Computer games provide a good environment for learning. Players learn to play the game without being taught didactically as the learning process takes place naturally in the virtual world. Learning is no longer a process of knowledge transfer from the expert to the novice. Learners need to construct the knowledge themselves by interacting with the environment. It is beneficial to study the theory underpinning computer games: how players learn and respond in the game environment. We elucidate the theories of learning, i.e. behavioural learning theory, cognitive learning theory and motivation theory in the context of computer games. Psychology provides a way to understand the learning that occurs naturally in games and also helps in developing an environment in which the player can learn a particular domain of knowledge extrinsically. By studying the psychology and its relation to computer games, we can understand players more comprehensively, and thus predict their responses. The understanding of psychology offers a framework to developing an educational game that promotes learning while maintaining high player motivation. We also attempt to shed some light on how players learn in computer games based on the theory, and thus infer better techniques in supporting game-based learning.


Abstract Irrespective of the statistical model under study, the derivation of limits,in the Le Cam sense, of sequences of local experiments (see [7]-[10]) oftenfollows along very similar lines, essentially involving differentiability in quadraticmean of square roots of (conditional) densities. This chapter establishes two abstractand very general results providing sufficient and nearly necessary conditionsfor (i) the existence of a quadratic expansion, and (ii) the asymptotic linearity oflocal log-likelihood ratios (asymptotic linearity is needed, for instance, when unspecifiedmodel parameters are to be replaced, in some statistic of interest, withsome preliminary estimator). Such results have been established, for locally asymptoticallynormal (LAN) models involving independent and identically distributedobservations, by, e.g. [1], [11] and [12]. Similar results are provided here for modelsexhibiting serial dependencies which, so far, have been treated on a case-by-casebasis (see [4] and [5] for typical examples) and, in general, under stronger regularityassumptions. Unlike their i.i.d. counterparts, our results extend beyond the contextof LAN experiments, so that non-stationary unit-root time series and cointegrationmodels, for instance, also can be handled (see [6]).


The authors compare the material properties of conventional- and interdiffused-grown layers of Hg1-xCdxTe/GaAs grown by metalorganic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD). These results are also compared with those of state-of-the-art LPE HgCdTe/CdZnTe grown from Te-rich solutions. Data are presented on surface morphology, compositional uniformity, double-crystal X-ray diffraction, chemical defect etching, Hall effect, minority carrier lifetime and laser-beam-induced current (LBIC) characterisation on (111)B, (221) and (100) orientations. The compositional uniformity is 3.3% for 3 in diameter HgCdTe/GaAs. The interdiffused growth method results in better compositional uniformity than the conventional method, while the structural quality of layers grown by both techniques is similar. Etch pit densities of (1-2)*106 cm-2 are routinely obtained for (111)B and (221) orientations, while values as low as 5*105 cm-2 have been occasionally observed. Initial data are also presented for HgCdTe layers grown on (100)GaAs/Si substrates.


10 Gbit/s NRZ-signals are transmitted for the first time over 220 m of multimode 120 µm core-diameter perfluorinated graded-index polymer optical fiber using an MLSE equalizer.


A two-sage approach for the tomographic reconstruction of single-photon electronically collimated images has been implemented using either ART (algebraic reconstruction technique) or the MLE (maximum likelihood estimator) for the first stage, in which cone beam projections are reconstructed from coincident count data, and a convolution backprojection method for the second stage, in which tomographic images are reconstructed from the estimated cone beam images. The performance of ART and MLE has been compared based on the final tomographic reconstructions for simulated and experimental studies. The results indicate an enhancement of the resolution in the reconstructed images for MLE. >


A dynamic programming based approach for data compression of a ID sequence is presented. The compression of an input sequence of size N to that of a smaller size k is achieved by dividing the input sequence into k subsequences and replacing the subsequences by their respective average values. The partitioning of the input sequence is carried with the intention of reducing the mean squared error in the reconstructed sequence. The complexity involved in finding the partitions which would result in such an optimal compressed sequence is reduced by using the dynamic programming approach, which is presented.


TO THE EDITOR: In the December 2009 issue of the MJA, I came across an interesting article by Dr Paul Zimmet, "A lifetime pursuit of diabetes through chance". This is an account of his impressive achievements in medicine. However, I disagree with the statement that describes his father's situation in 1930s Poland: "He returned to an unpaid position in the Tarnopol Hospital — unpaid because Jewish doctors could not be 'officially' employed in Poland." I argue that, in Poland at that time, there was no discrimination against national minorities, and this applied to the Jewish minority as well. I have done some research on the subject. There were 3.5 million Jewish people in Poland before the war — 10% of the population. According to numerous historical sources, Jewish doctors represented 34% of doctors in Poland in 1938. In the Polish capital, Warszawa, this percentage was 66%. The same sources quote the percentage of lawyers of Jewish origin as 55%. These numbers are a tribute to the talents and assertiveness of Polish Jews; however, they do not support the statement by Zimmet that I am disputing. In Polish archives, I have discovered statistical documents containing alphabetical lists of all doctors registered in Poland between 1936 and 1938. According to these documents, there were two hospitals in Tarnopol at that time: the General Hospital and a Jewish hospital. In the official register of all Polish doctors practising between 1936 and 1938, I have not found the name of Dr Jacob Zimmet. He was not registered as a doctor, and therefore could not legally be employed as a doctor in Tarnopol or any other Polish hospital.


Abstract The recent Supreme Court decision in Fish and Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club presents a conflict between the public's right to know federal agency policies and a federal agency's interest in protecting its deliberative materials from public review. The Sierra Club claimed that the Fish and Wildlife Service was violating the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to provide biological opinions – a required analysis of the potential impact of regulations on endangered species – by marking them draft and never producing a final opinion that would be publicly available. This article analyzes the decision and explains why the agency controls the decision as to what is publicly available. It is not that the agency interest in privacy is more important than the public's right to know; the rule is that as long as the agency is deliberating, there is not final policy to make public.


The higher level phylogenetic relationships within the avian feather lice (Insecta: Phthiraptera: Ischnocera) are extremely problematic. Here we investigate the relationships of 1 family (Goniodidae), sometimes recognized as distinct within Ischnocera, using parsimony and likelihood analyses of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences. These data support monophyly for a restricted definition of traditional Goniodidae, but recognition of this family would result in paraphyly of the large heterogeneous family Philopteridae. We show that the New World Chelopistes is not related to other members of Goniodidae, despite similarities in morphology, but rather is the sister taxon to Oxylipeurus. Within Goniodidae, genera are divided into those occurring on Galliformes (the Goniodes complex) and those occurring on Columbiformes (the Coloceras complex). Within the well-sampled Coloceras complex, or Physconelloidinae, several groups are identified. However, traditionally recognized genera such as Coloceras and Physconelloides appear to be paraphyletic. Whereas the phylogeny of Goniodidae reflects some aspects of host relationships, biogeography also influences coevolutionary history.


Using the preliminary results of the 1979 census, the authors analyze trends in the distribution of the population of the USSR. Topics considered include the role of natural increase in the redistribution of the population, the relationship between economic development and the rate of population growth in Siberia, the effects of increasing rural-urban migration, and changes in the number and distribution of large cities.


Objective: Prehypertension (PHT) is associated ogeneous group but consists of susceptible subgroups some of which transition to HT. There is no consensus which factors predict progression which is of utmost pragmatic importance. Our aim was to examine IHT in PHT subjects and analyse predictive value of various risk factors. Design and method: In this analyzes we enrolleda subgroup of 279 PHT patients (m125, w154) from BrEna cohort which was formed from original cohorts of Brisighella Heart Study (Italy) and ENAH study (Croatia). They were followed-up for 84 months (IQ60–84) and a total of 1780 person-years of follow-up. PHT was defined as BP 120–139/80–89 mmHg. Exclusion criteria were antihypertensive medication, diabetes, pregnancy, eGFR<60 ml/min, cardiovascular or cerebrovascular incident, chronic terminal diseases, dementia, immobility and missing crucial data. BP was measured using Omron 6 device following the ESH guidelines. Fasting blood was analysed for glucose, lipids, uric acid, serum creatinine, leptin, adiponectin,hsCRP. HOMA index was used to calculate insulin resistance and Cocroft-Gault and MDRD formula to estimate GFR. Albumin to creatinine ratio (ACR) was determined from the first morning spot urine. Results: IHT was diagnosed in 134 PHT (48.2%, no between-gender difference) with incidence rate of 7.53% per year; 41.8% were treated and 26.8% controlled. At baseline, subjects who developed IHT vs. those who remained PHT at the end of follow-up differed in age (50 ± 12 vs. 39 ± 12), systolic BP (130 ± 13 vs. 125 ± 7), FBG (5.3 ± 0.7 vs. 4.9 ± 0.5), hsCRP (1.8 (IQ0.9–3.1) vs. 1.3 (IQ0.4–2.3),T-cholesterol (5.7 ± 1.1 vs. 5.4 ± 1.0),TG (1.3 (IQR 1.0–1.9) vs. 1.1 (IQR 0.8–1.6), ACR (5.0 (IQ3.6–6.9) vs. 4.2(IQ3.1–6.2), adiponectin (10.7 ± 4.1 vs. 16.5 ± 7.9), leptin (10.7 ± 6.0 vs. 8.1 ± 5.5), % of visceral obesity (47% vs. 31%),overweight (67% vs. 54%) and obesity (34% vs. 17%) all p < 0.05. Significant positive predictors of IHT were age, systolic BP and ACR. Conclusions: Incident rate of new-onset HT is high, and those subjects were poorly treated. Subgroup of PHT who developed IHT were older, had higher systolic BP, metabolic abnormalities and higher values of ACR. Lifestyle measures should be recommended to this subgroup early. Diagnostic and prognostic values of ACR for IHT in PHT should be further elaborated.


