3 Abstract: To study the effect of age, gravidity, interval since last pregnancy and socioeconomic status (education and per capita income) on the development of iron deficiency anaemia in pregnant women. This descriptive study was conducted at the antenatal clinic of tertiary care hospital in Lahore. 150 pregnant women (50 in each trimester), attending antenatal clinic of tertiary care hospital was selected randomly. Information about socioeconomic and gestational status was collected with the help of semi structured questionnaire while 5cc venous blood was also collected for the estimation of Hemoglobin (Hb), Packed Cell Volume (PCV) and Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin Concentration (MCHC). Diagnosis of iron deficiency anemia was based on history, percent hemoglobin and packed cell volume. In 150 selected patients, 80% had Hb within the range of 9-12 g/dl. Occurrence of anemia was most common in the age group of 20-30 years and it has statistically significant adverse effects on Hb level. It was also found that the Hb concentration was related to educational status of the pregnant women and Hb level improved significantly (p<0.05) with the increase in per capita family income. A directly proportional relationship of PCV and MCHC was found with Hb concentration . Fewer children, greater intervals between pregnancies and better socioeconomic status lead to lower probability of iron deficiency anemia during pregnancy.


Cellular senescence, an evolutionarily conserved mechanism that prevents the proliferation of damaged cells, is a very relevant cellular response involved in both physiological and pathological conditions. Even though senescent cells are stably growth arrested, they exhibit a complex and poorly understood secretory phenotype, known as senescence‐associated secretory phenotype, composed of soluble proteins and extracellular vesicles (EVs). Extracellular vesicles were initially described as a waste management mechanism to remove damaged components of cellular metabolism, but increasing evidence shows that EVs could also play important roles in intercellular communication. Recently, some studies showed that EVs could have fundamental functions during cellular senescence. Our purpose in this review is to clarify the increasing literature on the role of EVs in cellular senescence as key mediators in cell‐to‐cell communication.


The distribution of 122 epigenetic traits of the cranium and the postcranial skeleton (180 skeletal individuals) of six sites of the period of the Middleelbe-Saale-Region was analyzed. Based on these frequencies and using the method of biodistance analysis (MMD after Sjøvold 1973) the relationships of these population groups were investigated which are different concerning their geographical origin. The results did not show distinct differences between these groups, but suggested a possible homogeneity of our populations.


Fourier transform-based diffraction calculations are essential for computational optics. However, the diffraction calculations can be corrupted by the introduction of strong ringing artifacts due to the introduction of zero-padding to avoid circular convolution or to control the sampling intervals. We propose a simple de-ringing method using average subtractions for application to on-axis and off-axis diffraction calculations. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, we compared the diffracted fields obtained using zero-padding, a flat-top window method, a mirror expansion method, and the whole and border average subtractions proposed. Furthermore, we confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed method for hologram calculations using double phase encoding and image reconstructions of inline digital holography.


ing and Indexing: Articles appearing in The Condor: Ornithological Applications are abstracted and indexed in the databases listed online at www.AmericanOrnithologyPubs.org. The Condor: Ornithological Applications is published weekly online (ISSN 1938-5129) by the American Ornithological Society, 1400 S Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60605. Print copies (ISSN 0010-5422) are available from Sheridan Press at http://aos.sheridan.com The Condor: Ornithological Applications, Volume 120, Number 3, August 2018. ©2018 American Ornithological Society. All rights reserved. American Ornithological Society AmericanOrnithology.org THE COUNCIL FOR 2018–2019 OFFICERS AND EDITORS President: Kathy Martin, Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, University of British Columbia, 2424 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4 Canada, firstname.lastname@example.com President-Elect: Thomas W. Sherry, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Tulane University, 6055 General Meyer Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70131, email@example.com Secretary: Andrew W. Jones, Department of Ornithology, Cleveland Museum of Natural History, 1 Wade Oval Drive, University Circle, Cleveland, OH 44106, email@example.com Treasurer: Rebecca T. Kimball, Department of Biology, University of Florida, 528 Bartram Hall, Gainesville, FL 32611, firstname.lastname@example.com Editor-in-Chief of The Auk: Ornithological Advances: T. Scott Sillett, Migratory Bird Center, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Smithsonian Institution, P.O. Box 37012, MRC 5503, Washington, D.C. 20013, email@example.com Editor-in-Chief of The Condor: Ornithological Applications: Philip C Stouffer, School of Renewable Natural Resources, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, firstname.lastname@example.com Editor-in-Chief of Studies in Avian Biology: Kathryn P. Huyvaerdt, Warner College of Natural Resources, Colorado State University, 400 University Avenue, Fort Collins, CO 80523, firstname.lastname@example.com Executive Director: Melinda Pruett-Jones, 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60605, mpruettjones@ americanornithology.org ELECTIVE COUNCILORS 2019: Melissa S. Bowlin, Renee A. Duckworth, Scott V. Edwards, Nathaniel T. Wheelwright 2020: Anna D. Chalfoun, Abby N. Powell, Andrea K. Townsend, Michael S. Webster 2021: Peter O. Dunn, Sharon A. Gill, Sara R. Morris, Christopher C. Witt MEMBERSHIP Any person interested in avian biology may become a member of the American Ornithological Society. Regular membership costs $90 per year; Early Professional membership is $55; Emeritus/retired and student memberships are $32. Membership is $32 for persons in all countries except the United States, Canada, Israel, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the following Western European countries: Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. All members receive free access to the online version of The Auk: Ornithological Advances and The Condor: Ornithological Applications and Birds of North America Online (www.birdsna.org). A life membership is $2880, paid in one sum or four annual installments of $720. To JOIN, RENEW, or UPDATE your membership, visit the AOS website membership page to link to the membership portal. To report changes of address or to request assistance, contact: email@example.com, (312) 883-4670. SUPPORT THE AOS AOS is grateful to receive contributions of any amount. Donations help support AOS's programs to advance ornithology as a profession and promote ornithologists at every career stage. Contributions may be sent to: AOS, 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL, 60605; or, can be made online through AOS's website, Americanornithology.org. Gifts to the AOS are tax-deductible to the full extent permitted by law. INSTITUTIONAL SUBSCRIPTIONS Institutional subscriptions are handled by the American Ornithological Society, 1400 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60605, 312-665-7571, 312-883-4114 FAX, email@example.com. $400 for an annual online subscription to The Condor: Ornithological Applications, $400 for an annual online subscription to The Auk: Ornithological Advances, and $700 for both The Condor: Ornithological Applications and The Auk: Ornithological Advances. PRINT ISSUES To order 2018 print single issues or print annual subscriptions, go to: http://aos.sheridan.com. To order print issues for journals issued prior to 2018, email a request to email@example.com, providing the journal name and issue requested.


This article offers an intervention in one of the most significant critical debates to arise from Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy. This is the debate surrounding the trilogy's refusal of the normative conventions of the Bildungsroman and apparent withdrawal into regressive, deflationary and otherwise anticlimactic formations at the levels of narrative, character, and language. The essay argues that, while often compelling, previous engagements with this issue (for instance by James Lilley, Andrew Hoberek, and Gail Moore Morrison) have failed to register the significance of McCarthy's antipathy toward literary production and his own biographical and institutional position as an author as the source of this structural regression. The article then reads the trilogy on the basis of this antipathetic relationship with its own literary form, placing particular emphasis on the allegorical function of the collapse of paternal authority and the cultivation of a postmodern philosophy of subjectivity, which is primarily rooted in Lacanian psychology. This reading aims in particular to highlight the significance of the links that exist between this textual logic displayed in the trilogy and a wider contemporary historical backdrop, which is defined in terms of a national crisis of literary production.


Abstract Twenty-three freshwater springs of the Po plain (northern Italy) were surveyed and visited multiple times during 2011–2013 to assess water quality and algal taxa present. Despite poor water conditions of this human-altered floodplain, a relatively high number of taxa referable to the freshwater red algae, Batrachospermum and Sheathia, were observed. The identity of specimens collected was based on morphology and confirmed with sequence data. The specimens belonged to Sheathia arcuata, S. boryana, Batrachospermum atrum, B. gelatinosum and B. gelatinosum f. spermatoinvolucrum. This is the first report of B. gelatinosum f. spermatoinvolucrum outside North America. Niche analysis revealed a marked difference in the physical and chemical preferences of the freshwater red algae recorded. The occurrence of S. boryana was limited to relatively low nitrate and higher oxygen concentrations. Conversely, the spatial distribution of the other four taxa indicated that they were able to tolerate high concentrations of nitrate (up to 53.6 mg l–1) and low rates of dissolved oxygen saturation (as low as 3%). All the specimens of B. gelatinosum collected had few to many trichogynes deformed by a basal protuberance or knob, a structure previously unobserved in this species. No other taxa showed any deformities. The ecological analyses confirmed the existence of a relationship between the environmental conditions of the springs and the occurrence of knobs.


Abstract To describe real-world treatment patterns and outcomes among adult patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) treated with hypomethylating agents (HMA), patients were identified in the SEER-Medicare database (01/2006–12/2016); 3,046 patients with MDS treated with HMA were included. An algorithm was developed to categorize patients into MDS risk groups: the majority of patients were classified as Higher-risk (70.9%), 8.0% as Intermediate-risk, and 21.1% as Unknown-risk. Overall, 77.4% of patients initiated azacitidine and 22.6% decitabine; they received an average of 5.1 index-HMA cycles, of which 90.9% were complete with a median cycle duration of 28 days. Median survival was 11.6, 18.4, and 19.1 months for the Higher-risk, Intermediate-risk, and Unknown-risk groups, respectively. Median time-to-AML transformation was 19.3 months for the Higher-risk group and 50.4 months for the Intermediate-risk group (not reached for Unknown-risk). Data highlight the unmet medical needs of patients with MDS treated with HMA, particularly for the Higher-risk MDS group.


