Background: Cystic echinococcosis (CE) of the brain is an uncommon parasitic infestation. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently published a classification of hepatic CE based upon ultrasonographic findings. Purpose: To evaluate whether the new WHO classification of hepatic CE can be used in the classification of cerebral CE. Material and Methods: The magnetic resonance (MR) imaging findings of 17 patients (14 male, three female), aged 10–24 years (mean age 16 years), with pathologically proved cerebral CE, and who underwent pre- and postcontrast MR imaging, were retrospectively evaluated. The cysts were classified according to the new WHO classification and their clinical stages. The MR imaging findings were correlated to the histopathologic findings. Results: The fertile active cysts (n=12) that showed protoscoleces appeared as unilocular cysts with no visible wall (cystic lesions; CL), unilocular spherical cysts with a clear visible wall (CE1), or as a unilocular mother cyst with multiple vesicles arranged peripherally along the cyst wall (CE2). The transitional form (CE3) (n=2) containing scoleces showed multiple daughter cysts entirely filling the maternal cyst. The inactive cysts (n=3) that had lost their fertility appeared as a "ball of wool" with collapsed membrane or had detached membrane with water-lily sign (CE4) and calcified lesions (CE5). Conclusion: The WHO classification of hepatic CE can be used in the classification of cerebral CE when evaluated by MRI, as it can differentiate fertile active cysts from the transitional and inactive forms of cerebral cystic echinococcosis. This information is essential for treatment planning.


The evolution of the Internet and, specially, the appearance of new information and communications technologies (ICT) inaugurated a different way of understanding research. In fact, words like e-Research or e-Science refer to a new condition of scientific activity, in which tools like social networks allow to disseminate knowledge in an open, collaborative and interactive way that leads to the adjective of Science 2.0 and, at the same time, contributes to enrich the knowledge society, feeding those known as invisible colleges of science. However, even though scientific social networks allow users to share in public their researches in a specific system of knowledge exchange, the participation by Galician communication researchers affiliated to Galician Association of Communication Researchers (AGACOM) is not too high, as well as the use made in them, defined with the adjectives insufficient and passive. In spite of that, their opinion about these kinds of tools is positive as far as their future use is concerned, which demonstrates that, somehow, online social networks are tools which are being developed and popularized, but so far, they have not reached their scientific maturity yet.


Abstract The aim of this text is to describe the methods of future studies, its possibilities and limitations, as well as to make some predictions about the real picture of the development of the 21st century. However, the planning is still not very reliable, and far from a "road map" framework. Thus, future studies are still balancing between science and scientific/artistic fiction. The set of methods of future investigation permits one to compose a few or even up to dozens of medium term or long term scenarios of the world's future. There are a few well-proven laws of social and economic development as well as some partially predictable phenomena in the area of environment, biology, human ethic, etc. No future planning is secure from unpredictable phenomena – "black swans" – and their impact, nor secure from "political decisions" that destroy natural developments in society. So no one scenario can pretend to be absolutely right. The most frequent future scenarios are based on the wish to implement a copy of an existing "happy nation", to fight undesirable trends, and create some kind of "dream society" while stimulating positives and inhibiting negative trends. The final version of a scenario depends also upon the "human factors", e.g. knowledge, stereotypes of thinking, as well as the wishes of those who are financing the project. Generally they are "happy end" projects. This makes scenarios rather useless. Only the independent experts that present more realistic and reliable scenarios can help in the planning of medium term and long term futures. Currently many scenarios foresee the so-called American or European way of development, which is in fact the continuation of the existing world order. There is a growing number of publications about the emergence of China (and Russia) as a great power as well as possibilities of a New Caliphate, New Messiah or new Orwellian style regimes.


Background. Excessive intraoperative bleeding during scoliosis correction extends surgery time, and may increase the risk of complications during surgery and the postoperative period. Recombinant factor VIIa (rVIIa) is widely used to control hemorrhage in patients with hemophilia. Recent reports have examined the use of rVIIa for intraoperative bleeding in patients without coagulopathies. The aim of our study was to evaluate the influence of rVIIa on selected coagulation parameters and blood loss in patients undergoing surgical correction of scoliosis. Material and methods. 62 patients undergoing surgical correction of scoliosis were included in the study. The treatment group consisted of 29 patients who received rVIIa (20 g/kg). The coagulation parameters were evaluated at 15 minutes, 2 hours, 4 hours and 12 hours after the start of surgery. The control group consisted of 33 patients who underwent the same surgery without pharmacological blood loss control. Results. A single administration of rVIIa resulted in a reduction of prothrombin (PT) time and APTT. The effect was observed until the 4th hour of surgery, after which time the value of coagulation parameters increased and reached preoperative values after 12 hours. The volume of blood loss in the treatment group was 1046 ml, compared to 1393 ml in the control group. Conclusions. The use of small doses of rVIIa in healthy patients resulted in rapid thrombin activation at places of tissue damage caused by surgery. During extensive scoliosis surgery, the effect of rVIIa on coagulation process led to a reduction of the time spent in surgery.


More years ago than I now care to remember, at the beginning of my career as an isotope geochemist, I was told by Ian Swainbank that I would never properly understand the behaviour of stable isotope systems unless I understood the statistical and quantum thermodynamics that described these processes. He was right, and I found this out after enrolling on a course in statistical and quantum thermodynamics and working my way through the early classic papers on isotopic chemistry by Urey, Bigeleisen and others. Whilst this process may well have been good for my 'geochemical soul', I sorely …


DNA methylation is one of many epigenetic marks, which directly modifies base residues, usually cytosines, in a multiple‐step cycle. It has been linked to the regulation of gene expression and alternative splicing in several cell types, including during cell lineage specification and differentiation processes. DNA methylation changes have also been observed during aging, and aberrant methylation patterns have been reported in several neurological diseases. We here review the role of DNA methylation in Schwann cells and oligodendrocytes, the myelin‐forming glia of the peripheral and central nervous systems, respectively. We first address how methylation and demethylation are regulating myelinating cells' differentiation during development and repair. We then mention how DNA methylation dysregulation in diseases and cancers could explain their pathogenesis by directly influencing myelinating cells' proliferation and differentiation capacities.


To address a key challenge of conjugated polymers in biomedical applications having poor antifouling properties that eventually leads to the failure and reduced lifetime of bioelectronics in the body, herein we describe the design, synthesis, and evaluation of our newly designed multifunctional zwitterionic liquid crystalline polymer PCBTh-C8C10, which is facilely synthesized using oxidative polymerization. A conjugated polythiophene backbone, a multifunctional zwitterionic side chain, and a mesogenic unit are integrated into one segment. By DSC and POM characterization, we verify that the introduction of 3,5-bis(2-octyl-1-dodecyloxy)benzene as a mesogenic unit into the polythiophene backbone allows the formation of the liquid crystalline mesophase of the resulting polymer. We also demonstrate that the PCBTh-C8C10 coated surface exhibits good conductivity, stability, hydrophilicity, and remarkable antibiofouling properties against protein adsorption, cell growth, and bacteria attachment. This new zwitterionic liquid crystalline polymer having good antibiofouling features will be widely recognized as a promising biomaterial that is applicable in implantable organic bioelectronics via inhibiting the foreign body response. A deep understanding of structure-property relationships of zwitterionic conjugated polymers has also been provided in this study.


This article analyzes the response of a sphere with radially anisotropic permittivity dyadic (RA sphere), in both the electrostatic and full electrodynamic settings. Depending on the values and signs of the permittivity components, the quasistatic polarizability of the RA sphere exhibits several very different interesting properties, including invisibility, field concentration, resonant singularities, and emergent losses. Special attention is given to the anomalous losses that appear in the case of certain hyperbolic anisotropy values. We show that their validity can be justified in a limiting sense by puncturing the sphere at the origin and adding a small imaginary part into the permittivity components. A hyperbolic RA sphere with very small intrinsic losses can thus have significant effective losses making it an effective absorber. With different choices of permittivities, the RA sphere could also perform as a cloak or a sensor. The Mie scattering results by an RA sphere are used to justify the quasistatic calculations. It is shown that in the small parameter limit the absorption efficiency of an RA sphere is nonzero for certain lossless hyperbolic anisotropies. The absorption and scattering efficiencies agree with the quasistatic calculations fairly well for spheres with size parameters up to 1/3.


We report a case of adult intestinal intussusception. The patient had complained of intermittent nonspecific abdominal pain and nausea for two weeks, when acute abdomen appeared and required a segmental small bowell resection. During hospitalization in our Department three abdominal ultrasound examinations were performed, but only one of which was useful in making the diagnosis. We stress the role of ultrasound imaging in the diagnosis of intussusception in adults.


Cholera is a severe diarrhoeal disease affecting vulnerable communities. A long-term solution to cholera transmission is improved access to and uptake of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). Climate change threatens WASH. A systematic review and meta-analysis determined five overarching WASH factors incorporating 17 specific WASH factors associated with cholera transmission, focussing upon community cases. Eight WASH factors showed lower odds and six showed higher odds for cholera transmission. These results were combined with findings in the climate change and WASH literature, to propose a health impact pathway illustrating potential routes through which climate change dynamics (e.g. drought, flooding) impact on WASH and cholera transmission. A causal process diagram visualising links between climate change dynamics, WASH factors, and cholera transmission was developed. Climate change dynamics can potentially affect multiple WASH factors (e.g. drought-induced reductions in handwashing and rainwater use). Multiple climate change dynamics can influence WASH factors (e.g. flooding and sea-level rise affect piped water usage). The influence of climate change dynamics on WASH factors can be negative or positive for cholera transmission (e.g. drought could increase pathogen desiccation but reduce rainwater harvesting). Identifying risk pathways helps policymakers focus on cholera risk mitigation, now and in the future.


Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) as an all-weather method of the remote sensing, now it has been an important tool in oceanographic observations, object tracking, etc. Due to advances in neural networks (NN), researchers started to study SAR ship classification problems with deep learning (DL) in recent years. However, the limited labeled SAR ship data become a bottleneck to train a neural network. In this paper, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are applied to ship classification by using SAR images with the small datasets. To solve the problem of over-fitting which often appeared in training small dataset, we proposed a new method of data augmentation and combined it with transfer learning. Based on experiments and tests, the performance is evaluated. The results show that the types of the ships can be classified in high accuracies and reveal the effectiveness of our proposed method.


ABSTRACT Wang, L. and Jiang, J.J., 2020. An empirical study on the impact of coastal areas on China's financial stability. In: Qiu, Y.; Zhu, H., and Fang, X. (eds.), Current Advancements in Marine and Coastal Research for Technological and Sociological Applications. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 107, pp. 393-397. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. With the improvement of China's openness, the free flow of international capital is more and more free, but at the same time, it also puts forward higher requirements for the stability of the financial system. Coastal areas have the highest degree of openness in China, with more developed economy and finance. It can be said that coastal areas are "systemically important" areas that determine the degree of financial stability in China. This paper first puts forward the hypothesis of "systematic importance" of coastal areas to China's financial stability, then constructs the model of "interest rate total amount of credit", and studies the influence degree of interest rate changes on the total amount of credit in China's major provinces by using the method of time series analysis, and then draws the conclusion that coastal areas are the "systemically important" areas of China's financial stability. Finally, this paper points out that coastal areas are the "systemically important" areas of China's financial stability Suggestions: first, coastal areas should establish corresponding financial stability assessment system while improving financial openness; second, build an effective risk early warning system; third, build an effective risk supervision system; fourth, build an effective emergency system.


The subserous lymphatic plexus on the peritoneal surface of the diaphragm was obliterated to study the removal of protein from the peritoneal cavity in the absence of lymphatic drainage. Cats weighing between 2 and 3 kg were used for this study. Homologous and heterologous serum was injected into the peritoneal cavity of lightly anesthetized animals. In control animals the absorption of 50 ml of homologous serum was complete in 9 hours, and absorption of 50 ml of heterologous serum required 24–36 hours. Cats in which lymphatic peritoneal drainage had been experimentally obstructed showed an increase in time interval for absorption of injection serums. Under this condition 144 hours was required for absorption of heterologous serum and 72 hours for homologous serum.


This paper studies the reliable broadcast problem in a radio network with locally bounded failures. We present a sufficient condition for achievability of reliable broadcast in a general graph subject to Byzantine/crash-stop failures. We then consider the problem of reliable broadcast in an infinite grid (or finite toroidal) radio network under Byzantine and crash-stop failures. We present bounds on the maximum number of failures that may occur in any given neighborhood without rendering reliable broadcast impossible. For the Byzantine failure model, we describe an algorithm which is optimal for the grid network model, as it tolerates faults up to a previously established upper bound for this model. Our results indicate that it is possible to achieve reliable broadcast if slightly less than one-fourth fraction of nodes in any neighborhood are faulty. We also show that reliable broadcast is achievable with crash-stop failures if slightly less than half the nodes in any given neighborhood may be faulty.


The elastic properties of a cracked cellular structure of close-to-zero Poisson's ratio with trapezoidal beams are studied by the finite element method in this paper. The effects of the crack length and crack angle on the non-dimensional equivalent modulus, including elastic moduli in the x-direction, y-direction, and the shear moduli are analyzed. The numerical results indicate that the degree of reduction in the non-dimensional equivalent modulus due to the crack depends on the crack angle and length.


Investigators are always divided into those who are looking for rules and those who are looking for exceptions. (Hackett 1937, p. 106).


A new photonic approach for generating a triangular waveform with octupled-frequency is presented. The core principle is the frequency outupling technique based on two cascaded dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder modulators (DP-MZMs). A dual-electrode MZM (De-MZM) and a single mode fiber (SMF) are subsequently applied to manipulate the signal spectrum to satisfy the characteristics of that of a triangular waveform. By applying a 2-GHz radio frequency (RF) signal, a full-duty-cycle triangular waveform with repetition rate of 16-GHz is obtained. The high frequency multiplying factor shows great potential in generating a cost-effective waveform. Additionally, the phase imbalance of hybrid coupler and bias drift of MZM have been considered in our simulation, which further verify the feasibility and stability of our proposal.


ABSTRACT This article analyses human rights discourses and practices in Sweden's largest victim support and advocacy organisation– Victim Support Sweden. The study is based on the organisation's national archive and interviews with key representatives. The article shows that Victim Support Sweden has been consistent in what they say and do in relation to human rights. From start it has argued in line with the principles in Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), that all human beings are equal and it have not polarised victims and offenders. Later the organisation developed amore nuanced understanding of victimisation and focused on so-called "vulnerable victims;"one of the categories mentioned in Article 2 of UDHR. The results of this article contradict the assumption that victim support organisations are part of a conservative political agenda. This highlights the need to counter balance the domination of Anglophone literature in the field of victim support.


This paper solves the following problem: given the computed variables in a fast least-squares prediction algorithm, determine all past input sequences that would have given rise to the variables in question. This problem is motivated by the backward consistency approach to numerical stability in this algorithm class; the set of reachable variables in exact arithmetic is known to furnish a stability domain. Our problem is equivalent to a first- and second-order interpolation problem introduced by Mullis and Roberts (1976) and studied by others. Our solution differs in two respects. First, relations to classical interpolation theory are brought out, which allows us to parametrize all solutions. By-products of our formulation are correct necessary and sufficient conditions for the problem to be solvable, in contrast to previous works, whose claimed sufficient conditions are shown to fall short. Second, our solution obtains any valid past input as the impulse response of an appropriately constrained orthogonal filter, whose rotation parameters derive in a direct manner from the computed variables in a fast least-squares prediction algorithm. Formulas showing explicitly the form of all valid past inputs should facilitate the study of what past input perturbation is necessary to account for accumulated arithmetic errors in this algorithm class. This, in turn, is expected to have an impact in studying accuracy aspects in fast least-squares algorithms.


The objective of this study was to investigate the prevalence of self-medication practice and associated risk factors among riverine-island's people in Sirajganj, Bangladesh. This study was done by following cross-sectional method with close-ended questionnaire. Data were collected from a total of 459 respondents via face-to-face interview. Frequency analysis was done to identify the prevalence of selfmedication practice, and chi-square test and logistic regression analysis were conducted for identifying the associated factors with self-medication practice. Total 83% participants were self-medicated. Notably, 62% people were self-medicated with antibiotics. More than 30% people practiced with selfmedication due to high cost of doctor consultation. Age, gender, marital status, educational status, occupation, monthly family income, and suffering from illness were correlated with self-medication practice in chi-square (χ2) analysis. Gender (male vs. female, odds ratio [OR]: 0.49, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.25-0.95, p=0.031) and marital status (married vs. unmarried, OR: 0.43, 95% CI: 0.23- 0.83, p=0.011) were significantly associated with self-medication practice in logistic regression analysis. The rate at which persons living on riverine islands engage in self-medication is alarmingly high, and the consequence of this behavior is concerning. The inappropriate use of antibiotics is a source of concern. In order to reduce the practice of self-medication among people living on riverine islands in Sirajganj, Bangladesh, there is an immediate need to raise public awareness about the harmful effects of the practice as well as to implement appropriate legislation and activities.
Bangladesh Pharmaceutical Journal 26(1): 79-88, 2023 (January)


We present a comparative study of the activity and selectivity of Rh/C nanoparticles and Sn-modified Rh/C nanoparticles towards electrocatalytic nitrate reduction in sulfuric acid. Electrochemical techniques, combined with more direct analytical techniques such as mass spectrometry and ion chromatography, were applied to analyse the products obtained during the reaction. Online electrochemical mass spectrometry was employed to detect volatile products, such as nitric oxide (NO), nitrous oxide (N2O) and dinitrogen (N2). The combination of online sample collection to the electrochemical cell and offline ion chromatography allows the quantitative analysis of non-volatile products, such as ammonium () and hydroxylamine (NH3OH+). Non-volatile products can be detected during nitrate reduction at Rh/C electrodes. The catalytic activity of Rh/C electrodes can be enhanced by Sn modification. N2O is the dominant volatile product at SnRh/C electrodes. is the main ionic product at the Rh/C electrodes, whereas modification by Sn also leads to the formation of NH3OH+.


The concept of shared decision making (SDM) has gained increasing attention across healthcare fields including emergency care, with a focus shift towards patient-centred medicine. With cardiac chest pain accounting for approximately 6% of all emergency department (ED) attendances we aimed to co-design a personalised decision aid based on the established Troponin-only Manchester Acute Coronary Syndromes (T-MACS) prediction model to increase patient involvement in the decision making on serial troponin testing and follow up. The T-MACS Choice decision aid was co-designed with patient and physician involvement in 7 stages using a mixed-methods approach (figure 1) at the Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) from March to May 2017. The initial prototype was developed based on a) a literature review of SDM, b) the AHRQ health literacy toolkit and c) the International Patient Decision Aid Standards instrument. Abstract 014 Figure 1 T-MACS choice development flowchart In subsequent stages the prototype was improved based on feedback provided by the PRIMER patient and public involvement group, three SDM expert clinicians, focus groups interviews involving 26 members from patient groups with a history of cardiac problems, questionnaires from 29 emergency physicians and 14 patients presenting to MRI ED with chest pain and admitted for serial troponin testing. The final T-MACS Choice decision aid is personalised for the individual patient, reflecting their distinct risk group with the relevant choice options (figure 2). Abstract 014 Figure 2 T-MACS choice In the initial development stages the most common themes identified were the importance of a personalised design and the use of clear, understandable language avoiding medical jargon. Both patients and physicians highlighted the importance of including information on heart health and prevention. In the final stages both sides agreed that T-MACS Choice had the right amount of information, was clear and engaging patients in the decision making. Further research on clinical implementation of T-MACS Choice is needed to determine its impact on patient choice and safety.


