Abstract Introduction. The aim of this case study was to compare selected kinematic parameters that characterise the back handspring technique performed by advanced artistic gymnasts. Material and methods. Three elite gymnasts with varied training experience were examined in the study. The athletes performed back handsprings video-recorded at a frequency of 120 Hz. The values of selected kinematic parameters were determined using SkillSpector v.1.3.2 computer software. Results. The most substantial differences between athletes were found in the values of the horizontal velocity of the centre of mass (CoM) at the end of the back handspring. The athlete with the longest training experience achieved values which were three times higher (1.04 m/s) than those obtained by the other two athletes with shorter experience (Gymnast 2: 0.36 m/s; Gymnast 3: 0.37 m/s). The horizontal CoM velocity at the end of the back handspring declined for all the gymnasts, with the smallest decrease observed for the athlete with the longest training experience (two-fold decrease from 1.95 to 1.04 m/s) and the biggest one found for the athlete with the shortest training experience (six-fold decrease from 2.18 to 0.37 m/s). The vertical CoM velocity increased in all the athletes in the consecutive phases of the back handspring; this increase was the biggest for the athlete with the longest training experience (five-fold increase from 0.71 to 3.42 m/s) and the lowest for the athlete with the shortest training experience (three-fold increase from 1.08 to 3.24 m/s). Conclusions. The results obtained in this study demonstrated both similarities and substantial differences in the technique of performing the back handspring in artistic gymnasts with many years of training experience. In most cases, the directions of linear CoM velocities and angular velocities were similar in the joints analysed. Very similar values of angular positions were also obtained. Furthermore, the values which turned out to be the most varied were those recorded for angular velocity.


Widespread powerful mobile devices and the advanced technologies in wireless mesh networks (WMNs) open a new scenario where users require audio/video group chatting with their neighbors anywhere without the need of fixed communication infrastructure. However, development of audio/video group chat applications for WMNs are still challenging because the applications cannot rely on a central server, and the topology of the underlying WMNs is frequently changed and unreliable. In spite of those difficulties, the applications should perform audio/video data processing for multiple members and chat group management concurrently. In this paper, we define important requirements of audio/video group chat applications for WMNs, and then, explain our design and implementation for realizing them. To show the feasibility and scalability of our application, we implemented prototype group talk system composed of an 802.11n WMN and smartphones connected to wireless mesh nodes, and measured group management and video processing performance increasing the number of group members.


Due to the adverse effect on the environment caused by excessive use of chemical fertilizers, the development of sustainable agriculture attracts a growing demand of biological based fertilizers composed of living microorganisms. In this study, an Actinobacteria Streptomyces lydicus M01 was isolated from the rhizosphere soil of Pyrus calleryana. This strain effectively promoted the plant growth and suppressed a foliar disease caused by Alternaria alternata on cucumbers. S. lydicus M01 exhibited growth promoting characteristics such as phosphate solubilization, IAA secretion, siderophore and ACC deaminase production. Through Illumina sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene and ITS gene of the soil microbes, we found that the application of S. lydicus M01 altered the composition of the microbial community by promoting beneficial groups, including bacteria genera Pseudarthrobacter, Sphingomonas, Rhodanobacter, and Pseudomonas, fungi genera Fusicolla, Humicola, Solicoccozyma, and Paraphaeosphaeria. Most of these bacteria and eukaryotes exhibit positive effects on growth promotion, such as nutrient accumulation, auxin secretion, abiotic stress alleviation, biological control, or bioremediation. Furthermore, studies on the reactive oxygen species (ROS) level and antioxidants of cucumber leaves revealed that S. lydicus M01 treatment reduced the ROS accumulation and increased the activities of antioxidases related with ROS scavenging, which indicated an enhanced disease resistance of cucumbers under biotic stress. Thus, our results suggest that the application of S. lydicus M01 can systemically affect plant microbiome interactions and represent a promising sustainable solution to improve agricultural production instead of chemical fertilizers.


The most well-understood circadian clock at the level of molecular mechanisms is that of cyanobacteria. This overview is on how solution-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has contributed to this understanding. By exciting atomic spin-½ nuclei in a strong magnetic field, NMR obtains information on their chemical environments, inter-nuclear distances, orientations, and motions. NMR protein samples are typically aqueous, often at near-physiological pH, ionic strength, and temperature. The level of information obtainable by NMR depends on the quality of the NMR sample, by which we mean the solubility and stability of proteins. Here, we use examples from our laboratory to illustrate the advantages and limitations of the technique.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate whether the rapid viral response (RVR) to combinational therapy with interferon and rabavirin can be used to predict the sustained viral response (SVR) in chronic hepatitis C patients.

METHODS
According to their clinical characteristics, all patients in this study were given pegylated or conventional interferon injection and different dose of ribavirin according to their weight. Patients were injected Pegasys (pegierferon alpha-2a) 180 microg or 135 microg once a week, or pegyintron 50-80 microg once a week, or conventional interferon 3-5 MU every two days, in combination with a dose of 600-1500 mg/d ribavirin. The serum HCV RNA load was determined at 0, 4, 12 week, and then every 12 weeks. After the viral response obtained, the patients were treated for another 24-72 weeks and followed up 24 weeks. The main parameter to evaluate the efficacy was SVR rate. The influence factors associated with rapid viral response were investigated.

RESULTS
RVR was obtained at week 4 in 84.2% of the 120 patients. The HCV RNA baseline of RVR group was (5.883+/-1.246) lg copies/ml, which was significantly lower than that of the group without RVR [(6.502+/-0.693) lg copies/ml, t=2.15, P=0.034]. 97 patients with RVR who finished treatment and follow-up, 90.7% of these patients obtained SVR, but the SVR rate in patients (82.4%) without RVR was lower than that in patients with RVR (x2=0.371, P=0.543). In this study, RVR rate was not associated with HCV genotype and the dose of interferon used. In the naive patients, the RVR to pegylated interferon was 87.8%, which was significantly higher than that in retreat patients (x2=4.651, P=0.031).

CONCLUSION
High RVR rate could be obtained in chronic hepatitis C patients treated combined with interferon and ribavirin. RVR rate is associated with the HCV RNA baseline load in both naive and retreat patients but not correlated to HCV genotype. RVR could predict the SVR.


ABSTRACT Objective: The objective of this study was to assess if the presence of new lesions and their topography on the reference MRI have a prognostic value regarding disease activity during the follow up in relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) patients. Methods: Retrospective cohort study that included patients with RRMS who had a reference MRI (performed at 6 months from the onset of a DMT) and radiological and clinical follow up for at least two years. We identified the number of new MRI lesions and their topography at reference MRI and during the follow up. Cox proportional hazards model analysis was used to evaluate the association between new lesions on reference MRI and the appearance of new lesions and/or clinical relapses at 24-month follow-up. Results: 56 patients were included, 13 (23.2%) showed new lesions in the reference MRI. The presence of new lesions at reference MRI predicted the occurrence of new lesions at month 24 (HR 3.1, CI 95% 2.5-5.8). The number of lesions and the infratentorial topography at reference MRI were associated with an increased risk of new radiological activity during follow up (HR 3.5, IC95% 3.1-6.1 and HR 2.4, IC95% 1.9-2.7 respectively). Conclusion: New lesions at the reference MRI in terms of number and topography increase the risk of radiological disease activity during the follow up.


The object of this book is to provide some criteria for model selection of bike for student perspective. Student population uses bikes either because it is a necessity, they use a bike because they can afford a bike, or they may not have direct transport from their residency etc a part from others. It is our interest in this project to know, while buying a bike, what criteria a student is exercising in the selection of a bike. This introduction new models generates new demand for the bikes. Student population is one of the largest segments of buyers of the bikes. Hence, a naturally arising question is that what makes a student select a bike? In this approach, who are buying the bikes based on different criteria of selection of bikes? Some advanced Statistical tools and techniques have been used in this study. In this book analysis of several of bike selection models and developed by using types of Statistical models.


Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are gaining importance for their broad range of commercial applications such as in home automation, health-care and industrial automation. In these applications multi-vendor and heterogeneous sensor nodes are deployed. Due to strict administrative control over the WSN domains, communication barrier, conflicting goal & economic interest of different vendors of sensor node in WSN make it difficult to introduce a large scale federated WSN. By allowing heterogeneous wireless sensor networks to coexist on a shared physical substrate, virtualization in sensor network may provide flexibility, promote diversity, ensure security and increase manageability. This paper surveys the novel approach of using the large scale federated WSN resources in a sensor virtualization environment. In this paper we propose sensor virtualization architecture and focus on the challenges and opportunities of research in the field of sensor network virtualization as well as to illustrate a picture of current researches in this field.


BACKGROUND: G47Δ is a third generation, genetically engineered, oncolytic herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) that is currently used in a clinical trial for patients with refractory glioblastomas. Genetic modifications in the γ34.5, ICP6 and α47 genes make G47Δ replicate selectively in tumor cells. Most tumor cell lines support the replication of G47Δ well and are susceptible to the therapy, but some cell lines are relatively resistant to oncolytic HSV-1. Micro RNA (miR) -199a-3p and miR-214 are reported to suppress wild type HSV-1 replication in murine cell lines. We investigated if these micro RNAs also have effect on the replication of onoclytic HSV-1. METHODS: Four human glioma cell lines were tested for the susceptibility for G47Δ, and A172 and T98G were found to be relatively resistant. Micro RNA expression levels were examined in real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay, and both miR-199a-3p and miR-214 levels were high in these G47Δ resistant cell lines. Using tough decoy (TuD) microRNA suppression system, A172 and T98G with low miR-199a-3p and miR-214 expression were created. RESULTS: G47Δ replication and cytopathic effect were better in A172 and T98G miR-199a-3p low, miR-214 low cells than A172 and T98G cells which were transfected with control TuD, expressing original levels of miR-199a-3p and miR-214. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that expression level of some microRNA may have effects on oncolytic HSV-1 replication. Modulation of some specific micro RNA expression may enhance the anti-tumor effect of oncolytic HSV-1 therapy, and the micro RNA based strategy may be a useful tool to improve the efficacy of oncolytic HSV-1 therapy for malignant glioma. SECONDARY CATEGORY: n/a.


