Adsorption is a process, which a substance in a gas or liquid becomes attached to a solid. This research is carried out in order to develop the storage from metal organic framework (MOFs) by adsorption application process. MOFs are crystalline compounds consisting of metal ions or clusters coordinated to often rigid organic molecules to form one-, two-, or three-dimensional structures that can be porous. MOFs are capable of storing large amount of gases. Zn3(btc)2 is one of MOFs and it promising storage materials. During this study, the adsorbent, Zn3(btc)2 has been developed and characterized as a storage for the carbon dioxide and methane The characteristic of Zn3(btc)2 as adsorbent was investigated with two parameter which is pressure and time. For the carbon dioxide, the pressures that were used are 2.0 bars, 4 bar and 6.0 bars and for the methane, the pressure that were used are 1.0 bar, 1.5 bars and 2.0 bars. Meanwhile, the parameter of time that used for both gases were same which are 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours and 4 hours. From this experiment, it was showed that, the weight of the sample after adsorption for both gases was increased. The experiment result showed that, methane gas was adsorbed more into Zn3(btc)2 compared to carbon dioxide gas This is because methane has smaller molecule size compare to carbon dioxide molecules which is 108.70 ppm and 116.3 ppm respectively. The rate of adsorption for both gases is low because the Zn3(btc)2 sample was not in crystallized form. This is as there are no proper autoclaves to synthesis the sample at 393 K and 12 hour. The characteristic of Zn3(btc)2 was investigated using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) in order to observe the structure of the Zn3(btc)2 before and after adsorption. From the observation, it was showed that the structure of Zn3(btc)2 was changed after the adsorption occurred. It is shown that the Zn3(btc)2 structure was expand and the amount of pore was decreased. From the result analysis, it was showed that the adsorption rate was affected more by pressure parameter compare to time parameter. As a conclusion, pressure and time of adsorption will affected the rate of adsorption however; the pore size of sample is still the most essential factor for an effective adsorption.-Author-


The aim of this paper is to assess the stabilization effects of fiscal policy in Croatia in a structural vector autoregression framework as proposed by Blanchard and Perotti (2002). Empirical studies of fiscal policy effects show that results are contradictory and do not unanimously agree, except for one fact: a positive government spending shock has a positive effect on output. This study inspects the effects of government spending and tax shocks on a set of macroeconomic variables (output, prices, interest rates, private consumption, private investment, employment and wages). Results prove that the transmission mechanism in Croatia works mainly in a Keynesian manner. Output reacts negatively to a tax shock and positively to government spending shock. The negative effect of the tax shock is mostly driven by indirect (not direct) taxes, while the positive effect of a government spending shock is mostly influenced by government consumption (not government investment).


The effect of forward acceleration on renal hemodynamics, electrolyte excretion, and water clearance has been studied in six normal human subjects. Forward acceleration produced a slight increase in glomerular filtration rate and effective renal plasma flow during and after stress. After centrifugation there was a 20–35-min lag before the appearance of an increase in urine volume and free water clearance. These changes in water excretion were transient and were not accompanied by a natriuresis nor associated with changes in serum osmolality. Physiologic responses to forward acceleration and negative pressure breathing were compared. It was suggested that forward acceleration, like negative pressure breathing, may induce an increase in intrathoracic blood volume which inhibits the release of antidiuretic hormone via a nonosmotic volume-sensitive receptor mechanism located within the intrathoracic vascular space. Submitted on September 14, 1961


Manifest Destiny provided the rationale for American violence, manipulation, and greed during the MexicanAmerican War. This paper argues that Albert C. Ramsey's The Other Side: or Notes for the History of the War Between Mexico and the U.S., a translation of a Mexican account of the war, Apuntes para la Historia de la Guerra entre México y los Estrados-Unidos, attributed to Ramón Alcaraz, depicts the Mexican perspective on the war to counter the misrepresentations of Mexico by his American peers. Using the critical lens of postcolonial theory, my research method consists of a close reading and comparative analysis of the primary cartographic sources and portraits of historical figures in the English text and the equivalent illustrations from the Spanish text. It concludes that, through the translation of the historical narrative composed by fifteen contributing Mexican authors, the use of the same primary cartographic sources, and the exclusion of the American portraits, Ramsey's version reveals a conscious effort to illustrate the Mexican perspective.


Even if today's successful companies operating in the market were start-ups at some time, so far, no consensus could be found, if entrepreneurship is to be understood as an independent research discipline. Should entrepreneurship have its own theory based on generally accepted assumptions and constructs or should the field of research rather convince with an integrated perception and interfaces to many related disciplines? The terminological and conceptual difficulties come along with methodological challenges. In addition, data bases in entrepreneurship are often small and difficult to access and therefore restrict the choice of analytical methods. Which methodological problems must be addressed and what opportunities and prospects arise for empirical entrepreneurship research? Based on a literature review and an outline of the state of research, it will be discussed whether entrepreneurship could be established as an independent research discipline. Moreover, the use of data analysis methods to study entrepreneurship are surveyed to stress occuring problems and draw implications for the future of entrepreneurship research, as well as for the practice.


A study of 12,835 patient visits to 15 Massachusetts practitioners indicated that while illness was the reason for 75% of the visits, nonsickness was the most common diagnosis recorded by the physician, accounting for almost 25% of the diagnoses. Fifty-two percent of the sick patients had multiple diagnoses and 20% raised additional problems about other family members. Visits were coded using the International Classification of Disease (ICD). The ICD was intended primarily as a classification of hospital patients and proved inadequate for classifying primary care. There was a correlation between the physician's age and that of his patients with the youngest physicians having the higher percentage of younger patients. The study findings suggest that some tasks proposed for the new family physician are being accomplished although none of the participating physicians were specifically trained for family medicine. The future family physician will almost certainly require different training if he is to effectively respond to the needs of his patients.


The modelling of, and a nonlinear control strategy for, a three-phase voltage source shunt active power filter is presented. The dynamic model is at first elaborated in the system 'abc' and then transformed into the synchronous orthogonal 'dq' frame. The 'dq' frame model is divided into two separate loops, namely the two current dynamics inner loop and the DC voltage dynamics outer loop. The exact feedback linearisation theory is applied in the design of the controller. Then, the pole placement strategy is used to synthesise the closed loop error dynamics of current tracking and DC bus voltage regulation. The adopted control strategy allows the decoupling of the currents and improves their tracking behaviour and enhances DC voltage regulation. Simulation results validate the expected active filter performance in both steady state and transient operation, and also show that the controller is capable of compensation under severe load current imbalances.


Male mature rats were treated per of with TB-68 and intraperitonealy with 3H-thymidine during 7 and 12 days. By means of statistical count of labelled cells in semi niferous tubules a considerable increase of DNA replicating cells in experimental animals was established. The higher percentage of labelled calls reveales an stimulating effect of TB-68 concerning the spermatogonial proliferation, some acceleration of the meiosis and positive influence of the spermatopoiesis as a whole.


BACKGROUND
Gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD) is common in primary care but is often underdiagnosed and untreated. GERD can also present with atypical symptoms like chronic cough and asthma, and physicians may be unaware of this presentation. We aimed to implement and evaluate an intervention to improve diagnosis and treatment for GERD and atypical GERD in primary care.

METHOD
This was a randomised controlled trial in primary care office practice using a national network of US practices (the Medical Quality Improvement Consortium - MQIC) that share the same electronic medical record (EMR). Thirteen offices with 53 providers were randomised to the intervention of EMR-based prompts and education, and 14 offices with 66 providers were randomised to the control group totalling over 67 000 patients and examining outcomes of GERD diagnosis and appropriate treatment.

RESULTS
Among patients who did not have GERD at baseline, new diagnoses of GERD increased significantly in the intervention group (3.1%) versus the control group (2.3%) (P<0.01). This remained significant after controlling for clustering with an odds of diagnosis of 1.33 (95% CI 1.13-1.56) for the intervention group. For patients with atypical symptoms, those in the intervention group had both higher odds of being diagnosed with GERD (OR 2.02, 95% CI 1.41-2.88) and of being treated for GERD (OR 1.40, 95% CI 1.08-1.83) than those in the control group.

CONCLUSIONS
GERD diagnosis and treatment in primary care, particularly among patients with atypical symptoms, can be improved through the use of an EMR-based tool incorporating decision support and education. However, significant room for improvement exists in use of appropriate treatment.


Several lines of evidence indicate that retinoids, derivates of vitamin A, affect reproductive function in birds, however, the mechanism of their action in the ovary is still unknown. Therefore, the present study was designed (i) to show whether in the domestic hen 9-cis retinoic acid (9-cis RA), one of the retinoids, influences steroid secretion in vitro by white and yellow chicken ovarian follicles, and (ii) to detect expression of retinoic acid RXR receptor mRNA in these follicles. The white follicles (small: 1-4 mm, medium: 4-6 mm and large 6-8 mm in diameter) and the three largest yellow preovulatory follicles (F3-F1; 25-37 mm) were isolated from the ovary 3 h before ovulation. The granulosa layer was separated from the theca layer in the preovulatory follicles, which were subsequently divided into 4 equal pieces. The isolated whole white follicles or parts of the granulosa or theca layers were incubated for 24 h at 38 degrees C in Eagle's medium in the following 4 groups: control, ovine LH (oLH; 10 ng/ml), 9-cis RA (100 ng/ml) and 9-cis RA + oLH. After incubation, the medium was collected for estradiol (E2) and progesterone (P4) determination while tissues were saved for protein assay. It was found that 9-cis RA affects steroid secretion from chicken ovarian follicles. It decreased E2 secretion from white follicles and from the theca layer of the two largest (F2 and F1) preovulatory follicles. 9-cis RA had no effect on oLH-stimulated E2 secretion by the white follicles and yellow F2 and F1 follicles, but it diminished E2 secretion by F3 follicles. As regards P4, the effect of 9-cis RA was opposite; it increased P4 secretion from the granulosa layer of all preovulatory follicles. 9-cis RA did not change oLH-stimulated P4 secretion by granulosa layers ofF3 and F2 follicles, however, it inhibited oLH-enhanced P4 secretion from the F1 granulosa layer. In a separate experiment, the presence of mRNA encoding RXR was found in the stroma and all follicles of the chicken ovary by means of the RT-PCR technique. The results indicate that retinoids, acting by specific nuclear receptors, are modulators of follicular steroidogenesis in the chicken ovary.


