The lethal action in Balb/c mice of 80 oral Fusobacterium nucleatum recovered from patients with adult periodontitis, healthy subjects or Cebus apella monkeys was studied. Mice were inoculated intraperitoneally with each bacterial inoculum of 5 x 108 CFU/ml. All the clinical isolates induced weight and coordinated movements loss. Pathological alterations in liver, CNS, heart, and kidney with inflammatory reactions or vascular congestion were observed. Of all the tested F. nucleatum isolates, 61.2% from periodontal patients, 57.1% from healthy subjects and 60% from monkeys, were capable of killing the mice in 48h. The clinical isolates were significantly more pathogenic than F. nucleatum ATCC 10953 or ATCC 25586. B. fragilis ATCC 23745 showed lethality against control mice. Our results suggest that LPS could be involved in lethal action against mice and it may play an important role in producing tissue damage or death of mice.


Propolis from 4 stingless bees (Homotrigona apicalis, Wallacetrigona incisa, Tetragonula fuscobalteata, and Tetragonula fuscibasis) was investigated in the search for medicinal and cosmetic materials from tropical rainforest resources. Methanol extracts of the propolis were screened using antioxidant and antimelanogenesis assays (tyrosinase enzyme activity and melanin inhibitor in B16 melanoma). The extract of H. apicalis showed the strongest antioxidant activity, both in the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl and 2,2′-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) assays, with half-maximal inhibitory concentration values of 0.72 ± 0.01 (mg/mL) and 0.26 ± 0.00 (mg/mL), respectively. The H. apicalis extract also displayed the strongest inhibition of tyrosinase (53% at 100 µg/mL). In the B16 melanoma cell assay, the W. incisa extract showed the strongest inhibition of melanin (21%) and was less cytotoxic. The W. incisa extract was fractioned to isolate the compounds with biological activities. Two prenylated flavonoids were obtained, named broussoflavonol F and glyasperin A. Both showed potent antioxidant activities, as well as inhibiting melanin in B16 melanoma, but not tyrosinase activity. These results indicated the potential of methanol extract of W. incisa to be developed for cosmetic material, but further experiments are needed to verify the function.


Background: Oral health is fundamental to general health and well-being. Sources of oral health information for adults have been examined but documentation of children's sources is limited. Aim: The aim of the following study is to investigate the dental health attitudes, knowledge and practice of school children in Chennai using a questionnaire. Materials and Methods: The subjects for this study were randomly selected from five private and five government schools in the age group of 10-16 years. A total of 592 children were screened, of which 219 were males and 373 were females. Results: Overall the level of knowledge score was statistically significant with P = 0.004. There was statistically significant difference with P = 0.008 when comparing the frequency of brushing the teeth twice per day among the two different age groups. Comparing the various other factors such as gender, type of school and age groups to the visit to the dentist, it was observed that statistically significant difference with P Conclusion: The overall level of oral health knowledge among the surveyed children was low.


Metastability is a phenomenon that occurs in the dynamics of a multi-stable non-linear system subject to noise. In models of statistical mechanics, it is related to the behavior of macroscopic quantities in the vicinity of a first order phase transition. A signature of metastable systems is the existence of multiple, well separated time scales. While at short time scales the system appears to be in a quasi-equilibrium (metastable state), at longer time scales rapid transitions between meta-stable states occur which are induced by random fluctuations. The understanding of the quantitative aspects of dynamical phase tran-sitions is one of the basic problem encountered in physics. In the first part of the book, we develop the potential theoretic approach to the analysis of metastability with a particular focus on systems in which the entropy is relevant. This approach allows to derive sharp estimates on metastable transitions times and its distribution. In the second part, we apply this method to the random-field Curie-Weiss-Potts model.


Summary
Resistance to bacteriophage φ6 by Pseudomonas phaseolicola HB10Y occurred at a frequency of about 1 in 120000 cells. Statistical analysis by the fluctuation and re-spreading tests indicated that the majority of φ6r bacteria resulted from random mutation rather than from contact with the phage. However, exposing the bacteria to heated φ6 (50 °C for 1 min) or φ6 nucleocapsid (virus minus the lipid envelope) prior to testing for resistance increased the frequency two- to threefold; φ6 dsRNA, unheated φ6, or heated φ91 did not have this effect. Nine resistant variants were selected for further characterization. When DNA isolated from the variants was subjected to agarose gel electrophoresis, seven of the nine strains had two plasmid DNA bands typical of HB10Y; the remaining two strains had three plasmid bands. φ6 attached to the pili of six of the nine variants; four of the variants actually had higher adsorption rate constants than HB10Y. Culture supernatants from the φ6r strains did not inactivate φ6. One of the resistant strains, D5, produced large amounts of infectious φ6 particles during its exponential phase of growth without a significant effect on its growth rate. Treatment of D5 with φ6-antiserum resulted in the loss of φ6 production; however, unlike typical carrier-state cells, D5 retained its resistance to φ6.
The results indicate that resistance to φ6, although occurring at a relatively high frequency, is not due to one common event, such as loss of a plasmid and/or attachment sites.


Purpose – The purpose of this research is to provide an understanding of the influence of political goals and behaviour on the outsourcing decision process and outcomes. Design/methodology/approach – The research used an exploratory longitudinal case-based approach. Eight outsourcing projects in three telecommunications companies were analysed from the initial decision to the outcome of the case. Findings – We show how political goals and behaviours influence the outsourcing decision process and inductively develop four political goals: personal reputation, attainment, elimination and control. We also identify three dynamic outsourcing paths: the personal reputation path, which leads to successful outcomes; the short-term attain and eliminate path leading to unsuccessful outcomes; and the destabilised path, which leads to mixed outcomes. All of these can be tested in other empirical settings. Research limitations/implications – The implications for outsourcing literature are that political intentions influence the decision process and outcomes. The implications for managers are the ability to identify and manage political goals that influence outsourcing decision process and outcomes. For theorists, we provide an understanding of how political and rational goals and behaviour interact to impact outsourcing outcomes: with political and rational goals and behaviour complementary in some instances. The limitations are that with a small sample the findings are generalisable to theoretical propositions rather than to a population. Originality/value – For the first time, we uncover the political goals that impact the outsourcing decision process and outcomes. We add to the outsourcing literature, transaction cost theory and resource based theory by defining and understanding the political goals that complement these theories.


Background: Metabolomics study provides an opportunity to identify novel molecular determinants of altered cognitive function. Methods: During 2013 to 2016 Bogalusa Heart Study (BHS) visit, 1,177 participants underwent untargeted, ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectroscopy metabolomics profiling. Global cognition and five cognition domains were also assessed. The cross-sectional associations of single metabolites with cognition were tested using multiple linear regression models. Weighted correlation network analysis was used to examine the covariable-adjusted correlations of modules of co-abundant metabolites with cognition. Analyses were conducted in the overall sample and according to both ethnicity and sex. Results: Five known metabolites and two metabolite modules robustly associated with cognition across overall and stratified analyses. Two metabolites were from lipid sub-pathways including fatty acid metabolism [9-hydroxystearate; minimum P-value (min-P)=1.11×10-5], and primary bile acid metabolism (glyco-alpha-muricholate; min-P=4.10×10-5). One metabolite from the glycogen metabolism sub-pathway (maltose; min-P=9.77×10-6), one from the polyamine metabolism sub-pathway (N-acetyl-isoputreanine; min-P=1.03×10-5), and one from the purine metabolism sub-pathway (7-methylguanine; min-P=1.19×10-5) were also identified. Two metabolite modules reflecting bile acid metabolism and androgenic steroids correlated with cognition (min-P=5.00×10-4 and 3.00×10-3, respectively). Conclusion: The novel associations of 5 known metabolites and 2 metabolite modules with cognition provide insights into the physiological mechanisms regulating cognitive function.


Around one in five women in Britain currently reaching the end of their childbearing years remains childless. Whilst much previous research has highlighted the risk factors for early childbearing, relative little is known in Britain about the factors associated with the successful recuperation of fertility at later ages. This paper uses a couple approach to investigate how entry into parenthood at later ages depends on the man's and woman's relative resources and gender role equity. We focus on men and women in their thirties since it is at this age that we see significant recuperation of childbearing in Britain following postponement. The research uses detailed life course data from the 1970 Birth Cohort Study. Childless couples interviewed at age 30 are followed up at ages 34 and 38. At age 30, information was collected about the individual and their partner's levels of education, employment circumstances, occupation and levels of pay. In addition, the respondent provided data on the division of domestic tasks within the household, their own gender role orientation and their intentions for having children. We use event history analysis to model the timing of first birth as a function of these fixed and time-varying factors. Hence we are able to identify factors associated with the recuperation of fertility and the relative importance of individual and couple level characteristics. We control for the selection into our sample of high-resource couples who remain without a child at age 30. We add to the existing literature in a number of ways: 1) by incorporating recent debates concerning the importance of gender equity on fertility into a broader couple-focused approach, 2) by comparing the fertility outcomes for both men and women and 3) by taking into account a detailed set of fixed and time-varying socio-economic determinants and anticipatory factors.


