The recent development of CNN-based image dehazing has revealed the effectiveness of end-to-end modeling. However, extending the idea to end-to-end video dehazing has not been explored yet. In this paper, we propose an End-to-End Video Dehazing Network (EVD-Net), to exploit the temporal consistency between consecutive video frames. A thorough study has been conducted over a number of structure options, to identify the best temporal fusion strategy. Furthermore, we build an End-to-End United Video Dehazing and Detection Network (EVDD-Net), which concatenates and jointly trains EVD-Net with a video object detection model. The resulting augmented end-to-end pipeline has demonstrated much more stable and accurate detection results in hazy video.


While the most productive ecosystems on Earth, correspondingly the most diverse, function within limitations of energy and resource flows, the general approach of high-yielding agriculture, in contrast, has been to simplify and replace key ecosystem functions with non-renewable inputs. Restoring ecological processes in agriculture requires some understanding of the underlying mechanisms. Here, I explore a unifying framework regarding the coupling between ecosystem structure and function. Namely, that the capacity of water-limited ecosystems to optimize water use, or resist stress is a product of their life-form diversity. I apply this hypothesis to infer the response of structurally contrasting ecosystems at a wide range of scales: (i) At the plot scale, I test the role of resource complementarity ("niche-based" mechanisms) in a perennial grain-legume intercrop, using stable isotope analysis. (ii) At the sub-continental scale, I use satellite data to explore the response of one of the most variable terrestrial biomes, tropical savanna, to rainfall variability. I employ different approaches to demonstrate the degree of coupling between ecosystem response and the environmental forcing. The dissertation concludes by summarizing the key findings and outlining further work needed to explore the role of ecosystem structure on function in water-limited systems. I discuss the implications of niche complementarity on resource relationships of biologically diverse agroecosystems, emphasizing the need for a re-evaluation of the conceptual framework used to envision niche complementarity to account for alternative resource acquisition pathways. I explore the role of savanna hydrophenology as a stabilizing mechanism, relating patterns of synchrony to savanna structure and composition. The relevance of this work is directly linked to iii the loss of ecological function which manifests in agriculture's growing dependence on fossil energy to mask diminishing returns from extractive use of land and water resources. Enriched knowledge of potential mechanisms, coupling structural diversity with ecosystem function, in both natural and managed ecosystems, will provide insight into the ecological basis for diversity driven processes in water-limited ecosystems.


The formation of the Afroeurasian world-system was one of the crucial points of social evolution, starting from which the social evolution rate and effectiveness increased dramatically. In the present article we analyze processes and scales of global integration in historical perspective, starting with the Agrarian Revolution. We connect the main phases of historical globalization with the processes of development of the Afroeurasian world-system. In the framework of the Afroeurasian world-system the integration began a few thousand years Before the Common Era. In this world-system the continental and supracontinental links became rather developed long before the Great Geographic Discoveries and thus, they could quite be denoted as global (albeit in a somehow limited sense). As some researchers are still inclined to underestimate the scale of those links in the pre-Industrial era, it appears necessary to provide additional empirical support for our statement. It also turns necessary to apply a special methodology (which necessitated the use of the world-system approach). We analyze some versions of periodization of history of globalization. We also propose our own periodization of globalization using as its basis the growing scale of intersocietal links as an indicator of the level of globalization development.


It is now clear that almost all complex traits have a highly polygenic component; that is, their genetic basis consists of relatively frequent risk alleles at a very large number of loci, each making a small contribution to variation, or disease susceptibility. This general conclusion appears to hold for intermediate phenotypes. Therefore, we should not expect these phenotypes to be associated with substantially larger effect sizes than conventional phenotypes. Instead, their usefulness is likely to lie in understanding the mechanism underpinning associations identified via genome-wide association studies of conventional phenotypes.


Over-parameterized models, such as DeepNets and ConvNets, form a class of models that are routinely adopted in a wide variety of applications, and for which Bayesian inference is desirable but extremely challenging. Variational inference offers the tools to tackle this challenge in a scalable way and with some degree of flexibility on the approximation, but for over-parameterized models this is challenging due to the over-regularization property of the variational objective. Inspired by the literature on kernel methods, and in particular on structured approximations of distributions of random matrices, this paper proposes Walsh-Hadamard Variational Inference (WHVI), which uses Walsh-Hadamard-based factorization strategies to reduce the parameterization and accelerate computations, thus avoiding over-regularization issues with the variational objective. Extensive theoretical and empirical analyses demonstrate that WHVI yields considerable speedups and model reductions compared to other techniques to carry out approximate inference for over-parameterized models, and ultimately show how advances in kernel methods can be translated into advances in approximate Bayesian inference.


IMPORTANCE
The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends computed tomography (CT) lung cancer screening for ever-smokers aged 55 to 80 years who have smoked at least 30 pack-years with no more than 15 years since quitting. However, selecting ever-smokers for screening using individualized lung cancer risk calculations may be more effective and efficient than current USPSTF recommendations.

OBJECTIVE
Comparison of modeled outcomes from risk-based CT lung-screening strategies vs USPSTF recommendations.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS
Empirical risk models for lung cancer incidence and death in the absence of CT screening using data on ever-smokers from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial (PLCO; 1993-2009) control group. Covariates included age; education; sex; race; smoking intensity, duration, and quit-years; body mass index; family history of lung cancer; and self-reported emphysema. Model validation in the chest radiography groups of the PLCO and the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST; 2002-2009), with additional validation of the death model in the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS; 1997-2001), a representative sample of the United States. Models were applied to US ever-smokers aged 50 to 80 years (NHIS 2010-2012) to estimate outcomes of risk-based selection for CT lung screening, assuming screening for all ever-smokers, yield the percent changes in lung cancer detection and death observed in the NLST.

EXPOSURES
Annual CT lung screening for 3 years beginning at age 50 years.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES
For model validity: calibration (number of model-predicted cases divided by number of observed cases [estimated/observed]) and discrimination (area under curve [AUC]). For modeled screening outcomes: estimated number of screen-avertable lung cancer deaths and estimated screening effectiveness (number needed to screen [NNS] to prevent 1 lung cancer death).

RESULTS
Lung cancer incidence and death risk models were well calibrated in PLCO and NLST. The lung cancer death model calibrated and discriminated well for US ever-smokers aged 50 to 80 years (NHIS 1997-2001: estimated/observed = 0.94 [95%CI, 0.84-1.05]; AUC, 0.78 [95%CI, 0.76-0.80]). Under USPSTF recommendations, the models estimated 9.0 million US ever-smokers would qualify for lung cancer screening and 46,488 (95% CI, 43,924-49,053) lung cancer deaths were estimated as screen-avertable over 5 years (estimated NNS, 194 [95% CI, 187-201]). In contrast, risk-based selection screening of the same number of ever-smokers (9.0 million) at highest 5-year lung cancer risk (≥1.9%) was estimated to avert 20% more deaths (55,717 [95% CI, 53,033-58,400]) and was estimated to reduce the estimated NNS by 17% (NNS, 162 [95% CI, 157-166]).

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
Among a cohort of US ever-smokers aged 50 to 80 years, application of a risk-based model for CT screening for lung cancer compared with a model based on USPSTF recommendations was estimated to be associated with a greater number of lung cancer deaths prevented over 5 years, along with a lower NNS to prevent 1 lung cancer death.


This research represent descriptive research at Bank Tabungan Negara ( Persero), with title " Analysis Level Health Of Bank From In Perpective is Capital at PT Bank Tabungan Negara ( Persero)". Intention of this research is to know monetary performance of Bank BTN from in perpective risk and capital faced by Bank BTN relate to capital.
Data analysis the used is capital ratio analysis which consist of CAR ( Capital Adequacy Ratio), Composition Capital, DER (Debt To Equity Ratio), DPR (Dividend of Payout Ratio) and risk faced to relate to formulated capital with standard of deviasi. This Capital ratio analysis is used to know level health of bank from in perpective capital. Result of calculation capital ratio analysis at CAR, Composition Capital, DER, DPR of high value, which this matter indicate that company can manage capital better, where mean of CAR during five year equal to 19,29%, Capital composition equal to 10,87, DER equal to 20,35, and DPR equal to 31,15%.
Standard value of deviasi which showing the level of risk faced to relate to capital is equal to 0,365 for the ratio of CAR, capital composition equal to 5,59, DER equal to 4,31, and for DPR equal to 5,33. This matter indicate that risk faced to relate to capital relative lower.
Accomplishment of capital from is internal of bank represent expectation every bank. Fufilled of capital from is internal, hence indicating that the the bank can grow and expand with strength alone. Therefore, bank capital have to be managed better. Excelsior accomplishment of reached capital by every bank will be ever greater of level health of bank.
Pursuant to breakdown of above can be concluded that monetary performance Bank of BTN from in perpective is capital at period 2003-2007 quarterlyly healthy in a condition. At risk faced is interconnected of capital each capital ratio relative lower.


