Purpose of reviewScombroid poisoning is a frequent cause of admission in emergency department. In everyday clinical practice, it can be difficult to discriminate between scombroid syndrome and fish allergy. The aim of this review is to provide the clinician some instruments to make a correct differential diagnosis. Recent findingsIn the last few years, a better characterization of scombroid syndrome occurred, in particular regarding its possible severe presentations. Two cases of Kounis syndrome secondary to scombroid syndrome have been described and in these cases a differential diagnosis in patients with this clinical presentation can be even more difficult. Finally, in term of diagnosis, the useful role of serum tryptase was recently consolidated. SummaryScombroid syndrome is a histamine-induced reaction because of the ingestion of histamine-contaminated fish, whereas fish allergy is an IgE-mediated reaction. Clinical presentation can be similar and for this reason scombroid syndrome is often misdiagnosed. The differences lie in pathogenic mechanisms, possible outcome, therapy, and prevention measures. Moreover, some laboratory tests are helpful to discriminate between the two diseases.


Abstract Co-hosting mega-events is not a new concept. It has been viewed as a strategic endeavour among nations to not only ease the cost of hosting, but to work on multi-national collaborations that go beyond underlying political and economic agreements. United 2026 is a successful FIFA World Cup bid led by the United States to co-host the event with Canada and Mexico. This commentary offers a cultural and political geographical discussion of this bid and the future mega-event. Some of the governance challenges include critically discussing the uniting of these three nations (based on the role of NAFTA and neoliberalism), contested points of disuniting (through the rise of right-wing political movements) through to an intended reuniting (through a shared mega-event hosting). This political and cultural journey of working towards a United 2026 event began in the early-1990s with the NAFTA agreement initially negotiated by George H.W. Bush and signed by Bill Clinton (as the economic binding of the USA, Canada and Mexico) through to Donald Trump's threats of a US withdrawal and what would ultimately be renegotiated as the new USMCA Agreement. This context provides some geographical/geo-political underpinnings for understanding the potential and perceived governance of a United 2026, following the longitudinal political history of uniting, disuniting and reuniting. With the geopolitical climate in North America, a united effort is (somewhat) contradictory to the apartness that framed the recent relationship between the USA and Mexico in the past years. But alternatively, a co-hosting approach can be viewed as working towards a new North American togetherness, at least in the sense of an event spectacle and imaginary. From a political geography standpoint, power relations will likely exist in a matter similar to that of NAFTA, but as events are promotion oriented opposed to production focused, it is expected that a newfound cultural connection could emerge amid evolving political disruptions using sport as a cultural driver.


International real estate investment refers to any investment portfolios or strategies that include real estate from different countries. These portfolios can be mixed with other asset classes such as stocks and bonds, or invested only in real estate. Perhaps the most common reason for including international real estate assets in an investment portfolio is risk reduction through geographic diversification, although its viability and effectiveness are sometimes challenged. The chapter later provides a discussion of other arguments for and against diversification using real estate.Another important issue is how to invest in foreign real estate markets. In general, real estate can be divided into direct real estate (DRE) and indirect real estate (IRE) investment. Direct real estate refers to the direct ownership and operation of real property assets such as houses, shopping centers, hotels, and offices. Indirect real estate refers to the use of public (listed) real estate companies, private (unlisted) real estate funds, REITs, MBS, and related investments. These investments offer exposure without direct involvement in the selection, creation, and management of physical real estate. Indirect real estate should be more convenient for international investors, but this involves costs. The section on international real estate performance shows that the correlation between DRE and IRE can differ significantly within the same market, so the choice of real estate investment vehicles becomes highly important. The section on institutional settings further examines different institutional costs and constraints in international real estate investment.Although this chapter does not provide a review of all real estate markets in the world, it does cover major real estate markets. Specifically, it examines 17 real estate markets on four continents — North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The markets discussed are: (1) Australia, (2) Austria, (3) Canada, (4) China, (5) Finland, (6) France, (7) Germany, (8) Hong Kong, (9) Italy, (10) Japan, (11) The Netherlands, (12) Norway, (13) Singapore, (14) Sweden, (15) Switzerland, (16) the United Kingdom, and (17) the United States. The chapter excludes Spain because some data are unavailable. To make best use of available data for a consistent comparison across market, the time frame of study is 2007Q3 to 2012Q2. The Oxford Housing Indexes data available from Datastream serve as performance indicators for the DRE markets. The FTSE EPRA/NAREIT indexes represent the IRE markets, which include all types of listed real estate securities such as real estate companies and REITs. Because the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT index is unavailable in China, the Shanghai Stock Exchange Real Estate Index, which reflects the performance of major Chinese real estate companies, is used instead.


We consider count data modeling, in particular, the zero-truncated case as it arises naturally in capture–recapture modeling as the marginal distribution of the count of identifications of the members of a target population. Whereas in wildlife ecology these distributions are often of a well-defined type, this is less the case for social and medical science applications since study types are often entirely observational. Hence, in these applications, violations of the assumptions underlying closed capture–recapture are more likely to occur than in carefully designed capture–recapture experiments. As a consequence, the marginal count distribution might be rather complex. The purpose of this note is to sketch some of the major ideas in the recent developments in ratio plotting and ratio regression designed to explore the pattern of the distribution underlying the capture process. Ratio plotting and ratio regression are based upon considering the ratios of neighboring probabilities which can be estimated by ratios of observed frequencies. Frequently, these ratios show patterns which can be easily modeled by a regression model. The fitted regression model is then used to predict the frequency of hidden zero counts. Particular attention is given to regression models corresponding to the negative binomial, multiplicative binomial and the Conway–Maxwell–Poisson distribution.


Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) is one of the most powerful sequence models. Despite the strong performance, however, it lacks the nice interpretability as in state space models. In this paper, we present a way to combine the best of both worlds by introducing State Space LSTM (SSL), which generalizes the earlier work \cite{zaheer2017latent} of combining topic models with LSTM. However, unlike \cite{zaheer2017latent}, we do not make any factorization assumptions in our inference algorithm. We present an efficient sampler based on sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) method that draws from the joint posterior directly. Experimental results confirms the superiority and stability of this SMC inference algorithm on a variety of domains.


In the near future, the overlap of the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) and the Simons Observatory (SO) will present an ideal opportunity for joint cosmological dataset analyses. In this paper we simulate the joint likelihood analysis of these two experiments using six two-point functions derived from galaxy position, galaxy shear, and CMB lensing convergence fields. Our analysis focuses on realistic noise and systematics models and we find that the dark energy Figure-ofMerit (FoM) increases by 53% (92%) from LSST-only to LSST+SO in Year 1 (Year 6). We also investigate the benefits of using the same galaxy sample for both clustering and lensing analyses, and find the choice improves the overall signal-to-noise by ∼ 30−40%, which significantly improves the photo-z calibration and mildly improves the cosmological constraints. Finally, we explore the effects of catastrophic photo-z outliers finding that they cause significant parameter biases when ignored. We develop a new mitigation approach termed "island model", which corrects a large fraction of the biases with only a few parameters while preserving the constraining power.


This paper provides a new interface for the production and distribution of high resolution analog control signals, particularly aimed toward the control of analog modular synthesisers. Control Voltage/Gate interfaces generate Control Voltage (CV) and Gate Voltage (Gate) as a means of controlling note pitch and length respectively, and have been with us since 1986 [3]. The authors provide a unique custom CV/Gate interface and dedicated communication protocol which leverages standard USB Serial functionality and enables connectivity over a plethora of computing systems, including embedded devices such as the Raspberry Pi and ARM based devices including widely available Android TV Boxes. We provide a general overview of the unique hardware and communication protocol developments followed by use case examples toward tuning and embedded platforms, leveraging softwares ranging from Pure Data (Pd), Max, and Max for Live (M4L).


This paper proposes a novel adaptive sliding mode H∞ control (ASMHC) via self-evolving function-link interval type-2 Petri fuzzy-neural-network (SEFLIT2PFNN) for X-Y table motion control system driven through permanent-magnet linear synchronous motor (PMLSM) servo drives. ASMHC approach includes the sliding-mode controller (SMC), robust H∞ controller, and SEFLIT2PFNN estimator. In ASMHC design, the SMC technique is employed as it has rapid dynamic response with an invariance capability against uncertain dynamics, SEIT2FLFNN estimator is utilized for approximating the uncertain nonlinear functions of the X-Y table and the H∞ controller is developed for compensating the effects of the SEFLIT2PFNN approximation errors and external disturbances at a definite attenuation level. Furthermore, H∞ control theory and Lyapunov stability analysis are employed for online adaptive control laws, so that the stability of the ASMHC scheme can be assured. The validity of the proposed control system is verified by experimental analysis. The dynamic response of the X-Y table motion control system using ASMHC promises closed-loop stability and promises the H∞ tracking performance for the whole system. The experimental validation results endorsed that the proposed ASMHC has robust control response even the presence of system disturbances and parameter uncertainties.


A robust extended Kalman filter (EKF) is presented for GPS navigation with outlying errors in the GPS measurements due to failed satellites or unmodeled errors. In this approach, the innovation step of the conventional EKF is modified using the robust statistics concept to obtain a more accurate state estimate in the presence of outlying errors. Performance of the proposed robust EKF in comparison with the conventional EKF, and adaptive EKF is demonstrated through simulation results.


Spanish contemporary grammar. From the grammar of the language to the grammar of discourse invites the reader, student of languages or not, to approach a new perspective referring to the conceptions of the study of discourse closely related to textual construction, from the semantic, syntactic and pragmatics perspectives.


