Bioretention can reduce surface runoff, slow down peak flow, and delay peak time by increasing the infiltration capacity of the underlying surface. The media structure directly affects the performance of bioretention systems. Four pilot tanks with different media configuration were built, and hydraulics and water volume reduction were studied though intermittent, simulated storm events. The results showed that water volume and peak flow reduction rate were the most stable and efficient for #1 (fly ash mixing sand, 1:1 by volume) than other systems, which were 58.6–67.9% and 72.0–86.4%, respectively. Partial least squares regression (PLS) was used to build a model for the relation between water volume reduction rate and its influencing factors (R2 = 0.76), and the factors that influence bioretention water volume reduction were ranked from strongest to weakest as follows: infiltration rate (IR) > submerged area height (SAH) > inflow volume (IV) > antecedent dry time (ADT). In addition, volume reduction rate exhibited a positive correlation with ADT and SAH, and a negative correlation with IR and IV. Three water transfer simulations with different infiltration rates were conducted using HYDRUS-1D under designed inflow conditions, and the minimum relative error is obtained for #1.


The overall control of the quality of botanical drugs starts from the botanical raw material, continues through preparation of the botanical drug substance and culminates with the botanical drug product. Chromatographic and spectroscopic fingerprinting has been widely used as a tool for the quality control of herbal/botanical medicines. However, discussions are still on-going on whether a single technique provides adequate information to control the quality of botanical drugs. In this study, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), ultra performance liquid chromatography (UPLC), capillary electrophoresis (CE) and near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) were used to generate fingerprints of different plant parts of Panax notoginseng. The power of these chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques to evaluate the identity of botanical raw materials were further compared and investigated in light of the capability to distinguishing different parts of Panax notoginseng. Principal component analysis (PCA) and clustering results showed that samples were classified better when UPLC- and HPLC-based fingerprints were employed, which suggested that UPLC- and HPLC-based fingerprinting are superior to CE- and NIR-based fingerprinting. The UPLC- and HPLC- based fingerprinting with PCA were able to correctly distinguish between samples sourced from rhizomes and main root. Using chemometrics and its ability to distinguish between different plant parts could be a powerful tool to help assure the identity and quality of the botanical raw materials and to support the safety and efficacy of the botanical drug products.


.. Objectives: To determine the frequency of elevated plasma homocysteine (Hcy) levels among type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients. Study Design: Cross sectional study. Setting: Department of Medicine, Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, Karachi. Period: From 28 September 2012 to 26 March 2015. Material & Methods: Type 2 Diabetic patients fulfilling inclusion criteria were enrolled. Patients with conditions known to cause altered homocysteine levels were excluded. Patients' HbA1c and fasting serum homocysteine levels were obtained. Level >15 μmol/L was labeled as elevated. Data was collected with the help of Performa. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 21. Results: (90) ninety patients were enrolled in this study during study period with mean age of 61.5±7.3 years. Of (90) ninety patients, 45 (50%) were male and 45 (50%) were female with male to female ratio of 1:1. Mean duration of diabetes was 6.9±1.7 years. 40 (44.44%) cases were of controlled diabetes and 43 (47.7%) were on treatment. Of 90 patients 36 (40%) patients had Homocysteinemia. Homocysteine levels were found to be significantly raised in males 51.1% v/s 28.8% (p<0.03), older patients (>60 years of age) 55.5% v/s 16.6% (p<0.001), having diabetes for > 7 years, 59.2% v/s 17%(p<0.00004), in 21% v/s 57.4% cases who were and were not on treatment respectively (p<0.0004), in 22.5% patients with controlled diabetes and 54% patients with uncontrolled diabetes respectively (p<0.002). Conclusion: Hyperhomocystenemia is prevalent (40%) in type 2 diabetics with statistically significant raised levels in males, >60 years of age, non-compliant diabetics, have long duration diabetes, and uncontrolled disease.


Long-term potentiation (LTP) is an activity-dependent strengthening of synaptic efficacy that is considered to be a model of learning and memory. Protein tyrosine phosphorylation is necessary to induce LTP. Here, induction of LTP in CA1 pyramidal cells of rats was prevented by blocking the tyrosine kinase Src, and Src activity was increased by stimulation producing LTP. Directly activating Src in the postsynaptic neuron enhanced excitatory synaptic responses, occluding LTP. Src-induced enhancement of alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methylisoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) receptor-mediated synaptic responses required raised intracellular Ca2+ and N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors. Thus, Src activation is necessary and sufficient for inducing LTP and may function by up-regulating NMDA receptors.


In the last decades several measuring methods have been established for studying flow experience. The starting point for the establishment of the Flow State Questionnaire (PPL-FSQ: Flow State Questionnaire of the Positive Psychology Lab) was Csikszentmihalyi's phenomenological definition. There is no consensus about the basic factors of flow experience, so the goal was to develop a questionnaire which is based on theoretical principles and empirical results also. The first version of the PPL-FSQ had 40 items. In order to test this questionnaire a study was conducted with 214 participants. Exploratory post hoc analysis and factor analysis were performed and had a result of a twofactor model of 16 items. The questionnaire was improved by item-imputation, so the second version of the survey consisted of 23 items. Then the instrument was tested through several studies (N = 260) and the latent structure of the questionnaire was examined. The exploratory factor analysis resulted in a two-factor model of 20 items. The balance between challenges and skills (11 items) and Absorption in the activity (9 items) factors. Identifying these two factors strengthens the theoretical hypothesis that the basic dimensions of flow experience are the balance between challenges and skills, as well as absorption in the task.


Author(s): Lomova, Anastasia | Advisor(s): Kohn, Donald B | Abstract: Autologous hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation, combined with gene editing, could provide an ideal therapeutic option for the treatment of congenital blood diseases, such as hemoglobinopathies, primary immune deficiencies, and storage disorders. Gene editing relies on site-specific induction of a double stranded break (DSB) by targeted nucleases (such as Zinc Finger Nucleases (ZFNs) or CRISPR/Cas9 system), and subsequent gene correction using endogenous cellular repair mechanisms. The two main competing pathways to repair the break are non-homologous end joining (NHEJ), an often-imprecise pathway which can result in insertions and deletions (indels), or accurate homology-directed repair (HDR) pathway which uses a homologous donor template to seamlessly repair the break and incorporate the desired changes. For certain diseases, where a knockout of a gene can result in therapeutic benefit, repair by NHEJ pathway may be favorable. However, for conditions where disruption of a gene can result in an even more severe phenotype than the original disease (such as sickle cell anemia), repair via HDR pathway is critical. Despite advances in nuclease technologies and the ability to efficiently achieve high frequency of site-specific gene disruption, the current progress to reach clinically relevant levels of precise HDR-mediated repair still remains elusive. Therefore, our translational goal is to improve the gene editing outcomes in HSCs, specifically, increase HDR and decrease NHEJ levels, which will be beneficial for treating many diseases of the blood. This dissertation aims to identify the hindrances that limit efficient HDR-mediated editing in HSCs, and investigates several approaches to address these impediments. Our results indicate that one major reason for low gene correction in HSCs is their heightened susceptibility to cell toxicity resulting from the electroporation of the nuclease and homologous donor template. We demonstrate that co-electroporation of mRNA encoding the anti-apoptotic protein BCL2 with gene editing reagents significantly ameliorates the cytotoxicity and increases the yield of gene-corrected HSCs. Next, we show that cell cycle-dependent control of nuclease activity and DNA repair pathways can influence gene editing outcomes to favor the precise DNA modification (HDR) over faulty repair events (NHEJ) in human HSCs. By using a modified version of Cas9 protein with reduced nuclease activity in G1 phase of cell cycle, when HDR cannot occur, and transiently increasing the proportion of cells in HDR-preferred phases (S/G2), we achieve a 4-fold improvement in HDR/NHEJ ratio over the control condition in vitro, and a significant improvement in long-term gene-modified engrafted cells after xenotransplantation of edited human HSCs into immune-deficient mice. Finally, we investigate what cellular elements govern the DNA repair pathway choice and how they can be exploited to shift the balance toward HDR from NHEJ. We test the effects of manipulating the expression levels of several DNA repair factors, that are presumed to be important for pathway choice and progression, on HDR and NHEJ levels in K562 cell line and primary human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs). Interestingly, we observe differential effects of DNA repair factor manipulation on gene editing outcomes dependent upon the delivery method employed and the types of cells used. These strategies for improving gene editing outcomes in human HSCs have important implications for the field of gene therapy as a whole, and can be applicable to diseases where increased HDR/NHEJ ratio is critical for therapeutic success.


Overthe last 25 years the randomized clinical trial and the science of clinical epidemiology have begun to reshape the way medicine is practiced and taught, replacing anecdote and tradition with concrete quantitative data. During the same period, cognitive psychologists have demonstrated that the interpretation of quantitative data may be substantially influenced by the manner in which the data are presented. 1,2 Early work by McNeil et al 3 suggested that physicians' interpretations of treatment outcomes are not immune to such cognitive biases. That the results of properly conducted trials of medical interventions should have an impact on the application of those interventions in clinical practice is indeed encouraging. But, that the magnitude and even the direction of that impact should depend on the numeric presentation of the results is cause for concern. A number of recent studies 4-12 have convincingly demonstrated that both physicians and patients are susceptible to


We present a new deep learning architecture (called Kdnetwork) that is designed for 3D model recognition tasks and works with unstructured point clouds. The new architecture performs multiplicative transformations and shares parameters of these transformations according to the subdivisions of the point clouds imposed onto them by kdtrees. Unlike the currently dominant convolutional architectures that usually require rasterization on uniform twodimensional or three-dimensional grids, Kd-networks do not rely on such grids in any way and therefore avoid poor scaling behavior. In a series of experiments with popular shape recognition benchmarks, Kd-networks demonstrate competitive performance in a number of shape recognition tasks such as shape classification, shape retrieval and shape part segmentation.


