The current study aimed to identify the effect of hybrid computing on internal control systems in Jordanian commercial banks, where the study community consisted of all Jordanian commercial banks listed on the Amman Stock Exchange, which is (13) commercial banks in 2019, and a comprehensive survey method was used in Choosing a study sample, as the sample included all of the study population. As for the inspection and analysis unit, which is (148), it consisted of individuals working in the higher administrative levels (general managers and executive directors), and the middle administrative levels (managers and heads of the divisions of the Information Technology Department, Risk Management and the Department of Internal Control) in the Jordanian commercial banks. For the purpose of analyzing study data and testing hypotheses, the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program was used in various statistical analyzes, where descriptive statistics and internal consistency factor (Cronbach alpha) were used as well. Multiple linear correlation test using Pearson correlation coefficient was used to test the presence of the Multicollinearity phenomenon, as well as Multiple and Stepwise Linear Regression. The study reached many results, the most important of which was the derivation of a unified concept of hybrid cloud computing, one of the most important dilemmas facing thinkers due to the difference in its characteristics and changing services depending on the model of its publication, as well as its continuous growing role in banks and companies as a development input which makes it applicable widely. Also, there was an emergence of the effect of hybrid computing (technology, finance, strategy requirements, organizational context, and risks) on internal control systems in Jordanian commercial banks. The most important recommendations are embodied in the need for Jordanian commercial banks to highlight the expected benefits from adopting hybrid cloud computing to build more positive attitudes towards that computing without neglecting their ease of use by finding the appropriate and suitable combination of their resources and technological capabilities to raise the efficiency of the control systems applied in them.


Grain oriented transformer steel falls into two main classes – conventional grain oriented steel (C.G.O.) and the more recent high-perm grain oriented (HGO), having superior grain alignment and better high field permeability. Analysis shows that for operating inductions up to 1.5 Tesla the latest grades of C.G.O. offer a better all-round performance than H.G.O. steels.


Quinone reductase (QR) induction is a reliable biomarker of phase II enzyme induction. In this study, glutathione (GSH) was employed and a liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) method was introduced to reveal the chemical constituents with QR activity from the ethyl acetate extract of roots Salvia miltiorrhiza ('Danshen') and nine tanshinones (9, 13, 17-19, 21, 24-26), which could conjugate with GSH, were characterized by LC/MS/MS and considered to have QR activities. Then, thirteen tanshinones, including six compounds (17, 18, 21, 24-26) of the above nine tanshinones, were isolated to conduct QR induction evaluation, and it was found that miltirone and its derivatives (18, 20, 24, 26) exhibited significant activities. The GSH conjugate abilities of the isolated tanshinones were also examined; this showed that compounds 18, 20, 24 and 26 had good conjugating abilities with GSH. Compared with the in vitro bioactivity screening results, this proved that conjugate ability is related with QR activity, so an LC/MS/MS method can be applied to find more active compounds.


The aim of this research is to build a strategy for Indonesia's involvement in the Palestinian- Israeli peace process. We first identify the main obstacle for such involvement, which, in our view, is the absence of official contacts between Indonesia and Israel The opening of such contacts, however, is not possible due to a number of reasons. First and foremost, the opening of such contacts will create tremendous political pressures to the government from the Islamic communities. In addition, the economic gains of such an opening are not quite tangible. Finally, the opening of such contacts could easily be interpreted as a violation to the constitution which clearly calls for the right to independence. To tackle those problems, our proposal is to build an unofficial-official which combine the Taiwan model and the backchannel model and add it with the normative framework and pragmatic interests for Indonesia's involvement.


SOI substrates are important for the fabrication of monolithic active pixel high energy physics particle detectors. In this work, self-aligned circular geometry MOS transistor test structures were fabricated on ion split, bonded SOI substrates to evaluate the interface between the high resistivity handle silicon and the SOI buried oxide. Pre- and post- proton irradiation transistor measurements are presented, showing an increased SOI buried oxide trapped charge of only 3.45times1011 cm-2 for a dose of 2.7 Mrad.


Regular access to genetically superior bulls from an open nucleus breeding system is an impetus for N'Dama cattle utilization and conservation. However, shortage in the number of bulls that could be distributed to the farmers for subsequent breeding remains a challenge in some countries of West Africa. In this regard, the potential benefit of artificial insemination (AI) and the roles of national policy were assessed. The open nucleus-breeding scheme of International Trypanotolerance Center (ITC) in the Gambia was used as a case study and the research questions were answered with literature review, focus group discussion, and Likert-scale questionnaire. Introduction of AI into the breeding scheme of N'Dama cattle can create higher selection intensity and promote a wider dissemination of genetic gain made at the nucleus. With improved AI techniques, a better use of improved N'Dama bulls can be achieved. Notwithstanding, there are concerns about low pregnancy rate, quality of the semen, inadequate knowledge of AI technicians, and the regular availability of quality bulls. For the Gambian national policy, the environmental component is the most relevant for conservation of N'Dama cattle. This can be buttressed with more flexibility and a clearer communication of the objectives through workshops and local media.


New York — A newly formed group of indoor tanning retailers is working to correct what it calls "misinformation" about tanning beds and boost public awareness of the potential benefits of UV exposure.


The requirements of distribution grids are increasing. In a smart grid, critical states and overstress are predictable. If any kind of load shedding is available then grid expansions can be alleviated. Demand response could be used to motivate consumers to load shifting via incentives. Potential of load shifting in households exists, but remains uncertain so far due to the lack of knowledge about responsiveness of consumers to different kinds of incentives even if this is the key issue for demand response programs. This paper introduces a completely new approach for a micro-economic model, which estimates the price responsiveness of consumers to incentives in a rational decision making model based on fuzzy technology. It allows investigating the effect of different kinds of incentives on the demand side participation and response, the impact on residential consumers and the consequences for the low voltage distribution grids.


In the hotel sector, yield management traditionally balances a supply of perishable room nights against demand by manipulating price and time of consumption. While widely accepted, Internet-based distribution channels with different cost structures complicate the process. Hotels must not only manipulate price in response to supply and demand, but must also choose which portfolio of distribution channels to use. This study investigates whether up-market European hotels use three yield management practices: varying room rates with market demand; varying participation in Internet channels with market demand; and differentiating rates on Internet channels in times of high demand. Introducing the concept of a consumer price index for hotel rates, the study found that while one quarter use the first technique, use of the two other practices was considerably lower, suggesting a lack of sophisticated yield management among participants.


This article serves as an introduction to the concept of virtual property and also to very briefly note the relevance of virtual property in modern society. A universally accepted definition of virtual property is hard to come by, but the paper will aim to provide some clarity on the issue. Virtual property is still property, and it still exists even though it is intangible. It includes (amongst other things) website addresses and email addresses as well as certain other accepted immaterial property objects such as bank accounts, stocks, options and derivatives. Indeed, one can go so far as to include digital goods, such as digital versions of books (e-books), computer or smartphone programmes or apps, television series and movies as well as digital music (albums and tracks) as objects of virtual property. However, the focus in this paper is on the type of virtual property found inside virtual worlds. The discussion of virtual property will be facilitated by reference to some of the ancillary and more complicated areas of the field to serve as a point of reference leading to an understanding of the concept of virtual property in general.


Various imaging modalities including MRI plaque imaging are used for the evaluation of carotid artery plaques, but ultrasonography, which can be performed readily and non-invasively at the bedside, is convenient for follow-up examination and rapid diagnosis in emergency situations. Conventionally, ultrasound examination of carotid artery plaques has focused on narrowing the blood vessels due to plaques and emphasized quantitative aspects such as the degree of stenosis. Indeed, much evidence that has been reported concerning the risk of cerebral infarction has been based on the evaluation of the degree of stenosis. Clinically, however, we often encounter refractory plaques that repeatedly cause ischemic events and resist treatment despite a relatively low degree of stenosis. With the use ofcarotid artery ultrasound for screening examinations of cerebrovascular disorders, opportunities to detect asymptomatic plaques and asymptomatic stenosis caused by them have increased, and the necessity of qualitative evaluation of plaques in question to assess the risk of the future occurrence of stroke is considered to be increasing. This report, therefore, focuses on the qualitative ultrasound diagnosis of carotid artery plaques.


We report on the formation of a diverse family of transverse spatial polygon patterns in a microcavity
polariton fluid under coherent driving by a blue-detuned pump. Patterns emerge spontaneously
as a result of energy-degenerate polariton-polariton scattering from the pump state to interfering
high order vortex and antivortex modes, breaking azimuthal symmetry. The interplay between a
multimode parametric instability and intrinsic optical bistability leads to a sharp spike in the value
of second order coherence g (2)(0) of the emitted light, which we attribute to the strongly superlinear
kinetics of the underlying scattering processes driving the formation of patterns. We show numerically
by means of a linear stability analysis how the growth of parametric instabilities in our system
can lead to spontaneous symmetry breaking, predicting the formation and competition of different
pattern states in good agreement with experimental observations.


The combined carbometalation/zinc homologation followed by reactions with α-heterosubstituted aldehydes and imines proceed through a chair-like transition structure with the substituent of the incoming aldehyde residue preferentially occupying a pseudo-axial position to avoid the two gauche interactions. The heteroatom in the axial position produces a chelated intermediate (and not a Cornforth-Evans transition structure for α-chloro aldehydes and imines) leading to a face differentiation in the allylation reaction. This method provides access to functionalized products in which three new carbon-carbon bonds and two to three stereogenic centers, including a quaternary one, were created in acyclic systems in a single-pot operation from simple alkynes.


