Introduction: In the last few decades, pyrazoline-based substances have emerged as potential antimicrobial and anticancer candidates. In concern with antimicrobial activity, this study aims to build a docking model to predict the structure of potential 2-pyrazoline derivatives. The cytotoxicity of some compounds was also evaluated to get insight into the structure–anticancer activity relationship of the 2-pyrazoline derivatives.

Methods: Docking models were built on virtual FabH enzymes using FlexX platform with 2-pyrazoline derivatives served as test sets. Afterward, derivatives with high docking scores were chemically synthesized and evaluated for antibacterial activity using the agar dilution method. Furthermore, MTT assay was used to assess the cytotoxicity of these compounds.

Results: The docking score and the in vitro minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) value on Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) bacteria strongly correlate with an R-square value of 0.6751 (p < 0.0001). Four 2 pyrazoline derivatives were synthesized and evaluated for antimicrobial activity. Their MIC values on S. aureus range between 4 and 16 μg/mL, consistent with ones predicted by the docking model. Apropos cytotoxic properties, a series of 2-pyrazolines exhibit a moderate activity on HepG2, RD, and MDA-MB-231. The most active compound, HP10, has the IC50 values on these cell lines. which are 26.62 μM, 17.74 μM, 14.47 μM, respectively.

Conclusion: Our research built a docking model on the virtual S. aureus FabH enzyme with high potential in predicting antibacterial activities of different 2-pyrazoline derivatives. Moreover, our cytotoxicity results provided data for further studies on the anticancer activity of these promising derivatives.


This study was done to investigate epidemiological data and to report causes of lower urinary tract disease in a population of cats presented at the Small Animal Clinic of the University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences Brno. Cats presented with lower urinary tract disease signs that had undergone a thorough physical examination and urinalysis (dipstick, urine specific gravity, urine sediment and dipslide urine culture) were included in the study. Urine samples were collected only by cystocentesis or sterile catheterization. Bloodwork, abdominal ultrasound, and abdominal radiographs were performed in 118 (66%), 170 (96%) and 9 (5%) patients, respectively. Cats that were treated with antibiotics or glucocorticoids during an episode of feline lower urinary tract disease (FLUTD) or during the foregoing month and which had undergone perineal urethrostomy or catheterization in private practice, were excluded. The study population consisted of 177 cats. Forty-one (23%) cats were diagnosed with a urethral plug, 26 cats (14%) with a urinary tract infection (UTI), 9 cats (5%) with urolithiasis and 101 cats (57%) with feline idiopathic cystitis (FIC). The cats diagnosed with UTI were significantly older than the cats with FIC, urethral plugs and urolithiasis. Urinary tract infection was diagnosed significantly more often in patients older than 10 years, and in female cats. The diagnosis of urethral plug was made significantly more often in males. Feline idiopathic cystitis and urethral plugs are the most common causes of FLUTD, and the causes are significantly age and sex-related.


This paper presents a statistical based comparison methodology for performing evolutionary algorithm comparison under multiple merit criteria. The analysis of each criterion is based on the progressive construction of a ranking of the algorithms under analysis, with the determination of significance levels for each ranking step. The multicriteria analysis is based on the aggregation of the different criteria rankings via a non-dominance analysis which indicates the algorithms which constitute the efficient set. In order to avoid correlation effects, a principal component analysis pre-processing is performed. Bootstrapping techniques allow the evaluation of merit criteria data with arbitrary probability distribution functions. The algorithm ranking in each criterion is built progressively, using either ANOVA or first order stochastic dominance. The resulting ranking is checked using a permutation test which detects possible inconsistencies in the ranking-leading to the execution of more algorithm runs which refine the ranking confidence. As a by-product, the permutation test also delivers -values for the ordering between each two algorithms which have adjacent rank positions. A comparison of the proposed method with other methodologies has been performed using reference probability distribution functions (PDFs). The proposed methodology has always reached the correct ranking with less samples and, in the case of non-Gaussian PDFs, the proposed methodology has worked well, while the other methods have not been able even to detect some PDF differences. The application of the proposed method is illustrated in benchmark problems.


Accounts of French prosody have traditionally held that the grouping of words in an utterance, the distribution of accents within those groups, and the intonation contours that can be realized are closely intertwined. Recent proposals claim that these connections can be successfully formalized in the grammar. Prosodic variation provides an excellent testing ground for this claim, since one of the crucial predictions is that the same grammar underlies any variation in prosodic surface forms that can be observed at, for instance, different speaking rates. The results of a production experiment confirm that, as expected, rate has an effect on the frequency distribution and phonetic implementation of prosodic structures, but not on the underlying system of phonological forms.


Background: Fibromyalgia is a debilitating chronic disease characterized by musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, and compromises in cognition. One of the biggest challenges surrounding fibromyalgia is proper diagnosis, as there is no current diagnostic test established. Most practitioners utilize examining tender points and other subjective self-assessments to aid in the assessment of the condition. Current therapies include both medication and non-pharmacologic such as chiropractic therapy, acupuncture, aerobic exercise, and yoga. Yoga is an ancient Indian practice incorporating physical poses, deep breathing, self-awareness, and meditation. Yoga is an effective therapy modality for managing chronic illnesses including low back pain and arthritis. Although there is no cure for fibromyalgia, several studies considered yoga as a therapy for symptom management. Can yoga be an effective therapy for symptom reduction in patients with chronic fibromyalgia? Methods: An exhaustive search of available medical literature using MEDLINEOvid, Web of Science and CINAHL was performed using the following key terms: "fibromyalgia" and "yoga". These were screened for eligibility criteria. The resulting studies were then appraised and assessed for quality with GRADE. Results: Three studies were included in this systematic review, meeting inclusion and exclusion criteria. One randomized control trial looked at 53 patients with chronic fibromyalgia and showed a significant improvement in the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire Revised (FIQR) total score and in the strength assessment favoring the yoga intervention. Two pre-/post-therapy studies showed significant improvements in fibromyalgia symptoms, though assessed using different modalities including the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire and the McGill Pain Questionnaire short-form 2. Conclusion: Yoga has been shown to be an effective treatment modality in decreasing pain symptoms in patients with chronic fibromyalgia. Current research not only showed improvements in pain, but also in fibromyalgia-associated symptoms including mental clarity, anxiety, fatigue, and positive thinking. Further research will develop an objective way to measure symptoms and by doing this will decrease the risk for bias and validate the current treatment. Larger clinical trials and a longer follow-up will also be beneficial in confirming the current research.


The purpose of the study was to examine the challenges facing academic staff in higher learning institutions in Tanzania. The Lipinyapinya Institute of Education (LIE) was used as a case study for the study. The study examined the extent to which the identified challenges affect the performance of the academic staff. Further, the study assessed the measures taken by LIE staff and the government to address the challenges. The study was conducted at the LIE headquarters in Dar es Salam. The sample included 50 respondents. The respondents were LIE senior administrators and MoEVT adult education officers who were selected through a purposive sampling technique. Academic staff, Diploma and Bachelor of Adult and continuing Education (BACE) students were obtained through random sampling technique. Data was collected through qualitative and quantitative research approaches. The data collection techniques used in the study included interviews, questionnaires, observation and documentary review. Findings revealed that academic staff at LIE faced challenges such as shortage of teaching and learning materials and facilities, inconducive teaching and learning environment, unattractive allowances and unavailability of house allowance. Other challenges that were found out included unreliable transport and lack of staff development policy. It was revealed that shortage of funds from Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT) and donors, mismanagement of funds, poor application of ICT and low profile accorded to the field of adult education at the MoEVT were some of the causes of the challenges encountered. Based on these findings the researcher recommends that adequate teaching and learning facilities are made available, staff be facilitated to own private transport, eligible allowances be paid, training policy be designed, funds for LIE be increased and carefully managed.


Regarding system change (innovation, implementation, reorganization, etc.) there is a long running dichotomous debate in many IS sub-disciplines as to how the change should be handled. Some promote prescription via models, method, and industry best practices, while others promote agility and local-level improvisation and prototyping. Both approaches have been adopted by practitioners, resulting in widely used development and implementation frameworks such as ITIL (best practices) and Scrum (prototyping). However, neither approach has dominated the other, with appropriation seemingly relying on the preferences of decision makers. While it could be argued that an organization should simply pick the approach that works for them, the issue in large multi-level stakeholder environments (for example) may not be so straightforward. This can affect many important organizational outcome concerns such as alignment. The issue is further complicated when a traditionally 'top-down' organization such as a government suddenly switches to a more 'bottomup' way of working and developing IT. In order to begin a discussion and expand the foundation for system change, we explore practitioner views of these two approaches in the midst of major system change and compare and contrast these views regarding both services and enterprise systems.


Although Chinese Marxism—primarily represented by Maoism—is generally seen by Western intellectuals as monolithic, Liu Kang argues that its practices and projects are as diverse as those in Western Marxism, particularly in the area of aesthetics. In this comparative study of European and Chinese Marxist traditions, Liu reveals the extent to which Chinese Marxists incorporate ideas about aesthetics and culture in their theories and practices. In doing so, he constructs a wholly new understanding of Chinese Marxism.