The partial multicanonical algorithm for molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations samples a wide range of an important part of the potential energy. Although it is a strong technique for structure prediction of biomolecules, the choice of the partial potential energy has not been optimized. In order to find the best choice, partial multicanonical molecular dynamics simulations of an alanine dipeptide in explicit water solvent were performed with 15 trial choices for the partial potential energy. The best choice was found to be the sum of the electrostatic, Lennard-Jones, and torsion-angle potential energies between solute atoms. In this case, the partial multicanonical simulation sampled all of the local-minimum free-energy states of the P(II), C(5), α(R), α(P), α(L), and C states and visited these states most frequently. Furthermore, backbone dihedral angles ϕ and ψ rotated very well. It is also found that the most important term among these three terms is the electrostatic potential energy and that the Lennard-Jones term also helps the simulation to overcome the steric restrictions. On the other hand, multicanonical simulation sampled all of the six states, but visited these states fewer times. Conventional canonical simulation sampled only four of the six states: The P(II), C(5), α(R), and α(P) states.


The article presents the institutions of the grain product path (transaction costs, applied economics of contracts). The article presents the method of research. Due to limited space, the concrete facts, figures, and results are not presented. The aim of this paper is to identify the factors which influence the development or lack of contractual relationships, as well as how vertical coordination could contribute to the improvment and stabilization of terms between the participants involved in the sector. The conditions under which the contracts are made, as well as the differences that exist in practice and the reasons why the different controlling structures are applied are also presented. A questionnaire was used to collect details about each participant of the grain sector. In this article, the structure of the questionnaire, the main characteristics of the survey, as well as the collection of hypotheses of the expected results based on the analizations, are also introduced.


Here you will find lists of sources providing legal information available at HKUST Library, with an emphasis on Hong Kong. In addition to printed resources, relevant databases and websites are also included. Arrangement is by countries or regions.


Channel estimation is a critical task in intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted wireless systems due to the uncertainties imposed by environment dynamics and rapid changes in the IRS configuration. To deal with these uncertainties, deep learning (DL) approaches have been proposed. Previous works consider centralized learning (CL) approach for model training, which entails the collection of the whole training dataset from the users at the base station (BS), hence introducing huge transmission overhead for data collection. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a federated learning (FL) framework to jointly estimate both direct and cascaded channels in IRS-assisted wireless systems. We design a single convolutional neural network trained on the local datasets of the users without sending them to the BS. We show that the proposed FL-based channel estimation approach requires approximately 60% fewer pilot signals and it exhibits 12 times lower transmission overhead than CL, while maintaining satisfactory performance close to CL. In addition, it provides lower estimation error than the state-of-the-art DL-based schemes.


The skin/implant interface of osseointegrated (OI) implants is susceptible to infection, causing excess pain, increased morbidity, and possibly implant removal. Novel distal femoral OI implants with binary nitride coatings have been developed with little physiological modeling to collect microbiological evidence of resistance to bacterial attachment. This in vitro study evaluated a Ti‐6Al‐4V alloy coated with TiNbN and treated with low plasticity burnishing (LPB) to assess attachment and biofilm formation of methicillin‐resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) under physiologically modeling conditions compared to standard Ti‐6Al‐4V alloy materials with a polished ("Color Buff") or non‐polished finish ("Satin Finish"). Washability of the materials were also assessed and compared. It was hypothesized that the TiNbN/LPB treatments would resist bacterial adhesion and biofilm formation to a greater degree than the other two materials, and have a higher degree of bacterial removal following a clinically relevant wash regimen. Material types were exposed to a constant flow of broth containing MRSA and were analyzed using bacterial quantification, surface coverage analysis, and SEM imaging. Quantification data showed no difference in bacterial attachment among the varying material types both with and without the wash regimen. Surface coverage and SEM analysis confirmed results. The wash regimen led to an approximately 3 log10 reduction in bacteria for all material types. Though the results did not support the hypothesis that a TiNbN coating/LPB treatment might resist bacterial attachment/biofilm formation more than other alloys, or have less bacteria after cleaning, results did support the potential importance of a daily wound‐hygiene regimen at the skin/implant interface of OI materials. Published 2018. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.


This paper investigates the epistemic injustice in conflict reporting, where foreign parachute reporters collaborate with local producers and 'fixers.' Drawing from existing research on 'fixers' and other media professionals covering conflict zones and the philosophy of emotion and knowledge, I address the following questions: What is the role of local and foreign media professionals' affective proximity and professional distance in the social epistemology of conflict news production and the epistemic hierarchy among the collaborators? What implications is this particular social epistemology believed to have for conflict reporting accuracy and ethics? Based on 36 semi-structured to in-depth interviews with foreign and local media professionals covering Ukraine, Israel, and Palestine and further online and offline contact with the Ukrainian ecosystem of foreign/conflict news production, I argue that the collaboration between foreign and local media professionals is sometimes marked by identity-prejudicial credibility deficit granted to local media professionals because of their affective proximity to the events they cover. This epistemic injustice mirrors other power vectors and the dominant journalistic professional ideology that values disinvolvement, distance, and detachment. In practice, the (local) media professionals' affective proximity to their contexts is often appreciated as embodied knowledge beneficial to the nuance, accuracy, and ethics of journalistic practices and outcomes.


This paper evaluates the structural integrity and safety performance of weathered steel beam guardrail (WSBG) in North Carolina. WSBG is a popular alternative to galvanized steel guardrail (GSG) in that it is an aesthetic solution that blends in with the surrounding natural environment. A New Hampshire study, however, found that WSBG deteriorates more quickly. That study prompted an FHWA recommendation discouraging the use of WSBG across the country. This paper describes a comprehensive study of all WSBG installations in North Carolina, where weather conditions and deicing practices are generally much less severe than in New Hampshire. The research results did not show any trends of deteriorating thickness as a function of guardrail age (the oldest installation was almost 30 years old), elevation (the tallest installation was 4,200 ft), and annual average daily traffic (the highest traffic volume was 27,000 vehicles per day). The WSBG at all 25 test sites was shown to be above AASHTO minimum thickness specifications of 0.096 in. at a 95% confidence level. From a safety perspective, the research results suggested a lower percentage of injury collisions at WSBG installations relative to GSG installations at comparison sites, although low crash sample sizes made a more robust comparison difficult. Overall, this research suggests there are no structural concerns about using WSBG in North Carolina. The findings of this study may have broader policy implications for other states.


SUMMARY. The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) B locus of chickens has been associated with resistance to different viral diseases. We previously provided evidence that chicken lines expressing MHC haplotypes B2 and B19 exhibit different resistance to a challenge with infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) Massachusetts 41 (M41). In the current study, we attempted to determine if those differences were true for genetically diverse IB viruses, i.e., IBV M41 and Arkansas-Delmarva poultry industry (ArkDPI). Clinical, pathologic, molecular, and immunologic outcomes were compared. Our results showed subtle clinical and pathologic differences between the two MHC chicken lines tested. Clinical differences were observed in respiratory signs at 2 days postinfection (dpi) in M41-infected birds. Pathologic differences were detected in viral load at 2 dpi in M41-infected birds and in tracheal epithelial thickness at 6 dpi in ArkDPI-infected birds. Substantial differences were observed in antibody responses at 14 dpi. The transcriptome analysis showed that B19 chickens highly expressed genes related to inflammatory and innate immune responses. This increased immune gene expression detected in B19 birds at 6 dpi did not lead to enhanced antibody production at 14 dpi. On the other hand, B2-haplotype chickens highly expressed genes related to cell responses, suggesting that B2 is able to diligently control the infection. Although not identical, genes triggered by M41 and ArkDPI are part of communal pathways and suggest similar immune and cell responses to both IBV genotypes. This work provides modest evidence for differential resistance to IBV by chickens displaying different MHC haplotypes as well as insights into the expression of a variety of genes after IBV replication in the host.


Optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) and level anticrossing spectroscopy were applied to study g-factors and exchange splittings of localized excitons and separately localized electrons and holes at the Xz-Γ crossover of the conduction band states in a GaAs/AlAs superlattice with a composition gradient. g-factors, exchange splittings and the order of the exciton radiative levels were determined. In the transition region we clearly observed the disappearance of type II excitons created by the Xz electron in AlAs and a heavy hole in GaAs layers. Appearance of type I excitons with an order of magnitude larger exchange was verified by LAC spectroscopy. Intermediate `type II-like' and `type I-like' excitons were found in the transition region by ODMR and LAC with different exchange splittings and luminescence decay times. Besides ODMR of excitons with a definite value of exchange splitting, ODMR ascribed to separately localized electrons and holes with a distribution of exchange splittings was detected.


Abstract Objective: To find a better way to predict the clinical events caused by carotid vulnerable lesions via comparison study on high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasonography (US). Methods: Twenty-seven symptomatic stroke patients were recruited, all of which were given both high-resolution MRI and US at bilateral carotids. Respective correlations of high-resolution MRI and US outcomes with clinical events were performed and the lesion numbers identified by high-resolution MRI and US were statistically analysed. Results: Six carotid arteries in six patients were excluded because of uninterpretable high-resolution MRI findings or patients' intolerance. In the remaining 48 carotids analysed, the number of carotid with vulnerable/stable lesion was 17/31 by high-resolution MRI and 25/23 by US, respectively. Contingency coefficient was 0.40 between vulnerable lesion by high-resolution MRI and clinical event (p=0.004), and 0.19 (p=0.221) by US and clinical event, respectively. The difference of detected lesion numbers between high-resolution MRI and US was statistically significant p=0.039) through matched chi-square test. Conclusion: High-resolution MRI may be a better way than US in predicting the clinical events caused by carotid vulnerable lesions.


