A new equation of motion for a classical radiating point-charge is proposed. The radiated energy is supplied by a reduction in proper-mass of the particle. Unlike the Lorentz–Dirac equation, the equation proposed is second order: it gives physically reasonable predictions, and in particular has no runaway solutions and no pre-acceleration.


Deconvolution is a useful statistical technique for recovering an unknown density in the presence of measurement error. Typically, the method hinges on stringent assumptions about the nature of the measurement error, more specifically, that the distribution is entirely known. We relax this assumption in the context of a regression error component model and develop an estimator for the unknown density. We show semi-uniform consistency of the estimator and provide Monte Carlo evidence that demonstrates the merits of the method.


This paper addresses the problem of verifying plan execution. An implemented computer program which is part of the execution monitoring process for an experimental robot system is described. The program analyzes a plan and automatically inserts appropriate perception requests into the plan and generates anticipated sensor values. Real-time confirmation of these expectations implies successful plan execution. The implemented plan verification strategy and knowledge representation are described. Several issues and extensions of the method are discussed, including a language for plan verification, heuristics for constraining plan verification, and methods for analyzing plans at multiple levels of abstraction to determine context-dependent verification strategies.


STUDY DESIGN
A review of 60 surgical cases for correction of scoliosis, during which neuromotor evoked potentials and somatosensory evoked potentials were monitored.

OBJECTIVES
To determine the validity and reliability of intraoperative neuromotor evoked potential monitoring in cases of scoliosis, where damage to the motor tracts of the spinal cord can occur.

SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA
Recently, the validity of neuromotor evoked potentials monitoring has been challenged, suggesting that the responses are not necessarily neuromotor evoked responses, but a combination of neuromotor and somatosensory evoked responses. This theory rendered the responses a potentially invalid measure of motor ability. However, despite controversy surrounding this topic, many professionals consider neuromotor evoked potential monitoring to be a successful and reliable measure of motor spinal cord function.

METHODS
The results of neuromotor evoked potential testing were reviewed in 60 consecutive cases of children who underwent surgery for scoliosis. A standard protocol described in 1995 by Owen was used.

RESULTS
Clinically useful neuromotor evoked potentials were obtained for 54 patients (90%). Inability to obtain neuromotor evoked potentials occurred in six patients (10%).

CONCLUSIONS
This two-part study demonstrated the efficacy and reliability of neuromotor evoked potential monitoring during scoliosis surgery and examined the sources of difficulty in achieving accurate and valid results.


Abstract The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to evaluate the effects of resistant starch (RS) on glycemic status, serum lipoproteins and inflammatory markers in patients with metabolic syndrome (MetS) and related disorders. Two independent authors systematically searched online database including EMBASE, Scopus, PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science from inception until 30 April 2019. Cochrane Collaboration risk of bias tool was applied to assess the methodological quality of included trials. The heterogeneity among the included studies was assessed using Cochrane's Q test and I-square (I2) statistic. Data were pooled using a random-effects model and weighted mean difference (WMD) was considered as the overall effect size. Nineteen trials were included in this meta-analysis. Administration of RS resulted in significant reduction in fasting plasma glucose (FPG) (14 studies) (WMD: −4.28; 95% CI: −7.01, −1.55), insulin (12 studies) (WMD: −1.95; 95% CI: −3.22, −0.68), and HbA1C (8 studies) (WMD: −0.60; 95% CI: −0.95, −0.24). When pooling data from 13 studies, a significant reduction in total cholesterol levels (WMD: −8.19; 95% CI: −15.38, −1.00) and LDL-cholesterol (WMD: −8.57; 95% CI: −13.48, −3.66) were found as well. Finally, RS administration was associated with a significant decrease in tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) (WMD: −2.02; 95% CI: −3.14, −0.90). This meta-analysis showed beneficial effects of RS on improving FPG, insulin, HbA1c, total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol and TNF-α levels in patients with MetS and related disorders, but it did not affect HOMA-IR, triglycerides, HDL-cholesterol, CRP and IL-6 levels.


Satellite earth observation is being increasingly used to monitor forests across the world. Freely available Landsat data stretching back four decades, coupled with advances in computer processing capabilities, has enabled new time-series techniques for analyzing forest change. Typically, these methods track individual pixel values over time, through the use of various spectral indices. This study examines the utility of eight spectral indices for characterizing fire disturbance and recovery in sclerophyll forests, in order to determine their relative merits in the context of Landsat time-series. Although existing research into Landsat indices is comprehensive, this study presents a new approach, by comparing the distributions of pre and post-fire pixels using Glass's delta, for evaluating indices without the need of detailed field information. Our results show that in the sclerophyll forests of southeast Australia, common indices, such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR), both accurately capture wildfire disturbance in a pixel-based time-series approach, especially if images from soon after the disturbance are available. However, for tracking forest regrowth and recovery, indices, such as NDVI, which typically capture chlorophyll concentration or canopy 'greenness', are not as reliable, with values returning to pre-fire levels in 3–5 years. In comparison, indices that are more sensitive to forest moisture and structure, such as NBR, indicate much longer (8–10 years) recovery timeframes. This finding is consistent with studies that were conducted in other forest types. We also demonstrate that additional information regarding forest condition, particularly in relation to recovery, can be extracted from less well known indices, such as NBR2, as well as textural indices incorporating spatial variance. With Landsat time-series gaining in popularity in recent years, it is critical to understand the advantages and limitations of the various indices that these methods rely on.