We investigate the spherical harmonic degree (l) dependence of the 'seismic' quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) observed in low-degree solar p-mode frequencies, using Sun-as-a-star Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network data. The amplitude of the seismic QBO is modulated by the 11-yr solar cycle, with the amplitude of the signal being largest at solar maximum. The amplitude of the signal is noticeably larger for the l = 2 and 3 modes than for the l = 0 and 1 modes. The seismic QBO shows some frequency dependence but this dependence is not as strong as observed in the 11-yr solar cycle. These results are consistent with the seismic QBO having its origins in shallow layers of the interior (one possibility being the bottom of the shear layer extending 5 per cent below the solar surface). Under this scenario the magnetic flux responsible for the seismic QBO is brought to the surface (where its influence on the p modes is stronger) by buoyant flux from the 11-yr cycle, the strong component of which is observed at predominantly low latitudes. As the l = 2 and 3 modes are much more sensitive to equatorial latitudes than the l = 0 and 1 modes the influence of the 11-yr cycle on the seismic QBO is more visible in l = 2 and 3 mode frequencies. Our results imply that close to solar maximum the main influence of the seismic QBO occurs at low latitudes ( <45 ◦ ), which is where the strong component of the 11-yr solar cycle resides. To isolate the latitudinal dependence of the seismic QBO from the 11-yr solar cycle we must consider epochs when the 11-yr solar cycle is weak. However, away from solar maximum, the amplitude of the seismic QBO is weak making the latitudinal dependence hard to constrain.


Cesium 137 activity was measured after the Chernobyl incident in a whole-body radiation counter (4-pi-scintillation counter) in 85 premature and mature newborns (group 1), 174 infants and young children up to 2 11/12 years (group 2), and 48 children between 3 and 8 years (group 3) from Bonn (Germany) and surroundings. In 1987 the mean level of radioactivity in group 2, at 3.7 Bq/kg body weight corresponding to a mean radiation exposure of 11 muSv/y, was lower than that of group 1 (5.8 Bq/kg, 17 muSv/y) and 3 (9.4 Bq/kg, 28 muSv/y). Up to 1990 the values of all groups revealed a continuous decrease. The latest measurements showed mean values of 0.5 Bq/kg (1.5 muSv/y) in group 1, 0.6 Bq/kg (1.8 muSv/y) in group 2, and 0.8 Bq/kg (2.4 muSv/y) in group 3. A comparison with present cesium 137 values and determinations of the end of the 1950s and beginning of 1960s, both in adults, showed good agreement. The effective dose-equivalent rates amounted to less than 1% of that from natural radiation exposure. These levels should present no teratogenic risks to the population studied and, while there are theoretical mutagenic risks, the dose is so low that no increase in measurable mutagenic effects should be observed.


Objectives: To evaluate the outcome of selective reconstructive anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) surgery using the All-inside technique with a four-strand semitendinosus or gracilis autograft tendon. Subject and methods: 34 patients were diagnosed with a partial tear of the ACL and underwent selective reconstructive surgery at the Orthopedic Center, Military Hospital 103 from November 2018 to September 2020. Lysholm knee scale and IKDC class were used to access post-operatively clinical outcomes. Stability was evaluated using the anterior drawer test, the Lachman test, the Pivot shift test, and the Rolimeter measure at 20o of knee flexion. Results: The pre-operative and post-operative Lysholm scores were 49.5 ± 18.4 and 94.47 ± 6.81, respectively (p < 0.001).         Pre-operatively, most patients were classified as C and on the IKDC score. At the final follow-up, IKDC scores included 22 class A, 10 class B, 2 class C (p < 0.001). The pre- and post-operative laxity measured by Rolimeter were 5.15 ± 1.5 mm and 1.74 ± 1.34 mm, respectively (p < 0.001). Pre-operatively and post-operatively, the Pivot-shift was absent in all cases. Conclusion: Selective reconstruction of the injured ACL bundle restores knee stability and function. All-inside technique can be used to reconstruct the rupture ACL bundle with many advantages. Longer follow-up is needed to fully evaluate clinical outcomes after selective reconstruction in partial ACL tears.
* Keywords: All-inside; Partial tear; Selective reconstruction.


The effect of lead (Pb) present in mixing water on compressive strength, setting times, soundness and magnesium sulfate attack on high strength cement mortar was experimentally evaluated. Cement mortar specimens were cast using deionised water and lead (Pb) spiked deionized water for reference and the test specimens as mixing waters respectively. On comparison with reference specimens, at higher concentrations of lead in mixing water, test samples had shown considerable loss of strength, and also their setting times had significantly increased. However, at 2000 mg/L concentration of lead (Pb), the compressive strength marginally increased. Apart from that when reference specimens and test specimens were immersed in various concentrations of magnesium sulfate solution at different immersed ages, the loss in compressive strength was found  to have been slightly less in test specimens than that in reference specimens. X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique was employed to find out main compounds.

 Key words: Cement mortar, lead (Pb), silica fume (SF), magnesium sulfate, superplasticiser (SP).


Although 88 percent of low-income uninsured children have parents who have heard of Medicaid or SCHIP, data from the 1999 National Survey of America's Families show that only 38 percent also know that children can participate even if the family is not receiving welfare. Familiarity with these programs among low-income families varies significantly by state. Among the 13 states studied, 41 percent of low-income families had heard of Medicaid or SCHIP and understood their eligibility rules in Texas, compared to 71 percent in Massachusetts. Low-income parents tended to be more knowledgeable in states that implemented SCHIP early and in states that have higher levels of public coverage.


Different numerical methods for accurate calculation of low-lying eigenvalues of lattice Hamiltonians are proposed and critically compared. A dynamical procedure, called basis vector importance sampling, is shown to select the relevant subspace of the Hilbert space very effectively. This method is used to compute the mass gap of O(2) symmetric quantum chains up to a length of nine sites. Kosterlitz-Thouless type freezing transitions of Z(p) symmetric chains are also studied via the spectrum of quantum kinks.


Spawning of fishes takes place across a wide area of the North Sea. However, more intense spawning is seen in restricted areas, indicating that such areas present favorable conditions. To update information on fish spawning in the North Sea and analyze potential linkages to hydrographic characteristics, an internationally coordinated survey was conducted in the winter/spring of 2004. Oblique hauls for fish eggs and larvae and vertical profiles of temperature and salinity were carried out at 393 stations across the entire North Sea. The hydrography was strongly influenced by the interfacing of water masses of different salinity, and frontal zones were seen along all coastal areas and off the Dogger and Fisher Banks. Total abundances of eggs and larvae, including fish species such as cod, haddock, plaice, long rough dab and sandeel, peaked in the vicinity of the frontal areas. Hence our findings indicate that the main spawning locations of fish are linked to recurrent hydrographic features such as salinity fronts. Such a linkage may provide survival advantages, as the fronts present favorable feeding conditions, and the related physical processes may confine egg and larval dispersal and transport them towards suitable nursery habitats


The reflection of plane waves by a layered cylindrical shell in water is investigated theoretically. Either or both of the two layers of elastic material may be absorptive. The solution as a function of frequency is examined for several combinations of inner and outer layers.


Ukiyo-e, or "pictures of the floating world," were woodblock prints that, among other subjects, depicted the "women of pleasure" and Kabuki actors of Japan's Edo Period pleasure quarters. The pleasure quarters, or yukaku, were popular gathering places for the chonin, or urban working class. This essay contextualizes ukiyoe images of courtesans, geishas, and Kabuki actors, and discusses how such countercultural artworks often came into conflict with the ruling Tokugawa shogunate's dominate social order. The essay also includes a brief discussion of historical relations between eastern ukiyo-e art and differing western traditions. The essay concludes with a comparison of significant, related ukiyo-e and western modernist prints.


We study the structure of neutron stars in perturbative f(R) gravity models with realistic equations of state. We obtain mass-radius relations in a gravity model of the form f(R) = R+αR2. We find that deviations from the results of general relativity, comparable to the variations due to using different equations of state (EoS'), are induced for |α| ~ 109 cm2. Some of the soft EoS' that are excluded within the framework of general relativity can be reconciled with the 2 solar mass neutron star recently observed for certain values of α within this range. For some of the EoS' we find that a new solution branch, which allows highly massive neutron stars, exists for values of α greater than a few 109 cm2. We find constraints on α for a variety of EoS' using the recent observational constraints on the mass-radius relation. These are all 5 orders of magnitude smaller than the recent constraint obtained via Gravity Probe B for this gravity model. The associated length scale cm is only an order of magnitude smaller than the typical radius of a neutron star, the probe used in this test. This implies that real deviations from general relativity can be even smaller.


To research the relationship between room temperature and diarrhea diseases, we statistically analyzed the showed diarrhea's cases in Sanitary Jurisdiction from Coatzacoalcos, Ver., during the period 2000-2003. By means of time series and a model of linear regression, we have find out that the variability in the frequency of diarrheas can be explained in terms of 40% by the temperature. Therefore, the frequency of the diarrhea's cases increases during June, July and August. On the other hand in rainy seasons (September, October and November) both diarrhea's cases and temperatures fall linearly.


BACKGROUND
The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) is widely used to measure the severity of depression in mood disorders. Total HDRS score correlates with brain metabolism as measured by fludeoxyglucose F 18 ([(18)F]-FDG) positron emission tomography. The HDRS comprises distinct symptom clusters that may be associated with different patterns of regional brain glucose metabolism.