Single-poly embedded flash (eFlash) memory is a unique category of embedded nonvolatile memory (eNVM) that can be built in a generic logic technology. Several single-poly eFlash cells have been proposed for cost-effective moderate density eNVM applications. However, the optimal cell configuration of single-poly eFlash is still under debate. In this paper, we compared various single-poly eFlash memory structures in terms of disturbance, program/erase speed, endurance, and retention characteristic based on simulated and experimental data from two eFlash test chips fabricated in a generic 65-nm logic process using standard 2.5 V I/O transistors with 5-nm tunnel oxide. We conclude that a 5T eFlash cell structure combining a pMOS coupling device, an NCAP tunneling device, and an nMOS read/program device with two additional pass transistors to support self-boosting is the most attractive option for logic-compatible eNVMs.


Background Colorectal cancer during pregnancy is rare. Diagnosis may be delayed and clinicians are faced with unique challenges when formulating management plans, having to consider the well-being of both fetus and mother. Cases Our series outlines five cases of metastatic colorectal cancer during pregnancy. There was one patient who presented in each of the first, second and third trimesters, whilst the remaining were post-partum. Diagnosis was difficult as the patients were either asymptomatic or their symptoms were misconstrued as features of pregnancy. Two patients received chemotherapy while pregnant but only one had a successful delivery. Survival of patients in this series ranged between 1 and 35 months from diagnosis. Conclusion Women with gestational colorectal cancer are often diagnosed at an advanced stage and have a poor prognosis.


The crucial importance of secondary data for socio-economic analysis cannot be overemphasised. The results of research are only as good as the quality of data used: garbage in, garbage out. This paper questions the reliability of officially published statistics. Aggregate maize production data was collected from the official publications of the Central Bank of Nigeria based on the National Bureau of Statistics, for the period 1972-2007. This form our first set of data: published data. Literature on annual growth rate for maize in developing countries was reviewed, from which it was found that the highest ever recorded annual rate of growth for maize, over a period of 10 years was 4.84%; and 3.83% for a 40 years period. The sub-Saharan African average (less South Africa) was 1.93% and 1.04% for the 10-year and 40-year periods respectively. Based on this, an annual growth rate of 7.5%, about twice the highest rate for developing countries, was assumed for maize in Nigeria from 1972-2007. Taking 1972 as the baseline year, our second set of data was generated: expected data. Descriptive graph and the Student's t Test technique for comparison of means of independent samples was then used to test the postulated hypothesis; the hypothesis was rejected indicating that the maize production figures given in our published statistics differ significantly from the corresponding set of expected figures. The paper concluded that data from officially published statistics differs significantly from expected data based on experience elsewhere. Thus, Nigerian published statistics may not be reliable.


A new method is introduced which allows the study of calcium-induced calcium release from fragmented sarcoplasmic reticulum. Results obtained with this method are in agreement with those obtained by previous investigators using skinned muscle fiber. It was also found that anesthetic drugs and alcohol increased the calcium- and caffeine-induced calcium release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum.


Fluent and safe interactions of humans and robots require both partners to anticipate the others' actions. A common approach to human intention inference is to model specific trajectories towards known goals with supervised classifiers. However, these approaches do not take possible future movements into account nor do they make use of kinematic cues, such as legible and predictable motion. The bottleneck of these methods is the lack of an accurate model of general human motion. In this work, we present a conditional variational autoencoder that is trained to predict a window of future human motion given a window of past frames. Using skeletal data obtained from RGB depth images, we show how this unsupervised approach can be used for online motion prediction for up to 1660 ms. Additionally, we demonstrate online target prediction within the first 300-500 ms after motion onset without the use of target specific training data. The advantage of our probabilistic approach is the possibility to draw samples of possible future motions. Finally, we investigate how movements and kinematic cues are represented on the learned low dimensional manifold.


A facile solid phase synthesis of 2-substituted 1,3-oxazin-6-ones using polymer-supported Meldrum's acid has been reported. Reaction of the resin-bound cyclic malonic acid ester with triethyl orthoformate and subsequent double substitution with amide, afforded the corresponding polymer-supported acylaminomethylene cyclic malonic acid ester, which upon thermal treatment led to 1, 3-oxazin-6-ones in good yields and with high purity.


Summary
One thousand and twenty Hondurans were treated for acute malaria with a single oral dosage of either amodiaquin (Camoquin), chloroquine (Aralen), hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil) or pyrimethamine (Daraprim). In general, clinical response was excellent, treatment failures were few, relapses were infrequent, drug toxicity was negligible. The results with pyrimethamine were not equal to the results obtained with the three 4-aminoquinolines. Obviously, it is of great advantage to have several antiplasmodial agents that can be used in single oral dosage for mass treatment.


This paper addresses timing acquisition aspects in direct-sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) systems. Various chip waveform shaping schemes are considered, including both one-chip long full-response pulses, and partial-response ones occupying several chip periods. Different figures of merits are considered in a comparative analysis that seeks to establish performance limits in terms of correct timing detection capability, false alarm rate, bandwidth occupancy, multiple-access interference (MAI), and inter-chip interference (ICI). A waveform design algorithm is formulated to optimize system performance in terms of signal-to-interference-ratio (SIR) subject to other signalling constraints, and a solution based on the use of prolate spheroidal wave functions (PSWF) is derived. Numerous waveform design examples are then constructed to illustrate acquisition detection capability versus system load for both faded and unfaded cases. A comparative assessment of the performance of conventional signalling waveforms against the optimized ones is also presented. In particular, the numerical results show that the half-sine pulse used in minimum shift keying (MSK) is quasi-optimal within the full-response category, while root-raised cosine (RRC) Nyquist filtering with 22% rolloff (used in third generation CDMA standards) is also close to optimal when considering many-chip-long pulses.


Power fluctuations caused by wind speed variations affect power quality, especially in weak or isolated grids, and degrade the reliability of wind power converters. This paper develops a wind power smoothing scheme by making use of the large inertial energy of a wind turbine system (WTS). The proposed method, which explores the energy storage capability of the WTS shaft, is easy to implement by adding two additional terms into the existing maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control reference. Based on the law of conservation of energy, the new controller includes two parts: one part is to duplicate the original power trajectory under the MPPT control and the other is to compensate the fluctuations of it. In this way, two control objectives, namely, optimized wind power capture and its smoothing can be achieved simultaneously since the rotor rotates around the optimum speed points. Meanwhile, the mechanical stress of a WTS is alleviated with less oscillating torque reference, and the stability of a WTS is maintained by disabling the smoothing function when the rotor speed hits the speed limits. RTDS simulations of double-fed induction generator-and direct-driven permanent magnet synchronous generator-based WTSs are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed power smoothing control algorithm. The proposed method is validated on both a single WTS and a wind farm. Quantitative analysis is then carried out to evaluate the relationship between the smoothing performance and the efficiency of wind energy capture.


There is considerable variance in the productivity of teachers, yet educators have been unable to identify observable characteristics related to teacher effectiveness. This paper uses data from Teach for America admissions records to explore whether information collected at the time of hire can predict student outcomes. We find that a teacher's academic achievement, leadership experience, and perseverance are associated with student gains in math. Leadership experience and commitment to the TFA mission are associated with gains in English. The TFA admissions measures are also associated with improved classroom behavior. These results suggest that teacher success can be predicted at the time of hire. ∗PRELIMINARY AND INCOMPLETE. We are grateful to Cynthia Cho, Heather Harding, Brett Hembree, Wendy Kopp, Cecilia Mo, Ted Quinn, Cynthia Skinner, Andy Sokatch, and Sean Waldheim for their assistance in collecting the data necessary for this project. We also thank Sarah Cohodes, Susan Dynarski, Roland Fryer, Brian Jacob, Lawrence Katz, and Crystal Yang for helpful comments and suggestions. Financial support from the Multidisciplinary Program on Inequality and Social Policy is gratefully acknowledged. Correspondence can be addressed to the author by e-mail: email@example.com


In this paper, we proposed LCX-MAC (local coordination X-MAC) as an extension of X-MAC. X-MAC is an asynchronous duty cycle medium access control (MAC) protocol. X-MAC used one important technique of short preamble which is to allow sender nodes to quickly send their actual data when the corresponding receivers wake up. X-MAC node keeps sending short preamble to wake up its receiver node, which causes energy, increases transmission delay, and makes the channel busy since a lot of short preambles are discarded, as these days Internet of Things (IoT) healthcare with different sensor nodes for the healthcare is time-critical applications and needs a quick response. A possible improvement over X-MAC is that local information of each node will share with its neighbour node. This local information exchanged will cause much less overhead than in the nodes which are synchronized. To calculate the effect of this the local coordination on X-MAC in this paper, we built an analytical model of LCX-MAC that incorporates the local coordination in X-MAC. The analytical results show that LCX-MAC outperformed X-MAC and X-MAC/BEB in terms of throughput, delay, and energy.


Objective To evaluate the levels of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and tumor necrosis factor-β (TNF-β) before and after conservative laparoscopic surgery in patients with endometriosis. Methods The levels of TNF-α and TNF-β in the serum of both 82 patients with EMS and 68 controls were determined by ELISA. Results The levels of TNF-α and TNF-β in the serum of patients with EMS were significantly higher than those of the controls(P0.01), and they increased with the clinical terms(P0.05). After clearance of endometrosis foci with laparoscopic conservative surgery, the TNF-α levels decreased significantly in EMS Ⅲ~Ⅳ, and TNF-β levels decreased significantly in EMSⅠ~Ⅳ. Conclusion Measuring TNF-α and TNF-β levels in the serum of patients with EMS may have important value in postoperative follow-up, surveillance and evaluation of the effectiveness of the surgery.