Design for manufacturing and assembly (DfMA) has gained increased attention in the construction industry as the process has been industrialized and shifting towards a combination of factory prefabrication and assembly on site. The aim of this study is two-fold. Firstly, to apply the DfMA approach in the redesign of a steel bracket from a post and beam building system to simplify the design for reducing the cost and improving manufacturability. Secondly, to experimentally evaluate the mechanical properties of the redesigned bracket for implementation. An experimental case study has been conducted in a multistorey post and beam building system. The empirical data were collected from five semi-structured interviews and two workshops. The result shows that the DfMA approach has the potential to improve the manufacturability and cost of building components in Industrialized house building (IHB) and is comparable to lean design. Moreover, the proposed steel bracket offers satisfactory load-bearing capacities and shows an improvement with a reduction of cost by 15%, lead time by 50%, and material efficiency by 25%. DFMA can be used as a promising approach for aligning the design phases of IHB with the production and assembly by improving cross-functional collaboration.


The aim of this paper is to establish explicit bounds on some more general retarded integral inequalities which can be used as convenient tools in some applications. The two independent variable generalizations of the main results and some applications are also given.


With rising demands for high-performance computing and design flexibility of post-fabrication system, reconfigurable architecture has been drawing increasing attentions. However, reconfigurability, advantage of current Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), is severely limited by small capacity of on-chip Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) for storing configuration bits. With emerging high-density and high-performance nano memory devices, opportunities are provided to improve the reconfigurability of the current FPGA's design.


Active transport of T1+ by frog skin was compared with transport of K+ and Rb+. T1+ was transported actively (using a Na,K-ATPase) by the epithelium and the adrenaline-stimulated glands. In the epithelium, K+, T1+ and Rb+ competed for transport in the ratio 1:1.7:0.9; in the glands the ratio was 1:1:1.


Aims: The study was aimed at determining the seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii and associated risk factors among school children in parts of Kaduna state. Study Design: Cross-sectional community-based study. Place and Duration of Study: Kaduna state from February to September 2016. Methodology: A total of 300 blood samples were collected from school children in three Local Governments Areas (LGA) of Kaduna state namely: Soba, Kauru and Giwa LGA. The sera were screened for Toxoplasma gondii IgM and IgG antibodies by Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA). Results: Of 300 blood samples screened, seropositivity for Toxoplasma IgM antibody was 108 (36.0%). Fifty (16.67%) of the tested seropositive for the Toxoplasma IgG antibody and 24 (8.0%) tested seropositive for Toxoplasma IgG+IgM antibodies. Children in Soba Local Government Area had the highest seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii IgM (72%), followed by Giwa LGA (27%). The least seroprevalence was recorded in Kauru LGA (9%). The highest seroprevalence of Toxoplasma Original Research Article Lawal et al.; JAMB, 10(1): 1-10, 2018; Article no.JAMB.40111 2 gondii IgG was found among children in Kauru 21 (21%), followed by Soba 15 (15%) and finally Giwa 14 (14%). IgM seroprevalence of 63.44%, 29.79%, and 10.61% were recorded among school children between the age groups 7-10, 11-14 and 15-18 years respectively, whereas T. gondii IgG seroprevalence was recorded in 29.03%, 13.48% and 6.06% children between the age groups 7-10, 11-14 and 15-18years respectively. A lower seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii antibodies was recorded among the female children (IgM = 34.9% and IgG = 16%) compared to the male (IgM = 37.4% and IgG = 17.6%) the difference observed was not statistically significant. In this study, the presence of cats at home, contact with cat and contact with cat litter were estimated to be risk factors associated with T. gondii infection. Conclusion: Hand washing before eating, hand washing after playing and drinking of treated water (not well water) were estimated to be protective factors associated with T. gondii infection.


Heterogeneous graph is a kind of data structure widely existing in real life. Nowadays, the research of graph neural network on heterogeneous graph has become more and more popular. The existing heterogeneous graph neural network algorithms mainly have two ideas, one is based on meta-path and the other is not. The idea based on meta-path often requires a lot of manual preprocessing, at the same time it is difficult to extend to large scale graphs. In this paper, we proposed the general heterogeneous message passing paradigm and designed R-GSN that does not need meta-path, which is much improved compared to the baseline R-GCN. Experiments have shown that our R-GSN algorithm achieves the state-of-the-art performance on the ogbn-mag large scale heterogeneous graph dataset.


Zooming type adaptive quantizers have been introduced in the networked control literature as efficient coders for stabilizing open-loop unstable noise-free systems connected over noiseless channels with arbitrary initial conditions. Such quantizers can be regarded as a special class of the Goodman-Gersho adaptive quantizers. In this paper, we provide a stochastic stability result for such quantizers when the system is driven by an additive noise process. Conditions leading to stability are evaluated when the system is driven by noise with non-compact support for its probability measure. It is shown that zooming quantizers are efficient and almost achieve the fundamental lower bound of the logarithm of the absolute value of an unstable eigenvalue. In particular, such quantizers are asymptotically optimal when the unstable pole of the linear system is large for a weak form of stability.


The transition to the role of motherhood affects nearly all aspects of a woman's life: her identity, priorities, responsibilities, as well as her interpersonal relationships and interactions with the external world.

The aim of this qualitative study was to comprehend how women, who had previously led successful careers, interpreted and adjusted to their new maternal identities. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with five older mothers (mean age 40 years), with children under the age of 5, on their retrospective experiences of motherhood and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.

Five master themes emerged from the data including: "the renegotiation of marital roles", "self-constructed motherhood", "ghosts of own childhood", "personal self – impact of initial transition", and "personal self - striving for a new sense of identity". Overall, the findings highlight the paradoxical effects of motherhood; from self-doubt and loss of autonomy, to overwhelming joy and a sense of achievement.

The findings are compared to previous studies on the transition to motherhood and future research is suggested.


The basic physical processes of field-induced luminescence quenching in electroluminescent conjugated polymers is studied by a theoretical model of electron-lattice tight binding with an applied electric field, plus the extended Hubbard interactions, in an unrestricted Hartree-Fock approximation. It is found that there exists a critical field Ec, beyond which the self-trapping singlet- and triplet-excitons (the emitting species) in conjugated polymers will be split directly into hole-polarons and electron-polarons, leading to luminescence quenching. Why the luminescence intensity decreases with increase of the applied field and why the luminescence intensity will not be quenched completely in stronger fields are elucidated. The critical field increases with the electron interactions and the binding energy of self-trapping excitons. Possible approaches to decrease field-induced luminescence quenching are increasing the binding energy of the exciton and reducing the conjugation length.


We investigated the cause of thrombocytosis in 14 patients with tumors producing colony-stimulating factor (CSF). Of the 14 patients, 10 had tumors producing granulocyte-CSF (G-CSF) and 4 had tumors producing granulocyte-macrophage--CSF (GM-CSF). Thrombocytosis of greater than 400 x 10(9)/L was noted in 8 of 10 patients with G-CSF-producing tumors and all 4 patients with GM-CSF-producing tumors. Median peak platelet counts were, respectively, 511 x 10(9)/L (range, 384 to 694 x 10(9)/L) and 579 x 10(9)/L (range, 526 to 910 x 10(9)/L) in patients with tumors producing G-CSF and GM-CSF. In most patients, thrombocytosis declined towards the terminal stage. High interleukin-1 (IL-1) and IL-6 levels were found in addition to CSFs in the plasma or culture supernatants of tumor cells obtained from most patients. In patients with GM-CSF-producing tumors, these specimens had megakaryocyte-CSF (Meg-CSF) activity, which was abolished by anti-GM-CSF antibody. These specimens also had megakaryocyte potentiating (Meg-Pot) activity attributable to both GM-CSF and IL-6. In patients with G-CSF-producing tumors, only Meg-Pot activity due to IL-6 was detected. These results indicate that the thrombocytosis in GM-CSF-producing tumors was caused by both the Meg-CSF activity of GM-CSF and the Meg-Pot activity of IL-6 plus GM-CSF, while that in G-CSF-producing tumors was due to the Meg-Pot activity of IL-6.


The paper aims to discuss on the advancements and adoption of industry 4.0 technologies for small manufacturing firms. Many firms are now facing growing customer demands and continuously challenged by the global competition within the marketplace. The study aims to develop a preliminary understanding of industry 4.0, with specific focus towards manufacturing sectors. The paper aims to present a review of the concepts within small manufacturing firms through the literature currently available within this topic. The paper examines how the advanced technologies helps towards the enhancement or simplification of the overall manufacturing process of heavy-duty industrial packaging as a case study discussion. However, significant challenges that exists within the manufacturing firm towards the implementation of industry 4.0 processes have been identified along with some of the emerging technologies that support towards the adoption of industry 4.0.


