The United States' family regulation system often begins with well-intentioned professionals making child protection hotline calls, jeopardizing their own ability to work with families and subjecting the families to surveillance. By the system's own standards, most of this surveillance leads to no meaningful action. Nowhere is this reality more present than in schools. Educational personnel serve as the leading driver of child maltreatment allegations, yet decades worth of data reveal educator reports of maltreatment are the least likely to be screenedin and the least likely to be substantiated or confirmed. In other words, education personnel— whether motivated by genuine concern, which may nevertheless be informed by implicit biases towards low-income families and families of color; fear of liability; or the desire to access services they believe families cannot acquire elsewhere— overwhelm our child welfare system with unnecessary allegations of maltreatment.
This reality has fundamentally transformed the relationship between families and schools. Carrying the heavy burden of mandated reporting laws, public schools disproportionately refer Black and low-income families to the family regulation system, abdicating schools' opportunity to serve these same families in the communities in which they reside. Rather than serving as the great equalizer, public schools increasingly contribute to the carceral state's regulation of families.
This Article argues that schools must shift their role away from the reporting and surveillance of these families, and instead directly provide and arrange for services for families. This change begins with sharply limiting or repealing mandatory reporting obligations (permitting voluntary reports in severe cases)—but that is only the start. Schools are well-positioned to create new pathways to the supports and services from which most families reported to the family regulation system might actually benefit. Schools are already a primary source of food for impoverished children, and can help ensure low-income families access all the public benefits to which they are entitled. Schools can largely refer children and families to the same services that the family regulation system can—such as mental health services and substance abuse treatment—but without that system's coercive authority and its associated problems. Where some services are tied to the family regulation system's involvement, then law should permit schools to refer families directly. Schools know which families need legal services to defend their housing, access benefits, obtain orders of protection—or any of the myriad of other supports that poverty lawyers can provide. This shift would tie schools to the families and communities that they serve and benefit those families and communities far more than the surveillance and policing they experience under the current family regulation system.


Various types of interface devices operated with the hands have been developed and are widely used. However, we use our legs for walking in the real world, so it is natural to use an interface devices operated with the legs for moving around a virtual environment. In this paper, we have developed a new interface device "Waraji (WAlking, Running, And Jumping Interface)" . Using Waraji, users can work at ease in a virtual environment because their hands are free from movement operations. In addition, because Waraji is smaller than other interfaces for movement, it can he easily worn. Experiments have shown that Waraji provides operationality similar to that of a joystick. It will be useful for surround-display virtual-environment systems such as CAVE (CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment). キ ー ワー ド: 仮 想 環 境 、歩 行 イン タ フェー ス,重 心移 動,足


We report 176Hf/177Hf ratios determined by multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry on 49 basalts from the Galapagos Islands. The ɛHf values range from about +8, a value typical of many oceanic island basalts, to about +15, a value typical of mid‐ocean ridge basalt. The ɛHf shows the expected correlation with ɛNd and inverse correlations with Sr and Pb isotope ratios. The range of values and correlations observed is consistent with Galapagos mantle plume‐asthenosphere mixing inferred from previous geochemical studies. While oceanic island basalt isotopic arrays suggest that multicomponent mixing is common in the sources of such basalts, the Galapagos is unusual in that depleted upper mantle appears to be a principal component. Thermal and dynamic interaction between the Galapagos mantle plume and the lithosphere and shallow asthenosphere is the most likely cause of mixing and of the geographic pattern of geochemical variation. The Galapagos Hf‐Nd‐Sr‐Pb isotopic array diverges toward the "plume" end, indicating the plume is heterogeneous. This heterogeneity is geographic, with distinct northern, central, and southern components. The central component and, to a lesser degree, the northern component are compositionally similar to the "common component" of plumes (variously called PHEM, FOZO, and "C"), while the southern component is unique with relatively high ɛHf and 206Pb/204Pb compared to 87Sr/86Sr and ɛNd.


Objective: A national survey of Australian adults in 1995 showed a low level of recognition of mental disorders and beliefs about treatment that were often discordant with those of professionals. The present study aimed to find out whether recognition and treatment beliefs have changed over 8 years. Method: A national survey of 2001 adults in 2003–2004 included the same questions as the 1995 survey. These interview questions were based on a vignette of a person with either depression or schizophrenia. Results: Over the 8 years, the public showed better recognition of depression and schizophrenia and gave more positive ratings to a range of interventions, including help from mental health professionals, medications, psychotherapy and psychiatric ward admission. Conclusions: The Australian public's beliefs have changed over 8 years to be more like those of mental health professionals. This change may have positive implications for helpseeking and treatment concordance.


Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs) have been widely used in industry, cosmetics, drugs, bioimaging, and drug delivery. ZnO NPs have been found to interact and interfere with cellular physiology via macrophages, thereby resulting in macrophage polarization. The functional reprogramming of the cells is synchronized through cellular metabolic adaptations. The current study, therefore, aims to establish crosstalk between ZnO-NP-induced metabolic alterations and macrophage polarization in PMA-activated THP-1 cell lines. We observed moderate to heightened cytotoxic response in terms of cell viability and proliferation. The results also revealed increased Th1-type cytokine and chemokine expression. In order to characterize the changes in metabolite concentration in treatment groups, we employed multivariate data analysis (principal component analysis and partial least-squares discriminant analysis) of 1H NMR spectra. The results revealed biologically relevant patterns and alterations in many metabolic pathways. These alterations and patterns were found to be in line across the immune-cytotoxic axis. Furthermore, the results also implicate the role of carbon metabolism toward the classical activation of macrophage polarization. The omics approach could identify the markers involved in NP-induced toxicity, thus elaborating our vision of cytotoxicity that is currently limited to end-point and cytokine assays. Also, it could be emphasized that metabolic reconfiguration upon NP stimulation could direct macrophage polarization toward classical activation.


This paper looks at the application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and integral approaches to the study of effects of obstacles on pollutant dispersion from a point source placed within an idealised urban area (MUST). This study is part of a modelling exercise within the COST Action 732. Numerical results are compared with wind tunnel data. We use the CFD code FLUENT and the dispersion model ADMS-Urban. The CFD model predicts concentrations more accurately than the integral model. However, both models results satisfy accepted statistical criteria, showing that those criteria should not be the only way of evaluating a model.


Assuming the existence of a solution of the 3-harmonic equation Del i( mod Del rho mod 3 Del i rho )=0 on a spacelike 3-manifold Sigma with boundary K(assume that the solution has no critical points and fulfils certain asymptotic conditions), the author constructs an integral identity. The boundary term (at infinity) of this integrand is ADM mass at infinity. The global integrand, in the case when Sigma is a maximal surface with spacetime curvature satisfying the weak energy condition, is manifestly positive. The boundary term on K gives some number (when integrated over K) related to the area of the horizon but in general differs from it. This gives a proof of a following theorem (which is similar to the Penrose inequality for a time symmetric surface Sigma ).


The adoption of existing technologies for digital curation, most especially digital capture, is outlined in the context of personal digital archives and the Digital Manuscripts Project at the British Library. Technologies derived from computer forensics, data conversion and classic computing, and evolutionary computing are considered. The practical imperative of moving information to modern and fresh media as soon as possible is highlighted, as is the need to retain the potential for researchers of the future to experience the original look and feel of personal digital objects. The importance of not relying on any single technology is also emphasised.


Synchronized switch damping (SSD) technique utilizing piezoelectric elements is one of good methods of vibration control. This work develops numerical tools for dynamic analysis of structures with SSD dampers, and conducts experiments to verify the effectiveness. A cantilevered beam bonded with piezoelectric patches is considered as the host structure. Two types of SSD circuits are considered, one with no subsequent electric element (SSDS) and another with inductance (SSDI). Firstly, a lumped parameter electromechanical coupling model is employed, with parameters determined experimentally. Then, the frequency response curves of the nonlinear vibration systems are analyzed by the multi-harmonic balance method combined with alternating frequency-time techniques (MHBM/AFT). In order to verify the proposed method, an experimental study is performed. In the experiment SSD circuit is realized by an enhanced analog circuit which is more complex but also more stable than the original SSD circuits. The measured results are compared with those obtained by proposed numerical tools with good agreements. It is also shown that the modal frequencies and modal shapes of SSD systems are almost unchanged with the vibration amplitudes, which indicates that the nonlinear force generated by SSD has little influence on the characteristics of linear structure. It is verified both numerically and experimentally that SSDI damper can produce significant damping for multiple modes.


Infrastructure has largely been ignored in the assessment of poverty in developing countries. This paper attempts to make some contribution in the establishing the ingredients to alleviate poverty by exploring the impact of infrastructure on the urban poor in sample of 20 developing countries, over the period 1980-2005. The results from the static fixed effect and also the dynamic GMM model both reveal that transport and communication infrastructure are indeed an efficient tool in fighting urban poverty. Panel causality analysis also validated the results. Hence the main policy concern is how to improve access of the urban poor to such an asset.


Mobile energy storage devices (MESDs) operate as medium- or large-sized batteries that can be loaded onto electric trucks and connected to charging stations to provide various ancillary services for distribution grids. This article proposes a new strategy for MESD operation, in which their power outputs and paths are co-optimally scheduled to minimize the total energy loss in both power and transportation networks. The distances moved by MESDs and time at different locations are modeled using a set of linear equations, considering the time-varying traffic flow. The linear transit model is integrated with linearized constraints to support the reliable operation of the distribution grid. In particular, an optimal scheduling problem is formulated considering the maximum limits on incremental variations in bus voltages and line power flows for active and reactive power outputs of MESDs. A mixed-integer linear programming solver can be readily applied to the optimization problem, ensuring the global optimality of the solution. Simulation case studies are carried out under various power and transportation network conditions. The results of these case studies confirm that the proposed strategy using MESDs is effective in reducing total energy losses, compared to conventional methods using stationary batteries and plug-in electric vehicles.


