Abstract Roland Joseph D. Tan Objective  To describe the demographics, clinical profile, and outcomes of retinoblastoma patients seen in a tertiary hospital in northern Luzon. Materials and Methods  This is a retrospective cross-sectional study of retinoblastoma patients at the departments of ophthalmology and pediatrics of a tertiary hospital in northern Luzon from 2005 to 2020. Results  A total of 47 patients involving 53 eyes were included. Twenty nine (62%) are male and forty one (87%) had unilateral retinoblastoma. Mean age at consult was 24 ± 17 months, and mean interval from onset of symptoms to consult was 10 ± 11 months. Two (4%) had family history of retinoblastoma. Twenty-two (47%) patients had intraocular involvement. Leukocoria was the most common presenting symptoms at 62%. Overall survival was 53% with mean follow-up period of 24 ± 24 months. Difference in survival rates based on the extent of involvement was statistically significant ( p  < 0.001). Conclusion  This is the first study that provided data on demographics, clinical profile, and outcomes of retinoblastoma patients in northern Luzon and the only study with data on clinical outcomes of retinoblastoma patients in The Philippines. Extraocular involvement is a significant factor in the low survival of retinoblastoma patients despite improvement in its management.


The vibrational lifetimes and decay channels of local vibrational modes are calculated from first principles at various temperatures. Our method can be used to predict the temperature dependence of the lifetime of any normal mode in any crystal. We focus here on the stretch modes of H2*, H+(BC), and VH x HV in Si. The frequencies are almost identical, but the lifetimes vary from 4 to 295 ps. The calculations correctly predict the lifetimes for T > 50 K and illustrate the critical importance of pseudolocal modes in the decay processes of high-frequency local vibrational modes.


The structure of 1,3,5-trimethyl-1,3,5-triaza-cyclohexane (TMTAC) was determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction and compared with earlier gas-phase data. It shows a preference for an aee-conformation in all phases. Lithiated TMTAC, [(RLi)(2)·(RH)] (1) (R = 2,4,6-trimethyl-2,4,6-triaza-cyclohex-1-yl), was reacted with Et(3)SiCl, Ph(3)SiCl and PhMe(2)SiCl to afford the substituted silanes Et(3)SiR (1), Ph(3)SiR (2) and PhMe(2)SiR (3) in moderate yields. They were characterised by NMR spectroscopy ((1)H, (13)C, (29)Si). 1 reacts with Me(2)SiCl(2) and Ph(2)SiCl(2) to give Me(2)SiR(2) (5) and Ph(2)SiR(2) (6) which were characterised by NMR spectroscopy. 5 was also identified by crystal structure determination. Analogous triple substitution could not be observed by employing trichlorosilanes. Quantumchemical calculations explain this by sterical overcrowding of the silicon atom. The reaction of 1 with SiCl(4) did not yield fourfold substitution but a formal insertion product of SiCl(2) into a C-N bond of the TMTAC ring (2,4,6-trimethyl-2,4,6-triaza-1,1-dichloro-1-sila-cycloheptane, 7) in very small quantities. It was identified by X-ray crystallography and shows an intramolecular Si···N dative bond. The reactions of (3) and (5) with n-butyl lithium afforded lithiation of the silicon bound methyl groups in both cases. The products, 8 and 9, were characterised by NMR spectroscopy ((1)H, (13)C, (29)Si), 8 was also characterised by X-ray crystallography.


A differential pulse voltammetric sensor for the determination of tamsulosin hydrochloride (TAM) using multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs)–Nafion-modified glassy carbon electrode (GCE) has been developed. MWNTs were dispersed in water with the help of Nafion and were used to modify the surface of GCE via solvent evaporation. At MWNT-modified electrode, TAM gave a well-defined oxidation peak at a potential of 1084 mV in 0.1 M acetate buffer solution of pH 5. Compared to the bare electrode, the peak current of TAM showed a marked increase and the peak potential showed a negative deviation. The determination conditions, such as the amount of MWNT–Nafion suspension, pH of the supporting electrolyte and scan rate, were optimised. Under optimum conditions, the oxidation peak current was proportional to the concentration of TAM in the range 1×10−3 M–3×10−7 M with a detection limit of 9.8×10−8 M. The developed sensor showed good stability, selectivity and was successfully used for the determination of TAM in pharmaceutical formulations and urine samples.


Multicast is an important collective communication operation on multicomputer systems, in which the same message is delivered from a source node to an arbitrary number of destination nodes. The star graph interconnection network has been recognized as an attractive alternative to the popular hypercube network. In our previous work on wormhole star graph networks routing, we proposed a path-based routing model and developed four efficient deadlock-free multicast routing schemes. In this paper, we address an efficient and deadlock-free tree-based multicast routing scheme for wormhole-routed star graph networks with hamiltonian path. In our proposed routing scheme, the router is with the inputbuffer-based asynchronous replication mechanism that requires extra hardware cost. Meanwhile, the router simultaneously sends incoming flits on more than one outgoing channel. We perform simulation experiments with the network latency and the network traffic. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed routing scheme outperform our previous approaches.


The purpose of this report is to assess how much energy could be supplied by low carbon energy technologies in China over the coming decades, and how much an expnaded alternative energy program would cost. Alternatve energy supply scenarios have been prepared for China accoridng to the following general principles: 1) from a technical standpoint, how much energy could be supplied by various technologies by a given date; and 2) how much would it cost to supply various quantities of low carbon energy compared to the least-cost energy expansion plan. Becuase many alternative energy technologies are developing rapidly, there is a great deal of uncertainty in the estimates made in this report., to be kept in mind when evaluating specific technologies and their costs. Nonetheless it is clear that coal will continue to provide the majority of China's energy needs well into the 21st century. Therefore, this report focuses on the low carbon technologies that could be substituted for coal. Two broad types of technologies have been analyzed: 1) technologies that can substitute for coal to generate electric power and 2) technologies that can substitute for coal for direct energy applications, such as industrial process heat, residential cooking, and space heating. Both the carbon dioxide reduction potential and the costs of carbon dioxide reduction from alternative energy development have been analyzed.


The horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio (HVSR) for seismic ambient noise is a popular method that can be used to estimate the predominant frequency at a given site. In this article, we introduce the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) Data Management Center's (DMC's) openly available HVSR station toolbox. These tools offer a variety of ways to compute the spectral ratio by providing different averaging routines. The options range from the simple average of spectral ratios to the ratio of spectral averages. Computations take advantage of the available power spectral density estimates of ambient noise for the seismic stations, and they can be used to estimate the predominant frequency of the many three-component seismic stations available from the IRIS DMC. Furthermore, to facilitate the identification of the peaks in HVSR profiles for the assessment of the predominant frequency of station sites, the toolbox can also process the results of HVSR analysis to detect and rank HVSR peaks. To highlight the toolbox capabilities, three different examples of possible use of this toolbox for routine site-effect analysis are discussed: (1) site effects related to thawing in Arctic regions, (2) ground-motion amplification in urban area, and (3) estimation of station VS30.


Existing side-channel analysis techniques require a leakage model, in the form of a prior knowledge or a set of training data, to establish a relationship between the secret data and the measurements. We introduce side-channel analysis with reinforcement learning (SCARL) capable of extracting data-dependent features of the measurements in an unsupervised learning approach without requiring a prior knowledge on the leakage model. SCARL consists of an auto-encoder to encode the information of power measurements into an internal representation, and a reinforcement learning algorithm to extract information about the secret data. We employ a reinforcement learning algorithm with actor-critic networks, to identify the proper leakage model that results in maximum inter-cluster separation of the auto-encoder representation. SCARL assumes that the lower order components of a generic non-linear leakage model have larger contribution to the leakage of sensitive data. On a lightweight implementation of the Ascon authenticated cipher on the Artix-7 FPGA, SCARL is able to recover the secret key using 24K power traces during the key insertion, or Initialization Stage, of the cipher. We also demonstrate that classical techniques such as DPA and CPA fail to identify the correct key using traditional linear leakage models and more than 40K power traces.


Adult male albino rats of the Sprague-Dawley strain, with an approximate initial body weight of 340 g were exercised for 5 weeks on a training program consisting of swimming for one-half hour daily in water at 37 C. Pair-fed, nonexercised animals served as controls. All exercised animals gained less body weight than did their controls. The adrenals and heart ventricles of the exercised animals were enlarged, whereas the kidneys and gastrocnemii were smaller. Unit and total protein of the heart ventricles were greater for the exercised animals. Lactic dehydrogenase activities were determined in the heart ventricles and gastrocnemii. The activities were expressed in terms of unit, actual total, and relative total values. After exercise, the activities of the heart ventricles were increased, whereas those of the skeletal muscle were unchanged.


We present a theoretical study using Monte-Carlo simulation of the behavior of a CMOS inverter struck by an ionizing particle. The inverter is made of two complementary enhancement-mode MOSFETs according to a SIMOX self-aligned technology with an effective gate length of 0.35 /spl mu/m. The effect of the ionizing particle (heavy ion) is simulated by electron-hole pairs generation with an energy of 1 eV for each carrier. We studied the return to the steady-state of the device after a transient irradiation. Either the P-channel transistor or the N-channel transistor is irradiated, and the gate operating is considered in both cases of 0 V and 5 V input voltage. The irradiation of the off-state transistors induces a significant transient variation of the output voltage whereas irradiation of the on-state transistors has weak effects on the output. The return to the stationary regime, which is reached after about 50 ps in all irradiation cases, is achieved by evacuation of the carriers in excess through the different electrodes without trapping effect in the device. >


Supercritical fluids posses properties that make them attractive as media for chemical reactions. Conducting chemical reactions at supercritical conditions affords opportunities to manipulate the reaction environment (solvent properties) by manipulating pressure, to enhance the solubilities of reactants and products, to eliminate interphase transport limitations on reaction rates, and to integrate reaction and separation unit operations. Supercritical conditions may be advantageous for reactions involved in fuels processing, biomass conversion, biocatalysis, homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, environmental control, polymerization, materials synthesis, and chemical synthesis. Moreover, supercritical fluids can be used profitably in fundamental chemical investigations of intermolecular interactions and their influence on chemical processes. Work on chemical reactions in and with supercritical fluids is reviewed. We discuss both fundamental studies and applications of reactions at supercritical conditions, with focus on work published after 1985.