We present an unbiased spectral survey of a unique massive protostar in the Cygnus-X region: CygX-N63, performed with the 30m IRAM telescope. We identified 48 molecules over 106 GHz of bandwidth. Two prebiotic molecules were found: CH_2NH (methanimine) and NH_2CHO (formamide) and several rare molecules, such as CF^+ (fluoromethylidynium) or PN (phosphorous nitride). The spectral profiles and the population diagrams of the molecules allowed us to identify three emission regions in the protostar: the envelope, the outflow and a hot core-like region.


Background and hypotheses : Shwachman-Diamond syndrome (SDS) is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by bone marrow failure, pancreatic insufficiency, and a marked propensity for myelodysplastic syndrome and leukemia. Approximately 90% of the patients have mutations in the SBDS gene, but the function of the gene is unknown. We previously showed that marrow cells from SDS patients and SBDS-deficient HeLa Cells are characterized by accelerated apoptosis, overexpression of Fas and hypersensitive to Fas stimulation. Involvement of reactive oxygen species (ROS; oxidative stress) have been shown to be related to Fas hypersensitivity and overexpression in a variety of cell types. Therefore, we hypothesized that functional deficiency in SBDS in cells that express Fas could lead to impaired ROS generation and a subsequent increase in spontaneous and Fas-mediated apoptosis and decrease in cell growth. Methods : We used shRNA-mediated SBDS-knockdown HeLa cells as a model. We investigated whether SBDS-deficiency increases ROS levels and if antioxidants can rescue the cell growth and apoptosis phenotype. To measure ROS formation cells were incubated with DCFH-DA and fluorescence measured in Gemini Spectra MAX microplate reader. Staining with annexin V and propidium iodide was done to determine apoptosis and necrotic cell death. MTT assay was used to measure cell viability. Results : ROS levels in SBDS knockdown cells were significantly increased compared to control. Apoptosis analysis by annexin V and propidium iodide showed a marked decrease in cell viability in the SBDS- knockdown cells. NAC treatment decreased ROS levels, enhanced ERK phosphorylation (pERK), improved cell viability, and decreased apoptotic and necrotic cell death. Stimulation of the Fas signaling pathway by CH-11 (activating anti-Fas antibody) and Fas ligand showed increased ROS production in SBDS Knockdown cells. CH-11 treatment showed a marked increase in apoptotic and necrotic cell death after 24 and 48hrs incubation. Cell viability decreased by 40% and 80% after 24 and 48hrs incubation with CH-11. Treatment with NAC lowered ROS levels, enhanced pERK expression, protected the cells from Fas-mediated early apoptosis and improved cell survival. Conclusion : We have demonstrated that stable loss of SBDS results in increased ROS levels, leading to apoptotic and necrotic cell death. Thus, increased baseline and Fas-stimulated ROS could result in increased sensitivity to apoptosis and necrotic cell death. NAC appeared to reverse the ROS-mediated decrease in cell survival and apoptotic cell death. Our data support the novel concept that SBDS may be a homeostatic regulator of oxidative stress


In this study, porous gelatin microspheres (GMSs) were constructed to improve the neuroprotective effect of basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) on spinal cord injury. GMSs were prepared by a W/O emulsion template, followed by cross-linking, washing and drying. The particle sizes and surface porosity of the blank GMSs were carefully characterized by scan electronic microscopy. The blank GMSs have a mean particle size of 35μm and theirs surface was coarse and porous. bFGF was easily encapsulated inside the bulk GMSs through diffusion along the porous channel. 200μg of bFGF was completely encapsulated in 100mg of GMSs. The bFGF-loaded GMSs displayed a continuous drug release pattern without an obvious burst release over two weeks in vitro. Moreover, the therapeutic effects of bFGF-loaded GMSs were also evaluated in spinal cord injury rat model. After implantation of bFGF-loaded GMSs, the recovery of the motor function of SCI rats were evaluated by behavioral score and foot print experiment. The motor function of SCI rats treated with bFGF-loaded GMSs was more obvious than that treated with free bFGF solution (P<0.05). At the 28th days after treatment, rats were sacrificed and the injured spinal were removed for histopathological and apoptosis examination. Compared with treatment with free bFGF solution, treatment with bFGF-loaded GMSs resulted in a less necrosis, less infiltration of leukocytes, and a reduced the cavity ratio and less apoptotic cells in injured spinal(P<0.01), indicating its better therapeutic effect. Implantable porous GMSs may be a potential carrier to deliver bFGF for therapy of spinal cord injury.


Using standard procedure to insert T shaped IUDs the two arms on the top may not extend properly into the corners of the uterus, and often land with the arms stuck into the side wall of the uterus and cause malpositioning. A new method of insertion was tried and the result was satisfactory. Among the 200 cases of IUD insertion in 1984 in the hospital where the author worked, no expulsion and no accidental pregnancy occurred. The purpose of the procedure is to bend the two arms of IUD upwards and put into the applicator before insertion rather than the standard procedure of bending them downward and leave 1 cm of space inside the uterus for the two arms to open up. When the IUD is pushed out of the applicator into the uterus, the two arms gradually reach to the corners of uterus. The IUD will stay in uterus in a "Y" shape rather than a "T" shape and the distance between the end of the arms is smaller. Actually, the "Y" shape fits of uterine cavity better and it is more appropriate in uterine contraction when the width tends to become smaller. The advantage of the procedure is that no scratching or perforation of uterine wall will be caused and the method may be used by people who have a narrower uterus.


BACKGROUND
Most quantitative diagnostic tests do not perfectly differentiate between persons with and without a given disease. We present a simple method to construct a 3-zone partition for quantitative tests results, including positive and negative zones and a gray zone between, and we describe its use in the diagnosis of heart failure by brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) measurement in acute dyspneic patients.

METHODS
We conducted a prospective cohort study of 699 consecutive patients with acute dyspnea who were treated at the emergency department of 3 participating hospitals. Heart failure (acute or decompensated) was assessed independently at discharge by cardiologists blind to the results of BNP measurements.

RESULTS
The discriminatory performance of BNP was insufficient to provide a single cutoff value that could be used to correctly diagnose heart failure in clinical practice. Also, the discriminatory performance differed between patients with and without a history of chronic heart failure. The gray zone of inconclusive results was 167-472 ng/L for those without and 0-334 ng/L for those with such a history. Diagnosis of the current episode of heart failure by BNP results and history of heart failure was not enhanced by data from any other sources, including electrocardiography.

CONCLUSIONS
The gray zone approach applied to the diagnosis of heart failure by BNP might allow sensible cutoff values to be determined for clinical practice according to relevant subgroups of patients. The gray zone approach might be usefully applied to many other quantitative tests and clinical diagnostic or screening problems.


Abstract A series of intermetallic matrix composites reinforced with Al2O3 based fibers were fabricated by pressure casting. The Al2O3 based fibers used were DuPont's 20 μm diameter Fiber FP and PRD-166 fiber, Mitsui's 10 μm diameter Almax fiber, and Saphikon's 125 μm diameter single crystal Al2O3 fiber. The intermetallic matrices employed were alloys based on Ni3Al, NiAl, Fe3Al, Ti3Al+TiAl, and Nb2Al+NbAl3. Optical, scanning and transmission electron microscopy were used to investigate the microstructure of the composites and the fibers. Tensile testing was conducted to determine the Weibull mean strength of the fibers in the as-received and heat treated conditions. The effect of fiber gage length on the Weibull mean strength of the PRD-166 and Fiber FP was evaluated. Indentation tests were performed to determine the effect of alloying additions on the fiber/matrix bond strength in shear in Saphikon fiber reinforced Ni3Al composites.


Herpes simplex virus (HSV) is unusual in its ability to cause recurrent infection in a host with an ostensibly competent immune system. This thesis describes two mechanisms by which HSV evades the cellular immune response, which contribute to its ability to persist. Human cells infected with HSV inhibit lysis by natural killer (NK) and Iymphokine-activated JOller (LAK) cells. Contrary to the conclusions of previous workers, this effec~ i~ due to infection of the lytic effector cells, as shown by experiments with mutant HSV and by immunofluorescence staining l)f effector cells in contact with HSV-infected targets. The inhibition of lytic effectol' cells by HSV by cell-ta-cell spread may play an important role late in the infectious cycle. Early in the infectious cycle, infectious virus is not present and the above mechanism cannot take effect. Instead, HSV imposes a block on the cellular pathway which presents antigen to CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes. The result is that HSV-infected human fibroblasts show abnormalities of their class I major histocompatibility complex (MHC class I) similar to those seen in antigenpresenting mutant cell lines: the MHC class I is retained within the ER and is misfolded and unstable, implying that peptide is not associated with the heavy chainl~2·microgl(jbulin complex. Experiments with mutant and recombinant viruses established that this effect is due to an HSV irnmediate-early protein, ICP47, and showed that cells expressing ICP47 are not efficiently recognized and lysed by CD8+ CTL. Since ICP47 is not detectably membrane-associated, it presumably affects some cytoplasmic component of the antigen-processing pathway. One candieb;~for this cellular target is a small (8.5 9 kDa) protein, which, like ICP47, is located within the cytoplasm and nucleus of certain cell


There is a relationship between iatrogenic complications of medical procedures and the quality of medical services. The risk of iatrogenic complications or diseases occurring is growing over time for several reasons: patients under medical care grow older and sicker, diagnostic and therapeutic procedures are expanding at a fast pace, and complexity and uncertainty in daily care tends to grow. This development will continue unless we actively start to prevent iatrogenic complications. The frequency of iatrogenic illness was found to be between 4 and 36% of all patients treated in a hospital setting. The wide span is a result of different definitions of what is an iatrogenic complication. When an iatrogenic illness occurs we are obliged to look for "errors in the system"in order to eliminate them. In a hospital and practice environment the respective methods are different. By eliminating unnecessary procedures the risk of possible damage is diminished. Necessary procedures must be performed at the most skilled level. We describe and discuss two cases of iatrogenic complications and the benefits and disadvantages of guidelines. The creation of guidelines should be placed on a rational and scientific basis.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the clinical significance of resection of the pancreatic capsule and anterior layer of transverse mesocolon in radical gastrectomy.