Abstract The phenylpropanoid pathway results in the synthesis of thousands of compounds, including flavonoids like flavonols, anthocyanidins and tannins. In Arabidopsis thaliana, the lack of tannins in the seed coat (testa) causes the transparent testa (tt) phenotype. In the present study, we identified the gene responsible for the tt7 mutation. We show that TT7 encodes the enzyme flavonoid 3′-hydroxylase (F3′H), and demonstrate that this P450-dependent monooxygenase has F3′H activity. The availability of the AtF3′H gene and promoter sequence will allow us to study the coregulation of a complete set of flavonol and anthocyanidin biosynthesis genes in A. thaliana, and makes in vitro synthesis of hydroxylated flavonoids more feasible.


In the light of an informative clinical case report, the authors emphasise the pathogenic role of Corynebacteria D2 in urinary tract disease. This microorganism can be easily detected by bacteriologists by the use of special media and such infection is suggested clinically by urinary tract infection with "sterile", strongly alkaline urine. The clinical features of incrusted cystitis with alkaline urine may be accompanied by serious upper urinary tract complications with renal failure, recurrent haematuria with anaemia, decreased bladder capacity and incontinence. Corynebacteria D2, an opportunistic pathogenic bacteria, responsible for nosocomial infection, is resistant to the majority of antibiotics. The authors complete their case report with a review of the literature.


Although recent studies have suggested the feasibility of integrating workflow and rule technology in a Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS), their implementation has not been verified yet. This paper proposes a knowledge engine which integrates workflow and rule engine as a tool for interpretation and execution of computer interpretable clinical guidelines. The objective of this paper is to validate its feasibility in two perspectives: clinical knowledge coverage and execution performance. The two open source engines which were selected and integrated were chosen due to their reliability and consistency. Implementation of workflow and rule engine integration has shown that the integrated knowledge engine (uBrain) is an effective CDSS for the execution of clinical guidelines.


Abstract: The transition from the accounting management of the use of resources, i.e. net budgeting, to business-oriented performance management is an important element in the introduction of management by objectives and results in the public sector. This took place in Western European countries in the 1990s and encompassed what is referred to as business-oriented accounting. Business-oriented accounting in the public sector is currently a hot topic in the public debate. The system is complex and lacks clear lines of political accountability


Chemotherapeutic alkylnitrosoureas (BCNU, CCNU, streptozotocin) and alkyltriazenes (DTIC, temozolomide) produce a cytotoxic lesion at the O(6)-position of guanine. The DNA repair protein, O(6)-alkylguanine-DNA alkyltransferase removes damage from the O(6)-position in a single-step mechanism without co-factors. There is extensive evidence that this protein is one of the most important factors contributing to alkylnitrosourea and alkyltriazene treatment failure. There is an inverse correlation between the level of this protein and the sensitivity of cells to the cytotoxic effects of O(6)-alkylating agents. Attempts have been made to modulate AGT activity using anti-sense technology, methylating agents, O(6)-alkylguanines, and O(6)-benzylguanine analogs. O(6)-Benzylguanine and its analogs are clearly the most potent direct inactivators of the AGT protein. The mechanism involves O(6)-benzylguanine acting as a low-molecular weight substrate with transfer of the benzyl group to the cysteine residue within the active site of the repair protein. Pretreatment of cells with non-toxic doses of O(6)-benzylguanine results in an increase in the sensitivity to O(6)-alkylating agents. Animal studies revealed that the therapeutic index of BCNU increased when administered in combination with O(6)-benzylguanine. This drug is currently in phase I clinical trials. Evidence from animal studies indicates that myelosuppression may be the dose-limiting toxicity, thus, efforts are aimed at improving the therapeutic index by the stable expression of O(6)-benzylguanine-resistant AGT proteins into targeted normal tissue such as bone marrow. The successful modulation of alkyltransferases brings on an exciting new era for alkylnitrosoureas and alkyltriazenes.


Commuting contributes to high levels of greenhouse gases and air pollution. The recently advocated 'green commuting', i.e. active and public modes of transport, will be conducive to low-carbon and environmentally friendly transport. A baseline goal of urban planning is to promote health; however, few studies have explored the health-related impacts of environments at both ends of the commute on residents' commuting mode choices. To fill the gap, this study proposes to consider the impact of the neighbourhood and working environment on green commuting from a health perspective. Using a sample of 15,886 people from 368 communities in China, three generalised multilevel linear regression models were estimated. Physical and psychological health were combined to further analyse health-related environmental attributes on the commuting choices of residents with different health levels. The results indicate that the working environment exerts more substantial effects on 'green commuting' than the neighbourhood environment, especially for workplace satisfaction. Moreover, we found that a good working environment and relationships will significantly encourage the sub-healthy group to choose active commuting. These findings are beneficial for policymakers to consider focusing on reconciling neighbourhood and working environments and meeting the commuting requirements of the less healthy group.


Background and objectives: Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a major cause of sensorineural hearing loss in children [1]. Universal screening is controversial due to the low risk of CMV-related hearing loss [2]. The prevalence of CMV related hearing loss is 0.5 in 1000 children and is thought to be responsible for 15% to 20% of moderate-to-severe hearing loss in children [3, 4]. Since 2018, New York state law requires targeted CMV testing for newborns who "refer" on the Newborn Hearing Screen (NBHS) prior to discharge from the hospital at birth [5]. This is a report of a CMV testing protocol implemented at a community hospital for newborns who "refer" on the NBHS. Methods: Clinical records of all neonates born at BronxCare Health System (BCHS) who did not pass the NBHS between March 2019 and September 2020 were retrospectively reviewed. All newborns are screened using Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) and those who do not pass are referred for audiology evaluation. Newborns who failed NBHS were tested for CMV prior to hospital discharge using Salivary Real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) (Quest Diagnostics). Positive results were confirmed with serum PCR. We analyzed NBHS, audiology evaluation and CMV testing results. Results: A total of 3555 newborns had NBHS performed; 44 did not pass and were referred for audiology evaluation within 2 weeks of hospital discharge. Of these 44, CMV testing was done for 37 (84%) while 7 (16%) were not tested for CMV. Of those tested, salivary PCR detected CMV in two patients: the first had negative confirmatory serum PCR test; the second was confirmed positive and treated with ganciclovir. This patient, who is confirmed positive, had inconclusive results on follow-up audiology evaluation and was referred for Early Intervention services. Of the original cohort of 44 patients who were referred to audiology; thirty-three (75%) passed audiology evaluation and eleven did not. Of these eleven, two cases were followed successfully and have confirmed hearing loss, while 9 were lost to subsequent audiology follow-up. Of the two hearing loss cases; one was the confirmed CMV positive baby who started treatment with valganciclovir, while the other was CMV negative. Of the nine newborns who were lost to audiology follow up, 8 were tested negative for CMV while one baby was not tested for CMV. Conclusion: At BCHS, the prevalence of CMV related hearing loss is 0.28/1000 as compared to the reported prevalence of 0.5/1000. Eighteen months of targeted CMV testing in newborns who did not pass the NBHS found only one confirmed case of congenital CMV infection. This suggests that targeted CMV screening based on NBHS results misses some cases of congenital CMV infection. Of the eligible newborns who failed NBHS; seven were not tested for CMV. The testing protocol will need further refinement to avoid missing patients in the future.


Multifunctional Fe(3)O(4)-TiO(2) nanocomposites with Janus structure for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and potential photodynamic therapy (PDT) were synthesized, in which Fe(3)O(4) was used as a MRI contrast agent and TiO(2) as an inorganic photosensitizer for PDT. Their morphology, structure, and MRI and PDT performance were characterized, respectively. Moreover, the location of Fe(3)O(4)-TiO(2) nanocomposites in MCF-7 cells was also investigated by the staining of Prussian blue and alizarin red, respectively. The results showed that the as-prepared Fe(3)O(4)-TiO(2) nanocomposites had good T(2)-weighted MRI performance, and the MCF-7 cells incubated with nanocomposites could be killed under the irradiation of UV light. Compared with traditional organic photosensitizers, TiO(2) inorganic photosensitizers could have more stable PDT performance due to their nanoscale size and anti-photodegradable stability. Therefore, the as-prepared Fe(3)O(4)-TiO(2) nanocomposites could have potential applications as a new kind of multifunctional agent for both MRI and PDT.


The last reviews which covered research in plate motions were those of Herron and Pitman [1975] on marine magnetic anomalies and Dewey [1975] on plate tectonics, both reporting on research for the period 1971–1974. In the last 12 years there has been considerable refinement of relative motion models, as well as further development of global models. Also, major effort has gone into defining reference frames for the study of plate motions, and discriminating between them. More recently, the role of errors in individual plate rotations and the associated uncertainties in reconstructions have received attention. In this report I concentrate on work published in the last 4 years, 1983–1986, citing a minimum of publications from previous years; however, some papers in press for early 1987 have been included. This report first reviews work on relative plate motions for the present and past, and reconstructions, and then models for these motions, global ones for driving forces and local ones determining subduction history and back-arc spreading. The problem of reference frames, both hotspot and paleomagnetic, is discussed next. I end with a review of work on the errors in plate motions.


Education is an integral part of diabetes care. The structured self-management education is the key to improve glycemic control, to reduce the risk of acute and long term complications and it is associated with improved quality of life. Type 1 is the most common type of diabetes in children and adolescents. Although the basic treatment principles are the same as in adults, the developmental characteristics during childhood need to apply age-appropriate, different teaching and learning techniques that should be adaptable to individual abilities, skills, needs and requirements of patients and parents, as well.