An account of symmetry is very fruitful in studies of quantum spin systems. In the present paper we demonstrate how to use the spin SU(2) and the point symmetries in optimization of the theoretical condensed matter tools: the exact diagonalization, the renormalization group approach, the cluster perturbation theory. We apply the methods for study of Bose-Einstein condensation in dimerized antiferromagnets, for investigations of magnetization processes and magnetocaloric effect in quantum ferrimagnetic chain.


Diversification of bacterial species and pathotypes is largely caused by horizontal transfer of diverse DNA elements such as plasmids, phages and genomic islands (e.g. pathogenicity islands, PAIs). A PAI called high‐pathogenicity island (HPI) carrying genes involved in siderophore‐mediated iron acquisition (yersiniabactin system) has previously been identified in Yersinia pestis, Y. pseudotuberculosis and Y. enterocolitica IB strains, and has been characterized as an essential virulence factor in these species. Strikingly, an orthologous HPI is a widely distributed virulence determinant among Escherichia coli and other Enterobacteriaceae which cause extraintestinal infections. Here we report on the HPI of E. coli strain ECOR31 which is distinct from all other HPIs described to date because the ECOR31 HPI comprises an additional 35 kb fragment at the right border compared to the HPI of other E. coli and Yersinia species. This part encodes for both a functional mating pair formation system and a DNA‐processing region related to plasmid CloDF13 of Enterobacter cloacae. Upon induction of the P4‐like integrase, the entire HPI of ECOR31 is precisely excised and circularised. The HPI of ECOR31 presented here resembles integrative and conjugative elements termed ICE. It may represent the progenitor of the HPI found in Y. pestis and E. coli, revealing a missing link in the horizontal transfer of an element that contributes to microbial pathogenicity upon acquisition.


The paper describes the architecture of a knowledge-based simulation engine (KBSE). It summarizes ongoing efforts at Knowledge Based Systems Laboratory, Texas A&M University and Knowledge Based Systems Inc., College Station, TX, in developing knowledge based simulation. The KBSE provides support for: developing a simulation model from a description of the system and the user concern in the form of a question to be answered; and analyzing the simulation output. The support for output analysis includes assistance for statistical analysis, explaining a set of observations, and generating alternative ways to improve performance/solve a problem. The approach used to develop KBSE was to integrate simulation expert knowledge with domain knowledge, commonsense reasoning techniques, and qualitative and quantitative simulation techniques. The Phase I KBSE automates the generation of simulation models from system descriptions. Phase II provides intelligent support for simulation output analysis. The paper presents a summary of the artificial intelligence (AI) based algorithms and heuristics developed in Phase I.


Exposure of in vitro cultured human embryos to microvibrations can improve embryo development, but music as a source of mechanical vibrations has not yet been explored. To determine the effect of the exposure to music during in vitro culture, 967 oocytes (114 patients) were analyzed. Before insemination, oocytes from each patient were randomly assigned to two groups: embryo culture exposed to music (479 oocytes), and embryo culture without music (488 oocytes). Three different types of music were also tested: pop, heavy metal and classical. Fertilization rates and embryo quality (score, cleavage stage and multinucleation) were compared using a generalized linear mixed model (two levels were considered) and analyzed by means of Bayesian inferences using Integrated Nested Laplace (INLA). Results showed that fertilization rates were 4.82% higher when oocytes were exposed to music but no statistically significant differences were found regarding embryo quality on Day 2. Moreover, no statistically significant difference was observed between the different types of music played (pop, heavy metal and classical). As a conclusion, the routine use of music inside incubators during in vitro culture could be a useful tool to improve fertilization rates. The effect of music on embryo development up to Day 5 should be evaluated.


Abstract. To achieve the optimal image segmentation, an energy segmentation method based on multiple features and blocks for high resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image is proposed in this paper. First of all, a feature vector of pixel is formed with the texture feature extracted by curvelet transform and means function, the boundary feature extracted by curvelet transform and Canny Operator, and the original spectral feature; a feature set is formed by all feature vectors of pixels in the image. The feature vector is considered as segmentation basis, and its domain is partitioned by regular tessellation. On the partitioned image domain, a label variable is assigned to a regular block; each homogeneous region is fitted by one or more regular blocks; Obviously, a label field is formed by all the label variables of regular blocks. The model of label field is built by using energy function of neighborhood relationship. The feature set is considered as a realization of a random filed of multiple features (multiple features field for short). A heterogeneous energy function is used to establish the model of multiple features field. Then the established models of the label field and multiple features field are combined to define global energy function of image segmentation, and non-constrained Gibbs probability distribution is used to describe the global energy function to build the energy segmentation model based on multiple features. Further, a RJMCMC algorithm is designed to simulate from the model to segment SAR image. To verify the feasibility and superiority of the proposed approach, real SAR images are tested.


4837 The Met receptor tyrosine kinase and its ligand, hepatocytegrowth factor (HGF), have been implicated in the developmentand progression of several human cancers and have become compelling targets for developing anti-neoplastic agents. JNJ-38877605 was selected following extensive structure-based drug design and is a smallmolecule, ATP-competitive, inhibitor of the catalyticactivity of Met kinase (IC50 4 nM). JNJ-38877605 exhibited~600-fold selectivity (vs cFMS IC50 2.6μM ; the next most potently inhibited kinase) for Met compared with a panel of ~250 diversetyrosine and serine-threonine kinases. In cellular studies,JNJ-38877605 was found to potently inhibit HGF-stimulated and constitutively activatedMet phosphorylation, and HGF and Met-driven phenotypessuch as cell motility,invasion, cell proliferation (exclusively in Met amplified cells), and/or morphology of a variety of tumor cells. JNJ-38877605 inhibits all known HGF-stimulated or constitutivelyactivated downstream mediators of the Met kinase pathway. JNJ-38877605 showed excellent oral bioavailability approaching 100% in all species examined. In addition, a single dose of JNJ-38877605 was observed toinhibit Met phosphorylation in tumor xenografts for up to16 h following a single oral dose. Inhibition of Met phosphorylation was associated withdose-dependent tumor growth inhibition using a range of oral dosing regimens. JNJ-38877605 was observed to induce significant tumor regression in large, well established MET gene amplified gastric cancer models and in Met pathway- activated (autocrine or paracrine) models.The highly favourable preclinical properties of JNJ-38877605 together with the extremely clean GLP toxicity profile of this compound has resulted in the selection of this potent and uniquely selective Met inhibitor for clinical evaluation.


Background: To improve the diagnostic efficiency of early oesophageal cancer, it is of great significance to develop an effective risk prediction model. This study aimed to identify a high-risk population with oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) based on a population screening model.Methods: From 120 target townships randomly selected from 150 villages selected in Nanchong City, Sichuan Province, China, from Jan 2016 to Sep 2019, a total of 6409 subjects were screened. Each patient underwent standard endoscopy and narrow band imaging (NBI) and iodine staining indicator biopsies to evaluate oesophageal cancer and precancerous lesions. Before endoscopy, the subjects completed a questionnaire about ESCC risk factors. Variables were evaluated by univariate analysis, and variables significantly related to ESCC were extracted by using a logistic regression model. We used the Akaike information criterion to develop the final model structure and the coding form of variables with multiple metrics. We developed two sets of models to define severe dysplasia and above (SDA) and moderate dysplasia and above (MDA) as prognostic events, respectively. Results: The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) were0.896 (95%CI, 0.888-0.903) and 0.825 (95% CI, 0.816-0.835) for our SDA and MDA models, respectively. MDA-related and SDA-related factors included age, sex, cigarette smoking, alcohol drinking, pharyngeal foreign body sensation, swallowing obstruction, pain behind the sternum, and discomfort behind the breastbone.Conclusions: we developed an easy-to-use model to identify individuals with high risk of dysplasia or oesophageal cancer in high-risk areas of oesophageal cancer in China.


Aim. To find out the problems in children health in long-time postoperative period after cardiosurgery using the comprehensive method for creating rehabilitation program. Methods. A prospective investigation of group of children was done before (n = 88) and in a year (n = 115), in 2 years (n = 90) and in 3 years (n = 58) after the surgical correction of congenital heart defects on the base of Kuzbass cardiological center. The anamnesis, clinical and hemodynamic aspects were studied as well as the postoperative period, residual problems after the correction, social status of the family and the comprehensive assessment was done in the both groups. Results. Before the correction the most part of children had low and very low levels of physical functioning, but there was a positive dynamic right after the surgery: the most part of children had high and middle levels (13% and 44% in a year), while the amount of children with low and very low data were reduced. Nevertheless, in 3 years after the surgery the amount of children with low and very low data was increased while the hemodynamic became better. Such tendency was mentioned with all aspects of the health. Conclusion. Despite of hemodynamic normalization the quality of life with all aspects still suffers. It predicts dangers in development and quality of life in general.