METHODS
Between January 2007 and July 2008, a total of 213 gastric cancer patients enrolled in the study. These patients were randomly assigned into two groups: 105 in group R and 108 in group N. Only in group R were the pancreatic capsule and anterior layer of transverse mesocolon resected during radical gastrectomy. The pancreatic capsule and anterior layer of transverse mesocolon were histologically analyzed for metastasis. The data including blood loss during operations, number of dissected lymph nodes and postoperative complications were analyzed in both groups.

RESULTS
There were no significant differences between the two groups in blood loss during operation and postoperative complications, but the differences in operation time and number of dissected lymph nodes between the two groups were significant. Metastases to the pancreatic capsule and/or anterior layer of transverse mesocolon were diagnosed in nine (8.6%) patients of group R. The metastases to the pancreatic capsule and/or anterior layer of transverse mesocolon were found to be associated with tumor invasion depth, anterior or posterior gastric wall, clinical staging and perigastric lymph node metastasis extent (P<0.05), but not with age, gender, tumor location, size, Borrmann type and pathological classification (P>0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
Resection of pancreatic capsule and anterior layer of transverse mesocolon in group R does not increase postoperative complications in comparison with group N. The resection is beneficial to the patients with advanced gastric cancer staging relatively late because of potential metastasis to pancreatic capsule and anterior layer of transverse mesocolon.


Carbon capture & storage (CCS) is at the technological forefront in the challenge of reducing carbon emissions. The most viable approach to implementing CCS within existing coal and natural gas power stations is the post-combustion capture of CO2 by absorption into amine solutions within packed column absorbers. CFD modelling is an important aspect in the design and optimisation of this process. However, significant challenges arise due to the large range of spatial scales and the complexity of the physics being modelled. Therefore, simplification of the problem is required to complete such simulations using the computational resources currently available. This thesis explores some of the approaches used to model flow within packed columns. It concludes that, with current computing resources, standard modelling approaches are not viable for large scale simulations of CCS. This led to the development of the Enhanced Surface Film (ESF) model. The ESF approach was able to simulate chemically enhanced absorption of gaseous species into thin liquid films. The method significantly reduced the computational resources required and is a significant step to enable future researchers to model larger domains in CCS. The ESF approach has wide ranging applications due to the ubiquitous nature of liquid films across the industrial and environmental sectors. In many industries the dynamics of thin liquid films play a crucial role in the overall performance. Further applications may include thin film microreactors, surface coating, biofluids and medical applications.


Drawing from both trust-building theory and interpersonal trust literature, we investigate how trust between a leader and follower may be leveraged to influence organizational trust. We also explore the mediating mechanisms of this link and test a potential moderator. A cross-sectional, multi-foci design was adopted and participants were 201 employees within a public sector organization. Leader trustworthy behavior was found to predict organizational trust, mediated by trustworthiness perceptions and trust in the leader. Support for the boundary condition was found; namely, when leaders were more senior, the relationship between trustworthy behavior and organizational trust was stronger. The findings suggest that leaders can meaningfully influence organizational trust perceptions through the enactment of trustworthy behavior, although the strength of this effect varied as a function of their position.


In this paper we present a high-gain observer for a general class of nonlinear SISO systems for which the high-gain parameter is determined on-line in an adaptive fashion. The adaptation scheme is simple and universal in the sense that it is independent of the system the observer is designed for. We prove that the observer output error becomes smaller than a user specified bound for large times and that the adaptation converges. The assumptions required for the adaptive high-gain observer are the same as for the nonadaptive high-gain observer, namely that the system is uniformly observable for any u(t).


Recently, simultaneous translation has gathered a lot of attention since it enables compelling applications such as subtitle translation for a live event or real-time video-call translation. Some of these translation applications allow editing of partial translation giving rise to re-translation approaches. The current re-translation approaches are based on autoregressive sequence generation models (ReTA), which generate tar-get tokens in the (partial) translation sequentially. The multiple re-translations with sequential generation inReTAmodelslead to an increased inference time gap between the incoming source input and the corresponding target output as the source input grows. Besides, due to the large number of inference operations involved, the ReTA models are not favorable for resource-constrained devices. In this work, we propose a faster re-translation system based on a non-autoregressive sequence generation model (FReTNA) to overcome the aforementioned limitations. We evaluate the proposed model on multiple translation tasks and our model reduces the inference times by several orders and achieves a competitive BLEUscore compared to the ReTA and streaming (Wait-k) models.The proposed model reduces the average computation time by a factor of 20 when compared to the ReTA model by incurring a small drop in the translation quality. It also outperforms the streaming-based Wait-k model both in terms of computation time (1.5 times lower) and translation quality.


From the Publisher:
This book presents a collection of thoroughly refereed papers drawn together from three meetings on multi-agent systems. Five of the tutorial lectures included were presented at the ACAI/EASSS 2001 summer school on MAS, held in Prague, Czech Republic, in July 2001; seven revised reviewed student papers dealing with various aspects of MAS are included as well. A workshop on Adaptability and Embodiment using MAS, AEMAS 2001, also held in Prague, Czech Republic, concurrently with the ACAI/EASSS summer school, is represented by three papers. Finally, a further nine papers were selected from an International Workshop on Industrial Applications of Holonic and Multi-Agent Systems, HoloMAS 2001, held in Munich, Germany, in September 2001.


This article answers the question of how the form of revitalization of local wisdom in Aceh culture as the capital to resolve conflicts in the community. The important thing that will support this article is how Islamic ideas and Acehnese culture combine into one formulated from within, at least strengthening traditional institutions as the basis for managing Aceh culture is an important discourse to measure indicators of the ongoing settlement of Islamic conflicts. The results indicate that the re-actualization of Aceh culture which had been submerged by the conflict and tsunami, has now been revived especially on the social bases that were lost and even blurred. When there was a conflict in the Acehnese community, the mechanism for resolving conflicts was carried out using the Acehnese cultural approach known as Di'et, Sayam, Suloh, Peusijuek and Peumat Jaroe, involving Aceh traditional institutions at the village level, such as the geuchik (village headman), teungku imum and traditional leaders. This local wisdom in the discourse of the Aceh Government has reached the implementation of policies by making regional regulations through qanun to revitalize Aceh's local wisdom by reviving some traditional institutions that have not been functioning.


In order to wisely use the degrees of freedom which a multi-input multi-output (MIMO) offers, it is necessary to identify and quantify the possible gains in performance one can expect from MIMO signal processing. In this paper, we derive measures which allow to quantify the amount of antenna gain, diversity gain, and multiplexing gain of a MIMO system. It turns out that it is impossible to maximize all three gains, or any pair of two gains at the same time. The necessary trade-off between performance gains is demonstrated.


Opioid addiction is a problem within the United States that is impacting all age groups. The elderly are a population that is seldom discussed as being affected by opioids. Physiologically, the older adult is more susceptible for complications associated with an alteration in pharmacokinetics and late diagnosis of diseases such as viral hepatitis C. Health promotion for this population is imperative in the prevention and treatment of opioid addiction


Geographic data is one of the fundamental components of any Geographic Information System (GIS). Nowadays, the utility of GIS becomes part of everyday life activities, such as searching for a destination, planning a trip, looking for weather information, etc. Without a reliable data source, systems will not provide guaranteed services. In the past, geographic data was collected and processed exclusively by experts and professionals. However, the ubiquity of advanced technology results in the evolution of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), when the geographic data is collected and produced by the general public. These changes influence the availability of geographic data, when common people can work together to collect geographic data and produce maps. This particular trend is known as collaborative mapping. In collaborative mapping, the general public shares an online platform to collect, manipulate, and update information about geographic features. OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a prominent example of a collaborative mapping project, which aims to produce a free world map editable and accessible by anyone. During the last decade, VGI has expanded based on the power of crowdsourcing. The involvement of the public in data collection raises great concern about the resulting data quality. There exist various perspectives of geographic data quality; this dissertation focuses particularly on the quality of data classification (i.e., thematic accuracy). In professional data collection, data is classified based on quantitative and/or qualitative observations. According to a pre-defined classification model, which is usually constructed by experts, data is assigned to appropriate classes. In contrast, in most collaborative mapping projects data classification is mainly based on individuals' cognition. Through online platforms, contributors collect information about geographic features and transform their perceptions into classified entities. In VGI projects, the contributors mostly have limited experience in geography and cartography. Therefore, the acquired data may have a questionable classification quality. This dissertation investigates the challenges of data classification in VGI-based mapping projects (i.e., collaborative mapping projects). In particular, it lists the challenges relevant to the evolution of VGI as well as to the characteristics of geographic data. Furthermore, this work proposes a guiding approach to enhance the data classification quality in such projects. The proposed approach is based on the following premises: (i) the availability of large amounts of data, which fosters applying machine learning techniques to extract useful knowledge, (ii) utilization of the extracted knowledge to guide contributors to appropriate data classification, (iii) the humanitarian spirit of contributors to provide precise data, when they are supported by a guidance system, and (iv) the power of crowdsourcing in data collection as well as in ensuring the data quality. This cumulative dissertation consists of five peer-reviewed publications in international conference proceedings and international journals. The publications divide the dissertation into three parts: the first part presents a comprehensive literature review about the relevant previous work of VGI quality assurance procedures (Chapter 2), the second part studies the foundations of the approach (Chapters 3-4), and the third part discusses the proposed approach and provides a validation example for implementing the approach (Chapters 5-6). Furthermore, Chapter 1 presents an overview about the research questions and the adapted research methodology, while Chapter 7 concludes the findings and summarizes the contributions.