Face de-identification has become increasingly important as the image sources are explosively growing and easily accessible. The advance of new face recognition techniques also arises people's concern regarding the privacy leakage. The mainstream pipelines of face de-identification are mostly based on the k-same framework, which bears critiques of low effectiveness and poor visual quality. In this paper, we propose a new framework called Privacy-Protective-GAN (PP-GAN) that adapts GAN with novel verificator and regulator modules specially designed for the face de-identification problem to ensure generating de-identified output with retained structure similarity according to a single input. We evaluate the proposed approach in terms of privacy protection, utility preservation, and structure similarity. Our approach not only outperforms existing face de-identification techniques but also provides a practical framework of adapting GAN with priors of domain knowledge.


This article analyzes the opinions expressed in Mexico's independent press regarding the bill promoted by the Texan congressman John Box between 1929 and 1930, whose central objective was for the U.S. government to implement quotas on immigration from Mexico. It reveals how the public discourse centered around four themes: 1) Declarations as to how this bill humiliated Mexico and its citizens, 2) Insults and reproaches directed at the United States and its behavior, 3) Analysis of how measures such as this one led to tension between the two countries and 4) Commentaries on the positive effects this initiative would have on Mexico. The central hypothesis of this article is that these were the first public opinions expressed in 20th Century Mexico regarding proposed legislation in the United States that aimed to restrict Mexican immigration, a subject that is still relevant today.


Abstract Rationale: Widely applied in the treatment of severe ankle arthritis (AA), ankle distraction arthroplasty (ADA) can avoid not only the ankle range of motion loss but also ankle fusion. However, the clinical outcomes of ADA for severe AA are poorly understood. This study aims to present our clinical outcomes of severe AA treated by ADA. Patient concerns: A 53-year-old man suffered right ankle sprain 10 years ago, endured right ankle pain and limited movement for 6 years. Diagnosis: The patient was diagnosed as severe AA. Interventions: He received ankle distraction arthroplasty. No adjuvant procedures were performed. The visual analog scale (VAS), the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS) score, the short-form (SF)-36 physical component summary (PCS) score and ankle activity score (AAS) were recorded to access the clinical outcomes pre- and postoperatively. Moreover, ankle joint space distance was evaluated on weight-bearing radiographs. Outcomes: The patient derived effective pain relief and restored a satisfactory range of movement. There was a 13-month follow-up period after frame removal. The AOFAS score improved from 56 preoperatively to 71 postoperatively. The VAS score decreased from 6 prior to surgery to 1 after surgery. The SF-36 PCS was 47.2 and 71.8 pre- and postoperative, respectively. The AAS scores were improved from 3.4 preoperatively to 7.3 postoperatively. Lessons: ADA is reliable to achieve pain relief, functional recovery, and serve AA resolution. Besides, it is an alternative to ankle arthrodesis or total ankle arthroplasty in selected patients with severe AA.


AbstractConvergent plate motion at ∼320–210 Ma generated the Tongbai-Dabie-Sulu (east-central China)-Imjingang-Gyeonggi (central Korea)-Renge-Suo (Southwestern Japan)-Sikhote-Alin orogen along the paleo-Pacific edge of cratonal Asia. This amalgamated belt reflects collision between the Sino-Korean and Yangtze cratons on the SW portion, and accretion of outboard oceanic arcs ± sialic fragments against the NE margin. Subducted Proterozoic-Paleozoic continental and oceanic crustal complexes underwent high- and ultrahigh-pressure metamorphism at low to moderate temperatures. Tectonic slices of sialic crust episodically disengaged from the downgoing plate and, driven by buoyancy, ascended rapidly to midcrustal levels from depths exceeding 90–200 km after continental collision in east-central China plus or minus Korea, and from ∼30–50 km after arrival of far-traveled oceanic terranes in SW Japan and the Russian Far East. On achieving neutral buoyancy and stalling out at 10–20 km depth, later doming, gravitation...


We propose an model-based approach to address safety and security assessment of a system architecture. We present an integrated process where system engineers design the model of the system architecture, safety and security engineers specify the propagation of failures and attacks inside each component of the architecture using their dedicated tool. They also define the failure modes that have to be merged from both disciplines. The underlying analyses are then performed using Alloy. We instantiate this approach with the system engineering tool Melody from Thales, and the risk analysis supporting tool Safety Architect from All4Tec. We illustrate this work on a system that implements a landing approach of an aircraft.


An automated multi-channel multiplug filtration cleanup (m-PFC) device was designed and developed. m-PFC columns were suitably installed in the device. The cycle times, speed and nitrogen pressure parameters of the m-PFC column were optimized. The device was utilized to analyze the 82 pesticide residues in fresh mulberry leaves and processed tea with GC-MS/MS detection. Method validation was performed on 82 pesticide residues in fresh mulberry leaves and processed tea at spiked levels of 0.01, 0.05 and 0.5 mg kg−1. The fortified recoveries of 82 pesticides were 72–115% and the relative standard deviations were 1–15%, except for diniconazole and clodinafop-propargyl in mulberry leaves. The automated multi-channel m-PFC device was successfully applied to detect the pesticide residues in fresh mulberry leaves and processed tea samples. With comparison to the conventional QuEChERS method, the current method using this device did not need additional vortex or centrifugation steps, and could process 48–64 samples in about one hour. The automated m-PFC method saved labor and improved the precision and was shown to be efficient and practical in pesticide residue analysis.


Vitamin D3 (1) is metabolized by various cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes, resulting in the formation of diverse metabolites. Among them, 4α,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (6a) and 4β,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (6b) are both produced from 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 (2) by CYP3A4. However, 6b is detectable in serum, whereas 6a is not. We hypothesized that the reason for this is a difference in the susceptibility of 6a and 6b to CYP24A1-mediated metabolism. Here, we synthesized 6a and 6b, and confirmed that 6b has greater metabolic stability than 6a. We also identified 4α,24R,25- and 4β,24R,25-trihydroxyvitamin D3 (16a and 16b) as metabolites of 6a and 6b, respectively, by HPLC comparison with synthesized authentic samples. Docking studies suggest that the β-hydroxy group at C4 contributes to the greater metabolic stability of 6b by blocking a crucial hydrogen-bonding interaction between the C25 hydroxy group and Leu325 of CYP24A1.


The interaction of the polyamine poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH) with Na3PO4, Na4P2O7, Na5P3O10, Na6P6O18 and (NaPO3)26 salts, and the formation of polyamine phosphate nanoparticles (PANs) are studied here. Dynamic light scattering, isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC), electrophoretical mobility measurements, atomic force microscopy and transmission electron microscopy are used to explore the formation, stability and pH sensitivity of PANs. An optimal concentration for PAN formation is found for each phosphate salt in terms of most stable size and lowest polydispersity index of the nanoparticles. The minimal concentration of phosphate ions for PAN formation decreases with the increasing number of phosphate groups per phosphate salt. ITC measurements show that all polyphosphates display a characteristic endothermic peak, which is not present when monophosphates are used for PAN formation. PH stability of PANs depends on the type of phosphate salt. PANs formed with small phosphates show a small window of stability with pH, from 8 to 9, while those formed with long phosphates are stable in more acidic pH environments Our findings open multiple possibilities for fine tuning the pH sensitivity of PANs by varying phosphate salts for potential applications in drug delivery.


CONTENTS Introduction Chapter I. Methods of general computability theory in complexity bounds § 1. Complexity hierarchies. Complexity in finite domains § 2. Exponential and high lower bounds § 3. Complexity classes. Universal problems Chapter II. Methods and techniques for constructing "fast" algorithms § 1. Identification of subwords of a given word § 2. Computation of collections of arithmetical expressions § 3. Solution of equations and inequalities. Decomposition into irreducibles § 4. Problems on graphs and geometrical problems § 5. Searching for information. Syntactic analysis Chapter III. Lower complexity bounds for restricted models § 1. Computational models § 2. Lower time bounds § 3. Lower bounds for algebraic complexity References


The World without Sight. A Comparative Study of Concept Understanding in Polish Congenitally Totally Blind and Sighted Children The paper presents the outcome of an experiment on concept understanding in Polish congenitally totally blind and sighted children. A test of free associations was administered to a group of 40 sighted and 24 congenitally totally blind children between the ages of 7 and 9. The research instrument included 25 sample concepts grouped into four categories such as colors, nature phenomena, features of living organisms and physical processes. The collected responses lend support to the fact that there exist many impediments to proper concept understanding due to limited hands-on experience arising out of blindness, visible in the research by the presence of gaps in knowledge or egocentrism-based responses. The data exhibits a blind child's high dependence on contextual clues and a delay in the process of decontextualization, especially if it is not accompanied by sufficient stimulation from the child's environment.


Signaling pathways controlling cellular proliferation are major targets of cancer therapeutics, however, accurate assessment of activation status of targetable signaling cascades remains a challenge. We have developed proximity ligation assay (PLA)-based methodologies to detect signaling-associated complexes for a variety of receptor tyrosine kinases, intracellular adaptors and phosphorylation events in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues. By assessing the degree of functional association of oncogenic kinases (such as EGFR and ALK) with intracellular adaptor molecules, it is possible to characterize the activation status of targetable kinase activity and monitor variations across tissue types, within tissues and in response to perturbations. Here, we present data for a panel of PLAs using cell lines, patient specimens and patient-derived xenografts models. We show that EGFR-GRB2 PLA reflects erlotinib pharmacodynamics and has predictive capacity for response to both erlotinib and cetuximab. We demonstrate that PLA can identify alterations in multiple bypass signaling cascades associated with therapeutic escape using both in vitro models of acquired resistance and patient specimens. We observe striking intratumoral variation in abundance of signaling-associated complexes, likely reflecting influences from the tumor microenvironment and phenotypic heterogeneity. We are currently expanding our PLA panel to include emerging therapeutic targets (MET and FGFR1) and evaluating performance of these assays to characterize signaling complexes in circulating tumor cells obtained from advanced stage non-small cell lung cancer patients. Collectively, our data suggests that PLA-based methodologies can be harnessed to explore the cancer interactome and can be important tools to enable precision medicine. Citation Format: Matthew A. Smith, Leah Clark, Richard Hall, Kate Fisher, Takeshi Yoshida, Vincent Vuaroqueaux, Heinz-Herbert Fiebig, Ann Chen, Eric B. Haura. Characterizing pathway vulnerabilities and tumor heterogeneity through signaling-associated complexes. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Precision Medicine Series: Drug Sensitivity and Resistance: Improving Cancer Therapy; Jun 18-21, 2014; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Clin Cancer Res 2015;21(4 Suppl): Abstract nr B54.