OBJECTIVE
To examine associations between HDRS component psychopathologic clusters and resting glucose cerebral metabolism assessed by [(18)F]-FDG positron emission tomography. Patients We evaluated 298 drug-free patients who met the DSM-III-R criteria for major depressive disorder.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Five principal components were extracted from the 24-item HDRS for all subjects and ProMax rotated: psychic depression, loss of motivated behavior, psychosis, anxiety, and sleep disturbance. The [(18)F]-FDG scans were acquired in a subgroup of 43 drug-free patients in twelve 5-minute frames. Voxel-level correlation maps were generated with HDRS total and factor scores.

RESULTS
Total HDRS score correlated positively with activity in a large bilateral ventral cortical and subcortical region that included limbic, thalamic, and basal ganglia structures. Distinct correlation patterns were found with the 3 individual HDRS factors. Psychic depression correlated positively with metabolism in the cingulate gyrus, thalamus, and basal ganglia. Sleep disturbance correlated positively with metabolism in limbic structures and basal ganglia. Loss of motivated behavior was negatively associated with parietal and superior frontal cortical areas.

CONCLUSIONS
Different brain regions correlate with discrete symptom components that compose the overall syndrome of major depression. Future studies should extend knowledge about specific regional networks by identifying responsible neurotransmitters related to specific psychopathologic components of mood disorders.


Autonomous driving has achieved rapid development over the last few decades, including the machine perception as an important issue of it. Although object detection based on conventional cameras has achieved remarkable results in 2D/3D, non-visual sensors such as 3D LiDAR still have incomparable advantages in the accuracy of object position detection. However, the challenge also exists with the difficulty in properly interpreting point cloud generated by LiDAR. This paper presents a multi-modal-based online learning system for 3D LiDAR-based object classification in urban environments, including cars, cyclists and pedestrians. The proposed system aims to effectively transfer the mature detection capabilities based on visual sensors to the new model learning based on non-visual sensors through a multi-target tracker (i.e. using one sensor to train another). In particular, it integrates the Online Random Forests (ORF) [1] method, which inherently has the abilities of fast and multi-class learning. Through experiments, we show that our system is capable of learning a high-performance model for LiDAR-based 3D object classification on-the-fly, which is especially suitable for robotics in-situ deployment while responding to the widespread challenge of insufficient detector generalization capabilities.


Suction toilet of mastoid cavities leads to unpleasant vertigo in many patients. We have shown that suction causes cooling within the cavity, in a series of 20 patients. This is of the same order of magnitude as a cold air caloric, showing the temperature drop to be an important factor. The relevant physical principles are examined. During suction a flow of cold, dry room air replaces the warm, moist cavity air, causing cooling both directly and by vaporization of water. Introducing humidified air at near body temperature should eliminate these effects and a study is being set up to evaluate the potential clinical applications of the method in the ENT Outpatient Department.


The prognostic value of some coronary risk factors related to Stress/Echocardiography was analyzed. The most important prognostic factors during an abnormal study are: presence and time of beginning, severity and extension of the myocardial ischemic changes.


Cable bacteria are filamentous Desulfobulbaceae that split the energy-conserving reaction of sulphide oxidation into two half reactions occurring in distinct cells. Cable bacteria can use nitrate, but the reduction pathway is unknown, making it difficult to assess their direct impact on the N-cycle. Here we show that the freshwater cable bacterium Ca. Electronema sp. GS performs dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA). 15NO3−-amended sediment with Ca. Electronema sp. GS showed higher rates of DNRA and nitrite production than sediment without Ca. Electronema sp. GS. Electron flux from sulphide oxidation, inferred from electric potential measurements, matched the electron flux needed to drive cable bacteria-mediated nitrate reduction. Ca. Electronema sp. GS expressed a complete nap operon for periplasmic nitrate reduction to nitrite, and genes encoding a periplasmic multiheme cytochrome (pMHC), homolog to a pMHC that can catalyse nitrite reduction to ammonium in Ca. Maribeggiatoa. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that the capacity for DNRA was acquired in multiple events through horizontal gene transfer from different organisms, before cable bacteria split into different salinity niches. The architecture of the nitrate reduction system suggests absence of energy conservation through oxidative phosphorylation, indicating that cable bacteria primarily conserve energy through the half reaction of sulfide oxidation.


Abstract A 49-year-old female with a background of stage IV diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and subsequent graft-versus-host disease from a bone marrow transplant presented to a rural hospital in New South Wales, Australia with 12-h history of painless per rectal bleeding and fever. On examination she had a soft, but distended abdomen. Laboratory investigations revealed thrombocytopenia and hypokalaemia. Computed tomography of the abdomen and pelvis had a bizarre appearance due to pneumatosis cystoides coli extending from the ileocaecal junction to the mid-transverse colon. Given her benign abdominal examination, her management was initially supportive with intravenous antibiotics, intravenous fluid resuscitation and correction of electrolyte abnormalities.


ABSTRACT Host plant specificity depends on recognition of the host and the ability to discriminate it from nonhost plants. Chilo suppressalis (Walker) (Lepidoptera: Crambidae), an important insect pest of rice, is considered to be polyphagous, although few papers have ever reported infestation of C. suppressalis on most of the recorded hosts. The present investigation was designed to test whether two important gramineous crops, wheat and corn, are host plants of C. suppressalis based on the host-plant finding process in cage and Y-tube olfactometer tests, oviposition and egg hatching, and larval feeding and survival. In the cage tests, gravid C. suppressalis females did not differentiate rice plants from wheat or corn plants when only visual cues were involved, but were more attracted to rice plants when only olfactory cues or both vision and olfaction were present. The Y-tube olfactometer tests further confirmed that the females did not prefer wheat or corn plants, and revealed that they responded equally to clean air and odors from wheat or corn plants. Under no-choice and choice condition alike, the females laid eggs on a lower proportion of wheat and corn plants and egg number and hatching rate were significantly reduced on wheat and/or corn plants than on rice plants. Larval feeding was not observed in wheat and lower in corn than in rice plants, and no pupae or surviving larvae were collected from wheat and corn plants. The results suggest that wheat and corn are not host plants of C. suppressalis. These findings are discussed in context of host-finding process in C. suppressalis and management of resistance to transgenic Bt rice.


Most ensembles suffer from underdispersion and systematic biases. One way to correct for these shortcomings is via machine learning (ML), which is advantageous due to its ability to identify and correct nonlinear biases. This study uses a single random forest (RF) to calibrate next-day (i.e., 12–36-h lead time) probabilistic precipitation forecasts over the contiguous United States (CONUS) from the Short-Range Ensemble Forecast System (SREF) with 16-km grid spacing and the High-Resolution Ensemble Forecast version 2 (HREFv2) with 3-km grid spacing. Random forest forecast probabilities (RFFPs) from each ensemble are compared against raw ensemble probabilities over 496 days from April 2017 to November 2018 using 16-fold cross validation. RFFPs are also compared against spatially smoothed ensemble probabilities since the raw SREF and HREFv2 probabilities are overconfident and undersample the true forecast probability density function. Probabilistic precipitation forecasts are evaluated at four precipitation thresholds ranging from 0.1 to 3 in. In general, RFFPs are found to have better forecast reliability and resolution, fewer spatial biases, and significantly greater Brier skill scores and areas under the relative operating characteristic curve compared to corresponding raw and spatially smoothed ensemble probabilities. The RFFPs perform best at the lower thresholds, which have a greater observed climatological frequency. Additionally, the RF-based postprocessing technique benefits the SREF more than the HREFv2, likely because the raw SREF forecasts contain more systematic biases than those from the raw HREFv2. It is concluded that the RFFPs provide a convenient, skillful summary of calibrated ensemble output and are computationally feasible to implement in real time. Advantages and disadvantages of ML-based postprocessing techniques are discussed.


Contrast-enhanced cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is routinely used to determine myocardial scar burden and make therapeutic decisions for coronary revascularization. Currently, there are no optimized deep-learning algorithms for the automated classification of scarred vs. normal myocardium. We report a modified Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) augmentation method to improve the binary classification of myocardial scar using both pre-clinical and clinical approaches. For the initial training of the MobileNetV2 platform, we used the images generated from a high-field (9.4T) cardiac MRI of a mouse model of acute myocardial infarction (MI). Once the system showed 100% accuracy for the classification of acute MI in mice, we tested the translational significance of this approach in 91 patients with an ischemic myocardial scar, and 31 control subjects without evidence of myocardial scarring. To obtain a comparable augmentation dataset, we rotated scar images 8-times and control images 72-times, generating a total of 6,684 scar images and 7,451 control images. In humans, the use of Progressive Growing GAN (PGGAN)-based augmentation showed 93% classification accuracy, which is far superior to conventional automated modules. The use of other attention modules in our CNN further improved the classification accuracy by up to 5%. These data are of high translational significance and warrant larger multicenter studies in the future to validate the clinical implications.


This work describes a new heuristic algorithm that estimates structural and geometric similarity of three-dimensional morphologies. It is an extension to previously developed measure of similarity (Komosinski et al., Theor Biosci 2001, 120, 271–286) that was only able to consider the structure of 3D constructs. Morphologies are modeled as graphs with vertices as points in a 3D space, and edges connecting these vertices. This model is very general, therefore the proposed algorithm can be applied in (and across) a number of disciplines including artificial life, evolutionary design, engineering, robotics, biology, and chemistry. The primary areas of application of this fast numerical similarity measure are artificial life and evolutionary design, where great numbers of morphologies result from simulated evolutionary processes, and both structural and geometric aspects are significant. Geometry of 3D constructs (i.e., locations of body parts in space) is as important as the structure (i.e., connections of body parts), because both determine behavior of creatures or designs and their fitness in a particular environment. In this work, both morphological aspects are incorporated in a single, highly discriminative measure of similarity. © 2011Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity, 2011 © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


The growth rate of recrystallizing austenite grains of Si-Mn steels and Nb added steels after hot deformation was investigated by measurement of the fraction of recrystallized austenite and recrystallized austenite grain size. The fraction of recrystallized austenite (Xcr) at which the mechanism of recrystallization changed rrom nucleation and growth (NG) to site saturation (SS) was formulated as a function of Nb concentration and deformation conditions. According to the increase in deformation temperature and strain, Xcr increases while the increase in Nb in solution decreases Xcr. The growth rate of recrystallizing austenite was also formulated as a function of strain energy (Fv) and Nb concentration. The growth rate decreases rapidly after deformation due to the decrease in Fv. The growth rate also decreases Nb addition.