The present work is an experimental and numerical CFD study of air impingement from orifices of different sizes in the range of (10-40) mm with a step increase of 10 mm. The impinging jet strikes the target plate at the stagnation point, converted to a wall jet beyond the stagnation zone in the outward radial direction on the target plate. Measurements of pressure coefficient (Cp) at points in plate centre and other points in the radial direction from stagnation point on the target plate show that pressure coefficients reduces gradually in the outward direction reflecting the same behavior of velocity distribution of the impinging jet ..The calculated average values of the pressure coefficients Cpavg on the total target plate area are reduced as the target plate – orifice distance is increased and its values are in the range of 0.3-0.7 with the higher jet velocity having the greater value of Cpavg for the tested axial distances in the range of 50-120 mm. Average pressure coefficient for different axial distances are calculated and are in the range of 0.4-0.6 with the higher values are noticed to be for the smaller tested orifice sizes reflecting a concentration of pressures for the small sizes of the orifice. This concentration of pressure of small orifices is attributed to the flow condition of the small orifice relative to the big orifice size where the presence of cross flow within the stagnation region of big orifice sizes tends to reduce static pressures and reduce peak heat transfer coefficients, this cross flow is confirmed by the velocity analysis using CFD numerical analysis zone at the stagnation zone. The percentages of the wall jet relative to the impinging jet velocities are discussed, where smaller orifice sizes are shown to have greater velocity percentages especially at the higher tested jet velocities.


Very early therapy of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) with disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs is associated with lower levels of joint destruction and a higher chance of achieving remission.1,–,5 Having symptoms for >12 weeks at treatment initiation is a strong and independent risk factor for a persistent disease course.1 3,–,5 These observations have led to the concept of the 'window of opportunity'.2 This hypothesis presumes that underlying disease processes are not fully matured in the very early stage of arthritis, making modulation more successful. However, putative biological mechanisms remain unexplored.

Anti-citrullinated protein antibodies (ACPA) precede arthritis development and are associated with a severe disease course.6 We hypothesised that the ACPA response broadens within the very early phase of RA and in doing so limits the 'window of opportunity'. Therefore, it was examined whether patients who were assessed within 12 weeks of symptom onset had a less broadened ACPA response than patients with longer symptom duration.

Three hundred and nine ACPA-positive patients (defined by anti-CCP2 positivity) fulfilling the 1987 ACR criteria for …


Previous studies have shown that adults who stutter produce smaller corrective motor responses to compensate for unexpected auditory perturbations in comparison to adults who do not stutter, suggesting that stuttering may be associated with deficits in integration of auditory feedback for online speech monitoring. In this study, we examined whether stuttering is also associated with deficiencies in integrating and using discrepancies between expected and received auditory feedback to adaptively update motor programs for accurate speech production. Using a sensorimotor adaptation paradigm, we measured adaptive speech responses to auditory formant frequency perturbations in adults and children who stutter and their matched nonstuttering controls. We found that the magnitude of the speech adaptive response for children who stutter did not differ from that of fluent children. However, the adaptation magnitude of adults who stutter in response to auditory perturbation was significantly smaller than the adaptation magnitude of adults who do not stutter. Together these results indicate that stuttering is associated with deficits in integrating discrepancies between predicted and received auditory feedback to calibrate the speech production system in adults but not children. This auditory-motor integration deficit thus appears to be a compensatory effect that develops over years of stuttering.


class="Abstract">This paper proposes an improved Genetic Algorithms (GA) based sparse multipath channels estimation technique with Superimposed Training (ST) sequences. A non-random and periodic training sequence is proposed to be added arithmetically on the information sequence for energy efficient channel estimation within the future generation of wireless receivers. This eliminates the need of separate overhead time/frequency slots for training sequence. The results of the proposed technique are compared with the techniques in the existing literature -the notable first order statistics based channel estimation technique with ST. The normalized channel mean-square error (NCMSE) and bit-error-rate (BER) are chosen as performance measures for the simulation based analysis. It is established that the proposed technique performs better in terms of the accuracy of estimated channel; subsequently the quality of service (QoS), while retrieving information sequence at the receiver. With respect to its comparable counterpart, the proposed GA based scheme delivers an improvement of about 1dB in NCMSE at 12 dB SNR and a gain of about 2 dB in SNR at 10 -1 BER, for the population size set at twice the length of channel. It is also demonstrated that, this achievement in performance improvement can further be enhanced at the cost of computational power by increasing the population size. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eee.22.1.14114


This paper tries to design the proper framework for highlighting the importance of globalization and the meaning of it being the engine for economic growth. Globalization and economic growth go hand in hand and are empowered by the Solow's model influence, which is translated as sustainable economic development, which also could be accelerated by using the Total Factors Productivity synergic relation. The competitive advantage of globalization is growth sustained and accelerated by factors that are empowered by the need to evolve of corporations and spread towards the entire global market, these being the part emphasized in the second part of this paper and also that wants to complementary complete globalization's big picture.


This paper uses an analysis of a comprehensive 20-year data base on the video entertainment product space in a period of massive public policy change (roughly 1985-2005) to show that vertical integration and the elimination of source diversity (competition from independent producers) has had a negative impact on product quality and diversity.Business practices of vertically integrated media companies indicate a strong incentive to run, rerun, repurpose, repackage and recycle owned content, even when it is inferior or attracts a smaller audience because it is more profitable than producing new content or purchasing content from unaffiliated entities, and a close look at the timing and nature of performance declines suggests that vertical integration associated with declining quality and audiences.Although the Internet presents an alternative distribution mechanism, the vigorous effort to vertically integrate distribution and content production, as well as the efforts of traditional media content companies to rerun content on the Internet, suggests that traditional media/communications firms may successfully capture the new technologies, as they have done in the past. Understanding how recent deregulatory policies fostered concentration and failed to deconcentrate the video product space by purportedly introducing more competition (including the introduction of new technologies like cable and satellite and broad deregulatory policy changes), provides a cautionary note in a chorus of optimistic projections.The database includes measures of quantity, quality, source and outlet of product for television and movies, TV: prime time programming, first fun syndications, ratings and Emmys. Movies: domestic and foreign theatrical box office, home video sales and rentals, Oscars andGolden Globe awards.At the intersection of the two, analysis of over 1000 made-for-TV movies. From 1990 to 1996 Congress and the Federal Communications Commission shifted policy toward broadcast TV and cable in sharply opposite directions. Vertical and horizontal restraints on broadcast were eased with the elimination of the Financial and Syndication rules, the granting of must carry/retransmission rights, the lifting of the ban on multiple station ownership in the largest and most important media markets, and an increase in the allowed national reach of (O&O) stations.In contrast, vertical restraints and horizontal limit were imposed on cable including program access rules, limitations on the percentage of programming that could be owned and horizontal limit on national reach. These policies radically altered the market structure of the video entertainment product space in distinct stages. Independent producers, who were uniquely successful in bringing diverse and innovative content to TV, were excluded from the dial, with unaffiliated production of scripted content all but disappearing from both prime time and first run syndication.Competition from satellite (triggered by the cable program access rules) stimulated cable to expand its capacity, which it could not fill (in part because of the vertical restraint on ownership), so studios and broadcasters (armed with must carry-retrans rights) rushed in to expand their output.Ultimately, the end of Fin-Syn made it possible and rational for broadcasters and movies studios to merge and every major studio became vertically integrated with a major broadcaster or large multiple system operator. Five vertically integrated entities (NBC/GE/Universal, ABC/Disney, CBS/Viacom/Paramount, Fox, Time Warner) came to dominate both TV and Movies, where two dozen had been. The market shares and purchasing practices of these vertically integrated video entities indicate a tight oligopoly. Every measure of output – prime time and syndicated programming, programming and writing budgets, cable carriage TV viewership, theatrical box office, and home video – indicates that four entities control over 60 percent of the market (the big five account for 75 to 80 percent).Qualitative and quantitative analyses of product acquisition practices show that this dominance rests on a clear pattern of self-dealing and favoritism, first for affiliated content and second, where self-supply is insufficient, for product from other members of the oligopoly.The exercise of monopsony power has squeezed prices paid for cable movie content to a bare minimum and driven movie product into narrowly defined niches, where the vertically integrated entities are the only outlets available. Independents has produced disproportionately higher quality with greater diversity of content in prime time, but the change in policy resulted in their elimination from these highly valued TV time slots and audiences declined. The negative effects of the elimination of competition have outweighed the hoped for positive effects (synergies and efficiency gains) of vertical integration, yet policymakers are being pressured to extend the failed policies to the new distribution platform.


Increased lipid oxidation is generally observed in subjects with obesity and diabetes and has been suggested to be responsible for the insulin resistance associated with these conditions. We measured, by continuous indirect calorimetry, lipid and glucose oxidation and nonoxidative glucose disposal in 82 obese subjects during a 100-g oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) and in 26 during a euglycemic insulin (40 mU · min−1 · m−2) clamp. The obese subjects were subdivided into those with normal glucose tolerance (group A), those with impaired glucose tolerance (group B), and those with overt diabetes (group C). Forty-five healthy nonobese subjects were subdivided into a young and an older control group, which were age-matched to the nondiabetic obese (groups A and B) and diabetic obese (group C) subjects, respectively. In the postabsorptive state, as well as in response to insulin stimulation (both OGTT and insulin clamp), lipid oxidation was significantly increased in all three obese groups in comparison with either young or older controls. Basal glucose oxidation was significantly decreased in obese nondiabetic and obese glucose— intolerant subjects (groups A and B) compared with age-matched controls. During the OGTT and during the insulin clamp, insulin-stimulated glucose oxidation was decreased in all three obese groups. In contrast, nonoxidative glucose disposal was markedly inhibited in nondiabetic and diabetic obese patients during the euglycemic insulin clamp but not during the OGTT. After glucose ingestion, nonoxidative glucose uptake was normal in nondiabetic obese and glucoseintolerant obese subjects and decreased in diabetic obese subjects. Statistical analysis revealed that lipid and glucose oxidation were strongly and inversely related in the basal state, during euglycemic insulin clamp, and during OGTT. The negative correlation between lipid oxidation and nonoxidative glucose uptake, although significant, was much weaker. Fasting and post-OGTT hyperglycemia were the strongest (negative) correlates of nonoxidative glucose disposal in both single and multiple regresson models. We conclude that 7) reduced glucose oxidation and reduced nonoxidative glucose disposal partake of the insulin resistance of nondiabetic obese and diabetic obese individuals; 2) hyperglycemia provides a compensatory mechanism for the defect in nonoxidative glucose disposal in nondiabetic obese subjects; however, this compensation is characteristically lost when overt diabetes ensues; and 3) increased lipid oxidation may contribute, in part, to the defects in glucose oxidation and nonoxidative glucose uptake in obesity.