Paired in situ cosmogenic nuclides 14C and 10Be present an opportunity to explore erosion rate disequilibria over Holocene to latest Pleistocene timescales and are a new avenue in surface processes research. 14C and 10Be concentrations in quartz from river sand collected at the outlets of five mountainous catchments in the Argentine Andes are compared in this study. River gauge and 10Be‐derived erosion rates are in good agreement; however, 14C concentrations are approximately 2.7–4 times lower than expected relative to 10Be under steady‐state erosion. Low 14C to 10Be ratios imply that sediment eroded from the high mountains was shielded for at least 7–15 ky. Neoglacial advances and storage in terraces may account for some of the reduced 14C concentrations but are insufficient alone. Transient storage in dynamic talus slopes in the steep topography of the High Andes provides the best explanation for the observed 14C concentrations.


In this paper, we discuss a technique for discovering localized associations in segments of the data using clustering. Often, the aggregate behavior of a data set may be very different from localized segments. In such cases, it is desirable to design algorithms which are effective in discovering localized associations because they expose a customer pattern which is more specific than the aggregate behavior. This information may be very useful for target marketing. We present empirical results which show that the method is indeed able to find a significantly larger number of associations than what can be discovered by analysis of the aggregate data.


The heating associated with the deposition of γ-rays in an accretion disk is proposed as a mechanism to facilitate the transformation of a low-mass X-ray binary to the radio millisecond pulsar (MSP) phase. The γ-ray emission produced in the outer gap accelerator in the pulsar magnetosphere likely irradiates the surrounding disk, resulting in its heating and the possible escape of matter from the system. We apply the model to PSR J1023+0038, which has recently been discovered as a newly born rotation-powered MSP. The predicted γ-ray luminosity ∼6 × 1034 erg s-1 can be sufficient to explain the disappearance of the truncated disk existing during the 8 month–2 yr period prior to the 2002 observations of J1023+0038 and the energy input required for the anomalously bright optical emission of its companion star.


Software processes are critical assets of software development organizations. The knowledge about context in which a process is defined and tailored is typically lost during software development activities, making the processes difficult to understand, reuse and evolve. We present a framework that represents the process knowledge used in defining and tailoring a software process. Based on this model, we have developed a prototype tool to support the understanding, reuse and maintenance of this process knowledge.


This article focuses on the legal issues arising from treaty withdrawal after signing but before ratification, as is the case in the United States (hereinafter "U.S.") withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (hereinafter "TPP"). This article attempts to shed light on the definition of "withdrawal" (or "un-signing") because it can make a practical difference to the fate of the TPP.
More specifically, we consider the legal nature of the U.S. withdrawal and its broader implications for the other signatories. First, is the U.S. still acting within the framework of the TPP or is it already out? Second, what impact does this U.S. action have on the legal status of the other original signatories of the TPP? Third, is the U.S. liable for violating its obligation to not frustrate the object and purpose of the treaty at hand? Finally, what can the 11 original signatories learn from the exit of the U.S. to revive the TPP without U.S. involvement?
Our major arguments are that the U.S. still remains an original signatory to the TPP, despite its notorious notification of withdrawal in January 2017. On the other hand, other original signatories that have already ratified are not exempt from the interim obligation of not frustrating the object and purpose based solely on "undue delay" caused by the U.S.'s unilateral notification of withdrawal. In addition, other original signatories are not eligible to claim damages against the U.S. due to their acquiescence, and the U.S. cannot claim damages for the subsequent actions of other original signatories because the current situation was created by the U.S. itself. Finally, the other original signatories have several options to avoid a similar incident in the future.


Introduction. Hypoglycaemia is the most frequent complication of diabetes therapy. It leads to unpleasant symptoms and, if severe may, result in coma and even death. Hospitalized patients treated with intravenous insulin therapy are at particularly high risk of hypoglycaemia. Nursing staff play crucial role in preventing, early detecting and treatment of hypoglycaemia caused by insulin given intravenously. Material and methods. This observational, prospective and non-interventional study aimed at assessing prevalence and risk factor of hypoglycaemia during continuous intravenous insulin infusion (CIVII) in a hospital setting. Two hundred consecutive patients (48 with type 1 diabetes and 152 with type 2 diabetes) were enrolled into the study. Mean age of type 1 diabetes patients was 38 ± 14 years, and those with type 2 diabetes 61 ± 12 years (p < 0.0001), and their HbA 1c was 10.1 ± 2.9 and 10.1 ± 2.3%, respectively. Continuous intravenous insulin infusion was given for 2.5 ± 1.1 days (basal infusion and three 90-min prandial boluses) according to standard protocol. Results. Hypoglycaemia was noted in 48% of patients with type 1 diabetes and in 20% of those with type 2 diabetes (p < 0.001), most often in the second day of CIVII. In type 1 diabetes, the main risk factor for hypoglycaemia while on CIVII was diabetes duration (the longer duration, the higher the risk) and in type 2 diabetes — daily insulin dose, total and per kg of body weight (the lower the dose, the higher the risk). Conclusions. Continuous intravenous insulin infusion should be used with utmost care in type 1 diabetes patients with long duration of the disease and in those type 2 diabetes patients who show signs of low insulin resistance (little overweight, low insulin requirement).


Abstract A method for analyzing traits influenced by both maternal and direct genetic effects is presented in a Bayesian setting. A Bayesian analysis requires full marginalization of the joint posterior density. The necessary multidimensional integrations were carried out using the Gibbs sampler. This gives the possibility of exact marginal inference on (co)variance components of interest as opposed to results of REML analysis, where only joint inferences are possible. The method is illustrated by an example on growth in sheep.


Rapid detection is essential for timely initiation of medical post-exposure prophylactic measures in the event of intentional release of biological threat agents. We compared real-time PCR assay performance between the Applied Biosystems 7300/7500 and the RAZOR instruments for specific detection of the causative agents of anthrax, brucellosis, tularemia and plague. Furthermore, an assay detecting Bacillus thuringiensis, a Bacillus anthracis surrogate, was developed for field-training purposes. Assay sensitivities for B. anthracis, Brucella spp., Francisella tularensis and Yersinia pestis were 10-100 fg of target DNA per reaction, and no significant difference in assay performance was observed between the instrument platforms. Specificity testing of the diagnostic panels with both instrument platforms did not reveal any cross-reactivity with other closely related bacteria. The duration of thermocycling with the RAZOR instrument was shorter, i.e. 40 min as compared with 100 min for the Applied Biosystems 7300/7500 instruments. These assays provide rapid tools for the specific detection of four biological threat agents. The detection assays, as well as the training assay for B. thuringiensis powder preparation analysis, may be utilized under field conditions and for field training, respectively.


Speech recognition of foreign accented speech is one of the most difficult tasks in ASR. The problem of foreign accent is addressed in this study using acoustic models of the target language phonemes (French phonemes in our case) adapted with speech data from 3 other languages: English (US and UK), German and Spanish. Recognition results obtained for 11 language groups of speakers show that error rate can be significantly reduced when standard acoustic models of phonemes are adapted using speech data from other languages. Phonological rules are also introduced into the standard phonetic description of the lexical units to account for some foreign accent pronunciation variants. It appears that using phonological rules together with foreign language adapted acoustic units provides the best recognition performance. The highest error rate reduction (40%) is obtained on English speakers.


sections of poetry in the voices of Ishmael and Sam. As she unpacks what must have been the highly charged emotions of that situation for Ishmael, she shows how he turned to his heavenly father to sort out his feelings for his earthly one. Similarly, Sam turns to both prayer and the support of his church youth group to help him cope with the blaze of paradoxical feelings he carries around inside him. Both Sam and Ishmael can't help loving their little brothers, even though they know that these new babies have unwittingly taken something precious from them. By setting a story that has become almost banal in its contours in the context of a much older myth, the book renews the provenance of the older tale and offers keenly effective evidence of the persistent power of old stories for contemporary readers seeking to fi nd the meaning in their own experiences. Each boy has a voice simultaneously both prosaic for its time and timelessly poetic; images are forceful and memorable, and the pacing is patient enough to allow the working out of feelings while brisk enough to keep up narrative tension. Compelling as a work in its own right, this will also offer refreshed inspiration for adolescents to seek out the stories of the past to illuminate their present paths. KC


The recent editorial on anaesthetists and care of the critically ill child (Tomlinson. Anaesthesia 2003; 58: 309–11) was both timely and sensible. After the 1990 NCEPOD report on deaths in children following surgery [1], there was an entirely appropriate movement to raise standards in the provision of anaesthesia for children. However, an excess of reforming zeal has led to the excellent becoming the enemy of the good. In pursuit of the highest standards, we have managed to scare some previously competent anaesthetists into perceived incompetence. As the editorial points out, in an emergency involving the airway, any anaesthetist is better than none. In these circumstances, it is simply not acceptable to say 'I do not do children'. If one is the most competent anaesthetist available, one must do one's best. Indeed, the quoted guidance from the GMC makes this amply clear [2]. The corollary of this is that if things do not go well (short of actual negligence), support for the individual who did his ⁄ her best must be forthcoming from employers, colleagues, the medical defence organisations, and from the bodies who set the standards – the Royal College, the Association of Anaesthetists and the GMC itself. A clear statement to this effect would be both reassuring and helpful, and might do something to temper the growing reluctance of some anaesthetists to have anything to do with the care of this vulnerable group of patients.