A T8 lymphocyte alveolitis occurs in HIV-positive patients, even in the absence of any lung infections or tumors. Using the monoclonal antibody (MAb) D44, the CD8+ T cells can be further subdivided into two functional subsets of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL; CD8+, D44+) and suppressor T cells (CD8+, D44-). A dual fluorescence analysis of alveolar and peripheral lymphocytes has been used in HIV-positive patients without lung infections or tumors to reveal a dramatic increase in alveolar T8 lymphocytes (83%), compared to peripheral values (52%), which was mainly composed (89%) of CD8+ D44+ CTLs. Functional studies confirmed the cytolytic activity of these phenotypically defined alveolar CTLs on autologous alveolar macrophages used as target cells, excluding a natural killer-like activity. An immuno-enzyme analysis concomitantly revealed the co-expression of the p18 HIV antigen and the CD4 molecule on the autologous alveolar macrophages. These data suggest that CTL alveolitis occurs during HIV infection and is directed against HIV-infected alveolar macrophages which are presumably the targets of the locally recruited lung CTLs.


Abstract A neonate presented with signs of heart failure early after a Norwood procedure, due to increase of aortic and mitral valve regurgitation. Because repeated surgery was considered risky, we closed the aortic valve by catheter intervention with an Amplatzer Duct Occluder. Aortic regurgitation was abolished almost completely and the child improved. Unfortunately, 2 weeks after discharge, the patient died suddenly.


Computer webcams have been used only for video chats and nowadays almost every internet user has a webcam with his/her computer. Similarly GPRS in mobile phones is often used to surf internet through mobile phones. As security is a big issue for a peaceful life a new technique has been suggested to use webcam and GPRS for visual security purpose. WMS is a new, easy and efficient video surveillance system. A new technique is introduced here to use webcam and GPRS of WAP enabled mobile phone for visual security purposes. The main software runs on PC, which acts between webcam and its controllable base and mobile phone through internet. This software receives requests from mobile phone and sends WAP WML page to mobile phone.


Dental caries results from the bacterial pathogen Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) and is the maximum critical reason for caries formation. Consequently, the present study aims to evaluate the antibacterial activity of a newly synthesized nanoantibiotic–Biodentine formulation. The silver nanoparticles (ROE-AgNPs) were biosynthesized from the usage of Rosmarinus officinalis L. extract (ROE) and conjugated with cefuroxime to form Cefuroxime-ROE-AgNPs. Using Biodentine™ (BIOD), five groups of dental materials were prepared, in which Group A included conventional BIOD, Group B included BIOD with ROE-AgNPs, Groups C and D included BIOD with Cefuroxime-ROE-AgNPs at concentrations of 0.5% and 1.5% cefuroxime, respectively, and Group E included BIOD with 1.5% cefuroxime. The synthesized ROE-AgNPs or Cefuroxime-ROE-AgNPs were characterized for conjugating efficiency, morphology, particle size, and in vitro release. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the cefuroxime, ROE-AgNPs, and Cefuroxime-ROE-AgNPs were additionally evaluated against cefuroxime resistant S. mutans, which furthered antibacterial efficacy of the five groups of dental materials. The UV-Visible spectrum showed the ROE-AgNPs or Cefuroxime-ROE-AgNPs peaks and their formation displayed through transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern, and Fourier transforms infrared (FTIR) analysis. The end result of Cefuroxime-ROE-AgNPs showed conjugating efficiency up to 79%. Cefuroxime-ROE-AgNPs displayed the highest antibacterial efficacy against S. mutans as compared to cefuroxime or ROE-AgNPs alone. Moreover, the MIC of ROE-AgNPs and Cefuroxime-ROE-AgNPs was detected against S. mutans to be 25 and 8.5 μg/mL, respectively. Consequently, Cefuroxime-ROE-AgNPs displayed that a decrease in the MIC reached to more than three-fold less than MIC of ROE-AgNPs on the tested strain. Moreover, Cefuroxime-ROE-AgNPs/BIOD was employed as a novel dental material that showed maximum antimicrobial activity. Groups C and D of novel materials showed inhibitory zones of 19 and 26 mm, respectively, against S. mutans and showed high antimicrobial rates of 85.78% and 91.17%, respectively. These data reinforce the utility of conjugating cefuroxime with ROE-AgNPs to retrieve its efficiency against resistant S. mutant. Moreover, the nanoantibiotic delivered an advantageous antibacterial effect to BIOD, and this may open the door for future conjugation therapy of dental materials against bacteria that cause dental caries.


Purpose: This paper analyzes the impact of transport infrastructure on Gross Regional Products in Chinese provinces under the "Belt and Road Initiative".
Methods: The impact of the key elements of transport infrastructure on Gross Regional Products is analyzed based on the data related to development levels of transport infrastructure and economic development. Correlation and regression analyses were used for data analysis.
Results: It is found that railways and highways, which are the key elements of transport infrastructure, have a strong correlation with Gross Regional Products, and their effects are diverse among provinces under study.
Implications: The findings demonstrate the position and role of diverse infrastructural elements in enhancing the economic benefits of infrastructural investment and promoting economic growth. Thus, it is expected to facilitate decision-making related to infrastructural investment under the "Belt and Road Initiative".


A molecular hypothesis of the Infraorder Rhigonematomorpha is presented. The phylogeny recovered using combined SSU and LSU markers suggests that the Rhigonematomorpha is nested within a larger clade that includes Ascaridomorpha, Spiruromorpha and Oxyuridomorpha and is strongly supported by maximum likelihood (ML) bootstrap support values (BS) and Bayesian posterior probabilities (BPP). SSU and LSU ML and Bayesian analyses recovered Rhigonematomorpha as a paraphyletic clade. In the ML and Bayesian analyses of a combined matrix of complete to partial sequences of SSU and LSU, respectively, Rhigonematomorpha is recovered as a monophyletic clade with moderate BPP but low BS. Highly supported BS and BPP of a combined SSU and LSU matrix support a hypothesis of a monophyletic Superfamily Ransomnematoidea that includes the families Carnoyidae, Hethidae, Ransomnematidae plus a Brumptaemilius , Cattiena , Insulanema clade, and a monophyletic Superfamily Rhigonematoidea that probably includes the paraphyletic families Rhigonematidae and Ichthyocephalidae. It is suggested that the future inclusion of more families and genera might help resolve the monophyly of the Infraorder Rhigonematomorpha as advanced here.


In this study, ultra-fine grained (UFG) structure was produced in the stir zone (SZ) of AA6005-T6 alloy joints using friction stir processing (FSP) cooled by liquid nitrogen (N 2 ). Conventional friction stir welding (FSW) was used to fabricate reference joints. The corrosion properties of the cooled joints were investigated by atmospheric corrosion tests. The corrosion exposures were carried out at a relative humidity (RH) of 95%, 400 ppm CO 2 and at 22°C. The rapidly cooled joints exhibited exceptional corrosion resistance in both corrosion experiments as well as better mechanical properties compared to those of the FSWed joints. The better corrosion resistance of the quenched sample was attributed to the microstructural modification of the joint.


Borders and borderlands in Africa are spaces where the nexus of security, development, crime, conflict and politics is often at its most dynamic. In theory, borders serve to demarcate states' territory, and the movement of goods and people across them are managed in the interests of national trade and security. In practice, African borders are often little more than notional lines across huge stretches of land or water. This article examines the increasing prominence of border security in policy discussions and introduces the "people-centred" approach to border management expounded by the Danish Demining Group (DDG). DDG has worked in cross-border contexts in both East Africa and West Africa and the article compares its impact in each location, highlighting the community-first ethos of the organisation's programming. Drawing on the lessons learned from both regions, the article concludes with reflections on the strengths, successes and areas for improvement and expansion in people-centred border security and management.


OBJECTIVE
Stent thrombosis and in-stent restenosis remain problematic despite drug-eluting stents (DES), especially in diabetic patients and in those with small-vessel disease. Eptifibatide inhibits the platelet glycoprotein IIb/IIIa and smooth muscle cell (SMC) avb3 receptor, thus potentially influencing both thrombosis and proliferation. The aim of the present studies was to examine the absorption and elution characteristics of eptifibatide on polymer-coated stents and investigated their effect on SMC proliferation, platelet deposition and platelet aggregation in vitro.

METHODS AND RESULTS
Polymer-mixed eptifibatide and H3-labeled eptifibatide were loaded onto bare metal stents. A maximum of 111 mcg of eptifibatide was loaded onto 3.0 x 18 mm stents. Drug elution characteristics were tested in a PBS perfusion circuit. Elution profile consisted of an early rapid phase (24% +/- 0.03 loss over 1 hour) followed by a sustained release with 44% +/- 2.30 still present on the stent after 30 days. Eluted eptifibatide significantly inhibited adenosine diphosphate (ADP)-induced platelet aggregation by 95% +/- 0.70 (p < 0.01). Efficacy of stents eluting eptifibatide for antiplatelet effect was determined by measuring deposition of 111indium-labeled platelets on stents. Platelet deposition was significantly reduced by 48% +/- 6 in comparison to controls (p = 0.0065). Finally, drug-loaded stents were placed in SMC culture and showed a distinct zone of cell growth inhibition within 1 mm2 (88 +/- 22 vs. 208 +/- 23 SMCs in control), and within 2 mm2 of stent (131 +/- 32 vs. 191 +/- 23 SMCs in control) (both p < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONS
Eptifibatide can be successfully loaded onto stents. It elutes in a predictable manner, significantly inhibiting platelet deposition, aggregation and SMC proliferation in vitro. These studies pave the way to developing stent-based delivery of a potent antiplatelet agent, which additionally may inhibit SMC activity.