Reply to the comments of Anonymous Referee #2-AC Anonymous Referee #2 Received and published: 24 September 2019 In this manuscript, the authors tried (1) to compare the performance of WRF QPF and PERSIANN-CCS QPEs and (2) to develop a new Karst-Liuxihe model. I agree with Reviewer 1 that it isn't convincing that the proposed new model can address the challenges of hydrological simulation in Karst areas. In addition, it isn't clear to how to add the karst mechanism into the Liuxihe model, and for example, regarding the karst water-bearing media simplification, it should be documented how to deal with this issue in the original model and how to improve it in


ON A HOT JULY DAY IN 1702, FATHER ANTOINE DAVION neared the end of a voyage from the Tunica village on the Yazoo River to a mission near the junction of the Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers. Davion, one of several missionaries called to serve in the Lower Mississippi Valley in the late seventeenth century, was no more than a day away from seeing a colleague, Father Nicolas Foucault, and would surely commiserate with him over their respective efforts to Christianize the Quapaw and Tunica peoples, among others.1 But as he traveled up the Mississippi, he came across a hat, a few papers, and a dressed altar for the Holy Eucharist and knew immediately that he need not continue his journey to the Arkansas mission. The horrific scene on the Mississippi's banks would haunt him for years to come. Davion discovered that Nicolas Foucault had been murdered.2Four years earlier, in May 1698, Bishop Jean-Baptiste de la Croix de Chevrieres de Saint-Vallier granted permission to the Seminary of Quebec to establish missions along the Mississippi River in order to convert the many nations present to Christianity.3 Soon after, Gov. Louis de Baude, Comte de Frontenac granted a passport to the seminary, allowing it to pro- ceed with sending missionaries to the region. Fathers Francois de Montigny (the leader of the missionaries), Antoine Davion, and Jean-Francois Buisson de Saint-Cosme left Lachine, Quebec, with twelve men to explore the Native American villages along the lower Mississippi.4 As they journeyed southward, they selected several Indian nations among which to establish missions, notably the Tamarois, the Tunicas, the Taensas, and the Natchez. When the trio first encountered the Quapaws along the Arkansas River, they found them friendly and very anxious to have a mis- sionary placed among them.5 De Montigny advised them to gather their nation into one village. The Quapaws agreed that they would do so by the following spring-of 1700-and would even build a house for the missionaries.6In May 1701, the Quapaws finally received their missionary.7 Father Nicolas Foucault resided and worked among them for just fifteen months. By most accounts, his efforts to convert them were unsuccessful. Both historians and contemporaries have suggested that the Quapaws mistreated and abused Foucault, thereby seeming to blame these indigenous people for his failure.8 Yet it is impossible to be sure why this first effort to Christianize the Quapaws came up short. Documents from Foucault's hand cannot be found. We do not know if Davion collected any of his papers when he discovered Foucault's murder and, if so, whether such documents remain hidden in a descendant's attic or buried in archives.9 And, too, the Quapaws themselves were without a written language, all of which makes understanding why the Quapaws, in the words of one historian, "proved less than willing receptors of the gospel" all the more challenging.10 But analysis of a range of documents casts considerable doubt on the suggestion that Quapaw hostility toward Foucault accounted for his failure. Earlier visitors, including de Montigny and Father Zenobe Membre remarked on the Quapaws' mildness, warmth, cheerfulness, generosi- ty, and courtesy; Saint-Cosme described their extraordinary honesty." At the same time, events earlier in Foucault's life paint a picture of a man who might seem destined to fail among the Quapaws. Strongly devoted to his scruples, quite meticulous, and often at odds with officers and colonists along the St. Lawrence River, he may just have been poorly suited to working with indigenous nations. Instead of a tireless priest whose efforts were dismissed by the Quapaws, it seems possible that Foucault was, as Antoine de la Mothe de Cadillac described him, simply an "odd man if ever there was one."12Nicolas Foucault was born in Paris sometime around 1664 to a family of booksellers and publishers from the Rue St. Jacques, a birthright that provided a comfortable upbringing as well as access to books, pamphlets, and other publications that could have alerted him to the variety of cultures that existed far from the streets of Paris. …


ABSTRACT What is the relationship between the ideas that underlie narrative and the language used to convey those ideas? What modes of poiesis are involved? What are the dynamics of the conversion process? The concept of ideasthesia can be used to tackle these questions. This article investigates the concept of ideasthesia using Nikolić's definition of the concept, which arises from the 'Ancient Greek words idea (for concept) and aesthesis (for sensation). Hence […] the term ideasthesia [or] sensing concepts' (Nikolić, D. 2016. 'Ideasthesia and art.' http://www.danko-nikolic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Ideasthesia-and-art.pdf; emphasis in original). Ideasthesia is a means for understanding writing process – a way of deconstructing the ways in which writers sense concepts (ideas) in metaphorical, associative and sensory ways. Narrative arises from everyday ideas that are subsequently transformed. This article reflects upon the process of writing the short story 'Like Clay', a story about a form of postpartum psychosis known as olfactory hallucination (Prendergast, J. 2015. 'Like Clay.' Island Literary Magazine. http://aawp.org.au/files/Prendergast_0.pdf). The article unpacks meta-level processes of association from a practice-based perspective. Tracking the use of connotative language, this article reflects upon the writing process: asking how an image might represent an idea that simmers beneath the surface.


The development of highly parallel direct solvers for large, sparse linear systems of equations (e.g. for finite element or finite difference models) is lagging behind progress in parallel direct solvers for dense matrices and iterative methods for sparse matrices. We describe a massively parallel (MP) multifrontal solver for the direct solution of large sparse linear systems, such as those routinely encountered in finite element structural analysis, in an effort to address concerns about the viability of scalable, MP direct methods for sparse systems and enhance the software base for MP applications. Performance results are presented and future directions are outlined for research and development efforts in parallel multifrontal and related solvers. In particular, parallel efficiencies of 25% on 1024 nCUBE 2 nodes and 36% on 64 Intel iPSCS60 nodes have been demonstrated, and parallel efficiencies of 60--85% are expected when a severe load imbalance is overcome by static mapping and dynamic load balance techniques previously developed for other parallel solvers and application codes.


Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are unlimited web-based courses accessed through computers, smartphones, or other digital devices. Although they have multiple advantages, a common challenge is the low course completion rates. Young family doctors of the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) from more than 20 countries recently completed an initiative that combined social media platforms with a MOOC offered by Harvard University. This resulted in a completion rate five times greater than the baseline rate. We propose perfecting and expanding this method to augment continued medical education, collaboration, and best practice exchange among WONCA's members and participating organizations worldwide.


Shirouma-Daisekkei is one of the three largest snow patches in the Japanese Alps. More than 10,000 climbers pass on the snow patch every year. The climbers have suffered accidents of rockfall and rock slip. In August 2005, rock slip at the rock wall of Shakushi-dake causes injured two people. In August 2008, rock slip at upper part of snow patch causes two climbers sacrificed (Kariya et al., 2008). In this study, we carried out field survey during 2014-2015, to clarify the state of rockfall and rock slip, and topographical change around Shirouma-daisekkei. Interval camera showed many rock fragments appeared from inside of snow emerged by declining snow surface in 2014. On the other hand, many rock fragments were produced from rock wall after June 2015. The total number of rock fragments (>30cm) is 570 on the snow patch at the end of September. The distribution of rock fragments is local, and reflected the differences in the local geological feature of this study area.


Sensors composed of a porous silicon monolayer covered with a film of nanostructured gold layer, which provide two optical signal transduction methods, are fabricated and thoroughly characterized concerning their sensing performance. For this purpose, silicon substrates were electrochemically etched in order to obtain porous silicon monolayers, which were subsequently immersed in gold salt solution facilitating the formation of a porous gold nanoparticle layer on top of the porous silicon. The deposition process was monitored by reflectance spectroscopy, and the appearance of a dip in the interference pattern of the porous silicon layer was observed. This dip can be assigned to the absorption of light by the deposited gold nanostructures leading to localized surface plasmon resonance. The bulk sensitivity of these sensors was determined by recording reflectance spectra in media having different refractive indices and compared to sensors exclusively based on porous silicon or gold nanostructures. A thorough analysis of resulting shifts of the different optical signals in the reflectance spectra on the wavelength scale indicated that the optical response of the porous silicon sensor is not influenced by the presence of a gold nanostructure on top. Moreover, the adsorption of thiol-terminated polystyrene to the sensor surface was solely detected by changes in the position of the dip in the reflectance spectrum, which is assigned to localized surface plasmon resonance in the gold nanostructures. The interference pattern resulting from the porous silicon layer is not shifted to longer wavelengths by the adsorption indicating the independence of the optical response of the two nanostructures, namely porous silicon and nanostructured gold layer, to refractive index changes and pointing to the successful realization of two sensors in one spot.


Data quality has become a pervasive challenge for organizations as they wrangle with large, heterogeneous datasets to extract value. Given the proliferation of sensitive and confidential information, it is crucial to consider data privacy concerns during the data cleaning process. For example, in medical database applications, varying levels of privacy are enforced across the attribute values. Attributes such as a patient's country or city of residence may be less sensitive than the patient's prescribed medication. Traditional data cleaning techniques assume the data is openly accessible, without considering the differing levels of information sensitivity. In this work, we take the first steps toward a data cleaning model that integrates privacy as part of the data cleaning process. We present a privacy-aware data cleaning framework that differentiates the information content among the attribute values during the data cleaning process to resolve data inconsistencies while minimizing the amount of information disclosed. Our data repair algorithm includes a set of data disclosure operations that considers the information content of the underlying attribute values, while maximizing data utility. Our evaluation using real datasets shows that our algorithm scales well, and achieves improved performance and comparable repair accuracy against existing data cleaning solutions.