Kolb (2004) and others have defined learning style as a preference by which students learn and remember what they have learned. This presentation will include a summary of learning style research published in the Engineering Design Graphics Journal over the past 15 years on the topic of learning styles and graphics education. The presenters will also examine several learning style models and why they are important to the university graphics professor. Discussion will include a review of some of the learning style tests that are now available on the market. We will discuss how and why higher education student learning has changed in the last decade and introduce the concept of the social construction of technology.


This article analyzes postgraduate teaching students' evaluations of the training in research methodology received during their degree and its use in the teaching practice. The participants are students attending the Research Methodology course corresponding to a Master's program, in the pedagogical field, at the Universidad del Bio-Bio, Chile. The methodology was qualitative, using open questionnaires and a discussion group. The data were analyzed using a categorical analysis and reduction, through ATLAS.ti 6.0. The main results show a critical view of the participants on the methodology and research training they received in undergraduate courses, as well as the insufficiencies in the training that is focused on the degree´s thesis design and not on giving tools to practice the profession. The participants questioned the role of the university in the education of teachers who do research. Regarding the uses of research methodology in the professional practice, although varied, they are limited by training deficits and institutional conditions. Despite their critics, the participants have high valuation of the significance of research methodology for the development of their professional practice. These results encourage us to suggest elements to nourish the debate about the way in which research methodology should be taught, as well as what research methodology is taught for, in order to contribute to the professional development processes of the teaching-research teams.


Background: Nitric oxide (NO) acts as a signaling molecule in various pathological conditions, including cancer. High concentrations of NO are known to have an anti-tumor effect. It is anticipated that NO induces cancer cell cytotoxicity through DNA damage induction, leading to apoptotic cell death. To examine the cytotoxic effect of gaseous NO (gNO) on various cancer types, we exposed 6 cancer cell lines to gNO at ultra-high concentrations, of 10,000-100,000 ppm.
 Methods: Four mouse cancer cell lines, colon (CT26), breast (4T1), melanoma (B16F10) and lung (LLC1), and 2 human cancer cell lines, pancreatic (Panc02.03) and ovarian (OVCAR-3), were exposed directly to gNO at 10,000 - 100,000 ppm for 10 - 600 seconds (n=3). Air and nitrogen controls were used to assess whether the effect is mediated by gas flow or lack of oxygen (n=3). Cell viability was measured 24 hours after exposure by an XTT-based cell proliferation method. Additionally, cells were examined after exposure using Annexin V and Propidium Iodide cell apoptosis assays to determine cell death mechanisms.
 Results: gNO resulted in significant death of cancer cells in a dose and time dependent manner as revealed by XTT assay: 1. At a concentration of 100,000 ppm gNO, cell viability of CT26, 4T1, B16F10, LLC1 and Panc02.03 was reduced by ~100% after 10 seconds of exposure compared to non-treated (NT) cells (p<0.001) and OVCAR-3 was reduced by 84%. 2. Exposure of cells to 25,000-50,000 ppm gNO resulted in complete eradication of CT26, 4T1, B16F10, LLC1, Panc02.03 and OVCAR-3 cell viability after 1 minute of exposure compared to NT cells (p<0.001). 3. Exposure to 10,000 ppm gNO resulted in elimination of CT26, 4T1, B16F10 LLC1 and Panc02.03 after 2.5 minutes compared to NT cells (p<0.001) with OVCAR-3 viability reduced by 94%. 4. Viability of cells exposed to both nitrogen and air was comparable to NT cells. Additionally, a longer exposure time to 50,000 ppm gNO resulted in an increase in late apoptosis phase for LLC1 (from ~16% for 10 seconds to ~85% for 1 minute).
 Conclusion: gNO treatment resulted in a dose dependent cytotoxic response on various cancer cell lines, with higher concentrations leading to near instant cell death and lower concentrations requiring a longer exposure period to elicit cell death. Together with the known ability of NO to activate and recruit the immune system, these results suggest that gNO may be a potent therapeutic agent for tumor treatment across a range of tumor types.
 Citation Format: Hila Confino, Matan Goldshtein, Shani Puyesky, Shay Yarkoni, Amir Avniel, Steve Lisi, Ido Wolf. Ultra-high concentrations of gaseous nitric oxide show rapid cytotoxic capabilities against colon, breast, pancreatic and other cancer cells in vitro [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 1848.


We report on several previous and ongoing investigations into the source of, and the amelioration of, the charge offset noise in SET (single-electron tunneling) transistors, made of Al/AlO/sub x//Al tunnel junctions. Previous work has shown that significant time-dependent noise will arise from locations outside the tunnel junctions, as well as within the junctions. Our ongoing work includes attempts to reduce or eliminate the charge offset and noise in fabricated devices.


In this paper, we define the notion of fuzzy nutrosophic soft HX subring of a HX ring and some of their related properties investigated. We define the intersection, cartesian product of an fuzzy neutrosophic soft subset of an fuzzy nutrosophic soft HX ring and we show some results


Respiratory tract infections are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in newborns, infants, and young children. These early life infections present a formidable immunologic challenge with a number of possibly conflicting goals: simultaneously eliminate the acute pathogen, preserve the primary gas-exchange function of the lung parenchyma in a developing lung, and limit long-term sequelae of both the infection and the inflammatory response. The latter has been most well studied in the context of childhood asthma, where multiple epidemiologic studies have linked early life viral infection with subsequent bronchospasm. This review will focus on the clinical relevance of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), human metapneumovirus (HMPV), and rhinovirus (RV) and examine the protective and pathogenic host responses within the neonate.


Face sketch synthesis is a crucial issue in digital entertainment and law enforcement. It can bridge the considerable texture discrepancy between face photos and sketches. Most of the current face sketch synthesis approaches directly to learn the relationship between the photos and sketches, and it is very difficult for them to generate the individual specific features, which we call rare characteristics. In this paper, we propose a novel face sketch synthesis approach through residual learning. In contrast to traditional approaches, which aim to reconstruct a sketch image directly (i.e., learn the mapping relationship between the photo and sketch), we aim to predict the residual image by learning the mapping relationship between the photo and residual, i.e., the difference between the photo and sketch, given an observed photo. This technique will render optimizing the residual mapping easier than optimizing the original mapping and deriving rare characteristic information. We also introduce a joint dictionary learning algorithm by preserving the local geometry structure of a data space. Through the learned joint dictionary, we transform the face sketch synthesis from an image space to a new and compact space; the new and compact space is spanned by learned dictionary atoms, where the manifold assumption can be further guaranteed. Results show that the proposed method demonstrates an impressive performance in the face sketch synthesis task on three public face sketch datasets and various real-world photos. These results are derived by comparing the proposed method with several state-of-the-art techniques, including certain recently proposed deep learning-based approaches.


The chemistry of oligocorannulenes (compounds composed of two or more corannulenyl moieties) arises from the properties of each corannulenyl and from the interactions between them. Varying the linkage between the corannulenyl moieties can influence the interaction and give rise to new properties in these carbon-rich compounds. This work describes the synthesis and reduction of 1,4-dicorannulenylbenzene in which a rigid aromatic benzene spacer leads to new electronic and supramolecular behavior, as shown by NMR, EPR, and UV/Vis spectroscopy, as well as DFT calculations. Structural and energy analyses of the dianion revealed that the benzene ring modifies the electronic communication between the two bowls. To preserve the aromatic character of the benzene, conjugation between the bowls is minimized and the benzene assumes a biradical bonding pattern rather than a quinoidal one. At the octaanionic stage, self-diffusion NMR experiments revealed extended supramolecular polymerization through charged polyarene stacking. The highly charged supramolecular oligomers are composed of up to 11 monomers per chain, significantly longer than the first (bicorannulenyl) oligomers of this type. This observation constitutes a proof-of-principle for controlling this novel type of polymer through modification of the intercorannulenyl spacer.


Diapetimorpha introita (Cresson) (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) is a native ectoparasitoid of Spodoptera spp. pupae. This parasitoid has been reared in the laboratory on an artificial diet devoid of any insect host components. However, wasps reared on this artificial diet had reduced fecundity. Efforts to increase fecundity included supplementing the diet with cell culture media conditioned with a cell line from ovaries of the fall armyworm, S. frugiperda, in one experiment and fortifying the diet with lipids extracted from pupae of S. frugiperda in a second experiment. In the first experiment, differences in mean oviposition and mean longevity among females reared on the artificial control diet (artificial diet), cell line-supplemented diet (Sf9Cell), and natural host (Host) were not significant. However, during the first 10 days of oviposition, Sf9Cell-reared females oviposited at a rate similar to the Host-reared parasitoids and at a rate faster than artificial-diet reared females. In the second experiment, females reared on the diet with added host lipid (host lipid) laid significantly more eggs than females on the artificial diet, however, longevity was not significantly affected by diet treatment. We conclude that total egg production by D. introita was improved on artificial diet supplemented with lipids from the natural host but was not increased by the addition of materials produced by an ovarial cell line derived from S. frugiperda. Future research efforts should focus on increasing fecundity of wasps reared on the artificial diet by identifying the lipid(s) or lipid-soluble material in the host pupal extract that is responsible for enhancing egg production in D. introita females.


This case report records the replacement of two failed endodontically treated mandibular molars with one piece zirconia implants in a patient with metal hypersensitivity. The two molars were atraumatically extracted and curetted to remove any remnants of a periapical granuloma. Immediate implant placement with primary stability was achieved using one piece WhiteSky® Bredent zirconia implants which were restored after four months with a zirconia crown. One year follow up revealed successful osseointegration with optimal form and function.