Recent advances in neuroimaging technology and molecular genetics provide the unique opportunity to investigate genetic influence on the variation of brain attributes. Since the year 2000, when the initial publication on brain imaging and genetics was released, imaging genetics has been a rapidly growing research approach with increasing publications every year. Several reviews have been offered to the research community focusing on various study designs. In addition to study design, analytic tools and their proper implementation are also critical to the success of a study. In this review, we survey recent publications using data from neuroimaging and genetics, focusing on methods capturing multivariate effects accommodating the large number of variables from both imaging data and genetic data. We group the analyses of genetic or genomic data into either a priori driven or data driven approach, including gene-set enrichment analysis, multifactor dimensionality reduction, principal component analysis, independent component analysis (ICA), and clustering. For the analyses of imaging data, ICA and extensions of ICA are the most widely used multivariate methods. Given detailed reviews of multivariate analyses of imaging data available elsewhere, we provide a brief summary here that includes a recently proposed method known as independent vector analysis. Finally, we review methods focused on bridging the imaging and genetic data by establishing multivariate and multiple genotype-phenotype-associations, including sparse partial least squares, sparse canonical correlation analysis, sparse reduced rank regression and parallel ICA. These methods are designed to extract latent variables from both genetic and imaging data, which become new genotypes and phenotypes, and the links between the new genotype-phenotype pairs are maximized using different cost functions. The relationship between these methods along with their assumptions, advantages, and limitations are discussed.


The Trojan-Horse method is an indirect approach to determine the energy dependence of S factors of astrophysically relevant two-body reactions. This is accomplished by studying closely related three-body reactions under quasi-free scattering conditions. The basic theory of the Trojan-Horse method is developed starting from a post-form distorted wave Born approximation of the T-matrix element. In the surface approximation the cross section of the three-body reaction can be related to the S-matrix elements of the two-body reaction. The essential feature of the Trojan-Horse method is the effective suppression of the Coulomb barrier at low energies for the astrophysical reaction leading to finite cross sections at the threshold of the two-body reaction. In a modified plane wave approximation the relation between the two-body and three-body cross sections becomes very transparent. Applications of the Trojan Horse Method are discussed. It is of special interest that electron screening corrections are negligible due to the high projectile energy.


Ball impact has long been used as a repeatable source of stress waves in solids. The amplitude and frequency content of the waves are a function of the force-time history, or force pulse, that the ball imposes on the massive body. In this study, Glaser-type conical piezoelectric sensors are used to measure vibrations induced by a ball colliding with a massive plate. These measurements are compared with theoretical estimates derived from a marriage of Hertz theory and elastic wave propagation. The match between experiment and theory is so close that it not only facilitates the absolute calibration the sensors but it also allows the limits of Hertz theory to be probed. Glass, ruby and hardened steel balls 0.4 to 2.5 mm in diameter were dropped onto steel, glass, aluminum, and polymethylmethacrylate plates at a wide range of approach velocities, delivering frequencies up to 1.5 MHz into these materials. Effects of surface properties and yielding of the plate material were analyzed via the resulting stress waves and simultaneous measurements of the ball's coefficient of restitution. The sensors are sensitive to surface normal displacements down to about +/-1 pm in the frequency range of 20 kHz to over 1 MHz.


Abstract This guest editorial note is an invitation for further exploration of emotions in business models of entrepreneurship, beyond the awaking of the research community. A retrospective view of selected thoughts on the relation between emotion and rationality shows the shift from the traditional discrepancy between both concepts to underlying discussions on the alchemy operating between them in decision-making. The articles in this Special Issue and the latest developments in entrepreneurship indicate that the research gap on emotions has been significantly narrowed while contributing to enhancing our knowledge on different facets of the emotional dimension. Still, the increasing sophistication of business models across disciplines points out the need for thorough educational frameworks on emotions in entrepreneurship programs and opens challenging but inspirational avenues for the future.


The ricochet bow stroke is often neglected by teachers for many of the initial years of study, and there is limited pedagogical material available to help students and teachers with this technique. Yet, the ricochet is not only a fascinating, necessary, and realistically attainable bow stroke, it also offers a unique opportunity in the process of discovering the intricate balance between player and bow. The following statement from Carl Flesch (2010) summarizes the guiding principle for off-the-string bow strokes ranging from spiccato to ricochet and provides insight into how discovering or improving the ricochet will help students with other bow strokes: "the basic intention of the player should be to produce a moderately long détaché in the middle of the bow, and the inherent elasticity and springiness of the bow will hinder and prevent a normal détaché." In other words, the bounce is produced by the elasticity of the stick; we just need to allow the bounce to happen rather than make it happen. In the process of learning and improving this bow stroke, students discover that their main responsibility lies in simply guiding the bow and letting it do its work. In this article, I offer recommendations and exercises that teachers can use as a guide to introduce or develop their students' ricochet. First, I discuss the Common Ricochet, which is the bow stroke that is often taught earlier and appears in violin pieces ranging in difficulty from the William Tell Overture to Paganini's Concerto No.1 (Figure 1). Then, I address the Arpeggiated Ricochet, which can be found in François Schubert's "The Bee" and in Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto (Figure 3). A third kind of ricochet, the 3+1 Ricochet (present in Tarrega's "Recuerdos de la Alhambra" and Paganini's Caprice No. 5) consists of three bounces on a down-bow followed by one on an up-bow in a repeating loop. It is arguably more complex, and it appears only in a limited number of virtuosic pieces (Cotik 2020a & 2020b). Despite being distinctive from one another, each version of this bow stroke can teach a kinesthetic awareness that helps achieve the others. Avoiding unnecessary tension and looking for freedom and ease of movement are key. It is important that the student and teacher both keep an exploratory and playful state of mind and that the sound serves as the primary source of feedback while investigating different variables in the use of the bow.


Pulmonary stenosis (PS) accounts for approximately 8% of all congenital heart defects.1 Valvular PS is usually an isolated defect, but it can be associated with other congenital heart defects, such as atrial septal defect (ASD), ventricular septal defect (VSD), and persistent ductus arteriosus. Combined valvular and infundibular PS can be part of tetralogy of Fallot (ToF).

The clinical presentation of PS may vary from critical stenosis in the newborn, to asymptomatic mild stenosis without need for therapy throughout life. The need for treatment of critical PS in the newborn is obvious, but the optimal timing, type of treatment, and follow-up strategy for the asymptomatic patient is less well defined.

PS occurs in about 1 per 2000 live births worldwide.1 The prevalence seems to be steadily increasing over time (figure 1A). There is a slightly higher birth prevalence in Asia as compared to Europe and the USA1 (figure 1B). The underlying cause is not well known, but should be sought in genetic, environmental, and dietary factors. There is increasing evidence that epigenetic modifications play an important role in certain diseases apart from genetics, and this might also be true for PS.w1 w2 Since an increasing number of patients had surgical or interventional repair during childhood, more and more adults will be seen with long term residual lesions like pulmonary regurgitation (PR) and restenosis.

Figure 1
Birth prevalence of pulmonary stenosis. (A) Time course of birth prevalence until 2010. (B) Reported birth prevalence per continent. Adapted with permission from van der Linde et al .1

PS can be valvular, subvalvular (infundibular) or supravalvular (figure 2A). Valvular stenosis is by far the most common form.

Figure 2
Morphology of pulmonary stenosis (PS). (A) Schematic representation of different types of PS. RA, right atrium; RV, right ventricle. (B) Doming pulmonary …


In a wide variety of high-power pulsed devices, the megavolt switch plays a key role in the system performance. A capacitance-resistance coupling structure was designed to produce UV light which triggered the switch to decrease the breakdown jitter. High-speed electrical measurements with a circuit integrating probe in the nanosecond range were employed to measure the voltage before the switch. From the experimental results, the breakdown characteristic of a 3-MV UV-illumination switch was obtained in the range of 1.6-2.5 MV: The jitter of the breakdown voltage is lower than 25 kV, and the jitter of the breakdown time is shorter than 5 ns.


In today's business environment, life of consumer products have become shorter and shorter. Rapid advancement of technologies, change in consumer's tastes and preferences, and changes in business models are some of the forces behind shortened product's life. These factors have caused societies to produce huge amount of wastes, contribute towards rapid depletion of resources, and causing serious damage to the environment. Thus, the question as to what will happen to end of use and end of life consumer products is an issue that has both environmental and economic implications. This book addresses the possibilities of first steps of reverse logistics supply chain for circular economy from consumers to businesses and close the loop of textile supply chain in order to recapture values and reduce demand for virgin resources thereby contribute towards minimizing the amount of textile clothing that ends up in landfills every year. Models are developed for estimating total system cost, total CO2 emissions and cost of acquiring a kilogram of textile products in a given set of conditions, considering different collecting methods during the design and implementation of reverse logistics.


The author of the present research divides his work in two parts. Inthe first one, he explains the "apparent indifference" in St. Augustine's works relatedto the Byzantine empire. Diverse hypotheses are presented: Was Byzantium a still notsignificant empire? Did St. Augustine know Greek? Was he a Rome-trained scholarlyrhetor at ancient Rome's service? In the second part, the author reviews diverse councilswhich took place in the East and St. Augustine's doctrinal presence in the definitionsdictated by those important assemblies.


The letter shows how two-dimensional impurity profiles in semiconductors can be calculated by applying a simple and efficient finite difference algorithm. The diffusion coefficient employed in the model depends on the impurity concentrations in accordance with the recent theory of nonlinear diffusion in semiconductors. The limit of validity of the more simple linear diffusion model is also determined.


A new trial method for complete dentures using rapid prototyping (RP) was compared with the conventional method. Wax dentures were fabricated for 10 edentulous patients. Cone-beam CT was used to scan the wax dentures. Using 3D computer-aided design software, seven 3D denture images with different artificial teeth arrangements were made and seven trial dentures per patient were fabricated accordingly. Two prosthodontists performed a denture try-in for one patient using both conventional and RP methods. The prosthodontists and patients rated satisfaction for both methods using a visual analogue scale. Satisfaction ratings with both conventional and RP methods were compared using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Regarding prosthodontist's ratings, esthetics and stability were rated significantly higher with the conventional method than with the RP method, whereas chair time was rated significantly longer with the RP method than with the conventional method. Although further improvements are needed, the trial method applying RP seems promising.