It is usually assumed that only amino acids located near the retinal chromophore are responsible for color tuning of rhodopsins. However, we recently found that replacement of Ala178 with Arg in the E-F loop of proteorhodopsin (PR), an archaeal-type rhodopsin in marine bacteria, shifts the lambda(max) from 525 to 545 nm at neutral pH [Yoshitsugu, M., Shibata, M., Ikeda, D., Furutani, Y., and Kandori, H. (2008) Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 47, 3923-3926]. Since the location of Ala178 is distant from the retinal chromophore (approximately 25 A), the molecular mechanism of the unusual mutation effect on color tuning is intriguing. A recent mutation study revealed that the observed color change was highly specific to position 178 [Yoshitsugu, M., Yamada, J., and Kandori, H. (2009) Biochemistry 48, 4324-4330]. Thus, in the study presented here, we replaced Ala178 with 19 different amino acids and measured the absorption spectra and the pK(a) of the Schiff base counterion, Asp97. Most of the mutants exhibited a spectral red shift and increased pK(a) of Asp97. None of charged amino acids at position 178 influences color tuning of PR specifically, being similar to the Arg replacement studied earlier. Only Cys and Thr replacements exhibited color and a pK(a) similar to that of the wild type. Ser, Val, and Gly mutants behave like the wild type only with respect to the lambda(max) of the species with deprotonated Asp97. We conclude that the E-F loop region contains a unique structure in PR, disruption of which causes large-scale rearrangement of alpha-helices. Ala178 in PR contributes to the blue-shifted absorption (525 nm at neutral pH) and lowering of the counterion pK(a), which is important for proton-pump function in the marine environment, even though its position is far removed from the chromophore binding domain.


The article investigates mechanisms offered by religious organizations to support entrepreneurial initiatives. We examine two organizations, one catholic and one protestant, using a qualitative case study design. The comparative assessment was based on three dimensions of support that appeared as a result of the data analysis, that we called spaces of information, formation, and motivation. The dimensions are considered as possible important research results and were used to investigate the impact on the traditional stages of the entrepreneurial process of the mechanisms made available by the two religious organizations. The analysis indicates certain similarities between the two cases: church membership assists in the creation of social capital that impacts various economic dimensions, as well as provides religious support to the economic motivations. However, the differences between the two churches become evident in the religious interpretation of economic success and in the articulation and closure of their social networks.


Background: Inappropriate drug use in self-medication leads to emergence of drug resistant pathogens and poses serious health hazards.
Objective: To assess the prevalence of self-medication among residents of Jimma town.
Method: The study was conducted in December 2000. It was a community based cross-sectional survey on a sample of 352 households, which were selected systematically. Data was collected by structured and pre-tested questionnaire, and analyzed using SPSS/PC computer statistical soft ware.
Results: Out of the 152 ill people, 27.6% were self-medicated. The most frequent illness reported for self-medication was headache (60%). Most of the drugs for self-medication were obtained from drug retail outlets (52.4%). The relative lesser cost (35.7%) was the major reason for using self-medication.
Conclusion: The availability of drugs in informal sectors contributed to the increase in self-medication. Though self-medication is hard to eliminate, drug law enforcement and educating the public at large is vital. [Ethiop.J.Health Dev. 2003;17(2):111-116]


Respiratory motion degrades anatomic position reproducibility, and result in significant errors in radiotherapy. 4D computed tomography (4DCT) can characterize anatomy motion during breathing. Usually, the acquired 4DCT images sequences is out of order. How to rearrange the sequence, i.e. sort 4DCT images has been the focus of 4DCT. In this paper we propose a method based on manifold learning, Isomap technique to reconstruct time-resolved CT volumes. By mapping high dimensional image data with Isomap into low dimensional space, each image is assigned a value, then 4DCT images is sorted according to the value to reconstruct a respiratory cycle. Experiments result shows that the method is feasible to sort 4 DCT images without using any external motion monitoring systems.


The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the palatability of various semi elemental diets using gustatory sensation tests, the equivalent concentration examining method, the SD method, and an artificial taste sensor. The elemental diets studied were New Ensure liquid®, (vanilla flavour, coffee flavour, and strawberry flavour products) a new version of the Enure product which has a different sweetener from the previous product and has been commercially available since 2005, and three older products the previous Ensure liquid® (vanilla, coffee, strawberry), Racol® (milk flavour, coffee flavour, banana flavour), and Harmonic®-M.In testing using the equivalent concentration examining method, the above products were ranked in the following order for sweetness intensity : Harmonic®-M, previous Ensure liquid® product, new Ensure liquid® product, and Racol®.In testing by the SD method, we adopted twenty symmetrical items signifying palatability and in the multiple comparison of these items, there were significant differences in the "Tastes bad-Tastes good" and "Week aftertaste-Strong aftertaste" pairs. A factor analysis of the SD results obtained indicated that "evaluation of taste" and "texture, taste reverberation" items contributed greatly to the first and second factors, respectively. In a scatter graph made from the average factor score for each product, products were well grouped.New Ensure liquid® had a higher factor score for "evaluation of taste" than the other products, but its factor score for "texture, taste reverberation" was lower.The evaluation using the artificial taste sensor showed that protein-based enteral nutrients could be grouped and their palatability predicted.


Various systems of moment equations – consisting of up to $(d+3)(d^{2}+6d+2)/6$ moments – in a general dimension $d$ for a dilute granular gas composed of Maxwell molecules are derived from the inelastic Boltzmann equation by employing the Grad moment method. The Navier–Stokes-level constitutive relations for the stress and heat flux appearing in the system of mass, momentum and energy balance equations are determined from the derived moment equations. It has been shown that the moment equations only for the hydrodynamic field variables (density, velocity and granular temperature), stress and heat flux – along with the time-independent value of the fourth cumulant – are sufficient for determining the Navier–Stokes-level constitutive relations in the case of inelastic Maxwell molecules, and that the other higher-order moment equations do not play any role in this case. The homogeneous cooling state of a freely cooling granular gas is investigated with the system of the Grad $(d+3)(d^{2}+6d+2)/6$-moment equations and its various subsystems. By performing a linear stability analysis in the vicinity of the homogeneous cooling state, the critical system size for the onset of instability is estimated through the considered Grad moment systems. The results on critical system size from the presented moment theories are found to be in reasonably good agreement with those from simulations.


In post-conflict and transitional settings, adolescents are important civic and political actors as potential peacebuilders. Policy and programming often focus on promoting prosocial outcomes for these younger generations, but there has been growing attention to their perspectives and psychological development. Drawing on theory in developmental psychology, adolescents interpret and respond to context in forming ideas about key concepts like peace, understanding society and their place in it, and constructing their orientations toward peace. This study extends current literature by exploring how Colombian adolescents describe peace within the context of a peace process in their country. Ninety-six 15- to 18-year-olds in and around Bogotá, Colombia, were interviewed about peace. Their responses were analyzed inductively using an adapted thematic analysis. Findings indicated that the individual was central to how respondents talked about peace; that is, peace begins and depends on the internal states. From this basis, individuals then created peace through interpersonal relations. There were some differences by respondents' SES, such as in how respondents described peace as requiring equality in society, but none found for gender or age. This study demonstrates the need to provide concrete opportunities for these adolescents to see individual contributions and broader interpersonal peace as possible.


This paper reports a novel MAC protocol answering the need for an efficient transport of information on the MF-TDMA air interface of a satellite network adopting the ATM technology. The MAC is based on variable-rate DAMA for real-time VBR traffic coupled with a connection admission control algorithm, exploiting statistical multiplexing of VBR sources, and a pre-emptive buffer management policy. The main result is a high bandwidth exploitation as well as the QoS guarantee to each class of service.


Current shadow detection methods perform poorly when detecting shadow regions that are small, unclear or have blurry edges. In this work, we attempt to address this problem on two fronts. First, we propose a Fine Context-aware Shadow Detection Network (FCSD- Net), where we constraint the receptive field size and focus on low-level features to learn fine context features better. Second, we propose a new learning strategy, called Restore to Detect (R2D), where we show that when a deep neural network is trained for restoration (shadow removal), it learns meaningful features to delineate the shadow masks as well. To make use of this complementary nature of shadow detection and removal tasks, we train an auxiliary network for shadow removal and propose a complementary feature learning block (CFL) to learn and fuse meaningful features from shadow removal network to the shadow detection network. We train the proposed network, FCSD-Net, using the R2D learning strategy across multiple datasets. Experimental results on three public shadow detection datasets (ISTD, SBU and UCF) show that our method improves the shadow detection performance while being able to detect fine context better compared to the other recent methods. Our proposed learning strategy can also be adopted easily as a useful pipeline in future advances in shadow detection and removal.


Distribution of deceased person's wealth is a divine law in Islam. This distribution should be accurate; otherwise a gruesome punishment is waiting in hereafter. The combination of relatives of late person is diverse which makes the computation of distribution difficult. In order to ease the computation of shares of slain person, a software system can be designed for Islamic Farayez which is the premier concern of this article. The existing software systems cannot compute the distribution precisely always and furthermore have lack of proper explanation of the system. Having studied 'Islamic Shariah' for all possible combinations of relatives of dead person, a system has been modelled and developed which provides the knowledge of Islamic inheritance and distributes the wealth of deceased accurately through which user can be galvanized to follow. Here the Islamic Farayez has been analyzed and modelled using structured approach. After fixing different scenario of Islamic Farayez of a dead person, individual cases are analysed using three levels of Data Flow Diagram (DFD). Hence, DFD illustrated the organization of the functional components of the system; and as a consequence, based on this, the graphical form of algorithm or flow-chart of the overall Islamic Farayez system is developed. Finally, mathematical models are derived for all possible combination of relatives of late person and then developed the software for Islamic Farayez system. The reliability, accuracy, integrity and robustness of the proposed Islamic Farayez system are rigorously justified by comparing the proposed system generated results with manual results as well as other existing software generated results for various complex cases. It is recommended to use this proposed Islamic Farayez system as an expert assistant for distribution of deceased person's wealth among his/her eligible relatives.