Traditional Multiple Criteria Decision-Making methods have been effectively applied by Brazilian industries. An intrinsic requirement of applying these methods is that the alternatives and criteria be independent of one another. In this paper we show how a Brazilian company can consider dependencies among the alternatives and among the criteria in solving Production Management problems. The need to consider dependence among alternatives was detected in the course of a study applying traditional decisionmaking methods. The main benefit from considering dependence was the notably higher satisfaction of the decision-makers. That is, it made the decision-making model closer to the real problem, as perceived by the decision-makers. A main conclusion of this article is that considering dependence in decision making can improve the quality of the process.


youngs). We studied the feeding effects on the number of young rabbits at birth and their per- formance at 70 days of age. From the obtained information, we conclude that: - doe-rabbits showed a racial heterogeneity which had an effect on production process; - it is necessary to have a better bromatology knowledge of fibrous materials for a better use in rabbit feeding having regard to their low cost; - Feed for rabbits with high energy levels (DE) gives better results; the 3 150 kcal digestible Energy)kg when adding fat are equivalent to 3 ooo kcal metabolisable $nergy !kg. - In experimental rooms of small research units with controlled environment, we must use pure- bred or high level selected rabbits; - When using fibrous materials in rabbit feeding, attention has to be paid to technological aspects, feed palatability and addition of synthesis amino-acids. This study was carried out to assess the ability of rabbits to use diets of various nutrient density and form. In this study, 24 seven week old Californian rabbits (initial weight 1.44 ± 0.33 kg) were pair-fed 2 diets in 3 physical forms. The 2 diets (8 M /D and 12 M /D) were formulated to con-tain 8 and 12 MJ/kg dry matter using ruminant metabolisable energy values. Crude protein content was 160 g/kg dry matter. Ground barley straw was the main fibre source. Diets were higher heavier are clearly unsuitable for that both energy concentration (particularly with low diets) important in determining consumption characteristics.


Pancreatic transplant remains the only treatment that cures insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. It is recognized by transplant surgeons that donor pancreases with excessive fat infiltration have a poorer clinical outcome, resulting in significant recipient morbidity and mortality. However, no objective measure of pancreatic fat infiltration exists, and no study has been done that correlates the level of fat infiltration with clinical outcome. There have been significant radiologic advances that allow assessment of fat content of organs, and these could be used to accurately quantify the extent of pancreatic fat infiltration. We reviewed the literature regarding pancreatic steatosis, and examined ways in which the level of steatosis could be objectively measured before transplant, thereby improving clinical outcome.


This article introduces the reader to the literature in the title field and to the major literature resources. The author also describes several unusual aspects of this challenging area of research. The following topics are discussed: reviews of biological effects of EM fields; government-sponsored reviews; reviews in journals and monographs; conflicting experimental results in the primary literature; newsletters covering the issues; accessing the primary literature; Internet sources.


Replacing coal with cleaner energy carriers is a crucial lever to reach the Paris climate targets. However, as coal decline results in local job loss, political backlash might arise, jeopardizing the clean energy transition. Yet, we lack evidence on whether such backlash exists. Here, we analyze the electoral response to coal mining job losses in the United States presidential elections from 2000 to 2016 in a panel regression and a matched difference-in-difference setting. Our results suggest an electoral response in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections specific to the loss of coal mining jobs. We estimate an increased Republican vote share of 1.2 pp in 2012 and 1.5 pp in 2016 for each 100 coal mining jobs lost. The estimated electoral response is thus almost five times as large as the numbers of jobs lost. We observe this response only in places with large job losses, where these jobs account for a large share of locally available jobs and where income levels are low. Existing relative party strengths, however, do not influence the results. Moreover, we find a spillover effect of 2.2 pp in 2016 into counties within 50 km of those affected by coal decline. We discuss the implications of these findings for coal phase-outs worldwide.


The papers in this special section focus on recent developments and emerging topics in the area of deep fuzzy models that address some of the problems and limitations above. These models have been known under different names, such as hierarchical fuzzy systems and fuzzy networks. They are usually well suited for performing multiple functional compositions at either crisp or linguistic level. Deep learning has gained significant attention within the computational intelligence community in recent years. Its success has been mainly due to the increased power of modern computational platforms in terms of their ability to collect, store, and process large volumes of data. This has led to a substantial increase in the effectiveness and efficiency of data management. As a result, it has become possible to achieve high accuracy for some benchmark learning tasks, such as object classification and image recognition within a short time frame. The most common implementation of deep learning has been through neural networks due to the ability of their layers of neurons to perform multiple functional compositions as part of a multistage learning process.


The European Examination in General Cardiology (EEGC) is a joint venture between the European Union of Medical Specialists, the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and the participating National Cardiac Societies, including the British Cardiovascular Society (BCS). It provides a high-quality test of knowledge for cardiology trainees from 14 countries where it is used to support training. In the UK, the EEGC is taken in specialty training (ST)5, and can be retaken in ST6 and ST7 if necessary, and is approved by the GMC as a requirement for CCT.

Development of the exam (figure 1) starts at the ESC Congress in August with a question writing meeting (a). Each question has a clinical scenario, a single question and five possible answers shown in alphabetical order. The questions are written and edited by groups of cardiologists from a range of countries and subspecialties. The knowledge tested is mapped to the curriculum …


How can we use the spaces outside of formal education to foster a relationship with Shakespeare? Can this help us to find a relevance for Shakespeare at a time when uptake in English and the arts is decreasing? Using my own company, PurpleCoat, as a model for interrogation, I will examine how performance can be used as a guide for Shakespeare in education. Through this research, I aim to understand the impact of my company's work, and to better question how professional theatre, community theatre and classroom education can work together and learn from one another, to develop a more inclusive arts environment for those alienated by Shakespeare as a result of traditional systems.


Neurons in primary visual cortex (V1) are frequently classified based on their response linearity: the extent to which their visual responses to drifting gratings resemble a linear replica of the stimulus. This classification is supported by the finding that response linearity is bimodally distributed across neurons in area V1 of anesthetized animals. However, recent studies suggest that such bimodal distribution may not reflect two neuronal types but a nonlinear relationship between the membrane potential and the spike output. A main limitation of these previous studies is that they measured response linearity in anesthetized animals, where the distance between the neuronal membrane potential and the spike threshold is artificially increased by anesthesia. Here, we measured V1 response linearity in the awake brain and its correlation with the neuronal spontaneous firing rate, which is related to the distance between membrane potential and threshold. Our results demonstrate that response linearity is bimodally distributed in awake V1 but that it is poorly correlated with spontaneous firing rate. In contrast, the spontaneous firing rate is best correlated to the response selectivity and response latency to stimuli.


Satellite data transmission scheduling is assigning limited ground resources for satellite data requests reasonably in the condition of many satellites and ground stations with considering many constraints. Its purpose is improving the efficient usage of ground resources. In this paper, we focus on the building of satellite data transmission scheduling and algorithm. We describe the constraints of satellite data transmission scheduling formally and analyze the process of satellites data transmission. We put forward conflict degrees of data transmission after analyzing the data transmission time windows. And we give one strategy to resolve the conflicts. We build models of satellite data transmission after giving the resolve the problem based on its characteristic. Owing to the shortcoming of GA, we connect Tabu Search Algorithm(TSA) with Genetic Algorithms (GA),we call the combination TSGA. We get the scene of scheduling by the software of STK. We build several evaluation indexes of two kinds of algorithms. The results show that TSGA algorithm outperforms GA.


A nation is a collection of people who have common culture, history and values so that these values can cause cohesion and solidarity among different groups in a country. Transitional factors such as culture and language, common race, common history, religion, etc., play a role in the formation of a nation. These factors are among the things that cause the formation of a nation. A nation-building is a sociological approach that is realized as a result of the fading of ethnic, racial, and gender distinctions. Today, nation-building is used as one of the important tools in different societies for the solidarity and integration of ethnic groups. Various factors play a role in the process of nation-building, and these factors have both strengthening and inhibiting roles. When national-civil nationalism is strengthened in the process of nation-building, the process of nation-building is realized, but with the strengthening of ethnic and religious nationalism, the process of nation-building faces a dead end. Countries that have been able to build a nation have been able to form a single nation by strengthening nationalism. But in countries where there is ethnic and religious nationalism, the process of nation-building faces many challenges. Therefore, the realization of the nation-building process in heterogeneous societies is one of the important tools for the cohesion and solidarity of different ethnic groups, and with the realization of this process, social distinctions disappear, and all citizens enjoy the same privileges and equal rights in a country. In this research, using the descriptive-analytical method, the tools and methods of nation-building in Afghanistan have been examined.


The antimicrobial activity of several extracts of two medicinal plants from the algerian Sahara, which known by their various therapeutic properties, Randonia africana Coss. and Oudneya africana R.Br. was investigated using the disc diffusion method. The aqueous and methanolic extracts of the two plants were obtained by decoction of the aerial parts (leaves and stems) and maceration in 80 % (v/v) methanolic solution respectively. The four extracts were tested against seven reference microorganisms; two Gram-positive bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923, Bacillus subtilis ATCC 6633), two Gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27853), two molds (Aspergillus flavus NRRL 391, Aspergillus Niger 2CA 936) and one yeast (Candida albicans ATCC 1024). Neither the aqueous extracts of the two species studied nor the methanolic ones showed any antibacterial activity against the Gram-negative bacteria and A.flavus. However, the methanolic extract of O.africana and the aqueous extract of R.africana were the most active among all the four extracts tested, mainly against Gram-positive bacteria and C.albicans.