Important aspects of the Andean foreland basin in Argentina remain poorly constrained, such as the effect of deformation on deposition, in which foreland basin depozones Cenozoic sedimentary units were deposited, how sediment sources and drainages evolved in response to tectonics, and the thickness of sediment accumulation. Zircon U‐Pb geochronological data from Eocene–Pliocene sedimentary strata in the Eastern Cordillera of northwestern Argentina (Pucará–Angastaco and La Viña areas) provide an Eocene (ca. 38 Ma) maximum depositional age for the Quebrada de los Colorados Formation. Sedimentological and provenance data reveal a basin history that is best explained within the context of an evolving foreland basin system affected by inherited palaeotopography. The Quebrada de los Colorados Formation represents deposition in the distal to proximal foredeep depozone. Development of an angular unconformity at ca. 14 Ma and the coarse‐grained, proximal character of the overlying Angastaco Formation (lower to upper Miocene) suggest deposition in a wedge‐top depozone. Axial drainage during deposition of the Palo Pintado Formation (upper Miocene) suggests a fluvial‐lacustrine intramontane setting. By ca. 4 Ma, during deposition of the San Felipe Formation, the Angastaco area had become structurally isolated by the uplift of the Sierra de los Colorados Range to the east. Overall, the Eastern Cordillera sedimentary record is consistent with a continuous foreland basin system that migrated through the region from late Eocene through middle Miocene time. By middle Miocene time, the region lay within the topographically complex wedge‐top depozone, influenced by thick‐skinned deformation and re‐activation of Cretaceous rift structures. The association of the Eocene Quebrada del los Colorados Formation with a foredeep depozone implies that more distal foreland deposits should be represented by pre‐Eocene strata (Santa Barbara Subgroup) within the region.


Christopher Isherwood's engagement with Vedanta falls outside the frame of conventional readings, confronting the assumption that religion and homosexuality are mutually exclusive. Isherwood was a committed follower of Vedanta's nondualistic philosophy (advaita), which provided a nonjudgmental basis for his spiritual aspirations. This approach was crucial for Isherwood since his acceptance of a spiritual ideal and practice was critically dependent upon how his homosexuality was accepted. Pivotal in Isherwood's life was his relationship with Swami Prabhavananda, whose influence was as profound as that of E.M. Forster. Isherwood produced a considerable output of religious writings in his career, yet he has been neglected as a religious writer. This paper interrogates colonialist condescension towards Isherwood as a "Hindu," typically opposing Western "reason" against Hindu "superstition." The paper concludes by suggesting that Isherwood's interpretation of Ramakrishna was not based upon a homosexualist hermeneutic, but rather one based on the freedom found in Guru Bhakti.


The problem of learning an expert's unknown reward function using a limited number of demonstrations recorded from the expert's behavior is investigated in the area of inverse reinforcement learning (IRL). To gain traction in this challenging and underconstrained problem, IRL methods predominantly represent the reward function of the expert as a linear combination of known features. Most of the existing IRL algorithms either assume the availability of a transition function or provide a complex and inefficient approach to learn it. In this paper, we present a model-free approach to IRL, which casts IRL in the maximum likelihood framework. We present modifications of the model-free Q-learning that replace its maximization to allow computing the gradient of the Q-function. We use gradient ascent to update the feature weights to maximize the likelihood of expert's trajectories. We demonstrate on two problem domains that our approach improves the likelihood compared to previous methods.


The concept of pay for performance for public school teachers is growing in popularity and use, and it has resurged to once again occupy a central role in education policy. Performance Incentives: Their Growing Impact on American K-12 Education offers the most up-to-date and complete analysis of this promising --yet still controversial --policy innovation. Performance Incentives brings together an interdisciplinary team of experts, providing an unprecedented discussion and analysis of the pay-for-performance debate by: Identifying the potential strengths and weaknesses of tying pay to student outcomes; Comparing different strategies for measuring teacher accomplishments; Addressing key conceptual and implemen - tation issues; Describing what teachers themselves think of merit pay; Examining recent examples in Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas; Studying the overall impact on student achievement.


Abstract Interference from crested wheatgrass (Agropyron cristatum [L.] Gaertn.) seedlings is considered a major obstacle to native species establishment in rangeland ecosystems; however, estimates of interference at variable seedling densities have not been defined fully. We conducted greenhouse experiments using an addition-series design to characterize interference between crested wheatgrass and four key native species. Crested wheatgrass strongly interfered with the aboveground growth of Wyoming big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata Nutt. subsp. wyomingensis Beetle & Young), rubber rabbitbrush (Ericameria nauseosa [Pall. ex Pursh] G. L. Nesom & Baird subsp. consimilis [Greene] G. L. Nesom & Baird), and to a lesser extent with bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoroegneria spicata [Pursh] A. Löve). Alternatively, bottlebrush squirreltail (Elymus elymoides [Raf.] Swezey subsp. californicus [J. G. Sm.] Barkworth) and crested wheatgrass had similar effects on each other's growth, and interference ratios were near 1.0. Results indicate that the native grasses more readily establish in synchrony with crested wheatgrass than these native shrubs, but that once established, the native shrubs are more likely to coexist and persist with crested wheatgrass because of high niche differentiation (e.g., not limited by the same resource). Results also suggest that developing strategies to minimize interference from crested wheatgrass seedlings emerging from seed banks will enhance the establishment of native species seeded into crested wheatgrass–dominated communities.


BACKGROUND
Ovarian cancer is frequently lethal despite aggressive multimodal therapy, and new therapies are therefore needed. Retinoids are potential candidate drugs: they prevent the development of ovarian carcinoma and enhance the efficacy of cytotoxic drugs in ovarian cancer cells. At present, little is known about the retinoid receptor expression in ovarian cancer.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
The retinoid receptors comprise two classes, retinoic acid receptors (RARs) and retinoid X receptors (RXRs), each with three subclasses, alpha, beta and gamma. We investigated the expression of the subtypes RARalpha, RARgamma, RXRalpha and RXRbeta by immunohistochemistry in ovarian cancers of 80 patients, and assessed their prognostic significance. In addition, we quantified the expression of retinoid receptor mRNA using real-time PCR and correlated the results with clinical characteristics.

RESULTS
RARalpha and RXRbeta were highly expressed in a majority of ovarian cancers, particularly in advanced stages. High expression of RARalpha was an independent negative prognostic factor of survival in addition to FIGO stage, age and p53 accumulation. The mRNA expression of retinoid receptors did not correlate with clinical properties of the tumors.

CONCLUSIONS
Retinoic acid receptors are frequently and strongly expressed in epithelial ovarian cancer and may be indicators of an adverse prognosis. This study provides the molecular basis for the therapeutic use of retinoids in ovarian cancer.


Abstract In the competitive environment in which colleges and universities operate, many are utilizing marketing strategies to attract students and distinguish themselves from other institutions. One of the primary tools for student recruitment and image development is the viewbook or brochure which provides a first look at institutions. The purpose of this study was to systematically examine the content and components of such publications. The results also indicate the type of image that colleges and universities are seeking to portray. Institutions of higher education will be able to compare their publication with these findings and gain guidance for making improvements. "During the 1980s, the number of graduating high school seniors declined by 10 percent" (Dunn 1994). This was the so-called "baby bust" and it was the impetus for institutions of higher education to consider the design and implementation of a marketing strategy. America's colleges and universities had been forced by the shrinking numbers of traditional students and state funds to undertake a more active recruitment process. Admissions professionals no longer were performing the role of gatekeeper; they were transformed into market analysts, enrollment specialists, and planners. "Colleges and universities are relying increasingly on marketing innovations to solve the problem of too many schools and not enough incoming students" (Hebel 1993). Now, even though the "echo boom" (children of "baby boomers") began entering colleges and universities in 1995, institutions of higher education have not diminished marketing -related activities. Traditionally, when students applied to college the recruitment process began. Today, the application process is not the first step. Institutions are often doing research first, identifying desirable students, and then aggressively persuading those students that an institution is the best choice for meeting their needs and wants. One important aspect of a marketing mindset is each school is forced to clarify its mission as an institution and to identify whom it wants to serve (Kotler and Fox 1985). Many colleges and universities are compelled to carry out an admissions strategy plan because there are too few applicants or they would like to increase the quality of applicants (Hoffman 1997). In the past, institutions of higher education chose to focus on their name and believed they did not compete for students. Because educational institutions are in competition for resources, they must use existing assets to greatest advantage. Some of these assets include: program quality, program uniqueness, price, convenience, reputation, etc. (Kotler and Fox 1985). "In today's competitive drive to attract the most talented students, colleges must use a variety of assets as direct advertising tools. One of the most salable and viable assets to collegiate marketing strategy is the school's image" (Timberlake 1990). It is imperative for colleges and universities to distinguish themselves from others and to understand their strengths and weaknesses. They are learning how to capitalize on strengths and minimize weaknesses. Every educational institution holds a "position" in the minds of those who have seen or know about the institution. A market position is how an institution is perceived in the mind of the public relative to competition. It is important to position an institution correctly in the market. Research will reveal an institution's current position, and it may then be determined if a change is necessary. Determining the desired position leads to a focus on how to create that image in the minds of consumers (students), parents, legislators, alums, and the public at large. As the "echo boom" entered college and university classrooms in 1995, it has become apparent that this generation of students is characterized by greater diversity, racially and ethnically, and will provide a challenge to educational marketers. …