【Background : Medical records are documents in files which consist of all diagnostic studies and medical treatments patients had received while they were hospitalized or treated as outpatients. A doctor or medical team can use medical records as a data for diagnosis, treatment, and education. In traditional eastern asian medicine, medical reports have different forms and contents. The most important thing in medical reports of traditional eastern asian medicine was how to express practitioner's medical ideas. So it has a weak point, for example, it has poor information about patient and clinical process, which make some trouble to understand it. Methods and Results : We studied medical records in Gyojubuin-yangbang, a commentary book of Chen-zi-ming's Obstetrics and Gynecology textbook done by Xue-ji in Ming dynasty, China. This book consists of 10 parts; treatment of menstruation disorders and leukorrhea, general gynecology, treatment of infertility, education for fetus, diagnosis of fetus and gravida, treatment of general and obstetrical disease in gravida, care for delivery, postpartum care and treatment, and treatment of mass and inflammation. It has 546 medical records about women's disease that commonly believed as Xue-ji's case reports. They are all review articles and made during about 23 years from A.D 1523 to 1546. Most patients of Xue-ji's case reports were common people, this fact is different from that of case reports in Chen-zi-ming's Obstetrics and Gynecology textbook. Conclusion : Xue-ji was a very famous Ob&Gy doctor who was from Suzhou Jingsu province in China. He was born in A.D 1468, died in A.D 1588. He emphasize emotional factors in pathology and to tonify spleen and kidney. We think Xue-ji's medical records are good references for us to treat psychosomatic Ob&Gy disease and chronic women's disease.】


One of the main image representations in Mathematical Morphology is the 3D Shape Decomposition Representation, useful for Image Compression, and Pattern Recognition. The 3D Morphological Shape Decomposition representation can be generalized a number of times, to extend the scope of its algebraic characteristics as much as possible. With these generalizations, the Morphological Shape Decomposition 's role to serve as an efficient image decomposition tool was extended to discrete images and grayscale images. This work follows the above line, and further develops it. A new evolutionary branch is added to the 3D Morphological Shape Decomposition's development, by the introduction of a 3D Multi Structuring Element Morphological Shape Decomposition, which permits 3D Morphological Shape Decomposition of 3D binary images (grayscale iamges) into "multiparameter" families of elements. At the beginning, 3D Morphological Shape Decomposition representations are based only on "1 parameter" families of elements for image decomposition. This paper addresses the gray scale interframe interpolation by means of mathematical morphology. The new interframe interpolation method, called 3D Shape Decomposition interpolation is based on morphological 3D Shape Decomposition. This article will present the theoretical background of the morphological interframe interpolation, deduce the new representation and show some application examples. Computer simulations could illustrate results.


OBJECTIVES
To determine the advantages and disadvantages of plating an associated fibula fracture in tibial plafond fractures treated with external fixation that spans the ankle.

STUDY DESIGN
Retrospective clinical review.

METHODS
The incidence of treatment complications and the outcomes achieved were compared between two groups of patients with tibial plafond fractures and associated fractures of the fibula. Both groups were treated by a uniform technique of monolateral external fixation. One group, consisting of twenty-two patients with twenty-two fractures, had plate fixation of the distal fibula and the other group, thirty-one patients with thirty-two fractures, had no fibular fixation.

RESULTS
The demographics of the two groups, including sex, fracture classification, and number of open fractures, were similar. The outcome of the two groups for radiographic arthrosis and clinical ankle score, measured at minimum two-year follow-up, showed no statistically significant difference. The total numbers of complications were not statistically different between the two groups (p = 0.15), but the types of complications varied. Group I had eight complications: five fibular wound infections, two fibular nonunions, and one angular nonunion. Group II had seven complications: six angular malunions and one tibial wound infection.

CONCLUSION
Open reduction and internal fixation of the fibula fracture in tibial plafond fractures treated with external fixation that spans the ankle is associated with a significant rate of complications, and good clinical results may be obtained without fixing the fibula.


The recent availability of inexpensive hardware, such as CMOS and CCD cameras, has enabled the new research field of wireless multimedia sensor networks. This is a network of interconnected devices, capable of retrieving multimedia content from the environment. In this type of network, the nodes usually have very limited resources, in terms of processing power, bandwidth and energy. Efficient coding of the multimedia content is therefore important. A new image compression codec, suitable for this type of network was developed, a very high compression ratio can be achieved, the compression rate varies depending on the content but it is usually between 90% and 99% compared to the previous camera network. Keywords-wireless sensor network, Fleck, image compression, packet format, entropy coding


Background/Aims: A combination of alpha-lipoic acid preconditioning (ALAP) and ischaemic preconditioning (IPC) has not been tested in an in vivo rat cerebral ischaemia/reperfusion injury (I/RI) model, and the potential protective mechanisms have not been well elucidated. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of the TLR4/ MyD88/ NF-κB signaling pathway in the synergistically neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory effects of ALAP and IPC. Methods: One hundred and fifty male Sprague-Dawley rats, weighing 180-230 g, were randomly divided into the following 5 groups: 1) sham-operated control; 2) I/R; 3) I/R+ALAP; 4) I/R+IPC; 5) I/R+IPC+ALAP. After 2 h of reperfusion, the infarct size, neurological deficit scores, brain oedema, oxidative stress, and inflammatory and apoptotic biomarkers were assessed. In addition, reactive oxygen species (ROS) and cell apoptosis were detected by DHE staining and TUNEL staining, respectively. Results: Both ALAP and IPC treatment attenuated the I/RI-induced neuronal injury, reflected by reductions in the infarct size, neurological deficit scores, brain oedema, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release and the inflammatory response, as well as decreased HMGB1, TLR4, MyD88, p65, C-Caspase 3 and Bax expression and increased IKB-α, HO-1, SOD-2 and Bcl-2 expression compared to that in the I/R group. Furthermore, the combination of the two strategies had synergistic anti-inflammatory effects and antioxidant benefits, ultimately limiting neuronal apoptosis. Conclusion: The 'cocktail' strategy exhibited a significant neuroprotection against I/RI by attenuating neuroinflammation via inhibition of the TLR4/MyD88/NF-κB signaling pathway.


Correspondence: Karen Wai Quintiles East Asia Pte Ltd, 79 Science Park Drive, 06-08, Cintech IV, Science Park One, Singapore 118264 Tel +65 6602 1561 Fax +65 6872 0430 Email firstname.lastname@example.com Abstract: The rheumatoid arthritis (RA) clinical trial space is very competitive, and recruiting and retaining subjects is of critical importance. Feasibility studies are a central component of ensuring successful recruitment and retention. A feasibility study is an assessment of the practicality of a proposed study protocol, with the goal of understanding challenges and providing risk mitigation strategies leading to better subject enrolment and study start-up should the assessment be favorable. This paper presents findings from a retrospective case series of RA feasibilities, describing important parameters to consider in the highly competitive RA space in Asia. Key parameters identified and discussed are how decisions on clinical development strategy necessitate changes in the clinical operational delivery strategy, with focus on changes in inclusion and exclusion criteria and patient contribution load; how small the patient population becomes when the clinical trial needs to target the patient population that is refractory to standard therapy; regulatory timelines; and the competitive clinical trial landscape. Feasibility assessments are a snapshot in time exercise. Multiple parameters change over time, and, particularly in a space that has become competitive for subjects, one cannot rely on one static feasibility assessment to predict trial performance accurately. Continuous feasibility assessment will also provide insight into the resourcing needs on the part of the sponsor, contract research organization, and investigative site.


This chapter provides a comprehensive survey on the generation of vehicular mobility traces for network simulation. It presents an introduction to the process of generating synthetic mobility traces and outlines the history of synthetic vehicular mobility generation. The chapter provides a taxonomy of the most important tools employed in the process above, that is the microscopic-level simulators that are available today for the generation of vehicular mobility traces. Finally, the outcome of the process, that is the mobility traces that are publicly available for the simulation of vehicular networks, are presented.


Abstract The multifaceted career of the French lawyer, political advisor, voluntary intelligence officer, and anti-communist "freelancer" Jean Violet illustrates the growing importance of "informal diplomacy" during the second half of the twentieth century. In highlighting the decisive steps in Violet's political life, aimed at defeating the communist regimes and "winning the cold war", this paper discusses the role played by private and non-state actors in the development of a transnational European and transatlantic policy after World War II as well as the extension and professionalization of the informal diplomatic sector since the 1960s which was accompanied by an increasing lack of democratic legitimacy.


This invention provides a light-emitting diode chip with high light extraction, which includes a substrate, an epitaxial-layer structure for generating light by electric-optical effect, a transparent reflective layer sandwiched between the substrate and the epitaxial-layer structure, and a pair of electrodes for providing power supply to the epitaxial-layer structure. A bottom surface and top surface of the epitaxial-layer structure are roughened to have a roughness not less than 100nm root mean square (rms). The light generated by the epitaxial-layer structure is hence effectively extracted out. A transparent reflective layer not more than 5μm rms is formed as an interface between the substrate and the epitaxial-layer structure. The light toward the substrate is more effectively reflected upward. The light extraction and brightness are thus enhanced. Methods for manufacturing the light-emitting diode chip of the present invention are also provided.


