A Review of:
Zhang, Li. "Citation Analysis for Collection Development: A Study of International Relations Journal Literature." Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services 31.3-4 (2007): 195-207.

Objective – To determine primary type, format, language and subject category of research materials used by U.S. scholars of international relations. Also, to investigate whether research method, qualitative or quantitative, can be correlated with the type and age of sources that scholars use.

Design – Citation analysis.

Setting – Research articles published in three journals on international relations with high impact factors: International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, and World Politics.

Subjects – A random sample of cited references taken from the 410 full-length research articles published in these journals from 2000 to2005. Cited references of articles written by authors of foreign institutions (i.e., non-American institutions), as well as cited references of editorial and research notes, comments, responses, and review essays were excluded.

Methods – Cited references were exported from ISI's Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) to MS Excel spreadsheets for analysis. Data was verified against original reference lists. Citations were numbered and identified by source format, place of publication (foreign or domestic), age, and language used, if other than English. The author used a random number generator to select a random sample of 651 from a total of 29,862 citations. Citations were randomly drawn from each journal according to the proportion of the journals' citations to the total. These citations were analyzed by material type and language.

The author also used the Library of Congress Classification Outline to identify the subject category of each book and journal citation in the sample.

A separate sampling method was used to investigate if there is a relationship between research methodology and citation behaviour. Each of the original 410 articles was categorized according to research method: quantitative, qualitative or a combination of the two. Two articles representing qualitative research and two representing quantitative research were randomly selected from each of the three journals for each of the six years. Subsequently, five citations from each of the resulting pool of 72 articles were randomly selected to create a sample of 360 citations. These citations were analyzed by material type and age of source.

Main Results – Analysis of the citation data showed that books (including monographs, edited books, book chapters and dictionaries) made up 48.2% of the total citations; journals (including scholarly and non-scholarly titles) made up 38.4% of the citations; and government publications made up 4.5% of the citations. Electronic resources, which primarily refer to Web sites and digital collections in this study, represented 1.7% of the citations. Other sources of citations included magazines (1.1%), newspapers (1.1%), working papers (1.1%), theses (0.9%), conference papers not yet published as articles (0.6%), and a miscellaneous category, which included items such as committee minutes, radio broadcasts, unpublished materials and personal communications (2.5%).

The average age of book citations was 14.3 years and the median age was 8 years. Foreign language citations represented 3.7% of the 651 total citations. The top ranked foreign languages were German (7), French (5), Russian (4), Spanish (3), Korean (2) and Swedish (number not given

Subject analysis of the citations revealed that 38% of all citations were from international relations and two related disciplines, political science, political theory, and public administration. Subject areas outside international relations included social sciences (23.4% - including economics, commerce, industries and finance), history (16.3%), sociology (6.2%), and law (5.9%). Citations from philosophy, psychology, military science and general works together made up 7.3% of the total citations. Citations from science, linguistics, literature, geography and medicine made up less than 2% of the total.

Authors of qualitative research articles were more likely to cite books (56.7%) than journals (29.4%) while authors of quantitative research articles were more likely to cite journals (58.3%) than books (28.9%). Authors of qualitative research articles were also more likely to cite government publications and electronic resources than those of quantitative articles. However, authors of quantitative research articles were more likely to cite other materials, such as dissertations, conference papers, working papers and unpublished materials.

The age of cited materials for both qualitative and quantitative research articles is similar. Citations to recent materials up to 5 years old were most frequent, followed by materials 6 to10 years old, materials 11 to15 years old, and those 26 or more years old. The least frequently cited materials were 16 to 20 and 21 to25 years old.

Conclusion – Scholars in international relations primarily cite books, followed by journals and government publications. Citations to electronic resources such as Web sites and digital collections, and to other materials are far less common. Scholars primarily cite English-language materials on international relations and related subjects. Authors of qualitative research articles are more likely to cite books than journals, while authors of quantitative research articles are more likely to cite journals than books. Recent materials are more frequently cited than older materials, though materials that are more than 26 years old are still being cited regularly.


This paper presents a design principle that helps guide placement of functions among the modules of a distributed computer system. The principle, called the end-to-end argument, suggests that functions placed at low levels of a system may be redundant or of little value when compared with the cost of providing them at that low level. Examples discussed in the paper include bit error recovery, security using encryption, duplicate message suppression, recovery from system crashes, and delivery acknowledgement. Low level mechanisms to support these functions are justified only as performance enhancements.


This paper reports on an experimental investigation of the detection of BPSK and QPSK direct sequence (DS) spread spectrum signals above and below the noise floor using nonlinear carrier detection methods. These processes produce carrier harmonics 2f/sub 0/ and 4f/sub 0/ for BPSK and QPSK signals respectively. The signal-to-noise ratio of these harmonics depends on the input signal signal-to-noise ratio, SNR (chip symbol energy/noise power density), normalized input bandwidth, /spl eta/(input filter bandwidth/chip rate) and interceptor's process gain, R/B (chip rate/detection bandwidth). Measurements agree well with analytic expressions. At low input SNR, the signal-to-noise ratio of the carrier harmonics is maximized for /spl eta/=1.0 and varies as SNR/sup 2/ for BPSK signals and in the range of SNR/sup 3/ to SNR/sup 4/ for QPSK signals (the theoretical limit /spl prop/SNR/sup 4/ is only sometimes reached in practice.) QPSK signals generated from typical commercial quadrature modulators may also be detected at If/sub 0/ from mixer LO leak-through and at 2f/sub 0/ from I/Q channel imbalance. For LPI use of QPSK DS signals, the LO leak-through must be carefully suppressed to <-55 dB and the two channels balanced within 0.2 dB. For a typical R/B=60 dB (10 MHz chip rate detected in a 10 Hz detection bandwidth), the threshold of detection is an SNR of -23 dB for BPSK signals and -8 dB for QPSK signals.


This article engages with the current internationalist debate about the 'linkage' or the proper relationship of trade and human rights law. The debate, as played out in activist commentary, scholarly journals and the reports of international institutions, is largely concerned with the substantive obligations or normative commitments involved in the two fields. This article seeks to address instead the forms of law (the patterns of relations and subject positions) that transmit, frame or accompany these obligations and commitments. It suggests that focusing on this question of the forms of law is helpful, perhaps even necessary, in developing an understanding of the political effects of appealing to democratic participation as a counter to the excesses of economic globalization. The particular focus of the article is on WTO agreements that pursue the goal of regulatory harmonization as a means of achieving greater market access and economic integration. It explores the relationship between the form of law mandated by these harmonization agreements (the form of sacrifice), and the form of law envisaged in an appeal to democratic political participation (the form of abandonment).


In the western part of Julian Alps in many places small erosion remains of Late Cretaceous pelagic, light grey and reddish limestones and marls (scaglia) are preserved. These limestones and marls that contain very numerous globotruncanas overlie southwest of Bovec after a hiatus the Lower Jurassic Pliensbachian oolitic and biospariotic limestone. Between the two limestones appears an angular disconformity. Total thickness of the Upper Cretaceous limestone and marl is 8.80 m. The lower 6.20 m of the column were sampled in detail. In the scarcely 6.20 m thick section three globotruncana zones were established: Helvetotruncana helvetica (3-5 cm), Dicarinella concavata (120 cm) and Dicarinella asymetrica (490 cm). The H. helvetica zone is not developed in its entire thickness owing to the hiatus below. Deposition of the Late Cretaceous pelagic limestones started in Turonian and lasted into Campanian. The considered beds in Bovec basin are overlain by Campanian-Maastrichtian flysch beds. GEOLOGIJA 47/2, 151–177, Ljubljana 2004


Among the therapeutic alternatives available for the treatment of lower pole renal calculi are extracorporeal lithotripsy, percutaneous nephrolithotomy and retrograde intrarenal surgery. There is controversy about which of these techniques is more effective, especially for stones smaller than 20 mm. Searching in Epistemonikos database, which is maintained by screening 30 databases, we identified four systematic reviews including 11 pertinent randomized controlled trials overall. We combined the evidence and generated a summary of findings following the GRADE approach. We concluded percutaneous nephrolithotomy probably increases success rate, but it is not clear if it decreases the need of retreatment compared to extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy. In comparison to retrograde intrarenal surgery, it may increase success rate, but it is not clear if it decreases the need of retreatment. Retrograde intrarenal surgery may increase success rate, and probably decreases need of retreatment compared to extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy.


Trypanosomosis which is an arthropod borne disease had become the menace to the Indian farmers because of its significant impact on the productive status of the animals. Moreover, the zoonotic effect of this disease has also proved now. Research on newer techniques for the diagnosis of this important disease has been carried out for the past hundred years, and still this search is going on for finding a more sensitive and specific test. The parasitological examination which is used for the diagnosis at the field level misses about 80% of positive cases. Keeping in view the shortcomings of the conventional diagnostic methods we carried out the present investigation for the detection of active infection of Trypanosoma evansi by monoclonal antibody based latex agglutination test (MAb-LAT). About 88 blood samples collected from cattle of the karnal district of Haryana were screened initially by Wet Blood Film (WBF) immediately after collection and their corresponding serum samples were subjected to latex agglutination test. WBF could detect the presence of motile trypanosomes only in three samples (3.41%) where as MAb-LAT detected 53 samples (60.23%) positive for the circulating antigens of Trypanosoma evansi. Study found that MAb-LAT is much sensitive than the conventional parasitological examination. Moreover, MAb-LAT is simple to perform, rapid, and cost-effective and can be used in field-level.


The effect of various agents which are known to increase the differentiation of Friend erythroleukemia cells was investigated in cultures of mouse bone marrow cells. N,N-dimethylacetamide (5 and 15 mM) and acetamide (60 mM) significantly increased the number of erythroid colonies observed. Tetramethylurea, dimethylformamide, pyridine N-oxide, and butyric acid were ineffective. Dimethylsulfoxide at a concentration of 1% significantly increased colony number in cultures of marrow cells obtained from male mice, but had no effect in cultures of female bone marrow cells.