Social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks (Merriam-Webster, 2013). Social media marketing refers to the process of gaining website traffic or attention through social media sites (Evans, 2008). In today's society, social media refers mainly to websites including (but not limited to) Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. The most popular and fastest growing of these social media venues is Twitter. Twitter was founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, and Biz Stone. Since 2006, almost 200 million users across the globe have joined the site; over 140 million tweets are "tweeted" daily (Picard, 2011). Twitter took advantage of a niche in the market, allowing 140 characters to express an idea or emotion. Twitter has changed the media world as a news source, tweeting real-time information from stories that arise (Picard, 2011). In the lodging industry, methods of social media to promote hotels are becoming more popular. Twitter, in particular, has emerged as a "moment of truth" for a hotel, demonstrating how instantly and tactfully hotels react to the thoughts and opinions of former, current, and potential guests. Studies have also suggested that "online social life mirrors offline relationships in many ways" (Moore, p. 440). Therefore, Twitter accounts should be viewed as an extension of the hospitality business, in particular lodging, echoing the relationship a customer would feel upon arrival to the hotel. Hotel marketing teams have reached "great success by driving demand to hotels through increased online advertising and web optimization" (Chipkin, 2013). This has increased overall customer views of the hotel without affecting the rate strategy of the property or brand. Twitter presence could, potentially, help a patron decide between two hotels, "If a promotion, experience or package is unique, it definitely works to generate bookings and helps put you first in a consumer's mind when they are choosing between two or three hotels," says Rachel Harrison of Hyatt Andaz (Chipkin, 2013). Hotel companies worldwide are investing in their social media networks. Certain hotels (i.e. W Barcelona) are even hiring social media and marketing managers whose responsibilities include instant Twitter feedback (Appendix 1). The purpose behind this investment is to maximize these social media accounts, creating feedback from all potential guests, allowing them to react to both positive and negative word of mouth. Social media managers have recently encountered an opportunity; Generation Y is becoming a target demographic. As Generation Y enters the workforce and begins a career, the exposure to hotel brands and types will increase. Luxury hotel stays are becoming more financially reachable to these Generation Y guests because of their career advancements (Fields, 2013). This study will serve to evaluate the added benefits from the adoption of social media channels, particularly Twitter.


PART I

An understanding of the possible influence of supersaturated liquids upon the production and refining of petroleum is of industrial interest. Only limited information is available as to the influence of environment upon the duration of supersaturation for pure hydrocarbons and their mixtures.

A number of measurements were made of the influence of strain upon the behavior of four mixtures of methane and n-decane at temperatures ranging from 70 [degrees] to 390[degrees] F. The mixtures exhibited equilibrium bubble-point pressures between 54 and 1048 pounds per square inch. The local strain was introduced by raising the temperature of a portion of the system above that of the remainder.

The formation of bubbles in such systems appears to be randomly distributed in time and its rate is nearly directly proportional to the volume of the phase. The results indicate markedly greater tendency for the persistence of supersaturation than obtained in a pure hydrocarbon but the probability of formation of a bubble under a given condition of strain decreased with an increase in mole fraction methane.

PART II

An understanding of the influence of volume and surface effects upon the duration of supersaturation in hydrocarbon liquids is necessary to describe the behavior of liquids in a strained state. A very limited amount of information is available on the influence of surface and volume upon supersaturation in pure hydrocarbons.

Preliminary information in this field was obtained using a mixture of methane and n-decane containing 0.2290 mole fraction methane at 220[degrees] F. The mixture exhibited an equilibrium bubble-point pressure at 220[degrees] F. of 949 pounds per square inch. These measurements were made in equipment in which the strain was introduced by raising the temperature of a portion of the system above that of the remainder.

The volume and surface area of the liquid phase under strain were varied by the introduction of silica crystals. The degree of supersaturation which may be realized in such systems was found to be nearly directly proportional to the volume of the phase. The data were insufficient in number to establish the effect of surface area on bubble formation.


We numerically simulate the performance of the ultrasimple frequency-resolved-optical-gating (FROG) technique, GRENOUILLE, for measuring ultrashort laser pulses. While simple in practice, GRENOUILLE has many theoretical subtleties because it involves the second-harmonic generation of relatively tightly focused and broadband pulses. In addition, these processes occur in a thick crystal, in which the phase-matching bandwidth is deliberately made narrow compared to the pulse bandwidth. In these simulations, we include all sum-frequency-generation processes, both collinear and noncollinear. We also include dispersion using the Sellmeier equation for the crystal BBO. Working in the frequency domain, we compute the GRENOUILLE trace for practical—and impractical—examples and show that accurate measurements are easily obtained for properly designed devices.


This paper proposes a new type of media handover system with an IrDA pointer that moves the media being used on a video phone conversation from one device to another. This system introduces a user's intuitive operation, i.e., just pushing a button of the IrDA pointer toward the target device, to execute a media handover. User's intuitive operations do not bother the user. In addition, since user specifies a device explicitly, it is possible to correctly select the device that the user really wants to use. As a consequence, this system provides the user with a precise and stress-free media handover service.


Document summarization provides an instrument for faster understanding the collection of text documents and has a number of real life applications. Semantic similarity and clustering can be utilized efficiently for generating effective summary of large text collections. Summarizing large volume of text is a challenging and time consuming problem particularly while considering the semantic similarity computation in summarization process. Summarization of text collection involves intensive text processing and computations to generate the summary. MapReduce is proven state of art technology for handling Big Data. In this paper, a novel framework based on MapReduce technology is proposed for summarizing large text collection. The proposed technique is designed using semantic similarity based clustering and topic modeling using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) for summarizing the large text collection over MapReduce framework. The summarization task is performed in four stages and provides a modular implementation of multiple documents summarization. The presented technique is evaluated in terms of scalability and various text summarization parameters namely, compression ratio, retention ratio, ROUGE and Pyramid score are also measured. The advantages of MapReduce framework are clearly visible from the Experiments and it is also demonstrated that MapReduce provides a faster implementation of summarizing large text collections and is a powerful tool in Big Text Data analysis.


The humanization has been increasing in the assistance for labor and delivery with emphasis on scientific legitimacy and rights of women. However, the process of humanization in health care should be broadly placed in the formation of health professionals under the penalty of not being materialized if an adhesion and effective participation by the young professionals do not happen. We conducted a qualitative study, exploratory and descriptive, with the objective of verifying the conception of humanized childbirth from the perspective of medical students. The data obtained through personal interviews were submitted to content analysis and grouped by themes, where we could identify 18 context units that generated 41 units of records from which emerged two categories and five subcategories: (1) humanization related to the inclusion of the mother (reception and companion) and (2) humanization related to the appropriate assistance (technology of care, childbirth as physiological event, multidisciplinary team). This study showed the association, by the medical students, of humanistic aspects and biomedical aspects of childbirth care, confirming the process of change that we are experiencing in medical education.


Proprietary thin asphalt surfacing systems were first introduced into the United Kingdom in 1991, since when they have taken a growing proportion of the market. The first applications of these products took place ten years ago and sites with these surfacings will increasingly need replacing, making the old material available for recycling. The need to recycle thin surfacing systems as part of efforts to promote sustainability within road construction is more critical than with many other generic surfacing materials because of the quantity of relatively scarce aggregates with high skid-resistance properties within the layer. Laboratory investigations of have been undertaken and trial sites have been successfully constructed. The trials were on the access road to Renishaw asphalt plant near Sheffield, and on the HA road network at the A1(M) Hatfield and A405 Bricket Wood, including the use of polymer modified binders (PMBs) and up to 30% recycled asphalt (RA) in the mixed asphalt. These trial sites were assessed for visual condition, density and texture depth and material sampled from them for determination of grading, recovered binder and resistance to permanent deformation. The findings demonstrate that 10% RA can be easily added to new materials without affecting grading. As the proportion of RA increases up to 30%, greater care needs to be taken on assessing grading compatibility and how to treat the residual binder present in the RA as a proportion of the 'active' binder content in the recycled surface course layer. To-date all of the trials are performing well, although some problems occurred during construction which were caused by factors other than the inclusion of RA. (A)


The central tension in capitalist democracy comes from the clash between votes and money. This conflict is at its most direct when money is seen to influence public policy at the expense of voters. According to the theory of the political market, political contributions by business are investments in favourable policy outcomes. The question of whether there is a political market has been one of the most enduring sources of controversy in the history of capitalist democracy across the globe. Moreover, business payments to politicians have been studied intensively by one influential group of political scientists: the specialists on the United States. Unfortunately, this subject has not presented an opportunity for political science to make an important contribution to the debate on a matter of enormous public concern. These political scientists have a very plausible theory but have not been able muster much direct support for the theory. They need a new theory or new evidence. I argue that the theory is good and that it is time to look for new evidence beyond the United States.