A strategy for distributed hydrological simulation at watershed scale is presented. It is a conceptual integration of elements of topography, hydrology, hydraulics, and geomorphology. This work describes a conceptual model of storages and flows and the way in which different parameters are integrated. The model, in its most widely used version, is known as TETIS. A recount of several applications of the simulation strategy for different versions of the hydrological model is presented. It has been used in different geographical and climatic conditions with satisfactory results and has been adapted to other process simulations.


The use of surface water to replace groundwater for irrigation is often viewed as an effective approach for reducing groundwater overdraft on an agricultural landscape. The expected increase in the aquifer volume in the presence of surface water does not occur unless the off-farm water price is low enough to generate a significant shift away from groundwater. There is a change in the crop pattern toward more irrigation intensive crops, and the net effect can be a rise in groundwater extraction.


Bacteriocins are antimicrobial compounds produced by diverse members of lactic acid bacteria (LAB). Bacteriocins can be used as food bio preservatives to increase the shelf life of food naturally by preventing or killing foodborne pathogens. One of the lactic acid bacteria that produce bacteriocin is Enterococcus faecium. Some LAB grown on semi-synthetic complex media such as MRS (de Mann Rogosa Sharpe) can make a high population of bacterial cells and relatively large bacteriocins. This study aimed to observe the growth of E. faecium on MRS and LB media under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Cultures were performed for 4.5h, 5h, 5.5h, 6h, 6.5h, and 7h. The amount of bacteriocin produced was investigated by SDS-PAGE. Meanwhile, the inhibitory activity was measured against Listeria monocytogenes (LM). The results showed that E. faecium grew better in deMan Rogosa Sharp (MRS) medium under anaerobic conditions than in MRS medium under aerobic conditions as well as Luria Bertani (LB) media under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. The SDS-PAGE results showed a protein band measuring about 90 kDa, which was thought to be a bacteriocin. The inhibition test showed a clear zone in the LM culture, which indicated that the bacteria produced bacteriocins that could inhibit the growth of pathogenic bacteria.


This dissertation investigates the impact of financial risk disclosure for 25 cross-listed companies in the UK from 2007 to 2016 on earning qualities. Unlike the previous studies which consider the whole risk disclosure, the current study focuses only on financial risk disclosure and finds that there is a negative effect of financial risk disclosure on earning qualities. Further, foreign exchange rate risk of the main five types of financial risks (credit risk, liquidity risk, interest rate risk, foreign exchange rate risk and commodity price risk) is confirmed as the part which leads to the significant influence on earning qualities and thus to which financial managers need pay more attention.


theories of adolescent development—the psycho analytic and the sociological. Seen from either view point adolescence is clearly a stressful phase of human development. It is also full of contradictions. The author brings his own personal techniques to bear to help us unravel the complex and contradictory stages of development to be found in adolescence. He explores these adolescent conflicts within the peer group, the family and within the school environment. The text is liberally interspersed with anecdotes culled from structured interviews with adolescents. This book helps one to recognize the very real needs of young people within our society and to identify for us the important role of adults in the lives of adoles cents.


The focus of this work is on developing optimality criteria corresponding to multiple inference objectives and combining them in compound criteria allowing for finding compromises between different components, especially in the cases of relatively small experiments. In the framework of response surface factorial experiments we take into account the assumption of a potential model misspecification that is expressed in the form of extra polynomial terms that cannot be estimated. Along with obtaining quality estimates of the fitted model parameters, the contamination arising from the model disturbance is desired to be minimised. In addition, in the case of model uncertainty, the model-independent approach of making inference based on 'pure error' is to be incorporated. We first present Generalised DP and LP criteria, the components of which correspond to maximising the precision of the fitted model estimates, minimising the joint effect of potentially missed terms and minimising the prediction bias; we also adapt the criteria for use in blocked experiments. In Chapter 5 we develop the Mean Square Error based criteria which, instead of the prediction bias component, include the component minimising the bias of the fitted model parameters that might occur due to the model misspecification. We also provide an alternative way of estimating its value for cases where the originally suggested simulations would be too computationally expensive. An example of a real-life blocked experiment is studied, and we present a set of optimal designs that satisfied the aims of the experimenters and the restrictions of the experimental setup. Finally, we explore the framework of multistratum experiments; together with adaptation of the MSE-based criteria we provide a flexible design construction and analysis scheme. All of the criteria and experimental settings are accompanied by illustrative examples in order to explore the possible relationship patterns between the criterion components and optimal designs' characteristics, and produce some general practical recommendations.


Low recruitment to studies in science and technology is a matter of great concern, and many initiatives are made in order to motivate young people to pursue a career in subjects such as physics. This article presents a study of how a sample of Norwegian first year university students of physics look upon their choice of study and what they see as main sources of inspiration in this regard. The study is undertaken by means of a survey and interviews with students. Results indicate that teachers are important for inspiration, but also that many students rather see their interest in physics as a genuine, inborn characteristic of their personality. Interviews revealed that parents and family also have been highly important for the students' development of interest in physics.


It is generally accepted that no `faster than light signalling' (FTLS) using two entangled spin 1/2 particles is possible because of indeterminism in a quantum measurement and linearity of standard quantum mechanics. We show how in principle one bit of information could be transmitted using local measurements and a global unitary transformation of the state of two entangled spatially separated spin 1/2 particles. Assuming that the postulate of a state collapse due to measurement is valid, the no FTLS condition is saved if we do not have physical access to the required global unitary transformation. This means that the no FTLS condition is also present on the operational level, namely as imposing a physical restriction on the possible realizable unitary transformations, in this case of two entangled but spatially separated spin 1/2.


Ovarian function and menstrual cycle disturbances, pregnancy, and reproductive medicine procedures can either increase gynecological cancer risk or prevent cancer development. For ovarian cancer development, there are two hypotheses, which are connected with ovulation and gonadotropin secretion. Most of the ovarian cancers seem to be derived from displaced ovarian surfice epithelial cells. One year of ovulatory cycles increases the ovarian cancer risk by 6%. Ovulation between 22 and 29 years of age causes the highest risk increase per year. In contrast, progesterone or progestins appear to create protection. Lifestyle can affect or modify ovarian cancer risk. Breast cancer risk is very much related to age of menarche and menopause, pregnancy, and breast feeding. All of which are related to ovarian function and progestogenic impact that translates either into breast cancer risk increase or decrease. This is modified by body mass index, physical activity, and lifestyle in general. The risk of endometrial cancer is most closely related to endogenous progesterone during the menstrual cycle and pregnancy or by exogenous progestogens as in oral contraceptives. These effects are progestogen dose and time dependent. Endometrial cancer risk can also be increased by estrogen-producing tumors or long-term estrogen treatment.


In the past twenty years Pet Facilitated Therapy (PFT) has been used, apparently successfully, with several populations, including nursing home residents. Studies report positive behavior changes as a result of PFT intervention, but little effort has been made to quantify such behavior changes. This study presents the results of a PFT program in a nursing home setting. Results were positive, and were measured using the Patient Social Behavior Scale, designed for this study. Nursing home residents showed an increase of social behaviors from pretest to midpoint and from midpoint to post test, but these behaviors declined four weeks after post test. Although both males and females showed an increase in social behaviors, males' and females' response patterns differed.


Purpose Although much has been studied about the characteristics of born‐global firms in developed countries, studies about developing economies are far and few between and most tend to be exploratory. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach This paper studies how Chilean born‐global firms behave and examine five distinct factors as compared to enterprises that gradually internationalize. A logistic regression model was applied to a sample of 115 small‐ and mid‐sized enterprises (SMEs) that presented a growing and non‐occasional internationalization to study the change in the probability that a young Chilean exporter will be classified as born‐global. Findings The results show that a foreign capital network, an economic development agencies (EDAs) network, the cultural distance from the countries receiving the exports, the localization of the SME in the capital city, and the company's size are factors that significantly increase the probability that a young Chilean exporter wil...


OBJECTIVE
To assess the academic experiences of undergraduate post-registered BS (Bachelor of Science) nursing students in Islamabad.

METHODS
This multisite cross-sectional study was conducted from February to May 2018. It included undergraduate nursing students from one public and three private-sector institutes of Islamabad. A pre-validated Undergraduate Nursing Students' Academic Satisfaction Scale (UNSASS) was used to collect data. Descriptive and Inferential statistics were calculated using SPSS 21, p< 0.05 was considered as significant.

RESULTS
Out of 220 nursing students, 198 responded. Nursing students from public-sector were significantly more satisfied than those in private. This satisfaction was significant for classroom teaching and clinical teaching. The students from private institutes reported significantly greater satisfaction towards institutional support and resources. Female students from private colleges were significantly more satisfied with the clinical education (p<0.042) and programme design and delivery (p<0.018) than their male counterparts. First year students from public-sector were significantly more satisfied from classroom teaching (p<0.003), support and resources (p<0.036), while those in private from clinical teaching (p<0.002). Students aged 31 years and above were generally more satisfied.

CONCLUSIONS
Post-registered BS nursing students are satisfied from their academic experiences during undergraduate training. Students in public-sector institutes are comparatively more satisfied.