In a linear tomosynthesis scanner designed for imaging histologic samples of several centimeters size at 10 µm resolution, the mechanical instability of the scanning stage (±10 µm) exceeded the resolution of the image system, making it necessary to determine the trajectory of the stage for each scan to avoid blurring and artifacts in the images that would arise from the errors in the geometric information used in 3D reconstruction. We present a method for online calibration by attaching a layer of randomly dispersed micro glass beads or calcium particles to the bottom of the sample stage. The method was based on a parametric representation of the rigid body motion of the sample stage-marker layer assembly. The marker layer was easy to produce and proven effective in the calibration procedure.


The cross-section of average annual returns on German common stock in the period of 1881-1913 exhibits several of the patterns that have been observed in more recent U.S. data. Market beta is hardly important, and its explanatory power is swamped by size and the ratio of book value to market value. A book-to-market risk measure (covariance with a portfolio long in high book-to-market firms and short in low book-to-market firms) has no effect on the explanatory power of the book-to-market characteristic. But the size effect appears to be caused by selection bias in the sample. And the book-to-market effect is opposite that of the recent U.S. experience (and, hence, can certainly not be attributed to selection bias). Finally, a momentum portfolio constructed on the basis of the error of the basic 3-characteristic model (market beta, size and book-to-market) does not generate significant returns. These findings highlight the variability in the power of certain characteristics in explaining the cross section of average returns.


ABSTRACT El Habti, M.Y.; Zayoun, A.; Zahra, S.F.; Raissouni, A., and El Arrim, A., 2022. Shoreline change analysis along the Tahaddart Coast (NW Morocco): A remote sensing and statistics-based approach. Journal of Coastal Research, 38(6), 1116–1127. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. The coastal areas are increasingly becoming vulnerable because of natural processes, such as climate change and sea-level change, or man-made effects. In Morocco, these areas are exposed to increasing risks and thus undergoing significant changes characterized by erosion or accretion of the shorelines. The following research outlines the changes for a shoreline length of approximately 17 km on the Tahaddart coast (NW of Morocco), based on an analysis of different shoreline rates. The latter was estimated by automatic analytical techniques using datasets of short and long-term aerial photos and satellite images (between 1972 and 2019) over 47 years. Remote sensing tools and GIS, with its extension digital shoreline analysis system, were used jointly for the evaluation of the shoreline changes during the period of the study. The approaches used in this research to assess the Tahaddart coast changes are the net shoreline movement, endpoint rate, linear regression rate, and weighted linear regression rate. These net rate changes of coastline have been calculated, also on three intervals of times (1972–81, 1981–97, 1997–2019). To facilitate the calculations, this study area was divided into four sectors to analyze Haouara Beach, the Tahaddart littoral spit, the Breich Beach, and the Oued Ghrifa estuary. The result shows that over a period of 47 years (1972 and 2019), more than 87% of the coast was eroded, whereas the remaining 13% endured accretion. This study emphasizes the challenges faced in representing coastline changes and reveals the intensity of the shoreline changes along the Tahaddart coast, which implies the setup and implementation of integrated management, effective environmental protection, and sustainable utilization of coastlines.


Recently, not only the penetration level of distributed generation units (DG units) has been rapidly increasing but also the connection of microgrids as a developing technology to the existing distribution networks has attracted much attention. This may raise issues such as bidirectional power flow, excessive shortcircuit level, reclosing, and protective coordination that need attention. Superconducting fault current limiters are known as one of the best countermeasures to solve the problems related to the excessive short-circuit level in DG networks and microgrids. Different amounts of fault current may flow in such grids as the grid topology changes. Not only the fault current must be limited in such networks but also it should be controlled in order to be maintained in an appropriate range. This will ensure suitable coordination of the protective devices and, subsequently, safe operation of the grid. We introduce a hybrid superconducting fault current controller (hybrid SFCC) in this paper, which is suitable for DG networks and microgrids, without any dependence on grid monitoring technology. Finally, a case study on a microgrid containing the hybrid SFCC has been conducted to investigate the device performance.


In this thesis the basic properties of the latticeBoltzmann method (LBM) are introduced. Also, a particle model used in combination with LBM is presented, and the combined model is then applied to ink propagation in samples of paper. Simulation geometries were acquired with two different methods, namely confocal microscopy and X-ray tomography. The effect of simulation parameters and paper properties on ink propagation was considered. Promising results were acquired with both image acquiring techniques, but for a better consistency between simulations and experiments the methods should be combined so as to get images that include the full thickness of the sample together with the ink distribution. Adjustment of simulation parameters in confocal microscopy geometries showed that diffusion coefficient was the main parameter that explained the form of the ink distribution curves. This suggests an intuitively expected result: ink tends to move with the major flow channels unless diffusion is strong enough to separate enough of ink particles from the flow. Simulations done in samples of varying sizing gave incoherent results. One simulation series was in agreement with experimental results, while another was not. Possible explanations to this dilemma includes effects of paper heterogeneity on the results, differencies in paper properties in macroscopically different parts of the paper, and chemical effects not taken into consideration in the model. We can conclude however that simulations with the methods applied here qualitatively capture the main features of the settling in paper. In part this conclusion is based in the fact that the experimentally observed division into two separate components in the distribution of attached ink pigments was also realised in the simulations.


The research intended to identify current trends in research on e-books. Specifically it aimed to know the facets of e-books attended to by the research published during 2016. It also intended to review significant results and their supportive or contradictory nature with reference to each other. For this review research literature on e-books was searched from LISA, Emerald, Ebsco, Google Scholar and other databases using the statement 'e-books OR ebooks'. The query was restricted to journal articles published in English language during January to December 2016. The review finds that the focus of current research on e-books is clearly on usage of e-books. Themes such as e-book collection development and management; search and discovery are also paid more attention to. Usage of e-books by children is emerging as a prominent area of e-book research. Designing of e-books and e-book reading devices are also topics of interest to e-book researchers. Many non-LIS disciplines and professions have interest in researching e-books.


Thirty eight newly weaned hinds were randomly allocated to one of two equal groups. One group received ivermectin, the other, oxfendazole at dose rates of 0.2 mg/kg and 4.5 mg/kg, respectively. All deer were drenched four times and were grazed on pasture. Both anthelmintics reduced D. viviparus faecal larval counts to low levels 20 days after dosing, but the mean larval output and the proportion of deer shedding D. viviparus larvae at 27 and 33 days after treatment, were significantly lower in the ivermectin treated group. There was no significant difference in weight gain between the two groups throughout the trial. This study suggests that ivermectin prevents reinfection with D. viviparus for approximately 14 days longer than oxfendazole.


Problems of alcohol and drug dependence are costly to society in terms of lost productivity, social disorder, and avoidable health care utilization. The dollar costs of alcohol and drug use run into billions of dollars, and from one-eighth to one-sixth of all deaths can be traced to this source. However, the efficacy of treatment for addiction is often questioned. A rationale for reasonable expectations of addiction treatments is offered, from which are derived three outcome criteria for judging the effectiveness of treatments: reduction in substance use; improvement in personal health and social function; and reduction in public health and safety risks. Based on these criteria, treatment was shown to be effective, especially when compared with alternatives like no treatment or incarceration. These evaluations, which were conducted in a scientific manner, support the continued value of public spending for carefully monitored treatment of addiction.


Purpose  – Investigate the Joint Venture International performance determinants' relevance at each point of their life cycle. Design/methodology/approach  – Determinants already mapped in the literature were identified and grouped into three dimensions: internal, industrial and institutional. A questionnaire was developed and sent to academics and managers, which requested them to order the dimensions and determinants presented. Data was analyzed using Multi-Attribution Global Quality Inference (MAGIQ). Findings - Results show that the dimensions' relevance varies according to the organization's stage in its life cycle. The internal dimension has more influence on performance during the startup period than the industrial and institutional dimensions, but this position is reversed when the IJV becomes mature. Research limitations/implications (if applicable) – This study is based on specialists' perceptions about IJV's, so could be a gap between this perception and the facts that the organizational indicators can present. Practical implications – Understanding IJV's performance determinants' relevance at each point of their life cycle can help manage these variables to create more efficient actions in accordance to the company's needs. Originality/value (mandatory) – this study frames performance determinants in the three proposed dimensions within strategic administration theories, ranks them and uses MAGIQ for data analysis.


According to previous theoretical work, the binary oxide CuO can become a room-temperature multiferroic via tuning of the superexchange interactions by application of pressure. Thus far, however, there has been no experimental evidence for the predicted room-temperature multiferroicity. Here, we show by neutron diffraction that the multiferroic phase in CuO reaches 295 K with the application of 18.5 GPa pressure. We also develop a spin Hamiltonian based on density functional theory and employing superexchange theory for the magnetic interactions, which can reproduce the experimental results. The present Letter provides a stimulus to develop room-temperature multiferroic materials by alternative methods based on existing low temperature compounds, such as epitaxial strain, for tunable multifunctional devices and memory applications.


The blood-brain barrier permeation has been investigated by using a topological substructural molecular design approach (TOPS-MODE). A linear regression model was developed to predict the in vivo blood-brain partitioning coefficient on a data set of 119 compounds, treated as the logarithm of the blood-brain concentration ratio. The final model explained the 70% of the variance and it was validated through the use of an external validation set (33 compounds of the 119, MAE = 0.33), a leave-one-out crossvalidation (q(2) = 0.65, S(press) = 0.43), fivefold full crossvalidation (removing 28 compounds in each cycle, MAE = 33, RMSE = 0.43) and the prediction of +/- values for an external test set (85.7% of good prediction). This methodology evidenced that the hydrophobicity increase the blood-brain barrier permeation, while the polar surface and its interaction with the atomic mass of compounds decrease it; suggesting the capacity of the TOPS-MODE descriptors to estimate brain penetration potential of new drug candidates. Finally, by the present approach, positive and negative substructural contributions to the brain permeation were identified, and their possibilities in the lead generation and optimization processes were evaluated.