The turnover of the isoflavones, formononetin and biochanin A, in Cicer arietinum L. and of the isoflavone, daidzein, and the coumestan, coumestrol, in Phaseolus aureus Roxb. has been determined by pulse labelling. The biological half-life of formononetin, daidzein and coumestrol has been found to be approximately 50 hours, while the turnover of biochanin A appeared to be very slow. The excretion of all four plant products through the roots into the medium has been measured. Approximately 3 percent of the total turnover of isoflavones in the plants can be accounted for by excretion into the medium. The results are discussed in view of the concept that secondary plant products may well be subject to further metabolism.


This review paper deals with the zero-input stability and bounded-input and bounded-output stability of linear systems and the necessary and sufficiency conditions to ensure them are shown to be given by Nyquist's stability criterion.


Control over dispute system design brings with it responsibilities. Some employers have chosen to use that control solely for the purpose of risk management, to alter the settlement value of a discrimination case and render it impossible for an employee to obtain effective recourse from the public justice system through the imposition of mandatory arbitration. Other employers, admittedly for whom unilateral imposition of binding arbitration is not a legal option, have instead pursued different objectives: improving opportunities for voice and seeking longer term change in conflict management in the workplace. Looking back over a decade after REDRESS was first implemented, while no program perfectly achieves its design, REDRESS has served and continues to serve its greater purpose, to improve the workplace climate. The institutionalization of the program, its voluntary use by employees, and the significant reduction of formal complaints, suggest that employers may achieve efficiencies through a dispute system design that is voluntary and allows employees to pursue their cases to the public justice system.


Abstract This survey presents a thorough overview of the main types of biomaterials used for the manufacturing of implants. The use of different materials for the creation and refinement of medical devices aims at optimizing their properties and raising the level of safety for the patients. The purpose of the study is to classify the most common bulk materials used in medicine according to their nature, interaction with the host tissues and their function in the organisms. Some important advantages and disadvantages of the different classes of implant materials are considered. In the last few years there is a strong tendency toward the surface modification of biomedical devices. Various trends in processing of the materials are focused on increasing their corrosion resistance, wear resistance, biocompatibility and microbiological properties.


Software users and developers have different perspectives. Users are focused on the problem domain, where a system's features are the primary concern. Developers are focused on the solution domain, where a system's life-cycle artifacts are key. This difference leads to difficulties producing successful software systems. At present, there is little understanding of how to narrow the gulf between the two perspectives.
This dissertation argues for establishing an organizing viewpoint, which we term feature engineering, to incorporate features into software engineering as first class objects. Features, acting as a bridge between the problem and solution domains, can begin to narrow the gulf.
This dissertation explores three aspects of features in software engineering. First, it establishes a framework for understanding software features. In this framework, we define the concept of feature as separate from feature implementation, its realization in the developed system. The framework also includes a model of features in software engineering. This model identifies relationships between a system's features and the major development artifacts. The final part of the framework is an evaluation of the potential use of feature information in the various software development activities.
The second and third aspects considered are the roles for features and feature relationships in configuration management and testing. In this dissertation, we argue that configuration management is pivotal for taking advantage of the various relationships that features structure. The ability of commercial configuration management systems to use information about features is evaluated, and our experiences using a prototype feature-based configuration management system are reported. Feature testing is identified as a useful extension to traditional testing. Feature tests are used to confirm that a feature implementation faithfully produces the desired behavior. Feature tests are also used to uncover feature relationships and interactions in the solution domain.


This paper aims to provide an overview of the social health insurance scheme in Vietnam, including historical development and current policy issues. It shows that the scheme has significantly contributed to the impressive progresses of the country's health sector, but it also will face a variety of administrative and financial challenges posed by labor mobility, widening inequality, poverty severity, and expected aging population. The paper also discusses some policy recommendations to improve effectiveness of the scheme, as well as to cope with challenges for further development.


The internal libraries of Linux are evolving rapidly, to address new requirements and improve performance. These evolutions, however, entail a massive problem of collateral evolution in Linux device drivers: for every change that affects an API, all dependent drivers must be updated accordingly. Manually performing such collateral evolutions is time-consuming and unreliable, and has lead to errors when modifications have not been done consistently.
 In this paper, we present an automatic program transformation tool Coccinelle, for documenting and automating device driver collateral evolutions. Because Linux programmers are accustomed to manipulating program modifications in terms of patch files, this tool uses a language based on the patch syntax to express transformations, extending patches to semantic patches. Coccinelle preserves the coding style of the original driver, as would a human programmer.
 We have evaluated our approach on 62 representative collateral evolutions that were previously performed manually in Linux 2.5 and 2.6. On a test suite of over 5800 relevant driver files, the semantic patches for these collateral evolutions update over 93% of the files completely. In the remaining cases, the user is typically alerted to a partial match against the driver code, identifying the files that must be considered manually. We have additionally identified over 150 driver files where the maintainer made an error in performing the collateral evolution, but Coccinelle transforms the code correctly. Finally, several patches derived from the use of Coccinelle have been accepted into the Linux kernel.


Regions of bacterial chromosomes occupy characteristic locations within the cell. In Bacillus subtilis, the origin of replication, oriC, is located at 0°/360° on the circular chromosome. After duplication, sister 0° regions rapidly move to and then reside near the cell quarters. It has been hypothesized that origin function or oriC sequences contribute to positioning and movement of the 0° region. We found that the position of a given chromosomal region does not depend on initiation of replication from the 0° region. In an oriC mutant strain that replicates from a heterologous origin (oriN) at 257°, the position of both the 0° and 257° regions was similar to that in wild‐type cells. Thus, positioning of chromosomal regions appears to be independent of which region is replicated first. Furthermore, we found that neither oriC sequences nor the replication initiator DnaA is required or sufficient for positioning a region near the cell quarters. A sequence within oriC previously proposed to play a critical role in chromosome positioning and partitioning was found to make little, if any, contribution. We propose that uncharacterized sites outside of oriC are involved in moving and/or maintaining the 0° region near the cell quarters.


Purpose
Previous research on advertising in digital contexts has emphasized its persuasive and information processing roles for the customer. This paper aims to problematize this point of view and argues that the converged and interactive nature of digital media makes all advertising content into potential points of engagement in a digital media journey.

Design/methodology/approach
The paper is conceptual in nature and applies service logic (SL) and customer engagement to reconceptualize digital advertising and selling.

Findings
The authors present digital advertisements and digital media content as elements that contribute to a digital media journey, which ideally leads to a purchase. Advertising content is regarded as a resource used by consumers in their underlying value-creating processes. Thus, the digital advertising process is conceptualized as a customer-driven process of engaging with digital media content, where a purchase is incorporated in (and naturally follows from) the theme of engagement.

Research limitations/implications
The paper introduces the concept of contextually embedded selling, which refers to a process where digital advertising content is thematically congruent with the surrounding editorial content, so that both contribute to the same consumer journey. Otherwise, consumers experience a contextual jump – a disconnect in theme, place or time during the consumer's process of engagement with the digital content.

Originality/value
The paper contributes to advertising theory on advertising, engagement and the emerging research on consumer journey design by presenting an approach based on SL, namely, contextually embedded digital selling.


While the organisation of community festivals and their socio-economic impacts have been studied for some time, they remain largely unexplored by management researchers. The festival is an important example of organisation as practice - the "practical ordering of heterogeneous human, material and symbolic elements" (Nicolini, 2009). - versus the conventional assumption of organisation as entity. It allows the relationships between the social practices of organising, the cultural context of these practices and the development of practitioner identities to be observed more closely.

This paper is based on the findings of a research study, undertaken over three years, in which I observed the organisation of a community-based culture festival in rural central Sweden. My study set out to examine some of the details of the organization of a specific festival by a specific village community to explore some of the complex links between the two broader fields of social practice of organizing and community respectively. This paper focuses on two particular aspects of the study, namely the nature of social interactions amongst community members involved in volunteering their time to deliver the festival, and the material and practical symbols of community identity evident, to examine how they influenced the organizing practices of the festival.


In this paper, the authors have proposed and fabricated a new bi-directional T-shaped triple-gate structure for reduction of kink current in poly-Si TFTs fabricated by SLS crystallization method. The mobility of TFT parallel channel direction with laser crystallization direction is 169.87cm2/Vs and the mobility of TFT perpendicular channel direction with laser crystallization direction is 64.28cm2/Vs respectively. The different channel structure is used in the proposed device instead of using asymmetric gate channel length, and then the proposed bi-directional T-shaped Triple-gate structure could be fabricated by normal LTPS process without any limitation of device design rules.


Ketogenic Diet (KD) is a high-fat diet used to treat refractory epilepsy in patients, also including children. Because of the inherent differences with a balanced diet, patients starting KD face an abrupt switch of dietary habits. Moreover, KD is associated with several side effects that should be closely monitored. In this paper, we propose an mHealth application for training and empowering patients in managing KD. The application also acts as a bridge connecting patients with the health care staff for coaching and monitoring purposes.