Learning is an interactive process from there sultof the activities of educators and students in a particular learning environment. In learning the teacher plays a very important role indesigning, implementing and evaluating learning so that each learning design can be realizd properly, then every educator needs to have the ability to design learning well and arouse students interest in learning. Interest is the basic an dimpetus for someone to  do what they want if they want to achieve the expected goals. Interest is a convincing foundation for the success of a learning process. Students who have an interest in an object will tend to give greater attention to the material they are studying. Teacher need to arouse students interest in learning so that they canbe excited to receive lessons, make students aware to be directly involved in learning, learn with funand be abietouse various methods of technical strategies and fun learning approaches
Keywords: Students, Learning, an Interestin Learning


SiO2 particles (0.6 μm dia.) have been synthesized from tetraethyl orthosilicate and then decorated with ZrO2 synthesized from zirconium tetrabutoxide. X-ray diffraction, infrared spectra, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy have been used to characterize the ZrO2 and ZrO2/SiO2 catalysts. The results reveal that there are Si-O-Zr bridges between SiO2 and ZrO2 particles and ZrO2 deposited on the SiO2 surface. FT-IR analysis shows Si-O-Zr bonding at 1073 cm. XRD analysis shows that amorphous SiO2 and tetragonal ZrO2 particles are formed at 500 °C. SEM and TEM analyses show that SiO2 and ZrO2/SiO2 nanocomposite particles have a spherical morphology with diameter of 700-750 nm and a uniform particle size. Photoactivity of ZrO2 and ZrO2/SiO2 particles has been investigated in the presence of ozone under UV light with methylene blue as a sample pollutant. Pseudo-first order kinetic model gives R values to be 0.69-0.97 and 0.79-0.93 for ZrO2 and ZrO2/SiO2 respectively. This study proves that ozone assisted ZrO2/SiO2 catalyst is an effective and fast-reacting system for photocatalytic removal of organic pollutants present in wastewater.


OBJECTIVE
To determine if there are any differences in the number of exclusions from paternity of men using an anonymous parentage testing service compared with that of men using an in-person parentage testing service provided by the same company in Hong Kong SAR of China.

METHODS
Comparable numbers of consecutive anonymous and in-person parentage tests conducted by the same company were analyzed.

RESULTS
Men using an anonymous parentage testing service were excluded from paternity at a significantly greater rate (P < 0.001), compared with men using an in-person parentage test service.

CONCLUSIONS
The results obtained from anonymous parentage testing indicate that the number of families containing children of doubtful parentage is much greater than expected previously. As illegitimate children are known to suffer greater degrees of abuse and neglect, this finding poses serious social questions regarding the welfare of families, which the relevant authorities should acknowledge and address.


This paper presents an artificial neural network (ANN)-based coordination control scheme for under load tap changing (ULTC) transformer and STATCOM. The objective of the coordination controller is to minimize both the amount of tap changes of the transformer and STATCOM output while maintaining an acceptable voltage magnitude at the substation bus. The coordination controller is designed to substitute for a classical ULTC mechanism by utilizing active and reactive powers, tap position, and STATCOM output. A competitive ANN is used as a classifier for tap positions and trained by a proposed iterative condensed nearest neighbor (ICNN) rule.


OBJECTIVE
We assessed the initial clinical performance and third-party reimbursement rates of supplementary computer-aided detection (CAD) at CT colonography (CTC) for detecting colorectal polyps 6 mm or larger in routine clinical practice.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
We retrospectively assessed the prospective clinical performance of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved CAD system in second-reader mode in 347 consecutive adults (mean age, 57.6 years; 205 women, 142 men) undergoing CTC evaluation over a 5-month period. The reference standard consisted of the prospective interpretation by experienced CTC radiologists combined with subsequent optical colonoscopy (OC), if performed. We also assessed third-party reimbursement for CAD for studies performed over an 18-month period.

RESULTS
In all, 69 patients (mean [± SD] age, 59.0 ± 7.7 years; 32 men, 37 women) had 129 polyps ≥ 6 mm. Per-patient CAD sensitivity was 91.3% (63 of 69). Per-polyp CAD-alone sensitivity was 88.4% (114 of 129), including 88.3% (83 of 94) for 6- to 9-mm polyps and 88.6% (31 of 35) for polyps 10 mm or larger. On retrospective review, three additional polyps 6 mm or larger were seen at OC and marked by CAD but dismissed as CAD false-positives at CTC. The mean number of false-positive CAD marks was 4.4 ± 3.1 per series. Of 1225 CTC cases reviewed for reimbursement, 31.0% of the total charges for CAD interpretation had been recovered from a variety of third-party payers.

CONCLUSION
In our routine clinical practice, CAD showed good sensitivity for detecting colorectal polyps 6 mm or larger, with an acceptable number of false-positive marks. Importantly, CAD is already being reimbursed by some third-party payers in our clinical CTC practice.


Spelling Error Correction (SEC) that requires high-level language understanding is a challenging but useful task. Current SEC approaches normally leverage a pre-training then fine-tuning procedure that treats data equally. By contrast, Curriculum Learning (CL) utilizes training data differently during training and has shown its effectiveness in improving both performance and training efficiency in many other NLP tasks. In NMT, a model's performance has been shown sensitive to the difficulty of training examples, and CL has been shown effective to address this. In SEC, the data from different language learners are naturally distributed at different difficulty levels (some errors made by beginners are obvious to correct while some made by fluent speakers are hard), and we expect that designing a curriculum correspondingly for model learning may also help its training and bring about better performance. In this paper, we study how to further improve the performance of the state-of-the-art SEC method with CL, and propose a Self-Supervised Curriculum Learning (SSCL) approach. Specifically, we directly use the cross-entropy loss as criteria for: 1) scoring the difficulty of training data, and 2) evaluating the competence of the model. In our approach, CL improves the model training, which in return improves the CL measurement. In our experiments on the SIGHAN 2015 Chinese spelling check task, we show that SSCL is superior to previous norm-based and uncertainty-aware approaches, and establish a new state of the art (74.38% F1).


Safe navigation is a fundamental challenge in multi-robot systems due to the uncertainty surrounding the future trajectory of the robots that act as obstacles for each other. In this work, we propose a principled data-driven approach where each robot repeatedly solves a finite horizon optimization problem subject to collision avoidance constraints with latter being formulated as distributionally robust conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) of the distance between the agent and a polyhedral obstacle geometry. Specifically, the CVaR constraints are required to hold for all distributions that are close to the empirical distribution constructed from observed samples of prediction error collected during execution. The generality of the approach allows us to robustify against prediction errors that arise under commonly imposed assumptions in both distributed and decentralized settings. We derive tractable finite-dimensional approximations of this class of constraints by leveraging convex and minmax duality results for Wasserstein distributionally robust optimization problems. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is illustrated in a multi-drone navigation setting implemented in Gazebo platform.


China and Vietnam have experienced drastic social, economic and political changes, especially when these two socialist regimes have started economic reforms in the last few decades. In order to create more opportunities for higher education with limited national resources, both Chinese and Vietnamese governments have adopted strategies along the lines of marketization and privatization to reform their higher education systems. The major objective of this article is to critically examine how the market transition taking place in China and Vietnam has led to changes in education governance, particularly examine how these two governments have approached the challenges of global capitalism by transforming the socialist education model into a more market-oriented one. This article also discusses the major challenges and policy implications when education is increasingly privatized and marketized in China and Vietnam.


Astroblastoma is one of the very unusual type of tumors, whose histogenesis has not been clarified. It occurs mainly among children or young adults. Astroblastoma is grossly well-demarcated, and shows histologically characteristic perivascular pseudorosettes with frequent vascular hyalinization. Perivascular pseudorosettes in astroblastoma have short and thick cytoplasmic processes and blunt-ended foot plates. A 15-yr-old girl presented with headache and diplopia for one and a half year. A well-demarcated mass, 9.7 cm in diameter, was found in the right frontal lobe in brain MRI, and it was a well-enhanced inhomogenous mass. Cystic changes of various sizes were observed inside the tumor mass as well as in the posterior part of the mass, but no peritumoral edema was found. Histologically, this mass belongs to a typical astroblastoma, and no sign of anaplastic astrocytoma, gemistocytic astrocytoma or glioblastoma was found in any part of the tumor. Immunohistochemically, the tumor cells showed diffuse strong positivity for glial fibrillary acidic protein, S-100 protein, vimentin and neuron specific enolase, and focal positivity for epithelial membrane antigen and CAM 5.2, while showing negativity for synaptophysin, neurofilament protein, pan-cytokeratin and high molecular weight keratin.


In a turbid medium illuminated by a collimated light beam the effect of the attenuation of the coherent field is usually described by assuming a single scattering model. This approximation is justified if we limit to consider weak diffusive media in which the individual scatterers does not differ substantially from the surrounding medium. However in order to replicate the scattering properties of turbid biological media it is important to explore the range corresponding to high volume concentrations of random particles where multiple scattering effects must be taken into account. In this paper we extend the Keller theory for the calculation of the attenuation constant by including third order terms in the perturbation expansion of the stochastic equation governing wave propagation in dense random media. We have derived a new analytical expression for the quadratic and cubic coefficient in concentration as a function of the scatterers diameter and of the light wavelength in the medium. The paper presents numerical calculations of these coefficients for various particles diameters and concentrations.