Norplant®, as a first-generation levonorgestrel implant and containing six capsules, has been shown to be effective as long-term contraception since more than 25 years ago. In the process, then the number of implants was reduced to two rods called Norplant-2®, which is then updated into Jadena® (in Indonesia) or Jadelle® (in America). As a country with the largest implant acceptors in the world, Indonesia has developed its own implant method consisting of two rods called Indoplant®. Currently being developed implant that consists of single rod called Monoplant®. Monoplant® is expected to be the best option because it only consists of a single rod implant that is easy to insertion and remove, effective and safe for at least three years.


A mobile station (MS) location estimation and tracking approach based on the recursive filtering of quantized time-of-arrival (TOA) measurements is presented in this paper. Two techniques for estimating random variables from quantized measurements are investigated first. The TOA measurements may present biases which are unobservable and can determine the location filter to obtain a biased estimate while the location error covariance will be underestimated. The proposed location filter, GF-SKF, combines a Schmidt-Kalman (1960) filter (SKF) with the Curry's (1970) "Gaussian fit" (CF) scheme. The measurement biases are considered in the SKF model only through the effect of their covariances on the location error covariance. The GF scheme is meant to accommodate the quantized measurements in the filter model. A measurement noise covariance estimation method is described and a simple technique for alleviating the influence of the non-line of sight (NLOS) range errors over the state estimate is specified. Simulations with GF-SKF show a reasonable accuracy which depends on the quantization step.


Summary Milk powders were subjected during manufacture to the following treatments: low-, medium- or high-heat, indirect or direct UHT preheat, or no preheat. The Ca2+ activity–pH profiles of reconstituted milks (9% total solids, TS) in the pH range 6·06–6·98 and reconstituted concentrated milks (19·6% TS) and recombined concentrated milks (26% TS, 18% SNF, 8% fat) in the pH range 6·27–6·69 were determined. Statistical analysis of the results using a (– In Ca2+ activity) transformation was used to quantify the effects of pH, preheat treatment and fat incorporation on Ca2+ activity. pH had a dominant effect on Ca2+ activity and the effects of preheat treatment and fat incorporation were small in comparison. Depending on the batch of milk used for preparation of powders, pH accounted for 98·8–98·9%, 96·4–96·7% and 93·7–97·3% of the total variation in Ca2+ activity in reconstituted milks, reconstituted concentrated milks and recombined concentrated milks. The corresponding contributions of preheat treatment to variation in Ca2+ activity were 0·26–0·47%, 0·34–1·67% and 0·24–0·40%. The addition of fat to reconstituted concentrated milk to yield recombined concentrated milk with the same SNF: water ratio resulted in 0·03–3·71 % variation in Ca2+ activity. The results suggested that differences in heat stability among powders subject to different preheat treatments are not likely to be linked to Ca2+ activity.


OBJECTIVE: To study the intrapartum complications of macrosomic fetus.
DESIGN: Descriptive study.
SETTING: Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Jinnah Medical & Dental College and
Hospital Karachi, Pakistan from April 2003 to December 2004.
METHODS: One hundred patients were selected for the study. Age, parity, past obstetric performance
and estimated fetal weight by ultrasound were noted. Gestational age at delivery was
calculated by date of last menstrual period as well as by early scan if available.
RESULTS: Out of 100 patients, 30 cases with intrapartum complications fulfilled the criteria of
macrosomia. Among them, 18 had perineal trauma and postpartum haemorrhage, 3 had shoulder
dystocia and 9 patients delivered by caesarean section.
CONCLUSION: Macrosomic pregnancy is associated with increased incidence of operative
vaginal delivery, postpartum haemorrhage and shoulder dystocia. Prevention requires early detection
of risk factor and planning for safe delivery.


The electrochemical properties of two fluorinated substrates, namely 1H-3-methyl-4-ethoxycarbonyl-5-(4-fluorobenzylidenehydrazino)-pyrazole (Ia) and 1H-3-methyl-4-ethoxycarbonyl-5-(2-fluoro-benzylidenehydrazino)-pyrazole (Ib) respectively have been investigated in the room temperature ionic liquid (RTIL) 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate on a platinum electrode. The voltammetric investigation of the above compounds in the mentioned RTIL shows mainly two irreversible anodic peaks on a wide range of scan rates. Mechanistic studies involving the estimation of the diffusion coefficient, number of transferred electrons in the rate-determining step as well as charge transfer coefficients show that the main aspects of the anodic oxidation of the given substrates follows an EC mechanism which is similar to that observed in molecular solvents leading to the assumption that oxidative ring closure reactions may be conducted in RTILs as well, providing a starting point in finding a new more sustainable method of obtaining the latter compound. The aim of the present work is to extend the current findings gathered previously in order to find a more environmentally friendly and sustainable way of obtaining various pyrazolotriazoles.


Importance
There are stark disparities in cervical cancer burden in the United States, notably by race and ethnicity and geography. Late-stage diagnosis is an indicator of inadequate access to and utilization of screening.

Objective
To identify geospatial clusters of late-stage cervical cancer at time of diagnosis in Texas.

Design, Setting, and Participants
This population-based cross-sectional study used incident cervical cancer data from the Texas Cancer Registry from 2014 to 2018 of female patients aged 18 years or older. Late-stage cervical cancer cases were geocoded at the census tract level (n = 5265) using their residential coordinates (latitude and longitude) at the time of diagnosis. Statistical analysis was performed from April to September 2023.

Exposures
Census tract of residence at diagnosis.

Main Outcome and Measures
Late-stage cervical cancer diagnosis (ie, cases classified by the National Cancer Institute Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results summary stages 2 to 4 [regional spread] or 7 [distant metastasis]). A Poisson probability-based model of the SaTScan purely spatial scan statistics was applied at the census tract-level to identify geographic clusters of higher (hot spots) or lower (cold spots) proportions than expected of late-stage cervical cancer diagnosis and adjusted for age.

Results
Among a total of 6484 female patients with incident cervical cancer cases (mean [SD] age, 48.7 [14.7] years), 2300 (35.5%) were Hispanic, 798 (12.3%) were non-Hispanic Black, 3090 (47.6%) were non-Hispanic White, and 296 (4.6%) were other race or ethnicity. Of the 6484 patients, 2892 with late-stage diagnosis (mean [SD] age, 51.8 [14.4] years were analyzed. Among patients with late-stage diagnosis, 1069 (37.0%) were Hispanic, 417 (14.4%) were non-Hispanic Black, 1307 (45.2%) were non-Hispanic White, and 99 (3.4%) were other race or ethnicity. SaTScan spatial analysis identified 7 statistically significant clusters of late-stage cervical cancer diagnosis in Texas, of which 4 were hot spots and 3 were cold spots. Hot spots included 1128 census tracts, predominantly in the South Texas Plains, Gulf Coast, and Prairies and Lakes (North Texas) regions. Of the 2892 patients with late-stage cervical cancer, 880 (30.4%) were observed within hot spots. Census tract-level comparison of characteristics of clusters suggested that hot spots differed significantly from cold spots and the rest of Texas by proportions of racial and ethnic groups, non-US born persons, and socioeconomic status.

Conclusions and Relevance
In this cross-sectional study examining geospatial clusters of late-stage cervical cancer diagnosis, place-based disparities were found in late-stage cervical cancer diagnosis in Texas. These findings suggest that these communities may benefit from aggressive cervical cancer interventions.


By using the time-resolved small-angle light scattering (TRSALS) technique, we present the real-time measurement of the physical gelation process for a crystalline polymer. To investigate the growth kinetics, a complete picture of the gel structural formation should be differentiated into the nucleation and growth of the microgels, the diffusive aggregation of the microgels, the percolation in cluster−cluster aggregation process, and the late-stage coarsening by the Ostwald ripening process. We propose some phenomenological functions to describe the hierarchical structure of the nucleation gels. The modeling of the late-stage gel structure could be built upon the following three relevant categories:  the structure of the primary particle, the nonfractal local structure of a random packing of the nearest neighbors, and the fractal correlations between the particles constituting the aggregates. The model is able to reproduce the overall behavior of Hv and Vv scattering intensity distributions over the exper...


Forecasters who make predictions without regard to past experience have no benchmarks to distinguish between what is radically different about their expectations and what experience has already taught us. Although the future will never replicate the past, analysis of long historical periods is the basic tool for forecasters. In this article, comparison of a set of major U.S. macroeconomic variables and capital market returns over a sequence of 20-year periods (beginning with 1873-1893) highlights that inflation is critical. Real, inflation-adjusted data often bear only a vague resemblance to the nominal data from which they were derived.


This article discusses our measurement of the 22P1/2-22S1/2 (lowest excited state to ground state) energy splitting in lithiumlike uranium, which has large quantum electrodynamic corrections. The reasons for using lithiumlike uranium are discussed. Our result, 280.59 ± 0.10 eV, is a benchmark test for current theory.


One of the main obstacles of protein hydrolysate application in food is bitterness and fishy off-flavor. Pretreatment of the raw materials prior to hydrolysate production is one way of preventing the development of this undesirable flavor. In this study, silver catfish which was used as the raw material was soaked in lime or tamarind juice prior to hydrolysis process to produce hydrolysate with reduce bitterness and fishy off-flavor. Initially, the fish flesh was pre-treated by soaking in either water, lime juice (Citrus aurantifolia) or tamarind juice (Tamarindus indica). After the pre-treatment, the homogenised flesh was hydrolysed in Flavourzyme 500L at pH 7, 50°C and enzyme substrate ratio (ES) of 2% for 120 minutes to produce control (CH), lime (LIH) and tamarind (TAH) hydrolysates after soaking in water, lime juice and tamarind juice, respectively. The physicochemical and sensory properties of the hydrolysates were compared. Soaking in tamarind juice resulted in significantly (p<0.05) higher degree of hydrolysis (84.2% DH) than soaking in lime juice with no significant difference (p>0.05) in yield. TAH was significantly (p<0.05) darker than others and characterised by 96.16% nitrogen solubility index (NSI), 5.44% moisture and 68.28% protein content. Sensory analysis by Quantitative Descriptive Analysis (QDA) showed that TAH had fishy flavor, fishy odor, umami and bitterness intensity ranking between 'weak' and 'moderate' and sweetness between 'moderate' and 'strong'. Overall, soaking in tamarind juice is an effective pre-treatment method to produce silver catfish hydrolysate with low intensity of fishy flavor and odor.