The weekly NO-DO newsreels, official and of obligatory projection in cinemas, held an information monopoly during the Francoist dictatorship (1943-1975) in Spain. The NO-DO was used as an instrument of indoctrination and legitimation, building a discourse based on the regime's needs and interests. In this study, we examined newsreels on medical subjects related to vaccine-preventable diseases. A majority of reports centred on poliomyelitis, and two differentiated periods could be defined, coinciding with the evolution of the Franco regime's foreign policy. The first period reflected the regime's era of isolation and referred to polio as a foreign disease, with the NO-DO showing the US initiatives to fight against it, as it had become the scientific model to follow. Subsequently, the ambiguities of the news related to the disease reflected the dictatorship's refusal to confront the epidemic suffered by the Spanish population until the vaccination campaigns began in 1963. Even then, the consequences that the negligent management of the disease had for many families were concealed. Meanwhile, the image of a modernized country concerned about national public health was legitimized.


This paper has shown the topicality of using a method of expert judgments for developing complex technical systems (CTS). And in reference with this, the paper has considered the issues of judgments of a required number of experts in conducting peer reviews, their expert knowledge, data on the minimum size of an expert group and methodical approach to determine the level of possible errors of experts to provide judgment of an expert group, including expert assessments on the basis of past knowledge, as well as the possibility of an aggregate consideration of opinions of individual experts involved in the assessment of a case study.


Space-time (ST) block codes have been used to achieve transmit diversity in wireless communication systems. In this paper, the performance of the ST block code proposed by Alamouti is investigated for correlated channels in combination with higher order modulation. Despite a cross-correlation coefficient of 0.9, for example, the diversity gain for all QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) schemes investigated is about the same and approximately 6.5 dB for an uncoded bit-error ratio (BER) of 10/sup -3/. In contrast using the same crosscorrelation coefficient, the diversity gain varies (by maximal 1 dB for a BER of 10/sup -3/) for different PSK modulation schemes, but is still in the range between 5.5 dB - 6.5 dB for a BER of 10/sup -3/. For forward error correction (FEC) coded transmission the same relative diversity gain is obtained as in the uncoded case.


Seawater composition has changed over geological time, geochemists now realize. Has biological evolution changed along with it? A paper in this issue of
 Science (p.
 1222) suggests that oscillations in the chemical composition of the world ocean, likely driven by the varying tempo of plate tectonics, might have helped trigger a number of important evolutionary events.


Abstract The aim of the present work was to investigate the influence of a number of heavy metals (Cd, Cr(III), Cu, Pb and Zn), as well as anions (CI‐, SO2‐ 4 ) on the physical and mechanical properties of cementitious pastes, including setting time, bulk density and unconfined compressive strength. The above mentioned species and their concentrations were selected in order to simulate addition of 20% municipal solid waste incinerator ash to Portland cement. Spiking experiments were performed according to a 27–3 IV fractional factorial design by addition of pure compounds containing the contaminants of interest to Portland cement. The results from the experimental campaign, which were interpreted using statistical analysis techniques, showed that the investigated contaminants variously affected the hydration process of cement. The ranking for final setting time values was Zn(NO3)2 > K2SO4 > NaCl > mean response > Cr(NO3)3 > NaCl+Cr(NO3)3, Cd(NO3)2+Pb(NO3)2 or CuCl2+Zn(NO3)2 interaction, whereas the ranking for UCS values during hardening was Zn(NO3)2 > CuCl2 > NaCl+K2So4, CuCl2+Pb(NO3)2 or Cd(NO3)2+Zn(NO3)2 interaction > mean response. Conversely, none of the selected contaminants was found to significantly influence ultimate strength.


A large literature in political economy argues that governments in the advanced industrialized states retrenched from the application of industrial policy while resisting pressure to reform in a limited number of sectors. In this article, I argue that retrenchment and resistance do not fully describe the range of choices made by governments. Through an analysis of investment in energy policy in Japan, I show that in addition to retrenching from industrial policies and resisting pressure to reduce industrial targeting, domestic actors have retained and redeployed state functions in public policy areas unaffected by the causes of liberalization.


BACKGROUND
There are few studies looking for collagen matrix defects in patients with inguinal bernia.

AIM
To study the skin connective tissue in patients with and without inguinal bernia.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Skin from the surgical wound was obtained from 23 patients with and 23 patients without inguinal bernia. The samples were processed for conventional light microscopy. Collagen fibers were stained with Van Giesson and elastic fibers with Weigert stain.

RESULTS
Patients without hernia had compact collagen tracts homogeneously distributed towards the deep dermis. In contrast, patients with hernia had zones in the dermis with thinner and disaggregated collagen tracts. Connective tissue had a lax aspect in these patients. Collagen fiber density was 52% lower in patients with hernia, compared to subjects without hernia. No differences in elastic fiber density or distribution was observed between groups.

CONCLUSIONS
Patients with inguinal bernia have alterations in skin collagen fiber quality and density.


Accountability is important in Non-profit Organizations (NPOs) since their key revenue resources are donations and contributions from the public and various parties. This implies that NPOs are accountable to various stakeholders. In Malaysia, the growing number of NPOs shows how important NPOs are in contributing to society in terms of social work. By championing the need of the people through their activities, NPOs enjoy public trust since their goal is to help the people, and not for profit motivation. However, many NPOs are generally reluctant to share more comprehensive information and may not recognize the need for accountability by the NPOs. These problems could be solved if the enforcement and monitoring mechanisms are efficiently practiced. Using content analysis of annual reports and the Financial Information Forms/Borang Maklumat Kewangan (BMK) of 219 societies registered with the Companies Commission of Malaysia (CCM), this study examines the relationship between organizational characteristics and accountability in NPOs. The characteristics of organizational characteristics examined are grants and donations. The resource dependency theory is used to explain the organizational characteristics. The results of this study provide evidence that organizational characteristics are not significantly related to the accountability of NPOs. In relation to the insignificant results for organizational characteristics, it may indicate that non-profit managers are not using their disclosure effectively to manage inter-organizational relationships to ensure the continuous flow of financial and other resources to their organizations. Overall, the findings provide useful information that gives more input to the various regulatory authorities and other relevant stakeholders concerning the accountability disclosure of NPOs in Malaysia.


The present study examines the influence of prior relationship on perceptions of relational stalking in the context of both opposite- and same-sex scenarios using community samples from Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The study used a quasi-experimental 3 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 3 (prior relationship × perpetrator sex × target sex × participant sex × country) independent measures design. Participants comprised 2,160 members of the community, each receiving 1 of 12 versions of a hypothetical scenario and responding to scale items concerning the situation described. The findings support previous research, with scenarios involving a stranger (rather than an acquaintance or ex-partner), and scenarios involving a male perpetrator and a female target, being considered the most serious. The findings further indicate that female observers identify more closely with the role of the victim and male observers identify more closely with the role of the perpetrator, regardless of victim and perpetrator sex, and that differences in the findings across the three countries may be affected by location to a small but significant degree.


In this paper, cycle performance analysis of two-stage compression and two-stage expansion refrigeration system using alternative freon refrigerants is presented to offer the basic design data for the operating parameters of the system. Alternative freon refrigerant for freon refrigerant R22 were used as working fluids in this study. The operating parameters considered in this study included evaporation temperature, condensation temperature, subcooling degree, superheating degree, and mass flow rate ratio of inter-cooler. The main results were summarized as follows : The COP of two-stage compression and two-stage expansion refrigeration system increases with the increasing subcooling degree and mass flow rate ratio of inter-cooler, but decreases with the increasing evaporating temperature, condensing temperature and superheating degree. Therefore, subcooling degree, mass flow rate ratio of inter-cooler of two-stage compression and two-stage expansion refrigeration system using alternative freon refrigerants have an effect on COP of this system.


The authors carried out a visiualizational model test by the hydrogen bubble method to examine the pattern of the fluid flow besides the simple camber type and plane type otter board in circulation water channel. The experimental conditions are velocity of flow 0.05 and 0.1m/sec, angle of attack 0~45(5step). The results obtained are as follows: 1. In the case of the simple camber type otter board located angle of attack 25, vortex at the leading edge was geneated at 1/2 of chord length. 2. Size of the vortex generated in the trailing edge was about 2~3 times larger then that of the leading edge. 3. In the case of the simple camber type otter board located angle of attack 30, separation of stream-line at leading edge was generated at 1/3 of chord length. 4. Nearest stream-line in the back side of the simple camber type otter board was bent in the direction of otter board when the angle of attack was 25 and 30, and in the case of plane type otter board was expanded outside of the flow direction. 6. Area separated of the simple camber type otter board at the angle of attack 30 was smaller then that of plane type otter board. 7. Flow speed in the back side of the simple camber type otter board was about 1.4 times faster then that in the front side, and in the case of the plane otter board about 1.2 times faster.