The purpose of this study was twofold and involved examining the viability of using the Organizational Dissent Scale as an other-report instrument, and developing additional perceptual data related to dissent expression. A sample of 291 people completed survey questionnaire measures of organizational dissent. Equal-sized groups (n = 97) completed either a self-report, a workplace colleague other-report, or an organizational outsider other-report. Results indicated the Organizational Dissent Scale performed reliably as an other-report, but it showed some tendency for social desirability. In addition, findings suggested that certain indicators of proximity to the dissenter reduced discrepancy between self- and other-reports for upward dissent, but not lateral dissent. By comparison, lateral dissent produced the most discrepant reports of dissent expression, while displaced dissent produced the most coherent reports.


Early childhood education is a coaching effort for children (0-6 years old) by providing education to grow and develop students' physical and spiritual, so they are able to step forwards to the next level of education. Having a qualified institution, there should be well-managed and be accredited. Accreditation is crucial for the institutional quality. The qualified institution is greatly expected to creat qualified generation in the future.


DFT calculations are used to predict CH stretching infrared (IR) intensities for about 50 small molecules. B3LYP and PBE1PBE functionals and different basis sets are tested to obtain the best agreement with the experimental absolute IR intensities available. PBE1PBE functional in particular predicts average CH stretching intensities very close to the experimental ones. On the basis of a simple analytical model, it is shown how it is possible to extract atomic charges directly from computed atomic polar tensors (APTs): these IR charges are very close in value to the experimentally derived ones and faithfully reproduce peculiar molecular phenomena. DFT-derived IR charges are also compared with the charges obtained by population schemes such as Mulliken population analysis, natural population analysis (NPA), and with charges obtained by fitting the electrostatic potential according to the Merz-Kollman (MK), CHELP, and CHELPG models. IR charges are found to be similar especially to the charges obtained by these last methods: therefore they can be used as an alternative scheme for the determination of the molecular charge distribution while being strictly connected to experimentally measurable properties. Moreover, the analytical model is further developed to obtain a method for the calculation of the charge fluxes, which take place along the chemical bonds during molecular vibrations.


The inability to carry out daily activities is one of the challenges that stroke patients face due to weakness in their extremities. It leads to a decrease in mobility function, which prevents the fulfilment of activity. To improve their functional ability, patients undergo physiotherapy treatment. However, there is limited time for patients to exercise at the hospital. Yet, doing exercise is vital for post-stroke patients. Therefore, home programs are crucial for stroke patient rehabilitation. Family support is necessary to ensure that patients do their home program. It could increase enthusiasm and motivate patients to be consistent in their treatment, especially in their homes. An analytic observational study with a cross-sectional design was used to see the relationship between family involvement in physiotherapy home programs and activity daily living (ADL) in poststroke patients. The sampling technique used was purposive sampling with inclusion and exclusion criteria. Questionnaires were used to assess family involvement in the Physiotherapy home program, and the Index Barthel was used to measure the ADL of stroke patients. Spearman Test was used to examine the relationship between both variables. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS. Normality tests showed the failure of the number of rearing data (p<0.05). Spearman test revealed that both groups had a significant relationship (p=0.000). There is a relationship between family involvement in the Physiotherapy home program and ADL in post-stroke patients.
Keywords: stroke, physiotherapy, relationship, activity daily living, home program


Pancasila as the ideology of the State of Indonesia consists of five principles of sila which are used as guidelines for nation and state in Indonesia. The five precepts are the basis of the Indonesian State that need to be lived out and practiced by all Indonesian citizens, including in the law of nation and state in Indonesia. The State of Indonesia is a rule of law, in order to realize a rule of law, one of them is required a legal instrument that is used to regulate balance and justice in all areas of people's lives and livelihoods through legislation by not ruling out jurisprudential functions. This shows that legislation has an important role in the Indonesian law. Therefore, Indonesia made Pancasila a guideline for nation and state law because Pancasila was in accordance with the personality of the Indonesian nation.


Abstract Background Transition from intravenous (IV) to oral (PO) antibiotics is common practice in patients with Gram-positive bloodstream infections (GP-BSI); however, clinical data evaluating IV to PO switch options are lacking. The objective of this study was to examine effectiveness of PO antibiotics for definitive treatment GP-BSI, with a focus on bioavailability (BA). Methods This was a single-center, retrospective cohort study of adult inpatients admitted to an 874-bed academic medical center in Charlotte, NC between September 1, 2014 and August 31, 2017. Patients with a GP-BSI who received appropriate antibiotic therapy with at least one third of their total course administered PO were included. Patients with GP-BSI caused by staphylococcal species were excluded. The primary endpoint was clinical failure in patients receiving high (≥90%) vs. low (<90%) BA agents. Secondary endpoints included clinical failure stratified by antibiotic group, bactericidal vs. bacteriostatic agents, and organism. Chi-square and Fisher's exact tests were used to examine clinical failure. Results One hundred three patients were included, 26 in the high BA group, and 77 in the low BA group. The median age was 58, 51% were women, 74.8% of patients had streptococcal bacteremia (26.2% S. pneumoniae), with pulmonary being the most common source (30.1%). There were no major differences in baseline demographic and clinical characteristics between groups. The median treatment duration with IV antibiotics was 4 and 5 days in the high and low BA groups, respectively (P = 0.12). There was no statistically significant difference in clinical failure in the high vs. low BA groups (19% vs. 23%, P = 0.66, respectively). Clinical failure stratified by antibiotic group, bacteriostatic vs. bactericidal agent (OR 1.43, CI 0.26–7.90), and organism also did not yield statistically significant differences. Conclusion These data demonstrate similar rates of clinical failure among patients definitively treated with high or low BA agents for GP-BSI. High BA agents such as fluoroquinolones may not be needed for all patients with GP-BSI, where more targeted β-lactam therapies may be appropriate. Additional prospective studies with larger sample sizes are needed to further validate these conclusions. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.


The Indigenous Land Corporation (ILC) is a relatively new Commonwealth statutory authority which commenced its operations on 5 June 1995. It is new not only in the sense of its short existence, but also in the unique framework enshrined in its enabling legislation that aims to provide improved outcomes in Indigenous land acquisition and land management. This article explores this unique policy and operational framework, contrasts it with past Commonwealth policies and practices for Indigenous land acquisition and management, and assesses the ILC's performance in its initial five years. The article argues that notwithstanding this new framework, the potential for future success will lie in the ability of the ILC to substantially address long-standing issues in the management of the Indigenous estate which now comprises in excess of 15 percent of Australia.


Continued loss of topsoil due to erosion is a threat to sustaining row-crop production in soils of the US Cornbelt. The on-site impacts of soil erosion under natural field conditions, despite the confounding effects of many interacting factors, can be simulated by creating a range of topsoil depths (TSD) through soil removal from or addition to the existing soil surface. Thus, this study was conducted on two Alfisols in central Ohio, located at Waterman Farm of the Ohio State University, Columbus (site 1) and Western Agricultural Experiment Station of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center at South Charleston (site 2) with the objectives to assess (1) impacts of differences in TSD after 10 years of creating simulated erosion on crop yields and soil properties and (2) effectiveness of using organic manure and synthetic fertilizer in restoring the quality of eroded soil. The treatments included (1) three levels of TSD including removal of 20 cm (8 in) of topsoil, undisturbed soil, and addition of 20 cm (8 in) of topsoil; and (2) two amendment types including organic manure and synthetic fertilizer. The results indicated that at site 1, the grain yield response followed the order: topsoil removal (3.1 Mg ha-1 [1.38 tn ac-1]) < undisturbed control (5.6 Mg ha-1 [2.5 tn ac-1]) < topsoil addition (7.8 Mg ha-1 [3.48 tn ac-1]). At site 2, topsoil removal significantly reduced corn grain yield (8.2 Mg ha-1 [3.66 tn ac-1]) as compared to topsoil addition (9.3 Mg ha-1 [4.15 tn ac-1]). The response of soil organic carbon (SOC) pool to different TSD levels was not statistically significant for 0- to 10-cm (0- to 4-in) depth. However, SOC pool was the lowest for "soil removal" treatment at both sites for 10- to 20-cm (4- to 8-in) depth (15.3 Mg ha-1 [6.82 tn ac-1] at site 1 and 13.4 Mg ha-1 [5.98 tn ac-1] at site 2) and at site 1 for 20 to 30 cm (8 to 12 in) depth (4.99 Mg ha-1 [3.66 tn ac-1]). Across TSD treatments, the SOC pool was significantly higher for plots receiving compost than those receiving synthetic fertilizer: 36.6 Mg ha-1 (16.3 tn ac-1) versus 27.8 Mg ha-1 (12.4 tn ac-1) for site 1 and 36.2 Mg ha-1 (16.1 tn ac-1) versus 22.9 Mg ha-1 (10.2 tn ac-1) for site 2. In addition, application of compost decreased soil bulk density, increased SOC concentration in different aggregate size fractions, and retained more soil moisture content when compared with the plots receiving synthetic fertilizer. Among the TSD levels, the exposed subsoil of the desurfaced treatment was more responsive to application of organic manure than synthetic fertilizer, leading to higher mean weight diameter and water stability of aggregates. The soil properties identified as corn grain yield predictors by multiple regression analysis varied only slightly between the two sites. The data obtained enhances the understanding of long-term changes in crop production and soil properties by erosional processes simulated by varying TSD in the US Cornbelt region.


of the original article: The general problem of visual search can be shown to be computationally intractable in a formal, complexity-theoretic sense, yet visual search is extensively involved in everyday perception, and biological systems manage to perform it remarkably well. Complexity level analysis may resolve this contradiction. Visual search can be reshaped into tractability through approximations and by optimizing the resources devoted to visual processing. Architectural constraints can be derived using the minimum cost principle to rule out a large class of potential solutions. The evidence speaks strongly against bottom-up approaches to vision. In particular, the constraints suggest an attentional mechanism that exploits knowledge of the specific problem being solved. This analysis of visual search performance in terms of attentional influences on visual information processing and complexity satisfaction allows a large body of neurophysiological and psychological evidence to be tied together. Unbounded wisuai search is not both biologically plausible and HP-Complete


This paper discusses a practical replacement method for a transport company. A vehicle annual maintenance cost and depreciation costs were formulated and a replacement model that takes into account of the value of money was applied to determine a suitable replacement interval for various groups of vehicle. A fare model was formulated to determine appropriate fares that accommodate a profit margin and successful vehicle replacement programme.


