In this paper, we analyze whether the state of the limit order book affects future price movements in line with what recent theoretical models predict. We do this in a linear vector autoregressive system which includes midquote return, trade direction and variables that are theoretically motivated and capture different dimensions of the information embedded in the limit order book. We find that different measures of depth and slope of bid and ask sides as well as their ratios cause returns to change in the next transaction period in line with the predictions of Goettler, Parlour, and Rajan (2009) and Kalay and Wohl (2009). Limit order book variables also have significant long term cumulative effects on midquote return, which is stronger and takes longer to be fully realized for variables based on higher levels of the book. In a simple high frequency trading exercise, we show that it is possible in some cases to obtain economic gains from the statistical relation between limit order book variables and midquote return.


The Repliscan system, a semiautomated method for identifying gram-negative bacilli, was evaluated for its potential usefulness in clinical microbiology laboratories. A total of 1,877 isolates, including 1,712 fermentative and 165 nonfermentative organisms, were tested in parallel with the Repliscan and Enterotube methods of enteric identification. Discrepancies were retested in each system as well as with conventional methods. The Repliscan method correctly identified 91%, misidentified 2%, and failed to identify 7% of the fermentative orgamisms tested. Of the genera under study, Enterobacter posed the greatest problem to the system in terms of overall identification rates. The Repliscan appears to be an efficient, economic, and effective laboratory tool for identification of Enterobacteriaceae.


Tackling the issue of income equity through redistribution consists of a discussion about the extent and forms of redistribution. The study responds to the issue of income redistribution defined within the neoclassical welfare economy by addressing the research question concerning the relation of the selected areas of social policy (expenditure of social protection) and of socio-economic development (Human Development Index, Gini coefficient). The study uses a quantitative approach to the research question, statistically tests the relation between social protection expenditure and socio-economic development, and tests income inequality using the Pearson's correlation coefficient. The results show that social protection expenditure on health care and old age had a positive impact on socio-economic development, assessed through the Human Development index; only social protection expenditure on disability had a negative impact on socio-economic development. Also, social protection expenditure on health care, on the disabled and on old age had a mainly negative impact on income inequity, based on the Gini coefficient.


Wrist-worn devices, such as smartwatches and smart bands, have brought about the unprecedented opportunity to continuously monitor gait during daily routines. However, the use of a single wrist-worn unit for gait analysis is challenging for a variety of reasons. Indeed, the signal collected at the user's wrist is subject to a significant "noise" with respect to other body positions (e.g. waist), mainly due to the arm swing while walking and other unpredictable hand movements. The aim of this paper is to investigate the design and evaluation of a lightweight and reliable gait detection technique for wrist-worn devices. To this end, the proposed method creates a personalized model of the user's gait patterns. The model is created through an automatic training phase, which requires the temporary use of an additional device (smartphone) to gather true gait segments. After, anomaly detection is used to distinguish gait from other activities. Gait data from 20 volunteers have been collected to test and evaluate the proposed technique. Volunteers were asked to walk at different pace, with their normal arm swing or placing the hand inside of a pocket. Results show that the proposed method can reliably distinguish gait from spurious hand movements.


The recently introduced weakly disentangled representations proposed to relax some constraints of the previous definitions of disentanglement, in exchange for more flexibility. However, at the moment, weak disentanglement can only be achieved by increasing the amount of supervision as the number of factors of variations of the data increase. In this paper, we introduce modular representations for weak disentanglement, a novel method that allows to keep the amount of supervised information constant with respect the number of generative factors. The experiments shows that models using modular representations can increase their performance with respect to previous work without the need of additional supervision.


A new instrumentation for non-destructive testing of metals is described. In the course of the test an external impact is given to the object and simultaneously a double-pulsed ruby laser interferogram is taken of the object. The difficulty with these kinds of NDT method is to get a good, well controlled impact. The problem is solved by using a CO2 pistol and a timer based on a fast hardware multiplier. The apparatus designed for working outside the laboratory, and some results, are described.


AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
To establish face, content and construct validity of an innovative fruit-tissue (apple) based transurethral resection of prostate (TURP) training model devised at our institute.

METHOD AND MATERIAL
Six consultants, three fellows and 16 residents performed TURP on the new fruit-tissue (apple) based TURP model for ten minutes after watching a demo-video. The procedure was videographed. At the end, participants answered a set of questionnaires regarding their experience. The video and the apple both were examined by blinded separate assessors based on pre-decided parameters. Statistical analysis was done to find out the face, content and construct validity of the training model.

RESULTS
Participants were divided into two groups, expert and novice, based TURP surgery experience. The model was positively rated (lowest median value 4) by all novice for its 'realism' and 'acceptability'. The expert group also felt that the model reproduced real TURP experience (lowest median value 4). Thus, both face and content validity were established. The expert group resected more tissue (18.3±2.5 gm vs 10.3±3.4 gm; P<0.001) with less irrigation fluid (1566.6±187.0 ml vs 2112.5±344.2 ml; P<0.001) removing more chips (39.8±6.2 vs 25.6±3.0; P<0.001) and orientated themselves faster (63.3±12.2 sec vs 90.3±12.7 sec; P<0.001). The assessors' subjective evaluation of videos and apples both favored the experts. The model can differentiate 'expert' from 'novice', thus establishing 'construct validity'.

CONCLUSION
The new fruit-tissue (apple) based TURP model is a realistic and acceptable TRUP training model with proven face, content and construct validity.


Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Paperback. Condition: New. 140 pages. Widespread obesity, poor nutrition, sleep-deprivation, and highly digital and sedentary lifestyles are just a few of the many challenges facing young people. Although public schools in the United States have the potential for meeting these challenges on a mass scale, they are slow to respond. The emphasis on discrete subject areas and standardized test performance offers little in the way of authentic learning and may in reality impede health. Healthy Teens, Healthy Schools: How Media Literacy Education can Renew Education in the United States reframes health education as a complex terrain that resides within a larger ecosystem of historical, social, political, and global economic forces. It calls for a media literate pedagogy that empowers students to be critical consumers, creative producers, and responsible citizens. This book illustrates holistic health education through school-community initiatives and innovative partnerships that are successful in magnifying all curriculum subjects and their associated teaching practices. Vanessa Domine offers teachers, teacher educators, school administrators, community organizers, public health professionals, and policy makers with a transmedia and transdisciplinary educational approach to adolescent health to demonstrate how our collective focus on cultivating healthy teens will ultimately yield healthy schools. This...


Deformation capacity of reinforced concrete (RC) shear walls is mainly influenced by concrete confinement at the boundaries of shear walls, axial force ratio and wall aspect ratio. In this paper, the relationship among the wall boundary transverse reinforcement characteristic value λvw, the axial force ratio n, the wall aspect ratio r and the ultimate displacement Δuw is established first. Then, the relationship between λvw −−n −−r −−Δuw is verified against the results of 71 RC shear wall experiments conducted by eight different research institutions. Based on the established relationship, the performance-based seismic design (PBSD) method for RC shear walls is proposed. According to the method presented in the paper, the amount of transverse reinforcement at wall boundaries could be determined, if the inter-storey drift demand θ and the damage index Dw are predetermined. The use of the proposed PBSD method, which may guide future RC shear wall design, is illustrated in detail by an example.


The blood serum proteins of 35 live specimens of Rattus rattus and Rattus norvegicus collected from ten localities in Turkey were examined by SDS-PAGE (sodium dodecyl sulphate - polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis). Globulin, albumin, postalbumin, and prealbumin proteins in blood serum showed different electrophoretic patterns in populations of R. rattus and R. norvegicus. Because of the variations in electrophoretic patterns of both species, these patterns do not seem to be diagnostic characters in distinguishing R. rattus from R. norvegicus.


Grinberg, A., and Heath, I. B. 1997. Direct evidence for Ca2+ regulation of hyphal branch induction. 22, 127-139. Irradiation of growing hyphae of Saprolegnia ferax with microbeams of UV (300-380 and 385-450 nm) light induced an increase in cytoplasmic [Ca2+] followed by precocious formation of one or more branches within about 4 min. The distribution of branches was strongly skewed toward the subapical side of the irradiation site, but otherwise was apparantly random. Apical (10-&mgr;m) irradiations were more effective than subapical (50-&mgr;m) ones in that they induced branches at comparable frequencies but with lower doses, consistent with higher concentrations of putative target intracellular Ca2+ storage structures in this region. Once formed, induced adjacent branches seem to compete for "resources," with those closer than approximately 50 &mgr;m inhibiting each other. The results are most consistent with Ca2+-induced accumulation of branch initiating factors being the cause, not the consequence, of branch formation, thus supporting a primary role for Ca2+ in regulation of hyphal tip growth. Copyright 1997 Academic Press. Copyright 1997 Academic Press


Abstract:How does conspiracist thinking become appealing to its adherents, and with what political consequences? Drawing on fifty in-depth interviews with gun sellers from April 2020 to August 2020, this paper examines conspiracist thinking among US conservatives. We present a sociological account that follows historian Richard Hofstadter's early account in theorizing conspiracist thinking as a "style" of politics on the Right. Turning to the sociology of culture and political sociology, we examine conspiracist thinking as a tool of political sense-making that becomes particularly appealing during "unsettled" insecurity. We focus on conservative adherents to conspiracist thinking, examining how conspiracist thinking is mobilized to assert feelings of control and certainty in ways that reinforce allegiance to conservative values and repudiation of partisan opponents. Specifically, we theorize conspiracist thinking as an everyday practice of meaning-making (an epistemological practice) which responds to conditions of unsettled insecurity that reflects existing conservative "modes of thought" (e.g., anti-elitist skepticism) and also reinforces conservative sentiments through two mechanisms: epistemological individualism and epistemological othering. Extending existing accounts of conspiracism, our analysis illuminates how conspiracist thinking—as an active, and self-reinforcing, struggle for epistemological control amid contexts of information scarcity and uncertainty—has come to shape American politics from the bottom up.