The grounded theory research method has been adopted by researchers across a range of different disciplines. Two different examples that are currently using the method as part of individual research programmes are explained. These two examples form part of two separate PhD programmes that are currently at similar stages of development making for a timely comparison of the different applications of the grounded theory research method. Both examples involve research conducted in the construction related fields of knowledge management (km) and value management (vm). A background is provided for each study and the similarities and differences between each application are outlined as well as the process and stages involved in the research investigations undertaken. The use of computer software packages is explored and a case for and against using such a tool is made to the effect that this will largely depend on the nature of the problem under investigation. The paper concludes with the suggestion that grounded theory is a method that can be adapted to suit the nature of the research problem provided that the fundamental aspect is adhered to which is to ensure that the theory derived is 'grounded' in the data.


Background: Provincial Health Office of East Nusa Tenggara reported that the annual parasite incidence (API) in 2016 was 5.46 new cases per thousand populations, distributed in 22 districts. Lembata district is an endemic area with the highest API in the province. This study aimed to determine the risk factors of malaria in Lembata district, East Nusa Tenggara. Subjects and Method: A case control study was carried out in Lembata district, East Nusa Tenggara. A sample of 800 patients was selected for this study, consisting of 400 malaria cases with positive laboratory result and 400 with negative laboratory result. The dependent variable was malaria incidence. The independent variables were education, knowledge, attitude, behavior, housing, and swamp. Data of malaria case were obtained from the medical record. The other data were collected by questionnaire. The data were analyzed by a multiple logistic regression. Results: Malaria incidence increased with low education (OR= 2.24; 95% CI= 1.09 to 4.63; p= 0.029), poor knowledge (OR= 3.94; 95% CI= 2.67 to 5.81; p<0.001), negative attitude (OR= 6.62; 95% CI= 4.45 to 6.05; p= 0.042), unhealthy behavior (OR= 3.97; 95%CI= 2.63 to 5.43; p<0.001), poor housing (OR= 3.53; 95%CI= 2.30 to 5.43; p< 0.001), and close to swamp (OR= 2.80; 95% CI= 1.33 to 3.28; p= 0.023). Conclusion: Malaria incidence increases with low education, poor knowledge, negative attitude, unhealthy behavior, poor housing, and close to swamp.


THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE is written to draw to the attention of all physicians a clinical syndrome which can lead to severe mental retardation or death in the neonate if it goes unrecognized, while early recognition and treatment will result in dramatic and prompt relief of symptoms and subsequent normal development. Two case reports from one family serve as illustrative examples of the diagnostic problems, therapy, and prognosis. The patient in case 1 is suspected of having had the disorder although there is no actual proof of this. Case 2 illustrates most of the characteristic symptoms of the syndrome with a dramatic response to therapy. Report of Cases Case 1.— This male infant was born Oct 22, 1962 after a full-term uncomplicated pregnancy. The delivery was precipitous and the child was apneic and cyanotic at birth. During the night he was reported to have had intermittent irregularities of breathing, tonic seizures,


The main goal of the paper is to analyze whether the positions of auditors and regulators, and their respective coalitions, regarding the proposals of the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) in the last phase of the public consultation "Improving the Auditor's Report" are significantly different, as well as the effectiveness of a lobbying strategy using comment letters. The relevance of this research lies in providing evidence on whether or not the IAASB is influenced by the lobbying strategies of different interest groups carried out via comment letters, especially auditors and regulators (both individually and in coalitions). The results show that both auditors and regulators attempeted to influence the IAASB's decision-making process, with their coalitions taking a different position on some questions. However, none of these interest groups predominated in terms of the effectiveness of the lobbying carried out, hence the results are consistent with institutional theory, in that the IAASB seeks legitimacy in its actions and tries to accommodate several different interests, but does not let itself be captured by any specific group. We analyzed and classified the comments (from a total of 86 letters) to nine questions proposed by the IAASB into a five-point Likert scale. This classification was independently cross-validated by a second researcher. We applied ANOVA tests to analyze the position of the interest groups, and chi- squared tests for the position of their coalitions. This paper addresses lobbying within the process of auditing standards settings, thus expanding the current literature on lobbying in accounting, which is mainly restricted to accounting regulations. It also contributes methodologically by using a new five-point scale for the dependent variable instead of the usual binary approach.


Abstract Aim We examined the impact of COVID‐19 regarding organizational and management issues at Israeli long‐term care facilities. Background Residents in facilities were very vulnerable to significant disease and mortality during COVID‐19. Methods A survey of 52 facilities in Israel was conducted in 2020, consisting of closed‐ and open‐ended questions. Mixed methods were used to analyze data both quantitatively and qualitatively. Results Three main effects emerged: worsened financial status of long‐term‐care facilities resulting from high expenditures for preventive measures and reduced revenue due to deaths and fewer resident admissions, increased workload due to decreased workforce and additional duties, and negative mental health effects on staff because of increased workload and the conflict between maintaining good clinical practice and following COVID‐19 regulations. Conclusion The development of government directives needs to take into account potential conflicts between the directives and quality care principles and to provide a balanced approach that assures humane care. Facilities and their staff lacked adequate pandemic‐related guidance and support. Implications for Nursing Management The results highlight the need to address staff shortages and training, to provide more support and clearer guidance to facilities and their staff, and to devise a framework and strategies for future health crises.


Many devices can only be accurately modelled using a combined circuit and finite element model (FEM), This paper describes the coupling of massive conductor circuits modelled using 3D finite elements and the A/spl psi/ scheme with an external circuit model. The massive conductor circuits by their nature lead to the fact that the magnetic scalar region becomes multiply connected. The cuts which are introduced to deal with the multiply connected magnetic scaler regions lead naturally to the current and voltage variables required to couple the field model and lumped circuit model. >


The ability of spectroscopic photoacoustic imaging to enable functional information on top of the structural information of the tissue makes it a promising tool for detection and monitoring of numerous diseases. In the current work, we demonstrate a cost-efficient high-power supercontinuum laser source based on a telecom range diode laser system and few meters of a standard optical fiber for spectroscopic photoacoustic imaging of lipids in the extended near-infrared region.


The host-symbiont relationship is complex and, in the case of pathogenic symbionts, can be devastating to host health. Attempts to analyze the variability in host-symbiont interactions have included the effects of abiotic factors such as salinity and temperature, but the influence of other symbionts of the same host is not often considered. There are several examples that demonstrate that the symbionts also associated with the host can modify the host-pathogen dynamic. The bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia confers resistance to viruses and malaria-causing protist parasites in their insect hosts. Wild bumblebees, whose populations have been negatively impacted by pathogens, have intestinal microbes that decrease trypanosome infection level. Intestinal bacterial symbionts can also increase the host's susceptibility to infection, as is the case with intestinal virus infection and possibly some bacterial infections. These examples demonstrate that the interactions of all symbionts associated with the host need to be considered when studying the role of pathogens in host health.


Organizations are fictions contracts punctuated by opportunistic behavior of the contracting parties who cooperate. They can operate in a deficit of confidence thanks to agreements between agents. But, they can not achieve optimal performance and should be content with a satisfactory performance.


FDG-PET and SPECT studies suggest that hypometabolism and hypoperfusion in occipital lobe and posterior cingulate gyrus (PCG) are prominent features of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Alzheimer's disease (AD), respectively. Cerebral blood flow and glucose metabolism are tightly linked to brain energy metabolism. 1H-MRS is a useful tool to directly detect energy metabolism. We aimed to use 1H-MRS to characterize metabolite concentrations in the occipital lobe and PCG in DLB and AD patients, and estimate their usefulness in the diagnosis of DLB. Nineteen DLB, 21 AD, and 18 normal control (NC) subjects underwent 1H-MRS with the voxels placed in bilateral occipital lobes and left PCG. The N-acetylaspartate (NAA) and glutamate (Glu) concentrations in occipital lobe in DLB were lower than those in AD and NC. Concentrations of these two metabolites in PCG in DLB were lower than those in NC, and were the same as those in AD. These results remained robust after correcting for relative gray matter volume in the region of interest. The NAA and Glu concentrations in occipital lobe in DLB were found correlated with global cognitive function. From the ROC curves with Glu concentrations in occipital lobe, the mean areas under the curve were 0.845 for the DLB/control (with sensitivity 83.3% and specificity 84.2%) and 0.773 for the DLB/AD (with sensitivity 66.7% and specificity 84.2%). Our study suggests that 1H-MRS investigation is valuable to detect the characteristic patterns of metabolite concentrations and is helpful in the diagnostic process and assessing dementia severity in DLB.


The wide use of PFC converters as DC supplies for electrical and electronic applications over the last few years, in order to comply with EMC directives, has highlighted the issue of efficiency improvement in these converters. This paper presents a detailed study of the switching and power loss behaviour under any line and load conditions, for the case of PFC flyback converters operating in the continuous conduction mode (CCM). The whole analysis is based on the analytical calculation of the power factor (which drastically affects the conduction losses) and its variation in relation to the nop-solution that minimises the switching losses. As it will be proved theoretically, as well as by the use of simulation and experimental results, the operation of PFC flyback converters in the nop-area not only minimises the switching losses and limits the voltage stresses on the semiconductive elements, but also produces a high power-factor regulation. These facts, along with the simplicity of the flyback topology, establish the nop-solution for PFC flyback converters operating in the CCM as an optimal way to achieve high power-factor regulation, high efficiency and high power density.