The seeds for Gribholm Trust, a flower producer situated in the Olifants River Mountains between Piketberg and Citrusdal, were sown long ago. As a child, owner Joretha Grib of Jansekraal played among the fynbos on the slopes of the Cederberg Mountains. This is where her love for fynbos originated.


In the presence of a catalytic amount of Cp*RuCl(cod), 1,6-diynes chemoselectively reacted with monoalkynes at ambient temperature to afford the desired bicyclic benzene derivatives in good yields. A wide variety of diynes and monoynes containing functional groups such as ester, ketone, nitrile, amine, alcohol, sulfide, etc. can be used for the present ruthenium catalysis. The most significant advantage of this protocol is that the cycloaddition of unsymmetrical 1,6-diynes with one internal alkyne moiety regioselectively gave rise to meta-substituted products with excellent regioselectivity. Completely intramolecular alkyne cyclotrimerization was also accomplished using triyne substrates to obtain tricyclic aromatic compounds fused with 5-7-membered rings. A ruthenabicycle complex relevant to these cyclotrimerizations was synthesized from Cp*RuCl(cod) and a 1,6-diyne possessing phenyl terminal groups, and its structure was unambiguously determined by X-ray analysis. The intermediary of such a ruthenacycle intermediate was further confirmed by its reaction with acetylene, giving rise to the expected cycloadduct. The density functional study on the cyclotrimerization mechanism elucidated that the cyclotrimerization proceeds via oxidative cyclization, producing a ruthenacycle intermediate and subsequent alkyne insertion initiated by the formal [2 + 2] cycloaddition of the resultant ruthenacycle with an alkyne.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between university education and agricultural students' entrepreneurial spirit. To do this study, 150 samples were selected by using stratified random sampling methods among senior students both on graduated and undergraduates levels in Bu-Ali Sina University. Data collection tool was a researcher made questionnaire  which  its  validity  was  verified  by  a  group  of  experts and  professors. The reliability of the questions was tested during a pre-test process using a Cronbach's alpha test and it was between 0.75 and 0.93. Descriptive results showed that entrepreneurial spirit of the students was between moderate to high and among entrepreneurial spirit indicators the amount of self-confidence was highest but risk taking was the lowest. The results of Pearson test revealed that university education at each three level of knowledge and skill, social-communicational, and individual had a significant relationship with entrepreneurial spirit of the agricultural students.


In attempt to elucidate whether acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) has an in vivo effect on prostacyclin (PGI2)-like activity released from trophoblast we have evaluated PGI2-like activity in pregnant women scheduled for pregnancy termination after ASA ingestion. Following subjects were studied: Group I: 7 healthy pregnant women who were treated with 1.5 g ASA for two days; Group II: 18 control pregnant women who received placebo for two days. Trophoblast specimens were obtained by legal abortions; PGI2-like activity in trophoblast was measured by the method of Moncada. In normal pregnant women (8-10 weeks gestation) treated with ASA the mean PGI2-like activity of trophoblast significantly decreased compared to the controls. These data indicate that treatment with ASA of early pregnant women might have a harmful effect on trophoblast and the problem should be further explored before allowing the administration of cyclooxygenase inhibiting drugs during early pregnancy.


1. Introduction 2. Ford Motor Company's Multi-Domestic Strategy 3. Ford of Canada: Confluence of Interest in a Liberal Approach to Automotive Development 4. Ford of Mexico: Confronting a Nationalistic Approach to Industrialization 5. The 1970s: An Era of Structural Constraints and Narrowed Strategic Options 6. Ford's Survival Strategy 7. Ford's Global Strategy 8. Successful Bargaining in a Situation of Increasing Interdependence 9. Export Dynamism: Reconciling the Mexican and the US Big Three's Interests 10. A North American System of Production 11. Conclusion


This volume presents a range of papers by geochemists, nutritionists, medical and veterinary researchers that illustrate the relevance of environmental geochemistry to the study of human and animal health problems in developing countries. People in these areas are very dependent on localized sources of food and water, and any geochemical anomaly (enrichment or depletion) within these local environments may have a marked influence on the health of people as well as of wildlife and domesticated animals. Subjects covered in the volume reflect the breadth of the topic, ranging through animal and human health issues related to soil, plant, water and volcanic gas chemistry. The role of natural and anthropogenic influences on the environment are covered, as are the roles of geochemical mapping, monitoring and baseline identification.