Alpha-synuclein is implicated in several neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson's disease and multiple system atrophy, yet its functions remain obscure. When expressed in yeast, alpha-synuclein associated with the plasma membrane in a highly selective manner, before forming cytoplasmic inclusions through a concentration-dependent, nucleated process. Alpha-synuclein inhibited phospholipase D, induced lipid droplet accumulation, and affected vesicle trafficking. This readily manipulable system provides an opportunity to dissect the molecular pathways underlying normal alpha-synuclein biology and the pathogenic consequences of its misfolding.


Abstract OBJECTIVES Options for paediatric aortic valve replacement (AVR) are limited if valve repair is not feasible. Results of paediatric Ross procedures are inferior to adult Ross results, and mechanical AVR imposes constant anticoagulation with the inherent risks. METHODS The study design was a prospective, multicentre follow-up of all paediatric patients receiving decellularized aortic homografts (DAHs) for AVR in 8 European centres. RESULTS A total of 106 children (77 boys) were operated (mean age 10.1 ± 4.8 years, DAH diameter 20.5 ± 3.8 mm). A total of 60 (57%) had undergone previous surgical interventions: 34 with 1, 15 with 2 and 11 with ≥3. There was one early death in a 12-year-old girl, who underwent her fourth aortic valve operation, due to intracerebral haemorrhage on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation after coronary reimplantation problems following 3-sinus reconstruction 1 year earlier. One 2-year-old patient died due to sepsis 2 months postoperatively with no evidence for endocarditis. In addition, a single pacemaker implantation was necessary and a 2.5-year-old girl underwent successful HTx due to chronic myocardial failure despite an intact DAH. After a mean follow-up of 3.30 ± 2.45 years, primary efficacy end points mean peak gradient (18.1 ± 20.9 mmHg) and regurgitation (mean 0.61 ± 0.63, grade 0–3) were very good. Freedom from death/explantation/endocarditis/bleeding/stroke at 5 years was 97.8 ± 1.6/85.0 ± 7.4/100/100/100% respectively. Calculated expected adverse events were lower for DAH compared to cryopreserved homograft patients (mean age 8.9 years), lower than in Ross patients (9.4 years) and in the same range as mechanical AVR (12.8 years). CONCLUSIONS Even though the overall number of paediatric DAH patients and the follow-up time span are still limited, our data suggest that DAHs may present a promising additional option for paediatric AVR.


ABSTRACT Accurate representation of fast ice in numerical models is important for realistic simulation of numerous sea-ice and ocean variables. In order to simulate seasonal and interannual variability of fast-ice extent, the mechanisms controlling fast-ice development need to be thoroughly understood. The objective of this paper is to investigate mechanisms contributing to the advance of fast-ice edge to its winter location in the south-eastern Laptev Sea. The study is based on time series of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery for winter 2007/08 and 2009/10. A detailed examination of SAR-based ice drift showed that several grounded ice features are formed offshore prior to fast-ice expansion. These features play a key role in offshore advance of the fast-ice edge and serve as stabilizing points for surrounding pack ice as it becomes landfast. Electromagnetic ice thickness measurements suggest that the grounded ice ridges over water depths of ca. 20 m water might be responsible for interannual variations in fast-ice edge position. Contrary to previous studies, we conclude that grounding is a key mechanism of fast-ice development in the south-eastern Laptev Sea.


Abdominoplasty was one of the first techniques described in literatura, and in some of his writings, Hippocrates mentioned the resection of skin and the apron-like abdominal flaps. The first standardization of this procedure was carried out by H.A. Kelly, who was a gynecologist, in 1890, but the procedure gained some popularity when Pitanguy published his report in 1967. With the advent of liposuction, they tried to replace abdominoplasty; however, in many cases, they yielded unreliable results. It was in the year 2000, with the advent of the pull down abdominal flap technique proposed by Avelar and then spread by Saldanha, surgeons significantly increased the indications for abdominoplasty. This was reflected in international statistics since abdominoplasty climbed from the 15th place in the 1990s to the 4th place in 2012. According to some publications, traditional abdominoplasty generally includes extensive dissection of upper abdominal flap all the way to the costal margin with a consequent decrease of blood flow of 50–70%. We present a technique with no flap undermining, including inbloc resection of premarked área from the umbillicus scar to the suprapubic area, dissecting the tissue with an instrument called Iconoclast, thus preserving blood flow, after hydrodissection with tumescent solution, which varies if the patient is under general anesthesia or sedation. It has been shown that simultaneous liposuction of flap and flanks in the conventional abdominoplasty technique increases the risk of necrosis and seromas, so in many cases it is contraindicated. Therefore, our technique allows us to perform the liposuction of the upper abdominal flanks and waistline without running any risks. In this technique umbilicus scar its recreated with the use of skin graft. Unlike conventional abdominoplasty techniques, the presence of previous abdominal wall scars is not a limitation. In the case of smokers patients, risks are reduced by keeping the blood flow of the upper flap constant. We do not recommend this technique for very thin patients, with multiple pregnancies and regularly an important rectus muscles diastasis where we indicate the abdominal wall.vertical plicature. © 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.


The long and complicated work history of women at Third World countries' national switchboard centrals is a crucial but largely overlooked aspect of the history of telecommunications and the feminist history of labour regimes. By focusing on the Turkish case between the 1950s and the 1980s, this article aims to unveil the authoritarian labour regimes that the telephone girls were exposed to in relation to the capitalist developmentalism, state-led cultural modernisation and nationalism policies of Third World countries. The archival and oral history research conducted with the female operators show that women at the centrals were expected to compensate for the deteriorated infrastructure, function as the surveillance apparatus of the state, and educate the male public to engage with modern and secular gender relations through their sacrificial and caring emotional work. Women have developed their own strategies of survival and struggle against this labour regime through their work practices and solidarity mechanisms.


The ultrastructure of the ascus apical apparatus, lateral ascus wall and ascospore wall of Ombrophila hemiamyloidea was studied with TEM. The apical apparatus is composed of a well-developed apical thickening that surrounds an apical chamber and is fully occupied by a broad annulus. This annulus initially consists of a homogeneous matrix, but, due to changes in ultrastructure and PA-TCH-SP reactivity, two annular subregions become distinguishable as the ascus matures. These features do not correlate with the hemiamyloid properties of the annulus in Lugol' s iodine solution, which imparts a distinct and homogeneous red colour to both of these subregions in mature asci. After dehiscence, the annulus is everted over an angle of about 90° . The mature ascospore wall is composed of an endospore covered by an epispore. The endospore is lined by an inner wall layer which is continuous with the septal walls. Comparison with ultrastructure of the ascus and ascospores of Ombrophila violacea , the type species of the genus Ombrophila, indicates that O. hemiamyloidea does not belong in this genus. The general morphology of the apical apparatus and the structure and reactivity of the annulus agree with the Pezicula ascus type. The results indicate that O. hemiamyloidea is more closely related to Pezicula and related genera of the family Dermateaceae than to the Vibrisseaceae or the Mollisiaceae as previously been suggested.


The study investigated 2 aspects of the accuracy (i.e., realism) of confidence judgments of persons age 60-93 years (N = 1,384) regarding their answers to general knowledge questions. These aspects are the level of confidence (calibration) in relation to the proportion of correct answers and the ability to discriminate between correct and incorrect answers by means of confidence judgments. No age differences were found for either of the 2 aspects. Gender differences were found for proportion of correct answers and confidence but not for the realism in the confidence judgments.


The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) was formed in post-apartheid South Africa. AMCU organises workers in the mining and construction sector. The importance and relevance of AMCU in democratic South Africa should not be de-emphasised, given the high levels of labour exploitation by mining companies. The mining sector is regarded as a crucial engine for economic growth and social development. AMCU, as the mining and construction labour movement, plays an important role in ensuring that its members are well represented, work in decent working conditions and are not exploited but are protected instead from the capitalist system in which the global economy operates. However, in the post-apartheid era, trade unions have not been forceful enough in advancing the interests of their members; instead they have been accused of being too close to employers and of having been co-opted by the new government. They are faced with the challenges of outsourcing, labour brokers and contracting-out of services by employers. Trust in trade unions has also decreased. This paper examines the emergence of AMCU and its rise in the mining sector.


Cortisol is a steroid hormone that regulates a wide range of vital signs throughout the body. However, current cortisol monitoring methods are inconvenient for everyday settings. Heart Rate (HR) and Heart Rate Variability (HRV) are easily collected biological parameters whose fluctuations highly correlate with cortisol, however, there does not exist a work attempting to estimate cortisol levels using these signals. In this paper, to the best of our knowledge, for the first time, we propose a machine learning-based salivary cortisol level estimation method using HR and HRV collected from pregnant women wearing an ECG chest strap. We first extract HR and HRV parameters from inter-beat-interval data derived from electrocardiogram signals. Then, we apply a feature selection algorithm to select the most contributing features and introduce a machine learning-based weak supervision method to address the unbalanced number of labels collected in real settings. Five machine learning algorithms are implemented to perform binary classification of baseline cortisol level (BL) versus two distinct cortisol levels (CL1 and CL2). One deep neural network is used to perform the classification across all three levels. As a pioneer study, we obtain prediction accuracy of up to 69% (BL VS. CL1), 71% (BL VS. CL2), and 60% (BL VS. CL1 VS. CL2).