This article re-thinks the problem of religious (in)tolerance by analyzing the 2015 deportation of three "Hindu priests" from a Caribbean nation for the practice of obeah. Defined popularly as "witchcraft" or "African tradition," obeah was first criminalized as the alleged inspiration for the largest slave uprising of the eighteenth century British Caribbean. I argue that the recent deportations in a nation that constitutionally enshrines freedom of conscience foregrounds some of the foundational limits of liberal secularism. I trace a genealogy of liberalism to critique the secular ideal of the "freedom from difference." I suggest that attempts to invoke "spirituality" as a more inclusive idiom for denigrated forms of "not-religion" such as obeah extend rather than eliminate these limits of liberal secularism. I close by drawing some parallels with anti-Muslim nationalism in the U.S. and suggest some ways of thinking about a trinary formation of religion, not-religion, and secular power in modern nation-states.


The surface force apparatus (SFA) comprises thin molecularly smooth mica sheets glued to glass cylinders, which are pressed into contact with their axes at right angles. It is frequently used, in conjunction with the Johnson - Kendall - Roberts (JKR) adhesion theory, to extract the surface energy of the contacting sheets. This procedure is open to possible error since the JKR theory is based on the contact of homogeneous, isotropic elastic cylinders. This paper extends the JKR theory to the layered structure of the SFA. Two approaches have been followed: (i) direct calculations for prescribed values of the layer thickness and elastic moduli; (ii) an experimental calibration procedure for an existing apparatus.


In this paper, Runge—Kutta Discontinuous Galerkin (RKDG) finite element method is presented to solve the one-dimensional inviscid compressible gas dynamic equations in a Lagrangian coordinate. The equations are discretized by the DG method in space and the temporal discretization is accomplished by the total variation diminishing Runge—Kutta method. A limiter based on the characteristic field decomposition is applied to maintain stability and non-oscillatory property of the RKDG method. For multi-medium fluid simulation, the two cells adjacent to the interface are treated differently from other cells. At first, a linear Riemann solver is applied to calculate the numerical flux at the interface. Numerical examples show that there is some oscillation in the vicinity of the interface. Then a nonlinear Riemann solver based on the characteristic formulation of the equation and the discontinuity relations is adopted to calculate the numerical flux at the interface, which suppresses the oscillation successfully. Several single-medium and multi-medium fluid examples are given to demonstrate the reliability and efficiency of the algorithm.


Numerous reports confirm a positive impact of biochar amendments on soil enzyme activities, nutrient cycles, and, finally, plant growth and development. However, reports explaining the process behind such diverse observations are scarce. The aim of the present study was (1) to evaluate the effect of biochar on the growth of purslane (Portulaca oleracea L.) and nutrients; (2) to determine the response of rhizosphere enzyme activities linked to soil phosphorus cycling after bio-char amendment under non–saline and saline soil conditions. Furthermore, we investigate whether adding biochar to soil alters the abundance of P-cycling-related bacteria. Two rates of biochar (2% and 4%) were applied in pot experiments. Biochar addition of 2% significantly increased plant growth under non-saline and saline soil conditions by 21% and 40%, respectively. Moreover, applying biochar increased soil microbial activity as observed by fluorescein diacetate (FDA) hydrolase activity, as well as phosphomonoesterase activities, and the numbers of colony-forming units (CFU) of P-mobilizing bacteria. Soil amended with 2% biochar concentration increased total soil nitrogen (Nt), phosphorus (P), and total carbon (Ct) concentrations by 18%, 15%, and 90% under non-saline soil conditions and by 29%, 16%, and 90% in saline soil compared the control, respectively. The soil FDA hydrolytic activity and phosphatase strongly correlate with soil Ct, Nt, and P contents. The rhizosphere soil collected after biochar amendment showed a higher abundance of tricalcium phosphate-solubilizing bacteria than the control soil without biochar. Overall, this study demonstrated that 2% maize-derived biochar positively affects halophyte plant growth and thus could be considered for potential use in the reclamation of degraded saline soil.


Classical Mechanics Simulations is one of a series of nine comprehensive books that have been produced by the Consortium for Upper-Level Physics software (CUPS), which is funded by the United States National Science Foundation. They are intended to be used in conjunction with physics undergraduate courses. Each volume has one or more diskettes containing a number of versatile computer programs. The titles, together with their contents, are given in chapter 1, the introductory chapter. The other titles are: Astrophysics Programs; Electricity and Magnetism Programs; Modern Physics Programs; Nuclear and Particles Physics; Quantum Mechanics Programs; Solid State Physics; Thermal and Statistical Physical Programs; Waves and Optics Programs. The books guide the reader through the programs with examples of their use. There is a brief discussion of the numerical methods used, together with the associated analytic analysis, an explanation of the nomenclature and detailed information concerning the use of the programs. At the end of each chapter there are many challenging computational problems. The students must tackle several problems in order to gain an insight, the methods used and the solutions. Following the problems there are references to books containing the relevant analytic analysis and numerical algorithms plus papers from journals. The programs contained on the diskette in Classical Mechanics Simulations are written in Borland/Turbo Pascal for MS-DOS platforms. They require a minimum hardware configuration consisting of an IBM-compatible 386-level desk-top computer, with a mathematics coprocessor, mouse and VGA colour monitor. However a 486-level desk-top computer is to be preferred for speed of the computer. Chapter 2 is concerned with the numerical solution of the equations of motion of Newton and Lagrange. The author uses the Euler method together with the second and forth order Runge-Kutta methods to solve the equations of motion numerically. Graphic facilities enable the solutions to be displayed. There are fifteen problems requiring the commutation of the numerical solution of the equations of motion. Each problem has several parts. The problems concern projectiles, oscillators and linear motion with damping and driving forces. The next chapter tackles anharmonic problems, strange attractors and chaos. The concepts of phase space and Poincare diagrams are used to display the solutions. Central force orbits are the theme of the following chapter. There are numerous applications involving planetary motion with two or more bodies interacting with gravitational forces. The subsequent three chapters have a similar structure to the earlier chapters. They are concerned with rigid body motion, using Euler angles; collision and scattering problems resulting from Coulomb forces and nuclear interactions; coupled oscillators in one and two dimensions. The Appendix gives a summary or `walk through' of all the computer programs. The book does not contain a discussion of error analysis which should always be considered when using any numerical method to compute the solution of an equation. In the introductory chapter the authors quote Professor Eugene Winger: `It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem, but I would like to understand it too'. This user-friendly volume is an effective tool for teaching the use of numerical computational techniques in classical mechanics. Professor Winger would have approved of this volume.


This volume is an attempt to give a voice to the voiceless, the hidden Irish, the migrant, the nomad, the 'new' Irish and the immigrant - those communities whose languages and cultures run - unnoticed sometimes - like the underground stream that continues to enrich Irish culture and the culture of the Irish diaspora. It is also an effort to acknowledge those people who have frequently found themselves on the margins of society and whose registers and histories have more often than not been ignored or erased from the historical record. The Irish Traveller community scores high on all indicators of social disadvantage relating to health, unemployment, education, and early child and adult mortality - as do the Roma (Gypsies) who number at least twelve million people worldwide. While the Porrajmos (Holocaust) - with estimates of deaths ranging between 400,000 and 1.5 million Roma - is the most infamous example of anti-Roma prejudice, it is generally acknowledged that the collapse of the communist governments of Eastern Europe has rekindled anti-Roma sentiment in Eastern and Western Europe. Both Irish Travellers and Roma have had very little input into the manner in which their histories have been 'constructed' with the consequence that they have often been translated into a dramatic spectacle of cultural Otherness incorporating discursive strategies, popular stereotypes and an array of suspicions and superstitions. This book is an attempt to usurp this traditional and reductionist position. This volume is an eclectic mix of brief life-history narratives from a number of Travellers themselves (such as the contributions from Bridgie Casey, Chantelle O'Reilly, and Willy Cauley - all of whom live in Limerick); and longer more academically oriented essays on areas as diverse as Travellers in England (Colm Power), culture (Micheal O hAodha), language (St. John O Donnabhain), education and access (John Heneghan), publishing (Anna Farmar), literature (Paul Delaney), and identity (David O'Donnell). Moreover it includes an essay in Irish/Gaelic (Micheal O hAodha), a translation from the Irish/Gaelic (Sean MacMathuna) and inclusion of French-Arab/African (St. John O Donnabhain) and Spanish Roma Gitanos (Dagmar Reschke) perspectives.


In this paper we develop a simple procedure that delivers tests for the presence of a broken trend in a univariate time series that do not require knowledge of the form of serial correlation in the data and are robust as to whether the shocks are generated by an I(0) or an I(1) process. Two trend break models are considered: the first holds the level fixed while allowing the trend to break, while the latter allows for a simultaneous break in level and trend. For the known break date case, our proposed tests are formed as a weighted average of the optimal tests appropriate for I(0) and I(1) shocks. The weighted statistics are shown to have standard normal limiting null distributions and to attain the Gaussian asymptotic local power envelope, in each case regardless of whether the shocks are I(0) or I(1). In the unknown break date case, we adopt the method of Andrews (1993) and take a weighted average of the statistics formed as the supremum over all possible break dates, subject to a trimming parameter, in both the I(0) and I(1) environments. Monte Carlo evidence suggests that our tests are in most cases more powerful, often substantially so, than the robust broken trend tests of Sayginsoy and Vogelsang (2004). An empirical application highlights the practical usefulness of our proposed tests.


