We study the complexity of computing the sign of the Tutte polynomial of a graph. As there are only three possible outcomes (positive, negative, and zero), this seems at first sight more like a decision problem than a counting problem. Surprisingly, however, there are large regions of the parameter space for which computing the sign of the Tutte polynomial is actually #P-hard. As a trivial consequence, approximating the polynomial is also #P-hard in this case. Thus, approximately evaluating the Tutte polynomial in these regions is as hard as exactly counting the satisfying assignments to a CNF Boolean formula. For most other points in the parameter space, we show that computing the sign of the polynomial is in FP, whereas approximating the polynomial can be done in polynomial time with an NP oracle. As a special case, we completely resolve the complexity of computing the sign of the chromatic polynomial -- this is easily computable at q=2 and when q≤32/27, and is NP-hard to compute for all other values of the parameter q.


Though deep neural networks have achieved impressive success on various vision tasks, obvious performance degradation still exists when models are tested in out-of-distribution scenarios. In addressing this limitation, we ponder that the feature statistics (mean and standard deviation), which carry the domain characteristics of the training data, can be properly manipulated to improve the generalization ability of deep learning models. Existing methods commonly consider feature statistics as deterministic values measured from the learned features and do not explicitly model the uncertain statistics discrepancy caused by potential domain shifts during testing. In this paper, we improve the network generalization ability by modeling domain shifts with uncertainty (DSU), i.e., characterizing the feature statistics as uncertain distributions during training. Specifically, we hypothesize that the feature statistic, after considering the potential uncertainties, follows a multivariate Gaussian distribution. During inference, we propose an instance-wise adaptation strategy that can adaptively deal with the unforeseeable shift and further enhance the generalization ability of the trained model with negligible additional cost. We also conduct theoretical analysis on the aspects of generalization error bound and the implicit regularization effect, showing the efficacy of our method. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our method consistently improves the network generalization ability on multiple vision tasks, including image classification, semantic segmentation, instance retrieval, and pose estimation. Our methods are simple yet effective and can be readily integrated into networks without additional trainable parameters or loss constraints. Code will be released in https://github.com/lixiaotong97/DSU.


A novel device structure with a vertical double-gate and dual-strained channel is presented. The electrical characteristics of this device with a gate length of 100 nm are simulated. With a Ge content of 20%, the drain currents of the strained-Si NMOSFET and the strained-SiGe PMOSFET compared to the universal SOI MOSFETs are enhanced by 26% and 33%, respectively; the risetime and the falltime of the strained-channel CMOS are greatly decreased by 50% and 25.47% compared to their traditional Si channel counterparts. The simulation results show that the vertical double-gate (DG) dual-strained-channel MOSFETs exhibit better drive capability, a higher transconductance, and a faster circuit speed for CMOS compared to conventional-Si MOSFETs. The new structure can be achieved by today's semiconductor manufacturing level.


Publisher Rights Statement: (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works. Final version published online at: http://dx.doi.10.1109/LMWC.2015.2427653


Injector dynamics of multi swirl injectors in an annular combustor have been investigated by LES(Large Eddy Simulation) turbulent model with MPI parallel computation technique. The present study employs the LM6000 lean premixed swirl-stabilized annular combustor. Real shape combustor is simulated in order to investigate the detail interaction mechanism among multi-injectors. The strong vortex breakdown occurs at the impinging surface between the adjacent injectors so that the complex and strong oscillatory pressure propagates inside of the combustor. Tangential pressure fluctuation mode was captured by including multi injectors in computational domain.


PurposeTruck appointment systems have been applied in critical container ports in the United States due to their potential to improve handling operations. This paper aims to develop a truck appointment system to optimise the total cost experiencing at the entrance of container terminals by managing truck arrivals and the number of service gates satisfying a given level of service.Design/methodology/approachThe approximation of Mt/G/nt queuing model is applied and integrated into a cost optimisation model to identify (1) the number of arrival trucks allowed at each time slot and (2) the number of service gates operating at each time slot that ensure the average waiting time is less than a designated time threshold. The optimisation model is solved by the Genetic Algorithm and tested with a case study. Its effectiveness is identified by comparing the model's outcomes with observed data and other recent studies.FindingsThe results indicate that the developed truck appointment system can provide more than threefold and twofold reductions of the total cost experiencing at the terminal entrance compared to the actual data and results from previous research, respectively.Originality/valueThe proposed approach provides applicably coordinated truck plans and operating service gates efficiently to decrease congestion, emission and expenses.


We consider the computation of quadrature rules that are exact for a Chebyshev set of linearly independent functions on an interval $[a,b]$. A general theory of Chebyshev sets guarantees the existence of rules with a Gaussian property, in the sense that $2l$ basis functions can be integrated exactly with just $l$ points and weights. Moreover, all weights are positive and the points lie inside the interval $[a,b]$. However, the points are not the roots of an orthogonal polynomial or any other known special function as in the case of regular Gaussian quadrature. The rules are characterized by a nonlinear system of equations, and earlier numerical methods have mostly focused on finding suitable starting values for a Newton iteration to solve this system. In this paper we describe an alternative scheme that is robust and generally applicable for so-called complete Chebyshev sets. These are ordered Chebyshev sets where the first $k$ elements also form a Chebyshev set for each $k$. The points of the quadrature rule are computed one by one, increasing exactness of the rule in each step. Each step reduces to finding the unique root of a univariate and monotonic function. As such, the scheme of this paper is guaranteed to succeed. The quadrature rules are of interest for integrals with non-smooth integrands that are not well approximated by polynomials.


The structure of the pain syndrome was studied in 110 patients on day 2 after surgery. A total of 76 parameters ware analyzed by 8 signs. Different combinations of the pain parameters, a negligible variability of the parameters of the pain intensity, depth of its site, and type, as well as the subjective sensations of the patients were distinguished, related to the patients' psychologic type. Opiate analgesia was associated with polymorphism of the pain syndrome. Transcutaneous electroanalgesia was sufficiently effective, promoting a narrowing of the range of pain parameters.


The effect of an anti-progesterone compound, RU-486, administration (20-150 mg) on ovulation in rabbits was investigated. All of the seven control oil-treated rabbits ovulated, whereas, ovulation was blocked in one (12.5%) of eight rabbits treated with 20 mg RU-486, and in 4-6 (66.7-85.7%) of the 6 or 7 rabbits treated with 40-150 mg RU-486. Two successive injections of 10 mg progesterone (P) 4 and 8 hr after RU-486 injection did however recover ovulation in 3 (75.0%) out of 4 rabbits. These results indicate that P secreted from mature follicles during the ovulatory LH surge also play a significant role in follicular rupture of the rabbit, a copulatory ovulator.


We have investigated the in situ isothermal nanocrystallization kinetics of binary Al92Sm8 glassy alloy using time-resolved x-ray diffraction. From diffraction spectra parameters we have calculated the mean grain size and crystalline phase volume fraction. The results show that the average grain size does not change by more than 15% of its initial value in the course of the nanocrystallization process. The first nanocrystals contributing to the crystalline phase signal are characterized by a mean crystal size of 11 nm which increases up to 13 nm at the end of the primary crystallization stage. These results are in agreement with a TEM analysis. Our observations indicate the very significant difference in growth rate of small and large clusters. Further, they show that the transformation kinetics is governed by the nucleation rate. We conclude that diffusion controlled growth plays a minor role in the overall transformation kinetics. Possible origins of the observed crystallization behaviour are given.


PURPOSE
To investigate the diagnostic accuracy (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve [AUROC]) of magnetic resonance (MR) elastography for the early detection of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) among patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
An institutional review board-approved and HIPAA-compliant retrospective study was conducted in 58 NAFLD patients. Informed consent was waived by the review board. Hepatic stiffness, relative fat fraction, inflammation grade, and fibrosis stage were assessed from MR elastography, in-phase and out-of-phase gradient-echo imaging, and liver biopsy histopathologic review, respectively. Pairwise t testing, receiver operating characteristic analysis, and partial correlation analysis were performed.

RESULTS
The mean hepatic stiffness for patients with simple steatosis (2.51 kPa) was less (P = .028) than that for patients with inflammation but no fibrosis (3.24 kPa). The mean hepatic stiffness for patients with inflammation but no fibrosis was less (P = .030) than that for patients with hepatic fibrosis (4.16 kPa). Liver stiffness had high accuracy (AUROC = 0.93) for discriminating patients with NASH from those with simple steatosis, with a sensitivity of 94% and a specificity 73% by using a threshold of 2.74 kPa.

CONCLUSION
In patients with NAFLD, hepatic stiffness measurements with MR elastography can help identify individuals with steatohepatitis, even before the onset of fibrosis; NAFLD patients with inflammation but no fibrosis have greater liver stiffness than those with simple steatosis and lower mean stiffness than those with fibrosis.


When evidence-based prevention programs are implemented in schools, adaptations are common. It is important to understand which adaptations can be made while maintaining positive outcomes for students. This preliminary study evaluated an abbreviated version of the Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS) Curriculum implemented by school-based mental health clinicians in preschool/kindergarten classrooms. Results suggest that students (N = 80) demonstrated increases in emotional understanding and prosocial behavior. Children with low initial levels of problem behavior demonstrated large and continual increases in prosocial behavior over the entire course of the intervention, whereas children with high initial levels of problem behavior only demonstrated small gains in prosocial behavior during the first half of the intervention. These preliminary results support the general effectiveness of the adapted intervention, but also suggest the need for additional intervention to produce meaningful and sustained behavioral gains for higher-need students.