The article emerged from a practice-led project, in which Algerian women survivors of the Civil War of the 1990s narrate their first-hand testimonies in the presence of authors who endeavoured to translate them through literature. It explores Khatibi's novel Hatab Sarajevo (Firewood of Sarajevo) (2019) which combines the unheard voices of these women survivors as well as survivors of the war in Bosnia. In it, first-hand and secondary witnesses are communicated through the medium of testimony as a genre and through language in its literal and figurative forms. The article aims to influence the debate around transitional justice, symbolic reparation and the role of literature in the provision of remedy for historical injustice, particularly in a situation where processes of transitional justice have been absent, aborted or misused, as in the case of Algeria. This article brings approaches from a variety of disciplines to explore the power of literature in challenging established narratives through testimony. It compares and contrasts the different forms of witnessing produced by first-hand eyewitnesses with those communicated and translated through literature, in this case Khatibi's novel Hatab Sarajevo (2018), to present a practical case of a survivor-centred approach. It will illustrate how 'translated' stories go beyond the traditional way of representing the past and searching for truth, to empowering survivors. I argue that this collective writing project gives agency to survivors to create a corpus of 'mnemonics literature' (i.e., of mnemonic collected works). In doing so, it generates 'alternative archives', which could be either a contested or a confirmed version of history, as well as enabling the empowerment of 'mnemonic communities' (Jones, 2014) 1 as a whole. I conclude that testimonies in their different forms both promote healing


Today's advanced Gas Turbine (GT) combustion systems are designed to achieve low emission limits over a wide operational range. Regular combustion tuning is usually required to ensure that emissions are kept well within the plant compliance limits and that combustion dynamics levels are low enough to meet the mechanical integrity targets of all hot gas parts. These targets must be met during the full lifetime of the power plant, regardless of ambient conditions, fuel composition or engine degradation. Considering also the recent increase of combustor inspection intervals and the change in the GT loading profile due to the intermittent nature of renewable energies, it became advantageous to develop an automated GT26 combustion tuning control.
 Ansaldo Energia self-learning AutoTune system, based on the well proven product developed by Power Systems Manufacturing (PSM), tunes engine operating parameters to maintain emission and combustion dynamics within specified limits under varying ambient conditions, load ranges, gas compositions and increasing engine degradation. It increases the robustness of the operation concept by introducing dynamic set points instead of fixed settings. This results in tuning flexibility, continuous engine optimization and it helps to potentially eliminate manual engine adjustments during a major inspection cycle.
 After a general introduction on the operating concept of the GT26, the interaction between AutoTune and the GT controller is described together with the set-up and tuning principles. The universal AutoTune algorithm was adapted to the unique GT26 reheat architecture and flexibility, allowing for: (i) GT26 EV and SEV tuning for emissions and pulsations during stable conditions, (ii) tuning to minimize the minimum environmental load (MEL) with changing fuel gas properties or ambient temperature with the Low Part Load (LPL) concept, (iii) handling of very reactive fuels with high C2+ concentrations, (iv) tuning during transient conditions accounting for the variation of the GT thermal state. Based on robust experience after five successful GT26 installations, tuning attempts and successful tunings are statistically analyzed on a commercial plant over a period of several weeks to demonstrate the enlarged operational flexibility and performance of the GT26 equipped with AutoTune. The data analysis focuses on the Low Part Load operation, where Autotune achieved a robust decrease of MEL of 20MW, corresponding to a reduction of 4% in terms of combined cycle relative load.


Malnutrition and muscle wasting are common in chronic renal failure (CRF) and adversely affect morbidity and mortality. Contributing to the muscle wasting is resistance to growth hormone (GH). For testing whether impaired GH signaling is a cause of the skeletal muscle GH resistance and for elucidating its mechanisms, muscle GH signaling and action were studied in GH-deficient rats with surgically induced CRF and sham-operated pairfed control rats. GH treatment increased gastrocnemius muscle IGF-1 mRNA levels significantly in control but not in CRF rats. GH-activated Janus-associated kinase 2 (JAK2)-signal transducers and activators of transcription 5 (STAT5) signaling was impaired in CRF rats, despite normal GH receptor (GHR), JAK2, and STAT5 protein levels. Phosphorylation of the GHR, JAK2, and STAT5 in response to GH was depressed by nearly half in CRF (P < 0.05), and nuclear phospho-STAT5 levels were depressed by approximately one third (P < 0.01). GH-stimulated suppressors of cytokine signaling 2 mRNA levels were significantly higher in CRF. This may be related to inflammatory cytokine activity because C-reactive protein levels were elevated. Muscle protein-tyrosine phosphatase activity was also increased significantly by twofold. In conclusion, rats with CRF acquire skeletal muscle resistance to GH that is caused at least in part by impaired JAK2-GHR-STAT5 phosphorylation and nuclear STAT5 translocation. Furthermore, it seems that the attenuated JAK2-STAT5 phosphorylation may be caused by at least two different processes. One involves depressed phosphorylation of the signaling proteins because of increased suppressors of cytokine signaling 2 expression that may be linked to low-grade inflammation. The other may involve increased signaling protein dephosphorylation because of heightened protein-tyrosine phosphatase activity.


In support of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) goals to increase the utilization of dexterous robotic systems in space, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has developed the Laboratory Telerobotic Manipulator (LTM) system. It is a dexterous, dual-arm, force reflecting teleoperator system with robotic features for NASA ground-based research. This paper describes the overall control system architecture, including both the hardware and software. The control system is a distributed, modular, and hierarchical design with flexible expansion capabilities for future enhancements of both the hardware and software. 6 refs., 4 figs.


In this paper, we motivate, devise, demonstrate, and evaluate an approach for the research-based development of information systems development methods (ISDMs). This approach, termed "method engineering as design science" (ME-DS), emerged from the identified need for scholars to develop ISDMs using proper research methods that meet the standards of both rigor and relevance. ISDMs occupy a position of central importance to information systems development and scholars have therefore invested extensive resources over the years in developing such methods. The method engineering (ME) discipline has developed different frameworks and methods to guide such development work and, for that purpose, they are well-suited. Still, there remains a need for applications and evaluations of ISDMs based on the demands for knowledge justification. Unfortunately, in many cases, scholars come up short with regard to how ISDMs are generated and empirically validated. While design science (DS) stresses knowledge justification, prominent DS approaches seem to be biased toward the development of IT artifacts, making this approach ill-suited for the development of method artifacts. We therefore propose eight principles that marry ME and DS, resulting in a process model with six activities to support research-based development of ISDMs. We demonstrate and evaluate ME-DS by assessing three existing research papers that propose ISDMs. These retrospectives show how ME-DS directs attention to certain aspects of the research process and provides support for future ISDM development.


The nonlinear mixed effects models (NLMEM) are widespread modeling techniques in PKPD analysis and epidemiological studies because they can produce a description of not only the individual but also of the population features. Moreover, they are able to deal with individual data sparseness by borrowing the lack of information from the entire population. In this way, the NLMEM do not fail where instead other techniques, such as the traditional individual weighted least squares (WLS), sometimes do. The NLME approach relies on the maximization of a likelihood function that due to model parametric nonlinearity not always has an explicit solution. Various techniques have been proposed to solve this problem including the first order (FO) and the first order conditional (FOCE) estimation methods that approximate the likelihood function through a linearization; the expectation maximization algorithm (EM) that maximize the exact likelihood; the Bayesian estimation method where a third stage of variability, the distribution of the population parameters, is taken into account [1]. Recently, new estimation methods that rely on the EM algorithm have been implemented in the last release of the population software NONMEM [2]. These methods are: the iterative two stage (ITS), Monte Carlo importance sampling EM (IMP), Monte Carlo importance sampling EM assisted by Mode a Posteriori estimation (IMPMAP) and the Stochastic Approximation EM (SAEM). Moreover, another new method is available, the Markov Chain Monte Carlo Bayesian Analysis (BAYES), next to the more known FO and FOCE. With this article we want to complete the Denti et al [3] simulation study by evaluating the newest population methods applied on the IVGTT glucose minimal model.


Fundamental frequency techniques are used to derive a set of equations for the series parallel resonant converter, including transformer leakage inductance, overlap effects and distortion of the parallel capacitor voltage. A more accurate approximation of the converter operation is provided than in previous analyses, and this also allows leakage inductance effects to be examined. The voltage conversion ratio for the converter is shown for several different operating points and leakage inductances. The results are discussed and verified with simulation results, and also experimentally with a 1 kW, 100 kHz prototype converter.


Clinical picture of refractory anemia with excessive blasts and bone marrow hypoplasia (RAEB with BMH) has been described in 22 patients. Statistically significant differences between RAEB with BMN and hypoplastic anemia have been presented. The problems of the differential diagnosis of RAEB with BMH have been discussed.


Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, remote conferencing and school-teaching have become important tools. The previous applications aim to save the commuting cost with real-time interactions. However, our application is going to lower the production and reproduction costs when preparing the communication materials. This paper proposes a system called Pre-Avatar, generating a presentation video with a talking face of a target speaker with 1 front-face photo and a 3-minute voice recording. Technically, the system consists of three main modules, user experience interface (UEI), talking face module and few-shot text-to-speech (TTS) module. The system firstly clones the target speaker's voice, and then generates the speech, and finally generate an avatar with appropriate lip and head movements. Under any scenario, users only need to replace slides with different notes to generate another new video. The demo has been released here11https://pre-avatar.github.io/ and will be published as free software for use.


Total body irradiation has been shown to enhance the efficacy of adoptively transferred tumor cells. The mechanisms responsible for this have largely been attributed to removal of cytokine sinks, suppressive cells and increase in danger signals. We now show that irradiation results in the down regulation of the macrophage scavenger receptor 1 on dendritic cells within the tumor and as a consequence reduces lipid uptake by tumor resident dendritic cells. The tumor antigen targeted in our model is Mammaglobin-A, expressed by approximately 80% of human breast tumors. We show that only the adoptive transfer of Mammaglobin-A2.4 specific CD8 T cells leads to long-term tumor regression and in combination with low-dose irradiation prevents tumors from reoccurring. These data demonstrate that irradiation reduces lipid uptake by dendritic cells and increases the efficacy of adoptively transferred Mammaglobin-A specific CD8 T cells providing a potential therapy for the treatment and/or prevention of breast cancer.


Objectives To determine the predicting effect on youth suicide of prior episodes of injuries of various intent (ie, inter-personal and self-directed violence, unintentional and undetermined intent) and the extent to which any association is influenced by family socioeconomic status. Methods A nationwide register-based cohort study was conducted covering all Swedish subjects born between January 1977 and December 1991 (N=1 616 342, male/female ratio=105). The cohort subjects were followed up from January 1998 to December 2003, when aged 726 years. Poisson regression and the likelihood ratio test (CI 95%) were used to assess the age-adjusted effect of hospitalisation for injuries of various intents on youth suicide and its effect once adjusted for family sociodemographic and social circumstances. Results Each set of exposures independently and significantly predicted suicide mortality. Being hospitalised for self-inflicted injuries or injuries of undetermined intent was associated with a risk of suicide 36–47 times that of subjects never hospitalised in the period under study (95% CI 28.36 to 45.58 and CI 26.67 to 83.87 for self-inflicted injuries and for events of undetermined intent, respectively; overall p<0.01). Similarly, previous events of unintentional injury remarkably increased the risk of suicide (RR 3.08; 95% CI 2.26 to 4.19). These effects were solid and not substantially altered after adjustment for family demographic and socioeconomic circumstances. Conclusion Youth suicide is predictable not only by prior suicide attempts but even by prior exposure to injurious assaults and unintentional injuries leading to hospitalisation, regardless of family socioeconomic status.