In this study, paclitaxel loaded poly( L-lactic acid) (PTX-PLLA) microparticles were prepared using solution enhanced dispersion by supercritical CO2(SEDS) technique. This supercritical antisolvent technique offers the advantage of negligible organic solvent residua in the drug loaded microparticles. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that microparticles exhibited rather spherical shape and small particle size with narrow particle size distribution. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) indicated that PTX was amorphously dispersed in the PLLA matrix. The drug loading and encapsulation efficiency of PTX-PLLA microparticles were 14.33% and 62.68%, respectively. In vitro cytotoxicity evaluation of PTX-PLLA microparticles against nonsmall-cell lung cancer A549 and ovarian cancer SKOV3 cell lines indicated that PTX-PLLA had superior antiproliferation activity against the A549 and SKOV3 cell lines, compared with free PTX formulations. The cellular internalization of fluorescent microparticles was evidenced by fluorescence microscope and further confirmed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). This was attributed to the efficient intracellular accumulation of PTX via cell phagocytosis and sustained release of PTX from PLLA matrix. The anticancer activity of PTX-PLLA was associated with PTX-induced cell apoptosis such as nuclear aberrations, condensation of chromatin and swelling damage in mitochondria. The cell apoptosis index detected by flow cytometry was higher in PTX-PLLA group than in free PTX. The PTX-PLLA formulation, which was obtained through micronization of PTX and encapsulation of micronized PTX into PLLA simultaneously in the SEDS process, significantly potentiated the anticancer activity of PTX.


In recent years, the choice of therapies for symptomatic Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL)/Small Lymphocytic Lymphoma (SLL) have grown exponentially, with no single agreed upon standard first-line therapy. The choice of therapy is often dictated by goals of care, patient characteristics and tumor genetic abnormalities. The goal of this article is to familiarize the primary care provider with some of the most commonly used therapeutic modalities with attention to the side effect profile of these regimens.


The deformation behavior of globulitically and dendritically solidified metallic suspensions is studied at the example of Sn‐15%Pb with a fraction solid of 30%. Creep tests with stresses less than 20 Pa serve to identify the deformation properties relevant for the solidification process of castings. It is investigated if thermo‐mechanical defects like hot tearing or shape distortion which occur during solidification in conventional casting (dendritic structure) can also be expected for globulitic material as used in Thixoforming. Additionally the flow behavior at higher shear rates and the recovery of structural changes after shear is examined by shear rate jump and oscillation experiments respectively. This aspect is of importance for Rheocasting processes where depending on the cooling conditions globules as well as dendrites are present in the primary material.


BackgroundThe increasing burden of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related acute hypoxemic respiratory failure (AHRF) is straining intensive care unit (ICU) resources globally. Early use of high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) decreases the need for endotracheal intubation (EI) in different causes of respiratory failure. While HFNC is used in COVID-19-related AHRF, its efficacy remains to be investigated. We aimed to examine whether the use of high-flow nasal oxygen therapy (HFNO) prevents the need for intubation in COVID-19 with (AHRF).MethodsThis is a single-center prospective observational study that was conducted at a tertiary teaching hospital in Saudi Arabia the period from April, 2020 to August, 2020. Adults patients admitted to the ICU with AHRF secondary to COVID-19 pneumonia and managed with HFNC were included. We excluded hemodynamically unstable patients and those who were intubated or managed with non-invasive ventilation. Patients' data and clinical outcomes were pre-defined. The primary outcome was to determine the rate of EI among patients who were treated with HFNC. Secondary outcomes included predictors of HFNC success/failure, mortality, and hospital length of stay. ResultsWe consecutively screened 111 hospitalized COVID-19 patients with AHRF,. Out of those, 44 (40%) patients received HFNC with a median duration of three days (IQR, 1–5). The median age was 57 years (interquartile range [IQR], 46–64), and 82% were men. HFNC failure and EI occurred in 29 (66%) patients. Patients who failed HFNC treatment had higher risk of death compared to those who did not (52% vs. 0%; p=0.001). At baseline, the prevalence of hypertension, chronic kidney disease, and asthma was higher in the HFNC failure group. After adjustment for possible confounders, a high Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score and a low ROX index were significantly associated with HFNC failure (hazard ratio [HR], 1.42; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.04–1.93; p=0.025; and HR, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.42–0.88; p=0.008, respectively). ConclusionsIn this prospective study, one-third of hypoxemic COVID-19 patients who received HFNC did not require intubation. High SOFA score and low ROX index were associated with HFNC failure.


Eddy current testing (ECT) is one of the most popular Nondestructive Testing (NDT) techniques, especially for conductive materials. Reconstructing the crack profile from measured EC signals is one of the main goals of ECT. This task is highly challenging, as the EC signals are nonlinear responses resulted from the presence of cracks, and reconstructing the crack profile requires establishing the forward model of the nonlinear electromagnetic dynamics and solving its inverse problem, which is an ill-posed numerical optimization problem. Instead of solving the inverse problem numerically, we propose to directly learn the inverse mapping from EC signals to crack profiles with a deep encoder-decoder convolutional neural network named EddyNet. EddyNet is trained on a set of randomly generated crack profiles and the corresponding simulated EC responses generated from a realistic forward model. On the held-out test data, EddyNet achieved a mean absolute error of 0.207 between predicted profiles and ground truth ones. Qualitatively, the geometries of predicted profiles are visually similar to the ground truth profiles. Our method greatly reduces the usual reliance on domain experts, and the reconstruction is extremely fast both on GPUs and on CPUs. The source code of EddyNet is released on https://github.com/askerlee/EddyNet.


Background: A lack of availability of suitable pediatric formulation and high price are often the major hindrance to the better access of the essential treatment to the children. In the backdrop of paucity of literature addressing this problem in India and in particular West Bengal, the present work was planned. Aim and Objectives: This study has been a maiden approach to generate data regarding this issue in small scale and in an inexpensive way after conducting a survey in different government and private facilities in a district of West Bengal, India. Materials and Methods: This crosssectional study used "WHO Children's Medicines Survey Form" to make a rapid assessment of availability and pricing of 20 core children's medicine formulations among ten government hospitals and nine private retail pharmacies in the district of Burdwan in West Bengal during September-October 2009. In retail pharmacies, the actual price to the patient of the cheapest brand was documented. In public health facilities, procurement prices for medicines were obtained from state government's Central Medical Stores (CMS) listing. Results: Overall, the availability was sub-optimal in all levels of public health facilities-30% in medical college pharmacy, 33% in the district reserve stores, 33.75% in sub-divisional hospitals, 32.25% in primary health centers, and in retail pharmacies was only 45%. Out of the 20 formulations, only two (ORS, paracetamol) were available in all the public and private retail pharmacies. Availability of anti-infectives was better than other medicines in both types of facilities. The variation of prices among different brands was wide. The cost of even the cheapest brand was much higher than corresponding government procurement price. Conclusion: This maiden effort reveals sub-optimal availability of core essential medicines for children in both public facilities and private retail pharmacies. However, medicines available in private pharmacies were much costlier compared to CMS procurement price. This is a matter of concern. A larger nation-wide study is the need of the hour with a greater focus on affordability and prescribing behavior.


Heat resistant, high mol. wt glycoproteins of the three WZ phenotypes (W+Z+, W-Z+ and W-Z-) were extracted from normal human colonic mucosa and labelled with 125I. More than 80 per cent of the radioactivity of the W+Z+ antigens labelled with I125, was precipitated by natural or immune anti-W antibodies. About 60 per cent of the W-Z+ 125I-labelled antigens were precipitated by immune anti-Z antibodies. No specific precipitation could be detected with W-Z- 125I-labelled antigens. All the precipitin reactions were quantitatively inhibited with the crude antigen extracts of the corresponding phenotypes. The W and Z antigens were only found in the intestinal mucosa and there was a 100-fold increase in the relative concentrations between the small bowel and the rectum. As opposed to this, the ABH antigens were found in all the digestive secretions studied, except those of the rectum, and their relative concentrations progressively decreased by about 100 between the small intestine and the recutm. The decrease in ABH concentration seems to be correlated to a WZ increase in the same regions.


In clinical research, a non-reproducible research finding is not considered a valid science. Non-reproducible research findings could be biased and hence misleading in clinical research and development. It is then strongly suggested that in addition to the validity and reliability of the research findings, the probability of reproducibility be assessed based on the observed research findings. In this short commentary, a Bayesian approach for evaluation of reproducibility probability of the observed research findings is proposed.


PURPOSE/BACKGROUND
To add to limited evidence on the Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale (AIMS) as a measure of tardive dyskinesia (TD) in clinical practice settings, the characteristics and correlates of AIMS scores were assessed.

METHODS/PROCEDURES
Veterans with schizophrenia/schizoaffective, bipolar, or major depressive disorders receiving antipsychotics and at least 1 AIMS score during October 1, 2014, to September 30, 2015, were identified. Tardive dyskinesia was determined by the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification, codes. Correlates of AIMS scores were examined using χ or t tests. Odds ratios and β parameters with 95% confidence intervals for categorical and continuous variables associated with AIMS scores were derived from a multivariate logistic and linear regression, respectively.

FINDINGS/RESULTS
Among 7985 veterans receiving antipsychotics, only 4706 (58.9%) had at least 1 AIMS examination. Of these, 229 (4.9%) were diagnosed with possible TD. The mean total AIMS scores and AIMS awareness/incapacitation scores were significantly higher for patients with TD (both P < 0.0001). Comparing diagnostic threshold criteria of AIMS ratings, only 17.5% to 37.1% of veterans with TD were successfully identified. Among TD patients, 21.4% had a total score of moderate-severe and 15.3% had ratings of at least mild movements in 2 or more body regions. In the regression analyses, being older, African-American, having schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder, and receiving antipsychotics or benztropine significantly increased the severity of AIMS scores. Higher AIMS scores were not predictive of outcomes other than marital status in socioeconomic or healthcare domains.