The polyclad flatworm Stylostomum ellipse (Dalyell, 1853) has hitherto been recorded from the Antarctic region, Mediterranean Sea, Patagonian region, Scandinavia, South Africa, and South Georgia Island. In this study, we report S. ellipse for the first time from the Pacific Ocean based on specimens collected in Hokkaido, northern Japan. Our specimens are morphologically identifiable as S. ellipse, but may represent a biologically different species from a population of the Mediterranean Sea. This is because, based on the previous genetic data of other cotylean species, the observed uncorrected p-distance 0.02160 between the two distinct populations in terms of a partial 972 bp region of the 28S rDNA sequence may be great enough to separate the species biologically.


The radio spectrum is a scarce, valuable and thus expensive resource. Creating a "spectrum market" is a possible solution to distribute spectrum efficiently. In this paper we propose an auction method with a pricing scheme developed in a dynamic spectrum allocation (DSA) framework that handles interference issues in a flexible way. We take interference into account as a source of spectrum utilization degradation, captured by the so-called geographical coupling and technology coupling parameters. We propose a one-shot multi-bid pricing scheme that takes the special properties of DSA into account. For an efficient spectrum brokering, there should be a strong incentive for users to accommodate each other. The idea behind the proposed pricing method is to charge providers that do not tolerate others and cause large interference to other regions. A simulation example is also given to highlight the achievable gains using our proposed solution.


Poyang Lake is the largest fresh water lake in China. Monitoring water area changes of Poyang Lake is essential for flood mitigation and control in the middle and lower part of Yangtze River. It helps to better conserve wetland and ecological resources, and plays an important role for sustainable water use and management. Landsat and MODIS sensor images are widely used for mapping water body with their sensitivity for spectral reflectance of water bodies and relatively high spatial resolution and temporal resolution. Studies using Landsat images mainly investigate changes of Poyang Lake in dry season because of its 16 days revisit cycle and effect of cloud cover. It builds on the assumption that Poyang Lake undergone relatively small changes in dry season. However, this assumption may not be reliable. MODIS images with very short revisit period, on the other hand, has been proven not be able to assess water area of Poyang Lake accurately in dry season. The contribution of this study is to investigate recent Poyang Lake water area changes with unforeseen temporal resolution in high water period and spatial resolution in low water period using Sentinel-1 satellite, with the specific objective of investigating recent Poyang Lake water area changes in intra-month scales. After preprocessing, calibration, speckle filtering and terrain correction, water bodies were extracted using the histogram-based threshold method. Binarization results were imported into Google Earth for visualization. Shape and area information of Poyang Lake were extracted in ArcGIS. Results show that significant intra-month variability exists, even in dry season. During the observation period from October 2014 to March 2016, October 2014 was the month with the largest max/min water coverage ratio. Water coverage of winter in 2014 and 2015 was completely different, with severe drought happened in 2014 and unusual winter flood in 2015. Parts covered by water in the whole year were identified. Sequence exists for marshland to emerge during water retreat. This study demonstrated the value of Sentinel-1 SAR data to reveal intra-month variation with its regular observation independent of weather conditions. Sentinel-1 SAR data, with near real-time and free of charge distributing policy, relatively high spatial and temporal resolution, is bound to be an important data source for early warning, monitoring, assessment of drought disaster, and will plays an important role for mapping flood extent during the flood, enabling better disaster management. The approach used here can also be applied to other large lakes or wetlands research.


Alkyl levulinates have been identified as promising chemicals with various industrial applications. Here, a catalytic process for the synthesis in an n-butanol medium of n-butyl levulinate via the alcoholysis of biomass-derived furfuryl alcohol was performed using an extremely low concentration of sulfuric acid (≤ 0.01 M) as the catalyst. A study was conducted that was designed to optimize the process variables, which include acid concentration, reaction temperature, initial substrate concentration, and water content, as a function of time. The optimum conditions resulted in a furfuryl alcohol conversion of nearly 100% and a high n-butyl levulinate yield of up to 97%, which was confirmed by isolated yield. An advantage of this catalyst system is that negligible undesired oligomeric products were formed from the side reaction for the polymerization of furfuryl alcohol, the catalyst cost is low, and less solid waste was discharged from the neutralization of spent acid. Overall, this catalytic strategy is a facile, efficient, and economical approach to the conversion of biomass-derived furfuryl alcohol into alkyl levulinates.


We examine the effects of some oft-overlooked influences on clergy public speech, an important component of a church's public witness. While there are many studies of denominational conflict, few studies connect denominational-level conflict with the ways in which clergy address salient public issues to their congregations. We also explore the impact that the presence of a congregant who has struggled with his or her sexuality, that is, the contact hypothesis, has on clergy speech. We test these ideas using 2004 survey data from clergy in Columbus, Ohio concerning their speech on the state's constitutional ban on gay marriage. We find that these intra-organizational constraints shape opinions that in turn affect speech, tempering indirectly the ability of clergy to present concerns about the proposed ban.


Social psychology has established that oppositional we/they categorization is central to dis/identification with European integration (Hewstone, 1986 Chryssochoou, 2000; Mummendey and Walduz, 2004). As Europe faces fresh uncertainties, e.g. Brexit, this article reveals the multi-positional features of public opinion formation. Drawing on meta-representational approaches it reveals how we/they categorization moves from oppositional forms towards diplomatic non-oppositional forms when citizens speak about the general public in 'a public capacity' (Dewey, 1927). Two interview-led studies in England, Ireland, Germany, Scotland and Sweden (n = 100) brought participants into dialogue with the ideals of European integration. Analysis reveals six dialogical positions on the general public – avant-garde, advocating, homesteading, distancing, segmenting and progressive. These rest on social representations of the public as having freedom from movement, freedom of movement and freedom through movement. Understanding the public's multi-positional capacities and the interplay between self-world narratives and European integration narratives is one step towards de-polarization and public dialogue on Europe.


An analytic atomic independent-particle-model is used to generate wave functions for the valence and ex- cited states of the neutral silicon atom. These wave func- tions are used to calculate generalized oscillator strengths, and from these quantities the cross sections are obtained in the Born approximation. Various excitations from the ground state, 3p 2 ( 3 P0), are considered, and results are presented for electron impact energies up to 5 keV.


The canine oral papillomavirus (COPV) is associated with oropharyngeal papillomatosis in dogs, coyotes, and wolves. We have determined the complete nucleotide sequence of COPV, the largest of all known PV genomes (8607 bp). The genomic architecture of the COPV genome is similar to that of other PVs except for a unique and large noncoding region of 1.5 kb between the end of the early region (E2) and the beginning of the late region (L2) and a small (345 bp) upstream regulatory region between the end of L1 and the beginning of E6. Although COPV displays a primarily mucosal tropism, the COPV nucleotide sequence showed the highest overall similarity to cutaneous papillomaviruses such as HPV-1, HPV-63, CRPV (cottontail rabbit PV), FdPV (Felis domesticus PV), and MnPV (Mastomys natalensis PV).


Micrometer-to manometer-scale microstructures of porous Si are investigated by using highresolution scanning electron microscope (SEM), optical microscope, photoluminescence microscope and high-resolution transmission electron microscope (TEM) with aid of photoluminescence spectrometer. SEM and TEM observations revealed that the micrometer-scale structures of porous Si changed greatly by changing the anodization conditions. In contrast to those structures, the nanometer-scale structures of porous Si consisted of several nm to several tens nm single crystalline Si particles surrounded by glass structure SiOx(H). Visible photoluminescence of porous Si seems to come from these fine particles. Correlation between particle size and wavelength of photoluminescence was observed. It is difficult to explain, however, the variations in wavelength of photoluminescence by simple electron confinement model in the three dimensional quantum well structure of particles.


The depletion of energy resources from fossil fuels and global warming have pushed to consider the agro-energy as one of the renewable energy sources for mitigation of climate change. In this context, agro-energy based on cultivation of energy crops in marginal lands allows to reduce competition with food crops and marginal lands abandonment, producing incomes for farmers. The aim of this work is to improve the knowledge on a promising crop ( Arundo donax L.) for the production of bio-energy in marginal lands. Therefore, the behaviour of this crop was evaluated in three study areas of Campania region, under different energy inputs: two levels of nitrogen fertilisation, N100 and N50 in Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi (SA) and Bellizzi (BL). In Acerra (AC) site compost fertilisation was made to verify its effect on pollutant phytoextraction. In the last year, also crop growth analysis was done in the three sites. The results showed that giant reed confirms its adaptability to low fertility soils, allowing interesting biomass yield also in marginal lands. In more fertile environments, effect of fertilisation is not significant at least in the short term. Nevertheless, nitrogen uptake (65-130 kg N ha –1 ), also if lower than other highyielding crops, needs to be compensated with fertilisation to avoid depletion of soil nutrient reserves and to guarantee sustainability of this cropping system. Giant reed had a positive environmental impact, due to the improvement in soil fertility (soil organic matter and nitrogen increase) and to the mitigation of climate change (C storage in the soil). In marginal soils of Southern Italy this crop confirms an increasing trend of yield during the first 3-4 years. High productivity levels of this crop are related to the extremely high duration of the vegetative period and thus of the photosynthetic activity (from March to November in the Mediterranean area). These last are well expressed by the leaf area duration index, which is more than double than other high-yielding crops such as maize (280 vs 140 days).