Introduction Solitary extramedullary plasmacytoma (SEP) is a rare neoplasm that is derived from monoclonal proliferation of plasma cells in the soft tissues or organs arising outside the bone marrow. It is present in about 3% of all plasma cell tumors and originates mainly from the upper respiratory tract and nasopharynx. Involvement of the esophagus is exceptionally seen in cases of SEP. Case Presentation. We report a novel case of a 74-year-old male patient attended with a 6-month history of hiccupping further associated with dysphasia and weight loss all caused by esophageal plasmacytoma. Histological and immunohistochemical examination of the tumor confirmed the diagnosis of plasmacytoma. Workup for the multiple myeloma came out to be negative, thus confirming the diagnosis of SEP. The patient was treated with radiotherapy alone, leading to complete remission (at 30 months of follow-up). Conclusion Esophageal plasmacytoma, an exceptional presentation of extramedullary plasmacytoma, should be kept in mind while dealing with patients presenting with intractable hiccups.


A restriction map of the genomic DNA of Lactobacillus casei phage PL-1 was constructed using the restriction endonucleases BamHI, EcoRI, HindIII, KpnI, NruI and XhoI. The PL-1 genome was 42.2 kb in size and had complementary cohesive ends forming a ring-like monomer. The cohesive ends, analysed with exonuclease III and S1 nuclease, were 3'-terminated single strands protruding from both ends. The nucleotide sequence of the cohesive ends, determined by the dideoxynucleotide method, comprised four A + T and 10 G + C pairs: 5' GAGGCCGACCGTTC 3'/3' CTCCGGCTGGCAAG 5'. Thus, the cohesive ends of PL-1 DNA were higher in G + C content than those of other known bacteriophage DNAs.


The repetition of a stimulus task reduces the neural activity within certain cortical regions responsible for working memory (WM) processing. Although previous evidence has shown that repeated vibrotactile stimuli reduce the activation in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, whether the repeated tactile spatial stimuli triggered the priming effect correlated with the same cortical region remains unclear. Therefore, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a delayed match-to-sample task to investigate the contributions of the priming effect to tactile spatial WM processing. Fourteen healthy volunteers were asked to encode three tactile angle stimuli during the encoding phase and one tactile angle stimulus during the recognition phase. Then, they answered whether the last angle stimulus was presented during the encoding phase. As expected, both the Match and Non-Match tasks activated a similar cerebral network. The critical new finding was decreased brain activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), the right posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and bilateral medial frontal gyri (mFG) for the match task compared to the Non-Match task. Therefore, we suggest that the tactile priming engaged repetition suppression mechanisms during tactile angle matching, and this process decreased the activation of the fronto-parietal circuit, including IFG, mFG and PPC.


Prostate cancer is the most common non skin cancer in men. Screening for prostate cancer with prostate specific antigen (PSA) may help in decreasing morbidity and mortality of men.to assess the PSA level among Iraqi men in Al-Anbar governorate. Hundred and sixty two patients with prostate cancer as a study group and fifty apparently healthy subjects as a control group were included in this study from the period of 1 st of June, 2007 to 1 st of October, 2010. All the patients were well diagnosed clinically and by laboratory investigations by their physicians and they were on therapy. Blood samples were taken from both the study and control groups and tested for detection of PSA levels. All PSA measurements were performed in the laboratory using ELISA test . A significantly higher percentages of patients with prostate cancer had a PSA level of more than 4.0 ng/ml (79.6%) than those among apparently healthy subjects (16%)(p<0.05). Men from older age groups had higher percentage of PSA level of ≥ 4.0 ng/ml than in younger age groups. Men with older age group are more exposed to risk of prostate cancer and should be encouraged to participate in early detection studies to define personalized PSA screening that may diagnose prostate cancer at a curable point .


In spite of having diversified regional development with different languages and communities in a vibrant democratic administrative framework, India has made remarkable progress in recent years on a scale, size and pace that is unprecedented in its own history. As a result of two decades of economic reform, India achieved a remarkable average gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 8% from 2003-2010. Apart from accounting for almost a third of the world population, the share of both China and India in the world economy has grown substantially. Taken together they are expected to contribute around 1.8 percent of the 4.5 percent global growth expected in 20111. Currently, India is the fourth largest economy, replacing Germany (IMF, 2011 2 ). Furthermore, based on the current economic growth trajectory (in PPP terms), India is expected to be the third world largest economy by 20203. What are the major engines of growth in India?


This research paper presents a critique of conventional honey production methods used in Canada by examining the ways in which these practices contribute to four problems related to honey bee health and four considerations related to the economic well-being of beekeepers. Using a political-ecological approach rooted in agricultural ethics, three methods of ecological honey production—Canadian Organic Standard, Local Food Plus Honey Protocol, and Demeter Biodynamic Standards—are compared against the conventional methods in a comparative analysis related to honey bee health and beekeeper economic considerations. Using the framework for transitioning to sustainable agriculture developed by Hill and MacRae (1995), the ecological production methods are ranked according to the three stages of production outlined in the framework: efficiency, substitution, and redesign. The paper concludes with a discussion of redesign approaches and explores the potential for improvement in addressing the particularities of ecological honey production in the Canadian context.


Parietal and occipital cortices, while densely innervated by noradrenalin 2 (NA) projections, possess a comparatively sparse dopamine 2 (DA) innervation, even sparser than the prefrontal cortex. We previously reported that reboxetine and desipramine, two selective norepinephrine transporter (NET) blockers, at doses that maximally increase DA in the prefrontal cortex, do not increase DA in the parietal and occipital cortices. In the present study, we performed a full dose-response study of the effect of systemic reboxetine and desipramine on DA and NA in dialysates from the parietal and occipital cortices. Seven doses of reboxetine (0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 2.5, 5.0 and 10 mg/kg) and four doses of desipramine (0.25, 1.0, 2.5 and 5.0 mg/kg) were tested. Reboxetine and desipramine differentially affected dialysate DA as compared with NA. Reboxetine increased DA maximally by about 100% after doses of 0.25-0.5 mg/kg and showed a bell-shaped dose-response function in both areas; desipramine did not affect DA in the parietal cortex and increased it in the occipital cortex only at 2.5 mg/kg. NA was maximally increased by 275% by 0.5-2.5 mg/kg reboxetine and by about 300% by 5.0 mg/kg desipramine with a more linear dose-response curve. The mechanism of peculiar dose-response function of dialysate DA after reboxetine and desipramine was further investigated by testing the effect of drugs on dialysate DA and NA under alpha(2) receptor blockade. Under local perfusion of the occipital cortex with idazoxan, an otherwise ineffective dose of reboxetine and desipramine (5 mg/kg) became effective in raising extracellular DA. In contrast, the effect of reboxetine on NA was potentiated, while that of desipramine was not affected. These results suggest that, in the parietal and occipital cortices, extracellular NA, raised by NET blockade, exerts a preferential inhibitory influence on DA release by acting on local alpha(2) receptors, thus accounting for the bell-shaped feature of the dose-response function of drugs on dialysate DA in these areas.


The highly technical environment of a special care baby unit may make parents feel their baby no longer belongs to them. By encouraging active parental involvement in their baby's care, nurses can help promote parent-infant bonding.


Nowadays, all access control models take a system-centric view of protecting resources, and they don't take the context into account when controlling the permissions. However, with the development of databases, networking, and distributed computing, it causes people to shift the focus on security issues from the protection of individual objects and subjects in isolated computer systems, to the protection of dynamically authorization with different task. In this paper, an access control mechanism called TBAC (task-based access control) is introduced, which models from the tasks in workflow and dynamically manage the permissions through tasks and tasks' status. The TBAC is well suited for distributed computing, information processing activities with multiple points of access, and decision making in workflow and distributed process and transaction management system. The basic concepts of TBAC are introduced and a formalization description and an analysis are given. It is clear that TBAC will be used widely in many fields, such as OA, business, and so on.


Cooperation in learning improves the speed of convergence and the quality of learning. Special care is needed when heterogeneous agents cooperate in learning. It is discussed that, cooperation in learning may cause the learning process to diverge if heterogeneity is not handled properly. In this paper, it is assumed that two heterogeneous Q-learning agents cooperate to learn. The heterogeneity is assumed in their action order (and not in their action set). A Q-learning-based method is introduced for the agents to learn the mapping among their actions. It is shown that, the agents are able to learn this mapping while cooperating in learning. Some simulation results are reported to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.


Document image binarization plays an important role in many applications such as optical character recognition, automatic bank check processing, and vehicle license recognition. This paper proposes an efficient binarization algorithm with intelligent block size detection. Based on the image characteristic, the document image is automatically divided into several blocks with various sizes. Then, a threshold surface is constructed to derive the binary image. Experimental results show that the proposed method not only provide promising binarization result, but also low computational cost.


This study was undertaken to explore the inclination towards entrepreneurship among university Pendidikan Sultan Idris students The population for the study was UPSI's final year students from faculty of business and economic. Entrepreneurship course was introduced as a core subject in the areas of business programme. This course is made compulsory for all business undergraduate's students. The total population in this study was 181.The respondent were selected by using simple random sampling. Descriptive analysis (such as frequencies, means and standard deviations) were used to analyze the respondents' demographic characteristics such as age, race, religion, educational level and working experience. Descriptive analysis (frequencies, percentages, means) and inferential analysis ( one-way ANOVA) were employed to analyze the data.. In this study it was discovered that there are two aspect of demographic that was qualification and programmed of study that showed a relationship and has a positive significant on inclination towards entrepreneurship. These findings support previous studies that were carried out on demographic characteristics and entrepreneurial inclination by Mohar Yusof et al (2008). The study also showed a strong significant relationship between family background and entrepreneurial inclination. It was suggested that to attract more student involve in entrepreneurship, UPSI should design entrepreneurial curriculum and content, provide training programmes for faculty members, establish the club of entrepreneurship in universities and establish student one-stop business advice and guidance centers It could be concluded that the role of universities in promoting entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial curriculum and content and role models had significant impact on the inclination of the students towards entrepreneurship. The role model such as friends and lecturers are the main factor which influenced students on inclination towards entrepreneurship. In the part of the universities in promoting entrepreneurship, it showed that the majority of the students supported the entrepreneurship and business educational programmes in campus. While on the part of the entrepreneurial curriculum and content, the course could develop entrepreneurial knowledge and skills.