In this paper, we will demonstrate the applications of micromachined bulk acoustic wave resonators for the systematic investigation of adsorbing films and nanomaterials on their surface. By careful design and development of glass etching technology, we have successfully micromachined quartz shear wave resonator arrays with frequencies in the range of 60 to 90 MHz (25-18 μm in thickness) with quality factors exceeding 30,000. The response of the resonators to various surface loads has been carefully modeled assuming a dynamically forming viscoelastic film under a fluidic overlayer. Making systematic measurements of the resonator frequency and quality factor response at the fundamental and third overtone and using nonlinear model fits, we have deduced the density, thickness, viscosity, and elasticity of various globular proteins adsorbing on hydrophobic, hydrophilic and charged hydrophilic surfaces. Furthermore, we will show that the proposed method is sensitive enough to study the copper underpotential deposition (UPD) and stripping in 1 mM CuSO4 + 0.5 M H2SO4 solution. The results provide a comprehensive characterization of the viscoelastic properties of the electrical double layer in the copper UPD system through the use of high frequency QCM resonators and demonstrate a highly useful approach for achieving a deeper understanding of aqueous electrochemical systems.


Rationale. Airway hyperreactivity (AHR) is a characteristic feature of asthma, and methacholine challenge tests (MCT) are well established in asthma diagnostics and research, to quantitate AHR. Cut points have arbitrarily been selected, defining a fall of 20% in FEV 1 as PC 20 . By this technical approach, however, changes in end-expiratory resting level cannot be detected. MCT using APS technology integrated in the Jaeger whole-body plethysmograph features the possibility to evaluate changes of airway dynamics concomitantly with changes of lung volumes [1]. Objectives. We aimed to assess changes of FRC pleth , IC, ERV and hence RV and TLC during MCT, and comparing changes of effective specific airway conductances (sG eff , sG 0.5 , sG tot ) in relation to changes effected to FEV 1 and MEF 50 . Methods. We retrospectively analysed data from our hospital database including 140 test persons (asthmatics and controls; 59 males; 81 females; age: 11 to 82 y), in whom MCT have been performed. Methacholine was administered during 3 consecutive cumulative challenge levels (P1:0.2 mg; P2:1.0 mg; P3:2.2 mg) computerized by the APS system. Results. During MCT not only airway mechanics, but also static lung volumes (FRC pleth , IC) changed consistently. Conclusions. In the assessment of AHR by MCT sG eff and and sG tot qualified as most sensitive target parameter, taking into account changes of airway dynamics concomitantly with changes of lung volumes. Comparison between volume-time and flow-volume parameters with plethysmographically assessed sG eff , sG 0.5 during MCT is presented in abstract 850930. [1]. Matthys H, et al.: Respiration: 1975;32(2):121-134.


—We present results of a study of the morphology, internal structure, and chemical composition of oceanic zircon, which show that zircon is a sensitive indicator of tectonic and physicochemical processes occurring in the lower oceanic crust. Crystallization of magmatic zircon in gabbroids is not an instantaneous process; it proceeds in the course of differentiation of parental melts in the tectonically active mid-ocean ridge (MOR) setting. The main geochemical indicator of crystallization differentiation during magma cooling is an increase in Hf content toward the zircon grain edge. Zoning is also observed in magmatic zircons from oceanic plagiogranites (OPG), but it is weaker, apparently because of the narrower temperature range of zircon crystallization in these rocks. The OPG zircons are depleted in REE as compared with the least altered magmatic zircons of gabbro, which is probably due to the formation of OPG during the partial melting of gabbro with the participation of concentrated water–salt fluid, a derivate of seawater, and due to the co-crystallization of zircon and apatite. High-temperature hydrothermal processes within slow-spreading MORs lead to a partial or complete recrystallization of zircon as a result of dissolution/redeposition. A significantly reduced cerium anomaly and the presence of microinclusions of xenotime, uranium and thorium oxides or silicates, and, sometimes, baddeleyite in zircon alteration zones indicate a reducing type and high alkalinity of the hydrothermal fluid. The fluid, a derivate of seawater, acquires these features during circulation near the axial zone of ridges as a result of phase separation in the system H2O–NaCl and interaction of the fluid with abyssal peridotites of oceanic core complexes. The estimated solubility of zircon in basic melts indicates that even near-solidus crystallization of zircon is highly unlikely in anhydrous basaltic melts but is possible in differentiates of deep-seated hydrous basic magmas. The Ti-in-Zrn geothermometer must be used with caution, because variations in the Ti content in zircon might be controlled not only by temperature but also by other factors, especially when mineral inclusions in zircon testify to a drastic change in its growth (dissolution) conditions. A geothermometer based on the distribution of Zr and Hf between zircon and the host rock has several advantages over indicators of the crystallization temperature of magmatic zircon that are based on the zircon saturation index and the content of Ti in zircon. It does not depend on the composition of melt and on the correct estimates of the SiO2 and TiO2 activity. In addition, reconstruction of the Zr and Hf fractionation trends during crystallization of zircon from granitoid melts makes it possible to evaluate the temperature of separation of more differentiated melt fractions.


The present study assessed problems in Japanese prisoners (inmates) who abused methamphetamine. Fifty-two male inmates were assessed in 2005–2007 using the Addiction Severity Index-Japanese version and compared with 55 male methamphetamine abusers in hospitals and recovery centers. The χ2 and Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon tests showed that the inmates had a significantly lower education level, more frequently had full-time jobs, had more experience living with a sexual partner, and more frequently had a history of juvenile delinquency and criminal records than patients. Although psychiatric symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, and hallucinations, were not common among inmates, suicidal behavior and trouble controlling violence were common in both groups.


We use different interferometry approaches to process the seismic signals generated by a drill‐bit source in one well and recorded by seismic receivers located both in a second borehole and at the surface near the source well. We compare the standard interferometry results, obtained by using the raw drill‐bit data without a pilot signal, with the new interferometry results obtained by using the drill‐bit seismograms correlated with a reference pilot signal. The analysis of the stationary phase shows that the final results have different S/N levels and are affected by the coherent noise in the form of rig arrivals. The interferometry methods are compared by using different deconvolution approaches. The analysis shows that the results agree with the conventional drill‐bit seismograms and that using the reference pilot signal improves the quality of the drill‐bit wavefields redatumed by the interferometry method.


Abstract In recent years, headline grabbing increases in the Indian defense budget have raised concerns that India's on-going military modernization threatens to upset the delicate conventional military balance vis-à-vis Pakistan. Such an eventuality is taken as justification for Islamabad's pursuit of tactical-nuclear weapons and other actions that have worrisome implications for strategic stability on the subcontinent. This article examines the prospects for Pakistan's conventional deterrence in the near to medium term, and concludes that it is much better than the pessimists allege. A host of factors, including terrain, the favorable deployment of Pakistani forces, and a lack of strategic surprise in the most likely conflict scenarios, will mitigate whatever advantages India may be gaining through military modernization. Despite a growing technological edge in some areas, Indian policymakers cannot be confident that even a limited resort to military force would achieve a rapid result, which is an essential pre-condition for deterrence failure.


Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in children and adults is often associated with extracolonic manifestations in other organs, such as the joints, skin, and liver. Cardiac manifestations are considered to be very rare; in a recent survey of the literature we found only 23 cases, most of them in adults. Several extensive reviews and standard textbooks of IBD do not even mention perimyocarditis as a complication. During the past 10 years we have treated 106 patients with IBD in the Department of Pediatrics at St. Göran's Children's Hospital. Of these patients, two adolescent boys developed myocarditis as an extracolonic manifestation. In reporting these two cases, we wish to point out that cardiac involvement occurs in children and we also wish to show that the prognosis is usually good. Another interesting feature was that both of these boys developed myocarditis at a time when one of them had only minor gastrointestinal symptoms and the other had not yet been diagnosed as having IBD.


Alkali-treated bagasse fiber was used as a process variable for optimization of the properties of polybutylene succinate/poly(lactic acid)-based biocomposites using Box-Behnken design (BBD) and response surface methodology (RSM). The optimum conditions for three factors, i.e., NaOH-treated bagasse fiber (0.55 to 1.65 g), polybutylene succinate (1.1 to 2.3 g), and poly(lactic acid) (2.2 to 3.4 g) on the bending strength of biocomposite were investigated. The optimum combination was 0.91 g of NaOH-treated bagasse fiber, 1.14 g of polybutylene succinate, and 3.10 g of poly(lactic acid). The bending strength for NaOH-treated bagasse fiber/polybutylene succinate/ poly(lactic acid) composite was 27.0 MPa, which was 26.0% higher than native bagasse fiber-based composite. The composites were also characterized by thermogravimetric analysis, mechanical testing, Fourier transform infrared, scanning electron microscopy, water absorption, and contact angle tests. Results demonstrated that the bending strength, impact strength, and tensile strength of alkali treated bagasse fiber-based biocomposite increased by 26.0%, 15.5%, and 23.3%, separately, compared with native bagasse-based composite after sequential homogenization, compounding, and hot pressing. The hydrophobicity for alkali-treated bagasse fiber/PBS/PLA was also improved. Thus, NaOH-treated biomass materials/biodegradable polymer was judged to be suitable for preparing green composite materials.