Abstract Objective: To assess baseline health status of a medical school employee population and to assess this population's acceptance of vaccination and other interventions to reduce risk of disease transmission. Design: A retrospective review of an employee health records database for a 4-year period. Setting: A large, urban university hospital. Participants: 5,007 employees screened by employee health for immunity to vaccine-preventable illnesses and tuberculosis. Results: 9.4% of the employees had positive tuberculin skin tests, with a conversion rate of 6.4% for those who had negative tests within the previous 2 years. Two individuals were identified who had active pulmonary tuberculosis. Fewer than 10% of the individuals for whom isoniazid chemoprophylaxis was recommended completed the 6 months of therapy. Most clinical employees (96.1%) did not have a history of prior hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection or immunization, but 77% of them subsequently completed the vaccination series. Most employees with a negative history for infection with or immunization against rubella, rubeola, and varicella had serological evidence of immunity (90.2%, 97.9%, and 87.2%, respectively). Conclusions: Review of aggregate employee health databases may assist individuals who must establish strategies for prevention of occupational illness and disease transmission in this specialized setting. While many employees at risk for HBV complete the vaccination series, strategies for improving this rate could be helpful. Substantial work is needed to analyze reasons why so few individuals for whom isoniazid chemoprophylaxis is recommended complete the therapy, and strategies tailored to the impediments identified should be implemented.


This text discusses the care of children and adolescents victims of sexual abuse and the credibility of its narrative in justice institutions. Documentary analysis was carried out in seventy-nine cases sentenced in the Special Court for Children and Adolescents of the city of Belém in the year of 2017. The main findings of the survey indicate the existence of a controversy in relation to the credibility of the testimony of children victims of abuse, the positive and negative aspects of the practice of professionals responsible for mediating the collection of such statements and the precariousness of technical instruments and the human material placed at the disposal of justice, whose shortage directly impacts on the final result of the judgments, generating impunity and new victimization of children.


Abstract Background The Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) guidelines recommend targets based on multiples of the upper limit of normal (ULN) of parathyroid hormone (PTH) concentration. However, the ULN has not always been correctly established by manufacturers. While it is known that the ULN is supposed to be higher in African Americans than in Caucasians, it is largely unknown in Africans. Methods We established the ULN of PTH concentration in a population of 240 healthy Ivorians using second- and third-generation PTH assays before and after supplementation with 100 000 IU of cholecalferol. We measured the levels of PTH, bone alkaline phosphatase, 25-hydroxyvitamin D and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D in 100 haemodialysed Ivorian patients. Results The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in Ivory Coast is low. The ULN obtained using the third-generation PTH assay was similar to that obtained in Caucasians but was higher when PTH was measured using the second-generation PTH assay. According to the KDIGO guidelines, ∼20% of the haemodialysed patients were below twice the ULN and 30% were above nine times the ULN. Approximately 25% of the patients were even >12 times the ULN. We observed a discrepancy in the results between the two PTH assays (14%) that was relatively more important than what we observed from previous studies in Caucasians using the same strategy. Conclusions We found a low prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in a tropical country like Ivory Coast. We also established the PTH reference range, which could prove useful for the follow-up of haemodialysed patients, particularly for the large number of patients suffering from secondary hyperparathyroidism who are at high risk of adverse bone events.


These two companion volumes provide students aged 14-18 with a practical 'map' of the various literary forms of English. Each volume offers a diverse and imaginative anthology chosen from the whole field of English literature. They aim to encourage students to explore in practical ways the scope, development and uses of form in English. Each chapter offers a wide range of stimulating assignments both for use in the classroom and for personal study. Both volumes are illustrated throughout to provide a full context for the writing which is represented.


The local distance ladder estimate of the Hubble constant (H0) is important in cosmology, given the recent tension with the early universe inference. We estimate H0 from the Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) distance ladder, inferring SN Ia distances with the hierarchical Bayesian SED model, BayeSN. This method has a notable advantage of being able to continuously model the optical and near-infrared (NIR) SN Ia light curves simultaneously. We use two independent distance indicators, Cepheids or the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB), to calibrate a Hubble-flow sample of 67 SNe Ia with optical and NIR data. We estimate H0 = 74.82 ± 0.97 (stat) ± 0.84 (sys) km s−1 Mpc−1 when using the calibration with Cepheid distances to 37 host galaxies of 41 SNe Ia, and 70.92 ± 1.14 (stat) ± 1.49 (sys) km s−1 Mpc−1 when using the calibration with TRGB distances to 15 host galaxies of 18 SNe Ia. For both methods, we find a low intrinsic scatter σint ≲ 0.1 mag. We test various selection criteria and do not find significant shifts in the estimate of H0. Simultaneous modelling of the optical and NIR yields up to ∼15% reduction in H0 uncertainty compared to the equivalent optical-only cases. With improvements expected in other rungs of the distance ladder, leveraging joint optical-NIR SN Ia data can be critical to reducing the H0 error budget.


Background and Aim: Weight loss is an effective treatment for children with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), but it is extremely difficult to achieve outside of an intensive weight management program. We hypothesized that one can achieve success in improving NAFLD and weight-related outcomes in a structured and focused multidisciplinary clinical program feasible to implement in a gastroenterology clinic. Methods: We prospectively tracked the clinical status of our patients enrolled in a multidisciplinary program of dietary and exercise advice through an institutional review board–approved NAFLD registry. Each patient met with a gastroenterologist and dietitian every 3 months for 30 minutes to set individualized goals and monitor progress. Results: A total of 108 children have been enrolled in the registry, and of the 83 that were eligible for 1-year follow-up and included in the analysis, 39 patients returned, resulting in a 47% follow-up rate. These 39 patients showed statistically significant improvements in mean BMI z score (−0.1 U, P < 0.05), total (−11 mg/dL, P < 0.05) and low-density lipoprotein (9 mg/dL, P < 0.05) cholesterol, and serum alanine aminotransferase levels (−36 U/L) and aspartate aminotransferase levels (−22 U/L) levels. Conclusions: A clinically feasible multidisciplinary program for obese pediatric patients with NAFLD stabilized BMI z score and significantly improved aminotransferase levels at 1-year follow-up.


It is certain that the Law on execution of criminal sanctions contains a number of imperfections that need to be dealt with as soon as possible, because we are talking about the law on whose execution depends the realization of human rights of people deprived of their freedom, as a particularly vulnerable population. It is not possible, in the text of this type and purpose, to list all the disadvantages of regulation which has this kind of proportions. The choice of our review could have been different, therefore we could have been talking about deficiency of the law which should defend rights of special categories of people deprived of their freedom (women, people with disabilities), inadequate approach to certain rights, such as the right to health care, lack of legal regulations on special measures for maintaining order and security, and others. However, it is said more than sufficiently to conclude that, beyond every doubt, the law which is the subject of this review, is not good enough. It directly violates the presumption of innocence under Article 237, paragraph 3, according to which on arrival to the detention house, detainees who together participated in the crime, are being separately accommodated, instead of saying that there is a doubt that they committed the crime of which they are accused for, the rights of the convicted are imprecisely and insufficiently processed, and the rights of employees are violated in relation to the previous law, which regulated the execution of criminal sanctions. If we add to that, that the regulations on detention are illogically designed, and above all, unnecessary, and that the regulations of the judge for execution of criminal sanctions, as the only valid novelty in the penitentiary system, are still not comprehensive and fundamental, then it is certain that a new law should have to be adopted, since there are too many changes to be made in the old one. This text aims to contribute to the acceleration of this process.


Ab initio density-functional theory calculations of Sb-covered GaAs(110) surfaces are performed for different coverages, different 2D translational symmetries, and various structural models. The highest adsorption energy is found for monolayer coverage (θ = 1), 1 × 1 translational symmetry, and the epitaxial continued layer structure. The energy gains for similar structures in the submonolayer case with lower translational symmetry are slightly smaller. Our results indicate a tendency for the formation of anisotropic islands for θ < 1 growing together in an ordered overlayer for θ = 1.


Text summarization is a process of summarize any text or document. There are many summarization tools for English language. There are also a few works for automated Bengali text or document summarization. The tools are seemed not much appropriate from application point of view. Summarization is categorized in two ways: extractive and abstractive approach. Most of the summarizer methods for Bengali text summarization are extractive. Those proposed methods can't extract whole theme of a text document. Reader can be satisfied about summary if it gives full important information of input document. Our proposed method introduces an enhanced summarization method that can improved the quality of outputs. The proposed method is modeled combining a set mathematical rules and Bengali grammatical rules. This method also solves many problems of extractive summarizer and it also introduces the path of abstractive summarization methods. Although the method has been developed for Bengali language, it is a generic and platform independent approach and can flexible be extended for other languages.


Mathematical models of polyelectrolyte gels are often simplified by assuming the gel is electrically neutral. The rationale behind this assumption is that the thickness of the electric double layer (EDL) at the free surface of the gel is small compared to the size of the gel. Hence, the thin-EDL limit is taken, in which the thickness of the EDL is set to zero. Despite the widespread use of the thin-EDL limit, the solutions in the EDL are rarely computed and shown to match to the solutions for the electrically neutral bulk. The aims of this paper are to study the structure of the EDL and establish the validity of the thin-EDL limit. The model for the gel accounts for phase separation, which gives rise to diffuse interfaces with a thickness described by the Kuhn length. We show that the solutions in the EDL can only be asymptotically matched to the solutions for an electrically neutral bulk, in general, when the Debye length is much smaller than the Kuhn length. If the Debye length is similar to or larger than the Kuhn length, then phase separation can be initiated in the EDL. This phase separation spreads into the bulk of the gel and gives rise to electrically charged layers with different degrees of swelling. Thus, the thin-EDL limit and the assumption of electroneutrality only generally apply when the Debye length is much smaller than the Kuhn length.