Data was reduced and analyses were performed on amplitude and phase scintillation data recorded from VHF and UHF beacons and probe-carrying satellites during magnetic storm periods. Studies were made on the relationship between various parameters and scintillation patterns. (GRA)


The scope of this study was to investigate the toxic effects of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs) on freshwater microalgae, in long-term semi-batch feeding mode at two different hydraulic retention times (HRTs) (20 and 40 days). A freshwater microalgae, Scenedesmus rubescens, was employed and exposed to a semi-continuous supply of ZnO NPs at a low concentration of 0.081 mg/L for a period of 28 d. Experiments were conducted under controlled environmental conditions. Τhe impact of ZnO NPs on S. rubescens, which was assessed in terms of nutrient removal, biomass growth, and algal lipid content. Semi-batch mode cultures showed that low ZnO NP concentrations at an HRT of 40 d did not have any negative effect on microalgae growth after the fourth day of culture. In contrast, algal growth was inhibited up to 17.5% at an HRT of 20 d in the presence of ZnO NPs. This might be attributed to the higher flow rate applied and ZnO NPs load. A positive correlation between nutrient removal and microalgae growth was observed. The algal lipid content was, in most cases, higher in the presence of ZnO NPs at both HRTs, indicating that even low ZnO NPs concentration cause stress resulting in higher lipid content.


Quantum electrodynamics enables us to extract a precise value of the fine-structure constant α from measurements of the hyperfine structure of the muonium ground state and the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron. Results obtained thus far are reviewed and compared with the values of α obtained from the ac Josephson effect and the quantized Hall effect.


Highly sensitive analytical techniques have allowed a massive increase in the amount of pharmacokinetic data which is useful to estimate the toxicity of the particular drugs. Generally available analytical techniques may not provide sufficient information to identify the all these toxic substances present in biological fluids at low concentrations. So, modifications to generally available analytical techniques are required. They can provide high sensitivity and selectivity of the analytical method towards the particular type of toxic substances. They provide reliable, robust sensitive, specific, quantitative assay procedures for the determination of drugs and metabolites in body fluids. The sensitivity of these techniques is up to nano-grams and pico-grams. Originally, the most common extraction method was liquid–liquid extraction (LLE). Solid-phase extraction (SPE) has become an increasingly popular extraction method.


Within the framework of the baroclinic instability Eady model, an analytical approach to the determination of optimal perturbations with a maximum of the energy growth rate or the ratio of the final and initial energies is considered. This approach is based on the energy balance equation and explicit expressions for the energy functionals resulting from the perturbation representation by means of the superposition of the edge Rossby waves (ERWs). The corresponding expressions are functions of the parameters of the initial perturbation, and the determination of optimal parameters reduces to the study of these functions on an extremum. For perturbations with zero potential vorticity (PV), the amplitudes of the initial buoyancy distributions at the boundaries of the atmospheric layer and the phase shift between these distributions serve as parameters. Analytical formulas are obtained for the optimal phase shift and the maximum of the energy ratio, which determine their dependence on the wavenumber and optimization time. It is also shown that the optimal perturbations always have equal boundary amplitudes. The parameters of the optimal perturbations are compared with the parameters of the growing normal modes. It is established that there exists only one exponentially growing normal mode, which is the optimal perturbation. Along with the instability, the ERWs can be excited by their interaction with the initial vortex perturbations (PV ≠ 0). The optimal regime of ERWs excitation by the initial singular distribution of PV is investigated.


The wide spread use of cellular phones, handheld devices, and GPS-like technology enables location-aware environments where virtually all objects are aware of their locations. Location-aware environments and location-aware services are characterized by the large number of moving objects and large number of continuously moving queries (also known as spatio-temporal queries). Such environments call for new query processing techniques that deal with the continuous movement and frequent updates of both spatio-temporal objects and spatio-temporal queries. This dissertation, presents novel paradigms and algorithms for efficient processing and scalable execution of continuous spatio-temporal queries in location-aware database servers. We introduce a disk-based framework that exploits shared execution and incremental evaluation paradigms. With shared execution, the problem of evaluating a set of concurrent continuous queries is abstracted to a spatial join between the set of moving objects and the set of moving queries. With the incremental evaluation, rather than performing a repetitive evaluation of continuous queries, we produce only the updates of the recently reported answer.
For streaming environments, we introduce a generic class of spatio-temporal operators that can be tuned with a set of parameters and methods to act as various continuous spatio-temporal queries (e.g., range queries and k-nearest-neighbor queries). The spatio-temporal operators can be combined with other traditional operators (e.g., join, distinct, and aggregate) to support a wide variety of continuous spatiotemporal queries. To support scalability in steaming environments, we introduce a salable operator that shares memory resources among all outstanding continuous queries. To cope with intervals of high arrival rates of data objects and/or continuous queries, the proposed scalable operator utilizes a self-tuning approach based on load-shedding where some of the stored objects are dropped from memory.
The experimental evaluation of our disk-based approach compares with recent scalable approaches and shows the superior performance of our techniques. Also, we experimentally evaluate our spatio-temporal operators based on a real implementation inside an open-source data stream management system. The experimental results show that by delving inside the database engine and providing pipelined operators for continuous spatio-temporal queries, we can achieve performance orders of magnitude better than other application level algorithms.


In pediatrics, skeletal maturity, also called "bone age", an expression of biological maturity of a child, is an important quantitative measure for the clinical diagnosis of endocrinological problems and growth disorders. Bone age is also used in monitoring children with hormone therapy. Skeletal maturity may be assessed by analysis of the ossification centers of the hand, foot, knee, elbow or pelvis but most often used is the hand. Skeletal maturity diagnosis is usually based on a visual comparison of a left-hand wrist radiograph with atlas patterns and the most common method used is the Tanner-Whitehouse method. With the help of PHP and MySQL a computer-assisted software we developed, based on Tanner-Whitehouse method, for bone age assessment of children and young people. The program is a client-server one and all data are saved into a database server. The program (1) display control radiographies, schematic drawings and specifications for every stage of hand bones until maturity stage, (2) allow user to select a maturity stage for every bone, (3) save and query personal data of patients, (4) save and query consultations and (5) make consultation reports. URL address: http://academicdirect.ro/virtual_library/medical_informatics/bone_age/.


Representative double bifurcation airway models with asymmetric branch flow rate ratios, caused by spatially different downstream impedances or a carinal tumour in one branch, have been considered. For steady laminar inhalation of a dilute micron-particle suspension, i.e. 500 < or = Re < or = 2000 and 0.02 < or = St < or = 0.12, air flow fields, aerosol distributions, and wall particle concentrations have been simulated with a user-enhanced finite-volume code and an off-line particle tracking routine. Particle deposition efficiencies are shown for both asymmetric branch flow rate cases, i.e. unobstructed and tumour-induced.


Literature plays an important role in promoting sustainable tourism. Depicting the uniqueness of its culture and society with all the surroundings where literature grows, develops, and impacts. Literary Tourism established the relationship between literature and tourism where it illustrates a form of travel that occupy under the types of tourism, describing an instrument designed for the conservational purposes of specific category of cultural heritage such as the current case objectives, locations, events related to different aspects of literature. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the impact of literature for sustainable tourism in Indonesia. The method is used is exploratory qualitative research where it identifies existent resources of literature to foster Indonesian sustainable tourism through utilizing literature from various sources including media, website to obtain data related to literature, tourism, and tourist attraction. This paper offers an interdiciplinary approach that combines literary studies and tourism studies and  the strong relation between literature and sustainable tourism and vice versa.
Keywords: Literary tourism,sustainable, Indonesia, Culture, Society


The WEST experiment is currently operating with tungsten plasma-facing components and testing ITER-like divertor monoblocks. In order to support WEST experiments interpretation, numerical analyses were carried out. Starting from WEST experimental data, realistic background plasma conditions were reproduced through SolEdge-EIRENE and used as input for ERO2.0 simulations to investigate tungsten migration. Tungsten contamination due to the different plasma-facing components was modelled under different plasma conditions, highlighting a non-negligible contribution of tungsten coming from the tokamak main chamber. Tungsten penetration factor was computed and used as an indication for tungsten screening by the background plasma at the different tokamak plasma-facing components. Simulations showed the main chamber components to be very weakly screened. Light impurities charge was showed to influence not only tungsten sputtering, but also its probability to enter the confined plasma. Simulations results indicated that even when the tungsten source is not heavily influenced by self-sputtering, contamination of the confined plasma can be strongly impacted by it in low density background plasma conditions. Finally, a one-to-one comparison between tungsten visible spectroscopy at the lower divertor from experimental data and from synthetic diagnostics was performed, showing that it is possible to reproduce a realistic lower divertor signal following experimental evidence on light impurities asymmetry between the targets.


The factual data on error of positioning in VRS GPS networks have been analyzed, where the mobile receiver is provided with VRS. The method of highly informative zone is suggested for removal of initial vagueness in selection of reference stations for purposes of development of VRS on the basis of minimum GPS network, composed of three reference stations. The recommendations on use of suggested method are given.


One of the many processes that occur in our Milky Way Galaxy is the in- teraction of Neutral Hydrogen (H I) shells with the Interstellar Medium (ISM). H I shells are formed when material from stellar winds and supernova explosions expands outward and mixes with the ISM. Without this phenomenon the heavy elements made in stars would not be recycled and reused for future star and planet systems. The goal of this project is to better understand how interstellar shells evolve. To acquire a better grasp of a shell's characteristics and develop- ment, we compared images for 55 shells that were discovered in the Search for Extraterrestrial Neutral Hydrogen (SETHi) radio database. The SETHi images show cold, neutral gas, the H-Alpha Composite Survey images show warm, ion- ized gas, the IRIS (infrared) images show warm dust, and the RASS (X-ray) images reveal hot gas. The initial comparison identified nine potentially interest- ing shells. Of these, four are most suitable for detailed follow-up study, based on information available from their kinematic distances. We present a catalog of the shells we classified, including details of those that are likely targets. Follow-up detailed multi-wavelength comparisons can give us estimates on a shells's age and evolutionary status.