Fog architectures at the network edge are becoming a popular research trend to provide elastic resources and services to end-users, where the processing capacity resides at the network periphery as opposed to traditional data-centers. Despite their momentum, the control plane of these architectures remains complex and challenging to implement. To enhance control capability, in this work, we propose to use Software Defined Networking. SDN moves the control logic off data plane devices and onto external network entities, the controllers. We provide a proof-of-concept implementation of a multi-controller edge system and measure traffic delay and overheads. The results reveal the sensitivity of delay to the location of controllers and the magnitude of inter-controller and controller-node overheads. Guided by the above, we model the problem of determining the placement of controllers in the edge network. Using linearization and supermodular function techniques, we present approximation solutions which perform close to optimal and better than state-of-the-art methods.


Atomic chains are perfect systems for getting fundamental insights into the electron dynamics and coupling between the electronic and ionic degrees of freedom in one-dimensional metals. Depending on the band filling, they can exhibit Peierls instabilities (or charge density waves), where equally spaced chain of atoms with partially filled band is inherently unstable, exhibiting spontaneous distortion of the lattice that further leads to metal-insulator transition in the system. Here, using high-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy, we directly image the atomic structures of a chain of iodine atoms confined inside carbon nanotubes. In addition to long equidistant chains, the ones consisting of iodine dimers and trimers were also observed, as well as transitions between them. First-principles calculations reproduce the experimentally observed bond lengths and lattice constants, showing that the ionic movement is largely unconstrained in the longitudinal direction, while naturally confined by the nanotube in the lateral directions. Moreover, the trimerized chain bears the hallmarks of a charge density wave. The transition is driven by changes in the charge transfer between the chain and the nanotube and is enabled by the charge compensation and additional screening provided by the nanotube.


When people talk to others who have the same jobs, environment, or activities, they will use the same register. Register can be described as the language of groups of people with common interests or jobs, or the language used in situations associated with such groups. Thus, when young people talk to young people, they will use the same register which is called youth register. This is a study that focused on finding out the characteristics of youth register used in The Lizzie McGuire Movie. This research is based on Holmes?s (1992) theory about the characteristics of register. The result of this study indicates that the characteristics of register which are used in The Lizzie McGuire Movie are particular vocabularies, syntactic inversion, syntactic reduction, heavy noun modification characteristics. The only characteristic which is not used is routines and formulas characteristic. Among all of the characteristics of youth register, particular vocabularies characteristic is the most often used characteristic.


Invasion of the wall of the digestive system by ovarian cancer cells isn't so rare. On the other hand, fistula formation between the tumor and digestive system is an uncommon status. We described a patient with ovarian serous carcinoma that was fistulized into jejunum and formed a region composed of stool and tumor surrounded and limited by small intestines recognized during surgery. This diagnosis should be kept in mind while preparing a patient for ovarian cancer surgery if the patient has acute abdomen or abdominal pain incompatible with the extent of the tumor.


Abstract Interactive oral assessments demonstrate potential to develop graduate attributes such as critical thinking, professional communication and collaborative skills in students through authentic simulation of workplace scenarios. This study captured the design, delivery and evaluation of interactive oral assessments across three programmes – occupational therapy, nursing and air transport management – in one university. A four-step Model to Build Authentic Assessment was used to design the assessments. Quantitative and qualitative data collected from 158 students, five assessors and three module leaders were analysed for a basic evaluation of the fidelity of interactive oral assessment implementation across different contexts and to explore the experiences of faculty and students undertaking the assessments. Fidelity was considered in terms of: (i) whether students could express their individualised responses, (ii) if they perceived the assessment to be authentic, and (iii) if it helped them gain professional knowledge and skills. In all the developed assessments, each of the three aspects were somewhat evident, evident or clearly evident. Qualitative findings suggested the interactive oral assessments reflected real-world expectations, promoted deep learning and offered a quality learning experience. From these results, practical suggestions for how faculty can self-assess their readiness for implementing interactive oral assessments are offered.


This study aimed to understand the suicidal ideation and suicidal attempts among cancer patients during the COVID‐19 pandemic. The data were collected from patients diagnosed with cancer while attending the largest cancer center in the south of China. A structured questionnaire was used to investigate patients' demographic data, suicidal behavior, and factors related to COVID‐19. Mental health conditions were measured by the Generalized Anxiety Disorder‐7, the Patient Health Questionnaire‐9, and the Brief Symptom Inventory. Comorbidities and medical conditions of cancer patients were extracted from the electronic healthcare records. Among the 5670 cancer patients, 755 (13.3%) reported suicidal ideation, and 266 (4.7%) reported suicidal attempts during the COVID‐19 pandemic. The age group with the highest risk of suicidal ideation was 20–24 years (23.9%). Lifetime history of suffering from mental disorders, longer time since cancer diagnosis, regional and distant tumor stage, depression, anxiety, hostility, having a higher frequency of worrying about cancer management due to COVID‐19, higher frequency feeling of overwhelming psychological pressure due to COVID‐19, having a higher level of barriers to manage cancer due to COVID‐19, and higher barriers to continue treatment of cancer due to inconveniences caused by COVID‐19, were all significantly associated with increased risk of suicidal ideation. We also identified the risk factors of suicide attempts. This is the first study investigating the prevalence and risk factors associated with suicidal ideation and suicidal attempts in Chinese cancer patients during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Our findings suggest that it is essential to monitor the mental health conditions of this vulnerable population, especially for cancer patients who have comorbidity with a history of mental disorders. Also, government policymakers should take action to protect cancer patients to avoid any interruption of their continued treatment. Further efforts are urgently required to develop specific psychological interventions to reduce the risk factors among cancer patients during the COVID‐19 pandemic.


Meningiomas represent almost 15 percent of primary brain tumors and are the most common non-glial primary brain tumor. Parasellar meningiomas represent 5–10 percent of all intracranial meningiomas. They may arise from the diaphragma sella, tuberculum sellae, planum sphenoidale, medial lesser wing of sphenoid, anterior clinoid, clivus, and cavernous sinus (Smith 2005). Planum sphenoidale meningiomas are located anterior to and in proximity to the olfactory groove. For an optimal postoperative outcome planum, sphenoidale meningiomas must be diagnosed early, and the operative procedures performed promptly and with utmost care. Ideally, management is intended to preserve and improve vision and consists of total resection with no injury to the neighboring vital structures. We report the case of a 64-year-old woman who presented with progressive visual disturbance, impairment of visual acuity, visual field defects and diffuse headache. Gadolinium-enhanced T1-weighted MR images showed a well-defined, suprasellar solid mass, measuring 30/35/40 mm. The lesion was hyperintense on T1-weighted imaging with homogenous enhancement and a broad dural attachment to the planum sphenoidale. The planum sphenoidale meningioma was successfully resected using a left pterional approach. The intraoperative and postoperative courses were uneventful with a total recovery. Improvement of visual acuity was noted and the postoperative computer-tomography investigation showed total surgical removal with no residual tumor.


The D-FIRE sub-project of MACC is producing real time fire emissions with a Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS). The emissions will be used by the regional and global forecast production systems in MACC. The first version of the fire emission products, GFASv0, is based on the GEMS fire emission product but is scaled such that it reproduces the global annual emission budget of the GFEDv2 inventory. Preliminary comparisons of modelled smoke plumes with other systems' smoke plumes indicates that the GFASv0 products are applicable for fire plume forecasting. They are released with a previously agreed interface that consists of archiving in the MARS database of regular latitude-longitude emission fields for several species with 0.1 deg spatial resolution and 1 hour temporal resolution. The release enables the MACC partners to implement and technically test the interface. Furthermore, the fire emissions may already be used in the MACC forecasting systems after testing their effect on the particular system's forecasting skill. Feedback on the product interface as well as its performance in forecasting applications is encouraged.


Nursing professional development (NPD) practitioners are integral to implementing evidence-based practice (EBP). Research was conducted to describe NPD practitioners' EBP beliefs and competencies, frequency of implementing EBP, and perceptions of organizational culture and readiness for EBP. Relationships among NPD practitioner characteristics and organization outcomes were explored. Findings indicate that NPD practitioners must develop personal competence in EBP, become engaged in shared governance, collaborate with others, and use quality metrics to demonstrate the effectiveness and value of NPD activities.


The article describes a case of successful diagnosis and surgical treatment of patients with aneurysm of the splenic artery (ASA) with atypical origin from the abdominal aorta. For a long time, ASA had symptoms like chronic pancreatitis. Due to the discharge of an atypical splenic artery computed tomography of its aneurysmal expansion was evaluated as an aneurysm of the celiac trunk. A decisive role in the topical diagnosis of aneurysm played angiography of the abdominal aorta and its visceral branches. The blood circulation of the spleen was compensated and authors preferred to preserve spleen with resection of the aneurysm. In the immediate postoperative period, signs of splenic ischemia and other complications are not logged in.


Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease of the arterial wall. Observational and experimental studies indicate that dietary vitamin E supplementation is associated with reduced risk of atherosclerosis. Evidence indicates that vitamin E, in addition to inhibition of oxidative modification of LDL, may inhibit atherogenesis through several other mechanisms at the molecular and cellular levels, which also include its nonantioxidant functions.