In vivo temperature measurements were performed at drilling in the femoral cortex of the rabbit, dog and man. In the clinical study the bone temperature was measured at fixation of a Richards plate to stabilize a pertrochanteric fracture. With a drill speed of around 20 000 rpm and saline cooling, temperatures of 40 degrees C in rabbits, 56 degrees C in dogs and 89 degrees C in patients were recorded at a distance of 0.5 mm from the periphery of the drill hole. The difference in temperature between the animal and clinical studies was mainly attributed to the difference in cortical thickness between the species. When drilling straight through the canine femur from the lateral to the medial side, a 9 degrees C higher temperature was measured in the remote, medial cortex compared to that recorded in the lateral cortex. This difference arose because it is difficult for the cooling agent to reach the medial cortex. The results of the present study indicate that temperatures measured in animal experiments are not applicable to the clinical situation where very high temperatures may arise on drilling in cortical bone, even if saline cooling is used.


Objectives To determine the long-term survival rates and prognostic factors in kidney transplant (KT) recipients in Jakarta, Indonesia. Design Retrospective cohort study. Setting A KT centre in Jakarta. Participants We enrolled 754 consecutive adult recipients who underwent KT between 2010 and 2020. Main outcome measures Rates of 10-year patient, all-cause and death-censored graft survival and their prognostic factors in KT recipients. Results The 10-year patient survival, all-cause survival and death-censored graft survival rates of KT recipients were 74%, 68% and 81%, respectively. The prognostic factors for poor patient survival were a pretransplant dialysis duration>24 months (HR 1.64, 95% CI, 1.08 to 2.49; p=0.02), cardiovascular disease (HR 1.59, 95% CI, 1.11 to 2.31; p=0.01), delayed graft function (DGF) (HR 4.94, 95% CI, 2.76 to 8.82; p<0.001), post-transplant infection (HR 2.63, 95% CI, 1.56 to 4.43; p<0.001) and acute rejection (HR 2.49, 95% CI, 1.20 to 5.15; p=0.01). All-cause graft survival was prognosticated by a pretransplant dialysis duration>24 months (HR 1.74, 95% CI, 1.15 to 2.47; p=0.007), cardiovascular disease (HR 1.65, 95% CI, 1.18 to 2.33; p=0.004), DGF (HR 5.39, 95% CI, 3.13 to 9.28; p<0.001), post-transplant infection (HR 2.46, 95% CI, 1.05 to 4.02; p<0.001) and acute rejection (HR 4.18, 95% CI, 2.23 to 7.84; p<0.001). Factors associated with poor death-censored graft survival were a pretransplant dialysis duration >24 months (HR 2.19, 95% CI, 1.32 to 3.63; p=0.002), cardiovascular disease (HR 1.65, 95% CI, 1.02 to 2.68; p=0.04) and acute rejection (HR 5.52, 95% CI, 2.80 to 10.83; p<0.001). Conclusions The survival rates of KT recipients are prognosticated by pretransplant dialysis duration, cardiovascular disease, DGF, post-transplant infection and acute rejection. Stricter eligibility criteria for recipients, more sensitive cross-match testing methods and better infection management strategies may be beneficial for improving the survival rates.


Abstract The resumption of academic life at the Law Faculty of Goettingen University 1945–1949. Full professors at German law faculties after World War II have been the subject of extensive research. But little is known about other academic staff, the students or the way the rules of their examinations were made. In this article, Goettingen's Law school serves as an example of how things and people changed or continued after supposed "Stunde Null".


This chapter discusses reference modelling languages for business systems analysis and design. In particular, it reports on reference models in the context of the design-for/by-reuse paradigm, explains how traditional modelling techniques fail to provide adequate conceptual expressiveness to allow for easy model reuse by configuration or adaptation and elaborates on the need for reference modelling languages to be configurable. We discuss requirements for and the development of reference modelling languages that reflect the need for configurability. Exemplarily, we report on the development, definition and configuration of configurable event-driven process chains. We further outline how configurable reference modelling languages and the corresponding design principles can be used in future scenarios such as process mining and data modelling.


Cullum, V. A., Farmer, J. B., Jack, D., and Levy, G. P. (1969). Salbutamol: a new selective ,3-adrenoceptive receptor stimulant. British Journal of Pharmacology, 35, 141. Kamburoff, P. L., and Prime, F. J. (1970). Oral and inhaled salbutamol as a bronchodilator. British Journal of Diseases of the Chest, 64, 46. Riding, W. D., Dinda, P., and Chatterjee, S. S. (1970). The bronchodilator and cardiac affects of five pressure-packed aerosols in asthma. British Journal of Diseases of the Chest, 64, 37. Warrell, D. A., Robertson, D. G., Newton Howes, J., Conolly, M. E., Paterson, J. W., Beilin, L. J., and Dollery, C. T. (1970). Comparison of cardiorespiratory effects of isoprenaline and salbutamol in patients with bronchial asthma. British Medical Journal, 1, 65.


A stellar occultation occurs when a Solar System object passes in front of a star for an observer. This technique allows the sizes and shapes of the occulting body to be determined with kilometer precision. In addition, this technique constrains the occulting body's positions, albedos, densities, and so on. In the context of the Galilean moons, these events can provide their best ground-based astrometry, with uncertainties in the order of 1 mas (∼3 km at Jupiter's distance during opposition). We organized campaigns and successfully observed a stellar occultation by Io (JI) in 2021, one by Ganymede (JIII) in 2020, and one by Europa (JII) in 2019, with stations in North and South America. We also re-analyzed two previously published events: one by Europa in 2016 and another by Ganymede in 2017. We then fit the known 3D shape of the occulting satellite and determine its center of figure. This resulted in astrometric positions with uncertainties in the milliarcsecond level. The positions obtained from these stellar occultations can be used together with dynamical models to ensure highly accurate orbits of the Galilean moons. These orbits can help when planning future space probes aiming at the Jovian system, such as JUICE by ESA and Europa Clipper by NASA. They also allow more efficient planning of flyby maneuvers.


In the past years, neuroinflammation has been widely investigated in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Evidence from animal, in vivo and post-mortem studies has shown that inflammatory changes are a common feature of the disease, apparently happening in response to amyloid-beta and tau accumulation. Progress in imaging and fluid biomarkers now allows for identifying surrogate markers of neuroinflammation in living individuals, which may offer unprecedented opportunities to better understand AD pathogenesis and progression. In this context, inflammatory mediators and glial proteins (mainly derived from microglial cells and astrocytes) seem to be the most promising biomarkers. Here, we discuss the biological basis of neuroinflammation in AD, revise the proposed neuroinflammation biomarkers, describe what we have learned from anti-inflammatory drug trials, and critically discuss the potential addition of these biomarkers in the AT(N) framework.


Irrespective of the fact that two negations in the same clause usually cancel each other out and result in an affirmative sentence, the phenomenon of double negation in English is still a disputable problem. These aspects all lead to linguistic complexity of double negation in SLA followed by a description of its relevant characteristics and contradictory aspects in English and Ukrainian. This study aims to establish a cognitive model of double negation as understatement via a mitigation operation as regards its specific contextual effects and to explore the impact of the language of instruction on the linguistic complexity of double negation to the learner of English. Within the theory of negation this research applies the hypothesis to the assumption that English is the main language of instruction for a Ukrainian learner, and how L2 learners' comprehension and production of double negation occur. The hypothesis is empirically tested against the English sentences with their Ukrainian equivalents and the tasks in the questionnaire written by learners of English. The results of my research suggest that when learners interpret L2 sentences with more than one negative element we identify both similar and different double negatives in a students' first and second language that influence enhanced awareness of double negation and which is important for successful L2 comprehension and use. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sal.33.0.20886


We present a digital dilution chip, capable of exponential sample dilution and reaction of them with another sample, using the selective control of inter-well valves. The present chip discretely merges and splits a fixed fluidic volume in the well array by controlling inter-well valves around a well. Thus, it is easy to achieve a fixed volume of the diluted samples and make reaction of them with another sample. The present chip dilutes sample within 16% and react samples within 17.7%.


Objective: This study aims to assess the quality of life (QoL) in patients with endometriosis. Methods: We conducted a literature review searching for articles published in the last 10 years in the PubMed database, using the descriptors 'quality of life' and 'endometriosis' and the following filters: in human female, articles with abstract available, English/Portuguese language, and containing the terms in the title/abstract. The search retrieved 147 articles, of which 12 remained for reading, according to the inclusion criteria. Results: All the articles pointed out that women with endometriosis showed a reduction in QoL, and five studies have linked socioeconomic status, severity of pain and healthy habits as factors that influence QoL. However, neither of the studies suggests strategies for the improvement of QoL. This review shows the benefits of the physiotherapeutic and psychological approach, and physical activity practice in raising QoL as a way to minimize the symptoms of endometriosis, especially pain and psychological symptoms. The assessment of QoL in endometriosis could be used as a prognostic indicator of clinical improvement. Conclusion: Women with endometriosis exhibit a significant reduction in their QoL, influenced by physical and psychological aspects, among others.


This article describes some of the considerations on the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) of the OECD, have been reviewed by the Research Group HUM-311, University of Malaga in the Project R & D-SEJ 2007-66967, led by Professor D. Angel I. Perez Gomez. In developing this review, addressed the issue of basic skills as a potential mechanism for the development of useful life skills of individuals in the knowledge society, second-order powers specifically listed in the generic construct Learn how to Learn. Addressing these analysis, questioning the most problematic aspects.