Facade engineering is a rapidly growing and challenging field. The facade is a dynamic element of a building, and impacts on the environmental conditions in the inner zones, and on the occupants' comfort. The basic hypothesis is that the thermal environment in the facade perimeter zones is highly transient and vulnerable. The aim is to define the extent to which the facade perimeter zones are comfortable enough to be used as the occupants' main office workspace. The analysis is based on the spatial and temporal variations in the indoor environmental conditions of buildings with different facade types (fully glazed, ribbed window type, masonry with controlled glazing ratio) and systems (fully airconditioned, mixed mode, naturally ventilated). The study reports the results of extended monitoring of the indoor environment in the facade perimeter of three office buildings in central London. These findings combined with the study on occupants' comfort, give insight into the actual performance and comfort conditions of a non-uniform environment near the facade. It is evident that the variability peaks at the zones adjacent to the windows and diminishes with distance away from them, leading to practically steady-state conditions in the inner zone. During the cold seasons, a gradient in the temperatures is apparent in all buildings, with strong spatial correlations with distance from the facade. The curtain wall buildings expose an occupant who sits near the window to conditions of discomfort up to a distance of at least 0.6m to 1.5m. The masonry construction shows better performance with minimal temperature variability compared to the lightweight curtain wall buildings. The vertical stratification is marginal on average, but becomes significant near the HVAC outlets with subsequent local discomfort. A power law regression model is developed in order to predict the ΔΤ curve in relation to distance from the facade. High fluctuations and strong non-uniformity in temperature and relative humidity within an occupied area result in thermal discomfort conditions depending on climate and orientation. In modern open plan offices where local control is limited, the specific requirements of the facade zone could lead to an increase in overall energy use. A user's comfort near a window will always be compromised in favour of a nicer view; however this study of the actual spatial mapping of the indoor conditions gives insight into the design and spatial use of these zones.


Good maintenance documentation contributes to product-line image and customer satisfaction. By describing the "personality" of a system, the service introduction can inspire confidence and make many parts of the system virtually self-explanatory. Other sections should tell what is being accomplished (the objectives) rather than dwelling on mechanical manipulations. Systematic and complete troubleshooting techniques cut time and energy from servicing operations. Access to hidden parts must be adequately described. Schematics are the most frequently used part of a service manual — a list of features and aids that make schematics effective is included. Tips on fine tuning the first draft and achieving clarity are given.


In high-level synthesis, pipelined designs are often restricted by the number of memory banks available to the synthesis system. Using multiple memory banks can improve the performance of accelerated applications. Currently, programmers must manually assign data structures to specific memory banks on the accelerator. This paper presents Automatic Memory Partitioning, a method for automatically partitioning data structures into multiple memory banks for increased parallelism and performance. We use source code instrumentation to collect memory traces in order to detect linear memory access patterns. The memory traces are used to split data structures into disjoint memory regions and determine which segments may benefit from parallel memory access. Experiments show significant improvements in performance while using a minimal number of memory banks.


Extending the absorption to the visible region by tuning the optical band-gap of semiconductors and preventing charge carrier recombination are important parameters to achieve a higher efficiency in the field of photocatalysis. The inclusion of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) support in photocatalysts is one of the key strategies to address the above-mentioned issues. In this study, rGO supported AgI-mesoTiO2 photocatalysts were synthesized using a sonochemical approach. The physical effects of ultrasound not only improved the crystallinity of AgI-mesoTiO2 but also increased the surface area and loading of the AgI-mesoTiO2 nanocomposite on rGO sheets. The low intense oxygen functionalities (C-O-C and COOH groups) peak observed in the high resolution C1s spectrum of a hybrid AgI-mesoTiO2-rGO photocatalyst clearly confirmed the successful reduction of graphene oxide (GO) to rGO. The interfacial charge transfer between the rGO and the p-n junction of heterostructured photocatalysts has decreased the band-gap of the photocatalyst from 2.80 to 2.65 eV. Importantly, the integration of rGO into AgI-mesoTiO2 composites serves as a carrier separation centre and provides further insight into the electron transfer pathways of heterostructured nanocomposites. The individual effects of photo-generated electrons and holes over rGO on the photocatalytic degradation efficiency of rhodamine (RhB) and methyl orange (MO) using AgI-mesoTiO2-rGO photocatalysts were also studied. Our experimental results revealed that photo-generated superoxide (O2(-)˙) radicals are the main reactive species for the degradation of MO, whereas photo-generated holes (h(+)) are responsible for the degradation of RhB. As a result, 60% enhancement in MO degradation was observed in the presence of rGO in comparison to that of the pure AgI-mesoTiO2 photocatalyst. This is due to the good electron acceptor and the ultrafast electron transfer properties of rGO that can effectively reduce the molecular oxygen to produce a large amount of reactive O2(-)˙ radicals. However, in the case of RhB degradation, h(+) is the main reactive species which showed a slightly increased photocatalytic activity (12%) in the presence of rGO support where the role of rGO is almost negligible. This study suggests the effective roles of rGO for the degradation of organics, i.e., the rate of photocatalytic degradation also depends on the nature of compound rather than rGO support.


Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are autonomous or remotely guided aircraft, which can potentially carry out a wide range of tasks. Multirotor type of UAV has unique ability to perform vertical take-off and landing (VTOL), a stationary and low-speed flight where certain configurations can achieve very complex and precise movements. Therefore, they are suitable for performing tasks such as delivery of first aid kit, firefighting, infrastructure inspection, aerial video, and many others. In this chapter, a generalized control allocation scheme for a multirotor UAV is presented, which des- cribes the mapping of rotor angular velocities to the control vector of the aircraft. It enables control and design of multirotor configurations with diverse geometrical arrangement and characteristics of the propulsion subsystem depending on the task, which multirotor has to carry out. The inverted scheme, which is implemented as a motor mixer, maps the control inputs into a set of aircraft actuator outputs.


Nine new microsatellite markers (SSR) were isolated from Salvia officinalis L. A total of 125 alleles, with 8 to 21 alleles per locus, were detected in a natural population from the east Adriatic coast. The observed heterozygosity, expected heterozygosity, and polymorphic information content ranged from 0.46 to 0.83, 0.73 to 0.93 and 0.70 to 0.92, respectively. New microsatellite markers, as well as previously published markers, were tested for cross-amplification in Salvia brachyodon Vandas, a narrow endemic species known to be present in only two localities on the Balkan Peninsula. Out of 30 microsatellite markers tested on the natural S. brachyodon population, 15 were successfully amplified. To obtain evidence of recent bottleneck events in the populations of both species, observed genetic diversity (HE) was compared to the expected genetic diversity at mutation-drift equilibrium (HEQ) and calculated from the observed number of alleles using a two-phased mutation model (TPM). Recent bottleneck events were detected only in the S. brachyodon population. This result suggests the need to reconsider the current threat category of this endemic species.


Many active learning methods belong to the retraining-based approaches, which select one unlabeled instance, add it to the training set with its possible labels, retrain the classification model, and evaluate the criteria that we base our selection on. However, since the true label of the selected instance is unknown, these methods resort to calculating the average-case or worse-case performance with respect to the unknown label. In this paper, we propose a different method to solve this problem. In particular, our method aims to make use of the uncertainty information to enhance the performance of retraining-based models. We apply our method to two state-of-the-art algorithms and carry out extensive experiments on a wide variety of real-world datasets. The results clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method and indicate it can reduce human labeling efforts in many real-life applications.


Miedwie Lake is the biggest post-glacial lake of the West-Pomeranian Voievodship. At the same time it is the fifth of the largest lakes in Poland. As regards the geographical situation, Miedwie Lake is situated centrally between three big agglomerations i.e. Szczecin, Stargard Szczecinski and Pyrzyce. Miedwie Lake is used since 1976 as the potable water source for the City of Szczecin. The reservoir is used not only to the municipal purposes, but also for fishing, tourist and recreation purposes. Heavy metal pollution is an ever increasing problem of our lakes. These toxic heavy metals entering in aquatic environment are adsorbed onto particulate matter, although they can form free metal ions and soluble complexes that are available for uptake by biological organisms. The increase in residue levels of heavy metal content in water, sediments and biota has resulted in decreased productivity and increase in exposure of humans to harmful substances. Many of these metals tend to remain in the ecosystem and eventually move from one compartment to the other within the food chain. Food chain contamination by heavy metals has become a burning issue in recent years because of their potential accumulation in biosystems through contaminated water, soil, sediment and air. The present research work deals with the quantification of toxic heavy metals in the water samples collected from in the Miedwie Lake (North-West Poland).


(1) Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disease of autoimmune origin. The Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) is associated with the onset of MS, as almost all patients have high levels of EBV-specific antibodies as a result of a previous infection. We evaluated longitudinally the effects of dimethyl fumarate (DMF), a first-line treatment of MS, on the quantity and quality of EBV-specific IgG in MS patients. (2) Serum samples from 17 MS patients receiving DMF were taken before therapy (T0) and after 1 week (T1) and 1 (T2), 3 (T3) and 6 (T4) months of treatment. Anti-EBV nuclear antigen (EBNA)-1 and capsid antigen (CA) IgG levels and anti-CA IgG avidity were measured in all samples. (3) Serum levels of anti-CA IgG were lower at T1 (p = 0.0341), T2 (p = 0.0034), T3 (p < 0.0001) and T4 (p = 0.0023) than T0. These differences were partially confirmed also in anti-EBNA-1 IgG levels (T3 vs. T0, p = 0.0034). All patients had high-avidity anti-CA IgG at T0, and no changes were observed during therapy. (4): DMF can reduce the amount but not the avidity of the anti-EBV humoral immune response in MS patients from the very early stages of treatment.