IMPLICATIONS/CONCLUSIONS
Although the AIMS is essential for TD research, its value in clinical practice without training and oversight remains unclear. Efforts to adapt screening procedures to clinical needs may be worthwhile.


A study to determine the effect of pre-incubation storage of the eggs of the Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) was conducted during the cool harmattan season in the north-east arid region (Sahel) of Nigeria. Eggs were collected daily from six-months-old quail and stored at room temperature (2529 C) for 0 to 20 days before incubation in an electric incubator. Eggs that failed to hatch were opened for o determination of fertility and estimation of time of death of embryos. A total of 196 (29.3 %) eggs out of 668 incubated hatched successfully. The length of pre-incubation storage was negatively correlated (r = -0.91; P < 0.0001) with hatchability. The highest hatchability (72.3%) was obtained from eggs that were not stored (Day 0 of storage). Hatchability dropped sharply after storage for 9 days. No egg hatched following preincubation storage of over 11 days. Among the unhatched eggs, there were significantly more apparently infertile than fertile eggs (P < 0.0002). There was no relationship between pre-incubation length of storage and the proportion of embryos that died in early, middle or late incubation period. However, the proportion of the apparently infertile eggs increased with increasing length of pre-incubation storage (r = 0.95; P < 0.0001). No egg stored for 18 days or more was found to be apparently fertile. It was concluded that the length of pre-incubation storage has detrimental effect on hatchability of quail eggs in the Sahel area and that quail eggs for incubation should not be stored at room temperature for more than 9 days, even in the coolest season.


PURPOSE
To (1) assess the usefulness of countermovement jump (CMJ) testing to predict handball-specific jumping ability and (2) examine the acute effect of transiently modified jumping ability (ie, flight time) on shooting efficiency in wing players.

METHODS
Eleven young highly trained wing players performed 3 CMJs and 10 typical wing jump shots with 3 different modalities: without any constraint (CONTROL), while stepping on a 14-cm step (STEP), and wearing a weighted vest (VEST, 5% of body mass). Flight time and the associated scoring efficiency during the jump shots were recorded.

RESULTS
There was no clear correlation between jump shot and CMJ flight time, irrespective of the condition (r = .04-.18). During jump shots, flight time was most likely longer (effect size [ES] = 1.42-1.97) with VEST (635.4 ± 31 ms) and STEP (615.3 ± 32.9 ms) than CONTROL (566 ± 30.5 ms) and very likely longer with VEST than with STEP (ES = 0.6). The correlation between scoring efficiency and jump-shot flight time was not substantial either in each modality or for all shots pooled. The difference in scoring efficiency between the 3 jumps with the longest vs shortest flight times was either small (VEST, 48% vs 42%) or nonsubstantial (2 other conditions).

CONCLUSIONS
The use of CMJ as a predictor of handball-specific jumping ability is questioned given the dissociation between CMJ and jump-shot flying time. These results also show that transiently affected flight time may not affect scoring efficiency, which questions the importance of jumping ability for success in wing players.


Highly weathered soils in Hawai'i are low in fertility, negatively affecting plant growth. The potential of biochar for improving soil nutrient availability to crops is promising, and prompts this study. Two biochars at 2% (w/w) made of lac tree (Schleichera oleosa (Lour.) Oken) wood and mixed wood (scrapped wood and tree trimmings) with and without vermicompost or thermocompost at 2% (w/w) were added to an Ultisol (Ustic Kanhaplohumult, Leilehua series) and an Oxisol (Rhodic haplustox, Wahiawa series) of Hawai'i. In each soil two additional treatments—lime + compost and un-amended soil—served as the control. Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa cv. Bonsai) was used as the test plant in two greenhouse plantings, which had a factorial completely randomized design with three replicates per treatment. The results indicated that soil acidity, nutrient in the soils, plant growth and nutrient uptake were improved by the amendments compared to the control. The combined additions of biochar and compost significantly increased pH and EC; reduced exchangeable Al; reduced Mn and Fe in the Oxisol; increased P, K, and Ca content of the soils; and increased Ca, Mg and Fe uptake. Exchangeable aluminum in the Ultisol decreased from 2.5 cmol+/kg to nil; Mehlich-3 extractable P, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, and Mn in the Ultisol increased by 1478%, 2257%, 1457%, 258%, 125% and 72%, respectively compared to the un-amended soil, while the same nutrients increased or decreased in the Oxisol by 180%, 59%, 308%, −14%, and −36%, respectively. Shoot and total cabbage fresh and dry matters increased by 94%, 96%, 107%, and 112%, respectively, as compared to the lime plus compost treatment. Cabbage growth in the Ultisol amended with the lac tree wood biochar and vermicompost was almost twice over the lime and vermicompost treatment. Essential nutrients in the plant tissues, except for N and K, were sufficient for the cabbage growth, suggesting increases in nutrients and reduced soil acidity by the additions of biochar combined with compost were the probable cause. It is recommended that locally produced biochars and composts be used to improve plant nutrient availability in the highly weathered soils.


The technical quality of root canal treatment (RCT) may impact on the outcome. The quality of education received during undergraduate school may be linked to the quality of treatment provided in general dental practice. In this context, the aim of this systematic review was to answer the following focused questions: (i) What is the frequency of acceptable technical quality of root fillings, assessed radiographically, performed by undergraduate students? (ii) What are the most common errors assessed radiographically and reported in these treatments? For this purpose, articles that evaluated the quality of root fillings performed by undergraduate students were selected. Data were collected based on predetermined criteria. The key features from the included studies were extracted. GRADE-tool assessed the quality of the evidence. MAStARI evaluated the methodological quality, and a meta-analysis on all studies was conducted. At the end of the screening, 24 articles were identified. Overall frequency of acceptable technical quality of root fillings was 48%. From this total, 52% related to anterior teeth, 49% to premolars and 26% to molars. The main procedural errors reported were ledge formation, furcation perforation, apical transportation and apical perforation. The heterogeneity amongst the studies was high (84-99%). Five studies had a high risk of bias, eight had a moderate risk, and 11 had low risk. The overall quality of evidence identified was very low. The conclusion was that technical quality of root fillings performed by undergraduate students is low, which may reveal that endodontic education has limited achievement at undergraduate level. A plan to improve the quality of root fillings, and by extrapolation the overall quality of root canal treatment, should be discussed by the staff responsible for endodontic education and training.


In the reverse transcription initiation complex of the yeast Ty1 retrotransposon, interaction between the template RNA and primer tRNAiMet is not limited to base pairing of the primer binding site (PBS) with ten nucleotides at the 3′ end of tRNAiMet but three regions named boxes 0, 1 and 2.1 interact with the T and D stems and loops of tRNAiMet. Sequence comparison of 33 Tyl elements and 13 closely related Ty2 elements found in the yeast genome shows that the nucleotide sequence of all elements is highly conserved in the region spanning the PBS and the three boxes. Since this domain of the template RNA encodes a portion of protein TyA, we have calculated its amino acid profile and its nucleotide profile to evaluate the role played by nucleotide sequence conservation in the selection for TyA function and in the maintenance of base pairing interactions for the priming function of Tyl RNA. Our results show that the nucleotide sequence conservation of Ty1 RNA is constrained not only by selection for Ty1 function but also by maintenance of a given nucleotide sequence able to base pair with the tRNAiMet in the primer–template initiation complex. © John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


We are holding our Conference in circumstances that could offer a greater opportunity of advancement for our country than for many years. Yet the chance will pass us by unless we, the managers, seize it and shape it to our needs and to the nation's needs. You may think that it is over‐stating the importance of the profession of management to say that it is only better management that can now achieve success for Britain. Yet my only reason for being slightly optimistic today is that one can see some hope of hard events forcing the powers that be towards acceptance of practical management judgments and away from the proposals of the "theorists", political or otherwise, with which our country is so greatly encumbered. If Britain is to survive then we must stop listening to those who have never had to face a dissatisfied customer or a difficult trade unionist: people who have never added anything to the stock of the nation's wealth and yet are always willing to tell the nation what to do, so long as they themselves do not have to do it. Policy must now be made by those who have to manage successfully, day by day, difficult situations in industry, commerce, and our export trade. It is the managers who must now have their chance to show by practical action what the nation has to do to survive and prosper.


Home environments promise high potential in terms of resource sharing and energy saving. More and more home computers are running on an always-on basis (e.g., media centers or file sharing clients). Such home environments have not been sufficiently analyzed regarding the possibility of aggregating home user resources in an energy-efficient way. This article describes a future home environment in which available hardware resources (e.g., CPU cycles, disk space, or network capacity) are shared energy efficiently and balanced among end users. Furthermore, the article provides an overview of different virtualization methods that are needed in future home environments to enable cooperation of home networks. Virtualization-related requirements are discussed in detail and virtualization methods and concepts are compared to each other with respect to their usability in the architecture.


Despite the effectiveness of ELECTRA-style pretraining, their performance is dependent on the careful selection of the model size for the auxiliary generator, leading to high trial-and-error costs. In this paper, we present the first systematic study of this problem. Our theoretical investigation highlights the importance of controlling the generator capacity in ELECTRA-style training. Meanwhile, we found it is not handled properly in the original ELECTRA design, leading to the sensitivity issue. Specifically, since adaptive optimizers like Adam will cripple the weighing of individual losses in the joint optimization, the original design fails to control the generator training effectively. To regain control over the generator, we modularize the generator optimization by decoupling the generator optimizer and discriminator optimizer completely, instead of simply relying on the weighted objective combination. Our simple technique reduced the sensitivity of ELECTRA training significantly and obtains considerable performance gain compared to the original design.


The ArcSWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) model was adopted for Non-point source (NPS) nitrogen pollution modeling and nitrogen source apportionment for the Changle River watershed, a typical agricultural watershed in Southeast China. Water quality and hydrological parameters were monitored, and the watershed natural conditions (including soil, climate, land use, etc) and pollution sources information were also investigated and collected for SWAT database. The ArcSWAT model was established in the Changle River after the calibrating and validating procedures of the model parameters. Based on the validated SWAT model, the contributions of different nitrogen sources to river TN loading were quantified, and spatial-temporal distributions of NPS nitrogen export to rivers were addressed. The results showed that in the Changle River watershed, Nitrogen fertilizer, nitrogen air deposition and nitrogen soil pool were the prominent pollution sources, which contributed 35%, 32% and 25% to the river TN loading, respectively. There were spatial-temporal variations in the critical sources for NPS TN export to the river. Natural sources, such as soil nitrogen pool and atmospheric nitrogen deposition, should be targeted as the critical sources for river TN pollution during the rainy seasons. Chemical nitrogen fertilizer application should be targeted as the critical sources for river TN pollution during the crop growing season. Chemical nitrogen fertilizer application, soil nitrogen pool and atmospheric nitrogen deposition were the main sources for TN exported from the garden plot, forest and residential land, respectively. However, they were the main sources for TN exported both from the upland and paddy field. These results revealed that NPS pollution controlling rules should focus on the spatio-temporal distribution of NPS pollution sources.


The aim of this study was to examine the architecture of the uveal nerves in the sclera and suprachoroid of human eyes. Eyes from 17 adult human donors were investigated. The uveal nerves in different regions (retrobulbar, intrascleral, suprachoroidal, pars plana) were prepared and studied by light and electron microscopy. In addition, immunohistochemistry was performed for various neuronal markers. The long uveal nerves showed a characteristic suprachoroidal location with no branches supplying the choroid. It was found that typically they are composed of myelinated (75%) and non‐myelinated (25%) nerve fibres. They mainly contain aminergic and sensory nerve fibres. A separate set of cholinergic non‐myelinated nerve fibre bundles runs parallel with these long uveal nerves. The short uveal nerves supply the suprachoroidal nerve plexus with approximately 13% of their nerve fibres. The nerves and the branches supplying the choroid appear as mixed nerves containing sympathetic, parasympathetic and sensory axons. This study therefore provides new information about the quantity, type and distribution of myelinated and non‐myelinated nerve fibres in the posterior uvea of the human eye.


The authors report a novel Si-B diffusion source for doping p+-poly-Si gates in pMOSFETs. It is found that B penetration can be effectively suppressed by using this novel process. All of the electrical properties of the MOS capacitors are significantly improved over those in the conventional BF2+ or B+-implanted samples. This new process is very promising for future surface-channel pMOSFETs.


This paper discusses the characteristics of power-factor-correction (PFC) switching regulators of non-cascading structures in terms of efficiency, input current harmonic distortion, and load transient response. The discussion begins with simplified power flow diagrams of the non-cascading PFC switching regulators and describes their essential features for achieving power factor correction and tight voltage regulation. Based on these diagrams, the various configurations of switching regulators can be classified into three categories, each offering a different possibility of performance tradeoffs. The first category permits tradeoff between efficiency and input current harmonic contents, the second permits tradeoff between efficiency and load transient response, and the third allows tradeoffs among all performance areas. The paper briefly reviews the non-cascading structures of PFC switching regulators in terms of the three categories. Simulation and experimental results are provided to illustrate the performance tradeoffs in these PFC switching regulators.


Josep Ramon Llobera was known by some of us, his students, as El Mestre. This term seemed to encapsulate the role he played for us which went much further than being a teacher, but someone who was a mentor and true renaissance figure drawing on his broad education in economics, history, social science and knowledge of different European languages and disciplinary traditions to inspire and support us. Of course he also became a great friend who expressed true delight in the company of those whose ideas he had shaped.


Objective To assess the cost-effectiveness of an enhanced transtheoretical model of behaviour change in conjunction with physiotherapy compared with standard care (physiotherapy) in patients with chronic lower back pain (CLBP). Design Cost-utility and cost-effectiveness analyses alongside a multicentre controlled trial from a healthcare perspective with a 1-year time horizon. Setting The trial was conducted in eight centres within the Sharon district in Israel. Participants 220 participants aged between 25 and 55 years who suffered from CLBP for a minimum of 3 months were recruited. Interventions The intervention used a model of behaviour change that sought to increase the adherence and implementation of physical activity in conjunction with physiotherapy. The control arm received standard care in the form of physiotherapy. Primary and secondary measures The primary outcome was the incremental cost per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) of the intervention arm compared with standard care. The secondary outcome was the incremental cost per Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire point. Results The cost per QALY point estimate was 10 645 New Israeli shekels (NIS) (£1737.11). There was an 88% chance the intervention was cost-effective at NIS50 000 per QALY threshold. Excluding training costs, the intervention dominated the control arm, resulting in fewer physiotherapy and physician visits while improving outcomes. Conclusions The enhanced transtheoretical model intervention appears to be a very cost-effective intervention leading to improved outcomes for low cost. Given limitations within this study, there is justification for examining the intervention within a larger, long-term randomised controlled trial. Trial registration number NCT01631344; Pre-results.


Author(s): Shwiff, Stephanie A.; Kirkpatrick, Katy N.; Sterner, Ray T.; Gebhardt, Karen | Abstract: California is the nation's greatest agricultural producer. In 2006, California's gross value of agriculture production was more than $38.3 billion, almost double the value of production for the second most important agriculture state, Texas. The agricultural sector is a fundamental segment of any economy because it not only contributes substantially to the general economy and employment of the region, but it is additionally linked to almost all other sectors in the economy (i.e., manufacturing, retail trade, and accommodation and food service) as a source of inputs. Damage to crops by birds and rodents can reduce total crop yield and increase pest control costs. This ultimately reduces the production output of the agricultural sector and all other linked sectors and could potentially have significant total economic impacts. One method to estimate the total impact to the California economy of a decrease in agricultural yields and increase in pest control costs as a result of bird and rodent damage is an input-output (IO) model. To capture the sub-regional effects of economic changes, IO modeling is done at the county level. For the initial phases of this project, a deductive process was used to systematically rank California counties according to gross value agricultural production, value of production of targeted crops, and concentration of targeted crops. This process was used to identify the 10 leading agricultural counties, out of California's 58, that will be processed for IO modeling to measure economic impact of bird and rodent damage on employment and revenue in each of these counties.


The RF bandwidth of systems that are constrained into electrically small volumes are often limited to the resonance bandwidth dictated by the radiation quality-factor of the antenna according to Chu's limit. Still, many systems, both legacy and emerging, such as in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for applications in the Internet of Things (IoT), require the ability to communicate amongst various systems that may not contain the available electrical volume to support conventional transmission of desired signals. We propose a novel electrically small antenna enabled through Direct Antenna Modulation (DAM). The design of the system utilizes a capacitively loaded loop antenna (CLLA) integrated with symmetrical high-power and high figure-of-merit (FOM) GaN transistors that optimally modulate an input BFSK signal to allow for high-bandwidth radiation, despite the radiation Q-factor of the antenna. The system was prototyped and measured, achieving a 47 efficiency-bandwidth product improvement over a conventional CLLA, surpassing aforementioned limits.


Measurements of the decay kinetics of regular Ce3+ emissions in CeF3 single crystals have been performed under photo-excitation and gamma (22Na radioisotope) excitation. While flashlamp-excited photoluminescence decay is distorted mainly by the influence of the 'near-surface' traps, the multiexponential nature of the scintillation decay is explained using pair interaction of close-lying Ce3+ excited ions, which account for the discrete character of their distances. Measurements of the same photoluminescence decay under high-intensity laser excitation show a similar departure from exponentiality as in the case of scintillation decay and support the proposed model.


The microextraction by packed sorbent (MEPS) was applied to a fractionation of cuticular wax extracts from several solanaceous plant species. A procedure developed requires only 0.6 mL of organic solvents and may be completed in less than 10 min. Hydrocarbons, which are frequently used in chemotaxonomy of Solanaceae, were almost exclusively eluted in one fraction. The amounts of most commonly detected polar wax components (alcohols, sterols, triterpenes) in the same fraction were reduced to ca. 34–46% of the total amounts in the whole extract. Despite the contamination of the hydrocarbon fraction with other wax components, the results obtained using MEPS and standard column chromatography on silica gel were similar when compared using cluster analysis based on the hydrocarbon profiles. However, the method was far less successful in removing the sucrose esters from extracts of Nicotiana rustica leaves. Thus, MEPS fractionation of plant cuticular waxes may be a fast and reliable alternative for the standard...


Millisecond pulsars with strong magnetic fields may be formed through several processes, e.g. accretion-induced collapse of magnetized white dwarfs, merger of two neutron stars, and accretion-induced phase transitions of neutron stars. During the birth of such a pulsar, an initial fireball available for a gamma-ray burst (GRB) may occur. We here study evolution of a postburst relativistic fireball with energy injection from the pulsar through magnetic dipole radiation, and find that the magnitude of the optical afterglow from this fireball first decreases with time, subsequently flattens, and finally declines again. This may provide a natural explanation for the behavior of the lightcurve of the afterglow of GRB970228 if this burst resulted from the birth of a strongly magnetic millisecond pulsar.


The response to a magnetic flux is considered of the vacuum state of charged Dirac fermions interacting with a domain wall made of a neutral spinless field in 3+1 dimensions with the fermion mass term having a phase variation across the wall. It is pointed out that as a result of simple C parity arguments the spontaneous magnetization for this system is necessarily zero, thus invalidating some claims to the contrary in the literature. The cancellation of the spontaneous magnetization is explicitly demonstrated in a particular class of models. The same calculation produces a general formula for the electric charge density induced by the magnetic flux{emdash}an effect previously discussed in the literature for axionic domain walls. The distribution of the induced charge is calculated in specific models.