Alternatives to Animal Testing .was edited by Christoph Reinhardt, on behalf of the Swiss Institute for Alternatives to Animal Testing (SlAT). It contains the main presentations given at a symposium held at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, in 1992, which have been carefully reviewed and updated to include developments which took place as late as the autumn of 1993. Reinhardt is to be congratulated on the high standards which have obviously prevailed to ensure that the disparate chapters fit together into a cohesive work. In his foreword, Richard Steiner, former President of the World Society for the Protection of Animals, refers to the book as exceptionaland it is. It marks the outstanding progress ofthe Three Rs over the past 33 years. Leading scientists and key promoters of the field of alternatives to animal testing contributed chapters ranging from the development of the concept of the Three Rs, to the validation of alternative methods, to the regulatory acceptance of various individual in vitro assays as alternatives. Michael Balls and Julia Fentem contributed a chapter, entitled, "FRAME: 23 Years of Campaigning for the Three Rs". The chapterby Oliver Flint describes a time-table for replacing, reducing and refining animal use with the help of in vitro tests. It stresses the importance of developing better collaboration between industrial, academic and reguiatory scientists to achieve the goal of reducing animal use through the application of in vitro tests and uses the Limulus amoebocyte lysate test as an example. Other interesting chapters highlight the use of computers as alternatives, i.e, Computeraided Drug Design and the Three Rs, by Angelo Velani, and Computer-aided Programs in Biomedical Education, by Richard T. Fosse. The dramatic increase of interest in alternatives is evident throughout this book. However, it is also apparent that there is a lingering caution about relying too heavily on the new in vitro techniques. As Richard Steiner concluded in his foreword, "This book should contribute not only to a wider recognition of the developments which have already taken place in the field of alternatives, but also to the advancement of alternative methods in the future." The book is dedicated to the memory of Gerhard Zbinden, one of the guests of honour at the symposium. It is an excellent resource which deserves to be widely read by everyone involved in the field of alternatives.


Currently, the same first-line chemotherapy is administered to almost all patients suffering from primary ovarian cancer. The high recurrence rate emphasizes the need for precise drug treatment in primary ovarian cancer. Being crucial in ovarian cancer progression and chemotherapeutic resistance, integrins became promising therapeutic targets. To evaluate its prognostic and predictive value, in the present study, the expression of integrin α2β1 was analyzed immunohistochemically and correlated with the survival data and other therapy-relevant biomarkers. The significant correlation of a high α2β1-expression with the estrogen receptor alpha (ERα; p = 0.035) and epithelial growth factor receptor (EGFR; p = 0.027) was observed. In addition, high α2β1-expression was significantly associated with a low number of tumor-infiltrating immune cells (CD3 intratumoral, p = 0.017; CD3 stromal, p = 0.035; PD-1 intratumoral, p = 0.002; PD-1 stromal, p = 0.049) and the lack of PD-L1 expression (p = 0.005). In Kaplan–Meier survival analysis, patients with a high expression of integrin α2β1 revealed a significant shorter progression-free survival (PFS, p = 0.035) and platinum-free interval (PFI, p = 0.034). In the multivariate Cox regression analysis, integrin α2β1 was confirmed as an independent prognostic factor for both PFS (p = 0.021) and PFI (p = 0.020). Dual expression of integrin α2β1 and the hepatocyte growth factor receptor (HGFR; PFS/PFI, p = 0.004) and CD44v6 (PFS, p = 0.000; PFI, p = 0.001; overall survival [OS], p = 0.025) impaired survival. Integrin α2β1 was established as a prognostic and predictive marker in primary ovarian cancer with the potential to stratify patients for chemotherapy and immunotherapy, and to design new targeted treatment strategies.


Incorporating bypass diodes within photovoltaic arrays serves to mitigate the negative effects of partial shading scenarios. These situations can lead to the appearance of multiple peaks in the performance of solar panels. Nevertheless, there are cases where conventional maximum power point tracking (MPPT) techniques could encounter inaccuracies, causing them to identify the highest power point within a specific area (the local maximum power point; LMPP) instead of the overall highest power point across the entire array (the global maximum power point; GMPP). Numerous methods based on artificial intelligence (AI) were proposed to address this issue; however, they frequently used cumbersome and unreliable methodologies. This research presents the energy-valley-optimizer-based optimization (EVO) technique, which is designed to efficiently and dependably tackle the issue of partial shading (PS) in detecting the maximum power point (MPP) for photovoltaic (PV) systems. The EVO algorithm enhances the speed of tracking and minimizes power output fluctuations during the tracking phase. Through the utilization of the Typhoon hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) 402 emulator, extensive validation of the proposed technique is conducted. The effectiveness of the suggested method is compared with the established cuckoo search algorithm for achieving maximum power point tracking (MPPT) within a photovoltaic (PV) system. This comparison takes place under equivalent conditions to ensure a fair performance evaluation.


SUMMARY Methods for estimating vaccine effectiveness (VE) against severe influenza are not well established. We used the screening method to estimate VE against influenza resulting in intensive care unit (ICU) admission in England and Scotland in 2011/2012. We extracted data on confirmed influenza ICU cases from severe influenza surveillance systems, and obtained their 2011/2012 trivalent influenza vaccine (TIV) status from primary care. We compared case vaccine uptake with population vaccine uptake obtained from routine monitoring systems, adjusting for age group, specific risk group, region and week. Of 60 influenza ICU cases reported, vaccination status was available for 56 (93%). Adjusted VE against ICU admission for those aged ⩾65 years was −10% [95% confidence interval (CI) −207 to 60], consistent with evidence of poor protection from the 2011/2012 TIV in 2011/2012. Adjusted VE for those aged <65 years in risk groups was −296% (95% CI −930 to −52), suggesting significant residual confounding using the screening method in those subject to selective vaccination.


The purpose of this
paper is to critically discuss the extent of interpretivism to understand the
contemporary social world. This paper firstly highlights the roots of
interpretivism which can be traced back in the ancient history of philosophy. It
then discusses the concept of interpretivism and gives a critical commentary on
the Weber's construction of ideal types to help explore the contemporary social
world. The paper then further discusses the concept of "verstehen" and explains
how it can add to our understanding of the social world phenomena. Following
this analysis and tackling some philosophical debate, finally, this theoretical
paper confirms that interpretivism has influenced the development of the social
science and has helped our understanding of the contemporary social world to a
great extent.


Abstract : When power MOSFETs are connected in a resistively loaded inverter circuit, the devices often oscillate Experimental results indicate that the oscillation is a small-signal instability caused by a greater than unity loop gain. Using a small-signal model and the Routh-Hurwitz criterion, analytic expressions were derived to determine the conditions for oscillation. The resulting expressions indicate that the maximum allowable gate inductance for which the MOSFET will not oscillate scales roughly as the inverse of the device area. Numerical evaluations of the Routh-Hurwitz criterion demonstrate that the addition of resistance at the gate of the MOSFET decreases the tendency to oscillate. An anomalous behavior is observed when the power MOSFET is turned off, where the MOSFET turns off and then turns back on for several microseconds. This behavior is caused by the parasitic clamping diode of the power MOSFET and is not related to the cause of the oscillation. (Author).


ABSTRACT Objective: to describe and analyze the challenges and the possibilities of the return to the home in palliative care in the Brazilian and French scenarios. Method: ethnographic study conducted in two hospitals, homes and medical-social establishments. Six people in palliative care, four family members and eight health professionals participated in the study. The data were organized through discursive mapping and analyzed from a cultural and Foucaultian perspective. Results: to present the results, two categories were elaborated: Strategies for hospital discharge in palliative care and between the family, the state and justice: barriers to return home. It is evident that, in Brazil and in France, the return to the home is an event that faces resistance from the families. This fact is mainly related to the cultural conceptions that hospital palliative care units are places capable of providing comfort at the end of life, and difficult access to home care programs and services. In both countries, due to the complexity of hospital discharge, families and managers judicialize this process. Conclusion: the return to the home in palliative care depends on the way death is signified in a culture, the family settings and the existence or not of a network of palliative care in the health systems of each country.


Sorting and grading are qualitative operational tasks performed in food processing industries. Realization of higher accuracy in mass estimation is the key inclination of this work. In this work, an automated technique for mass estimation of citrus limetta is devised based on the geometrical features derived from pre-processed images. Dataset includes 250 data samples of citrus limetta, whose images are acquired in different orientations. Two novel handcrafted distance-based geometrical features along with four conventional geometrical features were employed for regression analysis. Predictive modeling is conducted with configuration of 150 training and 100 testing data samples and subject to regression analysis for mass estimation. Multiple linear and support vector regression models with linear, polynomial and radial basis function (RBF) kernels were employed for mass estimation with two different model configurations, conventional and conventional with handcrafted features, for which an R2 score of 0.9815, root mean squared error (RMSE) of 10.94 grams, relative averages of accuracy and error of 96.61% and 3.39% respectively is achieved for the proposed model and configuration which was validated using k-fold cross-validation. Through comparison with performance of model with conventional and conventional with handcrafted features configurations, it was established that inclusion of handcrafted features was able to increase the performance of the models.


Photography experiments dedicated to explore the formation of bubble bottom vortex revealed that rising bubbles may develop even three types of rotational motion. A clockwise (CW) rotational motion is assembled within the bubble upper half sphere, a counter clockwise (CCW) rotary is developed within the bottom half sphere and a spliced (CW/ CCW) bi-rotary motion can be assembled at the bubble equator or within the bubble vortex. Other experiments indicated that displacement of ions within the bubble spherical curvatures results in gathering of anions within the upper bubble half sphere, while the rotational grouping of cations prevail within the bubble bottom half sphere and its vortex. The merging and splicing of both oppositely directed and oppositely charged bubble rotational motions, resulting in assembly of ionic double helix motion, indicate that rising bubble rotational features are very akin to the architecture of RNA/DNA molecules. Thus, the matching properties of rising bubble bi-polar and bi-rotary features and architecture of RNA/DNA molecules are compared.