One of the main control methods to manage phoma stem canker is the use of cultivars with specific or quantitative resistances. However, specific resistances lack durability. Other control methods can be used to manage the disease: chemical and cultural control methods (tillage to limit the quantity of primary inoculum on infected stubble, adaptation of the sowing date and rate, organic nitrogen supply to limit crop's receptivity to infections). The spatial and temporal combination of genetic, cultural and chemical control methods in a region makes it possible to better control the disease, to preserve the efficiency of specific resistant cultivars as well as economic profit for farmers, and to satisfy environmental and toxicological exigencies of integrated crop management. Given the considered scales and the number of technical operations that have to be taken into account, experiments are difficult, or simply impossible to set up to test control strategies. A model has been developed to test cropping systems that address these issues: SIPPOM-WOSR, a Simulator for Integrated Pathogen Population Management, for Winter OilSeed Rape. SIPPOM consists of 5 sub-models simulating i) primary inoculum production, ii) ascospore dispersal, iii) crop growth and attainable yield, iv) dynamics of pathogen population genetic structure, and v) infection and relative yield loss. Output variables are disease severity index and the associated yield loss, yield, gross margin, energetic cost of cultural practices and Treatments Frequency Index, as well as the genetic structure of pathogen populations, under the effect of four evolutionary forces (migration, selection, recombination, and Allee effect). An experiment has been set up to collect data on disease recurrence, and formalisms, as effect of quantitative resistance on disease severity or attainable yield calculation, have been completed with data from other experimentations. A sensitivity analysis has been carried out to study the sensitivity of sub-models to parameter variations. Examples of simulation illustrate how SIPPOM can be used to test integrated and durable disease control strategies.


A 4-year-review was carried out on intraoperative frozen section consultations in Sultanah Aminah Hospital, Johor Bahru. Two hundred and fifteen specimens were received from 79 patients in the period between January 1999 and December 2002. An average of 2.72 specimens per patient was received. The overall diagnostic accuracy was high, 97.56%. The diagnoses were deferred in 4.65% of the specimens. False positive diagnoses were made in 3 specimens (1.46%) and false negative diagnoses in 2 specimens (0.98%). This gave an error rate of 2.44%. The main cause of error was incorrect interpretation of the pathologic findings. In the present study, frozen sections showed good sensitivity (97.98%) and specificity (97.16%). Despite its limitations, frozen section is still generally considered to be an accurate mode of intraoperative consultation to assist the surgeon in deciding the best therapeutic approach for his patient at the operating table. The use of frozen section with proper indications was cost-effective as it helped lower the number of reoperations. An audit of intraoperative frozen section from time to time serves as part of an ongoing quality assurance program and should be recommended where the service is available.


Abstract. Gap-filling eddy covariance CO2 fluxes is challenging at dryland sites due to small CO2 fluxes. Here, four machine learning (ML) algorithms including artificial neural network (ANN), k-nearest neighbours (KNN), random forest (RF), and support vector machine (SVM) are employed and evaluated for gap-filling CO2 fluxes over a semi-arid sagebrush ecosystem with different lengths of artificial gaps. The ANN and RF algorithms outperform the KNN and SVM in filling gaps ranging from hours to days, with the RF being more time efficient than the ANN. Performances of the ANN and RF are largely degraded for extremely long gaps of two months. In addition, our results suggest that there is no need to fill the daytime and nighttime NEE gaps separately when using the ANN and RF. With the ANN and RF, the gap-filling induced uncertainties in the annual NEE at this site are estimated to be within 16 g C m−2, whereas the uncertainties by the KNN and SVM can be as large as 27 g C m−2. To better fill extremely long gaps of a few months, we test a two-layer gap-filling framework based on the RF. With this framework, the model performance is improved significantly, especially for the nighttime data. Therefore, this approach provides an alternative in filling extremely long gaps to characterize annual carbon budgets and interannual variability in dryland ecosystems.


We continue the study of power-Armendariz rings over IFP rings, introducing $ k$ -power Armendariz rings as a generalization of power-Armendariz rings. Han et al. showed that IFP rings are 1-power Armendariz. We prove that IFP rings are 2-power Armendariz. We moreover study a relationship between IFP rings and $ k$ -power Armendariz rings under a condition related to nilpotency of coefficients.


The critical link between cancer and inflammation has been known for many years. This complex network was further complexed by revealing the association of the matrix metalloproteinase family members with inflammatory cytokines, which were previously known to be responsible for the development of metastasis. This article summarizes the current studies which evaluate the relationship between cancer and inflammatory microenvironment as well as the roles of MMPs on invasion and metastasis together.


Initially labeled as internet addiction in the mid-1990s (e.g., Griffiths, 1996; Young, 1996), researchers have since focused on how specific online activities result in negative consequences for those who overuse and have problems with online applications such as online gambling and online sex (Griffiths, 2000; Potenza, 2017). More recently, this has been applied to online problematic video game play, often used synonymously with terms such as online video game addiction, online gaming addiction, and Internet gaming disorder (IGD). With the publication of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013), IGD was identified by the APA as warranting further study. The current proposed diagnostic criterion in the DSM-5 requires the presence of five of nine symptoms over a 12-month period. These include: (a) preoccupation or obsession with Internet games, (b) withdrawal symptoms when not playing Internet games, (c) an increasing need over time to spend more and more time playing video games, (d) failed attempts to stop or curb Internet gaming, (e) loss of interest in other activities such as hobbies, (f) continued overuse of Internet games even with knowledge of the impact of overuse on their life, (g) lying about extent of Internet game usage, (h) uses Internet games to relieve anxiety or guilt, and (i) has lost or put at risk an opportunity or relationship because of Internet games (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013). However, it is unclear if the disorder represents addiction to the internet or if IGD evaluates specific behaviors occurring within the context of the video gaming (Starcevic and Billieux, 2017; Young and Brand, 2017).


Depression is a common co-morbid condition in patients suffering from a variety of chronic medical conditions. In spite of this, mental health of patients with chronic kidney disease is understudied. Accurate estimation of the prevalence of depressive disorders in this population is difficult due to the different definitions and assessment techniques and the overlap of depressive symptomatology with symptoms of uremia. Several potential pathways link depression and chronic kidney disease. The association between the two conditions is probably bidirectional. Consequently, treatment of mood disorders could impact medical outcome. Very little has been published about the therapeutic options for depression in patients with chronic kidney disease. Available data, however, suggest that several antidepressant medications and psychotherapeutic methods are likely to be safe and effective also in this population. In this review, which is the second of a series of reviews on this topic, we provide an overview of the literature concerning the diagnosis, screening and therapy of depressive disorders in patients with chronic kidney disease.


Laser Doppler anemometry has been used to measure blood velocities by using a fine fiber optic probe both to deliver laser light into the blood and to receive reflected light from red blood cells at the tip of the probe. In vitro, with the probe aligned in the direction of flow, nonlinear calibration is possible to velocities of 15 cm/s in a 3 mm diameter vessel. When the probe is aligned against the flow, measurement of velocity is linear to at least 1 m/s. In vivo recordings of coronary and aortic blood velocity are produced by performing a fast Fourier transform (FET) in real time.


Franz Hals (1580-1666) of Antwerp and Haarlem painted a Dutch wetnurse and child which now hangs in the Berlin Gemalde Galerie. The nurse has a white cap trimmed with lace and the ruffed collar of the period. She holds a piece of fruit in her hand, evidently to divert the child, who pays no attention to it but is apparently watching the artist. The child's dress is a good example of the extreme styles used in babies' clothing, in this case a heavy brocade dress, a cap with fine lace trimmings, a superb heavily starched collar with a lace border and cuffs and stomacher of the same, the latter being held in place by a jeweled pin. Clothing of this sort was used in baptismal gowns and for a short period of show might be permitted, but one cannot imagine clothing less suited to early life than these garments, which


PURPOSE
Physics education for residents has taken on a more prominent role due to the new ABR examination format. We present a curriculum for a new radiology residency entering its second year. This curriculum favors an extensive traditional didactic teaching approach. The curriculum is designed to minimize the amount of independent learning that is necessary outside the classroom METHODS AND MATERIALS: idactic training repeats yearly for all four years of residency and consists of two 1-hour lectures per week and several in-class tests. The impact of physics on clinical practice is introduced gradually throughout the residency using specific clinical cases. The extensive time spent with the residents allows lectures to be taught at a deep (almost physicist) level and reduces the necessity of learning base concepts outside of lecture. This frees the resident to use resources (e.g., AAPM/RSNA physics modules) to cement concepts through repetition or to learn a slightly confusing concept from a different teaching perspective. Consistent testing reduces the traditional resident studying technique of physics "cramming."

RESULTS
On average, the first year residents scored in the 98th percentile on the American College of Radiology Diagnostic Radiology In-Service Training Exam (ACR DXIT). Feedback from the new first year residents was very positive and suggestions are constantly solicited and incorporated. For example, based on resident feedback, short-format quizzes each lecture were eliminated and replaced interactive questions during lecture. Residents felt they have advanced rapidly and have a better understanding of radiologic physics, though they have expressed concern that the 1-hour lecture block may not be optimal for learning physics.

CONCLUSION
An extensive, physicist-led series of didactic lectures is effective in the teaching of physics to residents.