Abstracts: AACR Special Conference on Tumor Metastasis; November 30-December 3, 2015; Austin, TX

Cytotoxic chemotherapy is the only standard of care treatment currently available for patients with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) because this breast cancer subtype lacks expression of therapeutic targets, namely, estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and amplification of Her2. Despite the efficacy of neoadjuvant chemotherapy for some TNBC patients, approximately 60-80% of TNBC patients will still present with local and distant disease after therapy, and these patients suffer poor prognosis. In addition to direct effects on tumor cells, systemic chemotherapy also has the potential to impact patient physiology. However, the implications of tumor-cell independent effects of chemotherapy for metastatic progression are not well understood. We are using mouse models of TNBC to study the effects of chemotherapy on host physiology and how these effects impact metastasis. Treatment of TNBC tumor-bearing mice with doxorubicin (A), cyclophosphamide (C), and paclitaxel (T) decreased overall bone marrow cell counts; although, the degree of decrease and subsequent recovery of individual bone marrow and circulating cell populations varied among populations. Notably, parallel experiments in tumor-free mice demonstrated that chemotherapy-dependent effects on the bone marrow and circulating cell populations dominate tumor-dependent effects. These findings highlight the potential implications of the physiological effects of chemotherapy on metastasis and response to therapy.

Citation Format: Molly J. DeCristo, Sandra S. McAllister. Systemic effects of AC-T chemotherapy in breast cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Tumor Metastasis; 2015 Nov 30-Dec 3; Austin, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(7 Suppl):Abstract nr A66.


Plasma diazepam can be reliably estimated using a simple benzene extraction and gas-liquid chromatography with griseofulvin as internal standard. This gives reproducible results within the clinical range of plasma levels. Storage at minus 20 degrees C is recommended but is not essential for the 1st week.


Disputes relating to intellectual property [IP] protection are gradually increasing. Resolution by State courts resulting in expensive and time-consuming mechanism. The way-out from the downside is alternative dispute resolution of IP disputes. But, the issues like 'public policy' and 'arbitrability' of IP dispute are road-blocking. To resolve IP disputes amicably and speedy is vital for the parties and their business. WIPO, which has currently 193 member states, has established Arbitration and Mediation centre to settle IP disputes with subject 'arbitrability' left on State to interpret. The article discusses arbitration in IP disputes, the relationships among WIPO, TRIPS and WTO in IP disputes; and IP disputes and IP Law in India with few judicial pronouncements.


Objectives The purpose of the study was to obtain a better understanding of the relative importance of personal factors, male partner factors and situational factors, in determining condom breakage in a population of female sex workers (FSWs) in Bangalore. Methods The authors conducted a cross-sectional study that included a face-to-face interview and condom application test, with 291 randomly selected FSWs in Bangalore, India, in early 2011. Results Ninety-seven per cent of respondents noted condom use at last sex; 34% reported a condom breakage in the last month. Combining individual, situational and partner aspects of condom breakage into one logistic regression model and also controlling for client load, the authors found that partner and situational factors were dominant since the only significant predictors of condom breakage included being a paying client (adjusted odds ratio 4.61, 95% CI 1.20 to 17.58, p=0.025), the condom being too small for the penis (adjusted odds ratio 2.29, 95% CI 0.97 to 5.40, p=0.056) or too big for the penis (adjusted odds ratio 4.29, 95% CI 1.43 to 12.80, p=0.009) and rough sex (adjusted odds ratio 6.39 CI 3.55 to 11.52, p<0.001). Conclusions Condom use among Bangalore FSWs is now very high. However, condom breakage is still a not uncommon event and puts women and their clients at unnecessary risk of infection. It may be difficult to eliminate the problem completely, but every effort should be made to discuss with sex workers the findings of this survey that point to possible personal markers of risk seen in the univariate analysis and to highlight the importance of avoiding rough sex and of ensuring the condom fits the client.


The objective of this paper was to evaluate and compare the quantity, and sustainability of digital health initiatives in the South Asia region pre-pandemic and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study used a two-step methodology of a) Descriptive analysis of digital health research articles published from 2016-21 from South Asia in terms of stratification of research articles based on diseases and conditions they were developed, geography, tasks wherein the initiative was applied. b) A simple and replicable tool was developed by authors to assess the sustainability of digital health initiatives using Experimental or Observational study designs. The results from descriptive analysis highlight; a) 40% increase in the number of studies report in 2020 when compared to 2019, b) The three most common diseases and conditions wherein substantive digital health research has been focused are Health Systems Strengthening, Ophthalmic Disorders, and COVID-19, c) Remote Consultation, Health Information delivery and Clinical Decision support systems are the top three commonly developed tools. We developed and estimated the inter-rater operability of the sustainability assessment tool was ascertained with a Kappa value of 0.806 (± 0.088). We conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic had a positive impact on digital health research with improvement in the number of digital health initiatives and improvement in sustainability score of studies published during COVID-19.


Constraint satisfaction is a very well studied and fundamental artificial intelligence technique. Various forms of knowledge can be represented with constraints, and reasoning techniques from disparate fields can be encapsulated within constraint reasoning algorithms. However, problems involving uncertainty, or which have an adversarial nature (for example, games), are difficult to express and solve in the classical constraint satisfaction problem. This thesis is concerned with an extension to the classical problem: the Quantified Constraint Satisfaction Problem (QCSP). QCSP has recently attracted interest. In QCSP, quantifiers are allowed, facilitating the expression of uncertainty. I examine whether QCSP is a useful formalism. This divides into two questions: whether QCSP can be solved efficiently; and whether realistic problems can be represented in QCSP. In attempting to answer these questions, the main contributions of this thesis are the following: • the definition of two new notions of consistency; • four new constraint propagation algorithms (with eight variants in total), along with empirical evaluations; • two novel schemes to implement the pure value rule, which is able to simplify QCSP instances; • a new optimization algorithm for QCSP; • the integration of these algorithms and techniques into a solver named Queso; • and the modelling of the Connect 4 game, and of faulty job shop scheduling, in QCSP. These are set in context by a thorough review of the QCSP literature.


In this chapter, the author provides an overview of some central issues of the book. First she shows the similarities in the challenges to increase the participation and success of Roma people in education and lifelong learning in the selected European countries; then she discusses their policies and support programmes, which on the one hand try to improve the social situation of the Roma while promoting minority language and culture on the other hand. The author finds the reason for their similarities regarding the wording, defining and communicating and also concerning the main ideas and concrete projects for possible solutions, in the Roma inclusion policy of the European Union in the frame of the Open Method of Coordination, which has been introduced within the Lisbon Strategy, linked to the idea of lifelong learning. She considers the realisation of these policy measures at national, regional and local levels to have shown only unsatisfactory results until now.


Vapor-phase alkylation of aroms. over environmentally benign solid catalysts is a valuable alternative to the conventional alkylation carried out traditionally over mineral acids and Friedel-Crafts type catalysts. Two examples for the development of new, simple, non-corrosive and environmentally safe processes of the selective methylation were reported: (1) the selective (80%) formation of 4,4'-dimethylbiphenyl over H-ZSM-5 zeolite, and (2) the prodn. of 3-methylcatechol over g-alumina modified with Mg2+ and Li+. Mechanistic considerations for the alkylation reactions were discussed. [on SciFinder (R)]


A dynamic window model is developed which provides admission control for circuit switched networks through the signaling network. This model incorporates distributed processing while achieving desired global congestion control effects. It reflects the interaction between the circuit switched path in the telephone network and the packet switched path in the signaling network. The model is solved by applying the concept of parametric analysis to study the whole circuit switching subnetwork as a composite server. The variant service rate is derived for the composite server of the circuit switch trunk in the context of a closed chain where the arrival of call services is finite. To avoid overflow and combinatorial complex problems, the computation is reduced to the Erlang recursive form. Mean value analysis formulas are derived for the model. Examples are given to demonstrate the validation of the analysis.<<ETX>>


Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. OBJECTIVES: Acute kidney injury is frequent in polytrauma patients, and it is associated with increased mortality and extended hospital length of stay. However, the specific prevalence of acute kidney injury after traumatic brain injury is less recognized. The present study aims to describe the occurrence rate, risk factors, timing, and association with outcome of acute kidney injury in a large cohort of traumatic brain injury patients. DESIGN: The Collaborative European NeuroTrauma Effectiveness Research in Traumatic Brain Injury is a multicenter, prospective observational, longitudinal, cohort study. SETTING: Sixty-five ICUs across Europe. PATIENTS: For the present study, we selected 4,509 traumatic brain injury patients with an ICU length of stay greater than 72 hours and with at least two serum creatinine values during the first 7 days of ICU stay. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: We classified acute kidney injury in three stages according to the Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcome criteria: acute kidney injury stage 1 equals to serum creatinine × 1.5–1.9 times from baseline or an increase greater than or equal to 0.3 mg/dL in 48 hours; acute kidney injury stage 2 equals to serum creatinine × 2–2.9 times baseline; acute kidney injury stage 3 equals to serum creatinine × three times baseline or greater than or equal to 4 mg/dL or need for renal replacement therapy. Standard reporting techniques were used to report incidences. A multivariable Cox regression analysis was performed to model the cause-specific hazard of acute kidney injury and its association with the long-term outcome. We included a total of 1,262 patients. The occurrence rate of acute kidney injury during the first week was as follows: acute kidney injury stage 1 equals to 8% (n = 100), acute kidney injury stage 2 equals to 1% (n = 14), and acute kidney injury stage 3 equals to 3% (n = 36). Acute kidney injury occurred early after ICU admission, with a median of 2 days (interquartile range 1–4 d). Renal history (hazard ratio = 2.48; 95% CI, 1.39–4.43; p = 0.002), insulin-dependent diabetes (hazard ratio = 2.52; 95% CI, 1.22–5.197; p = 0.012), hypernatremia (hazard ratio = 1.88; 95% CI, 1.31–2.71; p = 0.001), and osmotic therapy administration (hazard ratio = 2.08; 95% CI, 1.45–2.99; p < 0.001) were significantly associated with the risk of developing acute kidney injury. Acute kidney injury was also associated with an increased ICU length of stay and with a higher probability of 6 months unfavorable Extended Glasgow Outcome Scale and mortality. CONCLUSIONS: Acute kidney injury after traumatic brain injury is an early phenomenon, affecting about one in 10 patients. Its occurrence negatively impacts mortality and neurologic outcome at 6 months. Osmotic therapy use during ICU stay could be a modifiable risk factor.