Background: Endometriosis is a common devastating gynecological disease with severe complications. Researches on noninvasive diagnostic tests with acceptable accuracy are still ongoing. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the diagnostic value of serum Galectin-9 (Gal-9) level in comparison with laparoscopic results in endometriosis patients. Methods: Sixty-one patients, referred to Booali, Rasool-e-Akram, and Pars Hospitals affiliated to Islamic Azad University of Medical Sciences, were recruited. Patients laparoscopically diagnosed with endometriosis were assigned to the case (n=32) and who diagnosed with other diseases were assigned to the control group (n=29). In general, 56 patients (30 in case and 26 in control group) completed the study. The serum level of Galectin-9 was measured using ELISA method before laparoscopy and was compared between the groups. Next, categorical variables were compared using Chi square and quantitative variables using independent samples t- test or Mann-Whitney U test. The Gal-9 cut-off was calculated using the Youden's index and ROC curve; then, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value, and positive and negative likelihood ratio of Gal-9 were reported. The p<0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: Mean serum level of Galectin-9 was 669.3±416.50 pg/ml in the case group and 265.42±492.30 pg/ml in the control group (p=0.001). Considering a cut-off value of 138 pg/ml, Galectin-9 had a sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 88.46% for diagnosis of endometriosis (p<0.001). Conclusion: Galectin-9 measurement is helpful in diagnosis of endometriosis. Future studies are recommended for investigating the generalizability of these results.


Internet of Vehicles (IoV) plays an indispensable role in intelligent transportation system (ITS). When the vehicle density is high, the performance of IoV suffers due to the broadcast storm problem. To address this issue, we propose a novel clustering approach using behavioral parameters and a current journey parameter. In this approach, we first calculate a cluster fitness score (CFS) for each vehicle in the network and select a vehicle with the highest CFS as a cluster head (CH). The CH then arranges two forms of communications which are contention free communication (CFC) and contention-based communication (CBC). In CFC, each cluster member (CM) broadcasts periodically without contending the channel access. However, in CBC, communicating parties like roadside units (RSUs), cluster heads (CHs), cluster members (CMs), and other vehicles contend to get the channel access. The contention window of CMs is also adapted to improve IoV performance. Additionally, our approach facilitates partitioning into sub-clusters and merging of sub-clusters based on the travel direction. Finally, we present the simulation results to demonstrate the improved performance of IoV.


: Using Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) as an assistive technology aims at providing an innovative solution adapted to subjects' disabilities. BCI either provide a new interface for controlling solution mobility (e.g. wheelchair) or monitoring the state of user during his/her journey. This would be possible by implementing these interfaces on Embedded Systems (ES). However, because of the BCI sophisticated data processing and the ES limited computation performances, the computation time for a real-time use of the BCI on an ES is a limitation. Hence in this work, we investigate and evaluate the parallelization and acceleration performances, on a Raspberry Pi 2 model B (RPi) board, of an STFT-based algorithm for estimating cognitive workload from an Electroencephalographic (EEG) signal. This is done based on multi-core CPU and GPU architectures of the used RPi. Results show that the parallelized implementation using the CPU runs up to × (cid:2781) faster than a simple implementation. Compared to CPU of intel-CORE i3 processor, the GPU of the RPi revealed large difference in computation time.


Youth today suffer from many socio-economic problems and struggle to operate in the current economic environment. Wellbeing service provision to youth@risk is inadequate to deal with the complexities of societal challenges which are amplified by the fast technology advances in a continuously changing environment. This paper aims to consider the provision of online counselling to enhance current face-to-face services from the provider's perspective. The case of a volunteer-based online counselling service that has been in operation since 2010 is considered to establish the aspects that influence this type pf service. Related literature was reviewed to determine the issues reported from current studies and a taxonomy of digital services was used to analyse the service objectives of the service provider. Data collected from sessions with the facilitators and observations of a chat session was analysed to establish their experience of online counselling. The findings were interpreted to answer the research question. The contribution of this paper is in response to the many appeals for more empirical research on real cases. It can be concluded that an online counselling service is a viable extension of face-to-face counselling but more research is needed to understand its benefit to the clients and the ability to ensure a sustained service, especially in developing contexts.


INTRODUCTION:
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the fourth most common cancer in men and the third most common in women, with mortality paralleling incidence, in the mid-1970s, approximately 60 cases of colorectal cancer were diagnosed per 100,000 people in the United States, and approximately 51% of those diagnosed survived their disease at least five years. Over the last two decades, incidence rates have fallen by nearly 26% between 1984 and 2004. This decline is likely due to increased colorectal cancer screening, which allows physicians to detect and remove colorectal polyps before they progress to cancer. United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommended screening for CRC should be performed in all persons aged 50 years and older. Yet, incidence is still high: colorectal cancer is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer for both men and women. As of 2004, approximately 48 cases of colorectal cancer were diagnosed per 100,000 people in the United States. About 65% of men and women diagnosed with colorectal cancer now survive their disease at least five years. American Cancer Society recommended the following screening tool for CRC, which includes fecal occult blood test (FOBT) annually, flexible sigmoidoscopy every 5 years as an option, colonoscopy as an option every 10 years, double contrast barium enema recommended every 5 years as an option. Colonoscopy is the gold-standard for evaluation of colonic pathology, but in certain situation where colonoscopy is not possible or incomplete due to procedural pain, colonic stenosis; elongated colon may be found in up to 26% of patients. Thus there has been a need to develop alternative diagnostic procedure to visualize large bowel.
Currently available modalities like Barium enema, which has following drawbacks like 1)
Highly subjective, 2) Bowel loop superimposed with one another without cross sectional image
to see the small lesions, 3) Risk of ionizing radiation.
CT Colonography is another alternative but it carries the risk of excessive ionizing radiation and
contrast exposure. MR Colonography (MRC) is technically similar to CT Colonography with
few advantages.
In recent years major technologic advances in diagnostic MRI have led to improve image quality
particularly with the use of Fast sequence and surface coil. Positive contrast like water/saline can
be used to distend the colonic lumen; hence without radiation and contrast material we can study
the colon using this technique.5,6
Sixty patients with suspected colonic pathology were evaluated, thirty patients underwent
colonoscopy first then MRC, another thirty patients underwent MRC first which was followed by
colonoscopy. Findings in both modalities were compared to know the merits and demerits of
each modality.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES:
1. To find out the merits and demerits of standard tool colonoscopy and newer modality Magnetic Resonance Colonography (MRC) in assessing the various colonic pathology.
2. To find out the Sensitivity, Specificity. Positive predictive value and Negative predictive value of MRC in comparison with standard tool Colonoscopy.
3. To find out the role of MRC in patients with obstructive type of colonic lesion were further scope passage was not possible.
MATERIALS AND METHODS:
This comparative study between Colonoscopy and MR Colonography was carried out in the Department of medical Gastroenterology and Radiology Department of Madras Medical College,
Chennai. This is the major referral tertiary care center available to the entire Tamilnadu, Pondicherry and neighboring states like Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
The study was carried between the February 2008 to January 2010. (24 months). Patients who are attending Medical Gastroenterology Department with clinical diagnosis highly suspicious of colorectal pathology were included in this study. Sixty patients were taken up for study and out of sixty patients thirty patients underwent colonoscopy first then subjected to MR Colonography and another thirty patients were subjected for MR Colonography first then followed by Colonoscopy.
Inclusion Criteria:
1. Patients with bleeding per rectum suggestive of colonic lesion rather than perianal problem like hemorrhoids or fissure.
2. Significant weight loss & Change in bowel habits with Positive FOBT.
3. Abnormal finding during rectal examination.
4. Patients with family history of Colorectal Cancer/ Polyposis with symptoms of bowel disease.
Exclusion criteria:
Patients with metal implants like Hip prosthesis, cardiac pacemaker and intracranial aneurismal coil were excluded from MR Colonography.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION:
This study includes total of sixty patients with a mean age of 47 years and the male female ratio of 2:1.
Among the clinical symptoms and abnormal finding on examination the most common symptom being bleeding per rectum seen in 31%, Growth rectum in 21% and suspected IBD-UC in 10% and the remaining 38% constitute all other presentation.
FOBT Positive in 25% of patients with suspected colorectal malignancy, clinically suspected TB abdomen in 11% of patients.
Colonoscopic assessment of the entire colon up to cecum/ileum was possible in forty two patients (70%) and in the remaining eighteen patients (30%) scope not passed up to cecum due to obstructing lesion in sixteen patients (27%) and the patients intolerance to procedure in two patients (3%) in my study.
Biopsy was taken from all patients with colorectal growth and inflammatory lesions, while doing colonoscopy. Biopsy taken from growth arising in Rectum, Sigmoid, and Transverse colon the yield rate was 100% and the Histopathology report (HPE) was Adenocarcinoma. Similarly Ascending colon growth biopsy revealed 100% positive for malignancy.
Biopsy from Suspected Ileocecal TB revealed caseating granulomas in 50% and non-specific inflammatory infiltrate in another 50% of patients.
Biopsy taken in patient with familial adenomatous polyposis showed adenomatous polyp (100%).
Biopsy is very important in planning the management which is possible only with colonoscopy
Out of eight patients with colorectal polyp, polypectomy done for five patients and the remaining
three patients did not report for polypectomy.
The obstructing type of lesions (27%) and poor patient tolerance (3%) accounts for 30%
incomplete study, where in the alternative modality MRC was helpful to evaluate rest of the colon.
Both colonoscopy and MRC detects lesion with same accuracy in thirty four patients (57%), colonoscopy detects lesions missed by MRC in twenty one patients (35%) and MRC detects the lesion missed by Colonoscopy in five patients (8%), because of non-passage of scope. (Fig - 5) Overall accuracy of Colonoscopy is 92% (both modality same accuracy in thirty four patients + colonoscopy scores over MRC in twenty one patients) in assessing colonic lesions. (Fig - 5) Overall accuracy of MRC is 65% (both modality same accuracy in thirty four patients + MRC detects lesion missed by colonoscopy in five patients) in accessing colonic lesion Extracolonic findings were detected by MRC in seven patients in addition to colonic lesions viz. Pelvic nodes, Liver metastasis, Gall stones. Left Renal calculi and Left sided Hydrouretonephrosis.
Statistically while comparing the MRC with standard tool Colonoscopy the Sensitivity - 53%, Specificity – 67%, Positive predictive value – 83% and Negative predictive value – 32% and the p-value is also not significant (>0.05), suggesting MRC is only an alternate modality if colonoscopy is not possible.
In future 3 Tesla MRI with advanced software may play an important role in evaluation of colonic lesions especially for screening Polyposis and Colorectal cancer but still colonoscopy will be needed for tissue diagnosis.