The size and length of highway construction projects have always created a relatively large potential to cause soil erosion problems. In recent years, regulations and public interest have stimulated awareness of these problems and efforts to address them. New techniques and products have been developed to reduce erosion at its source or interrupt the transport of eroded soil. However, these developments have not heretofore been systematically and comprehensively tested and compared to one another in effectiveness. The Washington State Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration funded research to perform such tests in order to improve the cost-effectiveness of highway construction site erosion and pollution control. The research involved literature review, experimentation at the laboratory and field scales, and compilation of cost data. This manual was produced to implement the results of this research. The manual presents criteria and guidelines relative to a number of slope covering techniques, silt barriers, sedimentation ponds, and construction management techniques. These criteria and guidelines cover method selection (based on applicability and relative cost-effectiveness), design, installation, and maintenance.


ABSTRACT The Service-oriented Architecture paradigm has become a widely adopted solution for enterprise application landscapes. SOA promises system integration improvement, business and IT alignment, applications reusability, and fast adaptability to changing requirements. Yet, the advantages that SOA offers lead to its main management challenges. An SOA consists not only of services. Business requirements, processes, models, rules, policies, and different stakeholders play also an important role. To manage this increased complexity and heterogeneity in SOA landscapes enterprises apply architecture frameworks and governance approaches. An essential enabler for SOA Governance is the traceable documentation of the service-oriented application landscape. This paper shows how the TOGAF Architecture Development Method was applied in a large-scale SOA-based research project to support the governance proposes in the context of a service marketplace. Supplementary templates were defined to guide the description of services, data models, and architectural components. Some of the models and decisions proposed by TOGAF were shifted to other phases to fit the innovative nature of research projects.


The objective of the study is to identify the main narratives of Russian propaganda as impact-generating issues in the Ukrainian media space in terms of consciental war of Russia against Ukraine.

The methods of theoretical and methodological analysis and generalization substantiate how intensive and massive penetration of Russian narratives is implemented in the media segment of Russia and post-Soviet countries, in particular Ukraine. The narratives of the modern and histor-ical Russian propaganda are analyzed. It is shown that Russian propaganda consists of: 1) the veiled propaganda targeted at the population of Ukraine, which is close to the Ukrainian worldview in the system of coordinates, or which has an uncertain position (this type of propa-ganda aims to undermine the legitimacy and public support of the Ukrainian authorities); 2) The overt propaganda targeted mainly at the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine, which is in the system of coordinates close to the Russian worldview in the system of coordinates, or which has an uncertain position. Russian propaganda uses the narratives that manipulate using strong emo-tions. The narratives of the modern Russian propaganda – "Crimes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Minsk Arrangements" and "Ukraine – "Failed State" as well as the narratives of the historical Russian propaganda "All Ukrainian Nationalists were Fascists" and "Ukraine Forgot about the Victory over Nazism" are determined by the method of induction, deduction and generalization. These narratives are formed by virtual mythical facts, contain the concepts with powerful impact-generating potential and are the warfare by which it is implemented ma-nipulation of strong emotions and consciental impact on the recipients in order to shift their identities.


Developing a means of predicting tool life has been and continues to be a focus of much research effort. A common experience in attempting to replicate such efforts is an inability to achieve the levels of agreement between theory and practice of the original researcher or to extrapolate the work to different materials or cutting conditions to those originally used. This thesis sets out to examine why most equations or models when replicated do not give good agreements. One reason which was found is that researchers in wear prediction, their predictions are limited because they generally fail to properly identify the nature of wear mechanisms operative in their study. Also they fail to identify or recognise factors having a significant influence on wear such as bar diameter. Also in this research the similarities and differences between the two processes of single point turning and drilling are examined through a series of tests. A literature survey was undertaken in wear and wear prediction. As a result it was found that there was a paucity in information and research in the work of drilling as compared to the turning operation. This was extended to the lack of standards that exist for the drilling operation. One reason for this scarcity in information on drilling is due to the complexity of the drilling and the tool geometry of the drill. In the comparative drilling and turning tests performed in this work, the same tool material; HSS, and similar work material was used in order to eliminate the differences which may occur due to this factor. Results of the tests were evaluated and compared for the two operations and SEM photographs were taken for the chips produced. Specific test results were obtained for the cutting temperatures and forces of the tool. It was found that cutting temperature is influenced by various factors like tool geometry and cutting speed, and the temperature itself influenced the tool wear and wear mechanisms that act on the tool. It was found and proven that bar diameter influences the temperature, a factor not considered previously.


If a large scale disaster such as East Japan Great Earthquake is occurred, many resident areas would be isolated with others because of the disconnection of transportations, communications, and so on. In fact, in the earthquake, there were many areas in the coast side of northern Japan where is isolated because of the damages, blackouts, and congestions of network information systems. In case of such a large-scale disaster, it is considered that there are two important functions for Disaster Information Network System. One is to keep connectivity even if the network condition is bad. Thus, significant information such as rescue and evacuation could be transmitted between disaster areas and disaster headquarter. Another is to reactivate network connections quickly inside of a disaster area. Just after earthquake in a disaster area, local disaster information such as evacuation shelter, food supply, and local damage is tend be important. Therefore, in order to provide local disaster information, network connection within a resident area should be reactivated as fast as possible even if it is isolated from other areas. In this paper, Never Die Network consisted of cognitive wireless networks and satellite system that we have proposed is introduced, and the evaluations are held in assumptions of rural areas such as the coast cities of Iwate Prefecture where heavily disaster by East Japan Great Earthquake. The results shows that the proposed system is quickly recovered than other traditional network systems such as wired, wireless, and cognitive wireless network systems, and it is considered to be useful for the isolation by a ultra large scale disaster.


Abstract. Planning sustainable use of land resources and environmental monitoring benefit from accurate and detailed forest information. The basis of accurate forest information is data on the spatial extent of forests. In Norway land resource maps have been carefully created by field visits and aerial image interpretation for over four decades with periodic updating. However, due to prioritization of agricultural and built-up areas, and high requirements with respect to the map accuracy, forest areas and outfields have not been frequently updated. Consequently, in some part of the country, the map has not been updated since its first creation in the 1960s. The Sentinel-2 satellite acquires images with high spatial and temporal resolution which provides opportunities for creating cloud-free mosaic images over areas that are often covered with clouds. Here, we combine object-based image analysis with machine learning methods in an automated framework to map forest area in Sentinel-2 mosaic images. The images are segmented using the eCogntion™ software. Training data are collected automatically from the existing land resource map and filtered using height and greenness information so that the training samples certainly represent their respective classes. Two machine learning algorithms, namely Random Forest (RF) and the Multilayer Perceptron Neural Network (MLP), are then trained and validated before mapping forest area. The effects of including and excluding some features on the classification accuracy is investigated. The results show that the method produces forest cover map at very high accuracy (up to 97%). The MLP performs better than the RF algorithm both in classification accuracy and in robustness against inclusion and exclusion of features.


Catholic Social Justice teaching is the body of doctrine developed by the Catholic Church on matters of poverty and wealth, economics, social organization and the role of the state. Its foundations are widely considered to have been laid by Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical letter Rerum Novarum, which advocated economic distributism and condemned both Capitalism and Socialism, although its roots can be traced to the writings of Catholic thinkers such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine of Hippo, and is also derived from concepts present in the Bible. Among the social issues addressed by the teachings is the place and relevance of work in human life. According to the teachings, Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of continuing participation in God's creation. If the dignity of work is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers must be respected-the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to the organization and joining of unions, to private property, and to economic initiative. How can these teachings be made relevant to the African context and Church? An attempt to answer this important
question is embedded in the dialogue between this body of doctrine and the African world view. Such a dialogue must consider the nature African thought systems and world-views as found in African Philosophy and more specifically the philosophies of Ubuntu and Communalism. This paper therefore discusses the responses of African Philosophy in contextualize the Catholic Social Teachings in Africa.


These are interesting times for exploration and development of hydrocarbons in Brazil. As is known around the world, hydrocarbon reserves over the last few years—let's say the last 10 years—have been vastly increasing in the most important basins of the country (Figure 1). This increase was accomplished by geophysical activity. To be specific, Brazil has 22 universities that offer degrees in geology and seven new universities with programs in geophysics. They are spread all over the country. Brazil also has dedicated centers for seismic processing and reservoir characterization, research projects ranging from rock physics interpretation to seismic modeling, and integration of disciplines (primarily seismic and potential fields methods) for basin exploration. In this special section, our idea was to integrate as many disciplines and basins as possible in order to show the variety of topics and problems involved in E&P Brazilian projects.


The aim of my thesis is to make a theoretical model of data obtained from liquid-phase exfoliation of graphene. The production of graphene in the liquid phase exfoliation is a cost efficient method One part of this work is devotedto learn the method of production of graphene by the shear mixing technique from the graphite and to estimate some important parameters which are crucial for the process. Other part of my work is based on studying the liquid-phase exfoliation mechanism of graphene through ultrasonication technique. This method is time consuming as compared to shearmixing.


The increasing complexity of software is incessant, this phenomenon is even more accentuated when temporal aspects are introduced, hence the need for rigorous verification methods. The main purpose of this paper is to propose a quantitative verification approach based on model checking. Their properties are expressed in TCTL (Timed Computation Tree Logic) on real-time systems. The system behavior is expressed by temporal labeled systems; namely Durational Action Timed Automata model (DATA* model). This model supports the expression of the parallel behavior, the temporal and structural non-atomicity of actions and urgency.