Clinical research can be categorized by the timing of data collection: retrospective or prospective. Clinical research also can be categorized by study design. In case-control studies, investigators compare previous exposures (including genetic and other personal factors, environmental influences, and medical treatments) among groups distinguished by later disease status (broadly defined to include the development of disease or response to treatment). In cohort studies, investigators compare subsequent incidences of disease among groups distinguished by one or more exposures. Comparative clinical trials are prospective cohort studies that compare treatments assigned to patients by the researchers. Most errors in clinical research findings arise from 5 largely distinguishable classes of methodologic problems: selection bias, confounding, measurement bias, reverse causation, and excessive chance variation.


An X-ray transmission-type double phase-retarder system that can compensate for off-axis aberration (phase-shift inhomogeneity due to angular divergence of incident X-rays) has been developed and its advantage over a conventional single transmission-type X-ray phase retarder was demonstrated. However, it was noticed that the transmission-type X-ray phase retarder suffers from not only off-axis aberration but also chromatic aberration (phase-shift inhomogeneity due to energy spread of incident X-rays). In this paper, a transmission-type X-ray four-quadrant phase-retarder system is proposed that can compensate for both off-axis and chromatic aberrations. The X-ray four-quadrant phase-retarder system is composed of four transmission-type X-ray phase retarders. The scattering planes of four phase-retarder diamond crystals are set to be inclined by 45 degree, 135 degree (= 45 degree + 90 degree), 225 degree (= 45 degree + 180 degree) and 315 degree (= 45 degree + 270 degree), respectively, with respect to the plane of incident polarization. Under the conditions of 7709 eV photon energy, 1.5 eV energy spread and 45" angular divergence (FWHM) of incident X-rays, the X-ray four-quadrant phase-retarder system created 0.98 degree of vertical-linear polarization from horizontal-linear polarization. This value was favorably compared to 0.89 and 0.96, which were obtained by the single and double phase-retarder systems, respectively. The principle of the X-ray four-quadrant phase-retarder system will be described together with its advantage over the single and double phase-retarder systems.


To simulate the flow past various geometries using commercial codes has become a standard practice in last few years. In the present study, numerical computations have been done for the flow at high Reynolds number (Re) past a rotating sphere. The Reynolds number (Re) found to be such that it indicates that the flow is turbulent. The pressure contour, velocity vector and stream function contour has been plotted and analysed using FLUENT 6.3, and the result is being validated with the experimental data reported in literatures. The effect of rotation of sphere in streamwise manner on the wake region and capturing of vortices has been analysed. The separation points are delayed due to the rotation of sphere. Keywords: Numerical computation, rotating sphere, Reynolds number, separation point, turbulent flow, wake region Cite this Article Manish Mangal, Sanjeev Kumar Sharma, Rajendra Kumar Shukla. Numerical Study of a Turbulent Flow Past a Rotating Sphere. Journal of Aerospace Engineering & Technology. 2018; 8(3): 1–5p.


A promising means to address the limited supply of donor tissue is through the generation of artificial organs consisting of cells and materials. Progress towards this goal is limited by three main obstacles namely the generation of a sufficient number of cells specific to the organ, the arrangement of these cells in a functional tissue architecture and the delivery of nutrients and removal of waste from the tissue mass. This chapter describes the emerging approaches that may be achieved by the control of stem cell differentiation, control of the local tissue environment on the microscale, and the generation of complex structures containing multiple cell types.


A 50-year-old female presented with a right acoustic schwannoma colocated with a cerebellopontine angle arachnoid cyst. The arachnoid cyst was distinct from the arachnoid cap surrounding the acoustic schwannoma. Initial excision of the arachnoid cyst created the space required to excise the schwannoma. The acoustic schwannoma had surprisingly dense adhesions to the brainstem, probably due to the constant pressure exerted by the cyst displacing the tumor towards the brainstem. The acoustic schwannoma was excised by meticulous dissection. Such a coexisting lesion should be suspected when a large cystic collection surrounds an acoustic schwannoma. Initial excision of the arachnoid cyst will prevent excessive cerebellar retraction.


Subjects underwent longitudinal neuropsychological assessment in order to retrospectively determine which measures of cognitive function best predicted later development of dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT). Three groups of subjects were studied: normal controls, patients with early DAT, and questionable dementia subjects (QD). All subjects were assessed using a battery of standard neuropsychological measures and two subtests from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB), paired associate learning and delayed matching to sample. A structured interview was also used to elicit a profile of the subject's daily functioning. Subjects were assessed every 6 months for 2 years. At the 6 month assessment, almost half of the QD group exhibited significant deterioration in scores on the computerized paired associate learning subtest, while maintaining their scores on standard measures. At the conclusion of the study, all of this QD subgroup fulfilled the NINCDS–ADRDA criteria for probable DAT pertaining to significant cognitive and functional deterioration. Performance on the CANTAB paired associate learning subtest identified the onset of progressive memory deterioration in a subgroup of QD subjects. In almost all cases this was well before significant deterioration was noted on standard neuropsychological measures. Paired associate learning performance may therefore be a valuable tool for the early, preclinical detection and assessment of DAT. (JINS, 2002, 8, 58–71.)


Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between acculturation, medication adherence, lifestyle behaviors (e.g., physical activity, nutrition, weight control), and blood pressure control among hypertensive Arab Americans. Design: The study utilized a cross-sectional descriptive design. A convenience sample of 126 participants completed questionnaires and had measures of blood pressure, weight, and height. Forty-six participants were hypertensive and were included in the analysis. Results: Only 29.2% of participants reported high medication adherence. High medication adherence was associated with lower diastolic blood pressure, eating a healthy diet, and following lifestyle modifications. Acculturation was significantly associated with physical activity and body mass index. Conclusion: Our study found that acculturated participants were more adherent to medications and physical activity and had better blood pressure control. Further studies are needed to explore how acculturation improves adherence and what factors contribute to better adherence in order to design culturally sensitive interventions.


S0 galaxies are known to host classical bulges with a broad range of size and mass, while some such S0s are barred and some not. The origin of the bars has remained as a long-standing problem -- what made bar formation possible in certain S0s?
By analysing a large sample of S0s with classical bulges observed by the Spitzer space telescope, we find that most of our barred S0s host comparatively low-mass classical bulges, typically with bulge-to-total ratio ($B/T$) less than $0.5$; whereas S0s with more massive classical bulges than these do not host any bar. Furthermore, we find that amongst the barred S0s, there is a trend for the longer and massive bars to be associated with comparatively bigger and massive classical bulges -- possibly suggesting bar growth being facilitated by these classical bulges. In addition, we find that the bulge effective radius is always less than the bar effective radius --indicating an interesting synergy between the host classical bulge and bars being maintained while bar growth occurred in these S0s.


Physical therapy as a profession has its roots to earliest of time, when the techniques were used for treatment much earlier than that of origin of the very term "physiotherapy" itself. This professional discussion paper is a review of the past, present and future of physical therapy as a profession in its three roles- educator, clinician and researcher. The ensuing paradigm shift in favor of advanced teaching methodologies and pedagogies evolved the present situation of physical therapy education. The shift from evidence-based practice to an evidence-informed one witnessed clinical therapists to pursue continuing educational programmes and professional development. The growing evidence in terms of increasing randomized controlled trials in physical therapy indicated development of quality clinical practice guidelines to translate evidence into practice. Professionalization in physical therapy needs a shift towards professionalism to move physical therapy forward in all three core areas of the profession.


Songbirds provide rich natural models for studying the relationships between brain anatomy, behavior, environmental signals, and gene expression. Under the Songbird Neurogenomics Initiative, investigators from 11 laboratories collected brain samples from six species of songbird under a range of experimental conditions, and 488 of these samples were analyzed systematically for gene expression by microarray. ANOVA was used to test 32 planned contrasts in the data, revealing the relative impact of different factors. The brain region from which tissue was taken had the greatest influence on gene expression profile, affecting the majority of signals measured by 18,848 cDNA spots on the microarray. Social and environmental manipulations had a highly variable impact, interpreted here as a manifestation of paradoxical "constitutive plasticity" (fewer inducible genes) during periods of enhanced behavioral responsiveness. Several specific genes were identified that may be important in the evolution of linkages between environmental signals and behavior. The data were also analyzed using weighted gene coexpression network analysis, followed by gene ontology analysis. This revealed modules of coexpressed genes that are also enriched for specific functional annotations, such as "ribosome" (expressed more highly in juvenile brain) and "dopamine metabolic process" (expressed more highly in striatal song control nucleus area X). These results underscore the complexity of influences on neural gene expression and provide a resource for studying how these influences are integrated during natural experience.