One of the major applications of data mining is in helping companies determine which potential customers to market to. If the expected profit from a customer is greater than the cost of marketing to her, the marketing action for that customer is executed. So far, work in this area has considered only the intrinsic value of the customer (i.e, the expected profit from sales to her). We propose to model also the customer's network value: the expected profit from sales to other customers she may influence to buy, the customers those may influence, and so on recursively. Instead of viewing a market as a set of independent entities, we view it as a social network and model it as a Markov random field. We show the advantages of this approach using a social network mined from a collaborative filtering database. Marketing that exploits the network value of customers---also known as viral marketing---can be extremely effective, but is still a black art. Our work can be viewed as a step towards providing a more solid foundation for it, taking advantage of the availability of large relevant databases.


High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) employs a coding unit (CU), prediction unit (PU), and transform unit (TU) based on the quadtree coding tree unit (CTU) structure to improve coding efficiency. However, the computational complexity increases greatly because the rate-distortion (RD) optimization process should be performed for all CUs, PUs, and TUs to obtain the optimal CTU partition. In this paper, a fast CU size decision algorithm is proposed to reduce the encoder complexity of HEVC. Based on the statistical analysis, three approaches with SKIP mode decision (SMD), CU skip estimation (CUSE), and early CU termination (ECUT) are considered. In SMD, it is determined that the remaining modes except for SKIP mode are preformed or not. CUSE and ECUT determine that larger CU sizes and smaller CU sizes are coded or not, respectively. Thresholds for SMD, CUSE, and ECUT are designed based on Bayes' rule with a complexity factor. Update process is performed to estimate the statistical parameters for SMD, CUSE, and ECUT considering the characteristic of RD cost. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed CU size decision algorithm significantly reduces computational complexity by 69% on average with 2.99% Bjøntegaard difference bitrate (BDBR) increase for random access. The complexity reduction and BDBR increase for low delay are 68% and 2.46%, respectively. The experimental results also show that our proposed scheme performs well for various characteristic of sequences and outperforms the two previous state-of-the-art works.


Previous studies regarding the perception of emotions for embodied virtual agents have shown the effectiveness of using virtual characters in conveying emotions through interactions with humans. However, creating an autonomous embodied conversational agent with expressive behaviors presents two major challenges. The first challenge is the difficulty of synthesizing the conversational behaviors for each modality that are as expressive as real human behaviors. The second challenge is that the affects are modeled independently, which makes it difficult to generate multimodal responses with consistent emotions across all modalities. In this work, we propose a conceptual framework, ACTOR (Affect-Consistent mulTimodal behaviOR generation), that aims to increase the perception of affects by generating multimodal behaviors conditioned on a consistent driving affect. We have conducted a user study with 199 participants to assess how the average person judges the affects perceived from multimodal behaviors that are consistent and inconsistent with respect to a driving affect. The result shows that among all model conditions, our affect-consistent framework receives the highest Likert scores for the perception of driving affects. Our statistical analysis suggests that making a modality affect-inconsistent significantly decreases the perception of driving affects. We also observe that multimodal behaviors conditioned on consistent affects are more expressive compared to behaviors with inconsistent affects. Therefore, we conclude that multimodal emotion conditioning and affect consistency are vital to enhancing the perception of affects for embodied conversational agents.


This contribution addresses the incorporation of a module for advanced user interaction into an artificial cognitive vision system to include the human-in-the-loop. Specifically, the document describes a method to automatically generate natural language textual descriptions of meaningful events and behaviors, in a controlled scenario. One of the goals of the system is to be capable of producing these descriptions in multiple languages. We will introduce some relevant stages of the whole system, and concentrate on the linguistic aspects which have been taken into account to derive surface text from conceptual predicates. Some experimental results are provided for the description of simple and complex behaviors of pedestrians in an intercity crosswalk, for Catalan, English, Italian, and Spanish languages.


The problem of student final grade prediction in a particular course has recently been addressed using data mining techniques. In this paper, we present two different approaches solving this task. Both approaches are validated on 138 courses which were offered to students of the Faculty of Informatics of Masaryk University between the years of 2010 and 2013. The first approach is based on classification and regression algorithms that search for patterns in study-related data and also data about students' social behavior. We prove that students' social behavior characteristics improve prediction for a quarter of courses. The second approach is based on collaborative filtering techniques. We predict the final grades based on previous achievements of similar students. The results show that both approaches reached similar average results and can be beneficially utilized for student final grade prediction. The first approach reaches significantly better results for courses with a small number of students. In contrary, the second approach achieves significantly better results for mathematical courses. We also identified groups of courses for which we are not able to predict the grades reliably. Finally, we are able to correctly identify half of all failures (that constitute less than a quarter of all grades) and predict the final grades only with the error of one degree in the grade scale.


This research attempts at knowing the effectiveness of Error Analysis Method toward the students' achievement in English writing skill and their perceptions to Error Analysis Method (hereafter EAM) for teaching and learning writing. The method used in this research is Classroom Action Research (CAR). The subjects of this research are 31 students of the third semester of English Department of State University of Medan of 2012/2013 academic year. The instrument for collecting data is essay writing test. The data are analysed by descriptive analysis. The results of the research shows that 1) the students' achievement in English writing skill is (76.74) in average or it increases (17.32) basis points from the pre-test (59.42) in average and 2) in general, the students have positive and good perceptions toward Error Analysis Method for teaching and learning writing skill of English. This implies that the implementation of EAM is significantly effective to improve students' writing skill.


Objectives—To establish whether injury surveillance based on sampling strategies is as valid as total patient surveillance. Methods—Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program (CHIRPP) data for 1996 were retrospectively analysed using five sampling frames. Proportions for key variables were calculated for each sample, then compared with the proportions for the total population of patients. Results—Two of the five sampling frames produced statistically significant differences from the total population, which can be explained by seasonal variations. However, no significant differences were observed between the remaining three samples and the total population. Conclusions—A well planned and executed sampling strategy can generate as valid data as total patient surveillance, obviating the need for data collection on every patient presenting with an injury or poisoning. In practice, however, systematic sampling can be difficult to implement and sustain, counterbalancing the economic advantages.


A system of primers has been developed for the diagnosis of meningococcal infection has been developed on the basis of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Specificity and sensitivity of detection of N. meningitidis has been evaluated in analysis of the model clinical specimens. The proposed test system was tried in detection of N. meningitidis in nasopharyngeal discharge specimens from patients with acute nasopharyngitis and normal subjects from the focus of meningococcal infection.


By using PCR-SSCP and PCR-DNA sequencing method, 60 specimens of laryngeal carcinoma which were embedded in paraffin were detected for the mutations of P53 gene (exon 5-8). The point mutation and deletion which cause the change of amino acid were found in 19 cases. The mutation rate of patient with clinical III and IV stages was 50%, which was far higher than that of patient with clinical I and II stages. The mutation rate of poor differentiated carcinoma was 66.6%, which was higher than that of well differentiated carcinoma. These results indicate that the mutation of P53 gene is closely related with the malignant level of larynx carcinoma. Detection of P53 gene mutation using above sensitive and rapid method reveals practical significance for judging malignant level and evaluating prognosis of laryngeal carcinoma.


To the Editor: Professor Rowell (4) effectively establishes the position that quantitative and precise methods are (and have been) available to assess regional and systemic cardiovascular function in humans. One of many thoughts stimulated by his comments is the remarkable tools we currently possess for studying vascular function in human subjects. A good example is the continuing evolution of the "closed forearm" technique to study function of peripheral arteries. Combining venous occlusion plethysmography measurements of forearm blood flow and brachial artery catheter delivery of compounds that can stimulate or inhibit specific signaling pathways, this technique allows investigators to "pharmaco-dissect" the neural, humoral, and local (endothelial) mechanisms controlling peripheral blood flow under various conditions (2). Recent advances with this model allow the assessment of other peripheral vascular functions such as arterial fibrinolytic capacity via endothelial release of tissue plasminogen activator (6). Another increasingly valuable tool is vascular ultrasonography. Duplex ultrasonography provides continuous measurements of large artery blood flow and, along with arterial pressure, vascular conductance at rest and during acute stress (3). Duplex ultrasonography also provides a means to noninvasively assess endothelium-dependent dilation (EDD) of peripheral conduit arteries using blood flow-stimulated dilation (flow-mediated dilation; Ref. 1). Administration of substances (e.g., vitamin C) provides an opportunity to study mechanisms influencing conduit artery EDD, albeit limited to nonvasoactive compounds that do not affect systemic arterial pressure and baroreflexes. Finally, B-mode ultrasound combined with applanation tonometry-acquired carotid pressure waveforms can be used to measure directly arterial compliance, particularly in the large elastic arteries that exert an important influence on left ventricular function/structure and systolic blood pressure (5). These techniques represent only part of the impressive contemporary armamentarium available to study circulatory physiology in humans.