Over the last few decades, U.S. citizens have become increasingly mobile, with significant numbers of individuals living, working and investing abroad. Estate planning has become equally international, generating ever-larger numbers of cross-border succession cases. While these sorts of developments are welcome, they require lawyers to appreciate and anticipate the various ways that the laws of different jurisdictions can interact.
One of the most important recent developments in international succession law comes out of the European Union. While the European Succession Regulation may initially appear applicable only to nationals of E.U. Member States, U.S. citizens can also be affected by its provisions. This Article analyzes the interaction between the Regulation and trust arbitration, which has become increasingly popular in various U.S. and foreign jurisdictions. In so doing, the Article discusses how trust arbitration furthers the goals of the Regulation and how individual provisions in the Regulation may support or restrict the possibility of arbitration of trust-related disputes.


The Suhai Lake Basin has held major ecological status as a crucial component of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau's ecological security barrier. The Suhai Lake Migratory Bird Nature Reserve's safety and the livelihood of Kazakh citizens are now directly endangered by the frequent switching between land-use types and the decrease of ecosystem service functions caused by climate change and human activity. As a result, this work introduces the idea of land-use transfer flow. Through the application of interval level change and the land-use transfer chain, the process, affecting factors, and current issues of land-use change in the Suhai Lake Basin over the past 40 years are thoroughly investigated. The results showed that the intensity of land-use change was significant, at 0.055%, during the period 1990–2000, whereas the grassland area significantly increased, with a net increase of 23.07 km2, mainly from the conversion of saline-alkali land, swamp, and other unused land in the middle and lower reaches. The key factor influencing the growth of the grassland throughout this time has been the ecological management policy. As a result of the climate's ongoing warming between 2000 and 2018, glacial meltwater and precipitation increased, the middle and lower ranges of the groundwater table rose, and the grassland degradation, swamp shrinkage, and soil salinization in the watershed all worsened. The degradation of grassland will result from both overgrazing and overprotection. Suhai Lake Wetland and Haizi Grassland Wetland are the most readily apparent examples of land-use changes in the Suhai Lake Basin from a spatial perspective. More consideration should be given to the ecological deterioration and land exposure in the glacier retreat zone of the upstream source region. The results can provide important information on the impact of regional development and the environmental governance policies of the changes in land use/cover in the Suhai Lake Basin.


OBJECTIVE
Maternal depression across the postbirth period has long-term negative consequences for infant development. Little is known of the neurobiological underpinnings, but they could involve oxytocin, a neuropeptide that is dysfunctional in depression and is implicated in birth and parenting.

METHOD
The authors recruited a community cohort of women with high or low depression scores 2 days after childbirth and measured depression again at 6 and 9 months. When the child was 6, the authors evaluated the families of 46 chronically depressed mothers and 103 mothers reporting no depression since childbirth. The child was assessed for psychiatric diagnoses, social engagement, and empathy. Mother, father, and child were tested for salivary oxytocin level and variation in the rs2254298 single nucleotide polymorphism on the OXTR gene.

RESULTS
Of the children of the chronically depressed mothers, 61% displayed axis I disorders, mainly anxiety and oppositional defiant disorder, compared with 15% of the children of nondepressed mothers. In the depressed mothers' families, salivary oxytocin was lower in mothers, fathers, and children, and the children had lower empathy and social engagement levels. The rs2254298 GG homozygous genotype was overrepresented in depressed mothers and their families, and it correlated with lower salivary oxytocin. Presence of a single rs2254298 A allele (GA or AA genotype) in depressed mothers markedly decreased risk of child psychopathology.

CONCLUSIONS
The negative effect of chronic maternal depression on child social outcomes was related to genetic and peripheral biomarkers of the oxytocin system. This suggests a potential for oxytocin-based interventions.


We present an Internet-scale network topology information (NTI) service named WIND for localizing P2P traffic. Central to WIND are the two simple ideas: 1) obtaining NTI directly from routing infrastructures, and 2) leveraging existing, widely deployed DNS caches for NTI delivery. WIND fulfills the fidelity, flexibility and scalability requirement of an effective NTI service. WIND is deployed in CERNET. We conduct extensive trace-driven emulations on PlanetLab. Experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the WIND service.


Background Patients with multimorbidity are an especially complex population. Multimorbidity is associated with poorer health outcomes and significant polypharmacy. These make patients more vulnerable to drug-related problems, causing a higher number of hospital admissions. This kind of population is common in nursing homes, and the withdrawal of medications might be an appropriate decision, resulting in significant clinical benefits. A review and evaluation process of long-term therapeutic plans aiming to stop, substitute or reduce the dosage of those drugs that under certain clinical conditions can be considered unnecessary or inappropriate, is necessary. The List Evidence-baSed depreScribing for CHRONic patients criteria (LESS-CHRON) is a list of 27 drugs and specific clinical situations thatpresent an opportunity for deprescribing in patients with multimorbidity or similar situation (chronic, elderly with comorbidities, polymedicated). Purpose The aim of this study was to review all the medical treatments and clinical situation of the institutionalised patients in nursing homes, using LESS-CHRON and analyse the pharmacist interventions. Material and methods Cross-sectional study in June 2018. We included all the nursing home residents older than 65 years in a residential care centre linked to a hospital pharmacy. We reviewed, with the physician responsible, the pharmacological treatment and clinical situation of the residents to assess the benefits and risks of medication withdrawal, then we valued the acceptance. Results We included 55 nursing home residents, 50% males, mean age 82.5±9 years. The mean drugs prescribed per patient was 8.5±4.4. Seventy-three per cent of the residents had a Charlson comorbidity index ≥5. We detected 39 inappropiate prescriptions by LESS-CHRON: 18% (seven) digestive system drugs, 41% (16) blood and cardiovascular system drugs, 5% (two) genitourinary tract and 36% (14) central nervous sytem. After the clinical review and evaluation process with the physician, the acceptance intervention rate to reduce dose or stop medication was 10 (26%). However, of the 29 (74%) inappropiate prescriptions without modifications in the treatment, 22 had a clinical explanation. Conclusion LESS-CHRON is a suitable tool for clinical practice to select which patients can benefit from deprescribing and can avoid several adverse events related to drugs, but requires a good knowledge of the clinical history and work in common with physicians. References and/or acknowledgements No conflict of interest.


Transient stability studies are primarily concerned with the generator response of ac power systems and use only steady state type equations to model HVdc converter terminals. These equations are adequate for small disturbances at the converter terminals but cannot accurately represent a converters behaviour during, and through its recovery of, a significant transient disturbance. A detailed three phase electromagnetic analysis is necessary to describe the converters correct behaviour. This thesis describes an accurate and effective hybrid method combining these two types of studies, for analyzing dynamically fast devices such as HVdc converters within a c power systems. Firstly, conventional techniques are reviewed for both a transient stability analysis of power systems and for an electromagnetic transient analysis of HVdc converters. This review deals in particular with the two programs that constitute the hybrid developed in this thesis. Various techniques are then examined to efficiently and accurately pass the dynamic effects of an HVdc link to an a c system stability study, and the dynamic effects of an a c system to a detailed HVdc link study. An optimal solution is derived to maximise the inherent advantages of a hybrid. Finally, the hybrid is applied to a test system and its effectiveness in performing its task is shown.


This article describes the development of a CAE software system, called CAENIC, that enables application domain users to create electronic systems regardless of any lack of high-level electronic engineering skill. As the method will shorten design and building time from weeks to days, it should also be useful to electronic engineers as the starting point of more sophisticated designs. While being, as yet, far from an adequately complete and routine tool, sufficient progress has been made in the development of CAENIC to make worthwhile a report on the strategy being used and the problems to be overcome.


Synchronization is the key of AC power system operation, but its mechanism becomes unclear with the large-scale integration of voltage-source converters (VSCs). As an important feature distinguishing VSCs from synchronous generators (SGs), the current-source characteristics of VSCs have hardly been focused from the perspective of synchronization. In this letter, a synchronization mechanism between power-synchronized voltage-source (VS) and PLL-controlled current-source (CS) is clarified. Based on this mechanism, negative damping oscillations of SGs caused by VSCs are disclosed.


clot, and then the artery was normal down to the sac. The sac had burst, and the parts immediately around it were in a gangrenous state, so that it was difficult to understand its exact relations. A lrge mass of fibrine rested on what appeared to have been the orifice of communication between the sac and the artery. The popliteal vein and its tributaries were plugged with softened fibrinous clots, and around the vessels were small scattered abscesses.