Summary
Lowland stream ecosystems are subjected to multiple anthropogenic stressors, usually nutrient enrichment in combination with sedimentation of fine particles and low flow periods in summer. Here, we investigated the temporal development of the benthic algae community in response to these three stressors and linkages to the trait characteristics of the community to explore the mechanisms responsible for stress-induced community changes.
We investigated the response of benthic algae species composition, traits (life forms, cell size categories), biovolume and chlorophyll a (Chl-a) concentration to low flow in combination with nutrient enrichment and fine sedimentation in twelve large outdoor stream flumes (12 m long) resembling small streams in size and habitat characteristics. The experiment consisted of two phases: a normal-flow phase followed by a low-flow phase (90% current velocity reduction), each spanning 4 weeks. We applied a eutrophication scenario (mean increases of 1.14–5.48 mg N/L and 0.01–0.06 mg P/L in the flumes for dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphate respectively) throughout the experiment. Under low flow, we supplemented this with a fine sedimentation scenario (>90% stream bed cover). We took samples once in the normal-flow phase and every week during the low-flow phase.
We observed strong responses in the benthic algae community to sudden changes in low flow and fine sedimentation, mediating rapid species turnover with a decreased algal biovolume and increased abundance of large, motile species. However, we did not observe any pronounced responses to nutrient enrichment. In contrast to the observations for other variables, we found a continuous increase in Chl-a concentration during low flow. This was likely due to continuous fine sedimentation during this phase, reducing light availability which probably resulted in an increase of cell-level Chl-a concentration in response to light limitation and lower rates of light-induced Chl-a degradation.
The rapid response of the benthic algal community to the applied stressors suggests that even short periods of major stressor exposure may significantly affect benthic algae in lowland systems. We suggest that short-term stress events may have cascading effects on several important ecosystem processes given the importance of benthic algae for the productivity of these systems.


Background Antibodies against the voltage-gated potassium channel (VGKC) complex are typically associated with neuromyotonia, Morvan's syndrome, limbic encephalitis and epilepsy. The exact role and efficacy of therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE) in such disorders is unclear. We report our experience of using TPE in this setting. Methods We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 11 patients with anti-VGKC antibodies associated disorders receiving TPE at the Greater Manchester Neuroscience Centre from 2012–2015. Results The median age was 62 years. Their clinical features include seizure, confusion, cognitive decline, rigidity, muscle cramp, myokymia, altered sensation and hallucination. Brain MRI was abnormal in five patients. CSF analysis showed raised protein in five and lymphocytic pleocytosis in one. The median anti-VGKC antibody titre was 3310 pM. In addition, IVIg was used in three patients. All received corticosteroids and subsequent choice of steroid-sparing agent was rituximab, azathioprine, mycophenolate or methotrexate. A sustained favourable response to TPE was observed in eight cases. There was no response in three and only one had transient response. Conclusion This retrospective study suggests that TPE for neurological disorders associated with anti-VGKC antibodies have high rates of favourable response, which is consistent with previous studies. Prospective controlled studies are required to confirm this.


At the end of 2016 Institute of World Economy and Business of Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (IWEB RUDN University) conducted the survey of the students of Bachelor and Master Degrees. The aim of the research was to identify the complex of representations of this target audience about social, cultural and professional values, the priority communication models of information consumption, as well as the evaluation of the university's reputation, advantages and disadvantages of the received education from the student's point of view. The results of the study allowed formulate recommendations for the optimization of the educational process, the improvement of the educational program, the formation of an open system of interaction with the industry community and improve the reputation and competitiveness of the organization. Keywords— public opinion, university, education, labor market, image of profession, image of a specialist in communications, advertising and public relations.


To determine whether a difference in fiber-type caffeine and Ca2+ sensitivities exists between human masseter and vastus lateralis skeletal muscle, we compared the fiber-type caffeine sensitivities in chemically skinned muscle fibers from 13 masseter and 18 vastus lateralis muscles. Caffeine sensitivity was defined as the threshold concentration inducing > 10% of the maximal tension obtained after the fiber was loaded with a 1.6 x 10(-2) mM Ca2+ solution for 30 s. Significant difference in the mean caffeine sensitivity was found between type I masseter fibers [2.57 +/- 1.32 (SD) mM] vs. type I (6.02 +/- 1.74 mM) and type II vastus lateralis fibers (11.25 +/- 3.13 mM). Maximal Ca(2+)-activated force per cross-sectional area was significantly different between masseter and vastus lateralis fibers. However, the Ca2+ concentration corresponding to half-maximal tension (pCa50) was not significantly different between type I masseter (pCa50 5.9 +/- 0.02) and type I vastus lateralis muscle (pCa50 6.01 +/- 0.08). These results suggest that the increase in caffeine sensitivity of masseter muscle reflects the presence of a low reactivity threshold of the sarcoplasmic reticulum.


A scheme is proposed for the controlled teleportation of an arbitrary two-atom state via special W-type entangled states and QED cavity. The scheme does not involve the direct joint Bell-state-measurement (BSM). We show that the quantum information is split into two parts, thus the original atomic state cannot be perfectly restored by the receiver without the other agent's collaboration and classical communication. In addition, the physical realization of this scheme is not difficult.


Various compounds of either natural or synthetic origin mimic or interfere with the biological activity of hormones. Whereas some of these compounds are deactivated by their metabolism, others, such as the isoflavone daidzein, the pesticides vinclozolin and methoxychlor, the polychlorinated biphenyls and the polybrominated diphenyl ethers require metabolic activation prior to exhibiting endocrine disrupting effects. This chapter describes the metabolic pathways of several endocrine disruptors and indicates the role of these pathways in the bioactivation/detoxification of these compounds, resulting in increases or decreases in hormonal activity. It focuses not only on the interactions of metabolites with various nuclear receptors, but also with the effects of biotransformation products on steroidogenesis and hormone metabolism.


The main purpose of the paper is to develop a prototype of Car Black Box For vehicle diagnosis that can be installed into any vehicle. This prototype can be designed with minimum number of circuits. This can contribute to construct safer vehicles, improving the treatment for crash victims, helping insurance companies with their vehicle crash investigations, and enhancing road status in order to decrease the death rate. This Paper represents a vehicular digital video recorder system acts as the flight recorder of a vehicle which is used to record the behavior of a running vehicle. This proposed system provides information related to scenario of accident occurred and collecting information on real time basis, from obstacle detection and video camera. This information is collected by Raspberry Pi processors using module and camera which are connected to the processor which is based on Linux operating system gives all the collected data information to the monitoring system. The monitoring system display the data in real time which help the police investigation to find out the scenario of accident occurred exactly after accident which displays the scenario of accident in image format on police station server window. This information is used to analyze the behavior of accident easily and conflicts related to car accident such as investigation process and falsification of data collected from car black box is avoided and it gives high performance advantages of evidence collection from car black box. Keywords—Black box, GSM, RENESAS microcontroller, Smartphone, Accident


Generally, mathematical abilities have a certain degree of importance in computer science education and a correlation between mathematics and programming, derived from small samples, had been suggested. However, our study investigates whether the correlation is statistically significant or not by analysing a large data set spanning nineteen years for two programming modules and two mathematics modules with syllabi which had undergone minimal changes. In this paper, a statistical analysis based on students' performance has been used to determine the relationship between mathematics and programming in general and between two specific mathematics modules and two programming modules. Compared with small sample analyses derived from previous research, the large sample of 2,161 students' grades in the present study indicates a positive moderate correlation that is statistically significant. The results also suggest that discrete mathematics correlates with introductory programming more than calculus whereas data structures could relate positively to student performance in calculus more than discrete mathematics.


We propose a conceptual framework for assessing the reusability of modules. To do so, we define reusability of a module as the product of its functionality and its applicability. We then generalize the framework to the assessment of modularization techniques.


4593 Background: Radical cystectomy (RC) is standard of care for muscle-invasive bladder cancer, but it comes with significant perioperative risk with half of patients experiencing major postoperative complications. Robot-assisted radical cystectomies (RARC) have aimed to decrease patient morbidity and have become increasingly adopted in North America. Currently, both open radical cystectomies (ORC) and RARC are frequently performed. To contribute to the existing literature using newly available data from the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Project (NSQIP), representing one of the most recent, largest multi-institutional studies, while uniquely accounting for a variety of factors including type of urinary diversion, cancer staging, and neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Methods: RC procedures performed between 2019-2020 were identified in NSQIP and the corresponding Cystectomy Targeted database. Cases in the ORC group were planned open procedures, and cases in the RARC group were robotic with intra- or extracorporeal diversions, including unplanned conversion to open cases for intention-to-treat. Chi-square and t-tests were performed to compare baseline demographics and operative parameters. Multivariate analysis was performed for outcomes including major complications, minor complications, and 30-day mortality, while adjusting for operative approach, medical comorbidities, functional status, age, race, sex, BMI, ASA-classification, preoperative labs, type of urinary diversion, pathological staging, prior pelvic surgery or radiation, need for preoperative transfusion, preoperative sepsis, emergent or elective surgery, and recent chemotherapy. Results: 4,022 RC cases were identified. Of these, 3,146 (78.2%) received planned ORC while 876 (21.8%) received RARC. Baseline demographics of the patients who received ORC versus RARC were largely similar, with no significant difference in age or medical comorbidities. RARC was associated with longer operative times and shorter hospital length of stay compared to ORC. On multivariate analysis, ORC was associated with a higher rate of 30-day mortality [OR 3.1; 95% CI 1.3-7.2; p=0.009], reintubation, cardiac arrest, superficial wound infection, bleeding requiring transfusion [OR 4.7; 95%CI 3.6 - 6.1; p<0.001], prolonged postoperative nasogastric tube use, rectal injury, and ureteral fistula or urine leak compared to RARC. Conclusions: In the NSQIP database, ORC is associated with higher rates of 30- day mortality and operative complications, most notably bleeding, compared to RARC. This study is unique in the size of the cohorts compared, the timeliness of the data (2019-2020), and the ability to control for factors, such as type of urinary diversion, pathological bladder cancer staging, and use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy.


We designed and constructed reduced graphene oxide (rGO) functionalized high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) for rapid and ultra-sensitive detection of label-free DNA in real time. The micrometer sized rGO sheets with structural defects helped absorb DNA molecules providing a facile and robust approach to functionalization. DNA was immobilized onto the surface of HEMT gate through rGO functionalization, and changed the conductivity of HEMT. The real time monitor and detection of DNA hybridization by rGO functionalized HEMT presented interesting current responses: a "two steps" signal enhancement in the presence of target DNA; and a "one step" signaling with random DNA. These two different recognition patterns made the HEMT capable of specifically detecting target DNA sequence. The working principle of the rGO functionalized HEMT can be demonstrated as the variation of the ambience charge distribution. Furthermore, the as constructed DNA sensors showed excellent sensitivity of detect limit at 0.07 fM with linear detect range from 0.1 fM to 0.1 pM. The results indicated that the HEMT functionalized with rGO paves a new avenue to design novel electronic devices for high sensitive and specific genetic material assays in biomedical applications.