Purpose: To compare the reproducibility between contrast-enhanced digital mammography (CEDM) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with the postsurgical pathologic examination. In addition, the applicability of the Breast Imaging–Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) lexicon of MRI to CEDM was evaluated for mass lesions. Methods: A total of 62 patients with a histologically proven diagnosis of breast cancer were included in this study, for a total of 67 lesions. Fifty-nine patients underwent both methods. The reproducibility between MRI vs CEDM and the reference standard (postoperative pathology) was assessed by considering the lesion and breast size as pivotal variables. Reproducibility was evaluated by computing the concordance correlation coefficient (CCC). Bland-Altman plots were used to depict the observed pattern of agreement as well as to estimate the associated bias. Furthermore, the pattern of agreement between the investigated methods with regard to the breast lesion characterization (i.e. mass/nonmass; shape; margins; internal enhanced characteristics) was assessed by computing the Cohen kappa and its 95% confidence interval (CI). Results: The reproducibility between MRI and the reference standard and between CEDM and the reference standard showed substantial agreement, with a CCC value of 0.956 (95% CI, 0.931–0.972) and 0.950 (95% CI, 0.920–0.969), respectively. By looking at the Bland-Altman analysis, bias values of 2.344 and 1.875 mm were observed for MRI and CEDM vs reference evaluation, respectively. The agreement between MRI and CEDM is substantial with a CCC value of 0.969 (95% CI, 0.949–0.981). The Bland-Altman analysis showed bias values of −0.469 mm when comparing CEDM vs MRI. Following the Landis and Koch classification criteria, moderate agreement was observed between the two methods in describing BI-RADS descriptors of mass lesions. Conclusion: CEDM is able to measure and describe tumor masses comparably to MRI and can be used for surgical planning.


A RF Si bipolar transceiver IC for WDCT is presented. The complete transceiver operates from 3.1 V to 5.1 V and provides very high integration level. The receiver uses a single-conversion architecture with an image-reject frontend and needs no external trimming.


This paper employs quaternion biarcs to interpolate a set of orientations with angular velocity constraints. The resulting quaternion curve represents a piecewise line-symmetric spherical motion with C 1 continuity. The purpose of this effort is to put line-symmetric motions into use from the viewpoint of motion approximation and interpolation, and to present their potential applications in Computerized Numerical Control (CNC) machining simulation and tool path planning. Quaternion biarcs may be used to approximate B-spline quaternion curves that represent rational spherical motions that have applications in robot path planning, CAD/CAM and computer graphics.


Abstract This paper is about the causal relationship between short-term and long-term interest rates in the US and Canada. To that end, we apply a linear Granger causality test introduced by Toda and Yamamoto (1995) and the nonlinear Granger causality test of Diks and Panchenko (2006). By combining linear causality effects with the nonlinear ones, it is seen that the most common Granger causality direction between short-term and long-term interest rates is a bidirectional one. We also find that nonlinear Granger causality can be found where no linear causality had been uncovered. Moreover, our findings show that during recent business cycles, the federal funds rate (in the US) and the overnight rate (in Canada) still Granger-cause long-term interest rates significantly.


Background
Burnout syndrome (BS) consists of a set of symptoms that appear in response to chronic interpersonal stressors at work and involve the perceptions individuals have of themselves and their work environment.

Objectives
To identify psychosocial risk and work organization factors able to predict mental suffering, and to estimate the prevalence of BS in a sample of nursing professionals from a public hospital in the state of São Paulo, Brazil.

Methods
Mixed methods research combining quantitative and qualitative approaches conducted at a public university hospital. Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS) was used to estimate the prevalence of BS. Thematic content analysis of narratives gathered in focus groups was performed to identify psychosocial risk factors at work (PRFW).

Results
The prevalence of BS at the investigated institution (5.7%) is consistent with the rates reported in the international literature. Analysis of the narratives gathered in focus groups revealed stressors in the organization of work.

Conclusion
The present study also points to the need for a broader look into the causes of BS, in which consideration of singular psychosocial risk and work organization factors from the perspective of workers devoted to proving care to human beings has paramount importance.


In renal hypertension, protoveratrine decreased coronary blood flow, cardiac oxygen consumption, arterial and venous oxygen saturation, coronary arteriovenous oxygen difference, mean arterial blood pressure, cardiac output, cardiac work, cardiac efficiency, cardiac rate, total peripheral resistance, coronary resistance, respiratory rate, and minute volume. The decrease was significant in all functions except coronary blood flow, coronary venous oxygen saturation, and cardiac output. The results of these experiments indicate that in the renal hypertensive animal, a therapeutically beneficial effect was derived from protoveratrine on the circulation by its ability to decrease the work of the heart (lowering the elevated mean arterial pressure) and the coronary vascular resistance while maintaining coronary blood flow and cardiac output within normal levels. The less advantageous effect of protoveratrine on circulation resulted from its respiratory inhibiting effect which reduced the arterial blood oxygen saturation. Although a small decline in coronary venous oxygen saturation was noted, the coronary flow and oxygen delivery in face of the reduced arterial oxygen saturation was apparently adequate to maintain a normal cardiac activity.


It is often understood that in order to be a successful entrepreneur, one must be fully equipped with all aspects of management, finance and human relation skills. More often than not, marketing is deemed as the crucial importance for the success or failure of an enterprise. Nevertheless, the degree of financial resources management of an enterprise may well impact its overall business performance, both in the context of young and small enterprises and the process of launching new products which will eventually have an impact on performance. Entrepreneurial marketing is driven by entrepreneurial opportunities which involves the proactive identification and exploitation of opportunities for acquiring and retaining profitable customers through innovative approaches to risk management, resource leveraging and value creation.


Abstract The addition of carbon black may cause considerable changes in the physical properties of rubber. Often rubbers compounded with carbon black or other fillers show evidence of thixotropic behavior—their properties depend on the past history of the rubber and may be changed on the one hand by continuous standing and on the other hand by working. This paper describes investigations into the behavior of both unvulcanized and vulcanized rubbers, and discusses the thixotropic build-up and breakdown of colloidal carbon black structures which are shown to exist in rubber. The importance of this build-up and breakdown of structure has not been adequately appreciated in many measurements on compounded rubbers; for example, the terms viscosity, plasticity, and stiffness (modulus) can only be defined when complications due to thixotropy are carefully controlled before and during the actual measurement. A knowledge and understanding of this behavior enables the significance of the results of various tests on ...


The paper examines the effect of inflation on growth in transition countries. It presents panel data evidence for 13 transition countries over the 1990-2003 period; it uses a fixed effects panel approach to account for possible bias from correlations among the unobserved effects and the observed country heterogeniety. The results find a strong, robust, negative effect on growth of inflation or its standard deviation, and one that appears to decline in magnitude as the inflation rate increases, as seen for OECD countries. And the results include a role for a normalized money demand in affecting growth, as well as for a convergence variable, a trade variable and a government share variable. And robustness of the baseline single equation model is examined by expanding this into a three equation simultaneous system of output growth, inflation and money demand that allows for possible simultaneity bias in the baseline model.


In a case-control study, 403 male patients with a diagnosis of "bladder tumor" and (as controls) 426 patients suffering from prostate disease were investigated. The results of this study indicate that past employment as a painter was associated with an excess risk of bladder tumor. The relative risk of bladder tumor estimated for painters was 2.76. The possible role of benzidine-based azodyes (or azodyes based on substituted benzidines) as a carcinogenic risk factor for painters is discussed.


Shipping is a major process link in the Australian economy, with 753 Mt of international exports worth $202 billion passing through Australian ports in 2008- 2009. However there is limited knowledge about both the emissions from ships in coastal regions and ports in Australia and the effects of these emissions on air quality in the surrounding coastal and portside urban regions. This issue is of growing significance because of the increased regulation of land based emissions and the limited regulation of shipping emissions. These coastal and in port emissions, when advected over land cause deterioration in air quality particularly of atmospheric aerosol that affects human health. Furthermore, the coastal emissions that can be subsequently advected over land are not generally considered in Australian studies, in spite of them being much larger than in-port emissions. An overview is presented of the causes of ship exhaust emissions, their controls and regulation, and the methodologies used to estimate emissions inventory databases. It is suggested that the Australian methodology for estimating ship emissions be updated, airshed shipping emissions for all significant Australian ports and coastal shipping emissions be estimated, and the health effects assessed.


Transient wave propagation results due to time dependent flow with rapid change of controlling parameters. Penstock of hydel turbines or closed conduits/ pipes carrying water may observe transient wave propagation, introducing the Joukowsky pressure rise, following instantaneous flow stoppage. The dependence of transient propagation velocity on the pipe and fluid properties as well as free gas content is dealt in this paper. A mathematical model based on equations of continuity and momentum applied to general element of fluid is developed in terms of differential equations pertaining to surge analysis, surface wave propagation and low amplitude air pressure transient analysis. Effect of column separation and trapped air in the surge analysis is discussed as an outcome of simulation model.


In Nigeria, much of the oil politics and environmental rights-based poetry is anchored on the traumatic experiences of the people of the Niger Delta area. Since the discovery and exploration of oil in this area in 1956, the people have been subjected to acts of bioterrorism through the destruction of their aquatic and terrestrial reserves. The inhabitants of this region exist under travails of oil pollution, gas flaring, and extreme pristine conditions, and survive without good food, roads, electricity, clean air and good drinking water. Poverty breeds prostitution, gas flaring breeds cancer and respiratory diseases, while lack of commensurate duty of care, compensation or corporate responsibility by the multinational oil companies, breed  ̳bunkering' and further oil spillage, unemployment and youth crisis, arm proliferation and hostage-taking of indigenous and foreign oil workers. Ecological poetry, a subgenre of environmental or green literature, focuses on the relationship between poetry and the natural, sociopolitical and economic environment.Using an eclectic analytical framework, which encompasses the multidisciplinary exigencies of ecocriticism, literary criticism, linguistic and critical discourse analysis, this paper is focused on examining the informational and ideological content of one of Ojaide's collections of eco-poetry, Tale of the Harmattan, as mediated channel, and characterizing the linguistic choices and idioms of feeling devised to communicate ecological currents, attitudes and emotions to a broad mass of the people.