Objective: Equol (Eq) , a metabolite produced from soy isoflavone daidzein by intestinal bacteria, exhibits estrogen activity and may exert effects on glucose metabolism. Eq levels vary extensively depending on the capability for Eq production and amounts of daidzein consumed. We examined the relationship between Eq levels and type 2 diabetes mellitus.
 Research Design and Methods: Among 1,395 outpatients with diabetes at our hospital, 147 subjects (age: 70-89 years) were recruited (DM group) . Also, 147 age-/sex-matched non-DM subjects were recruited from 1,113 individuals who underwent routine health examinations (non-DM group) . As the estrogenic effect of Eq becomes apparent after menopause, the subjects were age restricted. Eq producers (EqPr) were determined based on the logarithm of the ratio of urinary Eq to the concentration of daidzein with a cut-off value of −1.75.
 Results: Urinary daidzein (p=0.03) and Eq concentrations (p=0.01) were significantly lower in the DM group versus the non-DM group. The proportion of EqPr differed significantly between the groups (38.8% and 53.1%, respectively; p=0.01) . However, analyses with sex-based stratification showed such difference only in women; the proportion of EqPr was 31.4% and 52.8%, respectively (p<0.01) . Reversely, there were significantly fewer DM subjects among EqPr versus non-EqPr (p=0.01) . Among women, EqPr had significantly less DM than non-EqPr (p<0.01) . However, such differences were not observed in men. Correlation analyses showed a significant positive correlation between urinary Eq and daidzein concentrations only in EqPr (r=0.55, p<0.01) .
 Conclusion: In postmenopausal women, EqPr were less diabetic; this status appears to be protective against DM. Eq levels increased in parallel with the amount of daidzein consumed in EqPr, but not in non-EqPr. Therefore, Eq supplements and/or enteric bacteria transplantation, rather than dietary intervention, may be effective in preventing DM in non-EqPr.

 K.Hamaura: None. H.Murakami: None. A.Tamura: None. Y.Nishiya: None. S.Mizushiri: None. M.Daimon: None.


1983 women seeking contraception were surveyed about age marital situation menstrual irregularities sexual problems parity occupation and social status and were examined for pathological gynecological findings. These results were then correlated to determine relationships between them. 17% of the women had menstrual problems 16% sexual problems and 10% pathological gynecological findings. As age increased menstrual problems decreased in frequency and sexual problems increased. Housewives and married women in general had fewer menstrual problems and more sexual problems than working women. Menstrual problems decreased as parity increased while sexual problems and pathological gynecological findings increased as parity increased. Social status showed no relation to any of the other variables. When parity is given none of the other parameters add significance to the findings.


With the limitations imposed by the COVID‐19 pandemic, new technologies were used as methods to continue teaching and learning activities. This scenario brought forth the need to develop online tools for teaching. Therefore, this research aimed to develop a digital platform linking the knowledge about the central nervous system (CNS) anatomy from feline, equine, and sheep models. The platform was produced from the analysis of a collection of mesoscopic slides made from the sequenced cross‐section of the CNS of a feline, an equine, and a sheep. All sections were analysed and stained using the Paul‐Wiegert modified technique. The platform was organized in four modules: (1) Neuroanatomy of the Central Nervous System; (2) Neuroanatomy of Feline; (3) Neuroanatomy of Equine; and (4) Neuroanatomy of sheep. For each module, an explanatory document in PDF was developed, as well as video lectures and a descriptive atlas identifying the structures present in the encephalon and in the cervical part of the spinal cord. Even though there are numerous online platforms that allow the study of veterinary anatomy of different species and organs, the veterinary neuroanatomy platform presented here is the first platform that conjointly addresses the CNS anatomy of felines, equines, and sheep. Future research applying this platform as an aid to the study of neuroanatomy by students, teachers, and veterinary professionals should validate its use as a complementary tool for teaching and learning animal neuroanatomy.


Business legality is a standard that must be fulfilled by business actors. Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (UMKM) entrepreneurs are required to fulfill these requirements in order to compete in the free market era. The demand is a problem because not a few business actors do not have business legality. Various obstacles were obtained such as the absence of funds to manage legality, the difficulty of correspondence, lack of knowledge and so on. In this paper, we will present the results of community service that have been carried out, namely the importance of business legality for UMKM. The purpose of this service is to foster sensitivity (awareness) and build a framework of thinking on the importance of business legality for UMKM in order to compete in the free market.


The hexapeptide glutathione disulfide (GSSG) has six ionizable groups with six associated dissociation constants. The experimentally measured pH-titration curve, however, does not exhibit the six corresponding equivalence points and bears little resemblance to standard textbook examples of acid-base pH-titration curves. The curve highlights the difficulties in determining multiple pKa values of polyprotic acids - typically proteins and peptides - from experiment. The six pKa values of GSSG can, however, be estimated using Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics (CPMD) simulations in conjunction with metadynamics sampling of the underlying free energy landscape of the dissociation reactions. Ab initio MD simulations were performed on a GSSG molecule solvated by 200 water molecules. Using the estimated pKa values the theoretical titration curve was calculated and found to be in good agreement with experiment. The results clearly highlight how dissociation constants estimated from ab initio MD simulations can facilitate the interpretation of the pH-titration curves of complex chemical and biological systems.


This note details the murid specimens collected in 1997, 1998 and 1999 as the result of surveys of 3 sites in Xe Piane and of 11 sites in Khammouan Limestone NBCA, Lao PDR. Cranial and mandibular remains were obtained from raptor pellets collected from caves, hunters and carnivore droppings. Remains of 287 individuals of 13 species of Muridae were identified; three species from Xe Piane NBCA and 13 species from Khammouan Limestone NBCA. Two species Mus shortridgei and Rattus argentiventer had not previously been recorded from Lao PDR. Remains attributable to two additional genera were also found.


The paper provides a review of current research on microwave reflector antennas with particular regard to those antennas which produce pencil-beam radiation patterns. After a preliminary examination of microwave antennas of different types attention is focused on circularly symmetric antennas with axially symmetric feed systems. This class of antenna accounts for the largest number of applications which include microwave point-to-point communication, satellite communication, and radio astronomy. The choice of optimum feed is considered in more detail and it is demonstrated that metallic feeds with corrugated walls represent the best choice in most cases. Brief reference is also made to dielectric cone feeds which may find a place in future systems. The design of dual-reflector systems is considered in depth and different computer optimisation techniques are reviewed. These include the latest methods of diffraction optimization in which more than one of the antenna specifications is involved. An example is given where efficiency and VSWR are simultaneously optimized.


In women with node-negative breast cancer, replacing fluorouracil with docetaxel in the adjuvant chemotherapy protocol did not improve efficacy but in one trial led to a 5-fold increase in serious adverse effects.


To increase the scalability of cloud computing, utilizing resources of individual users has been widely adopted especially in video streaming services. Accurately predicting behavior of user nodes is critical to achieve a high efficiency in such a peer-assisted system. Though there have been many measurement studies on peer-to-peer systems, most of them have focused on the design and characterization of the systems. Thus the behavior patterns of individual nodes have seldom been studied. In this paper, we present new techniques for classifying behavior of nodes in terms of availability and compare them with naive manual classification. We apply a k-means clustering algorithm with various classification criteria on real trace data of a peer-to-peer system. Our analysis shows that there are three dominant time zones with respect to the availability peak time. Our study will give a useful hint to a system designer in handling churns more efficiently based on the peer classification.


This multimethod study investigated the effect of involuntary retirement on retirement income. Using the General Social Survey 1994, a secondary data analysis was carried out which examined the economic effects of retiring because of poor health. When the men and women who retired for reasons of poor health were compared to those who retired for other reasons, there was little doubt that the health retirees were disadvantaged on human capital variables, in terms of their work history, and ultimately, in their retirement income, whether personal or household. The men who retired because of ill health did not appear to benefit from government transfer payments and were less likely to receive income from a private pension or from interest and dividends. The women retirees suffered from the same disadvantages as the men, however, when they reached retirement they were more likely to rely on government transfer payments as a major source of income. Like the men, they were more likely to believe that their retirement income had gotten worse since the day they retired, and, over two-thirds believed that their financial situation had become much worse. In the multivariate analyses, however, any effect that poor health might have had on household income was offset by the benefits associated with marriage, and their own sociodemographic characteristics. This is further confirmed when personal income is considered, since marriage has the strong and negative influence on personal income. The interviews with the retirees indicated that retiring for reasons of poor health was seen by most people as a somewhat unpleasant transition that had long lasting and negative effects on retirement income.


Main Office / Bureau principal 211 Broadway, P.0. Box 440 Orangevi l le, Ontario, Canada, L9W 1K4 Tel: (519) 942-0001 Fax: (519) 942-0300 Ottawa Office / Bureau d'Ottawa 70 Gloucester Street Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K2P 0A2 Tel: (613) 235-4774 Fax: (613) 235-9838 By Appointment / Par rendez-vous Toronto (416) 675-3766 London (519) 937-2333 Vancouver (877) 942-0001 FEDERAL COURT OF APPEAL WEIGHS IN ON DEFINITION OF ADVANCING RELIGION


Background: A cross-sectional study to investigate the morphological and functional changes of the visual pathway taking place in patients with migraine. Methods: Fifteen patients (14 female, 1 male) diagnosed with migraine with aura and 23 patients (21 female, 2 male) diagnosed with migraine without aura were compared with 20 healthy volunteers (18 female, 2 male). All the participants underwent optical coherence tomography scan, electroretinogram (ERG), visual evoked potentials, and multifocal electroretinogram (mf-ERG) recording. Results: Assessing ERG recordings, no significant differences in mean N1-P1 amplitudes were measured among the groups. The mean visual evoked potentials N80-P100 amplitudes were not significantly different among the three groups (one way analysis of variance: P = 0.075, F = 2.718). No significant difference was found in P100 latency times among groups. The mean retinal response density of mf-ERG in ring 1 was higher in healthy individuals compared with migraineurs, with statistical significance (Kruskal–Wallis analysis of variance and Dunn multiple comparisons test; P < 0.001, mean rank difference = −24.857 and P < 0.001, mean rank difference = −20.9, for migraine with aura-control and migraine without aura-control comparisons, respectively). In migraine with aura subjects, retinal nerve fiber layer thickness in superior and inferior quadrants was significantly decreased compared with healthy individuals, whereas in migraine without aura group, only the superior quadrant was significantly thinner compared with the control group. Conclusions: Retinal response density in mfERG of all migraineurs was significantly lessened compared with healthy individuals. There was no significant difference in visual evoked potentials N80-P100 amplitudes or P100 latencies among the groups. Moreover, retinal nerve fiber layer thinning observed in patients with migraine compared with control subjects, appeared statistically significant in some quadrants. The authors may be able to defend the retinal blood flow decrease theory in migraine. The results also indicate that several levels of the visual pathway seem to be affected in migraineurs.