The informational process of our country is being improved by immense amounts of computer professionals at all levels. Meanwhile, the deficiencies exist in teaching model for undergraduate computing education, so the current model must be innovated to be more helpful to the training of personnel. It is the goal of our endeavor that computer teaching model meets the demands of the professional development.


A dust-air flow near a vertically located rotating cylinder with a suction unit located on the lateral surface was investigated. A computer model of this suction unit was developed, the effect of disks mounted on a cylindrical surface on the intake air flow and on the capture of dust particles in the suction unit, as well as the design and operating parameters of the proposed disk cylindrical suction (DCC), which reduce the dust loss. The influence of the size and number of discs, aspiration air flow on dust removal has been established. This design of a rotating disk cylinder suction unit can be used in aspiration shelters with the function of a dust-collecting chamber. Ill. 6. Ref. 15.


Video quality assessment (VQA) is a challenging task due to the complexity of modeling perceived quality characteristics in both spatial and temporal domains. A novel no-reference (NR) video quality metric (VQM) is proposed in this paper based on two deep neural networks (NN), namely 3D convolution network (3D-CNN) and a recurrent NN composed of long short-term memory (LSTM) units. 3D-CNNs are utilized to extract local spatiotemporal features from small cubic clips in video, and the features are then fed into the LSTM networks to predict the perceived video quality. Such design can elaborately tackle the issue of insufficient training data whilst also efficiently capture perceptive quality features in both spatial and temporal domains. Experimental results with respect to two publicly available video quality datasets have demonstrate that the proposed quality metric outperforms the other compared NR quality metrics.


In this paper, speed and direction angle control of four-wheel drive skid-steered mobile robot (4WD SSMR) is realized by Fractional-Order Proportional Integral (FOPI) controller. Speed and direction angle of the mobile robot are calculated by using angular velocity of each motors. FOPI controller produces the torques of each motor of mobile robot for trajectory tracking and stabilization in the desired position. A well-tuned conventional PI controller is also applied to mobile robot for comparison with the FOPI. Experimental results prove that the FOPI shows better trajectory tracking performance than PI controller in terms of trajectory tracking accuracy and error levels. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eie.22.5.16337


The subjective experience of social stigma has been widely researched in terms of discrimination, rejection, isolation, etc. These are commonly understood within the traditional individualistic framework of affective experience and sociality, which fails to address the transformative effects of social stigma on how one experiences the social realm and the own self in general. Phenomenology and recent work on the relationality of affective experience acknowledge the central role interpersonal interactions play in subjectivity and offer a suitable approach towards addressing the complexity of the subjective experience of social stigma. Focussing on autobiographical accounts, I propose that the experience of social stigmatization is characterized by an affective atmosphere of interpersonal alienation. Its counterpart, an atmosphere of belonging, is closely related to social empathy, which is eroded by prejudicial attitudes and stereotypes. The breakdown of social empathy establishes a peculiar form of relationless relationality that radically transforms one's subjectivity. The transformation of subjectivity is structurally similar to disturbances of intersubjectivity in psychopathological conditions such as depression and feelings of disconnectedness, loneliness, and even shame are common in both cases.


Control-dominated architectures are usually specified, in a hardware description language (HDL), by means of a composition of FSMs. This paper presents two FSM-based models which can be extracted from a Statechart or a HDL description. Such models are compared to the description of the device at the different abstraction levels of a standard synthesis flow. This comparison simplifies the testing problem producing a complete testing strategy that uses functional information to perform scan insertion, redundancies removal and test pattern generation even for devices which cannot be satisfactorily analyzed at the gate level.


Background: Patients with diabetes need monitoring to achieve good glucose control and avoid complications . Assessing the time in range (TIR) metrics is a novel way to identify glycaemic variability (GV) , Time above range (TAR) , Time in Range (TIR) and Time below range (TBR) .
 Aim: To identify TBR- hypoglycemia (< 70 mg/dl) in routine clinical practice through continuous glucose monitoring (CGM)
 Methodology: This was a single centre analysis of Flash Glucose Monitoring (FGM libre pro) used as a means of CGM in type 1 & 2 DM patients as part of routine care in a specialty clinic over last one year. 227 adult participants were categorized based on their Hba1c levels. Time In Range metrics in different groups was determined. Statistical analysis was done to calculate the significance by p value.
 Results: 17.6 % of participants had good glycemic control (HbA1c below 7 %) , 22.5 % had HbA1c levels of 7 to 8 %, 33.5 % had HbA1c within 8 to 9 %, and 26% had poor glycemic control with HbA1c above 9 %. Patients with HbA1c levels below 7% spent maximum time below range compared with those in other groups (p= 0.0016) . Those having HbA1c levels of 7 to 8 (p= 1.00) and 8 to 9 (p= 0.0008) spent nearly % of their time below range . No statistical differences in TBR was found between male and female participants and based on treatment regimen. 77.5 % of patients having A1C levels below 7 %, 54 % of patients with A1C levels between 7 to 8 %, 61.8 % patients with A1C levels between 8 to 9% and 40.6 % of patients with A1C levels above 9 %, spent more than 5 % of their time below range.
 Conclusion: Our study found that although individuals with HbA1c levels < 7 % were at maximum risk of hypoglycemia spending significantly more than 5 % of their time below range, patients with poor glycemic control also spent a large amount of time below range. Thus patients with DM are at an increased risk of hypoglycemia regardless of their levels of glycemic control and treatment regimen, and CGM and TIR evaluation should be used routinely.

 P.M.Chawla: Speaker's Bureau; Biocon, Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH, Eris Lifesciences Ltd., Novo Nordisk, Sanofi. M.S.Chawla: Speaker's Bureau; Biocon, Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Novo Nordisk, Sanofi.


This work presents for the first time the unique properties of graphene quantum capacitance (CQ) in parametric circuits. The combination of the CQ and parametric operation results in a distinct topology which enables the realisation of RF powered, receiver and transmitter frontends, with high conversion gain (GC) and relaxed local oscillator (LO) requirements. The presented prospect is discussed in details for the down-conversion case. Feasibility of the proposed approach is validated by designing a heterodyne RF receiver frontend centered at 29 GHz. A Verilog-A behavioural model, extracted from S-parameter measurements of a graphene varactor on flexible kapton foil is employed in the verification. Simulation results provide a positive GC of 20 dB and a noise figure (NF) of 4.7 dB without the need for DC bias. The results agree with the presented theoretical analysis of the proposed concept.


In recent years, river flows have significantly decreased due to regional or global climate change and human activities, especially in the arid and semi-arid regions. In this study, the effects of climate change and human activities on the runoff responses were examined using hydrologic sensitivity analysis and hydrologic model simulation in the Lighvan basin located in the northwest of Iran. The Mann–Kendall test was applied to identify the trends in hydroclimatic data series. Also, the Pettitt test was used to detect change points in the annual discharge values and climatic variables. The results showed that there was negative trend in discharge data series, and examination of the climatic factors indicated that there was an increase in the temperature values and a decrease in the relative humidity values at the basin. The rapid changes in runoff values and most of the climatic variables occurred in the mid-1990s. The effect percentages of the human factors and climatic factors on runoff reduction in all the models used were 65–84% and 16–35%, respectively. Therefore, the impact of human activities on the river flow changes was significant.


Like detectives reconstructing a crime scene, paleoclimatologists scour the Earth for clues to understand the climates of the past and to learn how and why climate changes.


Dopamine D1 ligands have been classified and ordered according to efficacy in both in vitro and in vivo studies. In the present experiments, dopamine D1 ligands reported to differ in in vitro efficacy were evaluated for efficacy-related effects on eye blinking in squirrel monkeys. Additional comparisons were made with the effects of D2 receptor agonists and indirect dopamine agonists. The results show that D1 agonists increased eye blinking in an efficacy-related manner, whereas the D1 receptor blocker SCH 39166 [(–)-trans-6,7,7α,8,9,13β-hexahydro-3-chloro-2-hydroxy-N-methyl-5H-benzo[d]naphtho[2,1-b]azepine] only decreased rates of eye blinking. D1 high-efficacy agonists induced rates of eye blinking that were 2- to 3-fold greater than observed with dopamine D2 agonists and indirect agonists. In drug combination experiments, increases in eye blinking induced by the D1 high-efficacy agonist R-(+)-6-Br-APB [R-(+)-6-bromo-7,8-dihydroxy-3-allyl-1-phenyl-2,3,4,5-tetrahydro-1H-3-benzazepine hydrobromide] were antagonized by both the D1 antagonist SCH 39166 and the lower efficacy agonist SKF 83959 [6-chloro-7,8-dihydroxy-3-methyl-1-(3-methylphenyl)-2,3,4,5-tetrahydro-1H-3-benzazepine hydrobromide], consistent with dopamine D1 receptor mediation of these behavioral effects. The dopamine D2 agonist (+)-PHNO [(+)-N-propyl-hydroxynaphthoxazine], which selectively activates dopamine D2 receptors, also attenuated D1 agonist-induced increase in eye blinking, suggesting that D2 receptor actions may inhibit D1-mediated increases in eye blinking. Overall, eye blink rate appears to be a robust behavioral measure that can be used to measure changes in dopaminergic D1 signaling and as a functional assay of agonist efficacy at dopamine D1 receptors.


Conjugated organic molecules represent an important area of materials chemistry for both fundamental scientific exploration and technological applications. Using a genetic algorithm to computationally screen up to ~25-50 million molecules for organic photovoltaic properties, we find that our methods find top monomers 6,000-8,000 times faster than brute force search. By testing multiple runs and establishing convergence criteria, we show the computational scaling with search space size, common molecular motifs, and discuss the reliability to choose the same molecules independent of initial data set size. We outline remaining areas of difficulty in growing to larger search spaces, potential solutions, and filtering criteria for potential organic photovoltaic materials. Efficient genetic algorithm searches promise to address a wide range of property-driven inverse design problems in chemistry.