This paper describes a very compact 10-bit D/A converter (DAC) core which achieves 325 MHz operation with a 3.3 V analog supply. A double cascoded p-channel current source array with a 5 bit MSB segmented and 5 bit LSB binary architecture results in less than 1 LSB of DNL/INL and sub-nsec rise/fall times. A novel latching driver circuit combines the digital decoding latch and switch driver functions into a single circuit. The die area is 0.135 mm/sup 2/, less than 1/10 the size of previously reported 8-bit DAC designs.


While PAC-Bayes is now an established learning framework for light-tailed losses (\emph{e.g.}, subgaussian or subexponential), its extension to the case of heavy-tailed losses remains largely uncharted and has attracted a growing interest in recent years. We contribute PAC-Bayes generalisation bounds for heavy-tailed losses under the sole assumption of bounded variance of the loss function. Under that assumption, we extend previous results from \citet{kuzborskij2019efron}. Our key technical contribution is exploiting an extention of Markov's inequality for supermartingales. Our proof technique unifies and extends different PAC-Bayesian frameworks by providing bounds for unbounded martingales as well as bounds for batch and online learning with heavy-tailed losses.


Conspectus Electrostatic interaction plays a significant role in determining many properties of biomolecules, which exist and function in aqueous solution, a highly polar environment. For example, proteins are composed of amino acids with charged, polar, and nonpolar side chains and their specific electrostatic properties are fundamental to the structure and function of proteins. An important issue that arises in computational study of biomolecular interaction and dynamics based on classical force field is lack of polarization. Polarization is a phenomenon in which the charge distribution of an isolated molecule will be distorted when interacting with another molecule or presented in an external electric field. The distortion of charge distribution is intended to lower the overall energy of the molecular system, which is counter balanced by the increased internal energy of individual molecules due to the distorted charge distributions. The amount of the charge redistribution, which characterizes the polarizability of a molecule, is determined by the level of the charge distortion. Polarization is inherently quantum mechanical, and therefore classical force fields with fixed atomic charges are incapable of capturing this important effect. As a result, simulation studies based on popular force fields, AMBER, CHARMM, etc., lack the polarization effect, which is a widely known deficiency in most computational studies of biomolecules today. Many efforts have been devoted to remedy this deficiency, such as adding additional movable charge on the atom, allowing atomic charges to fluctuate, or including induced multipoles. Although various successes have been achieved and progress at various levels has been reported over the past decades, the issue of lacking polarization in force field based simulations is far from over. For example, some of these methods do not always give converged results, and other methods require huge computational cost. This Account reviews recent work on developing polarized and polarizable force fields based on fragment quantum mechanical calculations for proteins. The methods described here are based on quantum mechanical calculations of proteins in solution, but with a different level of rigor and different computational efficiency for the molecular dynamics applications. In the general approach, a fragment quantum mechanical calculation for protein with implicit solvation is carried out to derive a polarized protein-specific charge (PPC) for any given protein structure. The PPC correctly reflects the polarization state of the protein in a given conformation, and it can also be dynamically changed as the protein changes conformation in dynamics simulations. Another approach that is computationally more efficient is the effective polarizable bond method in which only polar bonds or groups can be polarized and their polarizabilities are predetermined from quantum mechanical calculations of these groups in external electric fields. Both methods can be employed for applications in various situations by taking advantage of their unique features.


AIM
To measure the stress levels of Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) students at the University of Sydney using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) questionnaire.

METHODS
DVM students in years 1 to 4 were surveyed in semester 2 of 2018. The voluntary online survey consisted of 6 demographic questions and the K10 scale, a standardised measure of stress commonly used in Australia by medical practitioners for evaluation and referral to mental health professionals. Academic year cohorts were compared to identify differences in stress levels. Cohorts were compared to published K10 scores from various populations including the Australian public, medical students, practicing veterinarians, and Junior Medical Officers (JMOs).

RESULTS
The response rate was 54.4% (n = 237). DVM students experienced a higher level of psychological distress (mean 24, median 23, range 10-50) than the Australian population (mean 14.5, median 13, range 10-50), medical students (mean 18.4, median 16, range 10-50), practicing veterinarians (mean 16.7, median 15.5, range 10-30), and JMOs (mean 18.1, median 16, range 10-50). Female students (median 23) had a significantly higher level of psychological distress compared to male students (median 18) (p = 0.0005). International students (median 23) had a higher level of psychological stress than domestic students (median 22) (p = 0.0488). Different year cohorts, age range, work hours, and exercise were not associated with difference in stress levels.

CONCLUSION
Based on higher levels of stress in DVM students than that of the general population, practicing veterinarians, JMOs and medical students, there is an urgent need for evidence-based interventions to target stress in DVM students.


The use of neutron scattering techniques to study problems in statistical mechanics is illustrated by describing recent experiments on magnetic-non-magnetic transition metal fluorides. The concentration of the magnetic ions is chosen to be close to the percolation point for the onset of long-range magnetic order. The results have confirmed that the percolation point is a multicritical point at which the long-range order may be destroyed by either geometrical or thermal disorder. The temperature scale of the thermal disorder is determined by the one-dimensional weak links in the large clusters. Results are obtained for the exponents in systems of dimensionality two and three, and with Ising and Heisenberg symmetry. In some systems the results agree with theoretical predictions, but there remain some discrepancies between theory and experiment and some aspects of the results which are not yet understood.


Five modern encoding methods for diffractive optical elements are compared in terms of diffraction efficiency for an f/1 focusing element. It is shown that all five produce similar results for a given value of the minimum feature size delta and number of phase levels N when the grating period is larger than N delta. In contrast, when the grating period is smaller than N delta, the analytic quantization method cannot be employed. When this condition is met, it is shown that the radially symmetric iterative discrete on-axis method can result in diffraction efficiencies as much as 30% higher than those obtained with direct sampling. It is also shown that performance advantages of iterative algorithms improve as the target region in the focal plane increases.


2,3-Benzodiazepines containing a centre of asymmetry at C-5 possess both central and helical chiralities, and the solution of their racemates contains four molecular species. The binding of these compounds to human serum albumin (HSA) was studied by affinity chromatography. The binding strength depended both on the steric orientation of the 5-ethyl substituent and on the conformation of the diazepine ring. Conformation P (defined by the positive sign of C-1-N-2-N-3-C-4 torsion angle) is favoured, while the quasiaxial orientation of the 5-ethyl substituent is not favoured by the albumin molecule.


Objectives:This study was conducted in order to develop the Korean version of the Reasons for Living Inventory for Adolescents (KRFL-A) and to investigate the reliability and validity of the KRFL-A. Methods:The KRFL-A, Scale for Suicidal Ideation (SSI), Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS) and Adolescent Suicide Questionnaire (ASQ) were administered to 720 first grade high school students. We examined the test-retest reliability, internal consistency of KRFL-A, and performed factor analysis. We also evaluated the correlation between KRFL-A and other scales, and the discrimination validity of KRFL-A between suicide attempt and non-attempt groups. Results:Test-retest reliability, item-total correlation and internal consistency were all reliable. From factor analysis, three factors were extracted. The KRFL-A showed negative correlation with SSI and BHS scales. In addition, it could discriminate the suicide attempter group from the non-attempter group. Conclusion:The Korean version of the Reasons for Living Inventory was found to be reliable and valid for use in assessing the risk of suicide in adolescents.


In spring 1958, the political work of developing a new pension system stalled, after they conducted the negotiations between the government and the opposition stranded. The Social Democratic government was keen to get through a pension proposition and chose to submit its proposal to the Parliament, in the hope that members of the opposition would abandon their party line. The government previously lost its majority in the second chamber, since the Center Party left the government because they were of a different opinion than the Social Democrats. The Social Democrats Party of Prime Minister Tage Erlander in the forefront plunged to govern in minority.On April 26, conducted the vote in parliament vote which rejected the Social Democrats' proposals and Prime Minister Tage Erlander announced that he would seek the King to dissolve parliament because it then would be new elections to the parliament lower house on June 1. There came an dissolution and an election campaign was to wait before the Swedes would go to the polls.In the study, the campaign portrayed the basis of the Dagens Nyheter, Arbetet and Svenska dagbladet conveys the image of news articles and editorials. An election campaign that was dominated by the issue of pensions in the first place but also the People's struggle for a consensus and a opposition hope of a change of power.Keywords: Pension, consensus, social security, government option and election campaign


. In quasi-single field inflation models, massive isocurvature modes, that are cou-pled to the inflaton and have mass of order the Hubble parameter, can have nontrivial impacts on density perturbations, especially non-Gaussianities. We study a simple example of quasi-single field inflation in terms of turning inflaton trajectory. Large bispectra with a one-parameter family of novel shapes arise, lying between the well-known local and equilateral shape. The trispectra can also be very large and its magnitude t NL can be much larger than f 2NL .