The relationship between the size of government and economic growth is a contentious issue. The present study is undertaken to test hypothesis that the relationship between government size and economic growth is nonlinear. This panel data study involves ASEAN countries over the period 1980–2011. We modify the empirical model of Chen and Lee (2005) and employ a smooth transition regression model for panel data (PSTR) to test the threshold effect of government size. Robustness checks of the model are conducted by GLS and GMM estimation. Empirical results show that there exists a nonlinear relationship between government size and economic growth for ASEAN countries. The threshold level of government consumption spending is 25.69 per cent GDP. As government size exceeds this level, economic growth reduces by 0.2 per cent. Our findings suggest that governments in ASEAN countries consider optimal government size at round 25.69 per cent GDP for supporting sustainable economic growth.


We evaluated three low frequency electrofishing pulse rates (30, 15, and 7.5 pulses per second (pps)) for differences in relative abundance, size structure and species composition of catfish species in two north Florida rivers (Apalachicola and Suwannee). Three species of catfish were collected from each river: Apalachicola River-flathead catfish ( Pylodictis olivaris), channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus), and blue catfish ( I. furcatus); Suwannee River- spotted bullhead (Ameiurus serracanthus), channel catfish, and white catfish ( I. catus). In both rivers, the dominant catfish species (Apalachicola: flathead catfish; Suwannee: spotted bullhead) was collected similarly with all three pulse rates. However, significant differences occurred in relative abundance, size structure, and species composition of the less dominant species in both systems. Generally, 15 pps yielded the best representation of sizes over the spectrum of lengths expected for all species; however 7.5 and 30 pps appeared to sample the smaller catfish ( 260 mm) while 7.5 pps will sample the smaller catfish (<260 mm) more effec - tively. Sampling with a combination of these pulse rates may be constructive when designing sampling strategies for standard sampling of catfish species.


ABSTRACT The capacity of six water stress factors (ε′i) to track daily light use efficiency (ε) of water-limited ecosystems was evaluated. These factors are computed with remote sensing operational products and a limited amount of ground data: ε′1 uses ground precipitation and air temperature, and satellite incoming global solar radiation; ε′2 uses ground air temperature, and satellite actual evapotranspiration and incoming global solar radiation; ε′3 uses satellite actual and potential evapotranspiration; ε′4 uses satellite soil moisture; ε′5 uses satellite-derived photochemical reflectance index; and ε′6 uses ground vapor pressure deficit. These factors were implemented in a production efficiency model based on Monteith's approach in order to assess their performance for modeling gross primary production (GPP). Estimated GPP was compared to reference GPP from eddy covariance (EC) measurements (GPPEC) in three sites placed in the Iberian Peninsula (two open shrublands and one savanna). ε′i were correlated to ε, which was calculated by dividing GPPEC by ground measured photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and satellite-derived fraction of absorbed PAR. Best results were achieved by ε′1, ε′2, ε′3 and ε′4 explaining around 40% and 50% of ε variance in open shurblands and savanna, respectively. In terms of GPP, R2 ≈ 0.70 were obtained in these cases.


Abstract It is shown that the lognormal distribution describes the frequency distributions of height, horizontal size, and duration of cloud and radar echo populations in many different regions and convective situations. Two hypotheses are suggested to explain this phenomenon. The first postulates a growth process of cloud parcels, in which growth by entrainment of environmental air occurs by a random process that obeys the law of proportionate effects. The second postulates a formation process for clouds, in which the clouds are formed by the merger of random boundary-layer convective elements. The information presented in this paper should be useful for the parameterization of cumulus convection in larger scale models, and for the understanding and modeling of cloud formation and development.


In BOF steelmaking process, high-activity lime has been widely used to form an appropriate slag as a medium for the removal of non-volatile impurities from the hot metal treated. In recent years, however, great attention has been paid to the possibility of directly using limestone instead of lime in the furnace. Despite laboratory experiments and industrial trials have proven the feasibility of the technique, a list of underlying issues still require more considerations, e.g., thermodynamics and kinetics of steelmaking reactions and limestone evolution during blowing under the new condition. The main motivation behind this paper is to establish a kinetic model for limestone decomposition under BOF steelmaking condition on the basis of shrinking core hypothesis. The Kozeny-Carman equation that correlates pressure gradient with the corresponding velocity is integrated into the model in order to account for the CO2 flow through the lime layer packed with small grains. The model is demonstrated using a set of experimental data and is finally verified by comparing the obtained thermal conductivity and grain size with available values in the literature.


Abstract Most of the engineering problems involving structural elements of steel-concrete composite beam type are approximations of the structural problem involving concrete plates connected by connectors to steel beams. Technical standards allow the replacement of the concrete plate element by a beam element by adopting a reduction in the width of the plate element known as effective width. The effective width is obtained, in most technical norms, taking into account only the parameters of beam span length and distance between adjacent beams. Numerical and experimental works found in the literature show that this effective width depends on several other parameters, such as the width and thickness of the concrete slab, and the type of loading. The objective of this work is to verify the influence of the partial interaction in the evaluation of the effective width of composite beams formed by a concrete slab connected to a steel beam with deformable connection, being used in numerical simulation three types of finite elements: a plate element for nonlinear analysis of the concrete slab; a bar element for non-linear analysis of beams with cross-section defined by a polygon; and an interface element which connects the plate and beam elements, simulating the deformation effect of the shear connectors. In the studied examples, it was found that the reduction of the shear connection stiffness at the interface between the concrete slab and the steel beam leads to a decrease in the shear lag effect and, consequently, makes the effective width of the concrete slab closer to the its real width. In another example, curves are constructed to define the effective width of a composite beam with medium stiffness. Considering maximum stresses and maximum displacements, these curves are obtained by forcing the equivalence of the approximate model with the model closest to the real problem.


This study examines BW Purba Negara's creative strategy in selecting and directing Mbah Sri characters in the Ziarah film. The research method uses qualitative descriptive. The results showed, creative strategies in casting are done by going to villages looking for people who are suitable for the 3D characters of Mbah Sri, based on physical suitability and the similarity of the story with the personal life of the actor Mbah Sri. In directing, creative strategies are done by reciting repeatedly and imitated, explaining explosively to be embedded in the memory of the character mbah Sri, repeated repetition, and imitating a long dialogue


Introduction: Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are one of the main indications for allogeneic hematopoetic cell transplantation (HCT). With the introduction of reduced intensity conditioning regimens (RIC) this curative therapy is increasingly used in elderly (≥60 years) or comorbid patients (pts).

Methods: Here we retrospectively analyzed data obtained in 81 consecutive adult MDS patients (f=32, m=49) that underwent allogeneic HCT using either myeloablative (MAC) regimens (Busulfan (Bu)/Cyclophosphamid (Cy) (n=13), Cy (n=1); Cy/Total Body Irradiation (TBI) 12Gray (n=6)) or RIC (FLAMSA/Fludarabin (Flu)/Bu (n=3); Flu/Bu (n=28); Flu/TBI (n=5); Flu/Thiotepa/Melphalan (Mel) (n=2); Flu/Treosulfan (n=12), FLAMSA/Bu/Cy (n=1), Flu/Cy/TBI (n=2), Flu/Mel (n=2)). For graft versus host disease (GVHD) prophylaxis, calcineurin inhibitor combined with mycophenolate mofetil (n=24) or methotrexate (n=41) and anti-thymocyte globulin (n=60) were used.

Results: Median age at first diagnosis of patients was 53 years (range 21-72). Pts were grouped in 2 age categories: pts 60 years (group B, n=24). Pts suffered from MDS/CMML 5q, n=2; CMML I, n=3; CMML II, n=2; RAEB I, n=21; RAEB II, n=21; RCMD, n=27; RCUD, n=2. Median IPSS score in group A and B was 1.4. 32% of group A and 35% of group B had an IPSS Score below 2. Mean HTC-CI in group A was 1.4, in group B 1.7. Grafts either from matched related (A, n=18, B, n=2), matched unrelated (MUD; A, n=25, B, n=13) or mismatched unrelated (MMUD; A, n=7, B, n=9) donors were used. Conditioning in group A was MAC (n=20) or RIC (n=31) whereas all patients in B received RIC. No significant age-associated influence was observed with regard to median survival (A, 44 months; B, 26 months; p=0.7) or estimated 3 year overall survival (OS) (A, 33%; B, 19%; p=0.3). Median observation time of patient alive was 40 months (range 3-168 month). Cumulative incidences of non-relapse mortality adjusted for relapse as competing risk showed no significant difference for group A and B. Progression free survival was not significantly different between the groups (A, 20 months; B 12 months; p=0.25). Kaplan-Mayer Analysis showed no difference in OS between risk groups; however, progression free survival was significantly lower in the group with IPSS >2 (7 vs 22 months, p=0.02). Within 100 days, neither in A nor B non-relapse mortality (NRM) was documented. The use of a MMUD appeared to have a negative but not significant influence in older pts on OS (3-year OS in A: MUD 75% vs. MMUD 25%, p=1.00; B: MUD 100% vs MMUD 0%, p=0.2). Incidence of GvHD ≥II was in 14% vs. 6% in A and B. Incidence of chronic GVHD was 42% in A (limited=12, extensive=12) and 37% in B (limited=4, extensive=5).

Conclusion: RIC represents a promising treatment option in elderly MDS pts and allows for allogeneic HCT even in comorbid pts. Age had no negative impact on survival. Interestingly, IPSS score has an influence on progression free survival in patients.

Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Jeju Black cattle is one of the aboriginal Korean cattle breeds that has been isolated in Jeju island for a long time, while Yellow Hanwoo cattle has been extensively selected for beef production traits for the last several decades. Aiming to investigate broader patterns of selection, we genotyped 352 Yellow Hanwoo and 169 Jeju Black cattle using a customized 150 K bovine chip. Our composite selection signals' analysis to identify selection signatures (cross-population extended haplotype homozygosity [XP-EHH], ΔSAF, and FST) identified recent and strong signature of selection near many loci with mutations affecting the traits under strong selection as outlier in Yellow Hanwoo, including SCP2 (P = 8.41 × 10−10) that may be involved in the meat quality. We found nine candidate regions with significant clusters of selection signals, and further bioinformatics analyses of the genes located within these regions revealed mainly genes involved in G-protein coupled receptor signaling pathway (GO:0007186) or olfactory transduction (bta04740), which may be due to adaptation to natural environments in Jeju island. Based on the stronger correlation of Ne10/Ne100 ratio between Yellow Hanwoo (0.61) and Jeju Black (0.66) cattle, our results suggest that the difference of chromosomal regions of selection signature between the 2 cattle breeds was due to a consequence of selection processes to adapt to environmental differences between Jeju island and the main inland, Korean peninsula.


The most recent decade featured a data revolution in the healthcare sector in screening, monitoring and coordination of aid. Big data analytics have revolutionarized the medical profession. The health sector relys on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics as never before. The opportunities of unprecedented access to healthcare, rational precision and human resemblance but also targeted aid in decentralized aid grids are obvious innovations that will lead to most sophisticated neutral healthcare in the future. Yet big data driven medical care also bears risks of privacy infringements and ethical concerns of social stratification and discrimination. Today's genetic human screening, constant big data information amalgamation as well as social credit scores pegged to access to healthcare also create the most pressing legal and ethical challenges of our time.

The call for developing a legal, policy and ethical framework for using AI, big data, robotics and algorithms in healthcare has therefore reached unprecedented momentum. Problematic appear compatibility glitches in the AI-human interaction as well as a natural AI preponderance outperforming humans. Only if the benefits of AI are reaped in a master-slave-like legal frame, the risks associated with these novel superior technologies can be curbed. Liability control but also big data privacy protection appear important to secure the rights of vulnerable patient populations. Big data mapping and social credit scoring must be met with clear anti-discrimination and anti-social stratification ethics. Lastly, the value of genuine human care must be stressed and precious humanness in the artifical age conserved alongside coupling the benefits of AI, robotics and big data with global common goals of sustainability and inclusive growth.

The report aims at helping a broad spectrum of stakeholders understand the impact of AI, big data, algorithms and health data based on information about key opportunities and risks but also future market challenges and policy developments for orchestrating the concerted pursuit of improving healthcare excellence. Stateshuman and diplomates are invited to consider three trends in the wake of the AI (r)evolution:

Artificial Intelligence recently gained citizenship in robots becoming citizens: With attributing quasi-human rights to AI, ethical questions arise of a stratified citizenship. Robots and algorithms may only be citizens for their protection and upholding social norms towards human-like creatures that should be considered slave-like for economic and liability purposes without gaining civil privileges such as voting, property rights and holding public offices.

Big data and computational power imply unprecedented opportunities for: crowd understanding, trends prediction and healthcare control. Risks include data breaches, privacy infringements, stigmatization and discrimination. Big data protection should be enacted through technological advancement, self-determined privacy attention fostered by e-education as well as discrimination alleviation by only releasing targeted information and regulated individual data mining capacities.

The European Union should consider establishing a fifth trade freedom of data by law and economic incentives: in order to bundle AI and big data gains large scale. Europe holds the unique potential of offering data supremacy in state-controlled universal healthcare big data wealth that is less fractionate than the US health landscape and more Western-focused than Asian healthcare. Europe could therefore lead the world on big data derived healthcare insights but should also step up to imbuing humane societal imperatives on these most cutting-edge innovations of our time.


We consider how corporations respond to public policy mandates with internal compliance policies and enforcement. We suppose that corporate compliance is determined by employees of the firm, whose incentives do not align perfectly with those of the corporation. In response, corporations expend resources to make compliance more likely. They adopt internal compliance policies and enforce these policies by sanctioning employees that violate them. Perfect compliance is unlikely, given imperfect observability of employee behavior. We present a number of laws and regulations with which firms may choose to comply, construct a model of internal compliance, and close with a discussion of different internal compliance policies and their feasibility. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Background Chronic kidney disease (CKD) and atrial fibrillation (AF) are both risk factors for bleeding, stroke and mortality. The aim of our study was to investigate the interaction between CKD and atrial fibrillation and outcomes. Methods We included 12,394 subjects referred to the University Medical Center Utrecht (the Netherlands) from September 1996 to February 2018 for an out-patient visit (Utrecht Cardiovascular Cohort Second Manifestation of Arterial disease cohort). Hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for bleeding, ischemic stroke or mortality were calculated with Cox proportional hazard analyses. Presence of interaction between AF and CKD was examined by calculating the relative excess risk due to interaction (RERI), the attributable proportion (AP) due to interaction and the synergy index (S). Results Of the 12,394 patients, 699 patients had AF, 2,752 patients had CKD and 325 patients had both AF and CKD. Patients with both CKD and AF had a 3.0-fold (95% CI 2.0–4.4) increased risk for bleeding, a 4.2-fold (95% CI 3.0–6.0) increased ischemic stroke risk and a 2.2-fold (95% CI 1.9–2.6) increased mortality risk after adjustment as compared with subjects without atrial fibrillation and CKD. We did not find interaction between AF and CKD for bleeding and mortality. However, we found interaction between AF and CKD for ischemic stroke risk (RERI 1.88 (95% CI 0.31–3.46), AP 0.45 (95% CI 0.17–0.72) and S 2.40 (95% CI 1.08–5.32)). Conclusion AF and CKD are both associated with bleeding, ischemic stroke and mortality. There is a positive interaction between AF and CKD for ischemic stroke risk, but not for bleeding or mortality.


Vestland Cauldrons and Painted GlassVestland cauldrons have been thoroughly treated and discussed by authorities such as A. Bjørn, G. Ekholm and C. Hawkes). Denmark has not in the past been - nor is it now - able to offer any considerable material for the understanding of these cauldrons. Two new discoveries have, however, come to light during the past few years containing Vestland cauldrons, and this fact should justify the treatment here of this class of vessels.Two main groups can be identified within the class of Vestland cauldrons (fig. 2): group A, the neck and shoulder of which are slightly offset in relation to each other; and group B, where the neck and shoulder either form a more or less definite angle with each other or else form practically a continuous whole. Group A is, so far as the present author is aware, only represented by the vessel from Filzen); its offset is here very small, almost reduced to a groove, but nevertheless unmistakable; its date, to judge by the other objects found with it, can hardly be later than about 300 A. D. Among the vessels of group B the following variants can be distinguished: the Kvitsleby variant, characterized by a vertical neck, a distinct shoulder and a definite obtuse angle between the shoulder and the neck; the Børte variant, characterized by a vertical neck running without a break into a short but definite outcurving shoulder; and finally the Sebø variant, characterized by a neck and shoulder all in one, sloping outwards and downwards. The following is a description of the existing Danish Vestland cauldrons: The Kragehul Mose cauldron (fig. 3) was sent in to the National Museum in 1865 and illustrated by Engelhardt in the publication of Kragehul. It had been beaten flat but the identification of group and variant appears clear: group B, Kvitsleby variant. Like the actual Kvitsleby cauldron (Ekholm No. 116) the Danish specimen possesses a groove between the neck and the shoulder. The remainder of the Kragehul board must be dated partly to the Late Roman Iron Age and partly to the Early Germanic Iron Age.The Hjortdal cauldron (fig. 4) was found in 1943 and is now in Thisted Museum. This too belongs to the Kvitsleby variant and possesses a two-lined band between the neck and the shoulder. The cauldron contained calcined human bones, a little melted glass and some charred pieces of ornamented bone (fig. 5). The discovery must be dated either to the Late Roman Iron Age or to the Early Germanic lron Age.The Stenlille cauldron (fig. 7) was found in 1944 and is now at the National Museum. Details of discovery are meagre but the probabilities suggest that the cauldron came from an inhumation grave which also contained a painted glass vessel (fig. 8) and possibly a gold finger ring (fig. 11 a). The cauldron belongs to the Børte variant of group B.A survey of the discoveries made outside Denmark suggests the probability that the Kvitsleby variant (Ekholm No. 117;4)) should be dated to the latest phase of the Late Roman Iron Age, and most likely to the first half of the 4th Century A. D.; that the Børte variant (Bjørn Nos. 14, 12 and 86) should be dated to the Søsdala phase of the Germanic Iron Age,· probably the later part of the 4th Century A. D.; and that the Sebø variant (Bjørn Nos. 53, 72, 37,6)) should be dated to the Sjørup phase of the Germanic Iron Age, the 5th Century A. D.The fragments of the painted glass vessel from Stenlille are stylistically at variance with the painted glass previously known from Danish discoveries, and they form a final link in a chain of development a summary of which follows:About 200 A. D. we find what may be called three-dimensional painting, in which the perspective of the figures is enhanced by the choice of colour and of light and shade and by fine subsidiary lines (fig. 9). About 300 A. D., and during the first half of the 4th Century, glass painting changes its character. More importance is now attached to emphasizing the outlines of the figures, and perspective is no longer stressed by play of colour. The fine subsidiary lines are still found but in general the figures give more an impression of coloured drawings (fig. 10). Turning to the Stenlille glass we see that this painting too, which appears to represent a leopard, has the character of a coloured drawing (fig. 8). The representation of the figure, however, appears more crude than on the glass from Himlingøje, and the fine subsidiary lines are absent, while if we examine a detail such as the beard of the animal we get the impression of a crudes schematic detail, stuck on without any understanding of organic relationship with the remainder of the head. This contrasts with the case of the corresponding animal on the Nordrup glass (fig. 9), and to some degree also with the animal on the Himlingøje glass (fig. 10). An important difference from earlier glassware is that, on the Stenlille glass, the painting extends almost up to the edge of the vessel, leaving no room for the usual horizontal row of dots, which otherwise normally marks the upper edge of the painting and thereby, as it were, unites the illustrated area. This shortage of space suggests that the glass belonged to the low variant of the cylindrical beakers (cf. KUML 1952, p. 87).The various differences described suggests that the painted glass from Stenlille is later in date than the painted glass from Himlingøje, and it may therefore be from the Søsdala phase of the Germanic Iron Age, the period to which the cauldron from Stenlille presumably belongs. A piece of painted glassware of the same stage of development as the Stenlille glass has been found at Enekrogen on Bornholm (fig. 12); no details, however, exist of the circumstances of discovery of this latter specimen.Hans Norling-Christensen


Atherosclerosis plays an important role in the etiopathogenesis of coronary artery ectasia (CAE). The relationship between total bilirubin (TBil) and carotid intima media thickness (cIMT) in patients with CAE has not been fully investigated. Hence, we evaluated the relationship between TBil levels and cIMT in 142 consecutive eligible patients with CAE, newly diagnosed coronary artery disease (CAD), and normal coronary arteries. There were no significant differences in TBil (P = .772) and cIMT (P = .791) between the CAE and CAD groups. Bilirubin levels were significantly lower in both CAE and CAD groups compared to the controls (P < .01). The cIMT was significantly higher in both CAE and CAD groups compared to control participants (P < .01). A negative correlation between cIMT and TBil was found in all the groups (P < .01, r = .354). We show for the first time that patients with CAE and CAD have lower TBil and greater cIMT compared to controls with normal coronary angiograms.