In this paper we present an approach to multi-language image description bringing together insights from neural machine translation and neural image description. To create a description of an image for a given target language, our sequence generation models condition on feature vectors from the image, the description from the source language, and/or a multimodal vector computed over the image and a description in the source language. In image description experiments on the IAPR-TC12 dataset of images aligned with English and German sentences, we find significant and substantial improvements in BLEU4 and Meteor scores for models trained over multiple languages, compared to a monolingual baseline.


In Croatia, first group buying website appeared in 2009 and today there are 40 active group buying websites. For the purpose of this paper, a primary research was conducted among social network fans of group buying websites. The research instrument was online questionnaire. The purpose of the research was to profile group buyers in Croatia regarding their demographic and behavioural characteristics and to identify factors customers take into consideration when deciding whether to make a purchase and which group buying websites to use. Results analysis was conducted using parametric and non-parametric test for comparing means and assessment of characteristics independence. Research findings imply that customers' demographic characteristics significantly affect their group buying behaviour and that some factors have detrimental effect on adopting of online group buying. Research findings are expected to help group buying websites to attract new customers, keep existing ones satisfied and learn how to distinguish themselves from their competitors.


Background/objective While ammonia plays a role in the complex pathophysiology of hepatic encephalopathy (HE), serum ammonia is unreliable for both diagnosis of, and correlation with, neurological symptoms in patients with cirrhosis. We aimed to quantify ordering, cost and appropriate use of serum ammonia in a major Midwestern healthcare system. Design/method Serum ammonia ordering in adult patients presenting to a large Midwestern health system was evaluated from 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2019. Results Serum ammonia ordering was prevalent, with 20 338 tests ordered over 5 years. There were no differences in the number of inappropriate serum ammonia tests per 100 000 admissions for chronic liver disease over time (Pearson's correlation coefficient=−0.24, p=0.70). As a proportion of total ammonia tests ordered, inappropriate tests increased over time (Pearson's correlation coefficient=0.91, p=0.03). Inappropriate ordering was more common at community hospitals compared with the academic medical centre (99.3% vs 87.6%, p<0.001). Conclusion Despite evidence that serum ammonia levels are unreliable for the diagnosis of HE and are not associated with severity of HE in individuals with cirrhosis, ordering remains prevalent, contributing to waste and potential harm.


Norway is generally regarded as a homogeneous country with a small, scattered population who speak the same language and belong to the same culture. Nevertheless, like almost every other country--it has always consisted of an ethnic and cultural mix of peoples. The Sami and Finnish speaking groups in the north are the best-known minorities, but the gypsies and the so called taters (a group related to the gypsies) have been a permanent component of Norwegian society for hundreds of years. One should not forget either that immigration from Germany, Denmark. Sweden and Finland has in certain periods been both important and of considerable proportions, right since the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, it is only in the last ten years that the issue of ethnic minorities has appeared on the agenda in the Norwegian community. This is due to a number of factors, among them the growth of the Sami movement. But the most important is the immigration from non-European countries. Up to the late 1960s, there were virtually no immigrants in Norway from countries outside Europe. Now, there are more than 100,000 immigrants and they constitute two and a half per cent of the population. In comparison with other countries like Sweden and Great Britain Norway has few immigrants, but immigration and the new, multiethnic nature of the community have nevertheless a central place in popular debate. The first and still the largest group of non-European immigrants were the Pakistanis. They were initially invited to Norway as "guest workers" in 1969 and within a few years were followed by others from the same parts of Pakistan, often relatives. During this same period immigrants also came from other countries, most importantly Turkey. Like many other West European countries, Norway imposed a ban on immigration in 1975. The economy had deteriorated and unemployment was on the rise. There was no longer a need for unskilled labor. But immigration from these same countries continued in the 1970s and into the 80s as a result of factors such as family reunions. Many immigrants came to Norway in the 1980s and 90s too. This was no longer a question of imported labor but human rights put into practice. The immigrants of this period were mainly political refugees, coming from countries like Pinochet's Chile, Khomeini's Iran, Sri Lanka, where civil was raged, Vietnam, Turkish Kurdistan, Somalia and the former Yugoslavia. A Norwegian integration policy is formulated Strictly speaking an immigrant is a person who was born in a different country to the one where he or she now lives. Thus, Swedes, Britons and North Americans who live in Norway are just as much immigrants as are the Pakistanis and Kurds. Most immigrants from other rich countries--who comprise about half of the total immigrant population (about 100,000) come to Norway either as students, in order to marry a Norwegian or because they possess some special skill. These are not regarded as immigrants by the Norwegian authorities and will therefore not be dealt with in this article. The circumstances of life for the various types of immigrant vary considerably. The first wave of immigrants from countries such as Pakistan and Turkey consisted mainly of young men without much education. The big majority of Pakistani immigrants in Norway come from a small cluster of villages near Lahore in the Pakistani Punjab. They have largely settled down and have homes, families and jobs in the Oslo region (including Drammen) some miles to the southwest. They have a number of organizations, religious communities, family networks, publications and other links which give them deep social roots. Many of them have children who are nearing adulthood and who have lived all their lives in Norway. From the beginning the situation for refugees differed from that of persons who came to Norway to work. …


Regina Fabry has proposed an intriguing marriage of enculturated cognition and predictive processing. I raise some questions for whether this marriage will work and warn against expecting too much from the predictive processing framework. Furthermore I argue that the predictive processes at a sub-personal level cannot be driving the innovations at a social level that lead to enculturated cognitive systems, like those explored in my target paper.


BackgroundThere are many international organisations dedicated to improving childbirth related outcomes; however, it is important to focus beyond maternal and fetal mortality rates as the importance of human rights is becoming more evident in the literature. Many human rights issues are faced by wom


Physical activity is widely considered a magic bullet for the prevention of several non-communicable (eg, cardiovascular) diseases. Regular engagement in physical activity has been advocated in various guidelines such as those developed by the British Cardiovascular Society.1 Moreover, integration of physical activity recommendations in clinical practice, for example, among cardiologists, has often been argued for primary and secondary disease prevention.2 Although the merits of these initiatives appear to be apparent for many, new and emerging evidence suggests that the more the merrier or one size fits all approaches may not benefit everybody.

In  their  Heart  manuscript, Ferrario and colleagues3 have reported on a sample of 3574 North Italian male workers from three different cohorts. From these workers, occupational and sport-related physical activity were assessed by questionnaires, and the incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and coronary heart disease (CHD) was registered during a subsequent 14-year (median) follow-up period. Associations of occupational and sport-related physical activity with CVD and CHD were modelled, taking into account relevant factors including age, education level, different domains of physical activity, body mass index, blood cholesterol, blood pressure, smoking and alcohol use and diabetes. The authors showed that, according to expectation although not statistically significant, the risk …


For the last few years, plasmon-based lasers have been investigated theoretically and experimentally. Several configurations have been reported. They are composed of quantum emitters coupled to a plasmonic structure. In this paper, we investigate the effect of the plasmon mode on the far-field and near-field characteristics of a nanolaser composed by a periodic array of metallic nanoparticles covered by gain materials under optical pumping. Two configurations were investigated. The first structure supported a localized surface plasmon (LSP) mode, while the second a surface lattice plasmon (SLP) mode. This theoretical work relies on semi-quantum calculations based on a four-level gain molecule and a time-domain approach. We demonstrated that lasing in a SLP mode requires a lower concentration of quantum emitters and generates a higher far-field emission with a lower threshold than lasing in a LSP mode. At nanoscale, near-field enhancement at the emission wavelength and above the threshold is 2 orders of magnitude higher with the SLP than the LSP mode. Our results with a general character show that designing a plasmon-based laser that sustains the SLP mode will result in a better lasing efficiency than with a LSP mode.


In natural environments, plants are exposed to variable light conditions, but photosynthesis has been mainly studied at steady state and this might overestimate carbon (C) uptake at the canopy scale. To better elucidate the role of light fluctuations on canopy photosynthesis, we investigated how the chlorophyll content, and therefore the different absorbance of light, would affect the quantum yield in fluctuating light conditions. For this purpose, we grew a commercial variety (Eiko) and a chlorophyll deficient mutant (MinnGold) either in fluctuating (F) or non-fluctuating (NF) light conditions with sinusoidal changes in irradiance. Two different light treatments were also applied: a low light treatment (LL; max 650 μmol m−2 s−1) and a high light treatment (HL; max 1,000 μmol m−2 s−1). Canopy gas exchanges were continuously measured throughout the experiment. We found no differences in C uptake in LL treatment, either under F or NF. Light fluctuations were instead detrimental for the chlorophyll deficient mutant in HL conditions only, while the green variety seemed to be well-adapted to them. Varieties adapted to fluctuating light might be identified to target the molecular mechanisms responsible for such adaptations.