Pseudoexfoliation syndrome (PEX) is a disease characterized by the accumulation of fibrillary material in the extracellular matrix in the eye and many tissues. Myocardial involvement occurs as in other storage diseases. Speckle tracking echocardiography is a quantitative echocardiography modality that enables the detection of subclinical changes that cannot be detected by standard echocardiographic evaluation. In this study, we aimed to evaluate potential subclinical myocardial dysfunction in PEX patients by speckle tracking echocardiography.


The  Ras  Koh arc is about 250 km long, 40 km wide and trends in ENE direction. The arc is convex towards southeast and terminated by the Chaman transform fault zone towards east. This arc is designated as frontal arc of the Chagai-Ras Koh arc system. The Late Cretaceous Kuchakki Volcanic Group is the most wide spread and previously considered the oldest unit of the the Ras Koh arc followed by sedimentary rock formations including Rakhshani Formation (Paleocene), Kharan Limestone (Early Eocene) and Nauroze Formation (Middle Eocene to Oligocene). Dalbandin formation (Miocene to Pleistocene), and semi-unconsolidated  Subrecent  and  Recent deposits. The Rakhshani Formation is the most wide spread and well-exposed unit of the Ras Koh arc. During the present  field  investigation  the  Rakhshani  formation  in  the  southeastern part  of  the  Ras  Koh  arc,  is  identified  as an accretionary complex, which is designated as Ras Koh accretionary complex. The Ras Koh accretionary comple is subdivided into  three  units: (a) Bunap  sedimentary  complex, (b)  Charkohan radiolarian chert, and (c) Ras Koh ophiolite melange. The Bunap sedimentary complex is farther divided into three tectonostratigraphic units viz., northern, middle and southern. Each unit is bounded by thrust faults, which is usually marked by sheared serpentinites, except northern unit, which has gradational and at places faulted contact with the Kuchakki Volcanic Group. The northern unit is mainly comprised of allochthonous fragments and blocks of limestone, sandstone, mudstone and the volcanics in dark gray, greenish gray and bluish gray siliceous flaky shale. At  places  the  shale  is  metamorphosed into phyllite. This unit is thrust over the middle unit, which exhibits relatively a coherent stratigraphy, represented by greenish gray calcareous flaky shale with intercalation of thin beds and lenticular bodies of mudstone, sandstone and limestone. The middle unit is again thrust over the southern unit, which is mainly  composed of large exotic blocks of volcanic rocks, limestone, sandstone, mudstone and conglomerate embedded in dark gray, greenish gray and bluish gray siliceous flaky shale which is generally moderately argillized. The unit is thrust over the Kharan Limestone. During the present field investigation about 350 meter thick sequence  of thin-bedded  maroon  and  green chert intercalated with the  siliceous  flaky  shale of the same colour is discovered within this unit, which is found in the southeastern part of the Ras Koh arc. This chert sequence occurs on the margins of a large exotic block (350m X 3 km) of volcaniclastic  rocks  of unknown origin, which makes an overturned syncline. This chert sequence is developed on its both limbs and has lower faulted contact with the Bunap sedimentary complex. Two samples collected from  this  chert  sequence  yielded  radiolarian  fauna, which  include  Parvicingula  sp,  Laxtorum  sp., Parahsuum  cf.  simplum, Parahsuum  sp., Nassellaria  gen. et  sp.  indet.,  Hsuum  cf.  Matsuokai.,  Archaeospongoprunum sp., Nassellaria gen. et sp. indet. and Hagias gen. et sp. indet.Tricolocapsa sp. Hsuum sp. Ristola sp.  Archaeospongoprunum sp. and Tritrabinate gen. et sp. indet.. This radiolarian chert sequence represents the late Early to Middle Jurassic pelagic sediment deposited in Ceno-Tethyan ocean floor; prior to the inception of volcanism in the Ras Koh arc and accreted with the arc during Late Cretaceous to Eocene along with the Bunap sedimentary complex of Late Jurassic age.


OBJECTIVE
The capability of emerging glucose sensor technology to continuously monitor glucose levels may provide ways to achieve glycemic targets while reducing hypoglycemia.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
A first-generation, long-term continuous glucose sensor (DexCom, San Diego, CA) was implanted subcutaneously in 15 patients with type 1 diabetes. Safety, efficacy, and potential benefits were evaluated during a blinded control period and in a study period during which patients had real-time access to the glucose data.

RESULTS
The bias differences between self-monitored blood glucose (SMBG) and sensor data were <15% at 2.8, 4.4, 5.6, 8.3, and 11.1 mmol/l. No procedure or device-related adverse events were observed. Of 15 patients, 13 (87%) had functional sensors during the 12-h simulated home use study with 96% of points in the A and B regions of the Clarke error grid, an R value of 0.88, and a mean absolute relative difference of 16% when retrospectively compared with SMBG. In actual home use, during the blinded control period (50 +/- 16 days) data were not displayed to the patient, whereas during the unblinded study period (44 +/- 17 days) the data were presented to the patient, and alerts were set at 3.1, 5.6, and 11.1 mmol/l. Patients spent a median of 47% less time below 3.1 mmol/l (P<0.05) and 25% less time above 13.3 mmol/l (P<0.05) during the nonblinded study period compared with the blinded control period.

CONCLUSIONS
The availability of real-time continuous glucose values may help patients reduce their hyperglycemic excursions and lower the risk of hypoglycemia.


Introduction : It is no doubt that the success of any health organization depends so closely on its managerial functions. To achieve this, the leader or manager as the core strategist of its organization must in all time be updated with the latest evidence-based information so that he or she can be easily operationalized his or her management function in more effective and sustainable manners. It depends largely on scientific literatures that published relevant articles within this scope. Unfortunately, management topics related to health care system is scattered published and this has indirectly affect manager to access the latest scientific documents.
Methods : We examined the practice of well known international journal in health care namely New England Medical Journal (NEMJ) on its role in propagating latest health management topics to its prospective clients.
Results : The result showed that a total of 31% health management topics were published throughout 2007 out of 1140 articles appeared. Of these, about 33% were confined to general health administration. The remaining articles were related to healthcare delivery practices (24%), medical ethics and legal matters (17% each), and manpower issues and training (9%).
Conclusion : Focus on managerial related articles relatively low as compared to clinical and other evidence-based medicine that clearly dominated health management issues.


Long sediment cores from the deep ocean can provide a continuous record of sedimentation from the present hack in time, in contrast to the fragmentary record available from the continents. Prom such cores, micropaleontological analysis has established "paleoclimatic" and ''paleotemperature" curves for the Pleistocene epoch, the most recent period of geological time. Elevated fossil coral reefs provide useful cross-correlations for the deep sea stratigraphy, because they may represent warm periods and corresponding high sea stands. Natural series disequilibrium dating is one of the few chronological methods available to define an absolute time scale for the marine record over the past 500,000 years. Most previous dating work has been performed on cores taken from the Caribbean Sea, because of the uniformity of sedimentation in that area. In this study, a time scale is estimated back to 400,000 years B.P. for a long globigerina ooze core from the equatorial Atlantic Ocean. Experimental data from the core indicate that the clay component of sedimentation has been uniform over this period in respect of the natural series parents U238 and Th232. While there is evidence that Ra migrates in the core, and that U234 possibly does, the Th 230/U234 activity ratio shows a regular logarithmic decrease with depth. Sedimentation rates of 2.20+/-0.16 cm./10e3 yr. and 2.32+/-0.17 cm./10e3 yr. are obtained from the (Th230 excess) and (Th230 excess/Th232) methods respectively over the depth interval 25-927 cm. These rates yield ages of 136,000 and 129,000 yr. B.P., and 423,000 and 401,000 yr. B.P. for the important W/X and U/V paleoclimatic boundaries. This is in good agreement with one of the two chronologies presently pronosed. (Pa231 excess) rates of sedimentation over the depth interval 5-185 cm, are consistently higher that (Th230 excess) rates over the same range. While the components of sedimentation fluctuate in this denth interval, calculation shows that (Pa231 excess) is consistently lacking in the core. Ages obtained by the Th230/U234 method for unrecrystallised fossil corals from the Upper Terrace of Aldabra Atoll lie in the range 127,000+/-9,000 yr, B.P., which is synchronous with the last high sea stand. Stratigraphic evidence suggests that the entire present atoll was formed at that time, implying that the fauna and flora have been established in less than 120,000 years.


This study aimed to assess insider trading on a trading buying and selling shares in the capital market. Besides, it also evaluated investors' legal protection against insider trading that occurred in the capital market under the provisions of capital markets act 8 of 1995. The primary consideration of the choice of these studies is that this study was to examine the theoretical legal protection of investors in the practice of insider trading in the stock market, with the interpretation of Juridical Capital Markets Act, No 8 of 1995. This research approach uses the statute and case approaches, which refer to legislation and approaches based on cases. Capital markets have a strategic role in national development as one source of financing for the business and investment vehicle for the community. Capital markets are alternative funding for both public and private. Once the magnitude of the role of capital markets in national economic development did not rule violations contrary to the principles of disclosure of information, other than that the weak supervision system by the manager or supervisor stock exchange, can lead to insider trading. Insider trading can occur when someone is doing a transaction with a buy or sell stock based on material information and has not been open to the public obtained from a company insider. Insider trading can result in losses for investors who do not receive the same information. Investors who did not receive such information do not have the same opportunity to make a profit because so requires legal protection. Legal protection can be either preventive or repressive.