We present an efficient stochastic algorithm (RSG+) for canonical correlation analysis (CCA) using a reparametrization of the projection matrices. We show how this reparametrization (into structured matrices), simple in hindsight, directly presents an opportunity to repurpose/adjust mature techniques for numerical optimization on Riemannian manifolds. Our developments nicely complement existing methods for this problem which either require O(d 3) time complexity per iteration with O ( 1 t ) convergence rate (where d is the dimensionality) or only extract the top 1 component with O ( 1 t ) convergence rate. In contrast, our algorithm offers an improvement: it achieves O(d 2 k) runtime complexity per iteration for extracting the top k canonical components with O ( 1 t ) convergence rate. While our paper focuses more on the formulation and the algorithm, our experiments show that the empirical behavior on common datasets is quite promising. We also explore a potential application in training fair models with missing sensitive attributes.


The sharp disagreement in economics literature about the nature of the relationship between financial development and economic growth is widely known.Empirical evidence is also mixed as has been documented by Levine (1997, 2003b).Most empirical studies focused either on indirect finance or on direct finance.Previous panel data studies also failed to permit heterogeneity in slope coefficient. Past empirical studies even ignored the inflation effects on the relationship between finance and growth.This dissertation examines the empirical relationship between financial development and economic growth while incorporating the inflation rate effect on financial development; dividing countries into panels of Low, Lower Middle, Upper Middle, and High Income Countries.It focuses on both the indirect finance and the direct finance, separately as well as collectively.The econometric methodology of Weinhold (1999) and Nair-Reichert and Weinhold (2001) is applied for causality analysis in heterogeneous panel data which is based upon the Mixed Fixed Random Effects model of Hsiao et al. (1989).Two sets of results are reported: First, the relationship between financial development and economic growth from contemporaneous non-dynamic fixed effects panel estimation can be interpreted as mixed. Negative and statistically significant estimates of the coefficient of the inflation and financial development interaction variable, in the case of Low and Lower Middle Income Countries, indicate that financial development may be harmful to economic growth when inflation is rising.Such evidence is not found from the data for Upper Middle and High Income Countries.Second, in contrast to the recent evidence of Beck and Levine (2003), use of a more appropriate econometric methodology of dynamic heterogeneous panel for causality analysis and a refined model reveals that there is no definite indication that finance spurs economic growth or that growth spurs finance.These findings are in line with Lucas's view on finance that the importance of financial matters is over-stressed in popular and even professional discussion. The only exception is the activity in stock markets in High Income Countries, where the result supports the Robinson (1952) view that finance follows where enterprise leads.


A number of projects are creating searchable digital libraries of printed books. These include the Million Book Project, the Google book project and similar efforts from Yahoo and Microsoft. Content-based on line book retrieval usually requires first converting printed text into machine readable (e.g. ASCII) text using an optical character recognition (OCR) engine and then doing full text search on the results. Many of these books are old and there are a variety of processing steps that are required to create an end to end system. Changing any step (including the scanning process) can affect OCR performance and hence a good automatic statistical evaluation of OCR performance on book length material is needed. Evaluating OCR performance on the entire book is non-trivial. The only easily obtainable ground truth (the Gutenberg e-texts) must be automatically aligned with the OCR output over the entire length of a book. This may be viewed as equivalent to the problem of aligning two large (easily a million long) sequences. The problem is further complicated by OCR errors as well as the possibility of large chunks of missing material in one of the sequences. We propose a hidden Markov model (HMM) based hierarchical alignment algorithm to align OCR output and the ground truth for books. We believe this is the first work to automatically align a whole book without using any book structure information. The alignment process works by breaking up the problem of aligning two long sequences into the problem of aligning many smaller subsequences. This can be rapidly and effectively done. Experimental results show that our hierarchical alignment approach works very well even if OCR output has a high recognition error rate. Finally, we evaluate the performance of a commercial OCR engine over a large dataset of books based on the alignment results


The effect of phone-level speaking rate on speech recogniser performance is investigated. It is shown that deviation from the mean phone-level rate is correlated with the phone recognition error, and that the interval length for rate calculation is important, with optimal values of approximately four and 15 phones. A rate compensation algorithin is proposed.


This article is summative work of the research result of the life of Blater Community: A study of local elite in Madura. With the use of phenomenological approach, the research highlights some important findings. First, the Blater community of Sampang District is fanatic muslims. The Blater whom are socially categorized as "jagoan" (fighter), who has a particular style of life, imfact, they are able to interact and adapt to their social environment. Second, the sexual life of Blater community is socially built based on the agreement approach among them.


Evaluating study of arab Ianguage in STAIN Pamekasan represents one of the among study activity chain starts from study planning process, study execution and last is study evaluation. Evaluate at ability target (maharah) language which must be evaluated, and also at elements ('anashir) language. As have been tolerated, that in arab Ianguage study at least there are four abilities (maharah) which must be mastered by educative participant to get predicate that he is one who have ability in the arab Ianguage field. The Maharah is Maharah Istima'(ability to correct reading), maharah al-Kalam (ability to converse), maharah Kitabah (ability to write), and maharah al-Qiraah (ability to read). Methodologically, study evaluation process of arab Ianguage in STAIN Pamekasan researched by using the qualitative approach with research type of case which its target is all currator lecturers of Arab Ianguage subject. Research result is obtained as follows: a) Step of assessment starting from preparation, execution, data-processing and follow-up, b) evaluation form intended here is some instruments used by all lecturer to get information about college student efficacy, in STAIN Pamekasan the pattern mentioned becomes two, that is tes form and non tes form, c) all lecturers more tend to using one approach of Ianguage tes, that is integrative approach


Lampur village is an area that still has a lot of Tin deposits are characterized by the emergence of a lead-mining-camp camp inkonvensial at many points in this area. Lampur indeed simply a village administratively, but became a mixture of the two districts and some districts. In 2001, when the autonomous region and the rampant mining it, the village became the main destination Lampur miners entrants to dig the Tin. The impact of the change in behavior IT mining village community consumer as well as being perceived Lampur also by the school, when many students are reduced because they prefer to seek fortune in the location of it and the fact it was left by its parents resulting in increased dropout rates.


Vergence movement enables human and vertebrates, having stereo vision, to perceive the depth of an interesting visual target fixated by both left and right eyes. To simulate this on a binocular robotic camera head, we propose a new control model for vergence movement using disparity flux. Experimental results showed that this model is efficient in controlling vergence movement in various environments. When the perception-action cycle is short enough to approach to the real-time frame rate, the precision of disparity flux increases, and then a more accurate control of vergence movements on the stereo robotic head is possible.


In Order No. 1000, issued on July 21, 2011, FERC concluded that a right of first refusal is anticompetitive and unduly discriminates against independent transmission developers. FERC had previously suggested in Primary Power, LLC that it believed the company proposing the transmission project should have the right to build it unless the regional entity can adequately justify selecting another entity for construction. That decision and the Order No. 1000 reforms will have a significant impact on the way transmission infrastructure is planned and constructed in the United States. FERC, however, lacks jurisdiction to specify which entity may con-struct transmission facilities approved in a regional planning process. The FPA's jurisdictional grant limits FERC's ability to adopt a federally sanctioned selection process requiring equal treatment for all potential transmission developers, regardless of whether or not the developers are similarly situated. Moreover, in Order No. 1000, FERC recognized that it lacks authority under the FPA to preempt states' transmission siting, permitting, and construction decisions. It is well settled law that FERC cannot do indirectly that which it cannot do directly. Even if the new federal regulations are not attempting to exercise preemptive authority and, at the pre-compliance stage, do not directly infringe on the states, the regulations create the potential for conflict between federal and state policy. The potential for conflict indirectly limits state authority by pushing states to conform their regulations to the federal policy and, as a result, implicitly preempts state authority.


Accurate estimation of Energy Expenditure (EE) in ambulatory settings is a key element in determining the causal relation between aspects of human behavior related to physical activity and health. We present a new methodology for activity-specific EE algorithms. The proposed methodology models activity clusters using specific parameters that capture differences in EE within a cluster, and combines these models with Metabolic Equivalents (METs) derived from the compendium of physical activities. We designed a protocol consisting of a wide set of sedentary, household, lifestyle and gym activities, and developed a new activity-specific EE algorithm applying the proposed methodology. The algorithm uses accelerometer (ACC) and heart rate (HR) data acquired by a single monitoring device, together with anthropometric variables, to predict EE. Our model recognizes six clusters of activities independent of the subject in 52.6 hours of recordings from 19 participants. Increases in EE estimation accuracy ranged from 18 to 31% compared to state of the art single and multi-sensor activity-specific methods.