Today, 12 years after the identification of Eaton agent as a mycoplasma, much new information on this infection has accumulated. Better methods have become available, which will be helpful in determining whether other mycoplasmas might be human pathogens, e.g., some ureaplasmas in nongonococcal urethritis. Experimental mycoplasma infections in birds and animals have revealed common features with immune complex diseases in man. They may serve, therefore, as useful models for human mycoplasma disease. However, the most important finding in recent mycoplasma research has been the isolation of mycoplasma viruses. Viruses belonging to three different groups have been discovered. It will be interesting to study whether the virus determines the pathogenicity of mycoplasmas or not.


The three-dimensional structure of the regular surface layer of Sporosarcina ureae has been determined to a resolution of 1.7 nm by electron microscopy and image reconstruction. The S-layer has p4 symmetry, a lattice constant of 12.9 nm, and a minimum thickness of 6.6 nm. The reconstruction reveals a distinct domain structure: a massive core, arms connecting adjacent unit cells, and spurs which make contact at the subsidiary fourfold symmetry axes. In the z-direction the domains appear to be arranged in three planes, creating two entirely different surface reliefs. The S-layer has a complex pattern of pores and gaps that are 2 to 3 nm wide. In addition, the secondary-structure composition has been determined by infrared spectroscopy: about 35% of the polypeptide appears to have a beta-structure conformation.


A fast-flux service network (FFSN) uses dynamic DNS to map a dynamic domain, called fast-flux domain (FF domain), to various IP addresses and uses flux bots to redirect network traffic. Due to its powerful capability to conceal the hosts hidden behind the flux bots, FFSNs are widely adopted by attackers to cover various scams. Although diverse promising solutions have been proposed to detect FF domains, they face the same problem-different countermeasures could be used to bypass their detection. Hence, it becomes a critical issue to develop a new detection solution. According to our survey, unlike normal network services that use dynamic DNS to balance the workloads of their hosts, FFSNs utilize dynamic DNS to hide important bots. As a result, the response time of subsequent requests to an FF domain becomes more fluctuating. Based on the response time differences, this paper develops a new metric, Fast-Flux Score (FF-Score), to detect FF domains. Our system, called fast-flux domain detector (FFDD), is used on a computer that could be an end host or an IDS. A user with a set of unknown URLs, which may be obtained from spam or social networks, can simply determine whether they are benign domains or fast-flux ones using FFDD. Experimental results show that FFDD can accurately detect FF domains with only a 0.3% false positive rate and a 2% false negative rate. It takes less than 20 min for FFDD to determine whether a domain is an FF domain. In addition, FFDD is a lightweight stand-alone system; hence, it does not require special support from an ISP or any other network service.


Immune checkpoint blocking (ICB) immunotherapy has achieved great success in the treatment of various malignancies. Although not have been approved for the treatment of ovarian cancer (OC), it has been actively tested for the treatment of OC. However, biomarkers that could indicate the immune status of OC and predict the response to ICB are rare. We downloaded RNAseq and clinical data of OC from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Data analysis revealed both TMBhigh and immunityhigh were significantly related to better survival of OC. Up-regulated differentially expressed genes (Up-DEGs) were identified by analyzing the gene expression levels. Gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analyses were performed in the "GSVA" and "limma" package in R software. The correlation of genes with overall survival was also analyzed by conducted Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. Four genes, CXCL13, FCRLA, MS4A1, and PLA2G2D were found positively correlated with better prognosis of OC and mainly involved in immune response-related pathways. Finally, TIMER and TIDE were used to predict gene immune function and its association with immunotherapy. We found that these four genes were positively correlated with better response to immune checkpoint blockade-based immunotherapy. Altogether, CXCL13, FCRLA, MS4A1, and PLA2G2D may be used as potential therapeutic genes for reflecting OC immune status and predicting response to immunotherapy.


Turkeys agricultural policies of the European Union, World Bank, International Monetary Fund on a global scale, such as areas of activity by the organizations and groups, referral is made. Since the early years of the Republic, different implementations of the land reform, which is on the agenda, have been carried out . Studies, on June the 11 th 1945, a Law to Provide Farmers with Land  enumerated 4753, Land and Agrarian Reform Law dated 1973  and Enumerated 1757, Agrarian Reform Law Regarding Land Regulations in Irrigation Areas , Land Protection & Land Use Law enumerated as 5403/5578 made under the land reform in Turkey have been discussed. After Land reform was applied in regions. the farmers would not informed by the authorised and the lack of credit etc. reasons desired yield was not obtained. In this study, land reform, according to the particular application in the world have studied the similarities and differences. A viable model for our country's land reform was formed.


The description of sub glacial stoping or block caving of the Black Rapids Glacier in Alaska in the Journal of Glaciology, Vo!. 2, No. 20, 1956, p. 727, reminds me of the almost identical conditions of the Kome Glacier on Nugssuaq Peninsula in the Umanaq District of western Greenland observed 27 years ago (Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse der Deutschen Gronland-Expedition Alfred Wegener, 1929, und 1930/31, Bd. 3, 1935, p. 14). Lowering and rapid recession of the central part, caving in with crescent-shaped crevasses, a huge ice tunnel and a vigorous meandering melt water stream cutting through the ice were features of the Kome Glacier too. Such forms are probably created if the front parts of a glacier become stagnant and the destructive forces of melt water are no longer counteracted by the supply of ice from the higher parts of the glacier. These features represent a particularly strong development of a complex of forms which are typical of the ablation zone near the snout of glaciers (see R. v. Klebelsberg, Handbuch der Glaziologie und Glazialgeologie 1948, p. 122-1 39).


We combine mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequence data with non-molecular (morphological and natural history) data to conduct phylogenetic analyses and generate an evolutionary hypothesis for the relationships among nearly every species of Mesoamerican bufonid in the genus Incilius. We collected a total of 5,898 aligned base-pairs (bp) of sequence data from mitochondrial (mtDNA: 12S‐16S, cyt b, ND2‐CO1, including tRNAs TRP‐TYR and the origin of light strand replication; total 4,317 bp) and nuclear (CXCR4 and RAG1; total 1,581 bp) loci from 52 individual toads representing 37 species. For the non-molecular data, we collected 44 characters from 29 species. We also include Crepidophryne, a genus that has not previously been included in molecular analyses. We present results of parsimony and Bayesian analyses for these data separately and combined. Relationships based on the non-molecular data were poorly supported and did not resolve a monophyletic Incilius (Rhinella marina was nested within). Our molecular data provide significant support to most of the relationships. Our combined analyses demonstrate that inclusion of a considerably smaller dataset (44 vs. 5,898 characters) of non-molecular characters can provide significant support where the molecular relationships were lacking support. Our combined results indicate that Crepidophryne is nested within Incilius; therefore, we place the former in the synonymy of the latter taxon. Our study provides the most comprehensive evolutionary framework for Mesoamerican bufonids (Incilius), which we use as a starting point to invoke discussion on the evolution of their unique natural history traits.


Wind and solar energy is a fast-growing share of the global energy mix. But integrating them into power-system operations requires significant adaptations to compensate for their variability. Solutions include increasing the amount of flexible generation within the system, combining, and dispersing variable resources to smooth aggregate output, expanding the transmission network, using smart technology to control supply and demand, and storing electricity.


A welding process was performed on the low carbon steel based on different welding parameters in this experiment. The main objective of this study was to investigate the effect of welding voltages (19 V, 20 V, 21 V, and 22 V) and wire feed rates (90 ipm, 100 ipm, 110 ipm, and 120 ipm) to the corrosion behaviour of welded carbon steel in synthetic seawater environment (3.5 wt% NaCl). Besides that, the microstructure changes in the weldments of maximum and minimum voltages were analysed and compared with the as-received sample before welding process. On the other hand, the penetration level of the weldments was analysed due to the different welding parameter. The welding method in this experiment was metal inert gas (MIG) with filler metal (ER 70S-6 with 1.2 mm diameter). Based on the results obtained, the corrosion rate decreased when the welding voltage was increased from 19 V to 22 V or when the wire feed rate was increased from 90 ipm to 120 ipm until the full penetration level of weldment occurred. In conclusion, the lowest corrosion rate occurred at highest welding voltage and highest wire feed rate when full penetration of weldment occurred. The corrosion product that formed on the surface of the sample was iron oxides and pitting was found on the surface of the exposed area after the corrosion test.


In this work, the impact of gamma-ray irradiation (γ) on graphene/Al2O3/p-type Si structure has been investigated. For this, temperature-sensitive current-voltage (I-V) analyses of the structure exposed to gamma radiation have been carried out. I-V measurements have been made between −3 V and 3 V to analyze electrical properties of the graphene/Al2O3/p-type Si before and after 60Co γ-irradiation. I-V measurements of the structure have been made at the range of 300 K–405 K. Thermionic emission (TE) theory and Cheung's methods have been used to examine the electrical features of the structure. The discrimination of all experimental results has been done by using Principal Component Analysis (PCA). In PCA analysis, the first two principal components (PC1 = 75.6% and PC2 = 20.9%) accounted for 96.5% of the variance, which is a very good result.


Introduction : We reported significant improvement in pulmonary artery mean (PAM) and pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) for those treated with 16 weeks (wks) of bosentan (BOS) versus no change in those treated with placebo (PLA) for sarcoidosis associated pulmonary arterial hypertension (SAPH). Purpose of the study : To determine whether patients with advanced parenchymal disease were less likely to respond to BOS. Methods : Patients with SAPH confirmed by right heart catheterization (RHC) were randomized 2:1 to receive either BOS or PLA. After 16 wks of therapy, patients underwent repeat RHC. Patients had forced vital capacity (FVC) and Scadding chest x-ray (CXR) stage. Results : Of the 25 patients treated with BOS, 2 stopped study drug before wk 8. At 16 wks, 21had repeated RHC. Patients were subgrouped into those with FVC% ≥70% predicted (FVC≥70%) or below 70% (FVC≤70%) and those with CXR stage 0-3 (CXR<4) versus stage 4 (CXR=4). The table demonstrates the changes in PAM and PVR. There was significant improvement in PAM and PVR for those with FVC<70% but was not for those with FVC≥70%. No changes were seen for the PLA group.

