in the tree crevice to eating it, and from Victorians' witty afterdinner conversation to millennials' Twitter scrolling silently. They also let us see things we couldn't before. Smaller, subtler. The first glimpses. And in this way, they may accidentally open up a range of misdiagnosis, extended diagnosis and wellmeaning mismanagement. The phenomenon of 'too much medicine' has been explored before, but there's an even subtler variant in the way prognosis can shift with a changing lens. Imagine you have six children with a malignancy. Two have definite local disease; overall survival (OS) 80%. Two have obvious metastatic disease; OS 40%. The other two have subtle, lowlevel 'oligo'-metastatic disease; OS 60%. OS for the whole population is 60%. If you only have the imaging to detect the big lumps, the met group has an average OS of 40%; the 'local disease only' group is 80+60/2=70%. Now add a new technology, don't change the treatment success at all, and you have improved the 'local disease only' group to 80% OS; this makes sense, you've got rid of those with spread disease. You've also made the 'metastatic' group better (40+60/2=50% OS) by diluting these with the betterplayer oligometastatic group. Your new SuperFerretGlowatron 300 has improved outcomes in both groups! But... whole population survival remains unchanged at 60%. There is no real improvement. It's a mirage. Trust nothing. Question everything. Stay appraised.


Understanding the nature of the link between neuronal activity and BOLD signal plays a crucial role i) for improving the interpretability of BOLD images and ii) on the design of more realistic models for the integration of EEG and fMRI. The aim of this study is to investigate the neural mechanism underlying hemodynamic behavior in a series of visual stimulation frequencies and explore possible implications for the neurovascular coupling. We studied the relationship between electrophysiological and hemodynamic measures by performing simultaneous steady state electroencephalography (EEG) and fMRI recordings in a healthy human subject during a series of visual stimulation frequencies (6 Hz, 8 Hz, 10 Hz, 12 Hz). BOLD amplitudes were computed for voxels within an anatomical mask which was obtained by mapping the significantly active voxels using general linear modelling (GLM) on fMRI data. On the same anatomical map, EEG power time series belonging to the fundamental frequency and its harmonics due to the stimulation are estimated using a distributed source imaging technique. The neuronal efficacies which represent the vascular inputs driving the BOLD response are estimated by use of an extended version of Balloon model. A nonlinear relationship is demonstrated between the mean EEG source powers and the neuronal efficacies driving the BOLD response. The result suggests that BOLD signal which is an indicator of the metabolic demand of both synchronized and non-synchronized neuronal activities; changes independent of EEG activity which is a measure sensitive to the synchronicity of neuronal activity.


Carbon dioxide (CO2), as one of the major anthropogenic greenhouse gases, is widely acknowledged to contribute to global warming and climate change. Historically, the major focus on the role of the aquatic environment in the carbon cycle has been on the atmosphere-ocean exchange. More recent findings suggest the importance of freshwater (lakes, rivers and streams) as a source for atmospheric CO2. The freshwater contribution is, however, poorly understood, mainly due to a paucity of data, especially from running waters.
 To address this issue, eddy covariance (EC) measurements in a large boreal river in Northern Sweden (Indalsalven), are being made as part of a two-year long continual study of the carbon dioxide fluxes between the air and water. This is one of the first known studies of its kind where EC measurements are conducted in a river setting. Continual data acquisition began in April 2018, monitoring a variety of general meteorological parameters, turbulent fluxes of carbon dioxide, latent, and sensible heat, together with water-side measurements of CO2. The aim of the study is to investigate the temporal control on river carbon dioxide fluxes covering timescales from hours to seasons.
This paper describes the ongoing work, and reports on the present status of the project. The primary focus lies on data that indicates a dependence of carbon dioxide flux on wind-speed. Wind speed demonstrates a positive correlation with the measured fluxes, with the highest fluxes measured corresponding to the directions where the upwind distance to land was greatest, indicating that the wind-generated turbulence has a strong influence on the carbon dioxide fluxes over a boreal river.