Far from being secondary considerations in Chinese Marxism, aesthetics and culture are in fact principal concerns. In this respect, such Marxists are similar to their Western counterparts, although Europeans have had little understanding of the Chinese experience. Liu traces the genealogy of aesthetic discourse in both modern China and the West since the era of classical German thought, showing where conceptual modifications and divergences have occurred in the two traditions. He examines the work of Mao Zedong, Lu Xun, Li Zehou, Qu Qiubai, and others in China, and from the West he discusses Kant, Schiller, Schopenhauer, and Marxist theorists including Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, and Marcuse. While stressing the diversity of Marxist positions within China as well as in the West, Liu explains how ideas of culture and aesthetics have offered a constructive vision for a postrevolutionary society and have affected a wide field of issues involving the problems of modernity.

Forcefully argued and theoretically sophisticated, this book will appeal to students and scholars of contemporary Marxism, cultural studies, aesthetics, and modern Chinese culture, politics, and ideology.


Abstract This paper explores the phenomenon of thought insertion, an experience reported by some schizophrenics where it is believed that other persons or forces are inserting thoughts into their minds. This relatively circumscribed symptom of schizophrenia raises difficult questions concerning our sense of agency for our thoughts. How is it possible that persons can think that their thoughts are not their own? Gallagher, drawing on Husserl's early work on timeconsciousness, provides a subtle and sophisticated answer to this problem, suggesting that protention may underlie our sense of agency for thinking and that the experience of inserted thoughts may occur in the event of an intermittent failure in this protentional function. More recent Husserl scholarship suggests, however, that this account may face problems on phenomenological grounds. It is argued here that our sense of agency for thinking requires more than protention, and, consequently, that the absence of protention cannot fully explain the loss of agency for thinking characterizing the experience of thought insertion. In order to contextualize this discussion of the phenomenon theoretically and, in the process, to provide an introduction to the difficulties in explaining it, this paper proceeds with a consideration of Frith's early cognitive account of thought insertion and the contribution of Stephens and Graham in this regard. In conclusion, it is argued that, despite the merits of all three accounts presented, they remain unable to account for the phenomenon of inserted thoughts, and that we might more fruitfully understand this experience as being a type of uncontrollable passive or autochthonous thinking.


This paper presents the development and testing of a methodology for estimation of average travel time on signalised urban networks. The methodology considers the classical analytical procedure, where average travel time on a study link is estimated as the average area between cumulative plots for the respective link. The challenge is to accurately estimate the plots based on the availability of data. The three different cases of data availability are considered: a) case-D, for only detector data; b) case-DS, for detector data and signal controller data; and c) case- DSS, for detector data, signal controller data and saturation flow rate. The performance of the methodology is evaluated under controlled environment considering different degree of saturation and different detection intervals. The performance for case-DS and for case-DSS is consistent whereas, the performance for case-D is highly sensitive to the signal phases in the detection interval.


With the continuous improvement and development of the information age, our modern work and life have entered into such an age with visual media. And in this area the graphic design stays in a priority position and it propels visual medias finally to be applied in various areas of information age. The visual elements let the application of graphic design elements on interior design area changes with it. And at the same time the comprehensive application of graphic design is mainly due to the introduction of these elements expresses the final result of interior design in a profound way. In this study to explore the comprehensive application of graphic design elements in interior design, it creates new models and connotation for the interior design and it applies an interactive study by combining the professional theories of graphic design with the knowledge and principles of interior design in an appropriate way. Based on overall analysis, the study generalizes the application of graphic design elements on the interior design, puts forward the design model with practical meaning and finally propels the graphic design theories to have access to combine with relevant subjects and principles in a reasonable and effective way. Thus the theories foundations can be applied into concrete space design to create a scientific, acceptable and feasible model for interior space.


We present a simulation of the 2008 M w 5.4 Chino Hills earthquake for a maximum frequency up to 4 Hz and a minimum shear‐wave velocity down to 200  m/s and perform a validation study comparing data obtained from seismic networks with simulation synthetics on more than 300 recording stations. The simulation was done using a parallel‐computing code for earthquake simulations that implements a finite‐element solution to anelastic wave propagation in heterogeneous media. The source model corresponds to that of an independent inversion study, and the material model used is a community velocity model (CVM) developed by the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC). Our results for the goodness‐of‐fit measure of the synthetics indicate that, from a regional perspective, the simulation starts to deviate from the data at frequencies above 1 and 2 Hz. At particular locations or station clusters, however, the synthetics yield very good results, even at frequencies between 2 and 4 Hz. The best results are obtained between 0.1 and 0.25 Hz over the entire region and up to 1 Hz within the major basins. These and other results from comparisons at boreholes, biases of the peak surface response, and the differences in the strong‐phase duration of the waveforms and the arrival time of P waves suggest a strong sensitivity to seismic velocities. In particular, the CVM used seems to misrepresent the shallow soil deposits and overestimate seismic velocities in the upper layers outside the basins. These observations are helpful in identifying regions where the velocity model may need to be revised. Overall, this study shows that extending the maximum frequency for deterministic earthquake simulations beyond 1 Hz is an effort worth pursuing.


We present the design, implementation, and foundation of a verifier for higher-order functional programs with generics and recursive data types. Our system supports proving safety and termination using preconditions, postconditions and assertions. It supports writing proof hints using assertions and recursive calls. To formalize the soundness of the system we introduce System FR, a calculus supporting System F polymorphism, dependent refinement types, and recursive types (including recursion through contravariant positions of function types). Through the use of sized types, System FR supports reasoning about termination of lazy data structures such as streams. We formalize a reducibility argument using the Coq proof assistant and prove the soundness of a type-checker with respect to call-by-value semantics, ensuring type safety and normalization for typeable programs. Our program verifier is implemented as an alternative verification-condition generator for the Stainless tool, which relies on the Inox SMT-based solver backend for automation. We demonstrate the efficiency of our approach by verifying a collection of higher-order functional programs comprising around 14000 lines of polymorphic higher-order Scala code, including graph search algorithms, basic number theory, monad laws, functional data structures, and assignments from popular Functional Programming MOOCs.


This case-study investigated the training characteristics, physiological capacity, and body composition of the world's most successful cross country skier during the 40-week pregnancy, and the 61-week postpartum. Training data was systemized by training form (endurance, strength, and speed), intensity [low- (LIT), moderate- (MIT), and high-intensity training (HIT)], and mode (running, cycling, and skiing/roller skiing). The training volume [mean ± standard deviation (median)] during pregnancy was 12.9 ± 7.3(10.0) h/week in the first- (weeks 1–12), 18.3 ± 2.9(18.0) h/week in the second- (weeks 13–28), and 8.8 ± 4.4(9.6) h/week in the third trimester (weeks 29–40). Endurance training time was distributed into 10.9 ± 6.2(9.9), 15.2 ± 2.3(15.6), and 7.6 ± 3.8(7.9) LIT and 0.4 ± 0.5(0.0), 1.3 ± 0.4(1.4), and 0.7 ± 0.6(0.8) h/week MIT during the three trimesters. Only 2.2 h of HIT was performed during the entire pregnancy. During the first two trimesters, the distribution of exercise modes were approximately the same as pre-pregnancy, but the amount of running was reduced during the third trimester. Training volume during the postpartum periods 1–4 was 6.6 ± 3.8(7.1) (PP1; weeks 1–6), 14.1 ± 3.4(14.3) (PP2; weeks 7–12), 10.6 ± 3.8(10.4) (PP3; weeks 13–18), and 13.6 ± 4.1(14.5) h/week (PP4; weeks 19–24), respectively. Training during PP3 and PP4 was interfered with two fractions in the sacrum, leading to decreased amount of running and MIT/HIT, compensated by increased amounts of cycling. Thereafter, training volume progressively approached the pre-pregnancy values, being 18.0 ± 3.9(18.7) h/week during the general preparation- (weeks 25–44), 17.6 ± 4.4(17.3) h/week during the specific preparation- (weeks 45–53), and 16.9 ± 3.5(17.2) h/week during the competition period (CP; weeks 54–61) leading up to the subsequent world championship. The oxygen uptake at the estimated lactate threshold (LT) decreased to 90% of pre-pregnancy values in the second trimester, but remained to ∼100% in PP3. Body weight and fat-% was higher, while lean body mass and bone mineral density was lower after delivery compared to pre-pregnancy. These measurements gradually changed and were back to ∼pre-pregnancy values during CP. This study indicates that high-level cross country skiers can tolerate high training loads during pregnancy. Although the participant had some postpartum setbacks in her training due to fractures in the sacrum, reduced overall training load, followed by a slower progression and utilization of alternative exercise modes, led to a successful return to competitions.


Abstract. Microwave passive and active radiative transfer simulations are performed with the Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator (ARTS) for a mid-latitude snowfall event, using outputs from the Meso-NH mesoscale cloud model. The results are compared to the corresponding microwave observations available from MHS and CloudSat. The spatial structures of the simulated and observed brightness temperatures show an overall agreement since the large-scale dynamical structure of the cloud system is reasonably well captured by Meso-NH. However, with the initial assumptions on the single-scattering properties of snow, there is an obvious underestimation of the strong scattering observed in regions with large frozen hydrometeor quantities. A sensitivity analysis of both active and passive simulations to the microphysical parametrizations is conducted. Simultaneous analysis of passive and active calculations provides strong constraints on the assumptions made to simulate the observations. Good agreements are obtained with both MHS and CloudSat observations when the single-scattering properties are calculated using the "soft sphere" parametrization from Liu (2004), along with the Meso-NH outputs. This is an important step toward building a robust data set of simulated measurements to train a statistically based retrieval scheme.