Surgery for advanced cancer of the oral cavity and oropharynx are among the most difficult. This is due to the topographical and anatomical features that limit the operating field and the proximity of the internal carotid artery, which penetrates into the skull without branches. Her injury and bandaging are fraught with lethality. In the postoperative period, due to a violation of the function of swallowing, there is a stagnation of oral fluid in the oral cavity, which pro[1]motes healing by secondary tension. The functions of the oropharynx are impaired: swallowing, chewing, breathing and speech.Purpose of the study. To develop an operation in patients with advanced cancer of the oral cavity and oropharynx, allowing to visualize the area of the tumor with it's radical removal and postoperative healing without suppuration.Patients and methods. We've operated a patient with advanced cancer of the oral cavity and oropharynx with me[1]tastases to the cervical lymph nodes (T4 N1 M0 – IV st.). Cervical lymphodessection and removal of the tumor from the oral cavity and oropharynx was performed according to the method developed at the National Medical Research Centre for Oncology of the Ministry of Health of Russia: the tumor was removed after a preliminary modified mandib-ulotomy. Good visualization allowed for a radical operation, after which a urostoma was formed, which promotes the free flow of oral fluid from the oral cavity, without its stagnation and without suppuration of the tissues. The jaw was restored with two titanium mini-plates.Results. The healing was carried out by primary tension. On the 7th day after the operation, breathing was restored[1]decanulated. On day 20, epithelialization of the wound surface of the oral cavity and oropharynx occurred. The nasoesophageal probe was removed. Plastic orostoma was produced. By this time, the functions of the oropharyngeal region were partially restored: chewing, swallowing, and speech. Discharged home. Remission for more than 2 years.Conclusions. Previously performed modifi ed mandibulotomy in patients with advanced cancer of the oral cavity and oropharynx, allows you to expand the view of the operating field and provide a radical operation. The formed orostoma, preventing suppuration in the oral cavity, accelerates healing with the restoration of functions: chewing, swallowing, breathing and speech.


CONTEXT
Autoimmune Addison's disease (AAD) tends to affect young and middle-aged women. It is not known whether the existence of undiagnosed or diagnosed AAD influences the outcome of pregnancy.

OBJECTIVE
The aim of the study was to compare the number of children and pregnancy outcomes in individuals with AAD and controls.

DESIGN AND SETTING
We conducted a population-based historical cohort study in Sweden.

PATIENTS
Through the Swedish National Patient Register and the Total Population Register, we identified 1,188 women with AAD and 11,879 age-matched controls who delivered infants between 1973 and 2006.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
We measured parity and pregnancy outcome.

RESULTS
Adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for infants born to mothers with deliveries 3 yr or less before the diagnosis of AAD were 2.40 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.27-4.53] for preterm birth (≤37 wk), 3.50 (95% CI, 1.83-6.67) for low birth weight (<2500 g), and 1.74 (95% CI, 1.02-2.96) for cesarean section. Compared to controls, women who gave birth after their AAD diagnosis were at increased risk of both cesarean delivery (adjusted OR, 2.35; 95% CI, 1.68-3.27) and preterm delivery (adjusted OR, 2.61; 95% CI, 1.69-4.05). Stratifying by isolated AAD and concomitant type 1 diabetes and/or autoimmune thyroid disease in the mother did not essentially influence these risks. There were no differences in risks of congenital malformations or infant death. Women with AAD had a reduced overall parity compared to controls (P<0.001).

CONCLUSION
Clinically undiagnosed and diagnosed AAD both entail increased risks of unfavorable pregnancy outcomes. AAD also influences the number of childbirths.


It is disturbing to note that since the advent of national reporting of acute encephalitis, no etiology has been established for the majority of cases diagnosed in the United States every year.1 This complacent approach to diagnosis probably stems from the apparent lack of specific therapy. Nevertheless, correct diagnosis has always been important for several reasons: for epidemiologic control of such entities as mosquito-borne encephalitis, for prognostic considerations, and so as not to miss known treatable conditions that may mimic encephalitis. In pediatrics particularly, we can illafford not to attempt to establish the specific diagnosis of encephalitis which is so prone to affect the quality of life of newborns and older children. There is even more reason today to improve our diagnostic acumen as newer methods are becoming available for the prevention and/or therapy of the second most devastating of the viral encephalitides—that due to herpes simplex viruses (HSV).
 Less than a decade ago it was widely believed that HSV encephalitis in newborns and older children was an extremely rare occurrence, being a disease primarily of adults. This erroneous impression is again most likely a result of inadequate diagnosis, as well as the lack of adequate information. However, there have been many recent advances at all levels in this area.


In this paper, we investigate the problem of monitoring human activities using a network of sensors, including video cameras, in a smart home environment. We introduce an unsupervised method for mining a new kind of qualitative temporally structured activity models from sensor data. We present an application of our method to the recognition of activities of daily living in an elderly care context.


In this paper, the Ritz method has been employed to analyze the free in-plane vibration of heterogeneous (non-uniform) rectangular nanoplates corresponding to Eringen's nonlocal elasticity theory. The non-uniformity is taken into account using combinations of linear and quadratic forms in the thickness, material density and Young's modulus. Two-dimensional boundary characteristic orthogonal polynomials are applied in the Ritz method in order to examine the nonlocal effect, aspect ratio, length of nanoplate and non-uniformity parameters on the vibrational behaviors of the nanoplate. Results are verified with the available published data and good agreements are observed. The outcomes confirm apparent dependency of in-plane frequency of nanoplate on the small scale effect, non-uniformity, aspect ratio and boundary conditions. For instance, frequency parameter decreases by increasing the nonlocal parameter in all vibration modes; the frequency parameters increase with length and aspect ratio of nanoplates. Furthermore, the effect of nonlocal parameters on the frequency parameter is more prominent at the higher aspect ratios. Finally, the effect of nonlocal parameter on the in-plane modes is also presented in this analysis.


The study aims to evaluate the moderating role of service innovation on the relationship between corporate reputation and the performance of hotels in Kenya. The study design used was cross-sectional descriptive utilizing the mixed approach. The target that served as the study population, was General Managers of all the 4-star hotels in Kenya. Primary data was collected by the use of a self-administered semi-structured questionnaire and secondary data from hotel records, journals, and government publications. Data analysis involved qualitative and quantitative techniques, analyses of variance (ANOVA), and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) which tested the hypothesized relationship in this study. Statistical software such as Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 21, MS-Excel for Windows 8, Analysis of Moment Structures version 17, and SmartPLS version 2.0 was used for analysis. The theoretical models and hypotheses were tested based on empirical data gathered from 43 General Managers. The study findings indicate that corporate reputation positively and significantly influences performance (C.R = 5.907 at 5% ?-level) and service innovation moderates (R2 change = 0.054) the relationship between corporate reputation and performance. The study results are meant to benefit hotel industry policymakers, academicians, and other opportunistic entrepreneurs. The recommendation is that the hotel industry should invest seriously in corporate reputation so as to influence customer purchase behavior and improved performance.


Abstract— Radiochronometry of L chondritic meteorites yields a rough age estimate for a major collision in the asteroid belt about 500 Myr ago. Fossil meteorites from Sweden indicate a highly increased influx of extraterrestrial matter in the Middle Ordovician ∼480 Myr ago. An association with the L‐chondrite parent body event was suggested, but a definite link is precluded by the lack of more precise radiometric ages. Suggested ages range between 450 ± 30 Myr and 520 ± 60 Myr, and can neither convincingly prove a single breakup event, nor constrain the delivery times of meteorites from the asteroid belt to Earth. Here we report the discovery of multiple 40Ar‐39Ar isochrons in shocked L chondrites, particularly the regolith breccia Ghubara, that allow the separation of radiogenic argon from multiple excess argon components. This approach, applied to several L chondrites, yields an improved age value that indicates a single asteroid breakup event at 470 ± 6 Myr, fully consistent with a refined age estimate of the Middle Ordovician meteorite shower at 467.3 ± 1.6 Myr (according to A Geologic Time Scale 2004). Our results link these fossil meteorites directly to the L‐chondrite asteroid destruction, rapidly transferred from the asteroid belt. The increased terrestrial meteorite influx most likely involved larger projectiles that contributed to an increase in the terrestrial cratering rate, which implies severe environmental stress.


This research is research of application development of final project of student based on website at Prodi PGSD FKIPUniversitas Riau by using waterfall model. The formulation of the problem in this research are: (1) how the design ofdeveloping the final project application of student based on the website of Prodi PGSD FKIP Universitas Riau? and (2)whether the program designed to assist the final project guidance on Prodi PGSD FKIP University of Riau ?. The purpose ofthis research is (1) to design a system that can assist the process of guidance of final assignment of students to Prodi PGSDFKIP Universitas Riau and (2) to know the response about the use of application of final student task based on the website ofProdi PGSD FKIP Universitas Riau. This research is a development research with waterfall model. Development stage isdone in four stages, namely: (1) stage study of literature; (2) needs analysis phase; (3) application design; and (4)application testing phase and conclusion. The result of the research stated that the application of the final assignment of thestudents based on the website of PGSD Study Program of FKIP Universitas Riau is valid with four references, namely: (1)correctness aspect (truth); (2) reliability (reliability) aspect; (3) integrity; and (4) USAbility (USAge). Based on the results ofeffectiveness test on the students obtained data that the application of the final project-based student guidance websiteincluded in the category of very effective average percentage is 84.89% with very effective category. It is marked by theacquisition: 1) the correctness (truth) of 84.93% with very effective category; 2) reliability (reliability) of 86.37% with veryeffective category; 3) integrity (integration) equal to 86,08% with very effective category; and 4) USAbility (USAge) of 82.17%with very effective category. The average percentage is 84.89% with very effective category. So it can be concluded that theapplication development of final student task based on the website Prodi PGSD FKIP University of Riau has been declaredeffective and has been widely used.


The article presents results of multiplex cytokine assays in blood serum and lacrimal fluid at the initial and intermediate stages of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Some features of local and sys- temic disturbances in the cytokine profile were detected in these patients. It was revealed that the initial stage of AMD was associated with elevated IL-17 levels in lacrimal fluid, along with imbalance between the local increase and systemic decrease of TGF-β1 amounts. Intermediate-stage AMD was associated with increased levels of the most cytokines assayed (except of TGF-β1) in blood serum and lacrimal fluid, thus suggesting stimulation of both pro-inflammatory and angiogenic responses, like as activation of anti-inflammatory and anti-infective factors.