One-dimensional Pd nanowires (PdNWs) and Ag doped g-C3N4 nanosheets (Ag-g-C3N4 NSs) were prepared and applied to construct a simple "on–off–on" ECL sensor for glucose detection. Compared to some complex and time-consuming synthetic procedures, in this work, Ag-g-C3N4 NSs were prepared via one step thermal polymerization of melamine and AgNO3 without any handling to get the layered structure. PdNW-functionalized Ag-g-C3N4 NSs were used as luminophores, which displayed prominent ECL performance and superior efficient electron transport capacity. Combining PdNW-functionalized Ag-g-C3N4 NSs with the competitive binding reaction of the glucose–ConA–dextran system, the prepared "on–off–on" sensor showed high sensitivity and wide linearity for glucose detection. The linear range was 1.0 × 10−11 M to 1.67 × 10−6 M and the detection limit was 3.0 × 10−12 M (S/N = 3).


The Oxymizer pendant consists of a 40 ml pendulating reservoir bag which is connected to the prongs by two tubes. Both reservoir and tubes serve as oxygen reservoirs. We wanted to examine if it was possible to save oxygen by changing from the usual nasal cannula to Oxymizer pendant. 11 patients with hypoxaemia due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were examined. We were able to reduce the oxygen requirement by approximately 65% without significant changes in SaO2. All 11 patients evaluated the Oxymizer pendant to be more comfortable than the usual nasal cannula.


A luminescent three-dimensional coordination polymer (CP) of [CdII(pmd){AgI(CN)2}2] (1; pmd = pyrimidine) comprising two different coordination modes of Ag+ ions was synthesised herein. 1 exhibited thermochromic luminescence, accompanied by positive thermal elongation of the Ag⋯Ag distance. Moreover, 1 showed a bright phosphorescence with the highest photoluminescence quantum yield (Φem), approximately 60% at room temperature, among previously reported phosphorescent Ag-based CPs or metal-organic frameworks.


The food of 177 mallard dnas platyrhynchoa platyrliyncha L. collected from coastal ancl estuarine areas during t.he shooting seasons of 1957-60 is clescribetl. This sanrplo is subdivided into 1 15 birch obtained froin various localities scatteretl around the coast, antl sixty-two birds collected from one locality, the Greenhorough and Milfordhope Islands in the River Medway, Kent.

From observations and viscera. analyses it was apparent that the coastal marshes aro used as roosting and to a lesser extent, as feeding grouncln. Much of the food of the hirtls shot over coastal marshas had been obtained from nesrhy hrackish-watnr was, antl at tho beginning of the season from inland stubble-fields.

Plant seeds formed the main bulk of the food antl occurred more frequently than any other item.

Mallard feeding in saltmarshes were found to be taking mainly the seeds of Salicornin spp., Atriples spp., antl Suneda rncrritima. The most frequently taken animal materials were the mollusc Snhannecr uvne antl tlie crustaceans Cnrcircts innrnrt, Crnngov wrlgaris and Corophium spp.

In brackish-water areas, xnallarct were fonnr to the feeding mainly on the seeds of Scirpw maritimw, S . tahernaemonnni, Poanrogeon, lectinahis, Riippin spp. and Cerabphylluni subniersum. Tho nio11usr Hdrohia jenkin.oi and the crustacean Palaemonetes vnriana were the niost frequently nrrurring animal foods. At the heginning of the shooting season anti mainly in Septenihei, barley (Hordeurn spp.) was eaten ancl often in conxiderahle quantities.

It was fonnd that the sixty-two hirds collertetl from the m e loralitp of the Metlway islands had been feeding on similar speries to tllose hirds rollerted fivnn a numher of different localities.

The differences in diet from year to year and as the season progressed a described A general survey of the literaturr is given and the impnrtance of Scirpus maritimus emphasized.

It. is suggested that mallartl feeding ill thr intertitlal muds are taking hivalves (e.g. Macoma balthica and Scrohiculnrin plana) and Crustarea (e.g. Corophiwrn dctfaov). Phew are a number of saltniaii plant species (e . g. Sprrrtinn toulnaradii agg., Hrrineionr prtulacoidrs) which are not eatan to any great extent, even though tliey may be rommoii constitucmts of the marsh. There in probably littie liinitation in rhoire of food itenis (lue to hardness, though there may be Home limitation by the size and berausr of the rnethod of feeding, by the mobility of the food speries.

The pomihle management, of saltmarsh and twarkish-water areas to inrretwe the food supply is discussed.


The combination of skin ablation and 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) ointment was previously tried in the treatment of vitiligo, and good results were specifically reported in glabrous skin without follicular melanocyte reservoirs. Methods. This study was carried out on the skins of seven guinea pigs: three were treated with mechanical dermabrasion plus topical 5-FU in an achromic area contiguous to a pigmented area; two were treated by only dermabrasion in a similar area; and two were treated by topical 5-FU alone. Clinical, histological, and ultrastructural studies were performed over two months. Results. In guinea pigs treated with dermabrasion plus 5-FU, we observed firstly a delay of wound healing with an obvious inflammatory reaction, and, after two months, evident pigment spread from the pigmented into the achromic area. After six months, we noticed black hair regrowing in the achromic area. Pigment spread was not seen in the guinea pigs skin treated by either dermabrasion or topical 5-FU. We suggest that the inflammatory mediators and enzymes (metalloproteinases), which are locally released over a long time, could stimulate and facilitate melanocyte proliferation and migration through the enlarged intercellular spaces of the epidermis. This sequence of events may be applied to vitiligo patients treated with 5-FU on ablated lesions.


The Infrared Spectrograph on the Spitzer Space Telescope observed 184 carbon stars in the Magellanic Clouds. This sample reveals that the dust-production rate (DPR) from carbon stars generally increases with the pulsation period of the star. The composition of the dust grains follows two condensation sequences, with more SiC condensing before amorphous carbon in metal-rich stars, and the order reversed in metal-poor stars. MgS dust condenses in optically thicker dust shells, and its condensation is delayed in more metal-poor stars. Metal-poor carbon stars also tend to have stronger absorption from C2H2 at 7.5 μm. The relation between DPR and pulsation period shows significant apparent scatter, which results from the initial mass of the star, with more massive stars occupying a sequence parallel to lower-mass stars, but shifted to longer periods. Accounting for differences in the mass distribution between the carbon stars observed in the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds reveals a hint of a subtle decrease in the DPR at lower metallicities, but it is not statistically significant. The most deeply embedded carbon stars have lower variability amplitudes and show SiC in absorption. In some cases they have bluer colors at shorter wavelengths, suggesting that the central star is becoming visible. These deeply embedded stars may be evolving off of the asymptotic giant branch and/or they may have non-spherical dust geometries.


Reduction of resist filling time was investigated with the aim of improving UV-nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL) throughput. A novel low volatility, low viscosity resist was developed to enable ink-jetting with minute resist droplets and imprinting under reduced air atmosphere. Direct observation of resist spreading showed that the resist filling process is composed of three steps: A) capillary bridge formation, B) resist spreading, and C) air bubble dissolution. Resist filling time was drastically decreased by changing the atmosphere from helium to a reduced air atmosphere of 0.02MPa. A comparison of 0.7pl and 6pl resist droplets showed that reducing resist droplet size while increasing area density also reduces resist filling time. Improved bubble dissolution speed is thought to result from imprinting under reduced air atmosphere. Moreover, ink-jetting smaller size resist droplets with higher density is thought to have an effect on reducing the time of each of the three steps, particularly bubble dissolution time. Combining dispensing-NIL with imprinting in vacuum is expected to improve UV-NIL throughput.


Summary The concentration of individual resin acids and the equilibrium moisture content at a relative humidity of 100% were studied in brown-rot resistant and susceptible Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) heartwood. About 90% of the resin acids in the heartwood were of the abietane type, abietic acid being the most abundant. The concentration of resin acids was higher in the decay-resistant heartwood than in the decay-susceptible heartwood. Resin acids are presumably in part responsible for the decay resistance of Scots pine heartwood. However, no clear relationship was found between the concentration of resin acids and the equilibrium moisture content. The role of resin acids may also be ascribed to mechanisms other than their hydrophobic properties alone. The reasons for the slight differences in moisture content between the decay classes require further study.


A simple but rapid capillary electrophoresis method was developed for the measurement of nitrite and nitrate in human extracellular fluids and other aqueous solutions. The capabilities of the method were demonstrated by the measurement of endogenous nitrite and nitrate in plasma and serum samples from healthy volunteers, and serum and synovial fluid samples from rheumatoid arthritis patients. Furthermore, this method was used to simultaneously measure nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, reduced (NADH), nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), nitrite, and nitrate, when studying the nitrite reductase activity of xanthine oxidase. The stability of nitrite was also investigated and it was found that when whole blood was spiked with nitrite and then processed, the nitrite was more stable in the plasma than in the serum. Our findings may help to explain the variations in basal nitrite concentrations reported in the literature.