The paper investigates the onomastic data collected in Donja Sabanta, Sumadija region, which administratively belongs to the municipality of Kragujevac. Microtoponyms and antroponyms (personal and family nicknames and hypocoristic names) of all the residents who live in the village, according to the information we possess, either permanently or from time to time (in order to do seasonal agricultural work on the land). In order to establish the dynamics of the antropomasticons from the village of Donja Sabanta we have consulted the birth register, and thus compared the system of personal first names of the people born between 1930 and 1960 and those born between 1990 and 2020. The aim of this paper is to list all the toponyms and antroponyms and analyses them from the structural and semantic aspect. The secondary aim is to describe the stability and changes in the system of official names of the residents of the village Donja Sabanta. The collected microtoponyms are motivated by the versatile natural and cultural characteristics of the physiogenous and antropgenous phenomena in the village. In the formation of the microtoponyms in Donja Sabanta we have noticed all the deriva- tive models and suffixes which function in the toponymy of (the central) Serbia. The system of male personal nicknames stands out within the system of antroponymous categories by its numerousness and versatility. Apart from -a forms, which are domi- nant in Sumadija, a significant number of male hypocoristic names ending in -o has been confirmed (Pero, Aco and similar). At the end of the paper we enclose a register in alphabetical order of microtoponyms and antroponyms which were collected in the field.


e present the beginnings and evolution of APL research into energetic charged particles and magnetic fields in space. Examples are provided of the many discoveries and surprises stemming from this research program as it progressed from a small, inhouse effort in the early 1960s to today's extensive program in which the Laboratory closely interacts with the national and international space research communities. We describe a future for APL space research that promises to provide a continuing rich harvest of breakthroughs and new perspectives. These new perspectives should lead to an understanding of solar energetic particles and planetary radiation belts that will allow greatly improved predictions of space weather and its effects on systems operating in space as well as on Earth's surface. (


This study is to prepare the pantoprazole sodium enteric-coated tablet which is compacted by pellets. The enteric-coated pantoprazole sodium pellets were prepared by fluid bed coating technology. The pantoprazole sodium enteric-coated tablets were prepared by direct compression of the enteric-coated pellets and suitable excipients. In vitro dissolution method and scanning electron microscope method were used for the observation of the drug release behavior before and after compression of the pellets. The optimized formulation is: the coating level is 55%, the plasticizer content is 20%, the ratio of Eudragit L30D-55/NE30D is 8 : 2, enteric-coated pellets/excipients (MCC/PPVP/PEG 6000 = 2 : 1 : 1) is 5 : 5, the enteric-coated tablets release in artificial gastric fluid in 2 h is less than 10%, while in artificial intestinal fluid in 1 h is more than 85%. The release behavior of pantoprazole sodium enteric-coated pellets-type tablet is quite well. And it may be used in industrial production.


Insect Sf 9 cells were infected with constructed recombinant virus AcMNPV OCC - GST 6xHis Etp 28, which could produce GST fusion protein and the supernatant of 72 h pi cell lysate was examined by SDS PAGE. The results showed that GST 6xHis Etp 28 fusion protein of 53 kDa was expressed in insoluble status. After the sodium salt of the alkylanionic detergent sarkosyl was added to insect cell lysis buffer to a final concentration of 1.5%, and the final concentration of TritonX 100 was increased from 1% to 2%, at least 1/3 of GST 6xHis Etp 28 appeared to be soluble, which was examined by SDS PAGE. Then soluble GST 6xHis Etp 28 was purified by affinity chromatography using glutathione agarose.


: The purpose of this paper is to present the emergence of a new knowledge dyad composed of cognitive and emotional knowledge. The old dyad made of explicit and tacit knowledge may become a particular case of the new one. The explicit-tacit knowledge dyad has been conceived in the Western thinking perspective of the dualism of mind and body, so well illustrated by the famous Cartesian expression: Cogito, ergo sum! The new dyad is conceived in the Eastern thinking perspective of oneness of body and mind. That means to recognize emotions as knowledge, and to give equal chances for them to parallel the cognitive knowledge. The paper advance also the new idea of the possible transformation of cognitive knowledge into emotional knowledge, and of emotional knowledge into cognitive knowledge, respectively. This knowledge dynamics constitute in our view one of the most important challenges for the knowledge management research.


We present the initial results of a ureteral stone brush used in conjunction with extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy for impacted ureteral stones. We studied 31 cases of ureteral calculi that could not be manipulated back into the renal collecting system. In 18 cases a ureteral catheter was placed past the calculus, while in 13 a catheter could not be passed. With the stone brush unbypassed stones yielded a success rate similar to that for bypassed stones (84.6 versus 88.9%, respectively). We believe that this result is due to the ability of the stone brush to remove circumferential fragments from around the stone, allowing more shock energy to reach the core of the stone.


Data are reported on the effect of heating microclimate on the enhancement of functional aging of the cardiovascular system in workers of the glass industry. It is shown that enhancement of the aging tempo was noted during the first 5 years of work in condition of hot microclimate and following 15 years of work in these conditions. The enhancement of biological aging of the individual is also influenced by the age of the worker beginning to work in conditions of hot climate.


EEDQ (N-ethoxycarbonyl-2-ethoxy-1,2-dihydroquinoline) markedly decreased the density of dopamine (DA) D1 and D2 receptors in the lesioned and normal striatae of rats lesioned unilaterally with 6-hydroxy-DA. By treatment with either the D1 antagonist SCH 23390 or the D2 antagonist raclopride, together with EEDQ selective inactivation of D2 and D1 receptors, respectively, are obtained. In rats with decreased density of D1 receptors the circling behaviour response to the D1 agonist SK&F 38393 was markedly inhibited 24 hours after EEDQ treatment, whereas the similar response to the D2 agonist pergolide was unchanged. In rats with decreased density of D2 receptors the effects of pergolide and the partial D2 agonist (-)-3-PPP were antagonized, while the effect of SK&F 38393 was unchanged. These results indicate that the effect of D1 and D2 agonists can be expressed in the absence of normal densities of the heterologous DA receptor. In contrast, the responses from homologous DA receptors, mediating the circling behaviour from the denervated side of the brain, are highly sensitive to the inactivating effect of EEDQ.


Background: Iconography plays a crucial role in the field of dermatology unlike other specialties. The collection composed of portraits, pictures, cartoons, wax moulds and miniatures represents the social and historical aspects of Turkish dermatology. The theme is mostly the definition of diseases and interventions. The artworks, unlike the counterparts in western countries are only created by physicians. Currently this collection is exhibited in 3 different museums in Istanbul University and Municipal Medical Center of Istanbul and draws the attention of paramedical visitors interested in medical culture and history as well as dermatologists.


The study was aimed at exploring the challenges women leaders facing while assuming and performing leadership responsibilities of five governmental organizations in Addis Ababa. It also tried to find out the contributing factors for women to hold leadership positions, women's leadership styles and measures to be taken to enhance women's share of leadership. In-depth interview, questionnaire and document analysis were employed as the data collection instruments in the study. Participants of the study were 5 women who are in leadership positions of each organization and 130 subordinates of three organizations. The respondents for the survey were selected using simple random sampling. Purposive sampling technique was used for selecting women who are in senior leadership positions of their respective organizations. The findings of the study revealed that women leaders are facing many challenges in the studied organizations. Sociocultural, organizational and personal challenges for women while assuming and discharging their leadership responsibilities. The main contributing factors for women holding leadership positions are personal performance and capability, their educational qualification, current political system and their experience. Finally, the main measure to be taken to enhance women's share in leadership positions mainly depends on addressing gender gaps in the country and raising the level of attention given for gender issues in the organizations.


This paper deals with the water and thermal balance in Proton Exchange Membrane(PEM) fuel cell stack through the water state calculation and thermodynamic analysis. A reasonable assumption is made by analyzing the experimental result, which assumes that the liquid water generated in fuel cell stack is removed through cathode channel and the gas at both gas channel outlet is water saturated. A new approach for water state and thermodynamic analysis is proposed, which can be used for fuel cell stack at dynamic or steady operation condition without the necessary to investigate the water transfer phenomena in proton exchange membrane.


Abstract:Because many young adults do not consistently give and receive explicit consent in their sexual relationships, it is important to identify factors associated with sexual consent attitudes and behaviour. In this study, we assessed the extent to which sexual health education, sexual consent education, sexual attitudes, and perceptions of social norms were associated with sexual consent attitudes and behaviour. Participants were 196 undergraduate students between the ages of 18 and 25 enrolled at an eastern Canadian university. At the bivariate level, we found evidence for the importance of sexual consent education by parents, sexual attitudes, and perceptions of social norms with respect to sexual consent attitudes and behaviour. Multiple regression analyses showed that more positive perceptions of social norms, more liberal sexual attitudes, and more sexual consent education from parents were uniquely associated with lower negative attitudes towards sexual consent and more consistent use of explicit sexual consent. More positive perceptions of social norms and less sexual experience were uniquely associated with more positive sexual consent attitudes. Only perception of social norms was uniquely associated with less use of an indirect behavioural approach to establishing consent. The results are interpreted in terms of their implications for enhancing sexual consent attitudes and behaviour among young people.


This paper describes a virtual musical instrument based on the scanned synthesis technique and implemented in Max-Msp. The device is composed of a computer and three gesture sensors. The timbre of the produced sound is rich and changing. The instrument proposes an intuitive and expressive control of the sound thanks to a complex mapping between gesture and sound.


This article explores how secondary school pupils in England are integrated into the First World War centenary practices of remembrance with a particular focus on education. It discusses which narratives of the war are included in and excluded from secondary-level classroom history teaching and raises important concerns relating to the "memory messages" that are being communicated via history teaching of the First World War and the consequences of such narratives regarding the replication of power relations, a continued inability to deal with Britain's colonial legacy, and an uncritical normalizing of the military in the minds of young people.