In the Z21 oil-gas field, a total of six depositional lithofacies and two depositional elements were identified based on core observation. Three main diagenetic processes, namely mechanical compaction, cementation, and dissolution of Miocene Zhujiang Formation sandstones were identified according to thin section and scanning electron microscope (SEM) of core samples. Cementations mainly contain silica cementation, carbonate cementation, clay minerals and pyrite. A total of three main pore types, residual primary intergranular pores, secondary dissolution pores and micropores, were identified. Sand sheet deposited in low-energy environment and is characterized by relatively low porosity and permeability values. Lager grain-sized sandstones are of higher quality compared to smaller-sized sandstones. Mechanical compaction, calcite cementation and clay mineral cementation play a key role in reducing porosity and permeability, whereas dissolution of feldspar and debris contribute significantly to improving the reservoir quality. The gas charge occurs prior to oil charge, forming a gas cap in the structural high and an oil ring in the lower formation. Irreducible water stored in the lenticular sandstone of low-porosity and permeability reservoir may convert to movable water as the drill and production perform.


Synthesis of enantiomerically enriched α-hydroxy amides and β-amino alcohols has been accomplished by enantioselective reduction of α-keto amides with hydrosilanes. A series of α-keto amides were reduced in the presence of chiral Cu(II)/(S)-DTBM-SEGPHOS catalyst to give the corresponding optically active α-hydroxy amides with excellent enantioselectivities by using (EtO)3SiH as a reducing agent. Furthermore, a one-pot complete reduction of both ketone and amide groups of α-keto amides has been achieved using the same chiral copper catalyst followed by tetra-n-butylammonium fluoride (TBAF) catalyst in presence of (EtO)3SiH to afford the corresponding chiral β-amino alcohol derivatives.


Most large and controlled buildings require high power demand with long period. However, there are restrictions on building facilities and image when it comes to reducing electricity consumption. Another option is to install a roof-top solar power system, though due to the small installation area, it will only partially reduce energy use. Hybrid energy storage systems in combination with AGM batteries and LFP batteries are now offered as a lower cost energy management solution. AGM batteries are constrained in their ability to produce current, hence a larger current supply will reduce the battery's useable capacity. Therefore, in order to respond to high demand with long period, this research proposed a separate multi-level threshold control of the battery packs, and used the control factor in the form of current ratio to divide the load response for each battery type: On-Peak in AGM: LFP at 0.7:0.3, Off-Peak in AGM : LFP at 0.5 : 0.5. And when one battery was not ready for use, the other battery would be run at full capacity. The results showed that the AGM battery had a peak discharge current of 12.7A, or approximately 0.5C when coupled with an LFP battery, and when processing power storage system capacity, a loss of 8.99 kWh occurred. or 6.8% of the overall capacity.


In his essay on Seneca, T.S. Eliot used the Hercules Furens (= HF) as his example to illustrate 'this curious freak of non-theatrical drama'. Even though Senecan scholarship has by and large moved away from his indictment, the sense that the attention seems to be directed away from the stage points to the play's unique dramaturgy. The surest indicator of this reverse orientation is the conspicuous absence of Hercules himself for much of the play. Hercules is (or wishes to be) permanently 'elsewhere'. His entrance is delayed for a long time; once home, he rushes offstage after a few lines to kill Lycus. He returns onstage only to be attacked by madness, and is drawn inside the palace again to kill his wife and sons. When his madness abates, he falls asleep onstage; on waking, he longs for a place beyond the known world (and underworld) and finally exits into exile. This article proposes a closer examination of the semiotics of space, especially the symbolic value of the offstage. Seneca is constantly drawing attention to the pull towards the stage perimeter and the unseen offstage, characterizing the cosmic nature of Hercules' conflict with Juno and questioning the hero's place in the world as the son of an immortal father.


How we understand the world (our metaphysical premise) determines, to a large degree, how we treat it. How we treat our world constitutes our basic modality. Our basic modality colors everything we do—our entire culture takes its cue from it. Three basic modalities are here distinguished. The first is the modality of pre-materialist or traditional, religion-based societies. This is a modality of importuning, the seeking of assistance from supernatural sources. The second is the modality of materialist or modern, secular societies. This is a modality of instrumentalism, involving mastery, control, and a will to re-make the world in accordance with human ends. The third is the modality of prospective post-materialist societies. These societies would be post-religious but not post-spiritual. Their modality would be one of letting the world unfold according to its own nature, and, by extension, finding creative synergies between human and nonhuman conativities. This modality of synergy is explicated by reference to the Daoist notion of wu wei.


Abstract Previous studies on perspective in spatial signed language descriptions suggest a basic dichotomy between either a route or a survey perspective, which entails either the signer being conceptualized as a mobile agent within a life-sized scene or the signer in a fixed position as an external observer of a scaled-down scene. We challenge this dichotomy by investigating the particular couplings of vantage point position and mobility engaged during various types of spatial language produced across eight naturalistic conversations in Norwegian Sign Language. Spatial language was annotated for the purpose of the segment, the size of the environment described, the signs produced, and the location and mobility of vantage points. Analysis revealed that survey and route perspectives, as characterized in the literature, do not adequately account for the range of vantage point combinations observed in conversations (e.g., external, but mobile, vantage points). There is also some preliminary evidence that the purpose of the spatial language and the size of the environments described may also play a role in how signers engage vantage points. Finally, the study underscores the importance of investigating spatial language within naturalistic conversational contexts.


In several machine learning tasks for graph structured data, the graphs under consideration may be composed of a varying number of nodes. Therefore, it is necessary to design pooling methods that aggregate the graph representations of varying size to representations of fixed size which can be used in downstream tasks, such as graph classification. Existing graph pooling methods offer no guarantee with regards to the similarity of a graph representation and its pooled version. In this work, we address this limitation by proposing FlowPool, a pooling method that optimally preserves the statistics of a graph representation to its pooled counterpart by minimizing their Wasserstein distance. This is achieved by performing a Wasserstein gradient flow with respect to the pooled graph representation. Our method relies on a versatile implementation which can take into account the geometry of the representation space through any ground cost and computes the gradient of the Wasserstein distance with automatic differentiation. We propose the differentiation of the Wasserstein flow layer using an implicit differentiation scheme. Therefore, our pooling method is amenable to automatic differentiation and can be integrated in end-to-end deep learning architectures. Further, FlowPool is invariant to permutations and can therefore be combined with permutation equivariant feature extraction layers in GNNs in order to obtain predictions that are independent of the ordering of the nodes. Experimental results demonstrate that our method leads to an increase in performance compared to existing pooling methods when evaluated on graph classification.


In this article, we provide an extensive review of the recent literature of the signaling pathways modulated by Pulsed Electromagnetic Fields (PEMFs) and PEMFs clinical application. A review of the literature was performed on two medical electronic databases (PubMed and Embase) from 3 to 5 March 2021. Three authors performed the evaluation of the studies and the data extraction. All studies for this review were selected following these inclusion criteria: studies written in English, studies available in full text and studies published in peer-reviewed journal. Molecular biology, identifying cell membrane receptors and pathways involved in bone healing, and studying PEMFs target of action are giving a solid basis for clinical applications of PEMFs. However, further biology studies and clinical trials with clear and standardized parameters (intensity, frequency, dose, duration, type of coil) are required to clarify the precise dose-response relationship and to understand the real applications in clinical practice of PEMFs.


This article explores how the minimax approach to designing experiments applies to the Weibull and lognormal regression models used in accelerated life testing (ALT). When tackling these problems, the local optimal approach assumes the parameters in the information matrix known, while in the Bayes approach, prior distributions are imposed on them. By contrast, the minimax strategy searches for the design that minimizes the maximum of the optimality function criteria over the parameter region of interest. For an offshoot of the criterion based on minimizing the volume of the joint statistical-confidence region for the model parameters (D-optimality), the authors prove that the restricted minimax designs coincide with the local optimal designs at the 'lower left corner' of the parameter region. Extensive simulation shows that this phenomenon also holds for the criterion based on maximizing the precision of estimation of a prespecified quantile of the life distribution. Based on their findings, they recommend that the locally optimal designs be used, but for the most extreme set of feasible parameters instead of implementing them for the best guess for the parameters, as is usually done.


MMC (metal matrix composites) made of ceramic fibres and metal matrix are suitable for high strength and high temperature applications. New types of ceramic fibres usually are incorporated into a metal matrix by means of liquid infiltration or by hot pressing techniques. The disadvantage of these methods is the chemical reaction sometimes occurring between fibre and matrix, resulting in an interlayer which is degrading the mechanical properties of the MMC. A new method is described starting with an arrangement of metal powder or metal foils with ceramic fibres. Dynamic pressures, released by detonation of proper explosives, are used for consolidation. At very high strain rates during plastic deformation of the powder or metal foils hydrodynamic flow of the matrix around the ceramic fibres allows a complete consolidation and to prevent cracking. Fibres made of SiC are embedded into a metal matrix of aluminum


Abstract Seismic amplitude anomalies associated with the presence of hydrocarbon gas now play an important role in the exploration of the East Irish Sea Basin. Tilted flat spots were first observed on data acquired by JEBCO Seismic Ltd. in 1986 within the productive Triassic reservoir of the Sherwood Sandstone Group located in Quadrant 110 (offshore North Wales). With hindsight Direct Hydrocarbon Indicators (DHIs) can now be identified on seismic data acquired in earlier phases of the exploration of the East Irish Sea Basin, although many anomalies were not always identified as such at that time. This study determines the geophysical parameters by which amplitude anomalies associated with diagenetic variations could be separated from anomalies associated with the presence of gas in the reservoir. The predicted model results are compared with the seismic response of proven fields, discoveries and relict or palaeo-DHIs around the basin. Practical implications for effective exploration, development and production methods in the Sherwood Sandstone are suggested.