This ethnographically informed field study, drawing on a blend of feminist theories and cultural learning pathways framework, reveals that Syrian mothers show strong presence and readiness to take active roles when opportunities present themselves in alternative spaces in the public schools of Turkey. As mothers produce counterstories in relation to their gendered, religious, and ethnic identities, they talk back to anti-immigrant discourses. Their dialogues with teachers show apparent contradictions between what they hoped for the future of their children and what the school envisioned. Such co-constructed conversations in alternative school spaces have the potential to shape schools' role in supporting refugee families and children within and beyond the schools.


Promoting effect of citrate in 1 × 10−5−1×10−2 M concentrations on laser ablation (LA) of a Ag foil in aqueous solution performed by ns laser pulses at 1064 nm is reported. Furthermore, adsorption of citrate ions was found to increase markedly the stability of the resulting LA-Ag hydrosol. The results are discussed on the basis of comparison of surface plasmon extinction spectral characteristics, transmission electron microscopy images, nanoparticle size distributions and surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectral tests of hydrosols resulting from LA in neutral and acidic aqueous citrate solutions and in pure water.


Transient magnetic fields are analyzed in the time domain by using the finite-element method (FEM) in space and the finite-difference method in time. Conductive regions are eliminated from the domain under examination by imposing impedance boundary conditions on the surfaces separating conductive and nonconductive regions. In the time domain, the impedance boundary conditions are represented by a convolution integral in which the transient surface admittance appears whose expression can be obtained analytically by the inverse Laplace transform. A 2-D numerical procedure is presented for the solution of the integral equation deriving from the application of surface impedance boundary conditions. >


The authors evaluated the activity and safety of piperacillin/flucloxacillin in 40 children suffering from bacterial pharyngo-tonsillitis. The combination proved to be effective with regard to this pathology and no toxic or allergic side-effects were reported. This confirms the wide spectrum of the antibiotic.


The behavior of oxide film on pure iron passivated in a borate buffer solution and subsequently radiated by infrared light (IR) was investigated in comparing to that by just IR annealing without passivation, and was evaluated by film structure, etc. The effect of thermal annealing over 250 degrees C was observed with gamma-Fe2O3 grain growth and sharp increase in surface roughness, film thickness and oxygen content. An ellipsometric parameter of tan psi was sensitively reflected by annealing effect, and tan psi curve had a shoulder at 150 degrees C for 5 min and a peak of tan psi was shifted from 350 nm to 450 nm in wavelength. This shift was also caused by the formation of gamma-Fe2O3, because the peak was also observed in tan psi of the bulk Fe2O3 family. Passivation effects at 800 mV prior to IR annealing on thickness and oxygen content changed at 150 degrees C, and decreased tan psi at 350 nm and excessive film growth over 250 degrees C, and increased oxygen content under 100 degrees C and surface roughness at 50-250 degrees C. The terrace width with atomic scale flatness was slightly increase by passivation prior to IR annealing at 50-250 degrees C, and the maximum terrace width reached larger than 10 nm by passivation and IR annealing at 100 degrees C for 30 min.


The aim of this study was to investigate the in vitro effect of interleukin-24 (IL-24) on apoptosis of bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMMNC) in children with acute leukemia. Every group of acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) and acute myeloid leukemia (ANLL) had 20 children who did not receive any therapy. The bone marrow was taken from patients and controls, the MNC were isolated from bone marrow, DNA was detected by glucose electrophoresis. Apoptosis of BMMNC was assayed by flow cytometry with propidium iodine staining. RT-PCR was used to detect the expression level of bcl-2, caspase-3 mRNA, and to analyze the effect of IL-24 on them. The results showed that the IL-24 induced apoptosis of BMMNC in children with acute leukemia. After acute leukemia BMMNC were exposed to IL-24 for 48 hours, DNA ladder fragment appeared, and the apoptotic rate of the group treated with IL-24 of 50 ng/ml was obviously higher than that of the control group (0 ng/ml). IL-24 decreased the bcl-2 mRNA expression level, enhanced caspase-3 mRNA expression level of BMMNC from AL patients. It is concluded that the IL-24 can induce apoptosis of AL BMMNC in vitro, which may be due to decreasing of bcl-2 mRNA level and enhancing of caspase-3 mRNA level.


Demographic methods can be used to study the spatial response of individuals and populations to current global changes. The first mechanism underlying range shifts is a change in the spatial distribution of births and deaths. The spatial regression of demographic rates with geostatistical and spatially explicit models documents the intrinsic growth rate across the range of a population. The population distribution is expected to shift towards areas with the largest intrinsic growth rate, both mechanistically and because these areas are attractive to dispersing individuals. The second mechanism is indeed movement, including emigration away from places that recently became inhospitable and immigration into newly available locations. The analysis of dispersal fluxes using movement data, or indirectly by comparing the observed and intrinsic growth rates in integrated population models, documents these fluxes. Combining these two mechanisms in integral projection models or in individual-based simulations is expected to yield major advances in predictive spatial ecology, that is, mechanistic species distribution models.


Corrosion of functional parts within waste-to-energy (WTE) plants significantly reduces their efficiency with respect to maintenance costs. Currently, nickel-based alloy claddings, several millimeters thick, are the state of the art as anti-corrosion coating. Another approach is to utilize thermally sprayed multilayer coatings with a zirconia top-coat. Lab-scale experiments under simulated WTE plant conditions and in situ tests within a WTE plant revealed a partially reduced porosity of the zirconia top-coat after the experiments, enabling the coating to act as a barrier against aggressive gases. In a lab-scale experiment sample the pores are filled up with zirconia, while the pores of the in situ samples are filled up with newly formed metal (Cr, Ni, Fe) oxides.


Network security is the prevailing and challenging factor in computer communications. Computer security and communication security are interrelated and essential features in the internetworking system. Network security is ascertained by many factors like authentication, authorization, digital signatures, cryptography, steganography etc. Among them authentication is playing an important role in networked communications, where the communicating partners are to be identified each other legitimately. Authentication process ensures the legitimacy of the communicating partners in networked communication. In an authentication process, the originator of the communication and the respondent transact some identification codes to each other, prior to start of the message transaction. Several methods have been proposed regarding the authentication process for computer communication and smart card based networks from time to time. We introduced a new scheme to enhance and ensure the remote authentication through secure and dynamic authentication using a smart card, which is relatively a different approach. This scheme discusses the authentication procedure for smart card based network systems. This article introduces a dynamic authentication scheme, which includes a number of factors, among them the password, password index, and date of modification are important factors, which decide the dynamicity in authentication. The static approach authentication schemes are vulnerable to different types of attacks in networked communication. This dynamic authentication scheme ensures the authentication, confidentiality, reliability, integrity and security in network communications. This article discusses the implementation of this scheme and to analyze the security and performance factors to ensure the dynamic mutual authentication and to enhance the security features in authentication for smart card based networks.


Calcrete profiles (caliche) have been recognized in the Eyam Limestone from the Lower Carboniferous in the area around Monyash, Derbyshire. They occur at the top of the flank facies surrounding carbonate-mud buildups ('knoll reefs'). Four units make up the complete profile. These are from base to top: (1) grain-supported sediment with rhizocretions, (2) matrix-supported sediment with alveolar texture, (3) pelleted calcrete, (4) laminar calcrete. Commonly one or more units are missing from the profile. Calcretes indicate subaerial exposure. The carbonate buildups of the Eyam Limestone were completely exposed soon after deposition, requiring a fall in sea-level probably in excess of 10 m. This discovery demands a review of previous regional palaeoenvironmental studies.


The in vitro activity of vancomycin and teicoplanin, a new glycopeptide antimicrobial, was determined against a total of 286 anaerobic bacteria including Bacteroides fragilis group (100), B. melaninogenicus (21), B. bivius (16), Fusobacterium spp. (15), Peptococcus spp. (20), Peptostreptococcus spp. (21), Clostridium perfringens (23), C. difficile (41) and Propionibacterium acnes (29). Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) were determined using an antimicrobial incorporation technique in Wilkins-Chalgren agar approximately 10(4) colony forming units (cfu) contained in 10 microliters Wilkins-Chalgren broth, which was applied to the surface of the agar plates using a multipoint inoculator. Following inoculation, plates were incubated for 48 h at 37 degrees C in an anaerobic atmosphere. Both vancomycin and teicoplanin were highly active against all the Gram-positive anaerobic bacteria examined, 90% of all isolates being inhibited by 0.5 micrograms/ml of either antimicrobial. Isolates of B. fragilis group and Fusobacterium spp. were resistant to vancomycin (MIC90 64 micrograms/ml) and teicoplanin (MIC90 128 micrograms/ml). Unexpectedly, isolates of B. melaninogenicus and B. bivius which were resistant to vancomycin (MIC90 64 and 128 micrograms/ml respectively) were sensitive to teicoplanin (MIC90 2 and 2 micrograms/ml respectively).