Summary Phytophthora cinnamomi is a soilborne pathogen causing root rot in Mediterranean Quercus species growing in dehesa rangeland ecosystems. Recently, it has been reported causing wilting and death of Lupinus luteus (yellow lupin), a spontaneous plant in southern Spain rangelands, but also frequently sowed for livestock grazing. In soils artificially infested with P. cinnamomi chlamydospores and planted with different cultivars of yellow lupin, a significant increase in the density of propagules was detected in comparison with the initial levels of inoculum and with the infested but not planted soil (control). In oak-rangelands in which yellow lupine was planted, isolation and counting of colonies of P. cinnamomi from soil samples have shown the ability of this plant to maintain or even increase the inoculum density and thus facilitate the infection of trees. Results suggested that cultivation of yellow lupin in oak-rangeland ecosystems should be avoided whether oak trees are affected by root disease caused by P. cinnamomi or not. This leguminous plant can act as an inoculum reservoir or even enhance inoculum soil levels available for oak root infections, exacerbating the oak decline severity in the region.


As the human ear is dull to the phase in speech, little attention has been paid to phase information in speech coding. In fact, the speech perceptual quality may be degenerated if the phase distortion is very large. The perceptual effect of the STFT (Short time Fourier transform) phase spectrum is studied by auditory subjective hearing tests. Three main conclusions are (1) If the phase information is neglected completely, the subjective quality of the reconstructed speech may be very poor; (2) Whether the neglected phase is in low frequency band or high frequency band, the difference from the original speech can be perceived by ear;(3) It is very difficult for the human ear to perceive the difference of speech quality between original speech and reconstructed speech while the phase quantization step size is shorter than π/7.


When I was in medical school over 20 years ago, among the higher truths that I was taught was the belief in the importance and high priority of clinicians' active involvement in research activities. The nature of medical discovery was such that it often required a physician-initiated research endeavor to bring the knowledge of science to improved treatment of human disease. The fear among physicians of choosing a career as clinician-scientist was that one might prove unworthy and not succeed, but the merit of the pursuit was never in doubt. The stated goals of most departments of ophthalmology involved nurturing and protecting such investigation-oriented physicians. Finding new knowledge that could be applied to human disease was the most sacred and important of pathways, and was part of the philosophy that it was important for physicians to "return something to the system" that had helped foster their careers. Although the above


Nanocomposites of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) with dimensional (1D) cobalt oxide (Co3O4) and f-MWCNTs were prepared successfully by the solution casting method. The impact of 1D Co3O4 filler and 1D Co3O4/f-MWCNTs co-fillers on the structural, thermal, and electrical behavior of PVDF were studied. The crystal structural properties of pure PVDF and its nanocomposite films were studied by XRD, which revealed a significant enhancement of β-phase PVDF in the resulting nanocomposite films. The increase in β-phase was further revealed by the FTIR spectroscopic analysis of the samples. TG, DTA, and DSC analyses confirmed an increase in thermal stability of PVDF with the addition of nano-fillers as well as their increasing wt.%. From impedance spectroscopic studies, it was found that the DC conductivity of PVDF increases insignificantly initially (up to 0.1 wt.% of nano-fillers addition), but a significant improvement in DC conductivity was found at higher concentrations of the nano-fillers. Furthermore, it was observed that the DC conductivity decreases with frequency. The increase in DC conductivity corresponded to the strong interactions of nano-fillers with PVDF polymer chains.


The motor innervation of four muscle spindles from the tenuissimus muscle of the cat was demonstrated using reconstructions of 1 micrometer thick, serial transverse sections. Analysis of the results clearly indicates that the bag intrafusal muscle fibre usually does not receive a static fusimotor input via trail innervation. In contrast to the highly selective innervation of bag fibres, almost half the axons supplying bag or chain fibres branched to terminate on both types of fibre. The significance of these results is discussed in relation to previous studies on fusimotor innervation and to their functional implications. The presence of autonomic innervation is a further complication that appears to have led to erroneous conclusions concerning the nature of the trail innervation of chain fibres in a recent study of the distribution of cholinesterase activity in the spindle.


Neoplatymops mattogrossensis , the South American flat-headed bat, is a ground crevice-dwelling microhabitat specialist. Small holometabolous insects are the predominant prey that it consumed in the Caatingas of Northeast Brazil. Its external morphology results in aerodynamic attributes that are unlike those of many molossids and that are similar to those of vespertilionid bats. The species is sexually dimorphic for most morphometric characters, but the magnitude of the dimorphism is slight, probably moderated by the constraints of crevice dwelling. Significant geographic variability characterizes the species, but is neither consistent nor of sufficient magnitude to designate recognizable subspecies. Low gene flow and a mosaic genetic structure probably characterize the species.


In this paper we report the one pot functionalization of the carbon–carbon double bonds of triglycerides via a cascade hydroaminomethylation (HAM)/hydrohydroxymethylation (HHM) reaction. The carbon–carbon double bonds are first hydroformylated using a Rh-catalyst. The produced aldehydes react with secondary amines to yield enamines which are then reduced to tertiary amines. Interestingly, the latter act as ligands of Rh-species capable of hydrogenating the remaining formyl groups into alcohols. As a result, the final triglycerides are substituted by both aminomethyl and hydroxymethyl groups. Of interest, no phosphane ligand is used to stabilize the Rh-species. Moreover, the proportion of aminomethyl and hydroxymethyl groups grafted onto the triglyceride fatty chains can be finely adjusted by a careful choice of the experimental conditions, especially the nature and the amount of the amine, the reaction temperature, and the CO/H2 pressure. The resulting amino-hydroxylated triglycerides are unprecedented biosourced building blocks whose applications could be of major interest, especially in the field of polymer chemistry.


During the McCarthy Era, communists and sympathizers were found lurking under every bed. Professors lost their jobs, physicists lost their clearances, actors were blacklisted, and authors left the country as their reputations were smeared. Using many contemporary sources, this unique and comprehensive reference examines a historical period too long overlooked.


A retrospective study of the efficacy of soluble aspirin in migraine has been carried out. Data were available for 6l patients. These patients differed in only relatively minor ways from the remainder of the population of migraine sufferers referred to a neurological consultative practice. Soluble aspirin usually or always relieved migraine attacks in 44% of these patients, and sometimes relieved the disorder in another 25%. Adverse effects, mainly nausea and vomiting, were reported by 16% of patients only, and in some cases nausea and vomiting may have been due to migraine rather than to the drug. Response to aspirin was unrelated to factors such as the patient's age, sex and duration of migraine history, and to the severity of migraine or occurrence of nausea and vomiting during attacks. However, the presence of a migraine aura appeared to improve the chances of a response to aspirin. The aura may have permitted earlier recognition that migraine was present, and thus allowed earlier aspirin intake at a stage when it had a better chance of influencing migraine mechanisms.


BACKGROUND
Endometrial hyperplasia in patients with a history of breast cancer presents a therapeutic dilemma. The standard conservative therapy for hyperplasia, high-dose progestins, is contraindicated in breast cancer. Anastrozole, an aromatase inhibitor, is becoming first-line adjuvant therapy for breast cancer in postmenopausal women and may have protective effects on the endometrium.

CASE
A 51-year-old, obese woman with a history of breast cancer presented with a 2-day history of heavy postmenopausal bleeding. Endometrial biopsy demonstrated simple hyperplasia without cellular atypia. After consultation with the patient's oncologist, the patient received adjuvant anastrozole therapy for the breast cancer; it led to resolution of the endometrial hyperplasia.

CONCLUSION
Adjuvant therapy with anastrozole may be beneficial in resolving endometrial hyperplasia in patients with breast cancer.


adu We. 7/IS two ddys.'the previotsly'dry eczema was converted iM niteIte4f6tnM, withicopioius sreept, followed by the formation of small 'tk 616s, Which becamepsles, round the skin in the vicinityof the original patches. The patient, by constantly scratching herself, managed to inoculate .her eyebrows.and cheeks. A month elapsed before the-application of poultices, oil-dressings, milk-washings, and the internal administration of alkalies, with ergot, opium, and liquor arsenicalis, eflected a decided impiovement in her conditj~onr; .! A).Q45E iu.A-,-Aahsmmedan, aged 50, applied'to me: with a similar parasitic (czema overbeth insteps, andIordered him 30 grains of amnmoniated mercury, tothe ounce of simple ointment. Here, again, an adate.eczema,.with copious discharge,: was! produced after two applicatios,-andthdwhole surface of the trunk and limbs -was covered witka paoInar :efuptibn of slightly raised vascular papules, fiat, difftuentv and about --ne--fifth of an inch across. The occurrence of both cases within a few days surprised; me, since I had never befre seen anry objectionable results follow the use of ammoniated mercury..: I inquired of the patients, and found that both hadl .obtined tiheik ointments from the same druggist's shop. I inspected the bottle which was said to contain the drug used in-dispensing the ointmhents, and found it nearly empty. The bottle in question. had been in use some time, and no complaints of the drug had-.beedn made before; I was, at first, doubtful about the female -patient's. conditionvbtng.d fue to: the white precipitate, since I learnt that, she~was veruy.;fond of applying native remedies in addition to those pre, scribledA -I believe that it is the practice with. many druggists to prepare the drug fresh as required .for use; but, although grey powdei is 'very 'liable to become oxydised in hot climates, And is, tihtefdie, rarely prescribed by careful. men in India, I have never heard of any poisonous results following the use of white, precipitate before. -.SHIRLEY DEAKIN, F.R.C.S.Eng.,. Surgeon Bengal Service.