Let $0<s<\infty$. In this study, we introduce the double sequence space $R^{qt}(\mathcal{L}_{s})$ as the domain of four dimensional Riesz mean $R^{qt}$ in the space $\mathcal{L}_{s}$ of absolutely $s$-summable double sequences and establish that the inclusion $R^{qt}(\mathcal{L}_{s})\subset R^{qt}(\mathcal{L}_{r})$ strictly holds with $1<s<r<\infty$. Furthermore, we show that $R^{qt}(\mathcal{L}_{s})$ is a Banach space and a barrelled space for $1\leq s<\infty$ and is not a barrelled space for $0<s<1$. We determine the $\alpha$-, $\gamma$- and $\beta(\vartheta)$-duals of the spaces $\mathcal{L}_{s}$ and $\alpha$ dual of $R^{qt}(\mathcal{L}_{s})$, $(0<s\leq 1)$. Finally, we characterize the classes $(\mathcal{L}_{s}:\mathcal{M}_{u})$, $(\mathcal{L}_{s}:\mathcal{C}_{bp})$, $(R^{qt}(\mathcal{L}_{s}):\mathcal{M}_{u})$ and $(R^{qt}(\mathcal{L}_{s}):\mathcal{C}_{bp})$ of four dimensional matrices in the cases both $0<s<1$ and $1\leq s<\infty$ together with corollaries some of them give the necessary and sufficient conditions on a four dimensional matrix in order to transform a Riesz double sequence space into another Riesz double sequence space.


The legume-rhizobia relationship is known to be a beneficial symbiosis in the direction of agriculture. The present investigation was aimed to isolate and characterize five rhizobia isolates from woody legume tree; Acacia nilotica L. Physiological properties of all five isolated strains were similar. However, on the basis of nitrogen fixation test, only two isolates were symbiotic and the other three were non- symbiotic. Therefore, for phylogenetic analysis, only two isolates were subjected to 16S rRNA gene sequencing for strains. Hence, the DNA was isolated from the well grown bacterial cultures. Amplified DNA was sequenced for 16S rRNA. The phylogenetic tree was constructed and bacterial isolates were identified as rhizobia. Isolate first showed strong homology with Mesorhizobium loti and isolate second showed intermediate with Rhizobium leguminosarum and Rhizobium hainanense . For the confirmation of nitrogen fixing ability of isolates, nifH gene was amplified. Application of effective rhizobia strains as biofertilizers to improve legume production is an important approach in sustainable agriculture. Key words : Legume, rhizobia, physiological, phylogenetic, biofertilizers.


Extracts of species from the Cordia genus have been reported with potential biological activities, such as antioxidant, antimicrobial, antiviral, and antiparasitic. The aim of this study was to develop microemulsions containing ethanolic extracts of C. glabrata leaves and to evaluate their stability and biological activities. The five developed microemulsions presented physicochemical stability and presented Newtonian behavior when submitted to rheological analysis. The diameter values of the globules ranged between 225.74 and 273.33 nm and the zeta potential of the formulations remained between -22.40 and -25.08. All phenolic acids of the extract, quantified by HPLC, showed consistency after being microemulsified. The EC50 values for the antioxidant activity by the DPPH scavenging method ranged between 38.13 and 45.54 µgmL-1, and between 34.46 and 39.60 mM for the ABTS+ scavenging method. The virucidal activity presented a CV50 <0.195 µgmL-1 and a selectivity index greater than 20. The photoprotection results ranged between 2.14 to 2.84. The study revealed stable microemulsions and potentiation of the antioxidant effect in the microemulsified extracts.


The relevance and integration of scientific knowledge to conservation management of the locally popular and highly endemic butterfly genus Chrysoritis are investigated within the research fields of taxonomy and biogeography. The butterfly genus Chrysoritis contains at least 41 species endemic to South Africa. The taxonomy of Chrysoritis has reached a state where revisions could easily result in a plethora of names between "lumping and splitting". In practice, the state of the taxonomy of these butterflies on species level may alter their conservation priority. The two most species rich species groups in Chrysoritis have different centres of endemism, however, a butterfly atlas becomes a necessity to reveal more about their biogeography. There is an absence of butterfly species lists in many of our National Parks and Nature Reserves. Legislation should facilitate rather than limit the valuable role of the amateur lepidopterist to add distribution records. In turn, the amateur lepidopterists should adapt and make an effort to explore unknown localities, apart from monitoring butterflies at their well-known localities. The red listing of localised butterflies in South Africa, including a number of Chrysoritis species, is in need of an urgent review in the light of the most recent IUCN categories. A species such as Chrysoritis dicksoni should be protected by law - but at its known localities. The scenario that real conservation action is only needed if the last known locality of a butterfly is threatened, should be abolished. A paradigm shift to conserve the metapopulations of the highly endemic Chrysoritis genus and not merely a few of its species as items that appear on lists, seems necessary.


Time bounded reachability is a fundamental problem in model checking continuous-time Markov chains (CTMCs) and Markov decision processes (CTMDPs) for specifications in continuous stochastic logics. It can be computed by numerically solving a characteristic linear dynamical system but the procedure is computationally expensive. We take a control-theoretic approach and propose a reduction technique that finds another dynamical system of lower dimension (number of variables), such that numerically solving the reduced dynamical system provides an approximation to the solution of the original system with guaranteed error bounds. Our technique generalises lumpability (or probabilistic bisimulation) to a quantitative setting. Our main result is a Lyapunov function characterisation of the difference in the trajectories of the two dynamics that depends on the initial mismatch and exponentially decreases over time. In particular, the Lyapunov function enables us to compute an error bound between the two dynamics as well as a convergence rate. Finally, we show that the search for the reduced dynamics can be computed in polynomial time using a Schur decomposition of the transition matrix. This enables us to efficiently solve the reduced dynamical system by computing the exponential of an upper-triangular matrix characterising the reduced dynamics. For CTMDPs, we generalise our approach using piecewise quadratic Lyapunov functions for switched affine dynamical systems. We synthesise a policy for the CTMDP via its reduced-order switched system that guarantees the time bounded reachability probability lies above a threshold. We provide error bounds that depend on the minimum dwell time of the policy. We demonstrate the technique on examples from queueing networks, for which lumpability does not produce any state space reduction but our technique synthesises policies using reduced version of the model.


The goal of this article is to improve our knowledge concerning the social and personal characteristics of the female gang members. Data have been collected from 150 girls who were convicted by the juvenile court of Montreal during 1992 and 1993. The analysis shows that girls who join gangs have serious handicaps which are related to their social adaptation, their personality and their deviant and delinquent conducts. Consequently, female gang membership responds to a selection process, as it does with the male membership. The profile of the female also changes depending on the structure of the gang to which they join. As the gang becomes more organized, the girls' personality gets worst. However, the context of the organized gangs seems to limit the girls to auxiliary roles rather then being an opportunity to discharge their antisocial potential.


Crystallization of drug from an amorphous formulation is expected to negatively impact its bioperformance following oral delivery. In evaluating this in vivo, neat crystalline drug is typically mixed with the amorphous formulation. However, this approach may not adequately mimic the effect of drug crystals that form within the amorphous matrix, since crystal properties are highly dependent on the crystallization environment. The aim of this study was to evaluate the in vivo impact of crystals formed in a generic tacrolimus amorphous formulation, relative to non-crystallized formulations and a reference suspension containing neat crystalline drug. Crystallization of tacrolimus was induced in the generic product by exposing it to moderate temperatures and high relative humidity. Controlled levels of crystallinity in the formulations were achieved by mixing maximally crystallized and fresh formulations at the desired ratios. These formulations were then characterized in vitro, and used for oral dosing to beagle dogs. Analysis of blood concentrations versus time revealed that formulations containing 50% and 100% crystalline tacrolimus resulted in lower area under the curve (AUC) and maximum concentration (Cmax) values as compared to the fresh amorphous formulation. However, the AUC and the Cmax values for these formulations were significantly higher than those observed after dosing the pure crystalline tacrolimus suspension. The innovator formulation, Prograf, showed comparable pharmacokinetics before and after exposure to accelerated stability conditions confirming the robustness of the innovator product to drug crystallization. This study provides insight into the impact of endogenously crystallized material on the oral absorption of a poorly water soluble compound, and highlights the importance of using representative crystalline material when undertaking risk assessment of amorphous formulations.


Background: To explore the molecular mechanism of CPXM1 in gastric cancer (GC) metastasis.Methods: Based on the difference in expression of CPXM1 mRNA in GC tissues and normal gastric mucosa tissues in public databases, rt-PCR, WB and IHC staining experiments were performed to verify the expression of CPXM1 in fresh GC tissues. Bioinformatics analysis predicts the possible signal pathways of co-expression genes in CPXM1 overexpression group. The malignant phenotypes of GC cells was verified by in vivo and in vitro experiments. Using tunicamycin to inhibit the N-glycosylation of CPXM1 and constructing mutations. The plasmid further validated the specific N-glycosylation sites that affect the malignant phenotype of gastric cancer cells.Results: CPXM1 mRNA expression was significantly increased in GC tissues. The results of IHC staining and WB indicated that there was no difference in the expression of CPXM1 at the protein level. Knocking down CPXM1 expression in HGC-27 cells can significantly inhibit its migration and invasion ability. Increasing the expression of CPXM1 in MGC-803 and BGC-823 cell lines can significantly promote its migration and invasion capabilities. CPXM1 can also promote the adhesion of GC cells and change the cytoskeleton structure. The results of in-vivo experiments show that CPXM1 can promote the metastasis of GC cells in the abdominal cavity of nude mice. Bioinformatics analysis showed that the co-expressed genes of the CPXM1 high expression group were mainly enriched in cell adhesion function, and the experimental results verified that CPXM1 may promote the adhesion and metastasis of gastric cancer cells through the ITGB2/FAK signaling pathway. Through N-glycosylation site prediction and WB results, it was found that CPXM1 had abnormal N-glycosylation in GC tissues. Tunicamycin can reverse the ability of CPXM1 that promote the invasion of GC cells. After respectively mutating the N-glycosylation sites on CPXM1, it was found that N210 site is the key site for CPXM1 to promote the adhesion and invasion of GC cells.Conclusion: CPXM1 is upgraded in GC. CPXM1 can promote the adhesion, migration and invasion of GC cells and change cytoskeleton structure. The N210 site on CPXM1 is a key site affecting the malignant phenotype of GC.