Background. The following text is a reflection on martial arts masters holding the title Professor and written from the point of view of the Humanistic Theory of Martial Arts and the Anthropology of Martial Arts. Objectives and Aims. This paper is concerned with the area of "martial arts science" or the "science of martial arts" and of being an expert in this field, particularly when the expert is styled "Professor". The following questions were considered and analysed: How should the experts be evaluated and chosen, and how should the highest titles be awarded? According to what criteria? Who are the specialists, the holders of the title Professor currently operating in the field of science and martial arts? Method. Content analysis and an analysis of discourse were used. The sources of knowledge included: subject literature, popular publications and observation of participants in scientific and martial arts circles by the authors of this paper. To be considered a martial arts expert, the following evaluation criteria were adopted: 1) speciality/specialisation and achievements (both scientific and in popularising martial arts); 2) academic degrees and titles; 3) martial arts degrees and titles; 4) scientific position (organising regular events, having a role in international organizations, editing specialist magazines); and 5) awards and decorations. The analysis was restricted to people currently active in both environments. Results. The paper analyses the cases of contemporary, active experts who have been honoured with the title of Professor, as outstanding practitioner-masters of martial arts. In this group there are only a few people who hold both the position, and academic title Professor. Most academic martial arts researchers work in the field of sport science. Conclusions. Only two Europeans meet the criteria of holding both the highest degrees of a master while at the same time being Professors of sports science. Seven Europeans have been awarded the title Professor of martial arts and they are all working to develop the institutional side of the science and history of martial arts. © Idōkan Poland Association "IDO MOVEMENT FOR CULTURE. Journal of Martial Arts Anthropology", Vol. 16, no. 3 (2016), pp. 15–26 DOI: 10.14589/ido.16.3.2


Acquisitions by Japanese corporations are on the rise, a dramatic departure from their traditional aversion to such activity. Loaded with cash, they are formidable players in the new global contest for corporate control. Are the Japanese about to engage in a wave of aggressive corporate takeovers, or are they more likely to act merely as "white samurai" in battles initiated by others? Will their growing familiarity with the mergers-and-acquisitions business lead to more takeovers inside Japan itself and give Western companies a realistic shot at acquiring a Japanese corporation? By exploring the economic logic underlying business relationships, Japanese Takeovers provides a fresh interpretation of Japanese behavior in the global market. Carl Kester argues there has not been an active market for corporate control in Japan because Japanese companies prefer to build and manage long-term relationships with other firms rather than own those firms' corporate assets. This is true even overseas. Japanese cross-border takeovers have been triggered more by the need to defend valuable business relationships than by their tremendous bidding power. Current trends will further integrate Japan into the global market for corporate control and increase Japanese use of Anglo-American takeover tactics. But successful M&A deal-making with Japanese use of Anglo-American takeover tactics. But successful M&A deal-making with Japanese corporations will hinge more on extensive knowledge of the history and current status of relationships among various stakeholders than on financial acumen. It is imperative that foreigners wishing to be significant players in the Japanese market understand the economic purposebehind the subtle but powerful ties among Japanese corporate stakeholders.


We introduce and discuss an Erd\H{o}s-Ko-Rado basis for the underlying vector space of a Leonard system $\Phi = (A; A^*; \{E_i\}_{i=0}^d ; \{E_i^* \}_{i=0}^d)$ that satisfies a mild condition on the eigenvalues of $A$ and $A^*$. We describe the transition matrices to/from other known bases, as well as the matrices representing $A$ and $A^*$ with respect to the new basis. We also discuss how these results can be viewed as a generalization of the linear programming method used previously in the proofs of the "Erd\H{o}s-Ko-Rado theorems" for several classical families of $Q$-polynomial distance-regular graphs, including the original 1961 theorem of Erd\H{o}s, Ko, and Rado.


Stormwater runoff from highway land use is a common non-point source of pollutants. A large quantity of highway stormwater runoff characteristics were collected in California during the past three years. Correlations among various water quality parameters and constituents were performed using data sets collected over the 2000-2001, 2001-2002, and 2002-2003 wet seasons for 18, 21 and 23 storm events at three highway sites in west Los Angeles, California. In addition, statistical and graphical correlation analysis of the mass first flush ratio (MFF) with storm characteristics was made to determine if the first flush is related to site or storm characteristics. The results and analyses performed indicate that (1) TSS correlates well with most particulate-bound metals. However, TSS was poorly correlated with most other pollutants. (2) Strong correlations were also observed among dissolved and total metals; DOC, COD, TKN and oil and grease; conductivity and Cl. (3) Total metals, COD and DOC were generally well correlated with mass first flush, suggesting that BMPs that treat the early portion of runoff have an opportunity to remove high concentrations of these pollutants.


Endocrine ophthalmopathy (EOP) is an organo-specific autoimmune dysfunction, which can lead to severe functional and psychosocial complications. EOP is the most common and important extrathyroidal pathology in diffuse toxic goiter (DTG, Graves' disease, Basedow's disease). However, patients can have hypo-or euthyroid state. Women are affected 2.7-5.25 times oftener than men. The average age of EOP patients ranges from 35 to 58.8, although the illness can occur at any age. Numerous synonyms of EOP reflect the diversity of its clinical implications and the lack of clarity of the pathogenesis, clinical picture and treatment approaches. This article presents modern views on the terminology, main etiopathogenetic factors and clinical forms of endocrine ophthalmopathy. Risk factors for EOP development include: severe hyperthyroidism, large size of thyroid gland (> 50 ml), anatomically narrow orbit, high titer of antibodies against the receptor of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), numerous courses of treatment with radioactive iodine. Viral or bacterial infection (retroviruses, Yersenia enterocolitica), stresses, growing chemical and radioactive environmental contamination, etc. may be starting factors in genetically predisposed individuals.


This study reviews key issues in liberalising network infrastructure services ? including telecommunications, postal/courier, energy, water and sewage ? in the national and multilateral contexts. The economic and social significance of these services means that they are high on the list of development priorities in many countries. Enhanced trade and investment in network infrastructure services can help achieve these development goals. Liberalisation, however, is no easy task and requires sound regulation and effective institutions to address market failures and ensure public policy objectives. If appropriately designed, bound liberalisation under the GATS can contribute to the advancement of national objectives by improving investor?s confidence when countries decide to allow private sector participation in these services. The WTO services agreement can affect the regulatory conduct of governments in some areas of network infrastructure services, particularly when specific commitments are made. This is intensified by the fact that the GATS is a relatively young agreement and some of its provisions remain to be tested in practice. It is thus crucial to carefully examine its provisions and tailor-specific commitments to national policy objectives.


The Eurasian spiny waterflea (Bythotrephes longimanus) is a predacious zooplankter that has increased its range in Europe and is rapidly invading inland water‐bodies throughout North America's Great Lakes region. To examine the genetics of these invasions, we isolated five microsatellite DNA loci with between 5 and 19 alleles per locus. We sampled three populations where B. longimanus has been historically present (Switzerland, Italy, and Finland) as well as an introduced European population (the Netherlands) and three North American populations (Lakes Erie, Superior, Shebandowan). Consistent with a bottleneck during colonization (i.e. founder effect), average heterozygosities of the four European populations ranged from 0.310 to 0.599, and were higher than that of three North American populations (0.151–0.220). Pairwise FST estimates among North American populations (0.002–0.063) were not significantly different from zero and were much lower than among European populations (0.208–0.474). This is consistent with a scenario of high gene flow among North American populations relative to that of European ones. Contrary to an invasion bottleneck, however, Erie and Superior populations contained similar numbers of rare alleles as European populations. Assignment tests identified several migrant genotypes in all introduced populations (the Netherlands, Erie, Superior, Shebandowan), but rarely in native ones (Switzerland, Italy and Finland). A large number of genotypes from North America were assigned to our Italian population suggesting a second, previously unidentified, invasion source somewhere in the region of northern Italy. Together, our results support an invasion bottleneck for North American populations that has been largely offset by gene flow from multiple native sources, as well as gene flow among introduced populations.


Software plays an increasingly critical role in science, including data analysis, simulations, and managing workflows. Unlike other technologies supporting science, software can be copied and distributed at essentially no cost, potentially opening the door to unprecedented levels of sharing and collaborative innovation. Yet we do not have a clear picture of how software development for science fits into the day-today practice of science, or how well the methods and incentives of its production facilitate realization of this potential. We report the results of a multiple-case study of software development in three fields: high energy physics, structural biology, and microbiology. In each case, we identify a typical publication, and use qualitative methods to explore the production of the software used in the science represented by the publication. We identify several different kinds of production systems, characterized primarily by differences in incentive structures. We identify ways in which incentives are matched and mismatched with the needs of the science fields, especially with respect to collaboration. ACM Classification


Abstract. The combined effects of drought, warming and the changes in land cover have caused severe land degradation for several decades in the extremely arid desert oases of southern Xinjiang, northwest China. Land cover classifications of Landsat images in 1990, 2000 and 2008 were performed based on the multistage supervised classification scheme using the maximum likelihood classifier integrated with conventional vegetation and soil indexes, which improved overall accuracies by 4–5% compared to the standard classification method. Based on the detection of changes in land cover during 1990–2008 using remote sensing (RS) and a geographic information system (GIS), it can be found that the oasis significantly (+35%) increased, while the area of ecotone decreased (−43%). The major trends of the land cover changes were the notable growth of the oasis and the reduction of the desert–oasis ecotone. These changes were mainly a result of the intensified human activities such as land and water exploitation as well as overgrazing. The results of this study indicate that the oasis environment will be deteriorated by increase in potential areas of land degradation if the trend of desert moving further inward and the shrinking of the ecotone continues over the next decades.