Author(s): Feng, Ying | Advisor(s): Rauch, James E; Lagakos, David | Abstract: Differences in average income levels across countries are vast. This dissertation investigates the interaction between heterogeneous firms or workers' decisions and economic growth.Chapter 1 of this dissertation studies firm life-cycle learning and misallocation. Misallocation is one of the most prominent theories of Total Factor Productivity in recent years. Specifically, this study focuses on misallocation of resources across producers. Dispersion in marginal revenue products of capital (MRPK) across firms may lower aggregate productivity through misallocation. Using firm-level panel data from China, I document that MRPK dispersion decreases substantially with firm age, particularly before age five. Building on this fact, I provide a new interpretation of MRPK dispersion as firm life-cycle learning. I formalize this idea in a dynamic model, in which firms learn about their fundamental productivity as they age and choose capital inputs in a frictional market based on their priors. Within each cohort of firms, imprecise priors lead firms to differ in their ex-post MRPK even in the absence of firm-level distortions. As firms learn over time and adjust their capital stocks, possibly through exiting the market, dispersion in MRPK decreases. Quantitative analysis of the model shows that omitting firm life-cycle learning leads to sizable overestimation of the aggregate productivity losses from misallocation. Chapter 2 of this dissertation asks: How does the average unemployment rate change with GDP per capita? This chapter draws on household survey data from countries of all income levels to measure how unemployment varies with income. We document that unemployment is increasing with GDP per capita. Furthermore, we show that this fact is accounted for almost entirely by low-educated workers, whose unemployment rates are strongly increasing in GDP per capita, rather than by high-educated workers, whose unemployment rates are not correlated with income. To interpret these facts, we build a model with workers of heterogeneous ability and two sectors: a traditional sector, in which self-employed workers produce output without reward for ability; and a modern sector, in which firms hire in frictional labor markets, and output increases with ability. Countries differ exogenously in the productivity level of the modern sector. The model predicts that as productivity rises, the traditional sector shrinks, as progressively less-able workers enter the modern sector, leading to a rise in overall unemployment and in the ratio of low-educated to high-educated unemployment rates. A calibrated version of the model accounts for some, but not all, of the cross-country patterns we document. Chapter 3 of this dissertation proposes a universal division of different types of self-employment. It is well-known that self-employment rate declines with GDP per capita (Gollin, 2008). However, when dividing self-employment into employers and own-account workers (self-employed without employees), this paper documents that the labor share of employers increases with income levels, and the share of own-account workers decreases. Using household surveys from countries of all income levels, we show these facts are robust across main industries and educational categories. We also show nearly universal negative selection on ability into own-account status, and positive selection into employer and wage earning statuses in our data. We develop a simple two-sector model to explain these facts. In general equilibrium, agents with ability below a threshold become own-account workers in the traditional sector, and agents with ability higher than the threshold enter the modern sector, becoming wage workers or employers. Higher aggregate productivity is driven by higher returns to ability in the modern sector due to skill biased technological change, which reduces the threshold ability level. By distinguishing between own-account workers and employers consistently across 56 countries, our database and model help reconcile diverse findings about development and entrepreneurship.


In this study, we investigate the possibility of measuring fecal progesterone (P4) of dugongs in captivity. Fecal samples were collected from a captive adult female dugong kept at Toba aquarium in November 2012 and February 2013, and fecal P4 of these samples was measured using enzyme immunoassay (EIA). To establish a measuring system, we compared the results of measurements applying different dilution rates of primary antibody and enzyme linked antigen, and decided the best experimental condition for accurate measurement. We then measured P4 concentrations of the dugong's fecal samples. Significant difference in the P4 concentrations was not found among the samples collected in November and February. Thus it is suggested the dugong was not in estrous period when the samples were collected. We succeeded in extracting and measuring fecal P4 of the dugong, and for further study, we plan to apply this method to monitoring of estrous cycle of dugongs.


The properties of ligand protected gold nanoparticles are determined by the synergistic interplay of their structural components, including the metal core, the ligand shell, and the solvation layer. However, the simultaneous characterization of all these components remains a major challenge given their disparate chemical nature. In the case of mixed ligand nanoparticles, this task becomes daunting due to the presence of intercorrelated additional parameters such as the ligand ratio, ligand spatial distribution, and solvation of the heterogeneous ligand shell. Here we show that small angle neutron scattering (SANS) is a tool capable of simultaneously characterizing the core and the ligand shell of monodisperse mixed ligand gold nanoparticles. We systematically examine how each parameter (e.g., the core size, the thickness, composition and the spatial heterogeneity of the ligand shell) affects nanoparticles' scattering profile. Quantitative information on these parameters is retrieved using analytical fitti...


Diatomite is naturally occurring with over 63 % of silica in the chemical composition. This diatomite was introduced in waterborne epoxy for corrosion protection of carbon steel surface. The morphology of coatings was observed by Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM). The Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) method was used for characterized the corrosion protection of epoxy coating and epoxy coating containing diatomite. The results showed that incorporation of 15 % diatomite in waterborne epoxy coatings enhanced anticorrosion protection property of the coating. Keywords: Diatomite, waterborne epoxy coatings, anticorrosion protection.


IntroductionIn 1966, five Justices of the Supreme Court sought to civilize police interrogation in America.1 Fifty years later, their efforts appear to have been an abject failure. As Scott Howe observes, today's law of interrogation "facilitates bad behavior all around."2 Howe's criticism of interrogation practices today resembles the criticism offered by Yale Kamisar shortly before Miranda.3Howe writes:For criminal suspects, the law rewards obstruction and concealment. For police officers, it honors deceit and psychological aggression. For the courts and the rest of us, it encourages blindness and rationalization. . . .It goes far to protect noncooperation and cover-up by the most knowledgeable, cunning, and steely criminals, while providing only minimal safeguards for those who are uneducated, unintelligent, or easily coerced. It permits . . . trickery, harassment, and the inducement of despair . . . . It invites courts . . . to declare the irrational or inveigled decisions of arrestees to talk to police as "knowing," "intelligent," and "voluntary," torturing the meaning of these words . . . .4Miranda's failure was foreseeable. From the outset, this decision has been:(1) A Doctrinal Failure (a) because Miranda seriously misconstrued the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination; (b) because the artificiality of Miranda's rules has produced a mountain of nonsense law; and (c) because Miranda promised legal assistance at the stationhouse while ensuring that suspects would not get it;(2) An Ethical Failure (a) because the extravagant right to remain silent asserted by Miranda runs counter to ordinary moral principles; and (b) because the unwillingness of just about everyone actually to honor this right has produced a system relying on exploitation and deception;(3) A Jurisprudential Failure because Miranda departed from the appropriate role of courts; and(4) An Empirical Failure because Miranda did next to nothing to protect suspects from police abuse.I. The Initial Doctrinal Failure: Miranda's Misunderstanding of the Privilege Against Self-IncriminationA. CompulsionThe famous fourfold forewarning begins, "You have a right to remain silent."5 The Supreme Court explained, "For those unaware of the privilege, the warning is needed simply to make them aware of it."6 The privilege against self incrimination, however, does not guarantee an unqualified right to remain silent. It says only that no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself."7 The crucial constitutional concept is compulsion.Legal prohibitions of compulsion are ubiquitous. Just as you may not be compelled to incriminate yourself, you may not be compelled to enter a contract, make a will, or have sex. But forbidding compulsion to enter a contract does not preclude persuasion to enter a contract. It requires the authorities to mark a line between legitimate and illegitimate means of convincing you.8You have a right not to enter a contract in the sense that you cannot be imprisoned, whipped, or water-boarded for refusing to enter it. Forbidding compulsion to enter a contract, however, does not mean that no one will think less of you for refusing to enter a contract, that no one will draw adverse inferences from your refusal to enter a contract, or that no one will ever try earnestly and repeatedly to convince you to enter a contract. Prohibiting compulsion to enter a contract does not mean that refusing to enter a contract will never make things worse for you.9 If the word "compulsion" in the Fifth Amendment were to be given its ordinary meaning, your right to remain silent would be no broader than your right to refuse to enter a contract.10B. The Griffin-MirandaMisinterpretationA year before Miranda, the Supreme Court appeared to equate compulsion with any action that makes a choice disadvantageous. In Griffin v. …


We present a system for recognizing unconstrained English handwritten text based on a large vocabulary. We describe the three main components of the system, which are preprocessing, feature extraction and recognition. In the preprocessing phase the handwritten texts are first segmented into lines. Then each line of text is normalized with respect to of skew, slant, vertical position and width. After these steps, text lines are segmented into single words. For this purpose distances between connected components are measured. Using a threshold, the distances are divided into distances within a word and distances between different words. A line of text is segmented at positions where the distances are larger than the chosen threshold. From each image representing a single word, a sequence of features is extracted. These features are input to a recognition procedure which is based on hidden Markov models. To investigate the stability of the segmentation algorithm the threshold that separates intra- and inter-word distances from each other is varied. If the threshold is small many errors are caused by over-segmentation, while for large thresholds under-segmentation errors occur. The best segmentation performance is 95.56% correctly segmented words, tested on 541 text lines containing 3899 words. Given a correct segmentation rate of 95.56%, a recognition rate of 73.45% on the word level is achieved.


River sediment depositions on the bottom of rivers most frequently consist of sand and gravel particles with dierent grain sizes, which make them particularly valuable for building construction. Knowledge of the radioactivity present in building materials enables one to assess any possible radiological hazard to humankind by the use of such materials. A total of 69 Nile River sediment samples from 8 cities and 24 locations were collected along a 139-km area in Minia, Egypt. The radiological hazards were calculated for the investigated area. The results of the study could serve as important baseline radiometric data for future epidemiological studies and monitoring initiatives in the study area.


A compact fiber-optic inclinometer based on a fiber-taper Michelson interferometric sensor is constructed and demonstrated. The sensor consist of a single symmetrically taper waist of 80 m distanced 30 mm from the single-mode fiber end-tip right-angled cleaved. The amplitude of the bending angle of the fiber taper interferometer is obtained by passive interferometric interrogation based on the generation of two quadrature phase-shifted signals from two fiber Bragg gratings with different resonant wavelengths. Optical phase-to-bending sensitivity of rad/degree and a bend angle resolution of degree/ Hz were achieved.


Humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers made a distinction between traditional
approaches and humanistic `learner-centred\' approaches to education. The
traditional approach holds that educators impart their knowledge to willing and
able recipients; whereas the humanistic approach holds that educators act as
facilitators who assist learners in their learning processes. As a learning theory,
humanism refers to the belief in the innate ability of humans to learn, and the
creation of an environment in which students are given `Freedom to Learn\'. South
African accounting education has, by and large, followed the traditional approach
rather than the humanistic approach. This article attempts to expand on the existing
references to a humanistic approach through a more detailed exposition and
application of the educational theory of Carl Rogers in the context of South African
accounting education. The prospects of a humanistic approach in accounting
education are then discussed and some practical strategies provided in relation to a
specific third-year undergraduate accounting unit offered in South Africa. South African Journal of Higher Education Vol. 20 (5) 2006: pp. 718-732


By the steady state incompressible Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations, turbulence model, the finite volume method with interlacing of discretization, the three-dimension airflow and temperature fields inside a passenger vehicle are calculated numerically. The solar radiation and body heat are additional source term of energy equation, the influence of passenger and solar radiation on airflow and temperature fields is investigated. The results show that existing supply modes make the superior flow distribution homogeneous, body heat has much influence on airflow and temperature fields and solar radiation has little influence on airflow field, but much influence on temperature field. According to the standard QCn29008.9-1991, the experiment is carried out in the air-conditioned vehicle, which verify the correctness of numerical simulation. It is also shown that the prediction results of airflow and temperature to be used for evaluating the thermal comfort in the design procedure.


Petroleum emulsion occurs at many stages in the production and treatment of crude oil. One ways to solve this problem is to create synergetic composition of demulsifiers. The objective of this work is to develop synergetic compositions of demulsifiers based on surfactants Reapon-4B™. The target is to achieve higher efficiency, and analyze the composition; flow parameters; characteristics; and the mechanical and acoustic effect under intensity and rotation speed of the rotary pulsation apparatus RPA. This book contains five chapters which respectively containing relative topics. Chapter 1 contains background and scopes. The principals of dehydration and desalinization processes, emulsion formation, demulsification mechanism, surface active properties, and efficiency of demulsifiers are presented in chapter 2. The experimental part are discussed in chapter 3. The analysis of composite demulsifiers impact onto the flow properties of oil are noticed in chapter 4. Analysis of emulsion using RPA are presented in chapter 5, this chapter deal with the qualitative view of emulsion breaking, analysis of the composite demulsifiers impact, and flow properties of oil emulsions using RPA.


The Serra das Confusões National Park is the largest park in northeastern Brazil, with
a total area of 502902ha, including 9 municipalities, all in Piauí State, with the headquarters
located in Caracol City.
The Park is situated on the top of a plateau, latitude 8°30'S; 9°30'S, longitude 43°W;
44°W, drained by channels which flow northwards to Parnaíba river, the main river of Piauí
State.
Serra das Confusões National Park area is in on morphoestructural and
morphoclimatical units inside the Piauí-Maranhão sedimentary basin plateau of the
interplateau depression with a semiarid domain, covered by caatinga vegetation
(RADAMBRASIL, 1973). The transition zone between Caatinga and Cerrado on the plateau,
depressions and complex areas has a vegetation named Carrasco.
This paper aims to show a preliminary version regarding geology, geomorphology,
pedology and hydrological dynamics on the environmental characterization of the Park and
therefore to identify risk areas, to create a use planning and management for the area to
improve a better use for these potentials.
The Parks geomorphological analysis can be justified by the high importance to
understand the natural and social reality of the National Park, showing restrictions on use,
always aiming the sustainability of the ecosystem delicate equilibrium, the physical
environment, together with the visitor's safety.


Storytelling is one of the oldest human activities for sharing information, entertainment, etc., and it is not wrong to say that myths were the most common form of storytelling through all ages in all cultures. Thanks to the researchers starting with Adolf Bastian and followed by Carl Gustav Jung and Joseph Campbell we now know that there is a common structure in myths regardless the cultural environment they are told in. Among the monomyths of Jung maybe the most interesting one is the hero and, as Campbell showed in "The Hero with a Thousand Faces", his journey. Crucially, the hero's journey is not only a spatial journey but also a temporal one. The aim of this paper is to show that the temporal journey of the hero in the film series Star Wars, Episode IV-VI, can be organized into a fractal-lattice structure. The lattice-based framework presented here can serve as a formal foundation for an automated storytelling engine to be used in various areas like computer games, interactive books, e-learning, etc.


Emerging conservation psychology literature shows that there is a strong link between positive attachment to a workplace and the performance of pro-environmental behaviors by employees at work. The present study explores the validity of a pilot survey based in previous literature that explores these constructs to determine whether a relationship between the two exists among zoo and aquarium professionals. The survey was distributed to employees of the Wildlife Conservation Society's city zoos-Prospect Park, Central Park, and Queens Zoos-during the first year of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Two of the survey scales used had a high internal consistency and data from these responses informed this case study to show that there is a weak, positive correlation between workplace attachment (WPA) and self-reported frequency of performance of pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs) among the respondents. Isolating the responses by department revealed that staff working in Operations departments (1) exhibit lower frequencies of PEB than those in Education and Animal departments and (2) have a very strong, positive correlation between WPA and PEB. The results suggest that zoo and aquarium employees who are positively attached to their workplace are more likely to perform PEBs, especially those working in Operations departments. These findings help support that workplace practices seeking to increase WPA could increase the performance of PEBs at work by all employees.


Monetary endeavour is not considered proper for doctors. They are expected to set examples of noble mindedness, and therefore money should not be the key element from which they derive confidence, strength, and motivation. All physicians who have had grateful patients will agree that nothing is more fulfilling than sincere gratitude and an appreciation for making some contribution, however small, to the satisfactory outcome of an illness. Every one of us would also agree that such human qualities cannot possibly be replaced by money. But money can sometimes be important. In his reminiscences, Sir Frederick Treves, an outstanding London surgeon from around the turn of the 20th century, tells the following remarkable story, which we ought to keep in mind whenever we consider enduring values within our profession.1

More than once in speaking at public meetings on behalf of hospitals I have alluded to my much valued possession—a twenty-krone piece—and have employed it as an illustration of the gratitude of the hospital patient.

The subject of this incident was a Norwegian sailor about fifty years of age, a tall, good-featured man with the blue eyes of his country and a face tanned by sun and by salt winds to the colour of weathered oak. His hair and his beard were grey, which made him look older than he was. He had been serving for three years as an ordinary seaman on an English sailing ship and spoke English perfectly. During …


Polyelectrolyte effects in the interaction of heavy metal ions with model polycarboxylic acids have been described, in order to establish the relevance of these effects in the interaction of heavy metal ions with naturally occurring humic and fulvic acids. The model systems consisted of Cd(II), Pb(II) or Zn(II) nitrates in combination with partially neutralized poly(acrylic acid), poly(methacrylic acid) or partially esterified poly(methacrylic acid). Metal binding characteristics have been investigated as a function of the metal/polyion ratio, the degree of neutralization, and the concentration of added 1:1 salt, and have been determined applying normal pulse polarography, conductometry and potentiometry. Covalent and electrostatic contributions to the binding have been disentangled, and discussed in terms of intrinsic binding constants and effective polyion charge densities. It is concluded that polyelectrolyte effects play an important role in heavy metal/humic acid systems at natural pH levels.


Advanced and unexpected applications are recently raising new interest in Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) codeless techniques that can be used, for example, for signal authentication and spoofing detection. Moreover, the presence of a subcarrier in modern GNSS signals introduces new challenges and opportunities. To take advantage of modern signal structures, codeless processing needs to be modified to recover the subcarrier which can subsequently be used for signal quality monitoring. In this paper, codeless tracking is modified for processing Binary Offset Carrier (BOC) modulated signals where a Subcarrier Lock Loop (SLL) is used to remove the subcarrier component. The performance of the suggested architecture is thoroughly analyzed and theoretical results are supported by Monte Carlo simulations. An open-loop, multi-correlator codeless architecture is also proposed to monitor the BOC subcarrier correlation function. The effectiveness of the proposed codeless framework is demonstrated using real data collected from the Galileo IOV satellites. The analysis supports the validity of the proposed architecture which enables quality monitoring of encrypted GNSS signals.


Data collected from real-world projects using Web-based communications and project management systems provide quantitative evidence for characterizing the design process. Tens of thousands of records have been analyzed from six cases. The cases are all highend office and retail building projects, with about 50 members of the design team. The data supports the distinction of multiple stages in the design process as the patterns of usage of the software changes through time. Coordination activities are more frequent in early stages, while collaboration activities are more common in late stages. In planning and design stages, use of the software is focused upon accessing static information, while in construction documentation a relatively greater number of activities include generate and process operations.