Browsing is a fundamental aspect of exploratory information‐seeking. Associative browsing represents a common and intuitive set of exploratory strategies in which users step iteratively from familiar to novel bits of information. In this paper, we examine associative browsing as a strategy for bottom‐up exploration of large, heterogeneous networks. We present Refinery, an interactive visualization system informed by guidelines for associative browsing drawn from literature on exploratory information‐seeking. These guidelines motivate Refinery's query model, which allows users to simply and expressively construct queries using heterogeneous sets of nodes. This system computes degree‐of‐interest scores for associated content using a fast, random‐walk algorithm. Refinery visualizes query nodes within a subgraph of results, providing explanatory context, facilitating serendipitous discovery, and stimulating continued exploration. A study of 12 academic researchers using Refinery to browse publication data demonstrates how the system enables discovery of valuable new content, even within existing areas of expertise.


Three-dimensional numerical simulations, performed using the MIKE 3 FM (HD) code, have been used to study the effect of a severe wind event on the early stratification structure in the Gulf of Patras, Greece. Before the onset of the severe wind event thermocline was at an approximately mean depth of ~ 10 m. The wind action deepened the well mixed layer of the epilimnion at the surface and redistributed the thermal stratification to a new stable formation where tilt and erosion of the thermocline occurred. Under the effect of wind, the thermocline was established in a new mean depth of ~ 60 m. Furthermore, strong wind generated internal waves, in the area of Rio-Antirio straits, were found to affect the exchange flowrate at the straits. Comparison of the exchange flowrate between the barotropic and the baroclinic flow, under the same severe wind conditions, revealed a deviation of approximately 20% of the resulting flowrate, under steady wind conditions. The hydrodynamic response of the Gulf, under these wind conditions, i.e., wind-induced currents, turbulence structure in the water column, internal waves and flow patterns, has been simulated indicating basic, unique, flow characteristics for the baroclinic flow in contrast with the barotropic ones.


The aim of this study is to assess the contributions of investment banking to the economy with a particular focus on the German economy. To this end we analyse both the economic benefits and the costs stemming from investment banking. The study focuses on investment banks as this part of banking is particularly relevant for financing companies as well as the development and use of specific products to support the needs of private and professional clients. The assessment of benefits and costs of investment banking has been conducted from a European perspective. Nevertheless there is a focus on the German economy to allow a more detailed analysis of certain aspects as for example the use of derivatives by German companies, the success of M&As in Germany or the effect of securitization on loan supply and GDP in Germany. For comparison purposes other European countries and also the U.S. have been taken into account. The last financial crisis has shown the negative impacts of banks on the financial system and the whole economy. In a study on the contribution of investment banks to systemic risk we quantify the negative side of the investment banking business. In the last part of the study we assess how the effects of regulatory changes on investment banking. All important changes in banking and capital market regulation are taken into account such as Basel III, additional capital requirements for systemically important financial institutions, regulation of OTC derivatives and specific taxes.


Negative impacts of endophyte-infected Lolium arundinaceum (Darbyshire) (tall fescue) are responsible for over $2 billion in losses to livestock producers annually. While the influence of endophyte-infected tall fescue has been studied for decades, mitigation methods have not been clearly elucidated. Isoflavones found in Trifolium pretense (red clover) have been the subject of recent research regarding tall fescue toxicosis mitigation. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the effect of ergovaline and red clover isoflavones on rumen microbial populations, fiber degradation, and volatile fatty acids (VFA) in an in vitro system. Using a dose of 1.10 mg × L−1, endophyte-infected or endophyte-free tall fescue seed was added to ANKOM fiber bags with or without 2.19 mg of isoflavones in the form of a control, powder, or pulverized tablet, resulting in a 2 × 3 factorial arrangements of treatments. Measurements of pH, VFA, bacterial taxa, as well as the disappearance of neutral detergent fiber (aNDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF), and crude protein (CP) were taken after 48 h of incubation. aNDF disappearance values were significantly altered by seed type (P = 0.003) and isoflavone treatment (P = 0.005), and ADF disappearance values were significantly different in a seed x isoflavone treatment interaction (P ≤ 0.05). A seed x isoflavone treatment interaction was also observed with respect to CP disappearance (P ≤ 0.05). Seventeen bacterial taxa were significantly altered by seed x isoflavone treatment interaction groups (P ≤ 0.05), six bacterial taxa were increased by isoflavones (P ≤ 0.05), and eleven bacterial taxa were altered by seed type (P ≤ 0.05). Due to the beneficial effect of isoflavones on tall fescue seed fiber degradation, these compounds may be viable options for mitigating fescue toxicosis. Further research should be conducted to determine physiological implications as well as microbiological changes in vivo.


Turkey's Islamist-rooted Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party) aggressively pursued European Union accession as a primary pillar of foreign policy, only to swing sharply away from the West in subsequent years. Actor- and party-based Islamist identity approaches cannot account for Turkey's initial European Union-centric orientation, while domestic politics and economic arguments fail to explain the timing of the shift eastward and its domestic repercussions. Examining the advantages that foreign policy offers as an alternative arena in which elites can politicize identity debates helps to distill this complexity. This article argues that elites choose to take their national identity contests to the foreign policy arena when identity gambits at the domestic level are blocked. By taking its pursuit of hegemony for Ottoman Islamism "outside" through aggressive European Union accession measures, the Justice and Development Party could weaken domestic challengers supporting a competing, Republican Nationalist proposal for identity, and broaden support for Ottoman Islamism at home. The theory of identity hegemony developed here thus explains the counter-intuitive finding that Turkey's European Union-oriented policy helped make possible the rise of Ottoman Islamism. Turkey offers an ideal empirical window onto these dynamics because of recent and dramatic shifts in the dynamics of its public identity debates, and because Turkey's identity is implicated in multiple international roles, such as North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally, European Union candidate country, Organization of Islamic Cooperation member, and aspirant regional power broker. The framework developed fills a gap in existing scholarship by closing the identity–foreign policy circle, analytically linking the spillover of national identity debates into foreign policy with the changes in the contours of these debates produced by their contestation in this alternative arena.


Macroradiography is a radiographic imaging technique used to increase the size of the image relative to that of the object. Macroradiographic images suffer degradation due mainly to geometric unsharpness (U(g)). U(g) results from the finite size of the focal spot of the X-ray tube. Specialized equipment with a small effective focal spot size (Eff FSS) is generally used to perform macroradiography. The specialized nature of the equipment means macroradiographic examinations are not commonly undertaken. Macroradiographic examinations can also be performed on conventional radiographic equipment because the Eff FSS varies in the X-ray beam along the cathode-anode axis. Calculations and measurements of FSSs at different positions along the cathode-anode direction of the X-ray beam have been made. A simple technique of angling the X-ray tube 10 degrees towards the cathode reduces the Eff FSS in one dimension while still maintaining a vertical central ray. Reduced beam coverage results from this technique and an increase in radiographic exposure is required to compensate for the anode heel effect. Macroradiographic images of line pair phantoms and a hand-wrist phantom, at various tube angles, have been obtained to compare image detail.


This paper explores the concept of culture within Further Education Colleges (FECs) from the perceptions of 26 lecturers delivering Business Higher Education Programmes (BHEPs). It offers a brief overview of the history of both Further Education (FE) and Higher Education (HE) in England, and how they have evolved. This then will provide an understanding of the perceived/real differences between FE and HE culture, and whether these two cultures can merge together, or will become 'hybrids,' as suggested by Parry and Thompson. The study will in fact show that the culture of HE in FE (in England) is similar to that of an 'Exclave,' but is developing within this, a culture which might be viewed as an 'Enclave.'


The paper examines the desirability of cosmopolitan law and consequent cosmopolitan legal studies and enquiries in our largely postmodern world. The exposition, therefore, operates against a world environment which otherwise points to a rather disorderly state of affairs despite the unifying forces of economic globalisation. Accordingly, the modern legal, political and economic arena often presents us with parallel worlds of order and disorder but the fragility of the orderly element is readily apparent in numerous postmodern and non-postmodern narratives. This state of affairs has implications for law too, despite the overall stability, traditionality and conservative character of the subject. Law, as we know it, otherwise offspring of modernity and reason, struggles to maintain its systemacity in this new world of old-new narratives, a world which is postmodern as a whole. The author wishes to address the epistemic issues of this great incompatibility between modernist established legal doctrine and postmodern legal narratives by positing that the two opposing worlds can be better appreciated (if not bridged) by the appreciation of the different, the diverse and the disorderly through a new cosmopolitan legal ethos which legal educators — at the very least — ought to inspire to their student bodies around the world and, by extension, to what we have come to generically call world society as a whole.


ABSTRACT Against the background of theoretical arguments and the historical record, enlargements of the European Union tend to increase differentiated integration. The actual development of differentiation of the 2004 and 2007 accession countries can, therefore, be seen as an indicator of the Union's integration capacity. We map the newcomers' differentiated integration since accession, and also distinguish between exemptions and discrimination. Furthermore, we approximate a counterfactual scenario of how their level of differentiation might have developed in the absence of recent accession through a comparison to the Southern member states. Finally, we explore correlations between exemptions, discriminations and two structural country characteristics, wealth and identity. Overall, the level, trajectory and patterns of differentiation point towards a normalization of the new member states' integration in the Union.


Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) are ligand-dependent transcription factors that have a role in diseases associated with obesity. Unsaturated long-chain fatty acids and eicosanoids are known to act as ligands with different affinities for the three PPAR isotypes: α, β (or δ), and γ. Kersten et al. review the role of each PPAR isotype in normal and abnormal processes and discuss the potential for treating chronic disease states by administering synthetic PPAR ligands. However, the controversy stemming from recent clinical reports on the toxicity of the PPAR agonist Rezulin (troglitazone) indicates that more work is required to develop potentially less harmful PPAR agonists for chronic disease therapy. Kersten, S., Desvergne, B., and Wahli, W. (2000) Roles of PPARs in health and disease. Nature 405: 421-424. [Online Journal]


The eight essays in 'Mind, Imagination, Affect' address topoi, phenomena and historical junctures as varied as the prostrate form of an individual being put to death in the US via the necropolitical ritual of lethal injection; the prostrate form of Virginia Woolf that allows her to fashion, while prone with illness and 'as a "deserter"' of the 'army of the upright', a new relationship with words; the affective piety of Margery Kempe's copious tears; the dense relationalities that narratives about autistic individuals, their family members and animal assistants unfurl; and Antoine Artaud's autoscopic, aesthetically realised fantasies in which bodies are eviscerated and suspended mid-air. The differences in these essays' rhetorical styles, modes of argumentation and ontological commitments are startling – not least because all essays are authored or co-authored by a writer within the humanities (and, more specifically, with at least some affiliation to the disciplines of English literature or philosophy or art history). (This should drive home to us, once again, that we should not allow today's intense investment in interdisciplinarity, both within the medical humanities and beyond it, to render us impervious to the profound differences in objects of study, accounts of human experience and modes of interpretation produced through intradisciplinary – or intra-humanities – heterogeneity.) We move from the almost plangent tones of Corinne Saunders's concluding comments, in which she argues that by incorporating medieval worlds into a 'long cultural perspective', we, through 'reading the past, [. . .] more richly read ourselves'; to David Herman's energetic call for us to consider how a narratology beyond the human might assist with the construction of 'new, more sustainable individual and collective stories grounded in an expanded sense of the self's relationality, its situation within wider webs of creatural life'; to Martyn Evans's insistence on our attending to the wonder provoked by our acknowledgement of ourselves as 'embodied, experiencing beings'; to Lisa Guenther's biting question: 'Is there a meaningful distinction between a botched execution and a proper one? Or must we admit that there is no good way to execute a person?'


[The philosopher] embarks on the task … in his own fashion…. The fashion of a philosopher. Everyone knows how his dance begins…. His first faint step is a question…. [He is] a mind afflicted with a mania for interrogation…. He brings in his whys and hows, the customary instruments of elucidation, which are the apparatus of his own art …Paul Valery (1964a:202, 204)


One of the most dramatic periods in baseball's long history of labor relations occurred from 1968 through 1975. The Major League Baseball Players Association negotiated baseball's first Basic Agreement in 1968 without the benefit of any leverage that could alter most of Organized Baseball's long practices that controlled the players' mobility and wages. In 1975, however, the union won an arbitration panel hearing that determined that pitchers Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith were free agents after playing one full season under the renewed option year of their contracts and filing a grievance under the newly adopted arbitration process. This stunning result fundamentally altered Organized Baseball's reserve system and launched free agency and the era of tremendous salary growth for major league baseball players. This article highlights the stories of more than twenty players who refused to sign contracts before reporting to spring training between 1968 and 1975. Part I of the article provide a brief discussion of the creation of the reserve system during the nineteenth century. Part II offers a brief description of the three-year period from 1965 to 1968 that was a prelude to Al Downing's decision in 1968 to report to spring training without signing his contract offer from the New York Yankees. Part III discusses Downing's negotiations with the Yankees. Part IV covers events from 1969 to 1972 including the significance of Ted Simmons' contractual dispute with the St. Louis Cardinals. Part V recounts the stories of the twenty players who began the 1973 through 1975 seasons without signing new contracts. Although all of these players, except Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith, ultimately reached an agreement or disappeared from the major league baseball scene, their collective efforts were an important contribution to the Players Association's winning strategy over the owners.


We develop a structural model of the global market for crude oil that for the first time explicitly allows for shocks to the speculative demand for oil as well as shocks to the flow demand and flow supply. The forward-looking element of the real price of oil is identified with the help of data on oil inventories. The model estimates rule out explanations of the 2003-08 oil price surge based on unexpectedly diminishing oil supplies and based on speculative trading. Instead, we find that this surge was caused by fluctuations in the flow demand for oil driven by the global business cycle. There is evidence, however, that speculative demand shifts played an important role during earlier oil price shock episodes including 1979, 1986, and 1990. Recently, it has been suggested that it is possible for speculative trading to occur even without any change in oil inventories, if the short-run price elasticity of oil demand is zero. Our structural model allows us to obtain an estimate of this elasticity based on shifts of the supply curve along the demand curve. We show that, even after accounting for the role of inventories in smoothing oil consumption, our estimate of the price elasticity of oil demand is not close to zero and much higher than traditional estimates from dynamic models that do not account for price endogeneity. This eliminates speculation as an explanation of the 2003-08 oil price surge.


Increases in the soil bulk density during compaction may influence many aspects of the soil–water–plant–atmosphere system. An empirical approach is suggested that could model the effect of an increase in soil bulk density on the water retention curve (WRC). Two expressions of the WRC are considered. Relationships between their parameters and the bulk density of a compacted soil were calibrated and validated against experimental WRC data of soils at various levels of compaction. These relationships enable a relatively good prediction of the effect of bulk density on the WRC. The relationship between the pore size distribution index and the coefficient of variation of the WRC, previously found for a wide range of soil types, is appropriate also when soils at different bulk densities are considered. The silt/clay content ratio was found to be an important factor in a quantitative expression of soil strength.


Quite often observers of the Islamic world have been writers who have not necessarily developed a methodology from the social sciences, but all the same their observations and viewpoints have had some impact on those who followed their writings.V. S. Naipaul has been a keen observer of his own society and his own cultural background has been a starting point for his observations on non- Western societies. By his own admission, he admits that when he first started, in 1979, to write about the Islamic world he knew almost nothing about Islam (See Prologue - Beyond Belief).Among the Believers, NaipauFs introduction to travels through Islam, is a solid starting point to analyze his perspectives on the religion that Muhammad ostensibly founded.I do believe however that he should not be read out of context, but rather his work on Islam should be linked to his novels and travel descriptions, underlining his central point about the relationship between the developing world and the West. It would be interest to compare these views if he had ever traveled to Japan, South Korea, or the hustle and bustle of China today, where the process of modernization has not encountered the hostility that seems to characterize those other areas, such as the Islamic world, Africa, Caribbean, and Latin America.In Naipaul, political Islam is rage, anarchy, destruction, mayhem. It is also implicitly and sometimes explicitly stated that Islam is anti-modern, or that at least that the believers don't care for the premises of the liberal, democratic world. The current AI-Qaeda organized violence in the Arab and Islamic worlds from North Africa to South East Asia adds an element of confirmation to the insights of Naipaul. Should his observations be classified along a social-scientific lines, they should be seen through the prism of the psychological and a social reactions to the accelerated process of modernization and cultural interaction of the areas that he describes with the Euro -American world. Their many cultural manifestations broadcast today in a globalized world through instant communications from satellite television to the internet add fuel to the rage and resentment born out of the ideological mystifications of Islamic fundamentalist and Third- World intellectuals in "explaining and interpreting the West" and its ostensible domination and exploitation of the non- Western world.Echoes of this standpoint can be gleaned through the ideological and political pronouncement of the Iranian President, Ahmadinejad, and the clerical establishment that controls him, in justifying the breaches of the nuclear proliferation treaty and the denials of the Holocaust.Naipaul's views of Islam as he wrote that book, should be seen within or through the lenses of the Islamic revolution that exploded in Iran in February of 1979 and whose reverberations are seen today in the clash between Shiites and Sunnis in the Near East and where the American war in Iraq has become the starting point for the Iranian- Shiite expansion into the Gulf. The daily spectacle of sectarian mayhem shows Naipaul's keen observation of the dynamic elements in Islam during Khomeini's revolution and destruction of the old monarchical system in Iran.The current episodes of fundamentalism in the Sunni Islamic world should be traced back to that revolutionary phenomenon that spurred the rise of Sunni fundamentalism and the Wahhabi counter-reaction to Shiite encroachments in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere in the Sunni world.Naipaul is arguably one of the keenest observers of Islam without being an Islamic specialist and his observations in his second book on the Islamic World, Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples, are remarkable. He writes in his prologue,"Islam is in its origins an Arab religion. Everyone not an Arab who is a Muslim is a convert. Islam is not simply a matter of conscious or private belief, it makes imperial demands. …


The electrochemical oxidation of methanol and formic acid in 1 M HClO4 is studied on boron-doped diamond electrode using differential electrochemical mass spectrometry (DEMS). DEMS is used to identify products and intermediates of the reaction monitored online during the potential sweep. The measurements show that the oxidation of both methanol and formic acid proceeds close to the potential of the oxygen evolution reaction, resulting in the appearance of an oxidation wave. During the oxidation, the oxygen evolution reaction shifts toward a higher potential, i.e., becomes a secondary reaction. Depending on the potential, either the formation of intermediates (partial oxidation) or the complete mineralization of organics, simultaneous with oxygen evolution, is observed. Diffusion limitation of the oxidation is clearly observed in parallel to the increase in O-2 formation. Methylformate is formed from methanol at potentials at which the local concentration of OH radicals is not sufficient for a complete mineralization. Formic acid oxidation proceeds in two waves; before the onset of oxygen evolution, an intermediate (probably oxalic acid) is produced in parallel to CO2 formation. Only in parallel to oxygen evolution is mineralization to CO2 is complete. (C) 2009 The Electrochemical Society. [DOI: 10.1149/1.3207009] All rights reserved.