An opposition control scheme with strengthened control input is proposed and tested in turbulent channel flows at friction Reynolds number Reτ = 180 by direct numerical simulations. When the detection plane is located at less than 20 wall units, the drag reduction rate can be greatly enhanced by increasing the control amplitude parameter. The maximum drag reduction rate achieved in the present study is around 33%, which is much higher than the best value of 25% reported in literature. The strengthened control can be more efficient to attain a given drag reduction rate. Based on the total shear stress at the virtual wall established between the real wall and the detection plane by the control, a new friction velocity is proposed and the corresponding coordinate transform is made. Scaled by the proposed friction velocity, the wall-normal velocity fluctuation and the Reynolds shear stress of the controlled flows are collapsed well with those of the uncontrolled flow in the new coordinate. Based on the similarity, a relation between drag reduction rate and the effectiveness of the virtual wall is deduced, which disclosed that the elevation and residual Reynolds shear stress at the virtual wall are the key parameters to determine the drag reduction rate. The conclusion are also validated at Reτ = 395 and 590. The decrease of the drag reduction rate with the increase of the Reynolds number is attributed to the enhanced residual Reynolds shear stress at the virtual wall.


Shear stress is known to induce platelet activation and aggregation. The red blood cell (RBC) aggregation test requires the application of shear stress for the cells to disaggregate for initialization. We tested the hypothesis that applying shear stress may activate platelets, which can influence RBC aggregation. The present study used a commercial microchip-based aggregometer (RheoSCan-AnD300) with a rotating stirrer for RBC disaggregation. Whole blood samples were exposed to different magnitudes of shear stress with various shearing times. As the rotational speed was increased up to 2800 rpm, the RBC aggregation index (AI) of the whole blood increased by up to 30% (p <  0.05), whereas that of the platelet-excluded blood samples did not show any apparent alteration. The AI also increased in proportion with the stirring time. The data suggest that high shear stress affects RBC aggregation through shear-induced platelet aggregation.


Background. Activated Leukocyte Cell Adhesion Molecule, ALCAM (also known as CD166) is a member of the immunoglobulin superfamily and a cell surface adhesion molecule involved in heterophilic and homophilic interactions during cell-cell adhesion in epithelial cells, cancer cells and endothelial cells. ALCAM appears to be linked to tumour progression in a number of cancers including breast cancer, though there are conflicting reports as to its precise prognostic implications and significance. We have previously reported that ALCAM has a tumour suppressive role in breast cancer and is inversely correlated with clinical outcome (1) and interestingly bone metastasis of breast cancer (2). We have also reported that ALCAM has a diverse role in other cell types including keratinocytes and endothelial cells. In the present study, we investigated the association between ALCAM and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF)/cMET, a signalling pathway established as a key promoter of cancer progression, influencing both the aggressive nature of cancer cells and acting as an angiogenic and lymphangiogenic factor, in breast cancer and endothelial cells. Methods. The expression pattern and correlation of ALCAM, HGF and cMET in human breast cancer were deduced from a clinical breast cancer cohort. ALCAM manipulated HECV cell lines, previously established in our laboratories, were used in conjunction with recombinant human HGF and cMET inhibitors to assess cellular functions and the implications of this relationship at a cellular level. Results. We compared the expression of ALCAM with that of HGF and cMET within the breast cancer cohort and found that ALCAM/CD166 showed a highly significant negative correlation with the HGF receptor cMET (r=-0.17, p Discussion. ALCAM's role in breast cancer progression and related mechanisms is complex. Our current data suggests this may involve an interaction with the cMET/HGF signalling pathway and may also impact the endothelial component within the tumour microenvironment to influence disease progression. Reference1 King JA, Ofori-Acquah SF, Stevens T, et al. Activated leukocyte cell adhesion molecule in breast cancer: prognostic indicator. Breast Cancer Res. 2004;6:R478-87. Reference2 Davies SR, Dent C, Watkins G et al. Expression of the cell to cell adhesion molecule, ALCAM, in breast cancer patients and the potential link with skeletal metastasis. Oncol Rep. 2008;19:555-61. Citation Format: Andrew James Sanders, David Guo Jiang, Jianyuan Zeng, Robert Edward Mansel, Eleri Davies, Amber Xinyu Li, Keith Gordon Harding, Wen Guo Jiang. Potential role of activated leukocyte cell adhesion molecule (ALCAM) in hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) signalling in vascular endothelial cells and implications in breast cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2020 San Antonio Breast Cancer Virtual Symposium; 2020 Dec 8-11; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2021;81(4 Suppl):Abstract nr PS17-48.


Practical Applications Summary In Demography, Asset Allocation, and Investment Horizon: Enduring Lessons from Long History, from the June 2019 issue of the Journal of Investing, author Ali Nejadmalayeri (of the University of Wyoming in Laramie, WY) examines the effect of demography on intergenerational variations in the investment performance of various short-and long-term retirement plans. He seeks to answer two specific questions: 1) whether there are discernible intergenerational variations in the investment performance of major asset classes, and 2) whether the ratio of middle-aged individuals to young individuals (the "MY ratio") explains the performance of major asset classes across varying horizons.


The chapter describes the features of Green Pedagogy, originally developed in Austria in German where it is still being actively researched. Green Pedagogy offers a structured approach to lesson planning to achieve embedded sustainability competencies within a specific vocational or academic field. The Green Pedagogy approach achieves sustainability competency through a controlled appeal to the emotions and the explicit uncovering of learner values to take on new ideas and new perspectives in a more sustainable direction. The approach is compatible with many recommended Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) pedagogies such as project-based teaching and the case study approach. The approach also implements several more general evidence-based pedagogical strategies such as concept change. The key feature of Green Pedagogy is that the process ends with locally based action whose wider implications are explored. We relate some of the challenges involved in translating a pedagogical approach from one language to another as the ProfESus Erasmus project aimed to disseminate Green Pedagogy to a global cohort of teachers of home economics in English. Reactions of participating teachers in the piloting of the training are explored and some practical solutions offered.


In this study, we report forty-nine cases of Chironomidae larvae living on other animals in Brazilian aquatic ecosystems, including a wide range of hosts, such as hydrozoans, snails, insects and fish. We also discuss some empirical difficulties to establish the ecological interactions between chironomids and their hosts.


National Forest Inventories (NFI) are essential for countrywide estimations of a wide range of forest functions. Our research aim is to derive measurable forest features out of airborne image data by using automatic computer-vision based methods. This paper focuses on tree layer detection of high resolution ADS40 data for automation. Preliminary experimental results of mean-shift segmentation method combined with curvature features from airborne laser scanning (ALS) for automatic tree layer detection are presented. Further research is needed to connect separate tree patches into forests according to specific forest definitions.


Pneumonia represents an inflammatory, usually infectious process involving the alveoli and airway structures of the lungs. Pneumonia continues to be a significant cause of infant and childhood morbidity and mortality. It is twice as common in infants as in older children. Respiratory tract infection still represents the most common illness that occurs in the child. The method of infection is usually inhalation. Occasionally, particularly in neonates, infection may be caused by hematogenous spread. Rarely, it spreads from contiguous structures. Endemic or epidemic disease is common, particularly in the winter and spring months. The signs and symptoms of these various pneumonic diseases are similar and mainly relate to fever, cough, malaise, tachypnea, wheezing, and progressive respiratory distress. Radiographic patterns are frequently indistinguishable from one another.


The tactical missile industry makes an excellent example of the need to bridge the gap between theory and practice in control systems. Many of today's highly successful missiles employ only the most simple classical algorithms, such as variants of proportional navigation guidance and PID control. The undeniable effectiveness of these techniques has been proven many times over, and the tactical missile industry has therefore had little use for many of the theoretical advancements made in the last two decades of control research. Recently, however, this situation has begun to change. Emerging threats and new operational constraints have created the need for a variety of new weapon systems that will eventually replace yesterday's workhorses in future conflicts. Even existing systems can expect significant upgrades as both performance requirements and available on-board computing power continue to increase. The article covers the following aspects: industry requirements; enabling technologies; fixed-structure control; parameter optimisation methods; LPV control; nonlinear dynamic inversion; and integrated guidance and autopilot design.


Data sharing scheme by using attribute based to reduce the key escrow issue but also develops the expressiveness of attribute, because of that the resulting scheme is more user friendly to cloud computing. In this proposed work we are introducing an improved two-party key issuing protocol that can guarantee that neither key authority nor cloud service operator can compromise the whole secret key of a user individually. We introduce the concept of attribute with weight, being provided to enhance the expression of attribute, which can not only extend the expression from binary to arbitrary state, but also lighten the complexity of access policy. So that, both storage cost and encryption complexities for a cipher text are relieved. In our proposed work the modification process is after the data owner sends secret key to the user, the particular cloud user can view the data which is stored in cloud server. Once the user used that secret key means the key will be automatically changed for that shared data, this dynamic key will be send to the data owner also.


Societal development is increasingly undertaken as major public projects in different sectors. Project governance is important for strategically successful outcomes; thus, a broad societal perspective should be kept throughout the governance process. State ownership exists in many forms, and major public projects' governance arrangements differ. Quality assurance is a recommended part of the arrangements, yet knowledge of them is limited. This study investigates relatively recent governance arrangements in state-owned enterprises in Norway, emphasizing their content and organization of quality assurance. The arrangements are compared with the more established "State Project Model", a governance arrangement set up by the Ministry of Finance in 2000, including major public projects with budgets exceeding USD 110 million. Through case studies, comprising documents and interviews, and using the State Project Model as a reference frame, differences in the studied arrangements' comprehensiveness were found. Finding the appropriate level of governance is challenging, yet potential for mutual learning and improvement across different arrangements is revealed. For state-owned enterprises with sectoral policy objectives, the government should ensure that political control is not undermined. This study provides recommendations for further improvement of governance arrangements and adds to the general understanding of state-owned enterprises and major public projects' front-end phase.