Fibromuscular dysplasia is an increasingly recognized cause of vascular disease in young or middle-aged persons and may be amenable to medical or surgical management. We report five patients, one of whom died, with emphasis on the beaded and irregular pattern of change in the carotid arteries. Neck pain, bruit, and transient ischemic attacks are the most usual clinical symptoms. The cause of fibromuscular dysplasia remains obscure, but in view of the increased incidence in young women, hormonal factors may be involved. Dilation or resection can be considered, as in two patients reported here, and anticoagulation may benefit other patients.


The results of 100 cervical spinal injuries in 67 men and 33 women (20 upper and 80 lower cervical spinal injuries), which were treated operatively, were analyzed. Fifty-three of the patients were less than 30 years old. The period of observation was a minimum of one year. Ninety-three percent of patients were transported to a hospital where first treatment was given within six hours after the accident. Only 25% of these patients had a closed manual or open reduction within these first six hours. One third of all patients improved neurologically. The majority (75%) of the patients with neurologic improvement were reduced within six hours after the accident. Fifty patients were treated by an anterolateral, 40 by a posterior, and ten by a combined anterior/posterior surgical exposure. Complications attributable to technical difficulties were only occasional and were never of significance for the further outcome. The duration of immobilization was a maximum of six weeks or less in more than 85% of all cases. The duration of hospitalization could not be reduced in the group of tetraplegic patients. Immediate reduction of the injury is more important for the further neurologic outcome than improved surgical techniques.


Abstract The Neotropical caddisfly (Trichoptera) fauna is cataloged from a review of over 1,000 literature citations through 2015 (partial 2016) to include 3,262 currently recognized, valid species-group names in 25 families and 155 extant genera. Fourteen subspecies are included in the total as well as 35 fossil species and 1 fossil genus. The region covered includes all of Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. Genus-group and species-group synonyms are listed. For each nominal species, information on the type locality, type depository, sex of type, distribution by country, and other pertinent taxonomic or biological information is included. Summary information on taxonomy, phylogeny, distribution, immature stages, and biology are provided for each family and genus where known. An extensive index to all nominal taxa is included to facilitate use of the catalog. The glossosomatid species Mexitrichia usseglioi Rueda Martín & Gibon, is transferred to Mortoniella comb. n.


After more than three decades of war and conflict, Afghanistan is back on track towards becoming a functioning state again. Although security and stability have not taken root yet, the first results of peace are tangible. The quality of governance, the judicial system and the development of a durable economy demand much attention. Reconstruction is a process that requires stamina, certainly after all that has taken place in the country. Over the past ten years the Afghans have had to deal with two revolutions and an occupation. Apart from a state that has to be built up, a peace must be estab-
lished, and this requires economic progress and a perspective of prosperity. Afghanistan has potential, but it can only be mobilised with external support and the
cooperation of the region. Peace in Afghanistan is closely bound up with security in the region and the exploitation of the natural resources, in particular, the oil and gas reserves in the Caspian Sea basin and in Kazakhstan. In order to export these raw materials, stability in Afghanistan is essential. Relief of the humanitarian need and democratisation of the country are instrumental in this. Establishing and maintaining peace through the
operations Enduring Freedom (OEF) and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are the consequence. The two operations can be characterised as enforcing 'order' (by OEF), and creating the preconditions for the transition to a just society (by ISAF). This article discusses the role of the military instrument, the geo-political dimension of the conflict and the importance of stability for the intervening actors. The author sketches the context of military operations in Afghanistan. Afghanistan in essence is a pre-modern state, with a legacy of war and civil war. In the global security system its function is that of a buffer or insulator state in between regional and world powers. Too poor to develop itself, it needs foreign financial and security assistance, with the Afghan administration and foreign powers sharing the interest to develop the exploitation of natural resources and to make it into a north-south and eastwest energy bridge of pipelines systems. Military, but also diplomatic and intelligence, activities take place against this complex geo-political background.


The HERON project is an R&D effort to create a detector suitable for real-time, high rate measurement of neutrinos from both the p-p and 7Be reactions in the Sun using superfluid helium as the target medium. Progress on studies of particle detection processes in superfluid, on development of sensors, on backgrounds, and on event energy and position measurement which are related to this goal are discussed.


In the face of mass amounts of information and the need for transparent and fair decision processes, aggregation functions are essential for summarizing data and providing overall evaluations. Although families such as weighted means and medians have been well studied, there are still applications for which no existing aggregation functions can capture the decision makers' preferences. Furthermore, extensions of aggregation functions to lattices are often needed to model operations on L-fuzzy sets, interval-valued and intuitionistic fuzzy sets. In such cases, the aggregation properties need to be considered in light of the lattice structure, as otherwise counterintuitive or unreliable behavior may result. The Bonferroni mean has recently received attention in the fuzzy sets and decision making community as it is able to model useful notions such as mandatory requirements. Here, we consider its associated penalty function to extend the generalized Bonferroni mean to lattices. We show that different notions of dissimilarity on lattices can lead to alternative expressions.


The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust has supported a national campaign to raise awareness of the importance of good nutrition and hydration. Events across the Trust where held in March by Specialist Dietitians, Consultant Nurses and other staff and volunteers as part of a call to action to improve awareness and under


Patch classification models based on deep learning have been utilized in whole-slide images (WSI) of H&E-stained tissue samples to assist pathologists in grading follicular lymphoma patients. However, these approaches still require pathologists to manually identify centroblast cells and provide refined labels for optimal performance. To address this, we propose PseudoCell, an object detection framework to automate centroblast detection in WSI (source code is available at https://github.com/IoBT-VISTEC/PseudoCell.git). This framework incorporates centroblast labels from pathologists and combines them with pseudo-negative labels obtained from undersampled false-positive predictions using the cell's morphological features. By employing PseudoCell, pathologists' workload can be reduced as it accurately narrows down the areas requiring their attention during examining tissue. Depending on the confidence threshold, PseudoCell can eliminate 58.18-99.35% of non-centroblasts tissue areas on WSI. This study presents a practical centroblast prescreening method that does not require pathologists' refined labels for improvement. Detailed guidance on the practical implementation of PseudoCell is provided in the discussion section.


Long-term deprivation of visual input for several days or weeks leads to marked changes in the excitability and function of the occipital cortex. The time course of these changes is poorly understood. In this study, we addressed the question whether a short period of light deprivation (minutes to a few hours) can elicit such changes in humans. Noninvasive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of the human occipital cortex can evoke the perception of flashes or spots of light (phosphenes). To assess changes in visual cortex excitability following light deprivation, we measured the minimum intensity of stimulation required to elicit phosphenes (phosphene threshold) and the number of phosphenes elicited by different TMS stimulus intensities (stimulus-response curves). A reduced phosphene threshold was detected 45 min after the onset of light deprivation and persisted for the entire deprivation period (180 min). Following re-exposure to light, phosphene thresholds returned to predeprivation values over 120 min. Stimulus-response curves were significantly enhanced in association with this intervention. In a second experiment, we studied the effects of light deprivation on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signals elicited by photic stimulation. fMRI results showed increased visual cortex activation after 60 min of light deprivation that persisted following 30 min of re-exposure to light. Our results demonstrated a substantial increase in visual cortex excitability. These changes may underlie behavioral gains reported in humans and animals associated with light deprivation.


Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we investigated the impact of health on domestic migration within the USA. We find that, for men below 60 years of age, a move from the middle to the bottom of the health distribution reduces mobility by 32–40 per cent. Non-random attrition from the panel implies that these are lower bounds. By contrast, we find evidence that, among older men, there is higher mobility at the top and bottom of the health distribution than there is in the middle. For women, we find no evidence of a relationship between their own health and mobility, although spouse's health does affect the mobility of married women.


Population structure has been presumed to cause many of the unreplicated disease-marker associations reported in the literature, yet few actual case-control studies have been evaluated for the presence of structure. Here, we examine four moderate case-control samples, comprising 3,472 individuals, to determine if detectable population subdivision is present. The four population samples include: 500 U.S. whites and 236 African Americans with hypertension; and 500 U.S. whites and 500 Polish whites with type 2 diabetes, all with matched control subjects. Both diabetes populations were typed for the PPARg Pro12Ala polymorphism, to replicate this well-supported association (Altshuler et al. 2000). In each of the four samples, we tested for structure, using the sum of the case-control allele frequency chi(2) statistics for 9 STR and 35 SNP markers (Pritchard and Rosenberg 1999). We found weak evidence for population structure in the African American sample only, but further refinement of the sample, to include only individuals with U.S.-born parents and grandparents, eliminated the stratification. Our examples provide insight into the factors affecting the replication of association studies and suggest that carefully matched, moderate-sized case-control samples in cosmopolitan U.S. and European populations are unlikely to contain levels of structure that would result in significantly inflated numbers of false-positive associations. We explore the role that extreme differences in power among studies, due to sample size and risk-allele frequency differences, may play in the replication problem.


The dependence of the exciton annihilation rate on the dynamic interaction between excitons in molecular crystals is studied. The equation of motion for the two-particle density matrix of incoherent excitons is used to obtain an expression for the annihilation rate constant in one-, two-, and three-dimensional crystals. It is shown that the interaction between excitons may considerably affect the annihilation rate and its temperature dependence, and that the contribution of exciton-exciton interaction to the annihilation process depends on the dimensionality of the system in which the excitons move.