We study fair resource allocation under a connectedness constraint wherein a set of indivisible items are arranged on a path and only connected subsets of items may be allocated to the agents. An allocation is deemed fair if it satisfies equitability up to one good (EQ1), which requires that agents' utilities are approximately equal. We show that achieving EQ1 in conjunction with well-studied measures of economic efficiency (such as Pareto optimality, non-wastefulness, maximum egalitarian or utilitarian welfare) is computationally hard even for binary additive valuations. On the algorithmic side, we show that by relaxing the efficiency requirement, a connected EQ1 allocation can be computed in polynomial time for any given ordering of agents, even for general monotone valuations. Interestingly, the allocation computed by our algorithm has the highest egalitarian welfare among all allocations consistent with the given ordering. On the other hand, if efficiency is required, then tractability can still be achieved for binary additive valuations with interval structure. On our way, we strengthen some of the existing results in the literature for other fairness notions such as envy-freeness up to one good (EF1), and also provide novel results for negatively-valued items or chores.


Investigation of geological structure by gravimetric and magnetic field surveys requires consideration of relationships between gravity anomaly and magnetic anomaly generating sources. The possibility of using Poisson's Relation to examine magnetic and gravity fields related to a common source is intriguing. This relation is expressed as follows: A(x,y,z)=IGρ∂U(x,y,z)∂α, (1) where A (x, y, z) is the magnetic field potential and U (x, y, z) is the gravity field potential at a point in space due to a source of uniform density ρ and uniform magnetization I in the direction α. This expression has been used to derive magnetic anomalies over idealized forms (Nettleton, 1940) and, by Baranov (1957), to extract pseudogravity fields from magnetic field data. The purpose of this paper is to develop an expression for extracting a pseudomagnetic field from gravity field data and to examine the practical applications of this expression.


Extended release formulations are designed to release their medication in a controlled manner at a predetermined rate, duration and location to achieve and maintain optimum therapeutic blood levels of a drug. The present investigation is aimed to formulate the extended release matrix tablets of Tenatoprazole sodium with various grades of different polymers like Carbopol, HPMC and Eudragit grades. The tablets were prepared by wet granulation technique. The prepared ER Matrix tablets were evaluated for various physico chemical parameters. All the formulations resulted in acceptable Pharmacopoeia limits. In-vitro drug release studies (USP dissolution rate test apparatus II, 75 rpm, 37°C ±0.5°C) using 0.1N hydrochloric acid (1.2 PH ) for first 2 hrs and phosphate buffer (PH 6.8) as a dissolution medium (900ml) for the next 12 hrs. Among all the formulation F-5(drug: Carbopol-974P-NF in ratio of 1:1.5) shows better result upto 12 hours of the drug release was found to be 99.47±0.22 so it's an Optimized formulation.


The article presents an "Evidence-Based Concept Program" for the administrative workplaces in healthcare. Several studies show that Swedish doctors and nurses use about half their working time on administrative work. Despite this, very little attention has been given to the design of administrative workplaces in healthcare. Although healthcare focuses on detailed functional planning of their clinical areas, administrative workplaces are typically designed very traditionally, supporting hierarchical and downpipe organisations. Consequently, they are not always supportive of today's healthcare needs, which focus on teamwork around the involved and informed patient. This makes provision of healthcare less efficient and patient friendly. However, new technologies and new ways of working means that the conditions for administrative/office work have changed drastically in recent decades. It is therefore time to seek inspiration from other sectors of society so as to rethink healthcare design. Conclusive report findings indicate that a changed approach needs to be introduced to the design of administrative workspaces. Mapping exercises of existing conditions show low utilisation of non-care-related administrative workplaces. These workplaces can be made more efficient by organising the plan according to activity-based usage and thereby reducing the area needed. Included survey also indicate that the degree of utilisation of administrative workplaces close to patients is relatively high. The report concludes that patient-related administrative workplaces need to be developed further through adding new room types and number of functions. Unused space can be redistributed to care located closer to patients, as the need is greater and this will help promote work efficiency. However, the design of new and more activity-based administrative workplaces in healthcare relies heavily on the introduction of new portable and seamless information and communication technology (ICT)-systems.


In a preliminary study, 3 different chloramphenicol doses were tested by intramuscular (im) route, the highest one (90 mg/kg) being selected, based upon the duration of therapeutic serum levels (41.7 h). Following intravenous (iv) administration at this dose rate, the main pharmacokinetic parameters were: half-life of 6.0 h; body clearance, 0.101 l.kg-1.h-1; steady-state volume of distribution, 0.864 l.kg-1. Following a single im administration at the same dose, a mean maximum serum concentration of 22.9 microgram.ml-1 (Cmax) was reached in a mean time of 8.9 h (Tmax), therapeutic serum levels were achieved in an average period of 41.3 h. The mean half-life of the terminal phase was 10.3 h. Absolute bioavailability calculated based on 3 calves was 70.9 +/- 23.3% by im route. Pharmacokinetics of the long-acting formulation were confirmed in a repeated-dose study using the dosage schedule selected (2 injections im of 90 mg/kg at a 48 h interval).


Non-legal values in Papinian's reasoning. – Papinian († 212 A.D.) was one of the most important Roman jurists. One of the specific elements of his way of reasoning is the recurrence to non-legal values like pietas, affectio, humanitas or verecundia. An inquiry to this way of reasoning is rather new, because formerly only the intuition of the Roman jurists was praised and the way of reasoning itself was hardly dealt with. A detailed analysis follows of three passages of the Digest: D. 35,1,102, where pietas is used as a decisive argument, D. 46,1,47,1, where humanitas is used, and D. 28,7,15, where pietas, verecundia and boni mores play a role.


This article is represented for a case study about human resources management in government of Vietnam. The research objective is to assess the existing system of human resources management in government of Vietnam and find out the direction of human resources management in government. The research demonstrated a moving from the existing system to the professional system from internal weaknesses and external challenges of the human resources management in Government of Vietnam. A combination of career based system and position based system is the right strategy for Vietnam as well as developing countries. Key elements of position based system and new public management should be adopted with a best practice of competency based human resources management framework which is very productive for Vietnam and developing countries.


Fusarin C is a Fusarium mycotoxin that rearranges under reversed phase chromatographic conditions. In this study, the rearrangement of fusarin C was examined in detail, and the formation of fusarins under different conditions was optimized. All relevant fusarins including (10Z)-, (8Z)-, and (6Z)-fusarin C were isolated and identified by NMR. To confirm the involvement of the 2-pyrrolidone ring in the rearrangement of fusarin C, 15-methoxy-fusarin C was synthesized. For the first time, the structure of open-chain fusarin C was elucidated, and on the basis of these data, the rearrangement product of fusarin C was identified as epi-fusarin C. The results were confirmed by detailed NMR measurements and density functional theory calculations. Furthermore, a new fusarin C like metabolite, which was named dihydrofusarin C, was detected by analysis of the crude extract of fusarin C with high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to UV and Fourier transform mass spectrometry.


Key Words: Speaking Skill, and Role Play.
English speaking skill is very important in all aspect of their life. This reality makes teachers think that speaking skill should be mastered by their students. In SDN Bungkal shows that the teaching English exactly in speaking is not effective. Although the teacher always combines listening, reading, speaking, and writing on each meeting and at the last session the students make a dialogue with their friends to try their speaking skill, only several students who practice their speaking. It is the weakness of the teaching speaking in SDN Bungkal besides their pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. Here, the researcher chooses role play as method in teaching speaking. Role play is, therefore, a classroom activity which gives the student the opportunity to practice the language, the aspects of role behavior, and the actual roles he may need outside the classroom. Based to the fact above, researcher concludes that statement of problem in this study is "How is the result of the implementation of the role play method to improve the fifth year's students' speaking skill of SDN Bungkal in the academic year of 2011/2012?". So, the purpose of the study is to know the result of the implementation of the role play method for the students speaking skill at fifth years of SDN Bungkal in the academic year of 2011/2012.
The research was done in SDN Bungkal, started on May 11nd until June 1nd, 2012. The subject of the research was the fifth years students that consist of 31 students. The researcher used classroom action research as the research design. The design consists of four steps, they are planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. The researcher also uses three research instruments to know their capabilty, they are test, observation, and questionnaire.
The result of the test showed that in cycle 1 the minimum score was 36. But in cycle 2 they improved their score became 72. The result of checklist proved that the students were very active in the class. They were active in cooperating group, doing the conversation, and asking about difficult material. The result of questionnaire proved that most of the students' were motivated and interested using role play method because it made them easier to speak.
Finally, the researcher concluded that the result of this research showed there is improving students' speaking skill through role play method at the fifth year students of SDN Bungkal.


Most published books on agroforestry have focused on biophysical aspects. There has been a lack of scientifically rigorous information about the socioeconomic features of agroforestry, and the adoption of agroforestry practices by farmers. This book seeks to fill the gap by assessing the adoption of selected agroforestry practices developed with African farmers, describing methods, and drawing out of the implications for research, development, and policy. The volume includes five case studies of research conducted in Kenya and Zambia to evaluate the adoption potential of agroforestry. The cases illustrate methods of farm and village technology design, testing, and analysis that are applicable to a wide range of natural resource management practices.


Most tissues of the human body are characterized by highly anisotropic physical properties and biological organization. Hydrogels have been proposed as scaffolding materials to construct artificial tissues due to their water-rich composition, biocompatibility, and tunable properties. However, unmodified hydrogels are typically composed of randomly oriented polymer networks, resulting in homogeneous structures with isotropic properties different from those observed in biological systems. Magnetic materials have been proposed as potential agents to provide hydrogels with the anisotropy required for their use on tissue engineering. Moreover, the intrinsic properties of magnetic nanoparticles enable their use as magnetomechanic remote actuators to control the behavior of the cells encapsulated within the hydrogels under the application of external magnetic fields. In this review, we combine a detailed summary of the main strategies to prepare magnetic nanoparticles showing controlled properties with an analysis of the different approaches available to their incorporation into hydrogels. The application of magnetically responsive nanocomposite hydrogels in the engineering of different tissues is also reviewed.