The SPIHT algorithm does not use tables in its coding strategy and it consists of easy to modify features. Therefore, it is competent to be used to design an on-board image and video still frame codec reconfigurable architecture than such designs aiming at complex JPEG 2000 codec. However, there still exists the high hardware memory consumption drawback due to its inherent wavelet transform phase. Therefore, the primary theme of this research paper is to make the SPIHT coding algorithm memory efficient by incorporating an extended version of DCT technology from JPEG and using the sustaining conversion function. Moreover, the related parallel processing hardware architecture is forwarded with a higher consideration to the SPIHT encoder. The simulation results of the total memory consumption (in megabytes) with an analogous onboard machine-vision encoder for the adaptation of the proposed memory efficient SPIHT (ME-SPIHT) codec are 13.2% and 14.14% (percent) lower than that of the adaptation of the tiling, wavelet transform based JPEG 2000 codec at 0.01 bpp (irreversible) and at 1.0 bpp (approximately reversible) bit rates, respectively.


Equilibrative nucleoside transporters (ENTs) are responsible for the uptake of a large number of nucleosides and nucleoside analogs. hENT1 is the most abundant and is widely distributed in human cells. It is the major transporter by which gemcitabine enters cells and decreased levels is an established resistance mechanism in vitro. However, high levels represent an increase in positive predictive factors for patients' response to gemcitabine. hENT expression is, therefore, a prognostic marker for patients with resected cancer but is it also a biomarker for pancreatic cancer? This study demonstrated that hENT expression in pancreatic tissue was highly variable among individuals and that moderate to high levels of hENT was expressed in malignant pancreatic cancers but very little to any in normal pancreatic tissues. Recent published studies in our laboratory have shown that the non-toxic dietary agent, indole-3-carbinol (IC3), can modulate hENT expression in pancreatic cancer cell lines, increasing expression of this transporter and further enhancing the efficacy of gemicitabine.

Moderate to high level of expression of hENT in tumor tissues and not normal pancreatic tissues suggest that it could also be a biomarker, however larger number of samples are needed for validation. Modulation of hENT expression by I3C could prove to be an important agent for combination therapy in patients expressing low levels of hENT.

Citation Format: Beverly Lyn-Cook, Honggang Wang, Li Pang, Beverly Word. Individual variation in hENT expression in normal and malignant pancreatic tissues: The role of dietary agents in enhancing efficacy in gemcitabine treatment. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Pancreatic Cancer: Progress and Challenges; Jun 18-21, 2012; Lake Tahoe, NV. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(12 Suppl):Abstract nr A44.


Primary successions along glacier forelands are perfect examples of the changing climate upon high mountain ecosystems. Peripheral mountain ranges deserve particular attention, given they are characterised by high numbers of species and endemism and are considered to be particularly susceptible to climate change. We analysed thermal regime, soil parameters and plant/arthropod primary succession along a glacier foreland located in such a context, comparing it with those previously studied in the inner Alps. The overall patterns of the investigated primary succession agree with those of the inner Alps at the same elevation, but stands out for a delayed plant and arthropod colonisation which promotes the long-lasting persistence of pioneer cold-adapted species. In light of the results obtained, and considering the glaciological features of peripheral mountain ranges (glaciers persistence at low elevation), this paper asserts the hypothesis that glacial landforms of these areas may act as warm-stage refugia for pioneer cold-adapted species.


It is typically assumed that the shorter the delay in a computer response to a user's action is, the better. In a study examining this assumption, 16 university students were asked to judge the timing of occurrence of either an auditory or a visual stimulus following a voluntary mouse button-press with various durations of delay from 0 to 400 msec. Both a category scaling and an adjustment method of assessment were used to specify the optimal delay with which the user felt most comfortable. When the delay was 50 msec. or shorter, both auditory and visual responses were judged as too fast to be a consequence of the action. The responses were judged as too slow when the delay was 200 msec. or longer for auditory and 300 msec. or longer for visual stimuli. Analysis for the adjustment method indicated that the optimal delay was within 100 to 200 msec. and was longer for visual than for auditory responses. The present study suggests that immediate responses from a computer are not always comfortable and that the insertion of a moderate delay interval may increase the user's sense of control.


Proceedings: AACR 101st Annual Meeting 2010‐‐ Apr 17‐21, 2010; Washington, DC

Nelarabine (Atriance®), a prodrug of 9-β-D-arabinofuranosylguanine (AraG), is a cytotoxic nucleoside analog used to treat acute T-cell lymphoblastic leukemia and T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma. Nelarabine is demethoxylated by adenosine deaminase to AraG. Phosphorylation and activation by deoxycytidine and deoxyguanosine kinase (dCK, dGK) to AraG monophosphate is a rate-limiting step in the further metabolism to cytotoxic AraG triphosphate and these enzymes are often down-regulated in cells resistant to AraG or other nucleoside analogs.

A microarray experiment was conducted using the acute T lymphoblastic leukemic cell line MOLT-4 and an AraG resistant MOLT-4 variant. The aim was to identify affected genes in response to the resistance induction.

Of the more than 8000 genes investigated, over 1000 were significantly (p≤0.05) and differentially expressed between the parental and the resistant cell line. Nucleoside analog resistance genes were only modestly affected. Of the top ten upregulated genes, five were different hemoglobin genes, mainly fetal ones. This was verified with real-time PCR expression and western blot for fetal hemoglobin gamma. Drugs with the ability to hypomethylate DNA, such as hydroxyurea and 5-azacytidine, have been shown to induce hemoglobine genes. Clofarabine (CAFdA, 2-chloro-2′-arabino-fluoro-2′-deoxyadenosin, Evoltra®) has been shown to hypomethylate DNA and cytarabine (AraC, Cytosar) to induce fetal hemoglobin production in baboons. Therefore it was investigated if AraG and other nucleoside analogs have the ability to induce DNA hypomethylation with subsequent hemoglobin induction in MOLT-4 cells.

MOLT-4 cells were incubated with different nucleoside analogs and 6-mercaptopurin (6-MP, Purinethol®), an anti-metabolite known to induce DNA hypomethylation during 24 and 48 hours. DNA pulse labeling experiment measuring the quotient between newly synthesized DNA and the presence of methylated cytosines were used to assess global DNA methylation. At 24 and 48 hours of drug incubation a 20-40% decrease in DNA methylation was observed in cells treated with 6-MP, AraG, fludarabine (FaraA, 2-fluoroarabinosyladenine, Fludara®), gemcitabine (dFdC, Gemzar®), and cytarabine, a slight decrease in cells incubated with clofarabine whereas no changes in methylation were detected in cells treated with cladribine (CdA, Leustatin®). After three weeks of weekly drug treatment, real-time PCR measurements revealed upregulation of the hemoglobin gamma gene in all drug treated cells, and in cells incubated with AraG, FaraA and 6-MP the induction was between 15-to 70-fold.

The clinical impact of DNA hypomethylation by 5-azacytidine is currently under investigation by other researchers but the impact of hemoglobin gene induction is unknown.

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 3644.


A new species of nematode, Iotonchus aequatorialis sp. n., found in a soil sample from Ecuador, is described and illustrated. Iotonchus aequatorialis sp. n. is a species of medium length (2.24–2.36 mm) with a large, barrel-shaped mouth cavity 57.5–65 μ m long and 32.5–38.5 μ m diam., basal dorsal tooth, didelphic female reproductive apparatus with short, symmetrical, reflexed ovaries, relatively short vagina provided with sclerotised pieces, large uterus, no sphincter between uterus and oviducts, paravulval papillae absent, a long, slender tail 8–10 times as long as the anal body diam., and a terminal spinneret. The identities of the genera Iotonchus Cobb, 1916 and Iotonchulus Andrassy, 1994 are discussed, new diagnoses of the two genera given and their species listed. A key to the species of Iotonchus is provided. Iotonchulus darreni n. comb. (= Iotonchus darreni n. syn.) is proposed.


This study is about multicriteria decision aiding (MCDA) for the green airports program of the Moroccan Airport Authority ONDA. The goal of the program is to develop significant amounts of renewable power at airports. In particular, ONDA wants to select airports at which large solar and wind power parks should be built. Multiple criteria, including economy, technical feasibility, and environmental concerns, must be considered simultaneously. In this study, we apply Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA) for ranking the candidates to be developed into green airports. The analysis is conducted in phases with different sets of criteria. This study is the first application of MCDA for developing large-scale renewable energy production at airports. As a theoretical novelty, the pairwise winning indices of SMAA are used to form stochastic partial and complete rankings of the alternatives. Based on the results, two alternatives obtain the best and second-best rank in every model, and one alternative is always last, while the ranks of the remaining alternatives vary depending on the set of criteria.


Cyclodextrins are cyclic oligosaccharides. Cyclodextrin molecules can form inclusion complexes with a large number of organic molecules. The properties of cyclodextrins enable them to be used in a variety of different textile applications. Cyclodextrins can act as auxiliaries in washing and dyeing processes, and they can also be fixed onto different fiber surfaces. Because of the complexing abilities of cyclodextrins, textiles with new functional properties can be prepared. Poly(carboxylic acid)s such as 1,2,3,4-butane tetracarboxylic acid (BTCA) are well-known non-formaldehyde crosslinking reagents. BTCA has four carboxylic acid groups, which can react with hydroxyl groups of cellulose and form stable ester bonds. We crosslinked β-cyclodextrin molecules on hydroxyl groups of cellulose via BTCA. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 96: 1323–1328, 2005


Salmonella is one of the most important foodborne pathogens. In this article, a total of 160 Salmonella isolates recovered from retail meats in June-July 2018 (before COVID-19 outbreak) and December 2020-April 2021 (after COVID-19 outbreak) in Nanchang, China, were characterized for serotyping, antimicrobial susceptibility, and specific resistance gene screening. The prevalence of Salmonella Typhimurium increased from 5.4% in 2018 to 19.1% in 2021, and Salmonella Enteritidis increased from 3.3% in 2018 to 8.8% in 2021. Compared with those in June-July 2018, Salmonella isolates in December 2020-April 2021 demonstrated a significant increase in resistance to 13 tested antibiotics except for doxycycline and nitrofurantoin (p < 0.05). The Salmonella isolates in December 2020-April 2021 showed a higher presence of plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance genes (qnrA, qnrB, and qnrS), and mutations in the quinolone resistance-determining region (gyrA Asp87Asn, gyrA Asp87Tyr, parC Thr57Ser, and parC Ser80Ile). Whole-genome sequencing was used to analyze four polymyxin B-resistant strains. Some common mutation sites in eptC and micA were found in the four strains. Based on the data in this article, it indicated that antibiotic resistance was facilitated and more gene mutations related to quinolone resistance were developed.