View this table:

PAM and PVR

Conclusion : After 16 wks of treatment, bosentan therapy was associated with a significant improvement in PAM and PVR. These changes remained significant for patients with an FVC<70% predicted. SAPH patients with advanced parenchymal lung disease may respond to vasodilatory therapy.


Objective: The study aimed to investigate the value of pulmonary function test (PFT) in evaluating and predicting pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) in patients with connective tissue disease (CTD). Methods: This was a prospective observational study recruiting patients diagnosed with CTD-PAH. Patients with interstitial lung disease and pulmonary hypertension induced by other causes were not eligible for enrollment. All patients were assessed for PAH every 1–3 months. A patient was considered to have clinical improvement if the grade of risk stratification declined or at least two parameters improved during follow-up, otherwise no improvement. Results: A total of 31 patients with CTD-PAH were recruited in this study. Nearly 70% of patients had declined forced vital capacity (FVC), 60% had declined total lung capacity and maximum expiratory flow at 50% of vital capacity, and 95% had normal or mild decline in forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1)/FVC. A decline in diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide (DLCO) was present in 96% of patients, and 60% were moderate to severe. Furthermore, 50% of patients had an FVC/DLCO ratio of less than 1.4. Univariate analysis showed that FEV1/FVC, DLCO, and FVC/DLCO were associated with disease prognosis. After adjusting for age as a confounding factor, multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that DLCO was an independent predictive factor for the prognosis of CTD-PAH. Conclusion: The pulmonary function of patients with CTD-PAH is abnormal in parameters such as lung volume, small airway, and gas exchange. PFT can reveal complex pathophysiological changes in the lungs of CTD-PAH patients and predict prognosis.


Tobacco control policy in Indonesia is, by international standards, very rudimentary. Weak regulation has made Indonesia a 'place of freedom' for tobacco companies. Tobacco advertising and promotion is rampant and has been described as being 'above the law' and the 'most aggressive and innovative in the world'.1 2 Tobacco advertisements are highly visible in all media (electronic, print and public billboards and displays),3 4 and have contributed to the increased prevalence of smoking among young Indonesians. From 2006 to 2009 the prevalence among boys aged 13 to 15 nearly doubled from 24.5% to 41%, and nearly tripled from 2.3% to 6.2% among girls of the same age group.5 6

PT HM Sampoerna Tbk, one of the largest Indonesian tobacco companies, now owned by Philip Morris International, is known for its longstanding creativity in advertising, promotion and marketing. In the early 1930s, the founder of the company changed his family and his company name to Sampoerna, which means 'perfect' or 'perfection' in Indonesian. This name is also used in branding some of the company's non-tobacco products. In 2005, Hendra Lesmono, the creative director for the company proclaimed that Sampoerna's success was due to the production of unusual tobacco advertisements, such as 'satirical ads that poke fun at aspects of Indonesian society'.7 8 In pursuit of its mission that Sampoerna products be perceived as the best smoking experience for …


The reactions of the one electron adduct of 2'-deoxyadenosine dA(-), in aqueous solutions have been studied using pulse radiolysis techniques with optical absorption and conductivity detection. The dA(-) radical anion itself shows a weak and featureless optical absorption at greater than 300 nm. It reacts rapidly with H20 (k equals 6 x 10(4)M(-1)s(-1); t1/2 equals 210 ns) to yield at least three different protonated structures (dAH., dA'H., dA"H.). In neutral solutions the most important of these (dAH., lambda(max) equals 315 nm) decays by a first order process (t1/2 approximately equal to 9 microseconds). In basic solutions dAH. undergoes on OH- catalysed rearrangement into another neutral radical (dA"'H., lambda(max) equals 355 nm; k(dAH. plus OH-) equals 1.7 x 10(8)M(-1)s(-1)). p-Nitroacetophenone (PNAP) reacts rapidly with the protonated electron adducts of 2'-deoxyadenosine (k equals 5 x 10(9)M(-1)s(-1)). An electron transfer occurs with dAH to yield PNAP and a reoxidized form of 2'-deoxyadenosine. As indicated by its pK value of 8.8 the latter is not, however, simply a repaired 2'-deoxyadenosine molecule, but is suggested to include the elements of water. Species dA"'H.(and dA'H.) react with PNAP in a process which is clearly not an electron transfer but likely an addition reaction.


why would you want to lead folks down that path any-way? Let's debunk this notion of science in the name of a) practicality and b) preserving our right to change our (subjective) minds. Presenting usability testing as science ignores that a typical human-computer interaction is crafted from multiple perspectives: business , design, human factors, individual emotions. " Science " sounds like a rather lofty term for the quick-hit studies in vogue. With some development cycles as short as two weeks, and as few as five users per test advocated by increasing numbers of usability specialists, we find it both awkward and difficult to promote our usability services as scientific. The basis of usability testing has never been 100 percent coverage of the entire potential design space; we're simply trying to weed out the worst from the lot. We can think of a few reasons you might want to think of your usability efforts as science: Usability work is convincing because it's " scientific. " There is science and there is science. You surely should be able to convince others if your analyses are thorough and correct, and based on evidence you can support. There is truly a level of science in being able to interpret data. But choosing usability activities and selecting how to conduct them is much more craft than science. And moreover, coming up with a usable solution is design rather than science. I'll get more funding if I call usability " scientific. " Then you'll need to know what others think " scientific " is, and live up to the moniker. Are you prepared to make your tests repeat-able? Is that even possible? And for most software, is it desirable? Calling usability testing " scientific " in the hopes of getting more and better funding is absurd, given how most software development organizations : / 7 i n t e r a c t i o n s / m a r c h + a p r i l 2 0 0 5


This paper builds a 29-country numerical general equilibrium model with inside money and trade cost to simulate and compare the effects of China and the US taking part in the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which is a high standard mega regional trade agreement. Comparison results show that China will benefit CPTPP member countries more than the US on trade, GDP, and manufacturing employment. China's entering the CPTPP can also benefit most non-member countries on GDP and manufacturing employment. By joining, the US will benefit the whole world more, as the US economic scale is larger than that of China. Our simulation results reveal that China will be more welcomed to the CPTPP by member countries.


The main research involving globalization nowadays is to describe the impact of globalization in their respective fields. However, globalization is a complex phenomenon across multiple sections. But as a concept in the social science, it barely has the rigid mathematical foundation. Because of this lack, this article made a simple attempt to express and prove the trend of globalization with mathematical features. By abstracting an sub-area that is widely influenced by globalization, the article are trying to test whether this area can be used as an indicator of globalization.


Chemotherapy is one of reliable and proven methods of malignant tumor and blood diseases treatment but however the drug side effects (particularly cardiotoxicity) occur. More often cardiovascular complications connect with anthracyclines and related drugs (doxorubicin, daunorubicyn, epirubicyn, idarubicyn, mitoxantron) which usually used at medical scheme because of wide spectrum of action and high effectiveness prescription. Risk of cardiotoxicity formation and existing diseases progression increases according to drug dose, patient's age, cardiovascular risk factors presence and cardiovascular diseases history. Material and methods. 88 patients with established non-Hodgkin's lymphoma diagnosis were examined in order to assess cardiovascular system state and pathology nature – 33 patients before chemotherapy and 55 patients in the long-term follow-up period (one year after the start of chemotherapy). Results. повсемест-It was found that antitumor drugs induced cardiotoxicity may manifest at the beginning of chemotherapy as well as following up period. The cardiac cameras dilation associated with the increase of NTproBNP serum content (N-terminal fragment of natriuretic peptide type B precursor) – the main biomarker of myocardial dysfunction has been revealed by instrumental research.


We consider energy-efficient time synchronization in a wireless sensor network where a head node is equipped with a powerful processor and supplied power from outlet, and sensor nodes are limited in processing and battery-powered. It is this asymmetry that our study focuses on; unlike most existing schemes to save the power of all network nodes, we concentrate on battery-powered sensor nodes in minimizing energy consumption for time synchronization. We present a time synchronization scheme based on asynchronous source clock frequency recovery and reverse two-way message exchanges combined with measurement data report messages, where we minimize the number of message transmissions from sensor nodes while achieving sub-microsecond time synchronization accuracy through propagation delay compensation. We carry out the performance analysis of the estimation of both measurement time and clock frequency with lower bounds for the latter. Simulation results verify that the proposed scheme outperforms the schemes based on conventional two-way message exchanges with and without clock frequency recovery in terms of the accuracy of measurement time estimation and the number of message transmissions and receptions at sensor nodes as an indirect measure of energy efficiency.


In today's modern world, where many students have considerable knowledge and experience of computers, using technology in the classroom in a way that will best help the students achieve their learning goals may be a daunting task for a teacher. In this study, 51students and 13 teachers were surveyed to gain a better understanding of the participants' knowledge, use and comfort level with a variety of Web 2.0 services in order to determine to what extent the teachers and the students think that these services can be effectively utilized in the classroom.


In a remarkably prescient chapter, Bertram Cohler (1982) reimagined the problems and the potentialities of psychological development across the life course as a distinctively human challenge in life narration. This chapter situates Cohler's original vision within the intellectual and scientific matrix of the late 1970s, wherein psychologists expressed grave doubts about the extent to which human lives may demonstrate consistency and coherence. By focusing attention on human beings as autobiographical authors rather than as mere social actors or motivated agents, Cohler moved the conversation away from dispositional personality traits and developmental stages and toward the emerging concept of narrative identity. Over the past 30 years, research on narrative identity has shown how people use stories to integrate the reconstructed past and imagined future, providing their lives with some semblance of unity, purpose, and meaning. At midlife, many adults struggle to solve the problem of generativity, aiming to leave a positive legacy for the next generation. Inspired by Cohler's original chapter, contemporary research reveals that the most generative adults in American society tend to construe their lives as narratives of personal redemption. As such, life stories may serve as valuable psychological resources for midlife adults, even as they reflect and refract prevailing cultural themes.