I r-~ ·. This dissertation deals with a technique for obtaining approximate radiative solutions to the Eiri.stein equa,tions of general relativity in situations where the gravitational fields of interest are quite stron~. In the first chapter, we ~review the history of the problem and discuss previous work along related lines. In the second chapter, we assume the radiation to be of high frequency and expand the field equations in powers of the SIDall wavelength this supplies. This assumption provides an approximation scheme valid for all orders of 1/r, for arbitrary velocities up to that of light, and for arbitrary intensities of the gravitational field" To lowest order we obtain a gauge invariant linear wave equation for gravitational radiation, which is a covariant generalization of that for massless spin-two fields in flat space, This wave equation is then solved by the W.K.B. approximation to show that gravitational waves travel on null geodesics with amplitude and frequency modified by gravitational fields in exactly the same way as are those of light waves, and with their polarization parallel transported along the geodesics, again as is the c~se for light. The metric containing high frequency gravitational waves is shown to be type N to lowest order, and some limits to the methods used are discussed. In the third chapter we go beyond the linear terms in the high frequency expansion, and consider the lowest order non~ linear terms. They are shown to provide a natural, gauge invariant, averaged effective stress tensor for the energy localized in the high frequency radiation •. By assuming the W.K.B. form for the field, this tensor is found to have the same structure as that for an electromagnetic null field. A Poynting vector is used to investigate the flow of energy and momentum in the gravitational wave field,-~ and it is seen that high frequency waves propagate along null hypersurfaces and are not backscattered off by the curvature of space. Expressions for the total energy and momentum carried by the field to flat null infinity are given in terms of coordinate independent integrals valid within regions of strong field strength. The formalism is applied to the case of spherical gravitational waves where a news function is obtained, and where the source is found to lose exactly the energy and momentum contained in the radiation field.


In cold oceans, the importance of microbes in degrading particulate organic matter (POM) and constraining carbon export has been questioned, given that a greater proportion of primary production reaches the seafloor at high latitudes than low latitudes. To learn more about POM-associated microbial communities in cold waters, we worked aboard the icebreaker 'Kapitan Dranitsyn' during the Nansen and Amundsen Basins Observational System (NABOS) 2005 cruise to the Laptev Sea, a river-impacted region in the Siberian Arctic, to sample 3 size fractions of particles operationally defined as sinking aggregates (>60 μm), smaller suspended particles (1 to 60 μm), and free-living bacteria (0.22 to 1 μm). Sample temperatures and depths ranged from -1.6 to 1.5°C and 25 to 150 m, respectively. Analysis of associated microbial communities using 16S rRNA gene-based clone libraries and terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) indicated greatest diversity and richness in the smaller size fractions and significantly different communities in the aggregate fraction for both Bacteria and Archaea. The most abundant clones in the bacterial libraries were Gammaproteobacteria, followed by members of the Cytophaga-Flavobacterium-Bacteroides (CFB) group and Alphaproteobacteria; the archaeal libraries contained primarily Marine Group I Crenarchaeota. Canonical correspondence analysis indicated that bacterial communities, especially those associated with aggregates, were influenced by riverine input and temperature. Determinants of archaeal communities were less clear, but temperature appeared important. Distinctions in bacterial and archaeal community complexity observed among the different particle size classes suggest the importance of particle residence time in structuring associated microbial communities and defining their biogeochemical roles.


This study contributes to provide a deeper understanding of the artefacts found at Lamreh site and their context within the history of Lamuri Kingdom. To this end, a comprehensive investigation was performed over three weeks at Lamreh, where several archaeological findings had been recovered which consisted of plakIJAPS, Vol. 15, No. 2, 59–88, 2019 Archaeological Remains at Lamreh 60 pling gravestones, imported ceramics, glassware and Chinese coins. The plak-pling gravestones were dated back to the 15th century CE, including one with the inscription of Sultan Muhammad bin Alauddin who was possibly one of the royal officials of the Lamuri Kingdom. The shapes and motifs of the plak-pling gravestones displayed a strong influence of the pre-Islamic Hindu-Buddhist culture. In addition, other interesting findings were imported ceramics, despite their fragmented condition, are both interesting, help with dating the site, and provide a better understanding of economic, social networks and value chains. Morphological, technological and contextual analyses, as well as relative dating, were used to reconstruct the shapes, types, origin and ages of the ceramics, as well as to identify them based on classes of export ceramics from China and Southeast Asia from 14th until the 15th century CE. Additionally, the glassware had been identified as a Chinese type dating back to at least the 13th to 14th century CE. Therefore, these pieces of evidence suggested that Lamreh was an important market for the ceramics trade in Southeast Asia for 300 years. These and other findings had proven that Lamreh was an urban trading centre in the Lamuri Kingdom which had strong connections in both the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean around a thousand years ago. The artefacts unearthed there had also provided evidence of a religious, cultural and commercial relationship between Lamuri and the outside world from approximately 1200 CE.


The children and adolescents of rural and urban community struggle with different psychosocial problems such as fear, stress, anxiety, depression, emotional, conduct problems and hyperactivity during this outbreak of COVID-19 Pandemic The present study is a cross sectional descriptive study design The Non-Governmental organization was selected from rural area of Vellore district, Tamil Nadu The socio demographic data sheet and in-depth interview were administered to the respondents Convenient sampling technique was used for selection of rescued children and adolescents A total of 124 male adolescents participated in the study Through in-depth interview it was found that majority of the urban adolescents suffered with fear, worry, stress, anxiety, depression, lack of coping skills and poor mental health Other hand, the respondents from rural part did not suffer with any severe mental health problems Thus, the appropriate psychosocial care programme needs to be developed to strengthen the coping skills and promoting the positive psychological and emotional wellbeing of children and adolescents © 2020 Ubiquity Press All rights reserved


The phytosociology and ecology of puna vegetation in twelve localities at an altitude of 3750-4500 m in northern Moquegua (south Peru) have been studied. The study area has a pluviseasonal climate with summer rainfall. Using TWINSPAN, Detrended Correspondence Analysis and Farthest Neighbor Clustering, 157 phytosociological releves were analyzed. For each community, the syntaxonomy, floristic diversity and relation with environmental variables are discussed. 210 vascular plant species belonging to 131 genera and 52 families were recorded. Three main vegetation types were distinguished: 1. chasmophyte vegetation composed of a great diversity of shrubs, dwarf shrubs, ferns and annuals, 2. Puya raimondii stands characterized by considerable species richness in shrubs, grasses and herbs, and 3. extensive puna grasslands influenced by grazing. The zonal vegetation of the supratropical and orotropical bioclimatic belts was represented by two phytosociological classes: Argyrochosmetea niveae (chasmophytes) and Calamagrostietea vicunarum (Puya raimondii and puna grasslands). Within the Argyrochosmetea niveae and Salpichroetalia glandulosae, the new alliances Argyrochosmo niveae-Neowerdermannion peruvianae and Hypochaerido mucidae-Loricarion graveolentis were distinguished, including six associations consisting of steep rock and crevice shrublands on lithosols. Within the Azorello compactae-Festucion orthophyllae (Calamagrostietea vicunarum) two associations with four subassociations and two communities were distinguished comprising grasslands and Puya raimondii stands. One association was described in the Calamagrostion minimae. The puna vegetation of Moquegua hosts rare, endangered and/or protected plant species in Peru. The vulnerability of the flora and vegetation in the mountains of Moquegua is briefly discussed.


We present a systematic review of the challenges to the regulation of electricity markets that are posed by the integration of variable renewable energy sources. System integration is the key to developing the required flexibility, because flexibility options exist at all system levels and within the competitive as well as in the regulated (network) domains. The fluctuating nature of variable renewable energy changes the dynamics of investment decisions. We develop a framework for analysing relations between aspects of the regulation of the power sector that need to be coordinated in order to achieve (or at least improve) economic efficiency. We base the framework on the technical functionalities of the electricity infrastructure, which we group along three dimensions: system level (from retail/distribution to transmission/wholesale), geographic scope (the connection between electricity systems) and time scales (from real-time operations and balancing markets to the investment time scale). The framework helps identify regulatory challenges - potential inefficiencies due to a lack of coordination - and to place them into context. The picture that emerges from this approach is that the institutional fragmentation of the European electricity sector will become increasingly burdensome as the development variable renewable energy requires ever closer coordination between countries, between the different levels of the electricity system and between markets that serve different time scales. Interactions between elements of market design and regulation such as congestion management, renewable energy policy and system adequacy policy affect each other and are an additional reason for a system integration approach to regulation. Keywords: Electricity market design, renewable energy, flexibility, system integration


This paper proposes modeling the rapidly evolving energy systems as cyber-based physical systems. It introduces a novel cyber-based dynamical model whose mathematical description depends on the cyber technologies supporting the physical system. This paper discusses how such a model can be used to ensure full observability through a cooperative information exchange among its components; this is achieved without requiring local observability of the system components. This paper also shows how this cyber-physical model is used to develop interactive protocols between the controllers embedded within the system layers and the network operator. Our approach leads to a synergistic framework for model-based sensing and control of future energy systems. The newly introduced cyber-physical model has network structure-preserving properties that are key to effective distributed decision making. The aggregate load modeling that we develop using data mining techniques and novel sensing technologies facilitates operations of complex electric power systems.