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With a view to developing low cost glass polymer multilayer composites (GPMLC) with high toughness, four layer laminar glass-epoxy-E glass fabric composites (GEF) were fabricated by a low pressure lamination technique. To promote weaker interfaces a thin sprayed layer of kerosene was introduced between the glass and the reinforcing layer in another group of composites (GEFK) fabricated in a similar manner. In both GEF and GEFK composites, a thin commercial cover slip gas disk (diameter 18 mm, thickness 0.3 mm) was used as the matrix layer. The load displacement plots of the GEF and GEFK composites exhibit a significant degree of non-linearity and stepped load-unload behaviour characteristic of fibre reinforced composites. The specific failure toad (»200 N/mm) and the total work of failure per unit volume (»300 kJ.m−3) of the GEFK composite were found out to be the highest, thus indicating the development of a very high toughness material. These values were much higher than those of the brittle glass matrix, e.g., 20 N/mm and 20 kJ.m−3. The GEF composites showed the second best characteristics.


The purpose of communication engineering education in independent colleges is to develop application oriented talents. In personnel training, we should consider the demand for training demand about the regional economy. It is necessary to make the majors improve and develop itself with regional economic developments. In this paper, we propose a series of effective strategies to solve our problems in personnel training in communications engineering education.


How should a robot that collaborates with multiple people decide upon the distribution of resources (e.g. social attention, or parts needed for an assembly)? People are uniquely attuned to how resources are distributed. A decision to distribute more resources to one team member than another might be perceived as unfair with potentially detrimental effects for trust. We introduce a multi-armed bandit algorithm with fairness constraints, where a robot distributes resources to human teammates of different skill levels. In this problem, the robot does not know the skill level of each human teammate, but learns it by observing their performance over time. We define fairness as a constraint on the minimum rate that each human teammate is selected throughout the task. We provide theoretical guarantees on performance and perform a large-scale user study, where we adjust the level of fairness in our algorithm. Results show that fairness in resource distribution has a significant effect on users' trust in the system. ACM Reference Format: Houston Claure, Yifang Chen, Jignesh Modi, Malte Jung, and Stefanos Nikolaidis. 2020. Multi-Armed Bandits with Fairness Constraints for Distributing Resources to Human Teammates. In Proceedings of the 2020ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI'20), March 23-26, 2020, Cambridge, United Kingdom. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 10 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3319502.3374806


[Extract] Executive summary. This study was conducted by Griffith Centre for Sustainable Enterprise at Griffith Business School to explore how coastal organisations used a business case approach to adapt to climate change. Specifically, the study sought to understand the elements and process of mounting a business case in local government and a range of private organisations that resided on the coastline of Australia. The study was commissioned by the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF) and the result and findings are expected to be used in the CoastAdapt tool used to inform the actions of public and private sector stakeholders. Ten in-depth case studies were used to explore the lessons learnt from the business case in each organisation, which included cases from local government (3), property sector (2), financial services (2) and tourism (3).Cases were identified through web-based searches, the Green Cross Australia's Business Adaptation Network and consultation with industry bodies (particularly in an effort to identify cases in the tourism sector). Cases were selected based on a set of criteria developed specifically for this study and finalised in consultation with NCCARF. The criteria for case selection were the product of a synthesis of international best practice of building the business case for adaptation and incorporating sustainability in the private sector. The literature review identified that whilst a business case for sustainability has become increasingly recognized and applied, the elements that comprise a business case for climate change adaptation is not systematically understood. This is despite a small but growing number of organisations currently mounting such a case. The research provided a grounded understanding of key elements of a business case for climate change adaptation in coastal areas and the lessons learnt from organisations on how to mount a successful business case for climate change adaptation were synthesised. The key elements and lessons learnt can be considered as critical success factors that can inform future practice of coastal climate change adaptation. The seven key elements include:1.Mounting a business case for climate change was primarily motivated by risks (and associated economic costs) that have been identified in the present governance systems of the organisation.2.Integration of the business case for climate change adaptation into overall business decision-frameworks was an important element in mounting a business case. For example, a strong business case for climate change adaptation was associated with the presence of sustainability systems and practices in an organisation.3.Developing shared value for adaptation with stakeholders and the wider community was an important element for both public and private enterprise. 4. Business cases involved the identification and consideration of adaptation pathways –where future options for action to respond the climate risks are identified and met through in manageable stages triggered by a change in environmental and social conditions (see Barnett el al.2014).5.Use of collaborative approaches, often with external experts and organisations to formulate tools that can assist with obtaining organisational buy-in for the business case. For example visual tools were developed to help communicate the impacts of climate change and make it more relevant and tangible for decision-makers.6.Planned monitoring of adaptation outcomes will be vital in successfully adapting to future conditions as adjustments may be need in the future (see no. 4 above).7.Planning for infrastructure for the short-and long-term helps ensure that adaptation can be supported and implemented now and in the future. In this sense, use of a number of scenarios (mostly current, 2030 and 2070 projections) was widespread among the cases that were examined. The lessons learnt by coastal organisations in the process of implementing a business case for climate change adaptation include: 1.The use of extreme events as a critical moment to propose the business case. 2.Leadership from within the organisation and external to the organisation is important to progress the business case through the organisation's decision making process.3.The use of visuals and local context was important to demonstrate the need for adaptation measures.4.It was important to ensure long term commitment for key positions responsible for climate change adaptation in order to seize opportunities and initiate a proposal. Long term commitment was also important to implement the business case because of the inherent long term nature of climate change 5.The staged implementation of projects aligned to the business case appeared to lead to greater success. 6. Providing only relevant climate impacts on the business is important and thus, any irrelevant information outside the organisations scope of operation should not be included.67.Identifying key climate and weather risks as opportunities for the organisation and demonstrating business relevance will increase the justification of the business case. 8. The linkage of climate change adaptation measures with climate change mitigation appeared to be important for justifying of the business case. 9. Engagement with other organisational commitments (e.g. voluntary environmental or carbon initiatives) and the stakeholders involved with these commitments is important. This report found important trends in the way business cases for adaptation are prepared in Australia. One of the key findings was that organisations developed their business casein isolation and have little or no knowledge as to how other organisations have approached this issue. Most of the cases were delivered by large-scale organisations that have the capacity (resources in particular) to develop a business case and to plan and implement longer term adaptation strategies. This study will be beneficial to organisations through learning from the experiences of other organisations. Recommendations from this study include more research focused specifically on the prerequisites and capacity of small and medium-sized businesses to mount a business case for climate change adaptation and the development of a knowledge-sharing platform for Australian businesses and government to coordinate efforts and provide support. Such a platform could be similar to the British UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) initiative, a multi-disciplinary organisation dedicated to building the capacity of public and private sector organisations for adaptation through knowledge sharing, consultancy and policy-support. Implementing an Australian-style UKCIP would provide materials and tools to help organisations to build the time and resource intensive business case. Thus, enabling organisations to respond and adapt.


Near‐infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is known to have potential for cost‐effective monitoring of bioprocesses. Although this has been demonstrated in many instances and several models have been reported, information regarding the complexity of models required and their utility over extended periods of time is lacking. In the present study, the complexity of the models required for the NIRS prediction of substrate (oil) and product (tylosin) concentration in an industrial bioprocess that employs a physicochemically heterogeneous medium for antibiotic production was assessed. Measurements made by both the diffuse reflectance and transmittance modes were investigated. SEP values for the prediction of the analytes averaged 5% or less, for the successful models, when evaluated using an external validation set, 2 years after the initial model development exercise. Diffuse reflectance measurements showed poorer results, compared to transmittance measurements, especially for monitoring tylosin. In general, this investigation provides evidence to support the fact that models built for the prediction of analytes in a commercial bioprocess that employs a physicochemically complex production medium can be robust in performance over an extended period of time and that simple models based on fewer terms or latent variables can perform well, even in the context of matrices that are relatively complex. It also indicates that sample presentation is likely to be a critical factor in the successful application of NIRS in bioprocess monitoring, which merits further detailed investigation.


This paper deals with design of a control strategy for a parallel powertrain configuration of a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). The control strategy is aimed at minimising fuel consumption and number of gear shift events for a wide range of driving cycles, while keeping the battery state-of-charge within allowable range. A control-oriented backward-looking model of PHEV powertrain is used as a design basis. The control strategy combines a rule-based controller with an equivalent consumption minimisation strategy (ECMS). The ECMS uses both transmission gear ratio and engine torque as control variables, thus eliminating a need for designing a separate gear shift scheduling strategy and exploiting a full potential of powertrain efficiency improvement. The overall control strategy is designed for different characteristic operating regimes including charge depleting, charge sustaining, and blended regimes. The strategy is verified by computer simulations against globally optimal benchmark obtained by using the dynamic programming-based optimisation, whose results are also used for fine tuning of controller parameters.


Summary We have deve'loped a two-probe method of analyzing the momentum and radial-betatron-amplitude distribu tions in a circulating particle beam. It has been used successfully in an electron-ring research program to help diagnose beam instabilities and injection techniques.


During the past 10 years, significant progress has been made in the methods of collection and analysis of seismic reflection and refraction data. This progress has led to the development of new models for the structure and composition of the earth's crust, based on sophisticated analysis of numerous profiles in many areas of geologic importance. The third triannual meeting of the IASPEI (International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth's Interior) Commission of Controlled Source Seismology was convened in Park City, Utah, on August 11–17, 1980, to bring together seismologists and geologists to explore and assess the progress of controlled source techniques (controlled sources include explosions, air guns, and Vibroseis-type sources), and to evaluate its significance in terms of current models of the seismic velocity structure and composition of the crust and upper mantle. Particular attention was paid to the progress and problems in the modeling of two- and three-dimensional structures.