We present a formulation for deriving effective medium properties of infinitely periodic two-dimensional metamaterial lattice structures beyond the conventional static and quasi-static limits. We utilize the multipole expansions, where the polarization currents associated with the supported Bloch modes are expressed via the electric dipole, magnetic dipole, and electric quadrupole moments per unit length. We then propose a method to calculate the Bloch modes based on the lattice geometry and individual unit element structure. The results revert to well-known formulas in the traditional quasistatic limit and are useful for the homogenization of nanorod-type metamaterials which are frequently used in optical applications.


PURPOSE
To evaluate the significance of several risk factors for prostate cancer in a cohort of Brazilian men.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS
Men ≥ 40 years-old participating in a prostate cancer screening program between December 2006 and April 2011 in the city of Curitiba, Brazil, were evaluated to determine the prevalence, relative risk (RR) and 95 % CI of prostate cancer according to age, race, ethnicity, family history of prostate cancer, educational level, and history of vasectomy, increased blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, and urethritis.

RESULTS
In 2121 men included in this study, prostate cancer prevalence was 0.6 % for men between 40-49 years versus 2.0 % (adjusted RR = 2.58), 7.7 % (adjusted RR = 5.76), and 8.4 % (adjusted RR = 4.88) for men 50-59 years, 60-69 years, and ≥ 70 years, respectively (p < 0.05 to all). The prevalence of cancer was 5.1% in blacks versus 3.3 % in whites (adjusted RR = 1.56, p > 0.05); 6.1 % in African descendants, in comparison to 3.0 % in non-African descendants (adjusted RR = 3.17, p < 0.05); 5.1% in men with a positive family history, compared to 2.5 % in those with no family history (adjusted RR = 1.55, p > 0.05); and 4.8 % in participants with incomplete elementary school level or lower, compared to 2.2 % in men with complete elementary school level or higher education (adjusted RR = 1.85, p > 0.05). Men with/without history of vasectomy, increased blood pressure, diabetes, and urethritis had a prostate cancer prevalence of 0.8 %/3.0 % (adjusted RR = 0.23, p > 0.05), 3.8 %/2.2 % (adjusted RR = 1.16, p > 0.05), 3.7 %/2.6 % (adjusted RR = 1.39, p > 0.05), and 2.6 %/2.6 % (adjusted RR = 0.99, p > 0.05), respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
Risk factors associated with an increased prevalence of prostate cancer in this cohort included increasing age and African ethnicity.


Two antisera (ATP88 and ATP95) raised against the V-ATPase holoenzyme of Kalanchoë daigremontiana were tested for their cross-reactivity with subunits of V-ATPases from other plant species. V-ATPases from Kalanchoë blossfeldiana, Mesembryanthemum crystallinum, Nicotiana tabacum, Lycopersicon esculentum, Citrus limon, Lemna gibba, Hordeum vulgare and Zea mays were immunoprecipitated with an antiserum against the catalytic V-ATPase subunit A of M. crystallinum. As shown by silver staining and Western blot analysis with ATP88, subunits A, B, C, D and c were present in all immunoprecipitated V-ATPases. In contrast, ATP95 recognized the whole set of subunits only in K. blossfeldiana, M. crystallinum, H. vulgare and Z. mays. This differential cross reactivity of ATP95 indicates the presence of structural differences of certain V-ATPase subunits. Based on the Bafilomycin A1-sensitive ATPase activity of tonoplast enriched vesicles, and on the amount of V-ATPase solubilized and immunoprecipitated, the specific ATP-hydrolysis activity of the V-ATPases under test was determined. The structural differences correlate with the ability of V-ATPases from different species to hydrolyze ATP at one given assay condition for ATP-hydrolysis measurements. Interestingly V-ATPases showing cross-reactivity of subunits A, B, C, D and c with ATP95 showed higher rates of specific ATP hydrolysis compared to V-ATPases containing subunits which were not labeled by ATP95. Thus, V-ATPases with high turnover rates in our assay conditions may show common structural characteristics which separate them from ATPases with low turnover rates.


The two most important works in blockchain and antitrust have been written by professor Thibault Schrepel, both published in 2019. Shrepel's works explain in details how blockchain works and why consensus rules can help create opportunities for both unilateral abuses and collusion.

In this article I rely on professor Shrepel's in-depth conceptual explorations of blockchain to limit the discussion of the use of the technology in conspiracies in restraint of trade, particularly cartels. This article complements professor Schrepel's observations by shedding light on how consensus rules can be built to automatically erase or create a hard fork for sensitive information when immutability no longer interests the parties to a cartel.

By elaborating on how shifting from immutability to mutability and vice-versa is the most relevant feature to turn blockchain into an unprecedented threat to fight cartels, this paper complements professor Shrepel's observations on how blockchain can enhance opacity for outsiders and at the same time improve transparency for cartel members.


Abstract The Mental Capacity Act 2005 governs personal decision-making for adults. It incorporates five overarching principles, including that incapacity may not be inferred merely from a person's unwise decisions and that where a person lacks capacity decisions must be made in her best interests. Through analysis of judicial treatment of unwisdom, best interests, subjectivity and objectivity, considered against parliamentary debates on the Mental Capacity Bill and philosophical critique of ideas of (un)wisdom, we argue that these principles are problematically irreconcilable. The Act's radical under-specificity means, paradoxically, that this comes to be resolved through abstracted values, rather than the centricity of the person herself.


We have constructed the scintillation light yield evaluation system for the scintillator with millisecond decay time, which is based on the digital signal processing and the analog integration circuit with the decay time of 0.1 ms. The digital pulse shape discrimination technique is introduced to check and/or remove the influence of the pile-up events. As the first trial of the absolute scintillation light yield evaluation for scintillators with millisecond decay time, we attempt to acquire the scintillation light yield spectrum of the Tb:Sr2Gd8(SiO4)6O2 (Tb:SrGS). The pulse area spectrum obtained from the Tb:SrGS scintillator shows a clear peak corresponding to the full-energy absorption events of 662 keV gamma-rays from a Cs-137 source. The peak channels in the pulse area spectra are almost the same both for the Tb:SrGS and bismuthgermanate (BGO) scintillator. Considering the difference in the wavelength matching between scintillators and the photomultiplier tube, the Tb:SrGS scintillator has a 2.8 times higher scintillation light yield compared with the BGO. We finally conclude that the scintillator light yield of the Tb:SrGS is evaluated to be 23 000 photons MeV−1.


Irreversible pulp infection can lead to dentoalveolar abscess. Root canal treatment in deciduous teeth is indicated in irreversible pulp infection to maintain children's health and deciduous teeth until its exfoliation period. Success rate of endodontic treatment in deciduous teeth can be enhanced by using antimicrobial root canal filling material. Combination of ZOE-formocresol as root canal filling material has a superior antimicrobial property. Unfortunately, based on some research it is also toxic to the tissue. This case report will discuss about failure of root canal treatment in deciduous tooth with dentoalveolar abscess using combination of ZOE-formocresol as obturating material. There are some factors that possibly cause the failure: complexity of deciduous molar anatomy, the choice of root canal filling material, application of root canal filling material that is not adequate, or an extend pathological condition. DOI: 10.14693/jdi.v21i3.230


SUMMARY: Digital subtraction myelography is a valuable diagnostic technique to detect the exact location of CSF leaks in the spine to facilitate appropriate diagnosis and treatment of spontaneous spinal CSF leaks. Digital subtraction myelography is an excellent diagnostic tool for assessment of various types of CSF leaks, and lateral decubitus digital subtraction myelography is increasingly being used to diagnose CSF-venous fistulas. Lateral decubitus digital subtraction myelography differs from typical CT and fluoroscopy-guided myelograms in many ways, including equipment, supplies, and injection and image-acquisition techniques. Operators should be familiar with techniques, common pitfalls, and artifacts to improve diagnostic yield and prevent nondiagnostic examinations.


The hexapeptide His-D-Trp-Ala-Trp-D-Phe-Lys-NH2 (GHRP-6) and GH-releasing factor (GHRH) produced a rapid release of GH upon perifusion of dispersed rat pituitary cells. In contrast to the native hormone GHRH, GHRP-6 elicited a response of short duration. When perifusion of each secretagogue was continued until the cells no longer released GH, a challenge by the alternative secretagogue immediately resulted in a secondary release of GH. These results are consistent with each secretagogue causing desensitization of discrete receptor-linked second messenger pathways. Cells which were perifused for 1 min with GHRP-6 required continued perifusion with culture medium alone for 60 min before they completely regained responsiveness to a subsequent challenge with GHRP-6. Somatostatin (SRIF) was able to inhibit the action of either secretagogue completely. However, when both GHRH and GHRP-6 were perifused together, SRIF attenuated but did not block GH secretion. These perifusion data add support to conclusions derived from static cell culture studies, that GHRH and GHRP-6 act through different receptor sites and that through discrete signalling pathways their individual effects on GH release are amplified.


Mitoxantrone is an anthraquinone structurally related to the anthracycline drugs doxorubicin and daunorubicin. In animal tumor models, it was equally cytotoxic as but less cardiotoxic than the parent compounds. We here describe the clinical course of a 9-year old girl who inadvertently received 100 mg/m2 of mitoxantrone as a bolus injection. Hemoperfusion carried out twice with the objective of increasing the drug clearance was totally inefficient. Severe but transient myelotoxicity was induced. Sequential echocardiograms demonstrated a reversible decrease of the shortening fraction of the left ventricle.