Perceived lower rank in the social class hierarchy reflects an individual's relative lack of perceived social and economic worth in society. In the current study we tested the predictions that lower perceptions of social class rank elicit both reduced political participation and lower political self-efficacy. Study 1 found that students with lower perceived social class were less likely to seek information about student government. Study 2 found that perceptions of political self-efficacy accounted for the relationship between perceived social class rank and political participation. Study 3 established causal associations between perceived social class and political participation — a momentary manipulation of elevated perceived social class increased political efficacy and intentions to participate in politics. In Study 4, affirming the self reduced social class disparities in both perceived political participation and efficacy. Throughout the studies, perceptions of social class were consistently related to political participation, and these associations occurred after accounting for political ideology and objective indicators of social class. Discussion focused on the understudied psychological barriers that perpetuate voter inequality in society.


This study examines the relationship between demographic diversity in top management levels with a firms' financial performance using 84 non-financial companies in Malaysia. Demographic diversity consists of ethnic diversity and gender diversity. The top management level includes both the top management team and the board of directors. This study uses data from 2008 to 2012. Return on assets measures the financial performance. Ethnic and gender diversity measured by the number of Non-Malays and the number of females in top management respectively. This study incorporates descriptive statistics, correlation testing, and regression analysis. The results show that ethnic diversity in the top management team as well as in a board of directors has no impact on firm performance (ROE). However, the results of gender diversity have a positive impact on performance (ROE) in both perspectives (TMTs and BODs).


PURPOSE
To determine prevalence of heel strike in a midsize city marathon, if there is an association between foot-strike classification and race performance, and if there is an association between foot-strike classification and gender.

METHODS
Foot-strike classification (forefoot, midfoot, heel, or split strike), gender, and rank (position in race) were recorded at the 8.1-km mark for 2112 runners at the 2011 Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon.

RESULTS
1991 runners were classified by foot-strike pattern, revealing a heel-strike prevalence of 93.67% (n = 1865). A significant difference between foot-strike classification and performance was found using a Kruskal-Wallis test (P < .0001), with more elite performers being less likely to heel strike. No significant difference between foot-strike classification and gender was found using a Fisher exact test. In addition, subgroup analysis of the 126 non-heel strikers found no significant difference between shoe wear and performance using a Kruskal-Wallis test.

CONCLUSIONS
The high prevalence of heel striking observed in this study reflects the foot-strike pattern of most mid-distance to long-distance runners and, more important, may predict their injury profile based on the biomechanics of a heel-strike running pattern. This knowledge can help clinicians appropriately diagnose, manage, and train modifications of injured runners.


We propose a type system for functional languages with gradual types and set-theoretic type connectives and prove its soundness. In particular, we show how to lift the definition of the domain and result type of an application from non-gradual types to gradual ones and likewise for the subtyping relation. We also show that deciding subtyping for gradual types can be reduced in linear time to deciding subtyping on non-gradual types and that the same holds true for all subtyping-related decision problems that must be solved for type inference. More generally, this work not only enriches gradual type systems with unions and intersections and with the type precision that arise from their use, but also proposes and advocates a new style of gradual types programming where union and intersection types are used by programmers to instruct the system to perform fewer dynamic checks.


It is apparent that the challenges facing scientific software developers are quite different from those facing their commercial counterparts. Among these differences are the challenges posed by the complex and uncertain nature of the science. There is also the fact that many scientists have experience of developing their own software, albeit in a very restricted setting, leading them to have unrealistic expectations about software development in a different setting. In this paper, we explore the challenges facing scientific software developers focusing especially on molecular biology. We claim that the nature and practice of molecular biology is quite different from that of the physical sciences and pose different problems to software developers. We do not claim that this paper is the last word on the topic but hope that it serves as the inspiration for further debate.


This thesis focuses on the study of H6 homeobox 1 (HMX1) gene, a homeobox-containing transcription factor involved in sensory organ and eye development and responsible for the oculo-auricular syndrome of Schorderet-Munier-Franceschetti. The purpose of my study is to better understand the mechanism and role of this transcription factor. My thesis is divided into three parts. The first part proposes a predictive promoter model approach to identify new HMX1 target gene. The second part concerns an animal model of Hmx1 mutation, the dumbo mouse model, and brings a new insight into lethal craniofacial defects. The third part concerns the characterization of the visual capacity of the dumbo mice and a description of a new pattern of vision-linked defects. In the first part we propose a predictive promoter model approach based on transcriptomic analysis of post-natal day 15 mouse retina from dumbo and wild type mouse. This method revealed that Sgcg, Tshz2 and Slc6a9 were Hmx1 targets in the mouse retina. Ptpro, Sema3f, and Epha6 belong to the retinal axon guidance pathway and play an important role in retinotopic mapping. Significant enrichment of HMX1 binding site confirmed this pathway and we validated the transcriptional activity of Hmx1 on Ptpro, Sema3f and Sgcg by Luciferase assay. In the second part of the project we investigate the dumbo mouse model, carrying a stop codon in Hmx1, and representing the first animal model for the oculo-auricular syndrome of Schorderet-Munier-Franceschetti. The homozygous Hmx1dmbo is a semi-lethal mutation and stillborns present severe craniofacial defects, including cleft palate, chest defect and bone hypoplasia of maxilla, zygomatic process, mandible and frontal. In the third part of the thesis we provide a complete description of the vision in dumbo mouse. Despite a normal retinal phenotype, the vision of this mouse is completely impaired. We demonstrate that this was caused by abnormal retinotopic mapping and optic nerve hypoplasia. In dumbo mice the retinal ganglion cells axon projections failed to target the visual output, namely the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus and the superior colliculus, and present abnormal patterning.


In this memoir-turned-cookbook, Alice B. Toklas describes her life with partner Gertrude Stein and their famed Paris salon, which entertained the great avant-garde and literary figures of their day. With dry wit and characteristic understatement Toklas ponders the ethics of killing a carp in her kitchen before stuffing it with chestnuts; decorating a fish to amuse Picasso at lunch; and, travelling across France during the First World War in an old delivery truck, gathering local recipes along the way. She includes a friend's playful recipe for 'Haschiche Fudge', which promises 'brilliant storms of laughter and ecstatic reveries', much like her book.


If there is to be widespread acceptance of computer generated images in areas traditionally served by graphic artists, these images must meet a high standard of quality. Document preparation systems are an application area that is gaining maturity in providing high-quality computer typeset documents. These systems exhibit a trend towards specifying the formatting information for a document separately from the body of the text. The goal is to have the document format designed by someone with expert knowledge of typography. Writers can then apply a format to their own work simply by indicating the semantic content of their text, such as the headings, paragraphs, or footnotes. The result is that a writer can produce properly typeset documents without learning the esthetics of typography. This paper extends this idea to encompass the illustrations in the text. We have developed a prototype system that uses a set of graphical style rules to define the design guidelines for the illustrations. The rules, called a graphical style sheet, can be used to control a uniform "look" over a set of illustrations, or to change the appearance of a particular illustration to reflect different publishing styles or different media. The prototype coordinates with an existing document preparation system and the combined systems were used to produce this paper. We conclude that this is a viable method for controlling image style for at least one class of illustrations. This approach contributes to image quality by providing a method for capturing knowledge of graphic arts standards, and for ensuring a consistent appearance of related illustrations within technical documentation.


Everyone involved in the business of major college athletics, except the athletes, receives compensation based on a free market system. The NCAA's cap on athlete compensation violates antitrust law, and athletes should be allowed to earn their free market value as everyone else does in this country. This Article provides a detailed approach to compensating college athletes under a free market model, which includes a salary cap, the terms of a proposed standard player's contract, a discussion of who can represent players, and payment simulations for football and basketball teams. A free market approach would not only be feasible, but it would likely improve the product on the field and the court, as well as the lives of those college athletes who provide the labor for major college athletics, which is currently an $11 billion-a-year industry.


Abstract. Aerosol–cloud interactions are explored using 1 km simulations of a case study of predominantly closed-cell SE Pacific stratocumulus clouds. The simulations include realistic meteorology along with newly implemented cloud microphysics and sub-grid cloud schemes. The model was critically assessed against observations of liquid water path (LWP), broadband fluxes, cloud fraction (fc), droplet number concentrations (Nd), thermodynamic profiles, and radar reflectivities. Aerosol loading sensitivity tests showed that at low aerosol loadings, changes to aerosol affected shortwave fluxes equally through changes to cloud macrophysical characteristics (LWP, fc) and cloud albedo changes due solely to Nd changes. However, at high aerosol loadings, only the Nd albedo change was important. Evidence was also provided to show that a treatment of sub-grid clouds is as important as order of magnitude changes in aerosol loading for the accurate simulation of stratocumulus at this grid resolution. Overall, the control model demonstrated a credible ability to reproduce observations, suggesting that many of the important physical processes for accurately simulating these clouds are represented within the model and giving some confidence in the predictions of the model concerning stratocumulus and the impact of aerosol. For example, the control run was able to reproduce the shape and magnitude of the observed diurnal cycle of domain mean LWP to within  ∼  10 g m−2 for the nighttime, but with an overestimate for the daytime of up to 30 g m−2. The latter was attributed to the uniform aerosol fields imposed on the model, which meant that the model failed to include the low-Nd mode that was observed further offshore, preventing the LWP removal through precipitation that likely occurred in reality. The boundary layer was too low by around 260 m, which was attributed to the driving global model analysis. The shapes and sizes of the observed bands of clouds and open-cell-like regions of low areal cloud cover were qualitatively captured. The daytime fc frequency distribution was reproduced to within Δfc = 0.04 for fc >  ∼ 0.7 as was the domain mean nighttime fc (at a single time) to within Δfc = 0.02. Frequency distributions of shortwave top-of-the-atmosphere (TOA) fluxes from the satellite were well represented by the model, with only a slight underestimate of the mean by 15 %; this was attributed to near–shore aerosol concentrations that were too low for the particular times of the satellite overpasses. TOA long-wave flux distributions were close to those from the satellite with agreement of the mean value to within 0.4 %. From comparisons of Nd distributions to those from the satellite, it was found that the Nd mode from the model agreed with the higher of the two observed modes to within  ∼  15 %.