The paper presents the control system of shunt active power filter (APF) with predictive reference current calculation and model based predictive current control. The novel estimator and predictor of grid emf is proposed for AC voltage sensorless operation of APF. Proposed control system provides control of APF current with high precision and dynamics limited only by filter circuit parameters. There are presented experimental results achieved for 50 kVA APF.


Fresh-cut fruits is a growing sector of the food industry in many parts of the world. Its success depends greatly on several factors, especially the quality and consumers' confidence. Products are prepared in ready-to-eat form whilst retaining the organoleptic characteristics of fresh fruits in terms of aroma, flavour, taste, colour and texture. Appropriate method of preparation is obligatory in order to maintain their freshness. The preparation involves cleaning, washing, trimming, coring, slicing and other related steps of which many of these processes hasten the products to perish. Uniformity, time and labour consumption have always been raised by the cut fruit operators especially for the bulk handling. Imported machines for the processing of cut fruits are available in the markets. However, high cost and suitability of the machine to the local fruits hinder the active use of the machine especially by small scale fruit operators. Intensive research had been conducted in developing a suitable mechanized system for commercial handling of fresh cut pineapple comprising of stalk and crown cutter, skin peeler, flesh slicer and centrifugal drip dryer. The newly developed machines were successfully tested during the recent commercial handling trial of fresh-cut pineapple to Perth, Australia. Uniform cutting of the stalk and crown had contributed to the stability of the fruits upon being subjected to skin peeler machine. The skin peeler machine was integrated with blade cutter which cut the flesh into two portions. Uniform semicircle cutting shape and size will be produced upon subjecting the individual portion to the flesh slicer machine. A centrifugal drip dryer machine facilitates in removing the excess water after the cut pieces were subjected to pre-treatment solutions before undertaking the packing process.


The social cost of carbon is the expected present value of damages from emitting one ton of carbon today. We use perturbation theory to derive an approximate tractable expression for this cost adjusted for climatic and economic risk. We allow for different aversion to risk and intertemporal fluctuations, skewness and dynamics in the risk distributions of climate sensitivity and the damage ratio, and correlated shocks. We identify prudence, insurance, and exposure effects, reproduce earlier analytical results, and offer analytical insights into numerical results on the effects of economic and damage ratio uncertainty and convex damages on the optimal carbon price.<br>


Motivated by research in psychology and experimental economics, we assume that investors update their beliefs about assets' values upon observing the equilibrium price, but only when the price clearly reveals that others inferred private information that differs from their own private information. We examine the implications of this form of learning from price in the context of trade around earnings announcements. We show that asymmetric learning from price results in post-earnings announcement drift, but only among firms whose earnings are expected (ex ante) to be persistent.


The fabrication of silver (Ag) and gold (Au) thin film electrodes was successfully carried out using the DC sputtering deposition method. These thin film electrodes were able to detect the increase in serum albumin concentration that was used as a prognostic factor for leukemia. The simulation and the optical experimental analysis show that an increase in BSA concentration can increase the absorbance peak observed at a wavelength of 435 nm on hypoalbumin medium and 470 nm on normal concentration of serum albumin medium. The performance of the electrodes was electrochemically tested, in which it was shown that a decrease in oxidation and reduction peaks occurred with respect to an increase in BSA concentration. An oxidation peak was observed at a voltage of 0.5 V for the Ag thin film. For the Au, Au/Ag, and Ag/Au thin films, an oxidation peak was observed at a voltage of 1.0 V. The limits of detection (LODs) of the Ag, Ag/Au, Au, and Au/Ag thin films were 0.56, 0.24, 0.64, and 0.36 g/dL, respectively. Therefore, based on both the electrochemical and optical analysis, the Ag/Au thin film possessed the highest potential for prognosis monitoring of leukemia compared with the other Ag and Au thin films.


We report the results of a survey experiment designed to gauge the influence of foreign elite voices on U.S. public opinion. Improving on previous work, our experiment exposed subjects to news coverage of proposed airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, rather than simply providing them with sterilized information about a possible military action. We find that subjects who read a news story reporting opposition from the U.N. secretary-general to a U.S. plan to launch military strikes against Iran were significantly less likely to support action than were those who did not encounter international opposition in the news. In addition, partisanship mediated responsiveness, with Democrats more likely to respond to foreign voices than Republicans. Attitudes toward the United Nations had no effect, but predispositions toward multilateralism played a pronounced role in shaping opinion when foreign voices opposed U.S. military action. Multilateralism was unrelated to opinion about strikes against Iran when only domestic elites appeared in the news. Our results offer new evidence that international leaders and institutions can affect American mass opinion.


For the monitoring of the global 3-D distribution of aerosol components, we developed the method to retrieve the vertical profiles of water-soluble, light absorbing carbonaceous, dust, and sea salt particles by the synergy of CALIOP and MODIS data. The aerosol product from the synergistic method is expected to be better than the individual products of CALIOP and MODIS. We applied the method to the biomass-burning event in Africa and the dust event in West Asia. The reasonable results were obtained; the much amount of the water-soluble and light absorbing carbonaceous particles were estimated in the biomass-burning event, and the dust particles were estimated in the dust event.


"Has the art of politics no apparent utility? Does it appear to be unqualifiedly ratty, raffish, sordid, obscene, and low down, and its salient virtuousi a gang of unmitigated scoundrels? Then let us not forget its high capacity to soothe and tickle the midriff, its incomparable services as a maker of entertainment."---from 'On Politics' With a style that combined biting sarcasm with the "language of the free lunch counter," Mencken shook politics and politicians for nearly half a century. The political arena afforded Mencken a special opportunity to showcase his talents. He despised pretentiousness and hypocrisy and found numerous, easy targets among politicians. But while he could be merciless in attacking local and national leaders, Mencken always interspersed his scathing commentaries with entertaining exaggerations and high humor. This collection of seventy political pieces drawn from Mencken's famous Monday columns in the 'Baltimore Evening Sun' during the twenties and thirties shows the "Sage of Baltimore" at his satirical best. While social attitudes may have changed, the value of Mencken's words on American politics offers us a timeless perspective.


The central part of the fingerpad in anesthetized monkeys was stimulated by spheres varying in curvature indented into the skin. Responses were recorded from single slowly adapting type I primary afferent fibers (SAIs) innervating the sides and end of the distal segment of the stimulated finger. Although these afferents had receptive field centers that were remote from the stimulus, their responses were substantial. Increasing the curvature of the stimulus resulted in an increased response for most afferents. In general, responses increased most between stimuli with curvatures of 0 (flat) and 80.6 m(-1), with further increases in curvature having progressively smaller effects on the response. We calculated an index of sensitivity to changes in curvature; this index varied widely among the afferents but for most it was less than the index calculated for afferents innervating the fingerpad in the vicinity of the stimulus. Responses of all the SAIs increased when the contact force of the stimulus increased. An index of sensitivity to changes in contact force varied widely among the afferents but in all cases was greater than the index calculated for SAIs from the fingerpad itself. Neither the curvature sensitivity nor the force sensitivity of an afferent was related in any obvious way to the location of its receptive field center on the digit. There was only a minor correspondence between an afferent's sensitivity to force and its sensitivity to curvature. The large number of afferents innervating the border regions of the digit do respond to stimuli contacting the central fingerpad; they convey some information about the curvature of the stimulus and substantial information about contact force.


An optimal traffic data archive scheme where the maximum information of the original data can be preserved using less storage space has been described. Compared with traditional equal-width methods where compact data are obtained by aggregating source data at fixed intervals, the optimal scheme uses varying intervals to aggregate data at different levels based on the variations within the source data. The resultant scheme is optimal in terms of information conservation, that is, the errors between the source data and the optimal compact data are the smallest. Operational traffic data have been used to test three proposed optimisation schemes: single-variable, multi-variable and heuristic schemes. It was found that, compared with traditional equal-width schemes, the size of the archived data can be reduced by six times if the single-variable optimisation scheme, or by three times if the multi-variable optimisation scheme is employed. The heuristic scheme using a combination of single-variable and multi-variable optimisations can then reduce storage space by three to six times


The outer solar system contains a large number of small bodies (known as trans-Neptunian objects or TNOs) that exhibit diverse types of dynamical behavior. The classification of bodies in this distant region into dynamical classes—subpopulations that experience similar orbital evolution—aids in our understanding of the structure and formation of the solar system. In this work, we propose an updated dynamical classification scheme for the outer solar system. This approach includes the construction of a new (automated) method for identifying mean motion resonances. We apply this algorithm to the current data set of TNOs observed by the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and present a working classification for all of the DES TNOs detected to date. Our classification scheme yields 1 inner centaur, 19 outer centaurs, 21 scattering disk objects, 47 detached TNOs, 48 securely resonant objects, 7 resonant candidates, and 97 classical belt objects. Among the scattering and detached objects, we detect 8 TNOs with semimajor axes greater than 150 au.


The text presents a brief, historical introduction to the genesis of nuclear astrophysics, establishing links between the distribution of isotopic abundances in the Solar System and the nuclear processes that operate in stars. A number of suggestions and warnings to be taken into account for accurate numerical modeling in nuclear astrophysics are also outlined. The second part of the paper is devoted to classical nova outbursts, stellar explosions powered by thermonuclear runaways that take place in the H-rich accreted envelopes of white dwarfs in close binary systems. Extensive numerical simulations of nova outbursts have shown that the accreted envelopes attain peak temperatures ranging between 108 and 4×108 K, for about several hundred seconds, and therefore, their ejecta is expected to show signatures of a significant nuclear activity. Indeed, it has been claimed that novae can play a certain role in the enrichment of the interstellar medium through a number of intermediate-mass elements. This include...