F-actin filaments can be induced to form by either of two pathways, but the elaborate cytoskeletal rearrangements seen in live cells imply that these mechanisms must somehow be coordinated. Now, Carnahan and Gould (page 851) provide the first evidence that a single, highly conserved protein links these two pathways during cytokinesis.

Figure

Cells lacking Cdc15p do not make a medial actin ring.

Previous work has shown that both the Arp2/3 complex and the formin family of proteins can induce F-actin nucleation, the rate-limiting step in filament formation. The authors show that in the yeast Schizosacchromyces pombe, the protein Cdc15p interacts directly with both the formin Cdc12p and an Arp2/3 complex regulator. Both Cdc12p and the Arp2/3 complex are essential for forming the cytokinetic actomyosin ring, a structure required for cell cleavage. The Cdc15p–Cdc12p complex appears in a medial structure in cells before ring formation, and Cdc15p is also required for the medial localization of Arp2/3 complex regulators. Cdc15p is highly phosphorylated in interphase, but becomes dephosphorylated early in mitosis.

The authors propose that dephosphorylation of Cdc15p allows it to associate with Cdc12p and initiate formation of a primary F-actin ring during metaphase. Arp2/3 could then join the complex, driving the maturation of the ring in late anaphase. In interphase, Cdc15p is distributed in a pattern very similar to that of actin patches, raising the possibility that it also coordinates cytoskeletal rearrangements at other times in the cell cycle.

As Cdc15p is the founding member of a highly conserved family of proteins, similar mechanisms are likely to be at work in many types of eukaryotic cells. Cdc15p may simply be a scaffold that brings Cdc12p and Arp2/3 together, or it could also have a catalytic function. ▪


OBJECTIVE: To describe mothers' exclusive breastfeeding intentions and whether Baby-Friendly hospital practices are associated with achieving these intentions. METHODS: In the 2005–2007 Infant Feeding Practices Study II, women completed a prenatal questionnaire and approximately monthly questionnaires through 12 months. Mothers met their prenatal exclusive breastfeeding intention if their duration after the hospital stay (excluding hospital supplementation) equaled or exceeded their intention. Primary predictor variables included 6 Baby-Friendly hospital practices: breastfeeding within 1 hour of birth, giving only breast milk, rooming in, breastfeeding on demand, no pacifiers, and information on breastfeeding support. RESULTS: Among women who prenatally intended to exclusively breastfeed (n = 1457), more than 85% intended to do so for 3 months or more; however, only 32.4% of mothers achieved their intended exclusive breastfeeding duration. Mothers who were married and multiparous were more likely to achieve their exclusive breastfeeding intention, whereas mothers who were obese, smoked, or had longer intended exclusive breastfeeding duration were less likely to meet their intention. Beginning breastfeeding within 1 hour of birth and not being given supplemental feedings or pacifiers were associated with achieving exclusive breastfeeding intention. After adjustment for all other hospital practices, only not receiving supplemental feedings remained significant (adjusted odds ratio = 2.3, 95% confidence interval = 1.8, 3.1). CONCLUSIONS: Two-thirds of mothers who intend to exclusively breastfeed are not meeting their intended duration. Increased Baby-Friendly hospital practices, particularly giving only breast milk in the hospital, may help more mothers achieve their exclusive breastfeeding intentions.


Book description: Semantic theory in linguistics cannot retain its traditional purity, free of pragmatic contextual considerations. Agreement with the preceding claim, generally shared by this volume's contributors, provides the setting for a presentation of various provocative approaches toward a precise definition of pragmatics along with a reconciliation of pragmatics with semantics.

Here is a collection of leading-edge work that examines the semantics/pragmatics dispute in terms of phenomena such as indexicals, proper names, conventional and conversational implicatures, procedural meaning, and semantic underdetermination. Examples show how these phenomena reach from the linguistic realm to the fields of psychology, philosophy, literature, and anthropology.


Abstract Because of the current need for new landfill sites in Ankara, the suitability of Ankara Clay as a liner material for landfill sites was investigated. A mineralogical and geotechnical databasewas created by compiling the results of previous tests by the present authors aswell as those of tests performed in the present study. The mineralogical properties of the samples were investigated by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and methylene blue adsorption. The cation exchange capacities (CEC) of the samples vary from 12 to 35 meq/100 g soil and the dominant clay minerals are illite, smectite and kaolinite. The geotechnical properties of the Ankara Clay samples that were assessed included specific gravity, the Atterberg limits ( plastic limit, liquid limit, plasticity index), particle-size distribution, compaction properties (i.e. maximum dry density and optimum water content) and hydraulic conductivity. Because the hydraulic conductivity of the samples was lower than the acceptable limit of 1 × 10−9 m/s, it follows that, from a geotechnical perspective, Ankara Clay is a suitable material for use as a compacted clay landfill liner. The relationships between the mineralogical and geotechnical parameters that were investigated by regression analysis indicated that the hydraulic conductivity of the compacted soil samples decreased with increasing plasticity index, clay content, CEC, smectite content, smectite to illite ratio and decreasing illite content. According to the specifications for field construction of compacted clay liners, Ankara Clay is suitable for compaction in the field.


Administrative agencies have long proceeded on the assumption that individuals respond to regulations in ways that are consistent with traditional rational actor theory, but that is beginning to change. Agencies are now relying on behavioral economics to develop regulations that account for responses that depart from common sense and common wisdom, reflecting predictable cognitive anomalies. Furthermore, political officials have now called for behavioral economics to play an explicit role in White House review of agency regulations. This is a significant development for the regulatory process, yet our understanding of how behavioral insights should alter regulatory analysis is incomplete. To account for behavioral anomalies, regulators will need to draw on behavioral and social science insights beyond behavioral economics, and they will need an analytic framework to ensure that regulatory decisions reflect a comprehensive examination of the numerous, seemingly haphazard behavioral insights. Although behavioral research has demonstrated the limits of rational action, it does not provide a framework for considering extra-rational action. Nor have legal scholars developed such a framework, despite excellent theoretical work in the area. In this Article, we take an initial step. We provide a framework to facilitate agency consideration of extra-rational action and extend that framework to include a lesson from behavioral research that academics have noted but not adequately explored: that individuals are concerned with social outcomes (e.g., social status or inclusion) as well as monetary outcomes (e.g., wealth) and that they seek to maximize utility in both rational and extra-rational ways. After sketching our framework, we offer concrete applications in the energy use context. Our framework does not resolve all issues that may arise in the behavioral era, but it provides a means to move forward.


A novel mathematical model is introduced that allows solving real-life scheduling problems in complex multi-stage machine environment with (i) non-triangular sequence-dependent setup times and (ii) shifting production bottlenecks, both of which are important aspects appearing in varying manufacturing industries. The primary goal is to minimise the tardiness of customer orders, which may consist of multiple production orders each in turn composed of several batches. A secondary objective is to maximise the production capacity utilization as measured by the makespan. The model is elaborated for general animal-feed plants which have to deal with the particular production scheduling problem on a daily basis. Dispatching rules are introduced to enhance the optimization progress. Numerical experiments show that optimising the model leads to schedules that meet the due dates. Moreover, by reducing the mean idle time of production lines with 35.6%, the optimization leads to a makespan reduction of 6.5% on average compared to real-life applied schedules.


In this provocative look at one of the most important events of our time, renowned scholar Arjun Appadurai argues that the economic collapse of 2008—while indeed spurred on by greed, ignorance, weak regulation, and irresponsible risk-taking—was, ultimately, a failure of language. To prove this sophisticated point, he takes us into the world of derivative finance, which has become the core of contemporary trading and the primary target of blame for the collapse and all our subsequent woes. With incisive argumentation, he analyzes this challengingly technical world, drawing on thinkers such as J. L. Austin, Marcel Mauss, and Max Weber as theoretical guides to showcase the ways language—and particular failures in it—paved the way for ruin. Appadurai moves in four steps through his analysis. In the first, he highlights the importance of derivatives in contemporary finance, isolating them as the core technical innovation that markets have produced. In the second, he shows that derivatives are essentially written contracts about the future prices of assets—they are, crucially, a promise . Drawing on Mauss's The Gift and Austin's theories on linguistic performatives, Appadurai, in his third step, shows how the derivative exploits the linguistic power of the promise through the special form that money takes in finance as the most abstract form of commodity value. Finally, he pinpoints one crucial feature of derivatives (as seen in the housing market especially): that they can make promises that other promises will be broken. He then details how this feature spread contagiously through the market, snowballing into the systemic liquidity crisis that we are all too familiar with now. With his characteristic clarity, Appadurai explains one of the most complicated—and yet absolutely central—aspects of our modern economy. He makes the critical link we have long needed to make: between the numerical force of money and the linguistic force of what we say we will do with it.


The article presents different models of comparative education by discussing the government committee reports (SOU) which prepared the Swedish teacher education reforms of 2001 and 2011. These serve as examples for different kinds of policy borrowing from an international Bologna process discourse in national government document. The article facilitates Waldow (2009) term of "silent borrowing". The reform of 2001 shows distinct references to international discourses without making this explicit. The reform of 2011 is then an example for explicit borrowing. The related government committee report refers very obvious to the Bologna process. However, this is seen as strategy in order to mark its distinction to its predecessor reform. Our cases are assumed to show how socio-historical and political contexts condition national discourses' recourses of legitimation.