Organic products become more popular as an alternative for consumption which are often perceived to be healthier and more environment-friendly. As the demand for organic products increases, the conventionalisation of organic agriculture practice becomes inevitable. The advantage of conventionalisation is arguable because although it can increase the production efficiency, the practice tends to disregard the principle of organic farming. This paper will discuss the issue through utilitarianism and justice theory framework. Utilitarianism perspective supports the conventionalisation of organic farming practice since the economic benefit would outweigh the cost of negative outcome from the damaged environment. Theory of justice offers opposing perspective by considering the marginalised farmer and the effect of the conventionalisation practice to the environment. According to the ecological justice perspective, conventionalisation of organic agriculture practice is unacceptable as it undermines the organic principle and proven to be detrimental for the small farmer where only the large operations perform the conventionalisation practice.


The author discusses a novel method for improving and optimizing the performance of existing packet-switching networks (PSN). Decreasing the inefficient information transmission in the PSN is shown to be an efficient method of improving and optimizing the performance of PSNs. The basic theory for the optimization of PSN performance is presented, and the implementation of performance optimization is described.<<ETX>>


3347 Chemotherapy, radiotherapy and bone marrow transplantation are the conventional methods of leukemia treatment. However, both chemotherapy and radiotherapy are invasive and exert some adverse side effects to the patients. Some clinical studies suggested that active components isolated from traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) showed effective anti-leukemia activities by induction of apoptosis and/or differentiation in cancer cells with minimal side effects. Kushen, the dried roots of Sophora flavescens Aiton, is a TCM herb commonly used to treat gastrointestinal disorders, skin ulcers, inflammatory diseases and cancer. Previous studies from our laboratory had found that Sophoraflavanone G (SFG), a flavanone isolated from Kushen, exhibited potent anti-tumor effect on human hepatoma cells. In this study, SFG was examined for its modulatory effects on the proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis of human myeloid leukemia HL-60 cells. Both MTT and 3 H-thymidine incorporation assays showed that SFG could suppress the in vitro proliferation of HL-60 cells in a dose- and time-dependent manner, with an estimated IC 50 of 20 μM at 48 hours of incubation. On the other hand, SFG showed no significant direct cytotoxicity towards the human peripheral blood leukocytes at its growth-inhibitory concentrations for HL-60 cells. Cell cycle analysis revealed that SFG arrested HL-60 cells at the G 0 /G 1 phase after 24 hours of treatment. In addition, DNA fragmentation, which is a hallmark of apoptosis, was induced in SFG-treated HL-60 cells. This apoptotic inducing effect was further confirmed by PI/Annexin V-GFP staining. Moreover, our study also indicated that SFG-induced apoptosis in the HL-60 cells was caspase-3-dependent. Interestingly, SFG failed to induce terminal differentiation of the HL-60 cells, as judged by morphological analysis on cytospin preparations of SFG-treated HL-60 cells and functional assessment of differentiation by the nitroblue tetrazolium reduction assay. Our results, when taken together, suggest that SFG may exert its anti-leukemia effect through induction of cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. More in-depth investigations are needed to reveal the molecular and signaling mechanisms underlying the anti-tumor activities of Sophoraflavanone G, before it can be exploited for the therapeutic treatment of human myeloid leukemia.


Introduction: Tuberculosis (TB) can involve any organ but unusual location concern specially immunodeficient patients.We report three unusual TB locations in immuocompetent patients. Case report: The first patient is an immunocompetent woman admitted for pulmonary nodular lesions,pleural effusion and bilateral ovarian cysts. The eleved CA125 level suggested ovarian metastatic carcinoma. Pleural biopsy confirmed TB and presumed ovarian TB . Outcome was favorable with antituberculosis therapy (ATT) with disappearance of ovarian cysts. The second case interested an immunocompetent woman who presented simultaneous occurrence of multifocal cutaneous TB with pseudotumoral pulmonary TB. The cutaneous TB was revealed by squamous plaques and erythema in face, abdomen and breast. The diagnosis was confirmed by biopsy of the skin. Favorable outcome was observed with ATT. The third case is about an immunocompetent woman who presented decrease in visual acuity. The lesions observed by funduscopy suggered TB chorioretinitis . Tuberculin skin test was positive. The diagnostic was confirmed by fluorescein angiography. After starting tuberculosis treatment the ocular symptoms regressed


We study precessing turbulence, which appears in several geophysical and astrophysical systems, by direct numerical simulations of homogeneous turbulence where precessional instability is triggered due to the imposed background flow. We show that the time development of kinetic energy K occurs in two main phases associated with different flow topologies: (i) an exponential growth characterizing three-dimensional turbulence dynamics and (ii) nonlinear saturation during which K remains almost time independent, the flow becoming quasi-two-dimensional. The latter stage, wherein the development of K remains insensitive to the initial state, shares an important common feature with other quasi-two-dimensional rotating flows such as rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection, or the large atmospheric scales: in the plane k_{∥}=0, i.e., the plane associated to an infinite wavelength in the direction parallel to the principal rotation axis, the kinetic energy spectrum scales as k_{⊥}^{-3}. We show that this power law is observed for wave numbers ranging between the Zeman "precessional" and "rotational" scales, k_{S}^{-1} and k_{Ω}^{-1}, respectively, at which the associated background shear or inertial timescales are equal to the eddy turnover time. In addition, an inverse cascade develops for (k_{⊥},k)


PURPOSE Potentially inappropriate prescribing (PIP) is a common yet preventable medical error among older persons in primary care. It is uncertain whether PIP produces adverse outcomes in this population, however. We conducted a systematic review with meta-analysis to pool the adverse outcomes of PIP specific to primary care. METHOD We searched PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, Web of Science, Scopus, PsycINFO, and previous review articles for studies related to "older persons," "primary care," and "inappropriate prescribing." Two reviewers selected eligible articles, extracted data, and evaluated the risk of bias. Meta-analysis was conducted to pool studies with similar PIP criteria and outcome measures. RESULTS Of the 2,804 articles identified, we included 8 articles with a total of 77,624 participants. All included studies had cohort design and low risk of bias. Although PIP did not affect mortality (risk ratio [RR] 0.98; 95% CI, 0.93-1.05), it was significantly associated with the other available outcomes, including emergency room visits (RR 1.63; 95% CI, 1.32-2.00), adverse drug events (RR 1.34; 95% CI, 1.09-1.66), functional decline (RR 1.53; 95% CI, 1.08-2.18), health-related quality of life (standardized mean difference –0.26; 95% CI, –0.36 to –0.16), and hospitalizations (RR 1.25; 95% CI, 1.09-1.44). A majority of the pooled estimates had negligible heterogeneity. CONCLUSIONS This meta-analysis provides consolidated evidence on the wide-ranging impact of PIP among older persons in primary care. It highlights the need to identify PIP in primary care, calls for further research on PIP interventions in primary care, and points to the need to consider potential implications when deciding on the operational criteria of PIP.


This paper provides comparative analysis between 2-D and 3-D numerical modeling of electromechanical devices by considering typical errors arising when 2-D models are assumed to model 3-D fields. It is argued that modeling simplifications need to be applied with great care as associated errors are not always predictable. In hierarchical design, both types of models are desirable hence balancing accuracy and computational effort is an increasingly important issue. Three examples are provided to illustrate the comparisons. The first shows a system with magnets for which magnetic field can be calculated analytically. The second concerns torque calculations in a permanent magnet motor. Finally, the third looks at a coil above a conducting plate with induced eddy currents. It is argued that by careful modification of selected parameters the 2-D results could be improved to make them consistent with 3-D models.


Electronic and optical properties of 440 and 530nm staggered InGaN/InGaN/GaN quantum-well (QW) light-emitting diodes are investigated using the multiband effective-mass theory. These results are compared with those of conventional InGaN/GaN QW structures. The staggered QW structure requires a slightly larger In composition than the conventional QW structure to obtain a given wavelength. The spontaneous emission is found to be improved with the inclusion of the staggered layer for QW structures with a relatively thick well width and the longer wavelength (λ = 530 nm). On the other hand, in the case of QW structures with a relatively thin well width (L w = 2 nm), the spontaneous emission peak is almost unaffected by a staggered layer.


Aphasia is a term used to describe any deficit in the production or comprehension of speech. Damage to various parts of the brain can give rise to aphasia. The communication problems experienced by patients with aphasia present a unique challenge to the nurse. It is vital that all patients receive a proper assessment of their needs. A holistic approach is required. Nurses should be non-judgmental in their approach and remember the person behind the aphasia.


OBJECTIVE
To examine barriers to weight management among firefighters.

METHODS
Health risk data collected on 2,373 overweight firefighters were used for this cross-sectional study. Barriers to weight management were the dependent variables and demographic characteristics, readiness for change and health risk factors were the correlates in the multivariate-adjusted logistic models.

RESULTS
Overweight firefighters who were ready to begin a weight management program were more likely to identify "lack of knowledge about weight management," "lack of access to exercise opportunities" and "eating helps me cope with stress" and report a greater number of barriers toward weight management. Older firefighters were less likely to identify or report one or more barriers to weight management.

CONCLUSION
Understanding barriers, readiness for change, and age may be useful in planning interventions to help firefighters better manage their weight.