One widely accepted metabolic activation pathway of the prototypic carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) proceeds through the bay region diol epoxide BaP-(7R,8S)-diol-(9S,10R)-epoxide. However, few studies have addressed the analysis of human urinary metabolites of BaP which result from this pathway. Phenanthrene (Phe) is structurally related to BaP, but human exposure to Phe is far greater and its metabolites can be readily detected in human urine. Thus, we have proposed that Phe metabolites can be biomarkers of PAH exposure and metabolic activation. Phe-tetraols in particular could be biomarkers of the diol epoxide pathway. While BaP-tetraols and Phe-tetraols have been previously quantified in human urine, no published studies have determined their enantiomeric composition. This is important because different enantiomers would result from the bay region diol epoxide and "reverse" diol epoxide pathways, the latter being associated with weak mutagenicity and carcinogenicity. We addressed this problem using chiral HPLC to separate the enantiomers of Phe-1,2,3,4-tetraol and BaP-7,8,9,10-tetraol. Urine samples from smokers were subjected to hydrolysis with β-glucuronidase and arylsulfatase followed by solid-phase extraction on a Strata-X polymeric sorbent cartridge and a Bond Elute phenylboronic acid cartridge, chiral HPLC on a Cyclobond II or Pirkle column, and quantitation by gas-chromatography-negative ion chemical ionization-tandem mass spectrometry-selected reaction monitoring analysis of the Phe-tetraols, as their tetra-trimethylsilyl ethers. The results demonstrated that >96% of Phe-tetraol in smokers' urine was Phe-(1S,2R,3S,4R)-tetraol, resulting from the "reverse" diol epoxide pathway, whereas less than 4% resulted from the bay region diol epoxide pathway of Phe metabolism. The corresponding (R,R)-stereochemistry of their precursor diols Phe-1,2-diol and Phe-3,4-diol was also confirmed. Urine from creosote workers with very high exposure to PAH was similarly analyzed for BaP-tetraol enantiomers. In contrast to the results of the Phe-tetraol analyses in smokers' urine, >75% of BaP-tetraol in these human urine samples was BaP-(7R,8S,9R,10S)-tetraol resulting from the bay region diol epoxide pathway of BaP metabolism. These results provide the first direct support based on human urinary metabolite analysis for the bay region diol epoxide pathway of BaP metabolism and demonstrate differences in BaP and Phe metabolism which may be important when considering Phe-tetraols as biomarkers of PAH metabolic activation. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1690.


This paper provides a framework for thinking about origami construction and constructivism. In an attempt to understand the conceptual and theoretical framework supporting the field of inclusive teaching strategies in relationship to origami, I have prepared a model for origami which represents six types of constructive learning: (1) Hands-on learning, (2) explicit instruction, (3) higher order thinking, (4) multimodal instruction, (5) social learning, and (6) self-management strategies.


ABSTRACT In addition to indirect support to fisheries, marine habitats also provide non-use benefits often overlooked in most bioeconomic models.We expand a dynamic bioeconomic fisheries model where presence of natural habitats reduces fishing cost via aggregation effects and provides non-use benefits. The theoretical model is illustrated with an application to cold-water corals in Norway where two fishing methods are considered—destructive bottom trawl and non-destructive coastal gear. Non-use values of cold-water corals in Norway are estimated using a discrete choice experiment. Both the theoretical model and its empirical applications demonstrate how non-use values impact optimal fishing practices. JEL Codes: Q22, Q28, Q57.


Emulsion-polymerized copolymers of methyl methacrylate and N-cyclohexylmaleimide were synthesized and used for blending with poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) to improve the heat resistance of PVC. The thermal stabilities of the blends with different copolymer contents were characterized by thermogravimetric analysis, torsional braid analysis, and the Vicat softening temperature. The mechanical properties and rheological behavior of the blends were also determined. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 88: 201–205, 2003


Abstract The first blind African species of Ideoroncidae is described from a cave in northwestern Botswana, Botswanoncus ellisi, representing a new genus and a new species. Apart from the complete lack of eyes, it is also unusual in having the lowest recorded number of trichobothria of any adult ideoroncid with 17 on the fixed finger and nine on the movable finger.


Abstract: The article describes functional features of the syntactic module of computer-based Ukrainian grammar AGAT. This is a linguistic type of computer-aided syntactic analysis, which provides full information about syntactic units and categories, in particular, predicativity, coordinate and subordinate clauses, the categories of subject and predicate etc. The developed linguistic software provides syntactic analysis of a whole sentence in the form of a dependency tree and indicates the types of syntactic relations and links. The AGAT-syntax task is to identify all varieties of compatibility – predicative, subordinate, and coordinate – of each word in the text. The grammatical characteristics of the phrase directly depend on which part of the language its keyword belongs to. The lexical and grammatical nature of the word determines its compatibility to the other words. Accordingly, phrases can be divided into substantive, adjective, pronouns, numeral, verbal and adverbial. Computer sub-grammars of valencies of the said parts of the language are built by us on a single principle: a lexema is indicated, preposition that participates in government and a case of a substantive word form in the shape of a two-letter code. In theory, according to their composition words combinations (phrases) are divided into simple, complex and combined. Dependency tree is built from two elements – nodes and connections. Nodes are wordforms and connections are relationships between the main element ("master") and dependent element ("slave"). It enables to describe a configuration, a form, external parameters of a sentence but this is not sufficient to describe a sentence structure. Thus, the syntactic analysis has two levels: the first one attributes to each binary pair a type of syntactic relationships on the level of morphological way of expression of a "master"; the second level attributes to the connection a type of syntactic relationships, which include: subjective, objective, attributive, adverbial, completive and appositive modifying.. In such a way, the cycle of automated syntactic analysis of Ukrainian texts is completed by determining the syntactic word-combination, identifying a type of syntactic link and a type of relationship. It provides full range of characteristics that can be used for systemic study of semantic and syntactic problems. Keywords: automated syntactic analysis, dependency tree, syntactic relations, syntactic links.


The understanding of tomograms can be a difficult task when the observed scene is complex. The Synthetic Aperture RADAR (SAR) ranging acquisition induces geometrical distortions depending on the local slope of the back-scattering surface. Over dense urban areas, this particular geometry produces tilted facades instead of straight buildings. Moreover the high dynamic in SAR images of urban areas may lead to 3-D representation with very bright voxels eclipsing other echoes. In this paper we present a graph-cut approach adapted to any tomographic reconstruction technique to segment the urban surface in a 3-D tomographic reconstruction. Results on real data from a stack of 40 TerraSAR-X images are presented.


ABSTRACT Introduction: Deep eutectic solvents comprising or acting as solvents of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API-DES) emerged as promising alternatives to improve therapeutic efficiency, with the additional possibility to integrate them in (bio)polymer-based systems to enhance their delivery. Areas covered: A critical review of the API-DES field evolution is herein presented, namely on the capacity of DES to integrate APIs in their composition and on the use of DES as solvents for APIs. These strategies avoid a current major concern related to drugs and APIs, i.e. polymorphism, and increase the solubility and bioavailability of the target API which leads to increased bioavailability. Owing to their composition versatility, polymerizable API-DES can also be prepared. Finally, the incorporation of API-DES in (bio)polymer-based systems to improve drug delivery is presented and discussed. Expert opinion: The relatively easy preparation of API-DES and their capacity to tune the API's release profile when incorporated in (bio)polymer-based systems represent an effective alternative to improve the APIs therapeutic action and to develop controlled drug delivery systems. Given the potential and progress demonstrated so far, the authors foresee further research on novel API-DES and on their delivery routes, envisaging the development of alternative therapies and final approval as therapeutics.


This study demonstrated that, in rice seedlings, genotypic difference in tolerance to anoxia only occurred when anoxia was imposed at imbibition, but not at 3 d after imbibition. When seeds were imbibed and grown in anoxia, IR22 (anoxia-'intolerant') grew much slower and had lower soluble sugar concentrations in coleoptiles and seeds than Amaroo (anoxia-'tolerant'), while Calrose was intermediate. After 3 d in anoxia, the sugar concentrations in embryos and endosperms of anoxic seedlings were nearly 4-fold lower in IR22 than in Amaroo. Sugar deficit in the embryo of IR22 is presumably due to the limitation of sugar mobilization rather than the capacity of transport as shown by similar sugar accumulation ratios of 1.8 between embryo and endosperm in IR22 and Amaroo at 3 d in anoxia. With 20 mol m-3 exogenous glucose, coleoptile extension and fresh weight increments in anoxic seedlings of IR22 were much closer to those in the two other genotypes, nevertheless protein concentration remained lowest on a fresh weight basis in the coleoptiles of IR22; indicating that protein synthesis has a lower priority for energy apportionment during anoxia than processes crucial to coleoptile extension. In contrast to these responses to anoxia imposed at imbibition, IR22 had nearly the same high tolerance to anoxia as Calrose and Amaroo, when anoxia was imposed on seedlings subsequent to 48 h aeration followed by 16 h hypoxic pretreatment. In fact, coleoptiles of anoxic IR22 had higher sugar concentrations and grew faster than Calrose, and exogenous glucose had no effect on the coleoptile extension of IR22. Excised coleoptile tips of IR22 and Amaroo with exogenous glucose had similar rates of ethanol production and were equally tolerant to anoxia. In conclusion, much of the anoxia 'intolerance' of IR22 when germinated in anoxia could be attributed to limited substrate availability to the embryo and coleoptile, presumably due to slow starch hydrolysis in the endosperm.


The development of a sustainable banking system is a precondition for the development of an economy. The fair competition between financial institutions would lead to the efficient use of financial and other economic resources. The purpose of this paper is to extract all prominent factors in the nature of banking and their direct role in economic development. The factors analyzed here are significantly tied to banking institutions, their efficiency indicators in comparison to other banking institutions in the region and beyond, rate of interest and other lending conditions.