Quantitative estimation of clay minerals in the clay fractions of the surface sediment samples from South Yatsushiro Kai is obtained from the X-ray diffraction patterns of the clay mineral suite that contains illite, chlorite, kaolinite, smectite and 10A halloysite. Among the clay species, illite and chlorite are exceptionally abundant and they comprise more than 60% of the total clay minerals present in most sediments. Relative amounts of other clay minerals varies markedly with locality particularly kaolinite and 10A halloysite and they tend to concentrate only near the point source except smectite which has a more unique behavior of transport and settling characteristics than other minerals. The relatively high supply of land-derived materials from various rock lithology surrounding South Yatsushiro Kai is the dominant contributing factor in outlining the trend of clay mineral distribution. Most, if not all, clay minerals are believed to be current-transported which shows that bottom water flow and shallow water currents are significant agents responsible for the distribution of various clay minerals.


The present research programme commenced with a detailed review of literature and
included a consideration of the development of the chromising process, diffusion theory,
kinetic, thermodynamic and structural studies of coatings; it indicates that there is a
substantial history of work in the general field. Modem development work and associated
reporting on the chromising of Fe–Cr based alloys has, however, been extremely limited.
As such, characterisation of chromium diffusion coatings produced on a commercial Fe–11% Cr alloy has been carried out, along with investigation of the interdiffusion
characteristics of the chromium diffusion coating and core in the absence of oxygen at
temperatures between 1073K and 1273K. [Continues.]


Foamed metal has become an attractive material, which has unique physical, thermal, acoustic, damping and mechanical properties, because large amount of pores are distributed in the metal matrix. Therefore, metal foam can be used for the light weight application in automotive, locomotive, aerospace fields. Aluminum foams have been developed successfully and will be employed in the next generation of energy absorption boxes. Magnesium alloys are most eligible candidate to substitute aluminum alloy, especially for lower density and higher damping properties in wide industrial fields. Magnesium alloy foams are expected to be particularly advantageous due to two thirds the density of aluminum. However, foaming magnesium have been weakness of high activity, difficult processing and very dangerous. In order to upgrade this problem, AM50 magnesium alloy which has better characteristic is safe to use through foaming time and alloying element in this study.


The ability to perform effective adaptive analysis has become a critical issue in the area of physical simulation. Of the multiple technologies required to realize a parallel adaptive analysis capability, automatic mesh generation is an enabling technology, filling a critical need in the appropriate discretization of a problem domain. The paving algorithm`s unique ability to generate a function-following quadrilateral grid is a substantial advantage in Sandia`s pursuit of a modified h-method adaptive capability. This characteristic combined with a strong transitioning ability allow the paving algorithm to place elements where an error function indicates more mesh resolution is needed. Although the original paving algorithm is highly serial, a two stage approach has been designed to parallelize the algorithm but also retain the nice qualities of the serial algorithm. The authors approach also allows the subdomain decomposition used by the meshing code to be shared with the finite element physics code, eliminating the need for data transfer across the processors between the analysis and remeshing steps. In addition, the meshed subdomains are adjusted with a dynamic load balancer to improve the original decomposition and maintain load efficiency each time the mesh has been regenerated. This initial parallel implementation assumes an approach of restarting the physics problem from time zero at each interaction, with a refined mesh adapting to the previous iterations objective function. The remeshing tools are being developed to enable real time remeshing and geometry regeneration. Progress on the redesign of the paving algorithm for parallel operation is discussed including extensions allowing adaptive control and geometry regeneration.


Ultrafast all-optical signal processing techniques are expected to play a major role in future ultrafast single-carrier soliton systems, because they remove the electronics bottleneck. In this paper, two all-optical devices, the nonlinear optical loop mirror (NOLM) and the Kerr fiber modulator (KFM), are used to achieve major functions related to high bit rate soliton links. At the interface with existing networks, conversions from data at the nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) format to return-to-zero (RZ) and soliton data, and vice-versa are required. These two conversions are demonstrated through NOLMs, and their limitations investigated. However, the main part of this paper is devoted to in-line soliton regeneration through synchronous modulation. Synchronous modulation requires both clock recovery and in-line optical modulation. In the following, all-optical approaches for these two functions are considered separately, before being associated in a true all-optical regenerator. All-optical clock recovery techniques are first reviewed. An experimental implementation of one of these techniques is described. On the other hand, all-optical modulation can be done either with intensity or phase modulators. We initially proposed the NOLM as all-optical intensity modulator. We analyze it theoretically, both from the component and the system application viewpoints. A modified configuration of the NOLM, having two optical controls, removes some limitations pertaining to the single-control configuration, yielding even higher performance. The other all-optical synchronous modulator considered here is the KFM, which is a pure phase modulator. Its potential is demonstrated in a 20-Gb/s soliton transmission experiment, when driven by an optoelectronic optical clock generation device. Issues specific to the implementation of both types of all-optical fiber-based modulators are discussed. Finally, a true all-optical synchronous regenerator, combining all-optical clock recovery circuit and KFM, is tested in an actual soliton transmission experiment at 20 Gb/s.


The atmospheric flux of 7Be over a 2-year period at a coastal site (Norfolk, Virginia) and at an inland site (Oak Ridge, Tennessee) typically supports inventories ranging from 1.0 to 2.0 pCi/cm2 (1 pCi = 0.037 Bq), with the highest inventories generally occurring in the spring and the lowest occurring in the fall. The calculated average daily fluxes required to support these inventories range from 0.013 to 0.026 pCi cm−2 d−1. Despite the different production-source terms for 7Be and 210Pb, there is a high degree of correlation between their measured total monthly deposition reflecting the importance of washout in removing both radionuclides from the atmosphere. Beryllium 7 inventories in soil and vegetated marsh cores compare favorably with inventories calculated from the atmospheric deposition data. Lead 210 inventories in soil and vegetated marsh cores may be enriched (by 20–30%) in relation to inventories calculated from its depositional flux to bucket samplers. Possible explanations for this enrichment are that above-ground vegetation is more efficient at collecting dry aerosols (containing short-lived radon daughters) than buckets or that foliage is an effective trap for particles containing sorbed 210Pb which may be eroded from unvegetated surfaces by wind or water. The vertical distribution and inventory of both 7Be and 210Pb in marsh cores are affected by the presence of vegetation and the location of the groundwater table.


The circumstellar environments of objects on the asymptotic giant branch and beyond are rich in molecular species. Nevertheless, methanol has never been detected in such an object, and is therefore often taken as a clear signpost for a young stellar object. However, we report the first detection of CH3OH in a post-AGB object, HD 101584, using ALMA. Its emission, together with emissions from CO, SiO, SO, CS, and H2CO, comes from two extreme velocity spots on either side of the object where a high-velocity outflow appears to interact with the surrounding medium. We have derived molecular abundances, and propose that the detected molecular species are the effect of a post-shock chemistry where circumstellar grains play a role. We further provide evidence that HD 101584 was a low-mass, M-type AGB star.


The merits of decomposition-based many-objective evolutionary algorithms are known in solving many-objective optimization problem (MaOP). Device model extraction is one of MaOPs, in this work, we first time apply a decomposition-based many-objective evolutionary algorithm with two types of adjustments for the direction vectors (MaOEA/D-2ADV) to model auto extraction of MOSFETs. This approach can fast extract 65 nm devices and sub-5-nm gate-all-around (GAA) silicon (Si) nanowire (NW) MOSFETs. The results of this study indicate that the automatic extraction by using the MaOEA/D-2ADV converges accurately, rapidly, and stably. It can not only jump out local traps but optimize final results efficiently for various devices. Compared with measured results, the accuracy of extracted ID-VG, ID-VD, gm, and gds are less than 1% within a few minutes.


One of the national health objectives for 2010 is to reduce the prevalence of cigarette smoking among adults to </=12%. To assess progress toward this objective, CDC analyzed self-reported data from the 2002 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) sample adult core questionnaire. This report summarizes the results of that analysis, which indicated that, in 2002, approximately 22.5% of adults were current smokers. Although this prevalence is slightly lower than the 22.8% prevalence among U.S. adults in 2001 and substantially lower than the 24.1% prevalence in 1998, the rate of decline has not been at a sufficient pace to achieve the 2010 national health objective. During 1983-2002, adults with household incomes below the poverty level and those with less than some college education consistently had higher smoking prevalence. A comprehensive approach to smoking cessation that comprises educational, economic, clinical, and regulatory strategies and emphasizes reducing disparities is required to reduce further the prevalence of smoking.


Background
Candidate gene prioritization is the process of identifying and ranking new genes as potential candidates of being associated with a disease or phenotype. Integrating multiple sources of biological knowledge for gene prioritization can improve performance.

Results
We developed a novel network-based gene prioritization algorithm called Knowledge Network Gene Prioritization (KNGP) that can incorporate node weights in addition to the usually used link weights. The online Web implementation of KNGP can handle small input files while the downloadable R software package can handle larger input files. We also provide several files of coded biological knowledge that can be used by KNGP.


This study examines the evolution of the distribution of life expectancy (LE) at birth and at ages 20 and 60 years using the stochastic kernel framework. It finds that the period between 1990 and 2013 exhibits a decrease in LE at birth dispersion and also shows that σ‐divergence and polarization of LE at ages 20 and 60 occur across countries. Further deterioration (improvement) in relative position of countries with low (high) starting LE is observed in some sections of the LE distribution. The dispersion in LE and intradistribution movements can be attributed to genealogically transmitted human barriers to technology diffusion.