This study investigates empirically the effect of investment decision on financing decision. To obtain the objectives, the data required, ranging from 2004 through 2013 were collected from the financial statements of all the banking firms listed in Karachi Stock exchange. Investment opportunity and actual investment were used as proxies of investment decision. Profitability and firm size were used as control variables. Multiple regression models were used to estimate the variables of interest. It was concluded that investment opportunity had significant effect on financing decision; however, the effects have no particular pattern. Furthermore, actual investment had no impact on financing decision. Keywords: Banking Sector, Investment Decision, Financing Decision, Multiple Regression Model


In this retrospective study we have investigated the anxiety as an impact of pre-symptomatic testing (PST) for 3 autosomal dominant late-onset diseases: Huntington disease (HD), Machado-Joseph disease (MJD) and familial amyloidotic polyneuropathy (FAP) V30MTTR. The study included 686 subjects: 586 (85.4%) were the offspring at risk for FAP, 92 (13.4%) for HD and 8 (1.2%) to MJD. Of these, 352 received the carrier result and 305 the non-carrier result. As indicator of anxiety distress was taken the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale of Zung (SAS), applied in the pre-test and the three post-test moments: three weeks, 6 months and one year after notification of test results. Values decreased significantly along the four evaluation moments, regardless the studied disease or test result. For female population, SAS means cores revealed results of clinical anxiety at pre-test, only decreasing to non clinical scores a year after PST disclosure.


Some adrenergic blocking drugs reduce the mobilization of free fatty acids (FFA) in response to administration of catecholamines. The present experiments were done to see if potentiation of the pressor effect of norepinephrine by reserpine is accompanied by a greater increase in plasma FFA. Norepinephrine was infused intravenously into 16 anesthetized dogs. Eight of them had been treated with reserpine, 0.25 mg/kg daily, intraperitoneally for 2 days; the others were not treated. Arterial blood samples were drawn before, during, and after norepinephrine for determination of plasma FFA concentrations. Systemic arterial blood pressure was measured continuously. In the treated animals the maximal increase in arterial blood pressure as well as the progressive increments in FFA concentration were greater than in the untreated dogs. The experiments indicate that potentiation of the pressor response to norepinephrine after reserpine is accompanied by a greater FFA response.


A new case of this rarely described pathology is reported. It concerns a benign infiltrating lipomatosis, strictly located to the face. However, dento-musculo-squelettal structures are constantly involved, usually located to a hemiface. A young female patient has been followed up from her birth. Surgical procedures are reported. Diagnostic and therapeutic difficulties of this rare clinicopathologic entity are discussed.


The labeling problem in Multiple Target Tracking represents the problem of dealing with joint multi-target position uncertainties. This problem can be tackled by probabilistically characterizing the assignment of positions to labels [1]. The goal of this paper is to provide a performance evaluation criterion for such labeling characterization. In particular, an optimal decomposition of the association-free filtering posterior is derived analytically in a detection-based context. A particle-based implementation of this decomposition provides a definition of optimality regarding the labeling of the targets. This definition of optimality is also relevant for the characterization of labeling uncertainty in the track-before-detect context. An algorithm is provided for practical implementation of the method and used to evaluate the labeling uncertainty characterization proposed in [1].


This paper deals with the calculation of the force and the stiffness between two ring permanent magnets whose polarization is radial. Such a configuration corresponds to a passive magnetic bearing. The magnetic force exerted between ring permanent magnets is determined by using the Coulombian model. The expressions obtained are semianalytical and we show that it is not possible to find an exact analytical expression of the force between two ring permanent magnets. Then, thanks to these semianalytical calculations, the ring dimensions are optimized in order to have a great force or a great stiffness. Moreover, we show that the relative position of the rings for which the force is the strongest depends on the air gap dimension. This result is new because the curvature effect is taken into account in this paper. We can say that such semianalytical expressions are more precise than the numerical evaluation of the magnetic forces obtained with the finite-element method. Moreover, semianalytical expressions have a low computational cost whereas the finite-element method has a high one. Thereby, as shown in this paper, such calculations allow an easy optimization of quadripolar lenses or devices using permanent magnets.


While economic globalization has altered the geography of international migration and introduced an array of new sources and destinations, our understanding of the specific mechanisms that link economic globalization to migration remains limited. In this article, I attempt to extend previous research by undertaking an empirical case study of Mexican migration to the USA. Using a unique dataset, I construct multivariate models to test whether, in the context of economic integration, occupations channel migration between similar sectors of the Mexican and US economies. I focus on the food-processing sector because of its role in the geographic dispersal of Mexican immigration. The results show a strong channelling of Mexican immigration along an occupational line linking the Mexican and US food-processing sectors. The implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which ushered in a period of intensive political and economic integration, strengthened this occupational channel. By seeing the changing geography of Mexico–US migration in the context of economic globalization, this study casts light on the micro-level foundations of the globalization–migration nexus.


In tennis the wrist is required to be in different degrees of orientation at ball impact depending on the stroke and type of shot being hit. To date, little is known about the interplay between wrist position and grip strength, despite the fact that hitting the ball and firmly holding the racket when the wrist is flexed has been suggested as factor predisposing tennis players to lateral epicondylitis. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of different wrist positions on isometric grip strength at self-selected grip size. Thirty-seven tennis players performed three isometric contractions at each of the following wrist positions: neutral, extension, flexion, ulnar deviation and radial deviation. Maximal isometric grip force was measured at each wrist position with the use of a hand-held grip dynamometer and then the highest value at each position selected for analysis. Our results are as follows: at neutral the force exerted was 80.2 ± 22.07 (mean ± sd) kg, at wrist extension 56.99 ± 18.40 kg, at wrist flexion 33.96 ± 9.47 kg, at radial deviation 56.26 ± 19.39 kg and at ulnar deviation 56.64 ± 17.60 kg. Our findings show that, compare to the position defined as neutral, the maximum isometric force exerted by the fingers' flexor muscles is significantly affected (lowered) by wrist position (p<0.001).


Phone recognition followed by language modeling gives good performance for language identification (LID). The requirement of labeled speech corpora makes it less appealing to build LID system. An alternative scalable approach is to build LID system that does not require annotated speech database. In this paper, we have compared two such LID systems namely Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) tokeniser and syllable based LID system. The phonotactics of GMM and syllable based system are captured by GMM cluster indices and syllable tokens respectively. We propose the use of universal syllable models in building the LID systems and then deriving the uni-gram syllable statistics from this model. Experimental results on the OGI 1992 multilingual speech corpus show that syllable based LID system performs significantly better than the GMM Tokeniser system.


Background
Good medical care relies on communication as much as technical expertise, yet physicians often overestimate the efficacy of their patient communication skills. Teaching communication skills can be cost- and time-intensive, and efforts have rarely focused on challenging situations, such as conveying the news of a patient's brain death to a family member.

Objective
We developed a resource-sensitive simulation program to teach residents how to diagnose brain death and how to show empathy in discussing the diagnosis with the patient's family.

Methods
From 2015 to 2017, 3 cohorts of incoming neurology residents participated in the 3-day training exercise. The 2-hour preintervention assessment involved making the diagnosis of brain death and sharing the news with an actor portraying the patient's family member. The scoring via checklists consisted of 15 clinical skills, 9 apnea test-related skills, and 37 verbal skills related to family discussion. The 5-hour didactic intervention focused on technical aspects of the brain death examination and lessons in communication with role-playing. The 2-hour postintervention assessment repeated the brain death examination and family discussion simulations. Data were analyzed using the Wilcoxon signed rank test.

Results
A total of 18 residents (100%) were assessed, with significant differences between preintervention and postintervention testing across all areas, including clinical assessment (45%-76%, P < .001), apnea testing (57%-92%, P < .001), and verbal communication (46%-73%, P < .001).

Conclusions
The findings suggest a benefit in simulation training for brain death examination, apnea testing, and the subsequent family discussion regarding the patient's diagnosis.


The information systems literature is rich with studies of database organization and its impact on machine, programmer, and administrative efficiency. Little attention, however, has been paid to the impact of database organization on end-user interactions with computer systems. This research effort addressed this increasingly important issue by examining the effects of database organization on the ability of end-users to locate and extract desired information.
The study examined the impact of normalization levels of external relational database schema on end-user query success. It has been suggested in the literature that end-user query success might be improved by presenting external schema in lower level normal forms. This speculation is based on an analytical study of one particular class of query, queries involving join operations. The research presented here provides empirical support for this assertion. However, the implicit assumption that all other queries are neutral in their bias toward a particular level of normalization was found to be false. A class of queries requiring decomposition of prejoined relations was identified which strongly biases normalized relations. Thus, no particular normalization level was shown to dominate unless assumptions were made as to the class of query being formulated. Evidence from field research may be required to completely resolve the issue.
The study also examined the interaction effects between normalization levels and other key variables known to impact query success. Significant interactions with user skill and the complexity of the query being made were found. The level of normalization did not impact high skilled users making easy queries or low skilled users making difficult queries. The impact of these interactions, as well as the main effects of the related variables, on query syntax and logic errors holds important implications for database administrators as well as those involved with the development of database query languages.


Metal halide perovskite semiconductors have shown significant potential for use in photovoltaic (PV) devices. While fabrication of perovskite thin films can be achieved through a variety of techniques, thermal vapor deposition is particularly promising, allowing for high-throughput fabrication. However, the ability to control the nucleation and growth of these materials, particularly at the charge-transport layer/perovskite interface, is critical to unlocking the full potential of vapor-deposited perovskite PV. In this study, we explore the use of a templating layer to control the growth of coevaporated perovskite films and find that such templating leads to highly oriented films with identical morphology, crystal structure, and optoelectronic properties independent of the underlying layers. Solar cells incorporating templated FA0.9Cs0.1PbI3–xClx show marked improvements with steady-state power conversion efficiency over 19.8%. Our findings provide a straightforward and reproducible method of controlling the charge-transport layer/coevaporated perovskite interface, further clearing the path toward large-scale fabrication of efficient PV devices.