A Public Safety Network (PSN) is a particular kind of wireless ad hoc network which provides a communication support for Public Safety Users. Use-cases are numerous in terms of both deployment scenarios (e.g. mobile or fixed, small or large scale) and services (Push To Talk, Mail reporting, video streaming). Extreme conditions encountered after an earthquake or floodings may impede the use of any communication infrastructure. Maintaining robust and efficient communictions is such harsh conditions is a major challenge. QoS requirements lead previous studies towards TDMA based radio resource management combined with clustering techniques for scalability purposes. In this paper we investigate how both PushTo-Talk and Mail Reporting services can be supported in such networks. The key contributions are threefold: i) identification of remaining issues within TDMA/Clustered networks ; ii) proposition of a novel radio resource management protocol ; iii) evaluation of performance gains of the novel solution. We show that both services (Push-To-Talk and Mail reporting) can be supported in a Public Safety Network and that our solution outperforms the previous ones. Finally, we present further identified targeted works to improve our solutions. Keywords-Resource reservation, MAC clustering, hierarchical network, cooperative scheduling, QoS, public safety


Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report 14 new cases of unilateral retinitis pigmentosa and three new cases of cone-rod dystrophy and to compare the similarities and dissimilarities to those found in the bilateral forms of these disorders. Methods: A total of 272 cases of retinitis pigmentosa and 167 cases of cone-rod dystrophy were studied by corneal full field electroretinograms and electrooculograms. The student t-test was used to compare categories. Results: The percentage of familial and nonfamilial cases was the same for the bilateral and unilateral forms of the disease. In our series, unilateral retinitis pigmentosa makes up approximately 5% of the total population of retinitis pigmentosa, while unilateral cone-rod dystrophy makes up only about 2% of the total. In the familial forms of unilateral retinitis pigmentosa the most common inheritance pattern was autosomal dominant and all affected relatives had bilateral disease. Conclusion: Unilateral retinitis pigmentosa and cone-rod dystrophy appear to be directly related to the more common bilateral forms of these disorders. The genetic mechanisms which account for asymmetric disorders are not currently understood. It may be a different unidentified mutation at a single loci or it is possible that nonlinked mutations in multiple loci account for this unusual disorder.


This work compares the classic Chen and Millero [1979] approach for estimating anthropogenic CO2 from ocean carbon measurements with the more recent ΔC* technique used by Sabine et al. [1999] to estimate anthropogenic CO2 concentrations in the Indian Ocean. Application of the Chen technique to the WOCE/JGOFS Indian Ocean data set gives a total anthropogenic CO2 inventory that is essentially the same as the ΔC* inventory, but there are substantial differences in the distributions within the water column. Some of these differences result from details of the application of the techniques such as the choice of which equation to use for the preformed alkalinity concentration or the choice of stoichiometric ratio to use for the biological correction. More significant differences, however, result from two fundamental differences in the techniques. One fundamental difference between the two techniques is that changes in the properties of the subsurface waters are referenced to a single deep water value in the Chen approach instead of the multiple reference points from the isopycnal analysis used in the ΔC* approach. The second fundamental difference is in the estimation of the preindustrial TCO2 distribution. Many of the differences examined have counteracting effects that may result in a total anthropogenic CO2 inventory that is similar for the two techniques. However, this similarity does not imply that both approaches are right. Comparison with global carbon models and other measurement‐based techniques do not clearly demonstrate that one technique is better than another. However, given the additional constraints of the transient tracers and the isopycnal analysis, we believe that the ΔC* technique provides a more robust estimate.


This picture is a portrait of two Bachlell children. The glass plate negative was inscribed with G. S. B. Bachlell. This print was made from the original glass plate negative, which is housed at Virginia Historical Society.


In 2 infants who had received Intralipid fat emulsion as part of a total parenteral hyperalimentation regimen, a pigmented material was deposited in the macrophages of their reticuloendothelial systems. The histochemical characteristics of this pigment were similar to those seen after experimental infusion of fat emulsions. The possible implications of this finding and its effect on host resistance are briefly considered.


Tool wear can cause dimensional accuracy and poor surface quality in milling process. During the operation of tool wear, it can also cause breakage and damage of the workpieces. To prevent these conditions, it's important that the tool wear is monitored and the remaining useful life (RUL) is predicted in real time. In this paper, time domain and frequency domain statistical features are firstly extracted using multi-sensory fusion method, including the cutting force, vibration and acoustic emission sensor. Seven eigenvectors are selected as the input of the prediction model based on the distance correlation coefficient between 140 feature vectors and the wear value, which provide the most sensitive features to wear faults. The paper establishes a nonlinear relationship between high-dimensional feature vectors and tools wear based on the evolving connectionist system (ECoS), which uses the incremental learning algorithm to realize real-time prediction of the tools wear. Finally, using the wear value predicted by ECoS as hidden state sequence of Hidden Semi-Markov Model (HSMM), the RUL prediction of the tool based on HMM is established. The 2010 PHM challenge data were used to train the model. The experimental result shows that in comparison with artificial neural network, the ECoS model has higher prediction accuracy, and its mean RMSE error for three tools is 14.8. In comparison with the RUL prediction of HMM model, Probability-based RUL prediction of HSMM is more stable.


The rise of FinTech has not only advanced operational efficiency of the financial industry but also posed challenges to regulatory efficiency. There is a growing consensus on the importance and urgency for financial regulators to enhance their capacity through the use of RegTech. RegTech is widely considered as holding a great potential to facilitate the supervisory process and enhance the regulatory compliance. The current studies of RegTech, however, remains in its infancy. Most of the literature identifies and stock-takes different technologies and discusses how to apply them to facilitate financial regulation and supervision. These studies, in our view, mainly focus on the conduct aspect of RegTech. Of equal importance, yet largely overlooked, is the organizational aspect of RegTech, that is, how the organizational design and culture of a financial regulator affects its capability and suitability for applying RegTech to facilitate financial regulation and supervision.

This paper attempts to fill this gap by offering more insights on how to organize a financial regulator to ensure its accountability, flexibility, and adaptiveness in the era of RegTech. We argue that such a regulator requires the character of a public-private partnership, which should contain some public elements to ensure the unbiasedness of financial supervision and some private elements to adapt to rapid technological changes. This paper firstly conducts a comparative analysis of the worldwide organizational models of financial regulators, by which we identify four major types and compare the different public-private relationship between them. The paper then applies the analytical framework of the Transaction Cost Economics, particularly the Theory of Firm and the Comparative Institutional Approach, to theorize a spectrum of public-private-partnership for different organizational models of financial regulators, ranging from a firm-type of partnership to a contract type of partnership. Based on this theorized spectrum, together with the comparative institutional approach, this paper identifies four more possible models of public-private-partnership that may help financial regulators streamline their organizational structure to promote the adoption of RegTech. These models include a mixed ownership RegTech corporation, a contracted RegTech supporter, a quasi-public financial regulator, and directly delegated gatekeepers. Policymakers and financial regulators across the globe can consider and choose a model that better suits its own regulatory and supervisory needs.


The popular uprisings in North Africa will go down to history books as events of huge historical importance. To the surprise of the world, they brought down long-established authoritarian regimes in Tunisia and Egypt and triggered an armed rebellion and a UN sanctioned military campaign against Libya. The speed with which the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt bowed down to people power was also historical. While some describe the popular uprisings as political Tsunami, some went as far as characterising the events as a 'Berlin Wall moment' for North Africa and the Middle East.


The aim of this research was to study the clinical course and hormonal status of women with bronchial asthma (BA) which first-time onset in perimenopausal (peri-MP) period.

Methods. The I gr. included 18 women with BA, developed in the peri-MP period, aged from 46 to 54 yrs (mean age 50,94±0,59 yrs). In gr. II included 24 perimenopausal women with asthma, which developed in the reproductive period, age from 44 to 55 yrs (mean age 49,38 ± 0,57 yrs).

Physical examination, serum levels of follicle-stimulating (FSG), luteinizing hormones (LG), estradiol and progesterone were performed.

Results.

In 4 (22%) patients of I gr. had severe persistent asthma, 12 (67%) women had moderate persistent asthma, and mild persistent asthma was diagnosed only in 2 patients (11%). Comorbidity analysis in patients of I gr. determined that in 11 (61%) patients asthma was associated with allergic rhinitis, in 8 (44%) patients – with sinusitis, obesity I st. was detected in 10 patients (56%) and body mass index (BMI) was ranged from 30.7 to 34.8 kg/m2 (mean 32,57±0,41 kg/m2), in 2 patients (11%) had hypertension. In patients of I gr. had determined a significant decrease of estradiol (p=0.001) and progesterone (p=0.029) compared with hormone concentrations in patients of II gr. There were no significant differences in levels of FSH, LG (p>0,05) between patients of both groups.

Conclusion. Bronchial asthma which developed in the perimenopausal period was characterized by severe and moderate course, patients requiring long-term corticosteroid therapy. Hormonal status of patients was characterized by decreasing levels of estradiol and progesterone, these disorders require correction.


This study investigated the comparative effects of strategic and unpressured within-task planning on second language (L2) Chinese oral production and the role of working memory in mediating the effects of the two types of planning. Twenty-nine L2 Chinese learners at a large New Zealand university performed a narrative task after watching a 6-minute silent movie, followed by an operation span test gauging the learners' working memory capacity. The results revealed that (1) strategic planning enhanced fluency and unpressured within-task planning led to greater accuracy and syntactic complexity, (2) strategic planning facilitated the production of a syntactically transparent structure, while unpressured within-task planning showed an advantage for opaque, complex structures, and (3) working memory was drawn upon in unpressured within-task planning, but barely so in strategic planning. The data show that strategic planning benefits the Conceptualizer while unpressured within-task planning favors the Formulator. The data also suggest that the role of cognitive abilities in task performance is contingent upon the processing demands of different task conditions.