The simplest Alamouti's space-time block code can be coupled with more than two transmit antennas via the beamforming technique to enhance the performance gain without code rate reduction. Beamforming is performed at the transmitter, dependent on the channel state information (CSI) which is obtained by using feedback through a feedback link or estimated using reciprocity in duplexing schemes. In this letter, we derived the exact bit-error rate for the combined system with two transmit and one receive antennas in slow Rayleigh flat fading channels. It is assumed that the receiver has the perfect CSI. The expression can be easily extended to more than two transmit antennas.


Ion transport is a fundamental process in many physical, chemical, and biological phenomena, and especially in electrochemical energy conversion and storage. Despite its immense importance, demonstrations of label-free, spatially and temporally resolved ion imaging in the solution phase under operando conditions are not widespread. Here we spatiotemporally map ion concentration gradient evolution in solution and yield ion transport parameters by refining interferometric reflection microscopy, obviating the need for absorptive or fluorescent labels. As an example, we use an electrochemical cell with planar electrodes to drive concentration gradients in a ferricyanide-based aqueous redox electrolyte, and we observe the lateral spatiotemporal evolution of ions via concentration-dependent changes to the refractive index. Analysis of an evolving spatiotemporal ion distribution directly yields the diffusivity of the redox-active species. The simplicity of this approach makes it amenable to probing local ion transport behavior in a wide range of electrochemical, bioelectronic, and electrophysiological systems.


A composite diurnal locomotory rhythm has been established in the woodlouse Oniscus asellus . This is correlated primarily with alternating light and darkness, and not with fluctuating temperature or humidity. The intensity of the humidity response of the species is less in darkness than in light, and less still in darkness when the animals have been kept in darkness for some days previously. It increases with desiccation. The response to light is greater, too, in animals which have been kept in darkness for some days, and these tend to remain photo-negative in dry air whereas controls become photo-positive with desiccation. The sensitivity to carbon dioxide is much greater in animals from a culture kept in darkness than it is in controls. The results obtained are discussed in relation to the nocturnal ecology of the species.


PVM for Java (JPVM) is a parallel programming environment that provides a set of Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM)-like class libraries developed using Java. JPVM inherits the attributes of Java, especially Java support of heterogeneous system. However, it also has the disadvantage of poor performance when compared to native codes. Java performance has been considerably improved with the recent introduction of Just in Time (JIT) compilers. This paper evaluates JPVM, with and without JIT compilation, using some well-known parallel processing benchmarks. It will also highlight some of the areas that limit the use of Java in parallel processing on distributed systems. The objective of the paper is to provide some performance indications of using Java in network-based parallel computing environments.


This essay argues that union democracy  (in the sense of active direct democracy at local levels in combination with highly accountable representative systems at more general levels) can be an important foundation for efforts to build a participatory society. It establishes, through a literature review, that pessimism about the capacity of unions to be functioning democracies is overstated; and then offers corrections for three weaknesses in the classical theory of participatory democracy. The first weakness – failing to analyze how participatory processes are gendered, racialized, and sexualized – is overcome by drawing upon feminist ideas for creating highly inclusive group processes. The second weakness – believing that an exaggerated consensus can be created through participation – is remedied with insights drawn from agonistic pluralism. The third weakness – assuming that participation in workplace governance is the essential, participatory training ground – is corrected with insights drawn from research on deliberative democracy. After enumerating eight reasons to pick unions as a focus for participatory efforts from amongst the various alternatives, the essay concludes with a historical example of how the combination of direct democracy and representative democratic accountability in the five United Mine Workers of America locals in the Crowsnest Pass, Canada, in the mid-20th century "spilled over" into this regional coalfield society, thereby nurturing a fledgling participatory society.


In this paper, we develop an analytical model for form postponement in global supply chain subject to variations in international transfers and tariffs, in service levels and in deviation from a supply delivery schedule that falls within a window. We examine the benefits of postponement under the influence of these factors, and we derive the necessary conditions for a strategic choice of both the 'postponement timing', (early or delayed differentiation) and the 'decoupling points', (early or late shipping) under decoupled and non-decoupled systems. The study shows when one type of the strategies is more beneficial than the other. Our analysis indicates that the boundaries of a delivery window, the point of differentiation, the point of export, the safety factor, and the relative production cost differences across countries play an important role under postponement. We use the production of Desk Jet printers at Hewlett Packard to illustrate the applicability of this model.


Abstract This article re-examines existing narratives of British permissiveness and secularization through a discussion of the Church of England's role in shaping the 1967 Sexual Offences Act and ongoing debates on homosexuality in the 1970s. It suggests—contrary to existing narratives of religious decline and marginalization—that the views of church commentators, and the opinions of the Established Church more generally, remained of real cultural and political influence in the years leading up to the 1967 Act. Religious authorities were thus more responsible for the moral landscape of the permissive society than historians previously assumed. Nevertheless, British permissiveness was full of contradictions, not only in terms of the unexpected ways in which reform was shaped and brought about, but in terms of the constraints of the new moral settlement which decriminalized homosexual behavior within modest boundaries. Such contradictions were not confined to the opinions of religious commentators—they were the genuine essence of the position on which the moral consensus in favor of homosexual law reform was based. Through a consideration of the final collapse of this moral consensus in the years after 1970, this article reassesses questions of the nature and timing of British secularization. It considers how the Church of England, although anticipating and shaping earlier developments in approaches toward sexual morality, unintentionally left itself out in the cold in the years after 1970, as progressive opinion began to move away from the consensus on which the 1967 Act had been based.


▪ Abstract The demand for instrumentation capable of detecting and triggering on ionizing radiation in high-rate particle physics experiments at colliding-beam and fixed-target accelerator facilities and for spacecraft-borne instrumentation in astrophysics has led to the development of new tracking technologies. One of these, scintillating fiber tracking, combines the speed and efficiency of a scintillation detector with the flexibility and hermeticity afforded by fiber technology. A paradigm for a fiber-tracking detector that utilizes organic plastic fibers read out with visible-light photon counters is presented and critiqued. Alternate strategies are considered, and an overview of recent experimental applications is provided.


Psychology![Figure][1]

CREDIT: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

During the past several election cycles in the United States, the association of religious views and voting preferences has been noted. This has led to claims that greater religiosity generates support for conservative policies, which generally favor lower and less progressive tax rates as well as restrictions on same-sex marriage. The take-home message has been that an individual's religious beliefs influence that person's political stance. Ross et al. have used a survey of roughly 500 liberal and conservative Christians to examine the converse proposition—that an individual's political views affect that person's religious beliefs. What they found was that self-described liberals and conservatives exhibited the expected views regarding higher tax rates and gay marriage. What was intriguing, however, were the views that both liberals and conservatives imputed to a contemporary Jesus: Conservatives rated Jesus as being more in favor of higher taxes on the wealthy and more opposed to gay marriage than they themselves were, with an opposite pattern for liberals. By placing more weight on issues on which they projected Jesus as being more extreme than themselves, individuals on both sides of the spectrum were able to reduce dissonance, which might be better characterized as social rather than cognitive, owing to the collective nature of religion.

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 109 , 10.1073/pnas.1117557109 (2012).

 [1]: pending:yes


This article proposes that Iser's work on gaps and blanks, as well as recent enactivist-inspired cognitive-narratological extensions of Iser's work, can enlighten an under-theorized genre of experimental narrative, microfiction, typically identified as stories under 300 words (though often considerably shorter). The extreme brevity of microfiction results in stories that are similar, to a degree, to short stories, though experientially quite different; in the most thorough narratological treatment, William Nelles (2012) makes the case for a generic distinction between microfiction and the traditional short story. As I have argued elsewhere (2016), borderline-narrative texts (such as microfiction) can make for oddly compelling reading experiences, largely due to the increased degree of reader participation necessary in narrativization. A main point of investigation here is as follows: while there is general agreement that Iser at least somewhat underestimates the extent to which narratives are perpetually fraught with gaps to be filled in by readers, there is still arguably a noticeably greater gaps-per-capita (in a manner of speaking) in microfiction set against higher-narrativity texts; readers need to do more, in other words, to narrativize the typical piece of microfiction. Further, the extreme brevity of microfiction potentially affords readers a uniquely full experience of perceptual presence over the course of the microstory.


In recent years, a discussion about the dissatisfaction of scientists with the current state of sociology has intensified in the world sociological community. In this situation, various ways of raising the scientific level of sociology as a whole are proposed. One of them was proposed by B. Latour in the framework of the actor-network theory (ANT), the theoretical concepts of which were further developed in the works of his like-minded colleages. Representatives of the Russian sociology are actively involved in a versatile study of the contribution made by the ANT to the development of sociology. The article studies the basic provisions of the actor-network theory concerning the subject specifics of sociological knowledge, the fundamental difference between the definition of understanding the subject of ANT sociology and the definitions given by traditional sociological trends and paradigms, as well as the consequences of this innovative understanding for the formation of methodological principles for studying social reality. The authors also dwell on the consideration of the most fundamental and controversial methodological innovation of ANT - the "turn to things" and the introduction of the concept of heterogeneity of agents into the understanding of social processes.
Particular attention in the article is paid to the analysis of the meaning of the term "actant", innovative for sociology, borrowed by the ANT from the semiotic theory of narrative and incorporated into sociology and ontology of the network of associations of heterogeneous actants. Concerning the disagreements between the actor-network theory and the sociological mainstream of our time, the authors dwell on the criticism by ANT theorists of the sociological "metaphysics of social forces", understood as a way of theoretical legitimation of social inequality. The purpose of the article is to clarify the unity and interconnection of the key innovative positions of ANT in sociological methodology, and through this, to substantiate the significance and heuristic potential of the innovations proposed by the actor-network theory for raising the scientific level of sociology in the study of social reality. As a result, the authors demonstrate the methodological turn of ANT, that makes possible overcoming the gap between sociological theory and social and political practice, thus opening the way for building a new attitude of sociology to reality, returning it to solving not only scientific, but also social and practical problems.