A plastic hinge model has been widely used in bridge aseismic design codes such as Japan, Caltrans, New Zealand and China (revised edition), to evaluate deformation capacity or the displacement ductility factor of RC bridge columns. With the development of bridge performance/displacement based aseismic design, several damage indices have been suggested, such as the ultimate curvature and curvature ductility factor of critical section, maximum strain of confined concrete and reinforced steels, low cycle fatigue damage indices of longitudinal reinforcement etc. To study the accuracy degree of damage indices calculated with plastic hinge models and the main influencing factor, a computer program was developed employing 5 plastic hinge models to compute aforesaid damage indices compared with the test data of RC bridge columns. The study results show that force-displacement curves and residual deformation calculated match the experiment with adequate accuracy, but the strain of longitudinal steel is overestimated and the strain of core concrete is underestimated. The computed ultimate curvature is lower than that of experiment results when shear span ratio is not less than 8. It is also recognized that under the same loading control displacement, loading path hardly affects the aforesaid damage indices.


Chain entanglements provide a simple and global measure of folding in a macromolecule. The complexity of these entanglements can be expressed by the pattern of projected bond-bond crossings, or "overcrossings", associated with the molecular backbone. In this work, we use this approach to characterize quantitatively the range of tertiary folds observed in proteins with a given chain length. To discriminate among folding features, we use two shape descriptors derived from the probability distribution of overcrossings: the mean overcrossing number, N, and the most probable overcrossing number, N*. The values of N and N* relate to the content of secondary structure in a protein as well as its global three-dimensional organization. We propose a measure of folding diversity based on the properties of these descriptors. In addition, we discuss the application of our method to study how tertiary folds evolve during protein dynamics.


Mode I interlaminar fracture was studied using double cantilever beam (DCB) specimens of unidirectional carbon fiber/epoxy composites. An improved analytical model was introduced to analyze the crack opening displacement (COD), compliance (C) and fracture toughness (GI) as a function of the modulus at the vicinity of a crack tip. The COD solution was derived and compared with the COD profiles measured by moire interferometry. The result showed that the COD solution can predict all the important qualitative features of the measured COD profiles ; also, the quantitative agreement was sufficiently good. It is found that the modulus plays an important role in increasing the values of COD, C and GI.


These reflections treat the notion of "Justice" as a topic to stress the relationship between "theology" and "critical theory" in Max Horkheimer's latest work. Eventhough he didn't develop an specific work in regard to this issue, he empasises on it in several times turning it into one of the central points when time comes to wonder about "critical theory". In regard to the author's thesis, the theological turn of Horkheimer's thinking will show the radicalization of his idea of "Justice" and, furthermore, it will help to draw some general insights for a radical


Yang Tingyun, one of the "three pillars of the early Catholic Church" in the late Ming period, has often been studied by scholars seeking to understand why he converted to Christianity and what Christian philosophy he embraced. This article shifts the focus to Yang's secular concerns after his conversion. The article delves into the issues of Yang's reassessment of Chinese history and political systems under the influences of Christianity and Western learning. It concludes that Yang's Christian-centered interpretation of Chinese history and his aspirations for European-style institutions led him to question the importance of monarchy in China, with the result that he shifted his interest to the state, declaring an urgent need for pragmatic learning to strengthen state power. Citing the Jesuit fathers' swift mastery of the Chinese classics and Western languages' unlimited applications, Yang further became critical of the Sinocentric worldview of Chinese tradition.


Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) are very powerful neural networks, widely used in many applications. On the other hand, such networks are computation and memory intensive, which makes their implementation difficult onto hardwareconstrained systems, that could use network-on-chip as interconnect infrastructure. A way to reduce the traffic generated among memory and the processing elements is to compress the information before their exchange inside the network. In particular, our work focuses on reducing the huge number of DNN parameters, i.e., weights. In this paper, we propose a flexible and low-complexity compression technique which preserves the DNN performance, allowing to reduce the memory footprint and the volume of data to be exchanged while necessitating few hardware resources. The technique is evaluated on several DNN models, achieving a compression rate close to 80% without significant loss in accuracy on AlexNet, ResNet, or LeNet-5.


A novel technique called chemical-assisted electron stressing followed by annealing (CAESA) is proposed to improve a thin gate oxide film's quality, After conventional oxide growth, the wafer was put into diluted HF solution (0.245%) and was current stressed in liquid with Si substrate biased negatively, It is believed the stressing current will find the local weak spots and damage them by the energy release of electrons, With additional high-temperature rapid thermal annealing (RTA), the damaged spots will be annealed out. It is found that the charge-to-breakdown Q/sub bd/ of oxide can be significantly improved by the CAESA process,.


During the past two or three years the building trade in Bradford has been very brisk, and consequently digging for foundations and drains has been extensively carried on, with the result that large quantities of glacial material have been exposed, some of it in quite unexpected positions.

The largest and most important of these masses is at the foot of the west side of the hill in Great Horton. It extends from Grange Road on the one side to Great Horton Station on the other, and from the Westbrook to the Escarpment of Horton beds.

On the Six-inch Geological Map this is marked as a sandstone outcrop, and in fact it had all the appearance of such, but when the builder proceeded to remove the soil and fill up the valley denuded by the brook, there was no stratified rock, but instead a great thickness of boulder clay. At the north end they removed 12 feet of this, and then dug 10 feet lower to form a drain, but did not get to the bottom. Further south the excavation was not so deep. On the opposite side of the brook there is not much clay, and this rapidly thins out, making it appear that a pre-Glacial valley has been filled up, and afterwards partly worn out again by the present brook.

The workmen, in removing the clay, threw the boulders into heaps and ridges, so that I had a large collection of material moderately conveniently arranged for examination.

The boulders ...


In order to help innovation researchers to study the complex and dynamic Innovation Eco-system to answer important questions such as "why some science and technology (S&T) innovations become highly popular, while many others do not?", we designed a knowledge-base, i.e., ontology, to capture innovations, key actors – individuals and organizations that play key roles in innovations' evolvement, and the dynamic interactions among innovations and the key actors. Our design structures the ontology into multiple layers with the innovations on the basic layer, key players on the extended layer, and supporting documents on the evidence layer. The temporal properties added into the ontology enable the representation and analysis of the innovation evolvement. We validated our design by examining how the knowledge-base could empower innovation research. The main contributions are the conceptual framework of the ontology that captures the Innovation Eco-system over time, and the methods used to build and validate the ontology.


In this paper, a new method for multiple fundamental frequency estimation for speech and music signals is proposed. Applications of audio and speech processing include many well-reviewed algorithms for estimating the fundamental frequency of monophonic speech and music signals. In the case of polyphonic signals, it is more difficult to successfully estimate each of the fundamental frequencies, as reflected by the dearth of existing methods addressing this problem. In this paper, a new method based on the combination of the maximum likelihood and maximum a posteriori probability criteria is derived for fundamental frequencies tracking where each one of the fundamental frequencies is modeled by a first-order Markov process. The dominant signal is modeled as a harmonic source with unknown deterministic amplitudes, while the remaining signals, including other harmonic signals, are modeled as Gaussian interference sources with an unknown covariance matrix. After estimation of the dominant source, it is removed from the signal by projection of the signal into the null subspace spanned by the estimated signal. This procedure is iterated for all the harmonic sources in the data. The algorithm is tested with speech, music, and synthetic signals where in each case, two harmonic sources of the same kind were mixed. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated and compared to an existing reference method in terms of gross-error-rate as a function of signal-to-interference ratio.


Opioid receptor agonists can differentially modify the behavioral effects of direct/indirect dopamine receptor agonists, such as methamphetamine, cocaine and apomorphine. However, the effects of opioid receptor agonists on high-dose methamphetamine-induced behavior have not yet been clarified. Therefore, the present study was undertaken to investigate the effects of mu (morphine)-, delta (SNC80)- and kappa (U50,488H)-opioid receptor agonists on methamphetamine-induced self-injurious behavior and locomotor activity in mice. Methamphetamine (20 mg/kg) induced severe self-injurious behavior. In a combination test, some opioid receptor agonists significantly attenuated methamphetamine-induced self-injurious behavior, with potencies in the order morphine>buprenorphine (mu-opioid and kappa-opioid receptor agonist/antagonist) >U50,488H, as maximum effects. These results suggest that the stimulation of mu- and kappa-opioid receptors plays an inhibitory role in high-dose methamphetamine-induced stereotypic self-injurious behavior in mice, without affecting locomotor activity.


Bluetongue (BT), a viral disease of ruminants, is endemic throughout South Africa, where outbreaks of different serotypes occur. The predominant serotypes can differ annually due to herd immunity provided by annual vaccinations using a live attenuated vaccine (LAV). This has led to both wild-type and vaccine strains co-circulating in the field, potentially leading to novel viral strains due to reassortment and recombination. Little is known about the molecular evolution of the virus in the field in South Africa. The purpose of this study was to investigate the genetic diversity of field strains of BTV in South Africa and to provide an initial assessment of the evolutionary processes shaping BTV genetic diversity in the field. Complete genomes of 35 field viruses belonging to 11 serotypes, collected from different regions of the country between 2011 and 2017, were sequenced. The sequences were phylogenetically analysed in relation to all the BTV sequences available from GenBank, including the LAVs and reference strains, resulting in the analyses and reassortment detection of 305 BTVs. Phylogenomic analysis indicated a geographical selection of the genome segments, irrespective of the serotype. Based on the initial assessment of the current genomic clades that circulate in South Africa, the selection for specific clades is prevalent in directing genome segment reassortment, which seems to exclude the vaccine strains and in multiple cases involves Segment-2 resulting in antigenic shift.