The rapid pace of discovery of new classes of Weyl semimetals is driving a search for properties that derive from their unique bandstructure topology. One of the most striking of the predicted properties is the quantized circular photogalvanic effect (QCPGE), whereby excitation of Weyl fermions by helical photons generates a current that is quantized in units of material-independent fundamental constants over a range of photon energies. Although this remarkable result was initially derived for the simplest case of a two-band crossing, it was later shown to apply to more complex multifold fermion band crossings, where the photocurrent is actually enhanced by larger topological charges. Real materials that exhibit this property are difficult to find in practice as the QCPGE requires that Weyl nodes with opposite topological charge, and hence oppositely directed photocurrent, lie at different energies. This condition in turn dictates that the host crystal must break all mirror symmetries and therefore be chiral. Here we report measurements of photocurrent in the multifold chiral semimetal RhSi that confirm the unique aspects of the predicted multifold fermion response. Specifically, the photocurrent spectrum displays a prominent, mesa-like structure, in which a frequency-independent plateau at low photon energy abruptly falls-off above 0.66 eV, precisely the energy at which the bandstructure indicates the onset of cancelling photocurrent from Weyl nodes of opposite topological charge. The magnitude of photocurrent on this mesa is consistent, within errors arising from indirect estimation of the current relaxation time, with the value expected from quantization, suggesting that RhSi is the first material to support a quantized injection photocurrent of topological origin.


Many algorithms for graph layout have been devised over the last 30 years spanning both the graph drawing and information visualisation communities. This article first reviews the advances made in the field of graph drawing that have then often been applied by the information visualisation community. There then follows a discussion of a range of techniques developed specifically for graph visualisations. Graph drawing algorithms are categorised into the following approaches: force-directed layouts, the use of dimension reduction in graph layout and computational improvements including multi-level techniques. Methods developed specifically for graph visualisation often make use of node-attributes and are categorised based on whether the attributes are used to introduce constraints to the layout, provide a clustered view or define an explicit representation in two-dimensional space. The similarities and distinctions between these techniques are examined and the aim is to provide a detailed assessment of currently available graph layout techniques, specifically how they can be used by visualisation practitioners, and to motivate further research in the area.


The meaning of the 'national identity' clause set out in Article 4(2) TEU has been subject to various interpretations. This article proposes that a new approach, 'the uniqueness approach', be used to determine what exactly the EU is required to respect under Article 4(2) TEU. The uniqueness approach entails examination of the following three criteria in order to determine whether a particular feature of a Member State can be regarded as being part of the national identity of that Member State: first whether that feature is unique in that no other Member State exhibits such a feature, second, whether that feature can be seen to be part of that Member State's constitutional and political structures, and third, whether that feature is fundamental to those structures. Once these criteria have been satisfied the proportionality review of that feature in terms of its compatibility with primary or secondary EU law should be done away with. Part I of this article explains the essential components of the uniqueness approach. Part II focuses on the question of who should be the final authority on the interpretation and application of Article 4(2) TEU.


[Objective] The aim of this study is to provide theoretical basis for immunizing waterfowls(duck and goose)with the inactivated oil emulsion binary vaccine against Newcastle Disease(ND)and Fowl Cholera(FC).[Method]Bacterial liquid from solid culture media inoculated avian Pasteurella multocida(APM)type A and allantoic fluid from embryonic eggs infected with Newcastle Disease Virus(NDV)attenuated strain La Sota were mixed and inactivated by formalin to prepare 5 batches of inactivated oil emulsion binary vaccine,which were then used for the safety and immune efficacy test on duck and goose.[Result]Immunized ducks and geese didn't performed any adverse reactions in the safety test of the 5 batches of vaccine;the immune efficacy test showed that ND-HI antibody titers of ducks and geese were no less than 4 log2 three weeks after inoculation,and the protection rates against NDV and APM were 100% and 66.7%-83.3%,respectively.[Conclusion]The binary vaccine against ND and FC is safe and reliable for duck and goose,and can provide them with sufficient immunity protection against ND and FC.


At the 1981 Congressional Hearings on Fraud in Biomedical Research, then Representative Albert Gore, Jr., asked Philip Felig, the senior mentor in the Vijay Soman case at Yale: "Is it your opinion that the inplace system of checks at Yale worked satisfactory?" Felig responded that it did not. [W]e didn't know how to react. I didn't know how to react at that point, and obviously, we didn't react properly [(51) p. 104]. Yale was at the time no better or wrose off than other universities. Despite growing evidence of misconduct in science during the 1970s, as the decade of the 1980s began, the nation's research universities had not developed or even thought much about scientific misconduct policies. Today they have. In this article I briefly trace the events that have seen the nation's major research universities adopt scientific misconduct policies, describe in general terms the forms these policies have taken, and conclude with recommendations for the future. Overall, the story told is one of slow acceptance of responsibility for scientific misconduct on the part of universities, with the agenda for policy formation being set largely by outside forces and individuals. 1. A Decade of Response, 1981-- 1991 In retrospect, it now seems almost self-evident that scientific misconduct policies are not only a good idea but a necessity. As university after university learned in the 1970s and 1980s, cases involving scientific misconduct too often were not covered by the general rules governing academic conduct. Evidence is hard to collect. Experts are needed for investigations and adjudication. The standards for judging misconduct vary from field to field. Self-investigations raise conflicts of interest. Though there is general agreement that the most extreme form of scientific misconduct -- fraud in research -- cannot be tolerated, detecting, proving, and adjudicating research fraud is a complex and difficult task. Having rules for proceeding and standards for judging in place is, if nothing else, a prudent step. This is not the way most scientists and university policy makers saw this issue in the mid-1970s when William Summerline's "painted" mice were discovered by the press (22). That anyone in science would deliberately fake the results of an experiment shocked many researchers, prompting some to question their most cherished beliefs about the way science operates. The biologist Peter Medawar later observed that his own lack of moral courage overcame the skepticism that he should have exercised as a scientist when he first saw corneal grafts that Summerline alleged to have performed on a rabbit. I could not believe that this rabbit had received a graft of any kind ... because the pattern of blood vessels in the ring around the cornea was in no way disturbed. Nevertheless I simply lacked the moral courage to say at the time that I thought we were the victims of a hoax or confidence trick [30, p. 6]. However, the quick and efficient way in which Summerline was caught also reinforced other cherished beliefs about science, particularly the belief in its ability to police and regulate itself. More than any other factor, the widespread belief that error and fraud could be detected and corrected by the scientific community explains why scientists and the policy makers they advised on university campuses felt and have continued to feel no pressing need to institute policies and procedures for dealing with scientific misconduct. The belief in self-policing and self-regulation in science was not limited to scientists or university policy makers. In by far the best and most penetrating analysis of scientific misconduct written before the 1980s, sociologist Harriet Zuckerman carefully reviewed both historical and contemporary evidence for insights into the causes, extent, and consequences of scientific misconduct. She described, in detail that is still useful for policy making today, the complexities of the behaviors of scientists and of the established norms in science. …


Objective The aim of this study was to explore BRCA mutation frequency and to evaluate its impact on prognosis of advanced-stage ovarian cancer patients treated with debulking surgery and platinum-based chemotherapy. Methods Patients with advanced-stage epithelial ovarian cancer were enrolled in a prospective, single-center study from September 2008 to December 2011. All cases were screened for BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations. Progression-free survival (PFS) was assessed between BRCA1/2 mutation carriers and BRCA1/2 wild-type patients. Results One hundred seven patients were enrolled and screened for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations; 51.4% patients were positive for BRCA1/2 gene mutation, 63.6% of which carried a single Baltic mutation, and 98.2% of them had serous histology. Older age (hazard ratio [HR], 1.032; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.010–1.055; P = 0.0047), nonoptimal cytoreduction (HR, 3.170; 95% CI, 1.986–5.060; P < 0.0001), and BRCA1/2 wild type (HR, 1.625 [1.003–2.632]; P = 0.0486) were significantly associated with shorter PFS in multivariate Cox regression analysis. Only the nonoptimal cytoreduction was a statistically significant risk factor for shorter overall survival (HR, 2.684; 95% CI, 1.264–5.701; P= 0.0102). Conclusions Advanced ovarian cancer patients harboring BRCA1/2 mutation treated with debulking surgery and platinum-based adjuvant chemotherapy have a longer PFS.


Abstract This study evaluated the potential of stimuli-responsive bacterial cellulose-g-poly(acrylic acid-co-acrylamide) hydrogels as oral controlled-release drug delivery carriers. Hydrogels were synthesized by graft copolymerization of the monomers onto bacterial cellulose (BC) fibers by using a microwave irradiation technique. The hydrogels were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). FT-IR spectroscopy confirmed the grafting. XRD showed that the crystallinity of BC was reduced by grafting, whereas an increase in the thermal stability profile was observed in TGA. SEM showed that the hydrogels exhibited a highly porous morphology, which is suitable for drug loading. The hydrogels demonstrated a pH-responsive swelling behavior, with decreased swelling in acidic media, which increased with increase in pH of the media, reaching maximum swelling at pH 7. The release profile of the hydrogels was investigated in simulated gastric fluid (SGF) and simulated intestinal fluid (SIF). The hydrogels showed lesser release in SGF than in SIF, suggesting that hydrogels may be suitable drug carriers for oral controlled release of drug delivery in the lower gastrointestinal tract.


This paper will present a mechanism for providing cache coherence without sacrificing predictability. In addition, this multi-processing cache coherent design approach can signGcantly enhance processor performance by eliminating many of the processor stall operations associated with snooping operations.