Abstract This paper looks in detail at Erasistratus of Ceos' theory of the triplokia, or 'triple web', of arteries, veins and nerves. It seeks to identify and remove some uncertainties about the nature of this theory and the problems it was intended to resolve, and to locate it more firmly within the context of his groundbreaking physiology. I argue that it was not a kind of elemental theory intended to describe what the body is ultimately composed of, but principally an account of how the arterial, venous and nervous systems interact with each other and the body's organs at a subsensible level.


For the past decade-and-a-half, the government of Ontario has been implementing sweeping reforms in an effort to improve primary health care delivery. Altering physician-compensation models is central to this initiative. One measure of the scale of change is that in 2000 roughly 95 per cent of general/family practitioners were paid traditional fee-for-service, but by 2013 that proportion had plunged to just 28 per cent. The province has clearly succeeded in largely replacing the traditional fee-for-service payment structure with blended payment models that are mostly group-oriented and include: 1) capitation (in some cases): a single payment for providing a particular "basket" of services to a patient for a fixed period, for example a year, regardless of the number of services provided, 2) fee-for-service payment, for services outside the capitated basket and provided in special situations, and 3) various bonuses and incentives (sometimes called pay-for-performance) that mostly focus on preventive care and the management of chronic conditions. Physicians in rural and northern areas, as well as some clinics, also have salary and similar models as options. Ontario has simultaneously introduced patient "rostering" — the formalized connecting of one patient to one physician and/or physician team/group — creating a relationship better suited to delivering preventive healthcare services. However, when surveyed, many patients are unaware that they have been "rostered" meaning that at present much of the benefit must be derived from the physician side alone. It remains to be seen whether or not it is important for patients to be aware that they are rostered. Beyond its clinical benefits, rostering has appreciable rhetorical and political value, as well as potential as a planning tool in efforts to ensure that the local and provincial supply of primary care is appropriate. In a health-care system as large and complex as Ontario's, reform is more evolutionary than revolutionary; but the province has arguably moved rapidly within this context. Expenditures have been substantial and the initiatives groundbreaking. However, the same challenges that make reform a formidable undertaking also make it difficult to readily, or quickly, measure success, especially since many changes are ongoing. It is not yet demonstrably clear to what degree the government's goals are being achieved. At present, there are mixed and conflicting findings about whether some of these changes have moved the health system towards the intended goals of improving health-care access and quality, and patient satisfaction, let alone whether the potential improvements can justify the resources expended to achieve them. Naturally, those results we do have at this point offer insight only into the short-term effects of these changes. Especially, it is too early for sufficient evidence to have accumulated on the impact of new physician-group models on downstream costs, including drug prescriptions, specialist care, hospital costs and the use of diagnostic tests. These are, however, central questions that will in large part determine success. Also, it appears that the Ontario government could have accomplished nearly all of its goals so far without having implemented capitation, although capitation may prove beneficial in the longer term as the scarcity of physicians since the 1990s seems to be shifting towards a surplus. In this new era, the health ministry will likely need to take a more hands-on role than it has in the past, including improved system monitoring. Going forward many stakeholders should be involved in evaluating this experiment on an ongoing basis to ensure that it is serving the healthcare needs of the population in an effective and efficient way..


The use of multi-core processing platform has become a trend in the automation industry due to the benefits that this technology can offer, such as a substantial reduction of overall temperature of hardware operation and more computational power delivered to embedded system. However, the use of this technology still represents a great challenge for the aerospace industry that demands a high level of safety and reliability for critical applications. The insertion of a new technology like multi-core architecture into an airplane system requires exhaustive tests to ensure that the new system fulfills the requirement of high-level safety demanded by aerospace industry. This paper, with educational and research purpose, presents a test platform to evaluate the use of an autopilot system embedded on a representative model of a multi-core architecture emulated by a network with twenty Raspberry-Pi's connected via Ethernet. We simulated three scenarios of failure condition: Measurement error, Communication error and Time delay effect.


ABSTRACT We recorded and analysed sequences belonging to 11 bat species from Northern Algeria, in order to compare the baseline results with studies performed across the region, where potentially major geographical barriers may have limited gene flow and population dynamics. We have found that most of the Rhinolophus species exhibit some form of variation, especially regarding the values of the maximum energy frequency (CF), while vespertilionides differ mostly in pulse start frequency. The shape of the pulse and the terminal frequency usually define most of the variation for this family.


ABSTRACT Transparent sensors for microscopic O2 imaging were developed by spin coating an ultrathin (<1- to 2-μm) layer of a luminescent O2 indicator onto coverslips. The sensors showed (i) an ideal Stern-Volmer quenching behavior of the luminescence lifetime towards O2 levels, (ii) homogeneous measuring characteristics over the sensor surface, and (iii) a linear decline of luminescence lifetime with increasing temperature. When a batch of such coverslip sensors has been characterized, their use is thus essentially calibration free at a known temperature. The sensors are easy to use in flow chambers and other growth devices used in microbiology. We present the first application for combined imaging of O2 and bacteria in a biofilm flow chamber mounted on a microscope equipped with a spinning-disk confocal unit and a luminescence lifetime camera system.


A 125Te NMR study of bismuth telluride nanoparticles as a function of particle size revealed that the spin-lattice relaxation is enhanced below 33 nm, accompanied by a transition of NMR spectra from the single to the bimodal regime. The satellite peak features a negative Knight shift and higher relaxivity, consistent with core polarization from p-band carriers. Whereas nanocrystals follow a Korringa law in the range 140-420 K, micrometer particles do so only below 200 K. The results reveal increased metallicity of these nanoscale topological insulators in the limit of higher surface-to-volume ratios.


Abstract Captive bird hybrids can provide important data on certain traits, such as hybrid viability and fertility. In this paper, we describe four hybrids between the Chiloé wigeon (Anas sibilatrix) and the Philippine duck (Anas luzonica). These two species diverged about 13 million years ago and are found on different continents, making the occurrence of wild hybrids extremely unlikely. Hence, these captive hybrids provide a unique opportunity to learn more about the outcome of hybridization between these highly divergent species. One pair of hybrids mated and produced six unfertilized eggs, suggesting that hybrids between these species are infertile. Morphologically, the hybrids were slightly larger than the parental species, but had intermediate bill lengths. With regard to plumage patterns, the hybrids displayed characteristics of both parental species: Males developed the iridescent green head pattern of the Chiloé wigeon, whereas the females showed the dark crown and eye stripe of the Philippine duck. Interestingly, Chiloé wigeon and Philippine duck are both sexually monochromatic whereas the hybrids showed clear sexual dimorphism. These hybrids can thus lead to novel insights into the genetic and developmental basis of sexual mono‐ and dichromatism in ducks.


Abstract Objectives: This study provides a standardized Arabic language neuropsychological test battery and tests its ability to distinguish patients with left and right hemisphere epileptic foci who are candidates for surgical resection. Methods: An Arabic language battery of 15 tests was developed based on the neuropsychological test battery used at the Johns Hopkins Hospital for surgical evaluation of patients undergoing temporal lobe resection. With modifications where culturally required, 11 tests were translated to Arabic by the principal investigator and back-translated by two bilingual health professionals; four tests were available in Arabic and added to the battery. The battery was administered to 21 Arabic-speaking patients with left temporal epileptic foci, 21 with right temporal epileptic foci, and 46 neurologically and psychiatrically healthy adults. Results: Nearly all the Arabic test versions were capable of differentiating healthy controls and the temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) groups. Tests known to distinguish left and right temporal lobectomy candidates, such as wordlist memory and prose recall, were able to do so as accurately as the English versions. Also, a roughly "culturally free" task (the Baltimore Board) and a newly developed version of the Boston Naming Test demonstrated some sensitivity to left temporal lobe involvement. Conclusions: Arabic-language neuropsychological tests for epilepsy surgical evaluations are made available, demonstrate cultural sensitivity and clinical validity, and require further psychometric property and normative research. (JINS, 2019, 25, 761–771)


Eruca sativa (known as rocket plant) is a member of the Brassicaceae, which is considered an important chemo-preventive plant family. Although Eruca sativa has positive biological effects such as antioxidant and renal protective activities, the effect of the Eruca sativa extract as a therapeutic agent for skin whitening has not been reported. In this study, we investigated the applicability of the extract of Eruca sativa as a functional materials by examining the its physiological activities. The Eruca sativa extract showed low cytotoxicity against murine melanoma B16F10 cells. At concentrations (below 100 mg/L) that showed none or little cytotoxicity, the Eruca sativa extract showed high DPPH radical scavenging activity (ID50, 17.60 mg/L). In addition, the Eruca sativa extract inhibited tyrosinase activity (ID50, 132.54 mg/L) and decreased melanin content (ID50, 158.90 mg/L). Finally, the treatment with the Eruca sativa extract suppressed the protein expression of tyrosinase in a concentration-dependent manner. These findings suggested that the Eruca sativa extract inhibited melanin synthesis by not only suppressing intracellular tyrosinase expression but also directly inhibiting tyrosinase activity. Therefore, these results indicate that the Eruca sativa extract may be an effective material for functional cosmetics such as skin whitening materials.