This study describes the linguistic development in American Sign Language (ASL) and spoken English by a hearing female child whose mother is profoundly deaf and father is hearing. The data were collected from the age of 7 months, 6 days, when the first sign emerged, to the age of 19 months, 8 days, when the child began systematically combining signifiers. The first phase in this longitudinal research focuses on early word meanings. The results confirm previous findings that (1) the child's first sign emerges several months before the first spoken word, (2) lexical acquisition in ASL and spoken English progresses through similar stages, and (3) the child initially develops one lexical system, with separate entries from both languages.


This paper considers a class of nonlinear descriptor systems described by a linear time-invariant descriptor system with feedback-connected sector-constrained nonlinearities. First, we discuss the positive realness problem of descriptor systems and present a new version of positive real lemma. Second, we define the notion of strongly absolute stability (SAB) which is equivalent to the linear part is regular and impulsive-free and the overall feedback system is exponential stable and a SAB criteria in frequency domain is derived. Then, we address the problem of designing a state feedback controller such that the closed-loop feedback-connected system is SAB. To achieve this, we give a linear matrix inequality (LMI)-based SAB criteria, and the above problem is converted into an LMI feasibility problem. Finally, some numerical examples are given to illustrate our approach


The use of large-scale IP address sharing technologies (commonly known
as "Carrier-Grade NAT" and "A+P") presents a challenge for law
enforcement agencies due to the fact that incoming source port
information is not routinely logged by Internet-facing servers. The
absence of this information means that it is becoming increasingly
difficult for law enforcement agencies to identify suspects in
criminal activity online. This document considers the reasons why
source port information is not routinely logged by Internet-facing
servers and makes recommendations to help improve the situation. A
deployment maturity model has been developed and a study of the
support for logging incoming source port information in common server
software is also presented.


Ba3VWO8.5 is an oxide ion conductor with a bulk conductivity of 5.0 × 10-5 S cm-1 at 600 °C. Ba3VWO8.5 is anomalous to the other Ba3M'M″O8.5 (M' = Nb; M″ = Mo, W) oxide ionic conductors, as it exhibits cation order with vanadium and tungsten on the M1 site only. Here, we report a variable temperature neutron diffraction study of Ba3VWO8.5, which demonstrates that cation order is retained up to 800 °C. We show for the first time that the structural rearrangements reported for hexagonal perovskite derivatives Ba3M'M″O8.5 are dictated by water absorption. The significant water uptake in Ba3M'M″O8.5 (M' = Nb; M″ = Mo, W) arises due to the flexibility of the crystal structure, whereby a fraction of the transition metal cations move from the M1 site to the octahedral M2 site upon absorption of water. The results presented here demonstrate that the presence of 50% V5+ on the M1 site, which has a strong preference for tetrahedral geometry, is enough to disrupt the flexibility of the cation sublattice, resulting in the ordering of the cations exclusively on the M1 site and no significant water absorption.


A three-wavelength coherent-modulation-imaging (CMI) technique is proposed to simultaneously measure the fundamental, second and third harmonics of a laser driver in one snapshot. Laser beams at three wavelengths (1053 nm, 526.5 nm and 351 nm) were simultaneously incident on a random phase plate to generate hybrid diffraction patterns, and a modified CMI algorithm was adopted to reconstruct the complex amplitude of each wavelength from one diffraction intensity frame. The validity of this proposed technique was verified using both numerical simulation and experimental analyses. Compared to commonly used measurement methods, this proposed method has several advantages, including a compact structure, convenient operation and high accuracy.


Muscovy ducks reared commercially are often bill trimmed to prevent feather pecking and cannibalism. Bill trimming has been criticized because of its potential to cause acute and chronic pain, but little is known about the beneficial effects of bill trimming on welfare of ducks. The aim of this study is to realize the effects of three different methods of bill trimming (cutting by scissor, hot blade and hot searing) on bill related behavior, body weight and welfare of Muscovy ducks. A total of 48 (sixteen days of age) Muscovy ducks were allotted equally to four equal groups. The first was a control (C) group without bill trimming, the second; scissor (S) bill trimmed by scissor, the third; hot blade (HB) bill trimmed by hot blade and hot searing (HS) bill trimmed by touch cautery blade for few second. Bill related behavior of ducks was recorded by video camera for six weeks post-trim using scan sampling. Ducks were weighed weekly. At the end of experiment (9 week old) blood samples were collected for Heterophil /lymphocyte ratio and level of corticosterone hormone. The different methods of bill trimming had non-significant effects on ingestive behavior, while trimming by scissor and hot blade significantly reduce aggressive pecking than control group. Body weight of hot blade trimming group was significantly lower than the other three groups. Bill trimming by scissor, hot blade, or hot searing didn't influence neither blood corticosterone level nor heterophil lymphocyte ratio.


Solution of the structures of ligand-receptor complexes via computational docking is an integral step in many structural modeling efforts as well as in rational drug discovery. A major challenge in ligand-receptor docking is the modeling of both receptor and ligand flexibilities in order to capture receptor conformational changes induced by ligand binding. In the molecular docking suite MedusaDock, both ligand and receptor side chain flexibilities are modeled simultaneously with sets of discrete rotamers, where the ligand rotamer library is generated "on the fly" in a stochastic manner. Here, we introduce backbone flexibility into MedusaDock by implementing ensemble docking in a sequential manner for a set of distinct receptor backbone conformations. We generate corresponding backbone ensembles to capture backbone changes upon binding to different ligands, as observed experimentally. We develop a simple clustering and ranking approach to select the top poses as blind predictions. We applied our method in the CSAR2011 benchmark exercise. In 28 out of 35 cases (80%) where the ligand-receptor complex structures were released, we were able to predict near-native poses (<2.5 Å RMSD), the highest success rate reported for CSAR2011. This result highlights the importance of modeling receptor backbone flexibility to the accurate docking of ligands to flexible targets. We expect a broad application of our fully flexible docking approach in biological studies as well as in rational drug design.


Abstract The maritime claims of Mexico and Brazil, Latin American emerging or middle powers, indicate that both countries are demonstrating an increasing assertiveness over their sovereign offshore natural resources and are exerting increasingly independent foreign policies. The development of their claims provides rich source material to compare and contrast the various geographical, historical, economic, and political factors which are responsible for their positions. Mexico's exclusive economic zone seems to be the product of a historical protectionist stance over petroleum and fishery resources of the coastal zone. Military factors and dreams of global greatness seem to be secondary or absent. On the other hand, Brazil's aggressiveness was manifested in the 1970s through a 200‐mile territorial sea claim stimulated by concern over national security as well as protection of natural resources. Regardless of the differences in the tones of their maritime claims, both countries have demonstrated independen...


We propose an experimentally feasible scheme for generating a two $2\times4\times4$ dimensional photons hyperentangled state, entangled in polarization, frequency and spatial mode. This scheme is mainly based on a parametric down-conversion source and cross-Kerr nonlinearities, which avoids the complicated uncertain post-selection. Our method can be easily expanded to the production of hyperentangled states with more photons in multi-dimension. Hence the expectation for vast quantities of information in quantum information processing will possibly come true. Finally, we put forward a realizable quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol based on the high dimensional hyperentangled state.


Adequately measuring the stringency of national environmental regulation is a crucial issue in the empirical literature on the link between environmental policy and economic performance such as productivity, export competitiveness and foreign investment flows. As Levinson (2008, p. 1) argues, ?The problem is not merely one of collecting the appropriate data; merely conceiving of data that would represent it is difficult?. The empirical literature on the link between environmental regulation and economic outcomes contains various proxies of stringency of environmental regulation. The divergent nature of these proxies is arguably a major factor for the mixed evidence witnessed in this literature (Millimet and Roy 2016 ; Mulatu 2017 , 2018 ). The construction or use of the various measures of stringency is seldom preceded by a discussion of what exactly stringency is. In this paper, we develop a simple analytical model ? based on the Environmental Kuznets Curve ? that captures the idea of relative stringency as a differential preference with respect to the environment. The model serves as a general framework to estimate a measure of national environmental standards for a selected group of countries.


hile being instrumental in the treatment of leukemic relapse after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, the impact of donor lymphocyte infusion (DLI) and its effectiveness remain debatable. Consequently it is widely accepted that more efforts are needed in order to make DLI more effective. This communication thus deals with the generation of specific CTLs in the clinical setting of HLA matched hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, to be used as an improved DLI treatment for post-transplantation relapsed leukemias. We assessed the potential of fused dendritic cells from donor origin, with leukemic cells from the HLA matched recipient for the generation of donor anti-tumor CTLs. Leukemic cells and donor dendritic cells were fused using polyethylene glycol (PEG). The hybrids were analyzed for double phenotype of both DC and tumor, and used for the education and generation of cytotoxic donor lymphocytes. Results demonstrate that efficient and specific CTLs can be generated and used in vitro for the elimination of the recipient tumor cells. These results form the basis for the establishment of a novel methodology aimed at generating active or passive anti-leukemic vaccine in relapsed patients.