Background: Allergy to cow's milk is the most common food allergy in infant and young children. Symptoms of a milk allergy reaction can be mild like rash or severe, such as anaphylaxis. The aim of this study was to assess the value lactalbumin and lactog lobulin specific IgE in diagnosis of cow`s milk protein allergy. Design and Methods: This study was carried on 70 subjects classified into the following groups: Group 1: Include 50 patients with suspected cow milk protein allergy. Diagnosed by presence of chronic diarrhea with history of recent introduction of cow milk and positive elimination test. Group 2: Include 20 ages and sex matched apparently healthy subjects, their ages were ranged between (8-18) months. All individuals included in this study were subjected to full history taking, clinical examination, complete blood count and determination of serum total IgE, lactoglobulin and lactalbumin specific IgE which were carried out by ELISA technique. Results: The diagnostic accuracy of lactoglobulin IgE in diagnosis of protein allergy was (84%), with sensitivity (78%), specificity (100%), positive predictive value (100%) and negative predictive value (65%) at cutoff point of 0.345 IU/ml. While, the diagnostic accuracy of lactoalbumin IgE in diagnosis of protein allergy was (83%), with sensitivity of (84%), specificity (80%), positive predictive value (91%) and negative predictive value (67%) at cutoff point of 0.335 IU/ml. Conclusions: Lactalbumin and lactoglobulin specific IgE assay are important in diagnosis of cow milk protein allergy and their combination may give better diagnostic accuracy than total IgE assay.


Abstract. This study provides observation-based national estimates of CFC-11, CFC-12, CFC-113, and 1,1,1-trichloroethane emissions for the United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) from municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills. The scarcity of national estimates has lead to the assumption that a significant fraction of the lingering ozone-depleting substance (ODS) emissions, which have been detected in industrialized countries, could be emitted from landfills. Spatial coverage was achieved through sampling at seven landfills in Massachusetts and through data provided by nine UK landfills. Linear least square regressions of recovered ODS vs. CH4 were used in combination with national estimates of landfill CH4 emissions to estimate 2006 national US and UK ODS landfill emissions. The ODS landfill emission estimates were then compared to recent estimates of total US and UK ODS emissions. US ODS landfill emissions are 0.4%–1% (0.006–0.09 Gg/year) of total US emissions. UK ODS landfill emission estimates are 1% (0.008 Gg/year) and 6% (0.03 Gg/year) of total UK CFC-11 and CFC-12 emissions, respectively. This indicates that landfills are only a minor source of lingering ODS emissions in the US, but may be more significant for CFC-12 emissions in the UK. The implication is that the majority of current ODS emissions in industrialized countries is likely coming from equipment still in use.


Bipartite networks are currently regarded as providing a major insight into the organization of many real-world systems, unveiling the mechanisms driving the interactions occurring between distinct groups of nodes. One of the most important issues encountered when modeling bipartite networks is devising a way to obtain a (monopartite) projection on the layer of interest, which preserves as much as possible the information encoded into the original bipartite structure. In the present paper we propose an algorithm to obtain statistically-validated projections of bipartite networks, according to which any two nodes sharing a statistically-significant number of neighbors are linked. Since assessing the statistical significance of nodes similarity requires a proper statistical benchmark, here we consider a set of four null models, defined within the exponential random graph framework. Our algorithm outputs a matrix of link-specific p-values, from which a validated projection is straightforwardly obtainable, upon running a multiple hypothesis testing procedure. Finally, we test our method on an economic network (i.e. the countries-products World Trade Web representation) and a social network (i.e. MovieLens, collecting the users' ratings of a list of movies). In both cases non-trivial communities are detected: while projecting the World Trade Web on the countries layer reveals modules of similarly-industrialized nations, projecting it on the products layer allows communities characterized by an increasing level of complexity to be detected; in the second case, projecting MovieLens on the films layer allows clusters of movies whose affinity cannot be fully accounted for by genre similarity to be individuated.


Many people are involved in severe traffic related accident every year. Many of these accidents are strongly linked to too high speed. One way to decrease the speed transgressions and the number of accidents could be to implement a system that help the driver keeping the current speed limit. This thesis presents a method for classifying speed signs using computer vision. The classifier is a part of a system for speed tracking and notifying. This system assists a driver by notifying him/her of the current speed limit. This is done by computer vision, i.e. a camera connected to a computer reads the current trac environment and the frames are processed by the computer. A computer vision system is commonly composed by a detector and a classifier. The detector scans the frames from the camera and locates possible speed signs. The possible speed sign locations are passed to the classifier. The classifiers task is to decide if the possible location contains a speed sign and if it does contain a speed sign, to proclaim its speed. The classifier in this thesis is based on cross correlation. The algorithm is evaluated against a database, which includes images with coordinates for speed signs marked by hand. If the weather conditions are not to extreme and if the detector has good accuracy the classifier will make the right decision in close to 100% of the cases.


Objectives: The goals of the present study were twofold: in the first part, the prevalence and profile of hearing disability in healthy, middle-aged persons were determined by the speech, spatial, and qualities of hearing scale (SSQ). In the second part of this study, the number of SSQ items was reduced to five to make this questionnaire available for routine usage in clinical settings and for screening purposes. Methods: SSQ responses derived from 103 normal-hearing 18- to 25-year-old persons were compared with the SSQ responses of 24 clinically normal-hearing (all thresholds between 125 and 8000 Hz ⩽25 dB HL) and 109 healthy, 55- to 65-year-old persons with age-related hearing impairment to determine the prevalence and profile of hearing disability. The 45 items of the SSQ were reduced to five by cluster analyses and binary logistic regression analyses. The robustness of this five-item version (SSQ5) was determined in three control populations: an adult 25- to 55-year-old population (n = 159), an ENT-patient population (n = 60), and a population of hearing aid candidates (n = 50). The feasibility of the SSQ5 for screening was compared with the feasibility of the simple question "Do you have hearing loss?" by determining, respectively, the sensitivity, specificity, and maximum achievable discriminatory power for predicting hearing status according to speech-in-noise performance. Results: Prevalence numbers showed data of healthy, middle-aged persons with significant disability, despite minimal impairment (25%) versus data of middle-aged persons with significant impairment and nevertheless, minimal disability (61%). The profile of hearing disability seemed similar in all normal-hearing and hearing-impaired subgroups (i.e., most problems with understanding speech especially in noise conditions, and least problems with sound quality). Compared with the single question: "Do you have hearing loss?" the use of the SSQ5 had 37% more maximum discriminatory power for determining hearing status category based on speech-in-noise performance in 55- to 65-year-old persons. In addition, the SSQ5 seemed robust in adult populations of different ages (89.6% correlation between the answers of the SSQ5 and SSQ45), as well as in ENT-patient populations (93.7% correlation) and hearing aid candidate populations (79.2% correlation). Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that disability measures and measures for hearing impairment cannot replace each other, but are complementary. Therefore, it is advised to implement both disability measures and impairment measures in screening and referral policies for hearing loss. To get a first impression of hearing disability, our results suggest that it is useful to ask five disability questions (SSQ5) instead of one general question like "Do you have hearing loss?"


The present study expanded upon the ongoing research of bonobos (Pan paniscus) raised in a language-enriched environment at the Ape Cognition and Conservation Initiative. The study subjects, Kanzi, Nyota, Elikya, Maisha, and Teco, display varying degrees of research participation and experience with spoken English and written lexigram symbols. While Kanzi's linguistic and cognitive capabilities have been well documented in his early life, this project evaluated a subset of his current vocabulary. A series of three computerized match-to-sample tasks tested his ability to match a picture to spoken English, lexigram to spoken English, and picture to lexigram symbol for 120 words commonly encountered in his daily life. Kanzi displayed a greater comprehension of spoken English words than their associated lexigrams, although his overall average score was higher than expected for the majority of tested words. Results also revealed that his understanding of individual words was dependent on input modality. An assessment of multiple communication methods used by Kanzi provides data on the receptive capacities of an ape who plays an important role in the study of language development and ape language research. As the remaining four bonobos had limited previous experience in language and experimental research, I developed several training protocols to include them in future studies. By examining potential effects of rearing, environment, and motivation on their testing performance, this project will serve as a foundation for further research on the linguistic abilities of nonhuman primates.


The superficial palmar arch (SPA) and its contributing arteries are highly variable. The superficial palmar arch is usually formed by the superficial branch of ulnar artery and completed by one of the branch of radial artery i.e. superficial palmar branch, arteria radialis indicis or arteria princeps pollicis. It is rarely completed by the axis artery of the upper limb i.e. median artery which accompanies the median nerve. The present study was undertaken to investigate the presence of the median artery and its contribution to the formation of superficial palmar arch in 50 cadavers i.e. 100 upper limbs of Indian origin. Out of these, the median artery was found in 10 upper limbs. In 6 upper limbs the median artery took part in the formation of SPA and in the rest of four upper limbs, the median artery did not contribute to the formation of SPA. Of 6 upper limbs, the median artery anatomized with ulnar artery in four cases and in 2 cases the median artery formed incomplete arch with the ulnar artery. The outer diameter of the median artery ranged between 0.6 to 2.4 mm. The present study of median artery, its origin, course and its contribution to the SPA will add to the existing knowledge of the reconstructive hand surgical procedures such as arterial repairs, vascular graft applications and re-implantations.