The DExD/H-box RNA-dependent ATPase Dbp5 plays an essential role in the nuclear export of mRNA. Dbp5 localizes to the nuclear pore complex, where its ATPase activity is stimulated by Gle1 and its coactivator inositol hexakisphosphate. Here, we present the crystal structure of the C-terminal domain of Dbp5, refined to 1.8 Å. The structure reveals a RecA-like fold that contains two defining characteristics not present in other structurally characterized DExD/H-box proteins: a C-terminal α-helix and a loop connecting β5 and α4, both of which are composed of conserved and unique elements in the Dbp5 primary sequence. Using structure-guided mutagenesis, we have identified several charged surface residues that, when mutated, weaken the binding of Gle1 and inhibit the ability of Gle1 to stimulate Dbp5's ATPase activity. In vivo analysis of the same mutations reveals that those mutants displaying the weakest ATPase stimulation in vitro are also unable to support yeast growth. Analysis of the correlation between the in vitro and in vivo data indicates that a threshold level of Dbp5 ATPase activity is required for cellular mRNA export that is not met by the unstimulated enzyme, suggesting a possible mechanism by which Dbp5's activity can be modulated to regulate mRNA export.


In this contribution, we introduce subluminal Lorentz invariance violation (LIV) in the propagation of ultra-high energy photons. The energy threshold and the mean free path for the pair production considering LIV are calculated. The influence of the models for the sources of ultra-high energy cosmic rays in the flux of GZK photons is discussed. The resulting fluxes for several sources models and LIV scenarios are obtained and compared to the upper limits on the photon flux from the Pierre Auger Observatory. Updated limits on the LIV coefficient of the order of $\delta_{\gamma,0} \gtrsim -10^{-20}$, $\delta_{\gamma,1} \gtrsim -10^{-38}$~eV and $\delta_{\gamma,2} \gtrsim -10^{-56} \ \mathrm{eV}^2$ are imposed for the reference case. The possibility of testing superluminal LIV effects is also discussed.


University College Hospital in Ibadan is the 1st health care institution in Nigeria to create a health education unit. Since its inception in 1978, the unit has developed into an integrated and essential component of the total health care delivery system. The program encourages patients to recognize and respond quickly to early signs of illness, to comply with recommendations to overcome illness, to prevent the recurrence of disease, and to maintain life style changes needed to cope with chronic illness. The value of such services can be measured in terms of both health status and cost-effectiveness. In general, placement of a health education unit within an existing hospital department can inhibit coordination of educational activities with other departments. The 5 staff members of the unit at University College Hospital work in 4 outpatient departments (medicine, surgery pediatrics, and obstetrics-gynecology) and provide counseling to patients on admission. Plans are being made to expand the program to the special clinic for sexually transmitted diseases. Salient aspects of a patient health education service include: clinic-based services (individual and family counseling, training for self-care, support groups), community links (advisory boards, training of health workers, cooperation with other agencies, home visiting), indirect educational variables (service design, professional competence, patient flow, physical setting), and organizational support (policy statements, staff development, evaluation and research, referral and records systems). Future plans are to extend services to the grassroots level where more preventive action is possible.


Introduction Laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (LRYGB) is one of the most preferred bariatric procedures in the world for surgical treatment of morbid obesity. The Harmonic scalpel (HS) and LigaSure (LS) are the most commonly used devices in laparoscopic surgery. As far as we know, there is no comparative study of the two energy devices in LRYGB for morbid obesity. Aim To compare the intraoperative performances of the two energy devices in LRYGB for morbid obesity. Material and methods The HS and LS were used in 43 and 42 cases, respectively. The patient demographics of both groups were comparable. The duration of the procedures (gastric pouch creation time and total operation time), quantity of bleeding (during gastric pouch creation and total quantities of bleeding) and the number of pneumoperitoneum desufflations due to smoking that impaired sight fields were recorded prospectively. Results Gastric pouch creation time (HS: 22.5 ±9.5 vs. LS: 19.5 ±9.7 min, p = 0.15), bleeding during gastric pouch preparation (HS: 15.3 ±30.5 vs. LS: 17.5 ±31.3 ml, p = 0.74), total operation time (HS: 183.2 ±47 vs. LS: 165.3 ±37.1 min, p = 0.06) and total bleeding (HS: 110 ±195.5 vs. LS: 102.5 ±70 ml, p = 0.81) were similar in the two groups. Only the mean number of pneumoperitoneum desufflations due to smoking was lower in the HS group (HS: 0.28 ±0.49 vs. LS: 0.57 ±0.78, p = 0.04). Conclusions The HS and LS performed similarly in LRYGB, with fewer desufflations from smoking in the HS group.


Neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by surgery (NCS) has not been fully evaluated clinically. Currently, the main regimen of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) used in NCS includes cisplatin. The antitumor effects of NAC reduce lymph node metastasis and the tumor diameter in patients prior to surgery, and this can reduce the number of high risk patients who require postoperative radiation therapy. Many randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have examined the long-term prognosis of NCS compared to primary surgery, but the utility of NCS remains uncertain. The advent of concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) has markedly improved the outcome of radiotherapy (RT), and CCRT is now used as a standard method in many cases of advanced bulky cervical cancer. NCS gives a better treatment outcome than radiation therapy alone, but it is important to verify that NCS gives a similar or better outcome compared to CCRT.


OBJECTIVES
With the increasing detection rate of lung nodules, the qualitative problem of lung nodules has become one of the key clinical issues. This study aims to evaluate the value of combining dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) MRI based on time-resolved imaging with interleaved stochastic trajectories-volume interpolated breath hold examination (TWIST-VIBE) with T1 weighted free-breathing star-volumetric interpolated breath hold examination (T1WI star-VIBE) in identifying benign and malignant lung nodules.

METHODS
We retrospectively analyzed 79 adults with undetermined lung nodules before the operation. All nodules of patients included were classified into malignant nodules (n=58) and benign nodules (n=26) based on final diagnosis. The unenhanced T1WI-VIBE, the contrast-enhanced T1WI star-VIBE, and the DCE curve based on TWIST-VIBE were performed. The corresponding qualitative [wash-in time, wash-out time, time to peak (TTP), arrival time (AT), positive enhancement integral (PEI)] and quantitative parameters [volume transfer constant (Ktrans), interstitium-to-plasma rate constant (Kep), and fractional extracellular space volume (Ve)] were evaluated. Besides, the diagnostic efficacy (sensitivity and specificity) of enhanced CT and MRI were compared.

RESULTS
There were significant differences in unenhanced T1WI-VIBE hypo-intensity, and type of A, B, C DCE curve type between benign and malignant lung nodules (all P<0.001). Pulmonary malignant nodules had a shorter wash-out time than benign nodules (P=0.001), and the differences of the remaining parameters were not statistically significant (all P>0.05). After T1WI star-VIBE contrast-enhanced MRI, the image quality was further improved. Compared with enhanced CT scan, the sensitivity (82.76% vs 80.50%) and the specificity (69.23% vs 57.10%) based on MRI were higher than that of CT (both P<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
T1WI star-VIBE and dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI based on TWIST-VIBE were helpful to improve the image resolution and provide more information for clinical differentiation between benign and malignant lung nodules.


Background Laryngeal mask airway insertion causes less changes of haemodynamic parameters. As haemodynamic changes during laryngoscopy and endotracheal intubation as result of intense stimulation of sympathetic nerves system. Objective To find out the effective airway management by LMA during controlled ventilation, to avoid laryngoscopic and intubation induced haemodynamic changes and to avoid laryngospasm and bronchospasm. Method A total number of 100 patients ASA grade I & II were selected randomly as per inclusion and exclusion criteria in two groups. Fifty in each group. In group A used LMA and in group B used ETT during general anaesthesia in intermediate duration of gynaecological operation. Pulse,NIBP,SpO2 were recorded in perioperatively. Result Pulse, blood pressure were significant between the two groups (p<0.00) but in SpO2 was insignificant except in 2 min of intraoperative which was significant. (p<0.013). Conclusion LMA insertion causes less changes of haemodynamic parameters when compared with that of ET intubation. Our finding suggests that LMA can be safe and beneficial alternative to ETT. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/jbsa.v23i2.18174 Journal of BSA, 2009; 23(2): 51-55


The technological trend towards waste utilization and cost reduction in industrial processing has attracted use of Rice Husk as a value added material. Both rice husk (RH) and Rice Husk Ash (RHA) has been found suitable for wide range of domestic as well as industrial applications. The ability of rice husk to remove methylene blue from solution was investigated. Factors such as initial dye concentration, contact time, adsorbent dosage were studied. Results show that Langmuir isotherm and freindlich isotherm can be successfully applied to the methylene blue – rice husk. Rice husk has been used as a bio-sorbent for the removal of a MB dye from aqueous solutions. The process of removal has been optimized for different parameters like initial concentration of dye solution and contact time, adsorbent dose, and temperature. Elemental analysis of the adsorbent was carried out. Adsorption data were modeled by Langmuir and Freindlich isotherms. The data was better fitted in Freindlich isotherm model. The dye adsorption followed the pseudo second-order kinetics. Dye removal from industrial effluents is an important environmental concern. Various physical and chemical treatment methods can serve this purpose, of which the most economical and effective one is adsorption.. In this review, we look at the various adsorbents available and see how effectively they can be utilized to meet our requirements. The adsorption followed pseudo first order and/or pseudo second order kinetics. The dye removal process followed freindlich isotherm in most of the cases and in few investigations, it followed Langmuir isotherm also.