Aim/Purpose: This study aims to devise a personalized solution for online healthcare platforms that can alleviate problems arising from information overload and data sparsity by providing personalized healthcare services to patients. The primary focus of this paper is to develop an effective medicine recommendation approach for recommending suitable medications to patients based on their specific medical conditions.

Background: With a growing number of people becoming more conscious about their health, there has been a notable increase in the use of online healthcare platforms and e-services as a means of diagnosis. As the internet continues to evolve, these platforms and e-services are expected to play an even more significant role in the future of healthcare. For instance, WebMD and similar platforms offer valuable tools and information to help manage patients' health, such as searching for medicines based on their medical conditions. Nonetheless, patients often find it arduous and time-consuming to sort through all the available medications to find the ones that match their specific medical conditions. To address this problem, personalized recommender systems have emerged as a practical solution for mitigating the burden of information overload and data sparsity-related issues that are frequently encountered on online healthcare platforms.

Methodology: The study utilized a dataset of MC ratings obtained from WebMD, a popular healthcare website. Patients on this website can rate medications based on three criteria, including medication effectiveness, ease of use, and satisfaction, using a scale of 1 to 5. The WebMD MC rating dataset used in this study contains a total of 32,054 ratings provided by 2,136 patients for 845 different medicines. The proposed HSMCCF approach consists of two primary modules: a semantic filtering module and a multi-criteria filtering module. The semantic filtering module is designed to address the issues of data sparsity and new item problems by utilizing a medicine taxonomy that sorts medicines according to medical conditions and makes use of semantic relationships between them. This module identifies the medicines that are most likely to be relevant to patients based on their current medical conditions. The multi-criteria filtering module, on the other hand, enhances the approach's ability to capture the complexity of patient preferences by considering multiple criteria and preferences through a unique similarity metric that incorporates both distance and structural similarities. This module ensures that patients receive more accurate and personalized medication recommendations. Moreover, a medicine reputation score is employed to ensure that the approach remains effective even when dealing with limited ratings or new items. Overall, the combination of these modules makes the proposed approach more robust and effective in providing personalized medicine recommendations for patients.

Contribution: This study addresses the medicine recommendation problem by proposing a novel approach called Hybrid Semantic-based Multi-Criteria Collaborative Filtering (HSMCCF). This approach effectively recommends medications for patients based on their medical conditions and is specifically designed to overcome issues related to data sparsity and new item recommendations that are commonly encountered on online healthcare platforms. The proposed approach addresses data sparsity and new item issues by incorporating a semantic filtering module and a multi-criteria filtering module. The semantic filtering module sorts medicines based on medical conditions and uses semantic relationships to identify relevant ones. The multi-criteria filtering module accurately captures patient preferences and provides precise recommendations using a novel similarity metric. Additionally, a medicine reputation score is also employed to further expand potential neighbors, improving predictive accuracy and coverage, particularly in sparse datasets or new items with few ratings. With the HSMCCF approach, patients can receive more personalized recommendations that are tailored to their unique medical needs and conditions. By leveraging a combination of semantic-based and multi-criteria filtering techniques, the proposed approach can effectively address the challenges associated with medicine recommendations on online healthcare platforms.

Findings: The proposed HSMCCF approach demonstrated superior effectiveness compared to benchmark recommendation methods in multi-criteria rating datasets in terms of enhancing both prediction accuracy and coverage while effectively addressing data sparsity and new item challenges.

Recommendations for Practitioners: By applying the proposed medicine recommendation approach, practitioners can develop a medicine recommendation system that can be integrated into online healthcare platforms. Patients can then utilize this system to make better-informed decisions regarding the medications that are most suitable for their specific medical conditions. This personalized approach to medication recommendations can ultimately lead to improved patient satisfaction.

Recommendation for Researchers: Integrating patient medicine reviews is a promising way for researchers to elevate the proposed medicine recommendation approach. By leveraging patient reviews, the approach can gain a more comprehensive understanding of how certain medications perform for specific medical conditions. Additionally, exploring the relationship between MC-based ratings using an improved aggregation function can potentially enhance the accuracy of medication predictions. This involves analyzing the relationship between different criteria, such as medication effectiveness, ease of use, and satisfaction of the patients, and determining the optimal weighting for each criterion based on patient feedback. A more holistic approach that incorporates patient reviews and an improved aggregation function can enable the proposed medicine recommendation approach to provide more personalized and accurate recommendations to patients.

Impact on Society: To mitigate the risk of infection during the COVID-19 pandemic, the promotion of online healthcare services was actively encouraged. This allowed patients to continue accessing care and receiving treatment while adhering to physical distancing guidelines and shielding measures where necessary. As a result, the implementation of personalized healthcare services for patients is expected to be a major disruptive force in healthcare in the coming years. This study proposes a personalized medicine recommendation approach that can effectively address this issue and aid patients in making informed decisions about the medications that are most suitable for their specific medical conditions.

Future Research: One way that may enhance the proposed medicine recommendation approach is to incorporate patient medicine reviews. Furthermore, the analysis of MC-based ratings using an improved aggregation function can also potentially enhance the accuracy of medication predictions.


This paper presents a real-time implementable optimisation-based energy management strategy for a series Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV). On the basis of the introduction of a transient fuel consumption model of the diesel Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) and a battery equivalent fuel consumption model incorporating a charge-sustaining strategy, a novel Semi-Global Optimisation (SGO) problem is formulated to minimise the vehicle fuel consumption, which is defined over a relatively shorter time horizon characterised by the quasi-steady-state time constant of the diesel engine. A two-stage real-time optimisation algorithm is developed to solve this problem, including the precomputed Static Instantaneous Optimisation (SIO) to obtain the basic power distribution map, and the online adaptive dynamic compensation optimisation considering the transient loss of the diesel APU. Computer simulation work is carried out to evaluate the proposed energy management strategy.


Marine plastics pollution (MPP) is an alarming problem affecting many countries, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, and generated mostly from land-based sources. Five Asian countries (i.e. China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka) have been identified as the largest sources of MPP globally. This article presents two cases studies focused on the two largest polluters: China and Indonesia. Both countries face similar challenges in dealing with plastic pollution. They have weak legal and institutional frameworks in place to deal with MPP. The two case studies also show that there have been more creative and effective measures taken at the domestic level by local governments and non-state actors, many of which involve partnerships among different stakeholders. This article argues that governance efforts to address MPP require an 'all hands-on deck' approach, involving multi-level and multi-actor strategies and targeted regulatory and non-regulatory measures. However, our findings also suggest that most efforts should be directed at the subnational level, from which the problem mainly originates. This article proposes a number of legal and policy recommendations, based on the lessons learned from the case studies, which can be instrumental in reducing the global MPP crisis.


[1] A survey of the frequency and characteristics of precipitation from low clouds over the oceans based on data from CloudSat and CALIPSO from July 2006 through June 2007 is presented. The low-cloud fraction, drizzle occurrence, and estimated cloud base precipitation rate are examined globally and for eight subtropical and midlatitude stratocumulus (Sc) regions. This analysis is restricted clouds below 4 km. Drizzle detection and characterization is further restricted to clouds with tops above 1 km altitude. The maximum radar reflectivity within an individual CloudSat profile (Zmax) is used to classify the profile as precipitating or nonprecipitating. The distribution of Zmax for all profiles is bimodal with peaks around −23 and −12 dBZ interpreted as originating from populations of nondrizzling and drizzling clouds, respectively. Profiles where Zmax exceeds −18 dBZ are classified as drizzling. Drizzle is detected for 19–34% of cloudy profiles in the subtropical Sc regions and 37–44% of profiles from the midlatitude Sc regions. The cloud base precipitation rate is estimated using the relation: Rcb = 2 · Zmax0.7. The lower quartile/median/upper quartile precipitation rates are 0.25/0.6/2.0 mm d−1 for the subtropical Sc regions and 0.28/0.7/2.3 mm d−1 for midlatitude regions. A consistent nighttime increase in low-cloud fraction and drizzle occurrence is observed for the subtropical Sc regions. For clouds with reff > 17 μm the drizzle occurrence can be treated as a function of LWP alone and exceeds 50% (75%) for a LWP of 50 (110) g m−2. For reff < 17 the drizzle occurrence is strongly dependent on both LWP and reff.


We use single molecule spectroscopy to study a multicomponent, competitive protein adsorption system. Fluorescently-labeled α-lactalbumin proteins are super-resolved adsorbing to cationic anion-exchange ligands in the presence of a competitor, insulin. We find that the competitor reduces the number of binding events by blocking ligands throughout the observed measurement time while the single-site adsorption kinetics are unchanged.


The Electric Universe is a cosmology that argues the powerful electromagnetic force plays a dominant role in the birth and life of stars. This new paradigm is an extension of well-established plasma cosmology. The Electric Universe has unequalled success in predicting and simply explaining many new discoveries in the space age without requiring ad hoc modifications and the introduction of unobservable entities and nonphysical concepts. In this paper a new concept is introduced to explain enigmatic features of planetary nebulae.