Organizing collective action to secure support from local communities provides a source of power for elites to protect their interests, but community structures constrain the ability of elites to use this power. Elites' power is not static or self-perpetuating but changing and dynamic. There are situations in which elites are forced into movement-like struggles to mobilize support from their community. The success of elites' mobilization is affected by cultural and structural factors that shape the collective meaning of supporting elites' actions and the identities that are formed in doing so. I find broad support for these propositions in a study of the issuances of small-denomination currency substitutes in 145 U.S. cities during the Panic of 1907. I discuss the contributions of this article to elite studies, the social movement literature, and the sociology of money.


Sixty-one of Nile perch, Lates niloticus collected from Damietta branch of River Nile at Dakahlia Province from January 2012 to February 2013 were macro–and microscopically examined for the presence of ectoparasitic protozoa. Fifty-two fish specimens (85.2%) were found to be natural hosts of nine ciliates: six species of scyphidians; Ambiphyra ameiuri, Ambiphyra sp., Scyphidia globularis, S. doliaris, Scyphidia mansouriensis n. sp. and Scyphidia sp.; two of amphileptids; Amphileptus niloticus n. sp. and Amphileptus sp. and only one tetrahymenid; Tetrahymena sp. All parasites were recorded for the first time from the host Lates niloticus in Egypt. Scyphidia globularis and S. doliaris were not recorded before from any fish kind in Egypt. Furthermore, Amphileptus niloticus and Scyphidia mansouriensis were described as two new species. Detailed descriptions of all parasites were presented.


This work had the objective of evaluating the effect of inoculation and incubation of a potting soil with streptomycetes in growth promotion of tomato seedlings. The first experiment was conducted with four streptomycete isolates, with and without incubation for 20 days. The experimental design was entirely randomized with 15 replications, in a factorial squeme (5 x 2). The inoculation and incubation of the potting mix promotted a significant increase in plant height, root and shoot dry weight, and plant nutrient levels. In the second experiment, the inoculation with the two best isolates, in five different incubation periods (0, 15, 30, 45 and 60 days) was evaluated for growth of tomato seedlings in the same potting growth mix, using an entirely randomized experimental design with 8 replications and a factorial scheme 3 x 5. Forty three days was considered to be the best incubation period, suggesting that this may be the time necessary for the streptomycete isolates to colonize and act in the decomposition of the organic matter, improving nutrient uptake by the roots, and promoting plant growth.


The effect of strength mismatch (ratio between the yield stress of weld metal and base metal, My) on the ductile crack growth resistance of welding pipe was numerically analyzed. The ductile fracture behavior of welding pipe was determined while using the single edge notched bending (SENB) and single edge notched tension (SENT) specimens, as well as axisymmetric models of circumferentially cracked pipes for comparison. Crack growth resistance curves (as denoted by crack tip opening displacement-resistance (CTOD-R curve) have been computed using the complete Gurson model. A so-called CTOD-Q-M formulation was proposed to calculate the weld mismatch constraint M. It has been shown that the fracture resistance curves significantly increase with the increase of the mismatch ratio. As for SENT and pipe, the larger My causes the lower mismatch constraint M, which leads to the higher fracture toughness and crack growth resistance curves. When compared with the standard SENB, the SENT specimen and the cracked pipe have a more similar fracture resistance behavior. The results present grounds for justification of usage of SENT specimens in fracture assessment of welding cracked pipes as an alternative to the traditional conservative SENB specimens.


The exploration–exploitation trade-off is a fundamental problem in re-inforcement learning. To study the neural mechanisms involved in this problem, a target search task in which exploration and exploitation phases appear alternately is useful. Monkeys well trained in this task clearly understand that they have entered the exploratory phase and quickly acquire new experiences by resetting their previous experiences. In this study, we used a simple model to show that experience resetting in the exploratory phase improves performance rather than decreasing the greediness of action selection, and we then present a neural network-type model enabling experience resetting.


'Local People' programme operates in 29 UK communities experiencing disadvantage and economic stressors that impact on population wellbeing. The programme uses a community empowerment approach to increase social connections, and collective control, improve health, and reduce inequalities. This links to SDGs 3 and 11. Mechanisms include a decision-making group led by residents, a project lead, funding, and support from a national charity.

 A mixed method evaluation was conducted (2017-19) to identify processes and assess outcomes and impacts. This presentation outlines the findings from five in-depth qualitative case studies (c140 interviews) with emphasis on one post-industrial UK town suffering from the effects of industrial decline. A within case and cross case qualitative analysis was undertaken using a thematic framework.

 Priorities set by local areas focused on increasing community involvement and connections between people. A wide range of activities took place including regular classes and community events. The five case studies found strong qualitative evidence of increased social connectedness, community spirit and a sense of purpose, along with the area becoming a better place to live. People involved in project delivery gained confidence and skills, improved their wellbeing and gained a sense of control. There is, as yet, limited evidence that increased involvement has influenced the wider determinants of health. In the post-industrial town, people's social networks expanded, enriching their lives and providing missed companionship. Participants in the programme reported improved mental and physical health, as well as increased confidence and skills. Involvement gave a voice to marginalised older people in the area.

 Empowering communities and putting residents in control can lead to improvements in connectedness and some aspects of health and wellbeing, even in post-industrial towns facing considerable and complex challenges.

 The community empowerment programme increased social connectedness. The programme led to improved mental and physical health in participants.


One of the necessary conditions for sustainable development is the public finance stability. The policy of financial consolidation, which has been actively pursued since the 1980s, is designed to balance the budget and the debt burden so as not to expose future generations to the risk of lowering living standards. However, such a policy often becomes an obstacle to economic growth. In accordance with the concept of progressive financial consolidation, a fiscal capacity should be created, which is used to reduce the tax burden and increase budget expenditures that stimulate economic growth. Analysis of the tax burden showed that the policy of financial consolidation conducted in Russia in 2015–2018 did not stimulate the development of the sector oriented to the domestic market. Thus, fiscal policy did not meet the objectives of sustainable development.


Gliese 667C is an M1.5V star with a multi-planet system, including planet candidates in the habitable zone. The exact number of planets in the system is unclear, because the existing radial velocity (RV) measurements are known to contain contributions from stellar magnetic activity. Following our analysis of Gliese 581, we have analyzed the effect of stellar activity on the HARPS/HARPS-TERRA RVs of GJ 667C, finding a significant RV–activity correlation when using the width (FWHM) of the HARPS cross-correlation function to trace the magnetic activity. When we correct for this correlation, we confirm the detections of the previously observed planets b and c in the system, while simultaneously ascribing the RV signal near 90 days ("planet d") to an artifact of the stellar rotation. We are unable to confirm the existence of the additional RV periodicities described in Anglada-Escudé et al. in our activity-corrected data.


Purpose Every physician has experienced the emotional drain of a difficult patient encounter. Do these draining encounters adversely affect patients seen later in the day? The purpose of this study was to determine if an unsatisfying patient encounter was likely to result in a less satisfying encounter for the subsequent patient. Methods During two summer periods, a convenience sample of resident continuity clinic patients was surveyed regarding their satisfaction with the clinic visit. Patient satisfaction was assessed with seven items measured on a 10-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 10 = strongly agree). Given that patient satisfaction, as seen in other patient satisfaction studies, is generally very high, a satisfying encounter was defined as one with 10's on all seven items while a less than perfectly satisfying encounter was defined as one with any score less than 10. This study focused on the satisfaction of the patient seen following a less satisfied patient. Results One hundred fifty patient encounters were available for analysis. In general, 58% of the patients were satisfied with their visit. However, only 30% were satisfied if they were seen after a less satisfied patient, (p < .01). Conclusions After an unsatisfactory patient encounter, the next patient is more likely to be dissatisfied with their visit. Further research should explore how our interactions with patients influence other patient interactions on a given day.


Background: Lateral recess stenosis (LRS) is a common degenerative disease in the elderly. Since the rise of comorbidity is associated with the increasing age, the percutaneous endoscopic lumbar decompression is advocated. The objective of this study was to compare the clinical outcomes of percutaneous endoscopic lumbar decompression in LRS via TESSYS or TESSYS-ISEE approach. Methods: A total of 45 and 42 consecutive patients with limp or radiculopathy symptoms underwent percutaneous endoscopic lumbar decompression using transforaminal endoscopic spine system (TESSYS) and TESSYS-ISEE, respectively. The radiation exposure and operation time, time to return to work, and complications were compared between two groups. Their clinical outcomes were evaluated with visual analogue scale (VAS) leg pain score, VAS back pain score, Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) and Modified MacNab's criteria. Results: The average values of radiation exposure and operative time in TESSYS group were significantly higher than those in TESSYS-ISEE group (P<0.05). The postoperative VAS and ODI scores in both groups were significantly improved compared with before the operation (P<0.05). In addition, the VAS score of the leg and ODI score in the TESSYS-ISEE group were significantly lower than those in TESSYS group at 1 week follow-up (P<0.05). The good-to-excellent rates of the TESSYS and TESSYS-ISEE group were 88.89 and 90.48%, respectively, whereas the complication occurrence rates were 6.67 and 4.76% in TESSYS and TESSYS-ISEE groups, respectively. Conclusions: TESSYS-ISEE can be applied to treat LRS safely and effectively with short radiation exposure and operation time. This approach was comparable to the TESSYS approach with improved VAS leg pain and ODI score in short period after operation. However, potential complications and risks still needs to be considered.