ABSTRACT The three patent applications WO2015/055994, WO2015/124932 and WO2015/124934 from Takeda Pharmaceuticals describe antagonists for the orexin-1 receptor, based on saturated substituted five-membered carbo- or heterocycles. According to the patent applications, the compounds have utility in therapeutic areas such as schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, anxiety or addiction disorders, among others. The patent applications together describe almost 300 examples, and for most of them activity data, determined by Fluorescence Imaging Plate Reader (FLIPR) technology on the orexin-1 as well as the orexin-2 receptor, are disclosed. Structurally, the building blocks used to prepare the compounds are reminiscent of other orexin antagonist programs recently disclosed in the literature. However, the templates used are novel in the orexin antagonist field and are probably the key feature for the selectivity of the derivatives towards the orexin-1 receptor.


Purpose: This study aimed to analyze physical activity as measured by the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) and an actigraph in breast cancer survivors, as well as to identify their intention to participate in a physical activity program. Methods: Breast cancer patients who had been diagnosed for more than six months (N=135) at a university hospital participated from June 2012 to May 2013. Physical activity was measured using the Korean version of the IPAQ-Short Form and Actigraph GT3X plus an accelerator for seven consecutive days. Data analyses were conducted using the SPSS WIN 19.0 program. Results: Mean total physical activity was 2298.21 metabolic equivalent task (MET)-min/week as assessed by IPAQ and 150,140.57 counts/day as measured by an actigraph. There were statistically significant correlations between moderate physical activity from IPAQ and light intensity of physical activity from the actigraph (r=.735, p<.001), vigorous physical activity from IPAQ and vigorous intensity of physical activity from the actigraph (r=.871, p<.001), total physical activity from IPAQ and light intensity of physical activity from the actigraph (r=.825, p<.001), respectively. Most (80.7%) cancer survivors reported a positive attitude toward physical activity and 57.8% expressed a willingness to participate in a physical activity program. More than half (60%) of the subjects preferred walking, 80.6% preferred more than 30 minutes of exercise, and 57.1% wanted to engage in physical activity three times a week and preferred home-based activities. Perceived barriers included fatigue, lack of strength and pain. Conclusion: It is necessary to consider intensity, personal preferences, and patient-perceived barriers when developing physical activity programs for breast cancer survivors.


The amino acid gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is thought to play a key role in shaping the activity of the GnRH neurons throughout embryonic and postnatal life. However, the physiological roles of direct GABA inputs to GnRH neurons remain unknown. Using a Cre-LoxP strategy, we generated a targeted mouse line, in which all (98 +/- 1%) GnRH neurons had the gamma2-subunit of the GABA(A) receptor deleted. Electrophysiological recordings of GABA(A)-mediated postsynaptic currents from green fluorescent protein-tagged GnRH neurons with the gamma2-subunit knocked out (GnRH gamma2 KO) showed that the amplitude and frequency of GABA(A) postsynaptic currents were reduced by 70% (P < 0.01) and 77% (P < 0.05), respectively, and that the response to exogenous GABA was reduced by 90% (P < 0.01). Evaluation of male and female GnRH gamma2 KO mice revealed completely normal fecundity, estrous cycles, and puberty onset. Further investigation with gonadectomy and different steroid replacement regimens showed normal basal levels of LH in both sexes, and a normal estradiol-evoked positive feedback mechanism in females. However, the increment in LH after gonadectomy in GnRH gamma2 KO female mice was double that of controls (P < 0.05) and also more potently suppressed by 17-beta-estradiol (P < 0.05). A similar but nonsignificant trend was observed in GnRH gamma2 KO male mice. Together, these findings show that 70-90% reductions in the normal levels of GABA(A) receptor activity at the GnRH neuron appear to impact upon the estrogen negative feedback mechanism but are, nevertheless, compatible with normal fertility in mice.


ABSTRACT This paper discusses how the processes of Continuing Airworthiness Management Organisations can be made more efficient by applying Lean principles and digital solutions, to obtain costs savings and improved compliance standards. Lean management is the process of eliminating waste by maximising value through balancing workloads and cutting out inefficient processes. Though Lean was initially applied to manufacturing production lines, an opportunity exists to apply the principles of Lean in airworthiness management. One such aspect of airworthiness management is the processing of records which is an essential part of safety and compliance. Software solutions designed with Lean philosophy and focus on airworthiness management processes can provide benefits in managing the flow of records and extracting actionable information from them for cost reduction and improving safety. Further value can be extracted by applying additional software solutions that will lay a strong foundation for machine learning and predictive analytics – taking aircraft maintenance from a reactive model towards a proactive model.


Dependency management often suffers from labor intensity and complexity in creating and maintaining the dependency relations in practice. This is even more critical in a distributed development, where developers are geographically distributed and wide range of tools is used. In this book, domain ontology is proposed to manage development objects and to automatically support dependency-link discovery. The proposed method based on usage of ontology throughout the whole system development life-cycle. Therefore, in the book, methodological aspects discussing the process of information system development from the viewpoint of the proposed method are elaborated. The proposed method is useful in management of development project and its deliverables (development objects). The potential benefits of the method are its efficacy in discovering dependency links. The method is implemented in a prototype system that allowed validating the method in an empirical evaluation using two real cases. The experiment and results are discussed in the book demonstrating effectiveness and efficiency in discovery of dependencies among development objects.


The emergence of Real-Time Systems with increased connections to their environment has led to a greater demand in security for these systems. Memory corruption attacks, which modify the memory to trigger unexpected executions, are a significant threat against applications written in low-level languages. Data-Flow Integrity (DFI) is a protection that verifies that only a trusted source has written any loaded data. The overhead of such a security mechanism remains a major issue that limits its adoption. This article presents RT-DFI, a new approach that optimizes Data-Flow Integrity to reduce its overhead on the Worst-Case Execution Time. We model the number and order of the checks and use an Integer Linear Programming solver to optimize the protection on the Worst-Case Execution Path. Our approach protects the program against many memory-corruption attacks, including Return-Oriented Programming and Data-Only attacks. Moreover, our experimental results show that our optimization reduces the overhead by 7% on average compared to a state-of-the-art implementation.


Adversarial examples are some special input that can perturb the output of a deep neural network, in order to make produce intentional errors in the learning algorithms in the production environment. Most of the present methods for generating adversarial examples require gradient information. Even universal perturbations that are not relevant to the generative model rely to some extent on gradient information. Procedural noise adversarial examples is a new way of adversarial example generation, which uses computer graphics noise to generate universal adversarial perturbations quickly while not relying on gradient information. Combined with the defensive idea of adversarial training, we use Perlin noise to train the neural network to obtain a model that can defend against procedural noise adversarial examples. In combination with the use of model fine-tuning methods based on pre-trained models, we obtain faster training as well as higher accuracy. Our study shows that procedural noise adversarial examples are defensible, but why procedural noise can generate adversarial examples and how to defend against other kinds of procedural noise adversarial examples that may emerge in the future remain to be investigated.


Abacavir (ABC), a nucleoside-analogue reverse transcriptase inhibitor, is associated with severe hypersensitivity reactions that are thought to involve the activation of CD8+ T cells in a HLA-B*57:01-restricted manner. Recent studies have claimed that noncovalent interactions of ABC with HLA-B*57:01 are responsible for the immunological reactions associated with ABC. However, the formation of hemoglobin-ABC aldehyde (ABCA) adducts in patients exposed to ABC suggests that protein conjugation might represent a pathway for antigen formation. To further characterize protein conjugation reactions, we used mass spectrometric methods to define ABCA modifications in patients receiving ABC therapy. ABCA formed a novel intramolecular cross-linking adduct on human serum albumin (HSA) in patients and in vitro via Michael addition, followed by nucleophilic adduction of the aldehyde with a neighboring protein nucleophile. Adducts were detected on Lys159, Lys190, His146, and Cys34 residues in the subdomain IB of HSA. Only a cysteine adduct and a putative cross-linking adduct were detected on glutathione S-transferase Pi (GSTP). These findings reveal that ABC forms novel types of antigens in all patients taking the drug. It is therefore vital that the immunological consequences of such pathways of haptenation are explored in the in vitro models that have been used by various groups to define new mechanisms of drug hypersensitivity exemplified by ABC.


Many binary-cycle geothermal plants use air as the heat rejection medium. Usually this is accomplished by using an air-cooled condenser (ACC) system to condense the vapor of the working fluid in the cycle. Many air-cooled plants suffer a loss of production capacity of up to 50% during times of high ambient temperatures. Use of limited amounts of water to supplement the performance of ACCs is investigated. Deluge cooling is found to be one of the least-cost options. Limiting the use of water in such an application to less than one thousand operating hours per year can boost plant output during critical high-demand periods while minimizing water use in binary-cycle geothermal power plants.


We present EASEE (Edge Advertisements into Snapshots using Evolving Expectations) for partitioning streaming communication data into static graph snapshots. Given streaming communication events (A talks to B), EASEE identifies when events suffice for a static graph (a snapshot). EASEE uses combinatorial statistical models to adaptively find when a snapshot is stable, while watching for significant data shifts – indicating a new snapshot should begin. If snapshots are not found carefully, they poorly represent the underlying data – and downstream graph analytics fail: We show a community detection example. We demonstrate EASEE's strengths against several real-world datasets, and its accuracy against known-answer synthetic datasets. Synthetic datasets' results show that (1) EASEE finds known-answer data shifts very quickly; and (2) ignoring these shifts drastically affects analytics on resulting snapshots. We show that previous work misses these shifts. Further, we evaluate EASEE against seven real-world datasets (330 K to 2.5B events), and find snapshot-over-time behaviors missed by previous works. Finally, we show that the resulting snapshots' measured properties (e.g., graph density) are altered by how snapshots are identified from the communication event stream. In particular, EASEE's snapshots do not generally "densify" over time, contradicting previous influential results that used simpler partitioning methods.