The evaluation of the energy performance of transparent components should not neglect their influence on the indoor thermal and visual comfort conditions. If the design choices are based only on the energy need optimization or the cost reduction, they could lead to solutions not suitable for the occupants' comfort. The available design tools allow the realistic and detailed evaluation of the building energy performance in standardized use conditions, once the site climatic characteristics, the envelope thermophysical properties and the technical characteristics of the systems are known. The actual energy performance becomes more difficult to assess when the occupants behavior has to be included, as it is often influenced by their environment's perception and the resulting reactions. The significant effect, often negative, of the occupants' interaction on the real building energy consumption during its operational life, leads to the necessity of a careful assessment of both the building energy needs and the comfort conditions at the same time, since the early design phase. The use of indicators and metrics able to synthesize the different fundamental aspects of the performance, including the indoor environmental quality, becomes essential in order to carry on an adequate comparison between different options.


PURPOSE
To determine if increasing the dose of paclitaxel increases the probability of clinical response, progression-free survival, or overall survival in women who have persistent or recurrent ovarian cancer, and whether doubling the dose of prophylactic filgrastim accompanying the higher paclitaxel dose decreases the frequency of neutropenic fever.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Consenting patients with persistent, recurrent, or progressing ovarian cancer, despite first-line platinum therapy (but no prior taxane), were randomly assigned to paclitaxel 135 mg/m2, 175 mg/m2, or 250 mg/m2 over 24 hours every 3 weeks. Patients receiving paclitaxel 250 mg/m2 were also randomly assigned to 5 or 10 microg/kg of filgrastim per day subcutaneously.

RESULTS
Accession to the paclitaxel 135-mg/m2 arm was closed early. Among the 271 patients on the other regimens with measurable disease, partial and complete response on paclitaxel 250 mg/m2 (36%) was significantly higher than on 175 mg/m2 (27%, P =.027). This difference was more evident among patients who never responded to prior platinum. However, progression-free and overall survival results were similar. The median durations of overall survival were 13.1 and 12.3 months for paclitaxel 175 mg/m2 and 250 mg/m2, respectively. Thrombocytopenia, neuropathy, and myalgia were greater with paclitaxel 250 mg/m2 (P <.05). The incidence of neutropenic fever after the first cycle of paclitaxel 250 mg/m2 was 19% and 18% on the 5-microg/kg and 10-microg/kg filgrastim dose, respectively (22% for paclitaxel 175 mg/m2 without filgrastim).

CONCLUSION
Paclitaxel exhibits a dose effect with regard to response rate, but there is more toxicity and no survival benefit to justify paclitaxel 250 mg/m2 plus filgrastim. Doubling the filgrastim dose from 5 to 10 microg/kg did not reduce the probability of neutropenic fever after high-dose paclitaxel.


Resource management of modern datacenters needs to consider multiple competing objectives that involve complex system interactions. In this work, Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) is adopted in describing such interactions by leveraging its ability to express complex properties. Further, LTL-based constraints are integrated with reinforcement learning according the recent progress on control synthesis theory. The LTL-constrained reinforcement learning facilitates desired balance among the competing objectives in managing resources for datacenters. The effectiveness of this new approach is demonstrated by two scenarios. In datacenter power management, the LTL-constrained manager reaches the best balance among power, performance and battery stress compared to the previous work and other alternative approaches. In multitenant job scheduling, 200 MapReduce jobs are emulated on the Amazon AWS cloud. The LTL-constrained scheduler achieves the best balance between system performance and fairness compared to several other methods including three Hadoop schedulers.


Polyamide 1010 is a γ-radiation crosslinkable polymer. After irradiation, it is possible to raise its service temperature up to 240℃. Network formation greatly changes the crystallization behaviour of the polymer. In the present work, DSC was used to examine its isothermal crystallization kinetics. It is found that in addition to the necessity of more undercooling and the lowering of crystallization rate, the primary crystallization stage of the irradiated polymer is shortened. This effect is more evident with increasing radiation dose and content of enhanced difunctionai erosslinking agent. However, the crystallization mechanism of the primary stage is not changed as evidenced by the constancy of Avrami exponent. The lamella end surface free energy σ_e calculated according to Hoffman's equation is very sensitive to γ-radiation. It increases abruptly in 2—3 fold even though the radiation dose is not high enough. The origin of this phenomenon may be accounted for in terms of network structure of the polymer.


Label stacking is used for hierarchical addressing to reduce the size of lookup tables and to increase the speed of the routing process. We propose an optical label stacking using spectral-amplitude codes (SAC) as labels to accomplish ultrafast packet forwarding. We discuss the advantages of this label architecture compared to other proposals in the literature and present experimental results. We experimentally examine two types of optical packets, one with separable SAC labels and the other one with SAC-encoded payloads. In the first case, the SAC label is a collection of spectral tones modulated at the packet rate (low rate), and the payload is on a separate wavelength modulated at the data rate (fast rate). In the second case, the payload data modulates the collection of wavelengths that constitute the code. We implement a network with two forwarding nodes, and we transmit the packets with two labels in the label stack over 80 km of fiber and measure the bit error rate (BER) after two hops. We achieve error-free transmission (BER<10 -9) for the packets with SAC labels and SAC-encoded payload at payload bit rates of 10 and 2.5 Gb/s, respectively. This is the first experimental demonstration of optical label stacking to our knowledge


Wind‐blown sand, or 'saltation,' creates sand dunes, erodes geological features, and could be a significant source of dust aerosols on Mars. Moreover, the electrification of sand and dust in saltation, dust storms, and dust devils could produce electric discharges and affect atmospheric chemistry. We present the first calculations of electric fields in martian saltation, using a numerical model of saltation that includes sand electrification, plasma physics, and the adsorption of ions and electrons onto particulates. Our results indicate that electric discharges do not occur in martian saltation. Moreover, we find that the production of hydrogen peroxide and the dissociation of methane by electric fields are less significant than previously thought. Both these species are highly relevant to studies of past and present life on Mars.


Background: Mental health status of university students is a critical issue due to its essential role in students' academic performance. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the mental health status of first-year students at Hamadan University of Medical Sciences in 2020. Methods: All first-year students of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences entered this cross-sectional study through census sampling. Two Questionnaires, the Goldberg's General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12) as a screening instrument, and a researcher-made questionnaire were used to collect demographic information. After data collection, the chi-square test and logistic regression coefficient were applied to analyze the data at a significance level of 0.05. Results: The results showed that out of 875 students, 170 cases (19.4%) suffered from mental disorders, including depressed mood (93.5%) and anxiety attack (22%) as the most and least common disorders, respectively. Fitting the logistic regression model revealed that the highest educational degree (P<0.001, medical residency), admission quotas other than the free quota (P=0.03), high (P=0.04) and low (P=0.01) financial status, and fathers' unemployment (P=0.04) increased the chance of mental health disorders. Conclusion: Due to the high rate and negative consequences of mental health problems in university students, it is recommended that university counseling centers provide services for students with a focus on coping with more frequent mental disorders. Finally, it is suggested they have yearly follow-up surveys to recognize the effects of the university environment and different conducted programs on the students' mental status.


This paper examines the practical application of advanced theoretical techniques, based on a hybrid combination of circuit theory and rigorous electromagnetic field solutions, to two distinct, but fundamentally related, problems. The first concerns an electromagnetic compatibility scenario, for which prediction of the emissions produced by a 50 MHz CMOS clock circuit combined with a number of simple PCB track layouts, and including a variety of board and load configurations, is to be assessed. The second relates to the integration of antennas with transceiver modules. In the first application, a unified analysis approach is desirable to ensure compliance with EMC regulations at the design stage, whilst in the latter it is fundamental to the successful development of mobile systems such as pagers and satellite telephones. The practical implementation of a novel hybrid theoretical methodology is detailed, together with a discussion of differences in frequency and time domain analysis approaches. (7 pages)


Importance
Patients with oligometastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) may benefit from locally ablative therapy (LAT) such as surgery or stereotactic radiotherapy. Prior studies were conducted before the advent of immunotherapy, and a strong biological rationale for the use of immunotherapy exists in a minimal residual disease state.

Objective
To evaluate whether the addition of pembrolizumab after LAT improves outcomes for patients with oligometastatic NSCLC.

Design, Setting, and Participants
This single-arm phase 2 trial of pembrolizumab therapy was performed from February 1, 2015, through September 30, 2017, at an academic referral cancer center. The 51 eligible patients enrolled had oligometastatic NSCLC (≤4 metastatic sites) and had completed LAT to all known sites of disease. Data were analyzed from February 1, 2015, to August 23, 2018.

Interventions
Within 4 to 12 weeks of completing LAT, patients began intravenous pembrolizumab therapy, 200 mg every 21 days, for 8 cycles, with provision to continue to 16 cycles in the absence of progressive disease or untoward toxic effects.

Main Outcomes and Measures
The 2 primary efficacy end points were progression-free survival (PFS) from the start of LAT (PFS-L), which preceded enrollment in the trial, and PFS from the start of pembrolizumab therapy (PFS-P). The study was powered for comparison with historical data on the first efficacy end point. Secondary outcomes included overall survival, safety, and quality of life as measured by the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Lung instrument.

Results
Of 51 patients enrolled, 45 (24 men [53%]; median age, 64 years [range, 46-82 years]) received pembrolizumab. At the time of analysis, 24 patients had progressive disease or had died. Median PFS-L was 19.1 months (95% CI, 9.4-28.7 months), significantly greater than the historical median of 6.6 months (P = .005). Median PFS-P was 18.7 months (95% CI, 10.1-27.1 months). Eleven patients died. Overall mean (SE) survival rate at 12 months was 90.9% (4.3%); at 24 months, 77.5% (6.7%). Neither programmed death ligand 1 expression nor CD8 T-cell tumor infiltration was associated with PFS-L. Pembrolizumab after LAT yielded no new safety signals and no reduction in quality of life.

Conclusions and Relevance
Pembrolizumab after LAT for oligometastatic NSCLC appears to improve PFS with no reduction in quality of life.

Trial Registration
ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02316002.