Background and Objectives: In this current era of using drug-eluting stents (DES), studies that demonstrate the feasibility and clinical outcome of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) using DES in a subset of extremely aged patients are lacking. We investigated the clinical characteristics, therapeutic and clinical outcomes of patients older than 80 years that had been implanted with DES during a PCI. Subjects and Methods: Fifty-three "octogenarian" patients (≥80-years-old) and 1036 "non-octogenarian" patients (<80-years-old) that had been implanted with DES at Chonbuk National University Hospital since March 2003 were enrolled in the study. Medical records of the patients in the two groups were retrospectively reviewed. Results: The mean ages of the patients in the two groups were 83±2 years and 62±11 years, respectively, and the mean follow-up period was 15.8±10.9 months and 21.1±10.8 months, respectively. The octogenarian group showed an increased prevalence of female patients (58.5% vs. 35.1%, p=0.001), acute coronary syndrome (98.1% vs. 78.6%, p=0.001), ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (41.5% vs. 28.3%, p=0.003), shock (17.0% vs. 6.6%, p=0.004), heart failure (22.6% vs. 9.3%, p=0.002) and a higher in-hospital major adverse cardiac event (MACE) rate (13.2% vs. 3.5%, p=0.004) than the non-octogenarian patients. Angiographic restenosis and target lesion revascularization rates were not different in both groups, but overall MACE (18.9% vs. 9.9%, p=0.035) and all-cause mortality (p<0.001) rates were significantly higher in the octogenarian group of patients. Conclusion: Although angiographic followup results were comparable in octogenarians and non-octogenarians, the occurrence of shortand long-term MACE was significantly higher in the very elderly group owing to a substantial subset of high-risk patients. (Korean Circ J 2007;37:647-655)


The concept of nonthermal microwave effects has received considerable attention in recent years and is the subject of intense debate in the scientific community. Nonthermal microwave effects have been postulated to result from a direct stabilizing interaction of the electric field with specific (polar) molecules in the reaction medium that is not related to a macroscopic temperature effect. In order to probe the existence of nonthermal microwave effects, four synthetic transformations (Diels-Alder cycloaddition, alkylation of triphenylphosphine and 1,2,4-triazole, direct amide bond formation) were reevaluated under both microwave dielectric heating and conventional thermal heating. In all four cases, previous studies have claimed the existence of nonthermal microwave effects in these reactions. Experimentally, significant differences in conversion and/or product distribution comparing the conventionally and microwave-heated experiments performed at the same measured reaction temperature were found. The current reevaluation of these reactions was performed in a dedicated reactor setup that allowed accurate internal reaction temperature measurements using a multiple fiber-optic probe system. Using this technology, the importance of efficient stirring and internal temperature measurement in microwave-heated reactions was made evident. Inefficient agitation leads to temperature gradients within the reaction mixture due to field inhomogeneities in the microwave cavity. Using external infrared temperature sensors in some cases results in significant inaccuracies in the temperature measurement. Applying the fiber-optic probe temperature monitoring device, a critical reevaluation of all four reactions has provided no evidence for the existence of nonthermal microwave effects. Ensuring efficient agitation of the reaction mixture via magnetic stirring, no significant differences in terms of conversion and selectivity between experiments performed under microwave or oil bath conditions at the same internally measured reaction temperatures were experienced. The observed effects were purely thermal and not related to the microwave field.


E-Government is beneficial to the information publicity of all-level governments, to solve public problems and achieve the public interest as the objective. E-Government should construct brand-new service-oriented government management model. The new model of government functions and government activities and government concept can help make the government become a public service government, and realize the transition from the traditional control government to a service-oriented government. the transparency of management, the convenience of services and the improvement of efficiency must be improved, only in this way can realize the transformation of supervise-oriented government to service-oriented government and establish incorruptible, diligent, practical and efficient government, E-Government has provided important device for the establishment of public-centered and service-oriented government model.


Abstract Many literary texts prove a tendency to simulate features of diverse communicative acts, styles and genres that are primarily applied in non-literary spheres of communication (for instance journalism, administration, science). The aim of this paper is to suggest a possible theoretical framework for this phenomenon and to describe some ways of simulating non-literary styles in literary texts. The aforementioned simulating can be seen as a form of interdiscursivity that introduces external elements into literary texts. The functioning of it is conditioned by a process of decontextualization and recontextualization that is signalled by various paratextual and textual cues. Taking three Czech prosaic works as examples, the concrete use of this form of interdiscursivity is illustrated in the last part of the paper.


Posttraumatic pulmonary artery pseudoaneurysm is a very rare, yet potentially lethal complication after thoracic trauma. Pulmonary artery pseudoaneurysm is associated with high mortality. Still literature highlights that untreated, lesions can enlarge, rupture, and lead to exsanguination and death. We present a case of a posttraumatic peripheral pulmonary artery pseudoaneurysm with complete disappearance after one year. This case confirms that conservative treatment can be an effective option in asymptomatic and stable patients.


In an effort to understand the cavity growth mechanisms occurring during an Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) test, a study of the thermomechanical effects has been initiated at Sandia National Laboratories. The first phase of this study has been the determination of the intrinsic thermal and structural properties of the Hanna Basin Coal that was utilized in a series of four UCG tests near the town of Hanna, Wyoming. The result of this study is a consistent set of thermal and structural properties of a Hanna Basin coal. This set has been used in a model that successfully simulated the growth of the cavity observed during the Hanna II UCG test.


Recent advancement in sensor networks provides a platform for applications that requires in-network data fusion and parallel algorithms. However, processing data in parallel while propagating at low latency is very challenging. Also, implementation of these algorithms is limited by various constraints including energy, computation costs and complex network topology. In this paper, a statistical graphical model based algorithm is developed for in-network processing, which can be applied to tracking problems in the sensor networks. This algorithm represents the complex topology of a sensor network with a simple clique tree. It further utilizes the message passing algorithms to effectively make accurate inferences about the target location. The simulation shows that the algorithm can accurately track the target in a large scale random distributed sensor field with low complexity and low cost. The algorithm is also proved to be robust, as the simulation random disabled some sensors during the tracking phase.


This paper deals with the numerical solution of financial applications, more specifically the computation of American and European options derivatives modelled by boundary values problems. In such applications we have to solve large-scale algebraic linear systems. We concentrate on synchronous and asynchronous parallel iterative algorithms carried out on peer-to-peer networks. The properties of the operators arising in the discretized problem ensure the convergence of the parallel iterative synchronous and asynchronous algorithms. Computational experiments performed on peer-to-peer networks are presented and analyzed.


In this work 168 samples of CWM were prepared from 14 kinds of Chinese coals and 12 dispersants, and the apparent viscosities of these CWM were measured by Haake RV 12 model Rheogeniometer at shear rate D=100 s^(-1). Slurries formulated with different dispersants for the same coal or with the same dispersant for different kinds of coal showed obviously different results in the dispersibility and viscosity reduction. The relationship between relative apparent viscosity of CWM and volume fraction of coal in CWM was studied. The result showed that the experiential constant (k) in the Frankel equation was not only dependent on the geometrical distribution of particles but also on the coal properties, and an experimential relationship between constant (k) and coal properties was set up. Furthermore, the effect of interaction of complex coal particles on the apparent viscosity of CWM was discussed.


Increased concentrations of C3dg were demonstrated in plasma from patients with primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), indicating in vivo activation of C3. Rapid spontaneous C3 cleavage by the classical pathway was observed in vitro in serum and in EDTA plasma reconstituted with Ca++ and Mg++, suggesting the presence of complement-activating substances. On incubation with fresh normal serum, purified polyclonal IgM from patients with PBC induced C1 activation, C4 cleavage, and C3dg formation. No C3 cleavage was observed when PBC-IgM was incubated with a C2-deficient serum. We suggest that the complement activation in vivo in PBC, which occurs predominantly by the classical pathway and is characterized by increased concentrations of C1 activation complexes, decreased C4 concentrations, and hypercatabolism of C3, is attributable to an abnormal IgM population.


MDM2 amplification represents the leading oncogenic pathway and diagnostic hallmark of liposarcoma, whose assessment is based on Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (FISH) analysis. Despite its diagnostic relevance, no univocal interpretation criteria regarding FISH assessments of MDM2 amplification have been established so far, leading to several different approaches and potential diagnostic misinterpretations. This study aims to address the most common issues and proposes troubleshooting guidelines for MDM2 amplification assessments by FISH. We retrospectively retrieved 51 liposarcomas, 25 Lipomas, 5 Spindle Cell Lipoma/Pleomorphic Lipomas, and 2 Atypical Spindle Cell Lipomatous Tumors and the corresponding MDM2 FISH analysis. We observed MDM2 amplification in liposarcomas cases only (43 out of 51 cases) and identified three MDM2-amplified patterns (scattered (50% of cases), clustered (14% of cases), and mixed (36% of cases)) and two nonamplified patterns (low number of signals (82% of cases) and polysomic (18% of cases)). Based on these data and published evidence in the literature, we propose a set of criteria to guide MDM2 amplification analysis in liposarcoma. Kindled by the compelling importance of MDM2 assessments to improve diagnostic and therapeutic liposarcoma management, these suggestions could represent the first step to develop a univocal interpretation model and consensus guidelines.


The underrepresentation of girls and students of color in STEM fields, particularly in science, is an ongoing issue that is very well documented. There is a limited amount of research that provides insight on experiences of girls, especially girls of color, who have been exposed to authentic science experiences. This article interrogates the effects of experiential learning on students' science identity and interest in pursuing a career in STEM, specifically for girls of color. This study provides insight into girls of color experience of authentic science internships where they followed a traditional working scientist schedule, the use of, or referencing of specific science knowledge, and use of traditional science lab equipment. Through this study researchers found that after participating in the authentic science internship, students became more confident to pursue careers in STEM-related fields and envisioned the field of science and STEM-related fields as approachable and accessible.