A case of T‐cell lymphoblastic lymphoma is described in which the patient presented with a characteristic mediastinal mass and lack of bone marrow involvement. Immunologic studies of the surface phenotype of the malignant cells in a pleural effusion with monoclonal antibodies revealed the cells to be of thymic origin and distinguished them from the surface phenotypes seen in T‐cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Twenty‐five months after presentation with lymphoma, the patient developed an acute nonlymphocytic leukemia. With the improved prognosis seen in lymphoblastic lymphoma with intensive combination chemotherapy, it is expected that more cases of subsequent acute nonlymphocytic leukemia will be seen. In view of the natural history of lymphoblastic lymphoma to develop into lymphoblastic leukemia, it is important to be alert to a complicating nonlymphocytic leukemia.


This study uses contingent valuation method (CVM) to elicit willingness to pay monthly for electricity or heating produced by renewable energy (RE). The experts who participated in the conference of the Korean Society for New and Renewable Energy in May of 2008 were asked to answer the questionnaires: how much would you be willing to pay monthly to receive electricity (or heating) generated by RE? We find some evidence that the respondents have higher willingness to pay for RE electricity than RE heating even if the average electric bills were lower than the heating bills. The respondent who belongs to a large family and has a good opinion of RE tends to show high willingness to pay for both RE electricity and RE heating.


The system CaCO 3 -SrCO 3 has been investigated at temperatures of 560 degrees C and 655 degrees C and pressures up to 13 kb. At constant temperature, orthorhombic mix crystals of CaCO 3 and SrCO 3 are stabilized at lower pressures as the SrCO 3 content increases. The amount of SrCO 3 in metamorphic aragonites (about one mole percent) is insufficient to cause a significant lowering of the pressure of the calcite-aragonite equilibrium. Substitution of MgCO 3 in calcite coexisting with aragonite-strontianite of a certain composition raises the equilibrium pressure (at constant temperature) until a maximum value is reached, at which calcite and aragonite-strontianite coexist with dolomite.


Among life history traits, offspring size has one of the most direct impacts on fitness, influencing growth, recruitment and survival of the individual, therefore affecting population, and ultimately macroevolutionary outcomes. Despite its ecological and evolutionary importance, little is known about how offspring size varies in lineages over macroevolutionary timescales, especially for colonial organisms. Here, we use the cheilostome bryozoan genus Microporella to investigate variation in offspring size over the history of the lineage. The genus Micro porella is species-rich, cosmopolitan, has a calcified skeleton (and is hence readily preserved in the fossil record), and is a brooder. The brood structure (ovicell) reliably re flects the space occupied by a larva and hence ovicell size is a good proxy for offspring size. Using a suite of biotic and abiotic factors, we ask what best explains offspring/larval size variation in contemporary and fossil species of Microporella, and how offspring/larval size changes through the millions of years of the history of the lineage. We find that offspring size is affected by a combination of module size and water temperature (or latitude when fossil species are included), while fecundity and levels of nutrients have a weak to no effect on this life history trait. Among Microporella species, descendant species are statistically more likely to have larger offspring than their putative ancestors, with the size difference between species pairs little explained by temporal latitudinal shifts. Our results suggest that both contemporary ecological controls and historical considerations are important in understanding life history trait evolution.


This paper presents a new robust feature set for noisy speech recognition in phase domain along with spectral peaks obtained from group delay and autocorrelation functions. The group delay domain is appropriate for formant tracking and autocorrelation domain is well-known for its pole preserving and noise separation properties. In this paper, we report on appending spectral peaks obtained in either group delay or autocorrelation domains to the feature vectors extracted originally in phase domain to create a new feature set. We tested our features on the Aurora 2 noisy isolated-word task and found that it led to improvements over other group delay-based and autocorrelation-based methods that use magnitude instead of phase for feature extraction .


Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a major reason for the increased visual loss globally, and it became an important cause of visual impairment among people in 25–74 years of age. The DR significantly affects the economic status in society, particularly in healthcare systems. When timely treatment is provided to the DR patients, approximately 90% of patients can be saved from visual loss. Therefore, it becomes highly essential to classify the stages and severity of DR for the recommendation of required treatments. In this view, this paper introduces a new automated Hyperparameter Tuning Inception-v4 (HPTI-v4) model for the detection and classification of DR from color fundus images. At the preprocessing stage, the contrast level of the fundus image will be improved by the use of contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) model. Then, the segmentation of the preprocessed image takes place utilizing a histogram-based segmentation model. Afterward, the HPTI-v4 model is applied to extract the required features from the segmented image and it subsequently undergoes classification by the use of a multilayer perceptron (MLP). A series of experiments take place on MESSIDOR (Methods to Evaluate Segmentation and Indexing Techniques in the field of Retinal Ophthalmology) DR dataset to guarantee the goodness of the HPTI-v4 approach and the obtained results clearly exhibited the supremacy of the HPTI-v4 model over the compared methods in a significant way.


We revisit, in this paper, issues facing transportation planners estimating and validating household trip generation rates from small-scale household travel surveys. Three problems are addressed: (a) unusual observations, (b) small number of observations, and (c) no observations. Unusual observations are identified using traditional methods. Classification and regression tree (CART) analysis is proposed for the second problem. Finally, the third problem is addressed using row-column decomposition analysis. The methods are demonstrated using a small-scale household travel survey and are simple enough to be implemented with the resources available to transportation analysts, especially in smaller Metropolitan Planning Organizations.


Abstract: Thromboelastography (TEG) provides a global assessment of coagulation, including the rate of clot initiation, clot kinetics, achievement of maximum clot strength, and fibrinolysis. Thromboelastography (TEG) is used with increasing frequency in the field of veterinary medicine, although its usefulness in avian species has not been adequately explored. The purpose of this preliminary study was to assess the applicability of TEG in psittacine birds. Kaolin-activated TEG was used to analyze citrated whole blood collected routinely from 8 healthy adult Hispaniolan Amazon parrots (Amazona ventralis). The minimum and maximum TEG values obtained included time to clot initiation (2.6–15 minutes), clot formation time (4.3–20.8 minutes), α angle (12.7°–47.9°), maximum amplitude of clot strength (26.3–46.2 mm), and percentage of lysis 30 minutes after achievement of maximum amplitude (0%–5.3%). The TEG values demonstrated comparative hypocoagulability relative to published values in canine and feline species. Differences may be explained by either the in vitro temperature at which TEG is standardly performed or the method of activation used in this study. Although TEG may have significant advantages over traditional coagulation tests, including lack of need for species-specific reagents, further evaluation is required in a variety of avian species and while exploring various TEG methodologies before this technology can be recommended for use in clinical cases.


International trade is increasingly regulated through standardization, certification, and accreditation. To ensure that consumers can trust that the products they buy meet regulators' standards, third-party certifiers and accreditation bodies, which "certify the certifiers," act as intermediaries enlisted to deliver conformity assessment certificates to producers. This article explores how a few third-party certifiers have exploited their position between multiple regulators and diverse targets to invest in a growing number of sectors, expand globally, and become preferred advisers to regulators. As regulators enlist them to standardize certification practices, big third-party certifiers (BTPCs) advise regulators to set system-based regulations that are better suited to their own organizations and networks of international subsidiaries.


PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to describe, compare, and understand speech modulation capabilities of patients with varying motor speech disorders (MSDs) in a paradigm in which patients made highly cued attempts to speak faster or slower.

METHOD
Twenty-nine patients, 12 with apraxia of speech (AOS; four phonetic and eight prosodic subtype), eight with dysarthria (six hypokinetic and two spastic subtype), and nine patients without any neurogenic MSD completed a standard motor speech evaluation where they were asked to repeat words and sentences, which served as their "natural" speaking rate. They were then asked to repeat lower complexity (counting 1-5; repeating "cat" and "catnip" 3 times each) and higher complexity stimuli (repeating "catastrophe" and "stethoscope" 3 times each and "My physician wrote out a prescription" once) as fast/slow as possible. Word durations and interword intervals were measured. Linear mixed-effects models were used to assess differences related to MSD subtype and stimuli complexity on bidirectional rate modulation capacity as indexed by word duration and interword interval. Articulatory accuracy was also judged and compared.

RESULTS
Patients with prosodic AOS demonstrated a reduced ability to go faster; while they performed similarly to patients with spastic dysarthria when counting, patients with spastic dysarthria were able to increase rate similar to controls during sentence repetition; patients with prosodic AOS could not and made increased articulatory errors attempting to increase rate. AOS patients made more articulatory errors relative to other groups, regardless of condition; however, their percentage of errors reduced with an intentionally slowed speaking rate.

CONCLUSIONS
The findings suggest comparative rate modulation abilities in conjunction with their impact on articulatory accuracy may support differential diagnosis between healthy and abnormal speech and among subtypes of MSDs (i.e., type of dysarthria or AOS). Findings need to be validated in a larger, more representative cohort encompassing several types of MSDs.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL
https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.22044632.


Hierarchical clustering is a fundamental task often used to discover meaningful structures in data, such as phylogenetic trees, taxonomies of concepts, subtypes of cancer, and cascades of particle decays in particle physics. When multiple hierarchical clusterings of the data are possible, it is useful to represent uncertainty in the clustering through various probabilistic quantities. Existing approaches represent uncertainty for a range of models; however, they only provide approximate inference. This paper presents dynamic-programming algorithms and proofs for exact inference in hierarchical clustering. We are able to compute the partition function, MAP hierarchical clustering, and marginal probabilities of sub-hierarchies and clusters. Our method supports a wide range of hierarchical models and only requires a cluster compatibility function. Rather than scaling with the number of hierarchical clusterings of $n$ elements ($\omega(n n! / 2^{n-1})$), our approach runs in time and space proportional to the significantly smaller powerset of $n$. Despite still being large, these algorithms enable exact inference in small-data applications and are also interesting from a theoretical perspective. We demonstrate the utility of our method and compare its performance with respect to existing approximate methods.


Counting homomorphisms between cyclic groups is a common exercise in a first course in abstract algebra. A similar problem, accessible at the same level, is to count the number of group homomorphisms from a dihedral group of order $2m$ into a dihedral group of order $2n$. While the solution requires only elementary group theory, the result does not appear in the literature or in the usual texts. As the solution may be of interest, particularly to those teaching undergraduate abstract algebra, it is provided in this note.