Mature beef cows (n = 122) representing British and Continental phenotypes were slaughtered to measure the influence of body condition score (BCS) on by-product yield and value. All cows were weighed and assigned BCS, based on a 9-point scale, 24 h before slaughter. By-product weights were obtained during the slaughter process and included blood, feet (with hooves attached), oxlips, tongue, gullet, trachea, cheek meat, head meat, skull, tripe, honeycomb tripe, large and small intestines, spleen, mesenteric fat, weasand meat, kidneys, heart, lungs, and oxtail. By-product yields were calculated as a percentage of the animal's live weight taken 24 h before slaughter. By-product values were computed by multiplying the weight of each piece removed during the slaughter process by the 1997 average price. Live weight increased linearly (P<.001) as BCS increased from 2 to 8, whereas Continental cows were approximately 86 kg heavier (P<.05) at slaughter than British cows. Cows assigned a BCS of 2 or 3 had greater (P<.05) skull, feet, tongue, tripe, honeycomb tripe, trachea, and lung yields than cows assigned a BCS of 4 or higher. On the other hand, BCS-7 and 8 cows had greater (P<.05) weights and yields of large intestines and mesenteric fat than cows given a BCS of 6 or lower. The feet, trachea, lungs, and bone meal from BCS-2 cows had the greatest (P<.05) value, whereas the value of the large intestine, oxtail, and mesenteric fat was highest (P<.05) for BCS-7 and 8 cows. Weight, yield, and value of the skull, head meat, and feet were greater (P<.05) for Continental cows than British cows. Total by-product value was quadratically (P<.001) related to BCS. Cows assigned a BCS of 5 had lower (P<.05) total by-product values than either BCS-2 or BCS-7 and 8 cows. Drop credit for BCS-2 cows was greater (P<.05) than BCS-3, 4, 5, and 6 cows, with cows assigned a BCS of 7 and 8 having intermediate drop credit values. Continental cows tended to have greater (P<.10) total by-product and drop credit values than British cows. Information from this study indicated that the BCS of cows at the time of slaughter had a profound influence on by-product yields and, more importantly, values of by-products that are credited back against the cost of production to the beef cattle producer.


AIM
To investigate cardiovascular stress-reactivity in association with individual preconscious affective biases to threatening and appetitive facial stimuli.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Preconscious affective biases were assessed in healthy individuals (n = 38, mean age 28, 10 years, 1SD = 8.64) using a modified (masked) version of a pictorial emotional Stroop task (backward masking of the angry, fearful and joyful faces).

RESULTS
It was revealed that individual preconscious bias to speeded up perception of angry faces correlates significantly with heightened anxiety, lowered platelet serotonin (5-HT) levels, sustained central overactivation of at rest (as indexed by lowered delta, theta, and beta-1 EEG power over frontal, central and posterior cortical areas) and exaggerated arterial blood pressure stress-reactivity during re-experiencing of personally relevant anger.

CONCLUSIONS
considering uncovered associations, individuals with preconscious bias to speeded up perception of angry faces may be regarded as having enhanced risk to fall sick with essential hypertension, yet this perceptive bias could be seen as a putative neurobehavioral predictor of the risk.


A series of in vivo and in vitro experiments were conducted to determine the influence of prenatally administered ethanol on several aspects of the developing chick embryo spinal cord motor system. Specifically, we examined: (1) the effect of chronic ethanol administration during the natural cell death period on spinal cord motoneuron numbers; (2) the influence of ethanol on ongoing embryonic motility; (3) the effect of ethanol exposure on neurotrophic activity in motoneuron target tissue (limb bud); and (4) the responsiveness of cultured spinal cord neurons to ethanol, and the potential of target-derived neurotrophic factors to ameliorate ethanol neurotoxicity. These studies revealed the following: Chronic prenatal ethanol exposure reduces the number of motoneurons present in the lateral motor column after the cell death period [embryonic day 12 (E12)]. Ethanol tends to inhibit embryonic motility, particularly during the later stages viewed (E9-E11). Chronic ethanol exposure reduces the neurotrophic activity contained in target muscle tissue. Such diminished support could contribute to the observed motoneuron loss. Direct exposure of spinal cord neurons to ethanol decreases neuronal survival and process outgrowth in a dose-dependent manner, but the addition of target muscle extract to ethanol-containing cultures can ameliorate this ethanol neurotoxicity. These studies demonstrate ethanol toxicity in a population not previously viewed in this regard and suggest a mechanism that may be related to this cell loss (i.e., decreased neurotrophic support).


The basic purpose of this article is to prove the important Weierstrass' theorem which states that a real valued continuous function f a topological space T assumes a maximum and a minimum value on the compact subset S of T, i.e., there exist points x1, x2 of T being elements of S, such thatf (x1) and f (x2) are the supremum and the infimum, respectively, off (S), which is the image of Sunder the functionf . The paper is divided into three parts. In the first part, we prove some auxiliary theorems concerning properties of balls in metric spaces and define special families of subsets of topological spaces. These concepts are used in the next part of the paper which contains the essential part of the article, namely the formalization of the proof of Weierstrass' theorem. Here, we also prove a theorem concerning the compactness of images of compact sets of T under a continuous function. The final part of this work is developed for the purpose of defining some measures of the distance between compact subsets of topological metric spaces. Some simple theorems about these measures are also proved.


Milton H. Erickson, MD. was born in 1901 in a cabin in a desolate part of Nevada where his father was a gold miner. When he reached school age his family returned to rural Wisconsin, where they had previously lived. As a child Milton experienced the world differently from other children in that he had red-green colour blindness, was tone deaf and, probably, also dyslexic. At 17 he had a severe attack of poliomyelitis. He was extensively paralysed but rehabilitated himself, largely by his own efforts, during the following two years.


This paper presents a continuous paramagnetophoretic (PMP) microseparator for directly separating blood cells from whole blood by using a high gradient magnetic separation (HGMS) method. For high magnetic separation force, the present PMP separator is fabricated by microfabrication technology, and directly separates red and white blood cells from whole blood based on their magnetic properties. The theoretical model of the PMP microseparator is derived, and simulated values are compared with calculated values. A quantitative analysis using a hemocytometer shows that 92% of red blood cells are separated from whole blood by the present PMP microseparator.


Background Cystic echinococcosis (CE) is a neglected parasitic zoonosis with considerable socioeconomic impact on affected pastoral communities. CE is endemic throughout the Mediterranean, including Morocco, where the Mid Atlas is the most prevalent area for both human and animal infection. The highest hospital annual incidence of human CE is recorded in the provinces of Ifrane and El Hajeb. However, hospital-based statistics likely underestimate the real prevalence of infection, as a proportion of cases never reach medical attention or official records. Methodology/Principal findings In 2012, a project on clinical management of CE in Morocco was launched with the aims of estimating the prevalence of human abdominal CE in selected rural communes of the above mentioned provinces using ultrasound (US) screening and training local physicians to implement US-based focused assessment and rational clinical management of CE according to the WHO-IWGE Expert Consensus. A total of 5367 people received abdominal US during four campaigns in April-May 2014. During the campaigns, 24 local general practitioners received >24 hours of hands-on training and 143 health education sessions were organized for local communities. We found an overall CE prevalence of 1.9%, with significantly higher values in the rural communes of Ifrane than El Hajeb (2.6% vs 1.3%; p<0.001). CE cysts were predominantly in inactive stage, especially in older age groups. However, active cysts were present also in adults, indicating acquisition of infection at all ages. Province of residence was the only risk factor consistently associated with CE infection. Conclusions/Significance Our results show a high prevalence and on-going, likely environmental transmission of CE in the investigated provinces of Morocco, supporting the implementation of control activities in the area by national health authorities and encouraging the acceptance and divulgation of diagnosis and treatment algorithms based on imaging for CE at both national and local level.


IEEE 802.11b and Bluetooth (BT) have been comprehensively used as the core technologies of WLAN and WPAN respectively. However, since they both operate in the 2.4 GHz ISM frequency band, mutual interference between them can be significant. We evaluate the impact of BT interference on 802.11b systems in an office environment by a set of experiments. We include the experimental results that evaluate the narrowband interference problem in IEEE 802.11b networks; and we specify the attenuation requirement of interference suppression technologies utilised by the IEEE 802.11b system.


The pipe inspection operation is the difficult detective performance. Almost applications are mainly relies on a manual recognition of defective areas that have carried out detection by an engineer. Therefore, an automation process task becomes a necessary in order to avoid the cost incurred in such a manual process. An automated monitoring method to obtain a complete picture of the sewer condition is proposed in this work. The focus of the research is the automated identification and classification of discontinuities in the internal surface of the pipe. The methodology consists of several processing stages including image segmentation into the potential defect regions and geometrical characteristic features. Automatic recognition and classification of pipe defects are carried out by means of using an artificial neural network technique (ANN) based on Radial Basic Function (RBF). Experiments in a realistic environment have been conducted and results are presented. Keywords—Artificial neural network, Radial basic function, Curve fitting, CCTV, Image segmentation, Data acquisition.


1. A 1 in 200 sample of the Southampton electorate were sent a postal questionnaire in January 1993. Of the 756 adults surveyed, 400 (52.9%) returned completed questionnaires. One hundred and eighty-eight (47.0%) of the respondents had been prescribed a medicine within the previous month. 2. Compared with a survey 9 years earlier, medicine taking had increased amongst men (44.1% vs 33.7% NS) and drugs acting on the respiratory system were in more widespread use (19 vs 7 patients P < 0.05). 3. Patterns of storage of medicines were almost identical to those found in 1984. However, methods of disposal were significantly different with 34% of the respondents stating that they would return left-over medicines to the Doctor or Pharmacist compared with 17% in the previous study (P < 0.01). 4. Of those taking medicines 120 (63.8%) had received a manufacturers' information leaflet. Medicines used to treat disorders of the respiratory and cardiovascular systems were most likely to be accompanied by such a leaflet (74% and 70% respectively). 5. Those who received a leaflet were almost all satisfied by it. However, patient awareness of potential side effects remained poor with only 30% being aware of any which their medicine might cause. 6. Despite improvements in attitudes towards medicine taking over time patients awareness of potential adverse effects remains limited. Further research is necessary in order to determine how best to educate patients on this topic.