Rapidly responding to novel pathogens, such as SARS-CoV-2, represents an extremely challenging and complex endeavor. Numerous promising therapeutic and vaccine research efforts to mitigate the catastrophic effects of COVID-19 pandemic are underway, yet an efficacious countermeasure is still not available. To support these global research efforts, we have used a novel computational pipeline combining machine learning, bioinformatics, and supercomputing to predict antibody structures capable of targeting the SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain (RBD). In 22 days, using just the SARS-CoV-2 sequence and previously published neutralizing antibody structures for SARS-CoV-1, we generated 20 initial antibody sequences predicted to target the SARS-CoV-2 RBD. As a first step in this process, we predicted (and publicly released) structures of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein using homology-based structural modeling. The predicted structures proved to be accurate within the targeted RBD region when compared to experimentally derived structures published weeks later. Next we used our in silico design platform to iteratively propose mutations to SARS-CoV-1 neutralizing antibodies (known not to bind SARS-Cov-2) to enable and optimize binding within the RBD of SARS-CoV-2. Starting from a calculated baseline free energy of −48.1 kcal/mol (± 8.3), our 20 selected first round antibody structures are predicted to have improved interaction with the SARS-CoV-2 RBD with free energies as low as −82.0 kcal/mole. The baseline SARS-CoV-1 antibody in complex with the SARS-CoV-1 RBD has a calculated interaction energy of −52.2 kcal/mole and neutralizes the virus by preventing it from binding and entering the human ACE2 receptor. These results suggest that our predicted antibody mutants may bind the SARS-CoV-2 RBD and potentially neutralize the virus. Additionally, our selected antibody mutants score well according to multiple antibody developability metrics. These antibody designs are being expressed and experimentally tested for binding to COVID-19 viral proteins, which will provide invaluable feedback to further improve the machine learning–driven designs. This technical report is a high-level description of that effort; the Supplementary Materials includes the homology-based structural models we developed and 178,856 in silico free energy calculations for 89,263 mutant antibodies derived from known SARS-CoV-1 neutralizing antibodies.


Group B streptococci overcome neutrophils in placental membranes, inducing fetal injury and preterm labor. NETting group B strep Group B Streptococcus (GBS) infection in pregnant women can lead to preterm birth and fetal injury. Boldenow et al. report that a hemolytic pigment toxin from GBS contributes to these effects by subverting neutrophils and neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) in placental membranes. They found in a nonhuman primate model that adverse outcomes were more closely associated with hemolytic than with nonhemolytic GBS, and that GBS hemolytic pigment toxin induced cell death in neutrophils and prevented killing by NETs, allowing GBS to invade the amniotic fluid. This toxin therefore could serve as a target to prevent complications from GBS in pregnant women. Preterm birth is a leading cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality. Although microbial invasion of the amniotic cavity (MIAC) is associated with most early preterm births, the temporal events that occur during MIAC and preterm labor are not known. Group B streptococci (GBS) are β-hemolytic, Gram-positive bacteria, which commonly colonize the vagina but have been recovered from the amniotic fluid in preterm birth cases. To understand temporal events that occur during MIAC, we used a chronically catheterized nonhuman primate model that closely emulates human pregnancy. This model allows monitoring of uterine contractions, timing of MIAC, and immune responses during pregnancy-associated infections. We show that adverse outcomes such as preterm labor, MIAC, and fetal sepsis were observed more frequently during infection with hemolytic GBS when compared with nonhemolytic GBS. Although MIAC was associated with systematic progression in chorioamnionitis beginning with chorionic vasculitis and progressing to neutrophilic infiltration, the ability of the GBS hemolytic pigment toxin to induce neutrophil cell death and subvert killing by neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) in placental membranes in vivo facilitated MIAC and fetal injury. Furthermore, compared with maternal neutrophils, fetal neutrophils exhibit decreased neutrophil elastase activity and impaired phagocytic functions to GBS. Collectively, our studies demonstrate how a bacterial hemolytic lipid toxin enables GBS to circumvent neutrophils and NETs in placental membranes to induce fetal injury and preterm labor.


AIM: The aim of the following study is to compare pregnancy rates between the use of non-temperature and temperature controlled centrifugation on semen preparation technique in intrauterine insemination. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The retrospective study was conducted on 671 patients of idiopathic infertility who underwent homologous artificial insemination at Fertility Research Center from the period of January 2007 to September 2012. The couples were randomized into two groups namely, Group A-patients (n = 303) being treated with sperm prepared by using non-temperature controlled centrifuge and Group B-Patients (n = 368) being treated with sperm prepared by temperature (37°C) controlled centrifuge. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The clinical pregnancy rate Group A was 13.86% and Group B was 12.77%. The clinical pregnancy fetal loss rate between the two groups was 38% and 42% respectively. The delivery rate per transfer was 62% and 58% respectively. No statistically significant difference was found between these two groups.


A new empirical formula was developed that holds good for any length and any material of a rod, and agrees well with the results of extensive strength tests. To facilitate calculations, three tables are included, giving the crippling load for solid and hollow sectioned wooden rods of different thickness and length, as well as for steel tubes manufactured according to the standards of Army Air Services Inspection. Further, a graphical method of calculation of the breaking load is derived in which a single curve is employed for determination of the allowable fiber stress. Finally, the theory is discussed of the elastic curve for a rod subject to compression, according to which no deflection occurs, and the apparent contradiction of this conclusion by test results is attributed to the fact that the rods under test are not perfectly straight, or that the wall thickness and the material are not uniform. Under the assumption of an eccentric rod having a slight initial bend according to a sine curve, a simple formula for the deflection is derived, which shows a surprising agreement with test results. From this a further formula is derived for the determination of the allowable load on an eccentric rod. The resulting relations are made clearer by means of a graphical representation of the relation of the moments of the outer and inner forces to the deflection.