Kangen-karyu (KGK) is a herbal formula created under the theory of traditional Chinese herbal medicine to invigorate the blood and dispel blood stasis. It contains 6 herbs: peony root, cnidium rhizome, safflower, cyperus rhizome, saussurea root (JP XIV), and Salvia miltiorrhiza root. The present study has been conducted to evaluate the in vivo anti-thrombotic activity of KGK using normal mice. Three consecutive days of oral administration of KGK to mice significantly extended tail-bleeding time and suppressed ex vivo platelet aggregation, while it did not extend the prothrombin time of plasma. It was revealed that the anti-thrombotic effects of KGK did not depend on the downregulation of the coagulation system, but depended in part on the inhibition of platelet aggregation. These results explain one of the pharmacological activities of KGK to invigorate the blood and dispel blood stasis.


Background and Objective: Aloe Vera plant is used in the treatment of many diseases due to its moisturizing, antimicrobial, antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory and other effects. However, owing to this plants various compounds, its consumption over pregnancy may be harmful. Materials and Methods: 2.4 g/kg of Aloe Vera extract was injected intraperitoneally to 40 mice. The first experimental group received the extract on days 3, 4, 5, 6, of pregnancy while the second experimental group received this extract on days 7, 8, 9, 10 of pregnancy. Simultaneous with these experimental groups, the control and the sham groups were considered for comparison. All mice were dissected on day 15 of pregnancy; fetuses were removed from uterus and the results were analyzed by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results: In the first experimental group, the weight of the placenta and fetus, Crown-Rump of fetus and placental diameter showed significant decrease (p less-than 0.001). Likewise, in the second experimental group, there was a significant decrease in the weight of the placenta and fetus (p less-than 0.001) and in placental diameter (p less-than 0.001), There was no significant change in Crown-Rump of fetus compared to the control group. Moreover, abnormalities such as percutaneous bleeing , C-shaped body, syndactyly , and polyp were seen in both experimental groups. Conclusion: The results of this research elicit that Aloe Vera extract can be teratogen and harmful during pregnancy.


An emerging research field in electrochemistry today is the preparation, characterization and application of diamond microelectrodes for electroanalytical measurements in biological media. Interest in this new electrode material stems from its outstanding properties: (i) hardness, (ii) low, stable and pH-independent background current, (iii) morphological and microstructural stability over a wide range of potentials, (iv) good electrochemical responsiveness for multiple redox analytes without any conventional pre-treatment and (v) weak molecular adsorption of polar molecules that leads to a high level of resistance to response deactivation and electrode fouling. Diamond electrodes have advanced in recent years from being simply a scientific curiosity into a viable material for electroanalysis. In this article, we highlight the current state of progress by our laboratory and others on the preparation, study of the basic electrochemical properties, and application of this new type of microelectrode for in vitro electroanalytical measurements, and discuss some of the remaining challenges.


The paper is concerned with asymptotic properties of the principal components analysis of functional data. The currently available results assume the existence of the fourth moment. We develop analogous results in a setting which does not require this assumption. Instead, we assume that the observed functions are regularly varying. We derive the asymptotic distribution of the sample covariance operator and of the sample functional principal components. We obtain a number of results on the convergence of moments and almost sure convergence. We apply the new theory to establish the consistency of the regression operator in a functional linear model.


Purpose
This paper aims to develop a scale to measure climate strategy proactivity (CSP) displayed by corporate in developing countries to attain competitive advantage (CA) and sustain it through sources of sustained competitive advantage (SOSCA). It attempts to derive sound operational definitions of CSP, CA and SOSCA through horizontal analysis of previous studies and discussions with experts and practitioners to construct a measurement scale.

Design/methodology/approach
Research design includes broad stages, namely, item generation, scale development and assessment of psychometric properties of the scale starting with review of literature and discussions with experts and practitioners, which were followed by a pilot and full study carried out through a cross-sectional, self-administered online survey questionnaire and assessment using suitable tools and techniques.

Findings
Findings of the study comprise development of sound operational definitions and construction of a valid and reliable measurement scale of CSP displayed by corporate to attain CA with strong psychometric properties, which is expected to be useful in developing countries not only for researchers and academics but also for the practitioners and organizations.

Research limitations/implications
The information was self-reported by respondents through climate strategy proactivity questionnaire (CSPQ) and consequently can be at risk to have been influenced by bias. Nonetheless, this CSPQ scale devoid of conceptual problems can be used in developing countries in future empirical studies with the caution that its reliability and validity require further tests.

Practical implications
Using the CSPQ scale will help managers in developing countries in enhancing their awareness with the provision of these conceptually clear comprehensive operational definitions of CSP, CA and SOSCA with respect to the conceptual nature and the latent expressions, and draw an extensively enhanced scope of climate-conscious strategy to bring about CA.

Originality/value
With the data collected from a sample representing different stakeholders of Indian companies from across the country, CSPQ scale possesses significant robustness and implicative potential which can contribute to the evolution of the strategic management field by providing a valid and reliable measure of CSP in developing countries applicable under any major theoretical perspective in strategic management serving the needs of not only the empirical research but also of the management practices intended to attain CA.


In the wireless networks, utilization of terminals distributed in space can significantly improve the performance of wireless communication systems. In this paper, we investigate two-hop non-regenerative coded cooperation system and propose a novel design of employing linear dispersion codes (LDC) at the source node and a linear processing matrix at the relays. The relay stations make use of the knowledge of the first hop and second hop channel to assign power among the relay stations adaptively. We deduce and analyze the capacity of the proposed scheme. Numerical results show that the proposed scheme can achieve higher capacity gains over employing LDC on conventional Amplify-and-Forward (AF) system.


Herein, we report the design and experimental characterization of a broken gap heterojunction devices fabricated by vacuum evaporation of Yb/InSe/Sb2Te3/Au stacked layers. The structural characterizations of the stacked layers revealed an amorphous/polycrystalline heterojunction type. The measurements of capacitance-voltage characteristics in the frequency domain of 1.0-9.0 MHz displayed tunable metal-oxidesemiconductor (MOS) characteristics. The frequency dependent built-in voltage, depletion width, and free carrier density is also investigated. In addition, the analyses of currentvoltage characteristics have shown that the device displays highly stable current rectification ratios of ~103 above 0.20 V. Moreover, the ac signal analyses in the frequency domain of 10-1800 MHz have shown the possible tunability of the conductance and capacitance over a wide range of frequency. Furthermore, the microwave cutoff frequency spectra indicated increasing cutoff frequency limits with increasing incident signal frequency. The microwave cutoff frequency reached 7.1 GHz for a propagating signal of frequency of 1800 MHz.


This paper is about an optimal investment portfolio strategy. Financial data of stocks, bonds, and savings from January 2. 2001 through October 30. 2009 were utilized in order to suggest the optimal portfolio strategies. Fundamental analysis and technical analysis were used in stocks-related strategy, whereas passive investment strategy and active investment strategy were used in bond-related strategy. The score is assigned to each stock index according to the suggested strategies and set trading rules are based on the scores. The simulation has been executed about each 29,400-portfolios and we figured out with the simulation result that 26.75% of 7,864 portfolios are more profitable than average stock market profit (22.6%, Annualized). The outcome of this research is summarized in two parts. First, it's the rebalancing strategy of portfolio. The result shows that value-oriented investment(long-term investment) strategy yields much higher than short-term investment strategies of stocks or active investment of bonds. Second, it's about the rebalancing cycle forming the portfolios. The result shows that the rate of return for the portfolio is the best when rebalancing cycle is 12 or 18 months.


We have examined an optimization approach to iterative control design. The important ingredient is that the gradient of the design criterion is computed from measured closed loop data. The approach is thus not model-based. The scheme converges to a stationary point of the design criterion under the assumption of boundedness of the signals in the loop. From a practical viewpoint, the scheme offers several advantages. It is straightforward to apply. It is possible to control the rate of change of the controller in each iteration. The objective can be manipulated between iterations in order to tighten or loosen performance requirements. Certain frequency regions can be emphasized if desired. This direct optimal tuning algorithm is particularly well suited for the tuning of the basic control loops in the process industry, which are typically PID loops. These primary loops are often very badly tuned, making the application of more advanced (for example, multivariable) techniques rather useless. A first requirement in the successful application of advanced control techniques is that the primary loops be tuned properly. This new technique appears to be a very practical way of doing this, with an almost automatic procedure.


BACKGROUND
An appropriate measurement of physical activity (PA) in children is useful, since inactivity is associated to obesity, cardiovascular and metabolic risk.

AIM
To assess the reliability of the INTA questionnaire of PA, to compare the derived PA score with accelerometry and to assess its ability to identify excessively inactive children.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
One hundred eighty children aged 8 to 13 years answered an interviewer-administered questionnaire about their usual PA, consisting in 5 items (recumbent, seated, walking, playing outdoor, sports). The answers were converted to a PA score with a 0-10 points scale. Reliability was tested in 87 children by test/retest conducted 3-5 days apart. The PA score was compared with 3-day accelerometry in 77 of 93 children (35 obese and 42 non obese). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to determine the optimal cut-point for identify an excessively sedentary child.

RESULTS
The test/retest reliability of the questionnaire was 0.69 to 0.93 (Lin coefficient). Accelerometry was significantly associated with PA score (RHO: 0.60, p =0.008), outdoor plays (RHO: 0.37, p =0.0009) and practicing of sports (RHO: 0.33, p =0.003). Obese children were less active than non obese children, according both to PA score and to accelerometry. The optimal cut-point for classifying a child as too sedentary was a score of 5 (sensitivity =0.89).

CONCLUSIONS
The INTA-test is a valuable instrument for measuring usual PA in clinical practice and is easy to administer.