MIRNAS AS BIOMARKERS FOR PROSTATE CANCER PROGRESSION Gene Chatman Clark B.S. 2012, Virginia Polytechnic Institute A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Biochemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University, 2015 Director: Zendra E. Zehner Professor, Department of Biochemistry Prostate cancer is one of the most challenging global medical issues today. In 2011, prostate cancer was the most diagnosed malignancy in the United States, making up 29% of new cancer cases. In that year it was the second leading cause of cancer related deaths among men in the USA and the second most common cause of cancer related death overall from the EU. The prostate remains, however, an under studied organ, making insights into the anatomy and biology of prostate cancer difficult to achieve. After 30 years, PSA screening of men of the appropriate age is still the first step in prostate cancer diagnosis, usually followed by a manual prostate exam which may lead to a transrectal biopsy. This study makes use of Next Generation Sequencing to successfully identify a superior miRNA based urinary assay for the detection of prostate cancer. 2 A receiver operating curve AUC of 0.90 was achieved for patients vs. non-patients using an additive risk model defined by empirically derived critical threshold values of eight urinary miRNAs identified with this method. This is superior to the PSA blood test's AUC of 0.66 which illustrates that a miRNA profile such as this has the potential to surpass protein biomarkers such as PSA in terms of specificity and sensitivity. It was also demonstrated that a geometric mean of three urinary miRNAs were useful for endogenous normalization. One significant risk factor for prostate cancer is being African American. Again using Next Generation Sequencing technology, we have established a miRNA expression profile for the stages of a prostate cancer cell line progression model derived from the normal prostate epithelium of an African American man. Normal prostate epithelium was immortalized only with SV40 large T antigen (P69) and passaged three times in nude mice, producing the highly aggressive and metastatic M12 cell line. The M2182 cell line is an intermediate between the P69s and M12s having only been passaged twice and not yet having acquired metastatic potential. The F6 cell line was derived by reintroducing a copy of chromosome 19 missing from the M12 cell line via microcell mediated chromosome transfer. These profiles show a large downregulation of miRNAs early in tumorigenesis (from P69 toM2182) affecting the DLK1DIO3 megacluster and the miR-200 family. The later acquisition of metastatic potential (from M2182 to M12) is concomitant with the upregulation of specific miRNAs including the HOX gene miRNAs miR-10a and miR-196 and miR-9. Thus, the analysis of this progression model has uncovered relevant miRs and genes the dysregulation of which contribute to prostate


The ability to extract meaningful relationships from sequences is crucial to many aspects of perception and cognition, such as speech and music. This paper explores how leading computational techniques may be used to model how humans learn abstract musical relationships, namely, tonality and octave equivalence. Rather than hard-coding musical rules, this model uses an unsupervised learning approach to glean tonal relationships from a musical corpus. We develop and test a novel input representation technique, using a perceptually-inspired harmonics-based representation, to bootstrap the model's learning of tonal structure. The results are compared with behavioral data from listeners' performance on a standard music perception task: the model effectively encodes tonal relationships from musical data, simulating expert performance on the listening task. Lastly, the results are contrasted with previous findings from a computational model that uses a more simple symbolic input representation of pitch.


Four hulless barley varieties (zero-amylose waxy, CDC Fibar; 5%-amylose waxy, CDC Rattan; normal-amylose, CDC McGwire and high-amylose, HB08302) were developed at the Crop Development Centre, University of Saskatchewan with differences in carbohydrates traits on the basis of amylose (1 to 20% DM), amylopectin (34 to 51% DM), amylose to amylopectin ratio (0.02 to 0.59) and β-glucan (5 to 10% DM) content. The objectives of this research were to determine: 1) the effect of the alteration of these carbohydrate traits in hulless barley on nutrient availability in ruminants, and 2) spectral characteristics of molecular structures in comparison with hulled barley-CDC Copeland. Studies on chemical and nutrient profiles, rumen degradation kinetics, in vitro intestinal nutrient digestion and potential protein supply estimated by the Dutch model and the NRC Dairy 2001 model were carried out. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and advanced synchrotron-based FTIR Microspectroscopy (SR-FTIRM) with univariate and multivariate analysis were applied to investigate the influence of genetic modification of barley cultivars on the molecular structure features at the regions of protein amide I and II, β-glucan, cellulosic compounds and carbohydrates. By quantifying the relationship between the measured parameters and the alteration of carbohydrate traits, the results of studies revealed: 1) the hulless barley lines with altered carbohydrate traits have the potential to increase rumen and intestinal nutrient availability, thus improving the truly absorbed protein supply to ruminants compared to hulled barley; 2) lower amylose and higher β-glucan level in the hulless barley varieties increased estimated energy and metabolizable protein supply to ruminants; 3) molecular structure differences of the hulless barley varieties can be detected by both conventional FTIR spectroscopy and SR-FTIRM; 4) metabolizable protein (MP) was affected significantly by protein molecular structure characteristics in hulless barley.


Immunoglobulin G (IgG) is the most abundant class of immunoglobulins in the blood, and 15-25% of IgG molecules contain Fab glycans in addition to the Fc glycans that are present in all IgG molecules. The emergence of Fab-glycosylated antibodies, starting from largely absent in the initial antibody repertoire of naive B cells, was mostly unexplored. We found that Fab glycosylation sites mainly emerge near the antigen-binding site, explaining the potential of Fab glycans to influence antigen binding. The differences in Fab glycosylation between antigen specificities indicate antigen-associated selection. In addition to their influence on antigen binding, we found that Fab glycans can contribute to antibody stability. Our results suggest that Fab glycans are exposed to different degrees, possibly explaining why some Fab glycans do have an effect on antigen binding and/or antibody stability and others do not. IgG4 antibody responses are associated with tolerance, and the increased Fab glycosylation of this subclass might suggest a role for Fab glycans in immune modulation. Interestingly, our preliminary in vivo experiments indicate that Fab glycosylated drug antibodies are less immunogenic than drug antibodies without Fab glycans, again suggesting a role for Fab glycans in immune modulation. Together, the results presented in this thesis show that Fab glycans can affect antigen binding and antibody stability, and our findings suggest that future research on the possible immunomodulatory role for Fab glycans in immunity could be very useful and eventually possibly contribute to improve antibody therapies.


This paper investigates changes in and patterns of income inequality in South Africa during the post-apartheid period 1994 to 2004. While findings show a rapidly growing high-income African population (a trend that began before 1994 and continued thereafter) as well as rising real wages for workers in formal employment, overall levels of income inequality have not been declining This is due to rising unemployment and a small informal sector that have therefore left unchanged South Africa's high level of income inequality. If anything, overall inequality has worsened. Inter-racial inequality has decreased while intra-racial inequality has increased. Opportunities have improved for some African people in South Africa, but not for all: a lack of human and social capital leaves many with little chance of rising out of poverty; AIDS-related mortality and morbidity are likely to exacerbate stratification and further increase inequality.


This paper proposes a semantic interpretation of slurs based on a multi-speech act theory. According to this perspective, when a speaker utters a sentence containing a slur, he or she performs two different speech acts, one of which, following Searle's taxonomy, is an expressive one. Therefore, slurs have two semantic components, the first being identical with the intension and extension of the corresponding neutral term. The second is an expressive speech act by means of which the speaker expresses derogation and denigration towards the class of individuals designated by the neutral component. This interpretation is in line with those theories which regard slurs as having a mixed semantics. However, unlike these theories, in this proposal slurs are not regarded as a type of conventional implicature.


The k-medoids algorithm is one of the best-known clustering algorithms. Despite this, however, it is not as widely used for big data analytics as the k-means algorithm, mainly because of its high computational complexity. Many studies have attempted to solve the efficiency problem of the k-medoids algorithm, but all such studies have improved efficiency at the expense of accuracy. In this paper, we propose a novel parallel k-medoids algorithm, which we call PAMAE, that achieves both high accuracy and high efficiency. We identify two factors---"global search" and "entire data"---that are essential to achieving high accuracy, but are also very time-consuming if considered simultaneously. Thus, our key idea is to apply them individually through two phases: parallel seeding and parallel refinement, neither of which is costly. The first phase performs global search over sampled data, and the second phase performs local search over entire data. Our theoretical analysis proves that this serial execution of the two phases leads to an accurate solution that would be achieved by global search over entire data. In order to validate the merit of our approach, we implement PAMAE on Spark as well as Hadoop and conduct extensive experiments using various real-world data sets on 12 Microsoft Azure machines (48 cores). The results show that PAMAE significantly outperforms most of recent parallel algorithms and, at the same time, produces a clustering quality as comparable as the previous most-accurate algorithm. The source code and data are available at https://github.com/jaegil/k-Medoid.


Ocular pain and headache may stem from many causes, ranging from infections and inflammations to radiating pain. Nowadays, use of smartphones may be an emerging cause of unilateral ocular pain and headache, especially in young population. In this study, we implemented a survey and examined the eyes of patients who used smartphones with 20/20 vision. The patients with normal neurologic and ear-nose-throat (ENT) examination findings comprised the study group. The age, duration of smartphone use, ocular examination findings, and results of ocular surface disease index (OSDI) were recorded. An association between smartphone use and ocular pain/headache was found. Spherical equivalent values of the patients with headache or ocular pain were signifi- cantly lower than those who had no pain. The OSDI scores of patients with ocular pain were significantly higher than others without ocular pain. Adverse effects of smartphone use on ocular surface and over accommodation induced by near vision may have an effect on the occurrence of ocular pain and headache.