Sequential peptide ligation strategy becomes more and more important in large protein or long peptides chemical synthesis due to the limited peptide/protein size obtained by solid phase synthesis of individual peptides or even one-step peptide ligation. Herein, we developed an alternative method which could perform the sequential peptide ligation of several segments from N to C direction based on the combined use of thioacid capture ligation and native chemical ligation. The sweet protein monellin was produced through this strategy on a scale of multi-milligrams.


This paper presents a moment-method analysis of waveguide diaphragms/irises of arbitrary shape. The "generalised network formulation" for aperture problems has been used for formulating the problem in terms of an operator equation. Triangular patch modelling, using suitably defined basis functions, has been used to solve the operator equation. Various pertinent parameters have been evaluated and numerical results validated. The validated results are found to be in good agreement with the published data. Thereafter, data generated for new problems have also been given.


Catalytic pyrolysis of torrefied switchgrass under methane atmosphere was performed over molybdenum modified bimetallic catalysts. Compared with molybdenum-only catalysts (MoO3/HZSM-5 and Mo2C/HZSM-5), the bimetallic catalysts demonstrated a higher catalytic performance towards methane activation. Higher reaction temperatures favored formation of aromatic hydrocarbons under both helium and methane atmospheres. The maximum aromatic hydrocarbons yield of 39.31% was achieved during co-pyrolysis of raw switchgrass and methane over MoZn/HZSM-5 at 700 °C. Torrefaction prior to pyrolysis led to a decrease in the aromatic hydrocarbons yield. The yield of aromatic hydrocarbons from switchgrass torrefied at 270 °C was lower than that when torrefication was performed at 230 °C. The reduction of aromatic hydrocarbons from torrefied switchgrass is due to the loss of cellulose and the concomitant concentration of lignin during torrefaction.


Transport infrastructures are fundamental in society and interruption in their service leads to large economic losses. However, inspection and maintenance work of said infrastructures need to be performed to ensure their safety, which traditionally involves limitation or interruption of their use. This paper treats the finite element modelling part of a framework for non-intrusive assessment of existing structures. In practice, the load history of a structure is rarely known in detail. Here, existing cracks due to previous loading is included from the start of the finite element (FE) analysis to circumvent this issue. The focus is on comparing the choice of different shear retention factors for discrete cracks based on comparison to experimental test results. The results indicate that the shear retention factor used for the discrete cracks does not influence the capacity, which remains the same for all considered values. It appears the anchorage force development of the bond-slip reinforcement does not rely on shear transfer in the discrete crack in the adopted FE model. Moreover, the results showed that combining both discrete cracks and abond-slip relation implicitly including the loss of confinement due to corrosion-induced splitting cracks leads to excessively low capacity compared to experimentalresults. From the present study it can be concluded that the shear retention factor is of little importance for the considered FE model. However, it is emphasized that other modelling choices may entail other findings.


Population growth in urban areas Sumenep consequences of the impact of increased demand for residential land. Fulfillment of the general water supply comes from surface water and groundwater. In recent years, there are indications of decline in the quality of underground water is characterized by an increased disease caused by water (water borne disease), so it is necessary to study the quality of underground water. The purpose of this study is to identify water quality, analysis, evaluation, and formulate the direction of ground water quality management. Methods of water analysis is done by comparing the results of observations of water quality parameters of class 1 (raw water). Location of the observations were made in three areas Golden Stone, Satellites and Underpants. The results demonstrate for the number of parameters that exceeded water quality class 1 (raw water) include parameters of iron (Fe), Copper (Cu) and Total Phosphate and it can be concluded that the quality of water in the water Sumenep classified in Class B (good) polluted with mild level, so it's worth drinking water as a raw material but still need processing (cooking) in advance. Keywords: management guidelines, quality standards, water quality


The routing problem of wireless data networks depends on the link capacities which, in turn, are determined by the allocation of communication resources (such as power, frequency, and time slots) to the links. Therefore the optimal performance of the wireless network can be achieved by simultaneous optimization of routing and resource allocation. In this paper, we study a distributed algorithm for the simultaneous routing and resource allocation problem in node-based wireless data networks that encounter changes in the number of nodes. Therefore for our considered traffic of node-based wireless data networks, the Markovian jump linear system framework is presented for developing routing algorithms. Also the resulting decentralized routing control schemes are shown to formally achieve the desired routing specifications of node-based wireless data networks and requirements of Gaussian channels with TDMA.


We analyze a decentralized assembly system with two types of component suppliers: one (commanding suppliers) has strong bargaining power who demands a wholesale price contract and the other (subordinate suppliers) has weak bargaining power who accepts a revenue sharing contract from the assembler. We derive the optimal contracts for both supplier types and study the impact of how the supplier type and the associated component costs can affect the optimal contract parameters. We demonstrate the effect of the bargaining power of the players on their relative profitability in the decentralized assembly system. We further illustrate the impact of component cost reduction and supply base reduction on the profitability of the assembler and component suppliers in the system. Specifically, our results suggest that it would be most beneficial for the assembler to prioritize improvement effort on subordinate suppliers with largest potential amount of component cost reduction. We also provide specific operating conditions under which the assembler can benefit from supply base reduction.


In this work, a technique is proposed to identify the diseases that occur in plants. The system is based on a combination of residual network and attention learning. The work focuses on disease identification from the images of four different plant types by analyzing leaf images of the plants. A total of four datasets are used for the work. The system incorporates attention-aware features computed by the Residual Attention Network (Res-ATTEN). The base of the network is ResNet-18 architecture. Integrating attention learning in the residual network helps improve the system's overall accuracy. Various residual attention units are combined to create a single architecture. Unlike the traditional attention network architectures, which focus only on a single type of attention, the system uses a mixed type of attention learning, i.e., a combination of spatial and channel attention. Our technique achieves state-of-the-art performance with the highest accuracy of 99%. The results show that the proposed system has performed well for both purposes and notably outperformed the traditional systems.


The crystal structure of the title compound, [Zn(C9H7N2O2)2(H2O)]·H2O, involves discrete mononuclear complex molecules. The special positions on the rotation twofold axis are occupied by ZnII and O atoms of the coordinated and uncoordinated water molecules. The coordination around the ZnII atom can be described as transitional from trigonal-bipyramidal to square-pyramidal. The two chelating 2-methyl-4-oxopyrido[1,2-a]pyrimidin-9-olate ligands and the coordinated water molecule form the Zn coordination. O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds between the coordinated water molecule and the ligand and between the uncoordinated water molecule and the ligand dominate the crystal packing.


Tirapazamine is a prodrug which is activated under hypoxic conditions and has shown promise in treating hypoxic tumours. Using MRI and histochemistry, the response of HCT116 xenograft tumours to tirapazamine was investigated and quantified. Dynamic contrast-enhanced and diffusion weighted MRI scans were acquired both before and after treatment with tirapazamine in under two hours of imaging time per session. MRI data was used to produce maps of the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), area-under-the-curve (IAUC), and pharmacokinetic parameters (K, ve, vv). Carbocyanine and BrdU/haematoxylin staining were used to produce histological images of perfusion and necrosis. Implanted fiducial markers were used to align MRI data before and after treatment, and to align MRI slices with histological sections. Qualitative and quantitative comparisons between MRI and histological images showed good agreement between the two. Data from both modalities showed that tirapazamine causes significant changes in diffusion and decreases in perfusion within 24 hours after treatment; widespread vascular shutdown and central necrosis were observed in treated tumours. The agreement of dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI and diffusion weighted MRI with accepted immunohistochemical methods suggests that the MRI techniques presented here are effective methods of monitoring the response of hypoxic, heterogeneous tumours to treatment with tirapazamine. This is the first MR investigation to measure the effects of tirapazamine in an in vivo tumour model. The non-invasive imaging protocol developed here has the potential for direct translation to the clinic in a potential trial. Interestingly, the response of tumours to tirapazamine is evidenced by marked vascular shutdown detected using dynamic contrast enhanced MR imaging, supporting the hypothesis that tirapazamine's mechanism of action may include vascular effects.


From the viewpoint of inorganic crystal engineering (ICE), the coordination sphere of the metal centre can be affected by two main parts of inorganic and organic units in complexes. Database study can play a significant role in the explanation of the relationship between various parameters related to these parts. For the first time, we have investigated this relationship through the concomitant studies of the inorganic crystal structure database (ICSD) and the cambridge structural database (CSD) for mercury(ii) halide compounds. The results of CSD analysis are divided into two categories of metal halide complexes (MHC or mercury halide compounds with ligands) and metal halide only (MHO or mercury halide compounds without ligands). MHC (970, 460, and 521 metal centres as HgCl2, HgBr2, and HgI2, respectively) and MHO (419, 141, and 201 metal centres as HgCl2, HgBr2, and HgI2, respectively) were structurally investigated. The coordination number, polymerization mode, coordination geometry of the metal centre, type of donor atom in ligands, and the chelation mode of the ligand for all MHC and MHO compounds were extracted as effective factors in inorganic and organic units. To rationalize the effect of ICE in the design of the coordination sphere, eleven new mercury halide complexes, including the ester ligands of L1, naphthalene-5-yl nicotinate (complexes 1-3), L2, naphthalene-6-yl nicotinate (complexes 4-6), L3, naphthalene-5-yl pyrazine-2-carboxylate (complexes 7-9), and L4, naphthalene-6-yl pyrazine-2-carboxylate (complexes 10-11) were synthesized and fully characterized. The various parameters of substitution, C-H to nitrogen replacement, counteranion, and symmetry effects were investigated for all of the complexes. The results show that there is a meaningful relationship between inorganic and organic units. According to the findings of the CSD and ICSD analyses, most of the complexes obeyed the same relationship. Despite the predominant role of the inorganic unit in determining the coordination geometry, the organic unit can also change the coordination sphere of complexes with one major effect or the cooperativity of minor effects.