Objective. Numerous studies have investigated the efficacy of mindfulness meditation (MM) in managing quality of life (QoL) in cancer populations, yet only a few have studied the Asian population. The aim of this exploratory study is to evaluate the effect of a MM program on the QoL outcomes in Taiwanese cancer outpatients. Methods. Patients with various cancer diagnoses were enrolled and assigned to the MM group and usual care (UC) group. The meditation intervention consisted of 3 sessions held monthly. The outcomes of the whole intervention were measured using the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF) instrument. Results. A total of 35 participants in the MM group and 34 in the UC group completed the study. The results showed that the postintervention scores were significantly higher than the preintervention scores in the MM group. In the UC group, there was no significant difference between preintervention and postintervention scores, except for the lower environment domain scores. There was no significant difference between the follow-up scores and postintervention scores in the MM group, indicating that improvement can be maintained for 3 months after completing the MM course. Conclusions. The present study provides preliminary outcomes of the effects on the QoL in Taiwanese cancer patients. The results suggest that MM may serve as an effective mind–body intervention for cancer patients to improve their QoL, and the benefits can persist over a 3-month follow-up period. This occurred in a diverse cancer population with various cancer diagnoses, strengthening the possibility of general use.


The atmospheres of exoplanets are commonly studied by observing the transit of the planet passing in front of its parent star. The obscuration of part of the stellar disk during a transit will reveal aspects of its surface structure resulting from general centre-to-limb variations (CLVs). These become apparent when forming the ratio between the stellar light in and out of transit. These phenomena can be seen particularly clearly during the progress of a penumbral lunar eclipse, where the Earth transits the solar disk and masks different regions of the solar disk as the eclipse progresses. When inferring the properties of the planetary atmosphere, it is essential that this effect originating at the star is properly accounted for. Using the data observed from the 2014-April-15 lunar eclipse with the ESPaDOnS spectrograph mounted on the Canada France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), we have obtained for the first time a time sequence of the penumbral spectra. These penumbral spectra enable us to study the centre-to-limb variations of solar Fraunhofer lines when the Earth is transiting Sun. The Na i and Ca ii absorption features reported from previous lunar eclipse observations are demonstrated to be CLV features, which dominate the corresponding line profiles and mask possible planetary signal. Detecting atmospheric species in exoplanets via transit spectroscopy must account for the CLV effect.


According to the data of the Central Statistical Office, there has been an increase in forest cover in Poland from 27.8% to 29.6% over the last 25 years. This increase contributed to an increase in the possibility of wood obtaining and processing for energy purposes. The aim of the study was to analyse the efficiency of a chipping machine manufactured by the American Company Bandit Industries (Bandit 990XP chipper) based on the working day chronometer. The study was carried out in specific conditions related to the place of the chipper application because the machine was used to process the material obtained from standing trees in the framework of park maintenance. As it was shown during the analysed working day, the effective capacity W1 in the work cycle of the Bandit 990XP machine was 9.2 m 3∙h–1 chips. Specific working conditions made it impossible to organize the work smoothly. Ongoing obtaining of the material for chipping from standing trees resulted in low productivity during the exploitation time of the shift W08 on the level of 1.3 m 3∙h–1 chips.


In the pre-feasibility study stage, only a small amount of borehole data can be obtained. Since the available geological information is insufficient, the engineering geological conditions of the project can only be preliminarily and approximately estimated during this stage. In this study, we attempt to seek a method to make a preliminary analysis and evaluation of the stability of the surrounding rock masses of an underground rock carven project, which makes full and optimum use of the limited borehole data to accomplish the assessment of the investigated site. The basic information on rock fractures is extracted from the borehole Television logging data and the fracture extension directions are also determined. Providing that the cracks detected in the borehole would extend to the cavern area, the cracks with appropriate direction, larger width and larger hydraulic conductivity can be selected. These selected cracks are considered in the numerical model established using ANSYS, and the stability of surrounding rock of cavern is analyzed under this situation. In the absence of large amount of borehole data, this method, which set up an extreme case, can be used to analyze possible failure of rock mass under extreme adverse conduction in advance. In general, the proposed method for stability analysis could contribute to the design and construction practice of a tunnel project constructed in fractured rock masses.


Summary In February 2007, the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) and Cardno Australia released a Review of Water Supply-Demand Options for South East Queensland (the Review). The Review was submitted to the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport (RRAT) Committee Inquiry into Additional Water Supplies for South East Queensland. The key finding of the ISF/Cardno Review is that Traveston Crossing Dam will not be useful to provide water security in the current drought and is unnecessary to ensure water security for South East Queensland after the drought and for decades to come. The suite of supply and demand options – excluding Traveston Dam – which are currently being implemented as part of the South East Queensland Regional Water Supply Strategy (SEQRWSS) are sufficient to ensure the supply-demand balance to around 2030. For the period 2030-2050, ISF/Cardno suggest a number of enhanced demand management programs that will maintain the supply-demand balance to 2050. The demand management measures suggested by ISF/Cardno are more cost effective than Traveston Dam (in terms of $ per kilolitre) and perform significantly better than Traveston Dam when assessed on social and environmental criteria including greenhouse impact. In the event that a period of water scarcity worse than the current drought occurs, ISF/Cardno propose that a 'readiness' strategy be adopted whereby water supply projects with relatively short construction and delivery times are planned and approved but only built


We describe the implementation of and early results from a system that automatically composes picture-synched musical soundtracks for videos and movies. We use the phrase picture-synched to mean that the structure of the automatically composed music is determined by visual events in the input movie, i.e. the final music is synchronised to visual events and features such as cut transitions or within-shot key-frame events. Our system combines automated video analysis and computer-generated music-composition techniques to create unique soundtracks in response to the video input, and can be thought of as an initial step in creating a computerised replacement for a human composer writing music to fit the picture-locked edit of a movie. Working only from the video information in the movie, key features are extracted from the input video, using video analysis techniques, which are then fed into a machine-learning-based music generation tool, to compose a piece of music from scratch. The resulting soundtrack is tied to video features, such as scene transition markers and scene-level energy values, and is unique to the input video. Although the system we describe here is only a preliminary proof-of-concept, user evaluations of the output of the system have been positive.


The need for head protection in all sports has become a frontline issue with concussion studies showing brain damage issues in many sports, but in baseball the traditionalist views have kept the concerns at bay. Only until traumatic brain damage or death occurs is it discussed on a national level. This article discusses the subject of helmet protection in high school baseball and the need for helmets on defensive players in the field. With other sports like football, hockey, cricket, skiing and snowboarding, and lacrosse all mandating helmet use, the number of documented cases of head injuries in baseball continues to rise despite technology getting more advanced every day. This article puts forth the argument for defensive players and base coaches to have mandatory helmet use while in the field. It documents examples of injuries in baseball, as well as the arguments and rule differences from organizations such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Federation of High Schools (NFHS), the American Legion Baseball program and Major League Baseball (MLB) regarding safety and helmet use. It also discusses changes made at all the different levels to promote safety, but also points out how there is no consistency between groups and the different levels of the sport of baseball.


Segmentation and quantification of white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) are of great importance in studying and understanding various neurological and geriatric disorders. Although automatic methods have been proposed for WMH segmentation on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), manual corrections are often necessary to achieve clinically practical results. Major challenges for WMH segmentation stem from their inhomogeneous MRI intensities, random location and size distributions, and MRI noise. The presence of other brain anatomies or diseases with enhanced intensities adds further difficulties. To cope with these challenges, we present a specifically designed fully convolutional neural network (FCN) with residual connections to segment WMHs by using combined T1 and fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) images. Our customized FCN is designed to be straightforward and generalizable, providing efficient end-to-end training due to its enhanced information propagation. We tested our method on the open WMH Segmentation Challenge MICCAI2017 dataset, and, despite our method's relative simplicity, results show that it performs amongst the leading techniques across five metrics. More importantly, our method achieves the best score for Hausdorff distance and average volume difference in testing datasets from two MRI scanners that were not included in training, demonstrating better generalization ability of our proposed method over its competitors.


It can be expected for a public library to increase the service efficiency only when librarians can be satisfied with their job. Job satisfaction is the feeling a librarian has about his salary, his work, his promotion opportunities, his co- workers, his supervisors, etc. and affects directly librarians' morale. This paper is a study on these factors that affect the professional librarians' morale in national and public libraries in Korea. The methods employed to achieve the purpose of this study are (1) to establish some tentative factors affecting librarians' morale (2) to gather and analyze the answers against them from the professional librarians working in national and public libraries in Seoul, Korea. (3) to find out the factors abstructing the librarias' morale (4) to propose the improvement plans for them. The conclusions made are as follows: (1) Delegation of rights and responsibilities. (2) Adoption of the democratic leadership. (3) The harmonious communications between managers and librarians. (4) The level of wages and allowance. (5) Revision of the librarians' promotion regulation. (6) Necessity of continuing education of librarians. (7) Satisfaction of welfare facilities. (8) Improvement of social acknowledgement for the librarians' professionalism according to the advancement the level of educational course.


Letter from A. F. Hicks to Dr. Joseph Pound concerning the upcoming reunion of the old Confederate brigade that they were apart of. Hicks tells the doctor to wear his uniform if possible and that he will send another paper that "will give you General order No 1. calling for the meeting of the Brigade in July." Also included is a newspaper clipping that details the reunion of the Mountain Remnant Brigade of the Confederate veterans, and calls for bids "for the leasing of the Reunion Ground Privileges."