Jets in active galactic nuclei are collimated, relativistic flows that emanate from accretion disks around supermassive black holes. Electromagnetic stresses are the most plausible candidate for extracting energy at the source and converting it into outflow kinetic energy. Questions that need to be answered in order for these processes to be well understood are: Can we explain parsec‐scale accelerations that the observations infer? How the conditions near the disk are related to the terminal Lorentz factor of the jet and what is the asymptotic value of the Poynting‐to‐matter energy flux ratio? Can we model the apparent kinematics of the observed jet components? I present solutions of the ideal magnetohydrodynamic equations that help to shed light on these questions.


Direct-write processes offer several advantages over traditional lithographic techniques, including high processing speeds, high resolution, and the ability to fabricate complex 2D and 3D structures. Specifically, laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT) is a non-lithographic process that can be utilized to efficiently print numerous materials on various substrates with high precision. By using high viscosity nanopastes, structures can be printed with high positional accuracy that maintain the shape of the spatially structured laser beam. This capability lends itself to applications such as sensors and microelectronic components requiring features with narrow pitch. Because of the versatility of the LIFT process, interconnects can be printed directly onto the bond pads of both flip-chip devices in addition to directly onto substrates. In this work, we demonstrate the use of LIFT for printing highaspect ratio vertical micro-pillars combined with freestanding voxels to fabricate low profile interconnects on a bare die LED.


Producing inexpensive hydrogen using electricity to split water or to extract hydrogen from hydrocarbon compounds is a two-sided coin: one side is obtaining and exploiting low-cost, emissions-free energy sources while the opposite side is establishing low-cost robust, durable, and efficient materials for the conversion processes. This article explores the materials needed for water splitting electrolysis, electrochemical abstraction of hydrogen from light alkanes, and looping thermal-chemical reaction processes that typically form and then dissociate an acid compound in a two- or three-step process. The focus is on the R&D needs of materials that are used for high-temperature electrochemistry, focusing on solid-oxide, ion-conducting cell materials sets (SOECs). To exploit the availability of low-cost electricity, these materials must stand up to cyclic operations. They also must be durable for years of service to reduce operating and maintenance costs, and they must achieve high conversion efficiencies to avoid large, energy-intensive recycle loops. Graphical abstract


Removal of a well-fixed humeral component during revision shoulder arthroplasty presents a challenging problem. If the humeral component cannot be extracted simply from above, an alternate approach must be taken that may include compromising bone architecture to remove the implant. Two potential solutions to this problem that allow removal of the well-fixed prosthesis are making a humeral window or creating a longitudinal split in the humerus. A retrospective review was performed at the Mayo Clinic to determine the complications associated with performing humeral windows and longitudinal splits during the course of revision shoulder arthroplasty. This study included 427 patients from 1994–2010 at Mayo Clinic undergoing revision shoulder arthroplasty. From this cohort, those who required a humeral window or a longitudinal split to assist removal of a well-fixed humeral component were identified. Twenty-seven patients had a humeral window produced to remove a well-fixed humeral component. Six intra-operative fractures were reported from this group: 5 were in the greater tuberosity and 1 was in the distal humeral shaft. At the latest radiographic follow-up, 24 of 27 windows healed, 2 patients had limited inconclusive radiographic follow-up (1 and 2 months), and 1 did not have follow-up at our institution. Twenty-four patients underwent longitudinal osteotomy to extract a well-fixed humeral component. From this group, 1 had intra-operative fracture in the greater tuberosity. At most recent radiographic follow-up, 22 of 24 longitudinal splits healed, 1 had short follow-up (1 ½ months) with demonstrated signs of healing, and 1 did not have follow-up at our institution. In both groups, there were no cases of window malunion and no components have developed clinical loosening. Data from this study suggests humeral windows and longitudinal splits can assist with controlled removal of well-fixed humeral components with a high rate of union and a low rate of intra-operative and post-operative sequelae.


BACKGROUND
The purpose of this study was to determine the incidence of moderate to severe tricuspid valve regurgitation in children with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) undergoing staged surgical reconstruction, to assess the mechanisms responsible, and to evaluate the efficacy of surgical repair.

METHODS AND RESULTS
We retrospectively reviewed clinical and echocardiographic data of 59 consecutive patients with HLHS operated on at our institution. Patients with a moderate or severe degree of tricuspid regurgitation (> or =2+) demonstrated by color flow Doppler echocardiography before the hemi-Fontan or Fontan operation who underwent tricuspid valve repair were included. Patients with HLHS and coexisting atrioventricular septal defect were excluded from the study. Severity of insufficiency was graded on a scale from 1 to 4+ by Doppler color flow mapping. Tricuspid valve morphology, degree of tricuspid valve regurgitation, and right ventricular function were assessed before and after tricuspid valvuloplasty. Eight patients (8/59; 14%) were found to have a minimum of 2+ tricuspid valve regurgitation before hemi-Fontan or Fontan operations. In five of eight patients (62%; Group A), the valve was found to be myxomatous, thickened, and redundant. There were multiple regurgitant jets in three of five (60%) patients in this group. In three of eight patients (37%; Group B), the valve had a normal echocardiographic appearance and regurgitation was the result of a lack of complete leaflet coaptation. All eight patients underwent tricuspid valvuloplasty, and all experienced a decrease in regurgitation. In five of eight (62%) patients, there was a reduction in insufficiency of two grades of severity and in three of eight (37%) patients, there was a one-grade improvement. Tricuspid valve stenosis was not documented in any of the patients after tricuspid valvuloplasty. In seven of eight (87%) patients, right ventricular function was assessed as fair before tricuspid valvuloplasty repair and improved to good in five of seven (71%) patients after the procedure. The remaining patient had good function both at baseline and after tricuspid valvuloplasty.

CONCLUSIONS
Moderate to severe tricuspid valve regurgitation is a common finding in patients with HLHS undergoing staged surgical reconstruction and can result from either abnormal valve morphology or incomplete leaflet coaptation. Tricuspid valvuloplasty during either the hemi-Fontan or Fontan stages of reconstruction carries a high success rate and is associated with improved right ventricular function.


Transsynaptic circuit tracing using genetically modified rabies virus (RV) is an emerging technology for identifying synaptic connections between neurons. Complementing this methodology, it is now possible to assay the basic molecular and cellular properties of neuronal lineages derived from embryonic stem cells (ESCs) in vitro, and these properties are under intense investigation toward devising cell replacement therapies. Here, we report the generation of a novel mouse ESC (mESC) line that harbors the genetic elements to allow RV‐mediated transsynaptic circuit tracing in ESC‐derived neurons and their synaptic networks. To facilitate transsynaptic tracing, we have engineered a new reporter allele by introducing cDNA encoding tdTomato, the Rabies‐G glycoprotein, and the avian TVA receptor into the ROSA26 locus by gene targeting. We demonstrate high‐efficiency differentiation of these novel mESCs into functional neurons, show their capacity to synaptically connect with primary neuronal cultures as evidenced by immunohistochemistry and electrophysiological recordings, and show their ability to act as source cells for presynaptic tracing of neuronal networks in vitro and in vivo. Together, our data highlight the potential for using genetically engineered stem cells to investigate fundamental mechanisms of synapse and circuit formation with unambiguous identification of presynaptic inputs onto neuronal populations of interest. STEM Cells2012;30:2140–2151


THE German Government on June 14 declared the discon tinuance from July 1 until further notice of all payments in foreign currencies on its foreign market debt, the major issues of which are known as the Dawes and the Young bonds. This important declaration followed an announcement by the Reichsbank that for a period of six months the Bank would be unable to provide any more foreign exchange for the transfer of service on German long and intermediate term obligations of any kind. The Reichsbank pronouncement brought to a definite close the negotiations which foreign committees had been carrying on at Berlin on behalf of the holders of German bonds other than


Academia is often critiqued as an "ivory tower" where research, thinking, and teaching are isolated from the complexity and everyday experience of so many people. As instructors of political and other psychology courses, we strive to break down these barriers and engage with the dynamic and nuanced nature of phenomena as situated in lived social and political contexts. In this report, we unpack and detail how we strive to achieve this goal by expanding on Plous' articulation of action teaching (2012). We first define our pedagogical focus on active engagement, critical thinking, and staying on the move between multiple perspectives. We then provide specific examples of how we enact our philosophy in activities and assessment. We end by articulating how this approach to teaching in social and political psychology can be understood as furthering not only our students' intellectual growth as psychologists, but also their development as democratic citizens. In doing so, we argue that action teaching not only involves course activities directly engaging with social issues, but also provides students with a scaffold to actually do so in a way that is attentive to the complexity, pluralism, and dynamism of social and political issues.


A rotating turbidity current is modeled as a steady tube of sediment-laden water traversing along and down a uniform slope representing the continental shelf. The model includes parameterizations of erosion of sediment from the seabed into the plume, deposition onto the seafloor, bottom friction, and turbulent entrainment of the overlying ambient seawater. The purpose of the work is to study how these parameterizations affect the path the current takes on the slope and to determine criteria which affect the qualitative behavior of the model solutions. It is found that there are three possible final states to the model. The first is near-geostrophic flow along the slope which is similar to the uniform state found in streamtube models. The second is the catastrophic state which describes an erosive current entraining and depositing a large amount of sediment and traveling downslope much like an avalanche. In the third state the current decelerates and flows along slope whilst depositing its load. The current is extinguished on a length scale 2(aQ*/v s K f r 0 ) 1/2 from the source where a is the aspect ratio, Q * is the initial volume flux, ν s is the settling velocity, K f is a frictional coefficient and r 0 is the deposition rate. The state the current adopts depends on the initial conditions and model parameters. A linear stability analysis finds that the geostrophic state is always unstable while the catastrophic state is always stable. Thus the model predicts either catastrophic flow down slope or depositional flow along-slope. Given a sufficiently large initial disturbance the current will always ignite. This behavior is illustrated with parameters appropriate to the Kveitehola outflow. However the catastrophic state is unrealistic in that the turbulent energy required to maintain the sediment in suspension can be greater than that available to the current. Consequently a five-equation model is introduced which contains a turbulent kinetic energy equation and a parameterization of interfacial shear stress based on turbulence. With this model the Coriolis force has a much greater impact on the plume's path and the sediment erosion is not so unreasonably large.


Background: In recent years, many studies have explored the associations among impulsivity, history of abuse, the emergence of eating disorders with episodes of binge eating (EDBE) and their severity. Nevertheless, factors associated with successful clinical outcomes of EDBE are still unknown. Our study aimed to test the hypothesis that a history of abuse is associated with unsuccessful clinical outcomes of EDBE through an effect mediated by impulsivity. Methods: We assessed patients older than 15 years, 3 months with EDBE at inclusion and at 1 year. Recovery was defined as the absence of eating disorders at 1 year. A mediation analysis was performed by means of structural equation modelling. Results: We included 186 patients in our analyses (54% bulimia nervosa, 29% anorexia nervosa binge eating/purging type and 17% binge-eating disorder); 179 (96%) were female. One-third (n = 63) of patients reported a history of abuse, and recovery was observed for 20% of the sample (n = 38). Contrary to our assumption, a history of abuse was not associated with the absence of recovery of EDBE at 1 year. Factors unfavourable for achieving recovery were anxiety disorders (odds ratio [OR] 0.41), vomiting (OR 0.39), physical hyperactivity (OR 0.29), negative urgency and a lack of perseverance (OR 0.85 for both). Only positive urgency was positively associated with recovery (OR 1.25). Limitations: We excluded 219 patients lost to the 1-year follow-up. Conclusion: Our findings may help to deconstruct the empirical belief that traumatic events may interfere with the successful course of treatment for eating disorders. A high level of positive urgency may be associated with more receptivity to care.


In this thesis two approaches were used to induce structural mutations in potato starch biosynthesis genes in potato. First production of new monoploid amf genotypes through parthenogenesis made it possible to initiate mutation breeding for amfae double mutants. Two amf monoploids were selected which fulfilled most of the prerequisites. By inducing a mutation in one of the branching enzymes in an amf -mutant it is possible to select a double mutant having less branched amylopectin. This mutation can easily be identified by iodine staining. Amylose-free starch will stain red and less branched amylopectin will stain blue, like amylose containing starch. Mutations were induced by X-ray irradiation of leaf explants followed by adventitious shoot regeneration and microtuber induction or followed by several rounds of multiplication of axillary buds and microtuber induction. In both cases the starch of microtubers was stained with iodine to screen for aberrant types. In 56 tuber samples blue or otherwise aberrant starch granules were found. With this kind of observations, the concept of mutation breeding for starch variants in monoploid potatoes is proven. A second way to induce structural mutations was the use of the Ac ( Activator )/ Ds ( Dissociation ) transposase system of maize in potato where the Ds transposon is activated by a transposase source. In this study the Ds element was linked to the GBSS gene, of which the phenotypic effect of deactivation is known i.e. red staining starch after iodine staining. The known amf mutation was used as a model system to gather more information about the transposition frequency of the Ds transposable elements in potato and to test the tagging of the wildtype GBSS gene. To activate the Ds element four Ds transposon containing plants were combined with the Ac transposase via cross combination or double transformation. Excision rates ranged from 14.8-48.4 %. Three phenotypic starch mutants were found after screening by iodine staining of tuber cut surfaces. These amylose-free mutants were analyzed by in vitro tests, Southern blot hybridization and sequencing. Strong indications were found that inactivation of the GBSS gene was caused by a transposable element.


Multiuser detection in direct-sequence code-division multiple access (DS-CDMA) systems can be implemented by using Gaussian process (GP) for regression in the sense of minimum mean square error criterion. In this Letter we investigate the application of sparse spectrum Gaussian process (SSGP) to the multiuser detection problem. The key point of the SSGP is that the sparsity of spectral representation of Gaussian process leads to an algorithm with much lower complexity than the full GP, while keeping almost the same bit error rate (BER) for DS-CDMA systems. Experimental results validate our proposed SSGP based multiuser detection method. It achieves greater efficiency and good BER performance.


This paper presents a new design of wide slot antenna for various wideband applications. The proposed printed antenna consists of a slot and a turning stub, both formed by a binomial curve function; thus, various bandwidths (BWs) can be obtained based on the structure with different binomial curves. Some key parameters affecting the antenna performance have been analyzed and discussed in detail as an antenna design guideline. To validate the theoretical design, six prototypes of various binomial-curved slot antennas were designed, fabricated, and measured. Good agreement between the simulated results and the measured ones is observed. The results demonstrate that the proposed type of antenna can obtain a BW range from 9.8% to 99.7% for VSWR ≤ 2 by selecting various binomial-curved slots, which may provide a convenience for various wideband antenna designs. Moreover, the proposed type of antenna owns a simple structure and a stable gain of about 3-5.5 dBi, which is very suitable for wideband wireless system applications.


Recent placebo-controlled clinical trials suggest excessive adverse cardiovascular (CV) events associated with cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 selective nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), developed to reduce gastrointestinal irritation associated with nonselective NSAIDs. Subsequent retrospective analyses of observational series and non-CV clinical trials suggest that CV events may occur with modest excess with all NSAIDs, nonselective and COX-2 selective, compared with nonuse of these drugs, may be dose related, and do not differ substantially in frequency among various NSAIDs. However, inadequacy of study designs, controls, and events has precluded definition of the risk–benefit relationship of COX-2 selective and nonselective NSAIDs. Resolution of this problem requires several different types of studies, necessarily including appropriately designed randomized, controlled trials comparing commonly employed nonselective and COX-2 selective NSAIDs in patients expected to benefit (ie, those with symptomatically severe arthritis) who also have coronary occlusive disease so that achievable noninferiority trial size has power sufficient to resolve relatively small differences in adverse CV (and gastrointestinal) event rates. This article explores the goals and possible designs of trials appropriate for defining risk–benefit relationship that must be known for optimal application of NSAID therapy.


A 1.6-Gb/s 16-level superposed APSK modem using a newly developed baseband signal-processing coherent demodulator is described. ln the modulator, the superposing modulation method is adopted in which two QPSK carriers having different levels are superposed so that the combined signal forms a 16-level APSK carrier. Sixteen signal points are arranged in lattice form on the signal space. In the demodulator, a newly developed carrier recovery loop is adopted in which quantizing error signals are detected in the process of data regeneration; they are used for generating the phase error signal to control a VCO. The principles of operation and theoretical analysis of this carrier recovery loop is described, through which it is shown that the recovered carrier has inherently low-pattern jitter power. Furthermore, it features a very simple circuit configuration. The circuit configurations of an experimental modem and some important test results are deseribed in detail. It is shown that the modem has improved performance characteristics in such a high-speed region as 1.6 Gb/s while its circuit configuration is much simplified.


Based on large volume press and conventional pulse-echo ultrasonic technique, we have overcome the difficulty in determining the length of liquid specimen under high pressure, and the sound velocity in liquid Na has been measured up to 2 GPa. The P-V data deduced by our sound velocity results through equation of state is in an excellent agreement with previous data directly determined by piezometer method. This new experimental technique is convenient and ready for use, being expected to advance investigation on thermodynamic properties of liquid metals and other melts under high pressure.


Optimal design problems are widely known by their multiple performance measures that are often competing with each other. In this paper, an optimal multiproduct batch chemical plant design is presented. The design is first formulated as a multiobjective optimization problem, to be solved using the well-suited nondominating sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II). The NSGA-II has the capability to achieve fine tuning of variables in determining a set of nondominating solutions distributed along the Pareto front in a single run of the algorithm. The NSGA-II ability to identify a set of optimal solutions provides the decision maker with a complete picture of the optimal solution space to gain better and appropriate choices. The effectiveness of NSGA-II method with multiobjective optimization problem is illustrated through a carefully referenced example.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

The inherent dynamic nature of batch processes allows for their ability to handle variations in feedstock and product specifications, and provides the flexibility required for multiproduct or multipurpose facilities. They are thus best suited for the manufacture of low-volume, high-value products, such as specialty chemicals, pharmaceuticals, agricultural, food and consumer products, and most recently the constantly growing spectrum of biotechnology-enabled products. Batch processing in the food industry has some unit operations, such as panning, whipping (emulsifying), and the pulling of taffy, which are not too often used in other industries, as well as other operations,such as blending, tabletting (including granulation) and lyophilization, which are common in other industries. Reduced time to market, lower production costs and improved flexibility are all critical success factors for batch processes.


Photodetachment of the positronium negative ion, a bound state of one positron and two electrons, has been observed. Development of a method to produce the ions efficiently using a Na coated tungsten surface has enabled the first observation of the photodetachment. The obtained lower limit of the photodetachment cross section for the wavelength of 1064 nm is consistent with the theoretical calculations reported so far. The experimental field developed in the present work gives new opportunities to explore the quantum mechanical three-body problem and to develop energy-tunable positronium beams.