In many image-processing applications it is necessary to register multiple images of the same scene acquired by different sensors, or images taken by the same sensor but at different times. Mathematical modeling techniques are used to correct the geometric errors like translation, scaling and rotation of the input image to that of the reference image, so that these images can be used in various applications like change detection, image fusion etc. In the conventional methods, these errors are corrected by taking control points over the image and these points are used to establish the mathematical model. This paper addresses the image registration problem applying genetic algorithms. The image registration's objective is to define mapping that best match two set of points or images. In this work the point matching problem was addressed employing a method based on nearest-neighbor. The mapping was handled by affine transformations[4].


This paper is devoted to the discussion of Bianchi type-III cosmological model in the frame work of f (R,T) gravity in the presence of two non-interacting matter sources, scalar field (quintessence or phantom) with scalar potential and matter contribution due to f (R,T) action where R is the Ricci scalar and T is the trace of the energy tensor.  We have solved the field equations using the fact that scalar expansion is proportional to shear scalar of the space-time and presented the scalar field model in this theory.  Finally, we have also discussed some physical and kinematical properties of the model.


Trellis quantization is a finite state machine based method for data compression. It is mainly applied to quantizing noise-like sources. In this thesis new trellis codes suitable for low rate quantization are derived. Rate-distortion theory predicts source coding performance, but unfortunately provides only limited insight in how to construct good codes. In general, good trellis source codes combine a good trellis structure with suitable reproducer values. Further, to obtain excellent performance good codes must be combined with suitable trellis search algorithms. All these code design topics are addressed in the thesis. The new contributions can be divided into four main parts. The first considers the pure form trellis coding problem, i.e., trellis code constructions consisting of a single trellis populated by reproducer letters. These codes do not require further processing such as entropy coding. Entropy-constrained trellis codes are treated separately. We compare a method based on simple scaling of the set of reproducer values to constructions with individually optimized reproducer levels. Results show that the proposed methods are competitive with the best in the literature. Many real-life systems for data transmission are based on short information blocks and it is shown that the Viterbi search algorithm is not suitable for such short source sequences. Instead we propose a method based on the tailbiting BCJR algorithm and derive it from rate-distortion theoretic arguments. The thesis provides one of the first major studies of the tailbiting BCJR algorithm for source coding. In the final part of the thesis the new trellis codes are applied to image coding. All trellises have in common a code design based on linear congruential (LC) recursions. These are the key elements in pseudo-random number generators. Here they are used to associate the trellis branches with reproducer values. LC trellis codes are easy to generate and analyze. In addition to competitive performance the new codes easily adapt to different sources, state sizes, and coding rates. We also point out two label correlation measurements that predict good trellis code performance. (Less)


Sequence modeling has demonstrated state-of-the-art performance on natural language and document understanding tasks. However, it is challenging to correctly serialize tokens in form-like documents in practice due to their variety of layout patterns. We propose FormNet, a structure-aware sequence model to mitigate the suboptimal serialization of forms. First, we design Rich Attention that leverages the spatial relationship between tokens in a form for more precise attention score calculation. Second, we construct Super-Tokens for each word by embedding representations from their neighboring tokens through graph convolutions. FormNet therefore explicitly recovers local syntactic information that may have been lost during serialization. In experiments, FormNet outperforms existing methods with a more compact model size and less pre-training data, establishing new state-of-the-art performance on CORD, FUNSD and Payment benchmarks.


The future cities of our societies need to integrate their citizens into a value-co-creation process in order to transform to smart cities with an increased quality of life for their citizens. Therefore, administrations need to radically improve the delivery of public services, providing them citizen- and user-centric. In this context, online portals represent a cost effective front-end to deliver services and engage customers and new organizational approaches as back-ends which decouple the service interface from the departmental structures emerged. The research presented in this book chapter makes two main contributions: Firstly, the findings of a usability study comparing the online presences of the Queensland Government, the UK Government and the South Australian Government are reported and discussed. Secondly, the findings are reflected in regard to a broader "Transformational Government" approach and current smart city research and developments. Service bundling and modularization are suggested as innovative solutions to further improve online service delivery.


Symport/antiport P systems provide a very simple machinery inspired by corresponding operations in the living cell. It turns out that systems of small descriptional complexity are needed to achieve the universality by these systems. This makes them a good candidate for small universal devices replacing register machines for different simulations, especially when a simulating parallel machinery is involved. This article contains survey of these systems and presents different trade-offs between parameters.


The aim of this study was to investigate isolated β-lactoglobulin (β-LG) from the whey protein isolate (WPI) solution using the column chromatography with SP Sephadex. The physicochemical characterization (self-association, the pH stability in various salt solutions, the identification of oligomeric forms) of the protein obtained have been carried out. The electrophoretically pure β-LG fraction was obtained at pH 4.8. The fraction was characterized by the matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF/TOF MS) technique. The use of the HCCA matrix indicated the presence of oligomeric β-LG forms, while the SA and DHB matrices enabled the differentiation of A and B isoforms in the sample. The impact of sodium chloride, potassium chloride, ammonium sulfate, and sodium citrate in dispersion medium on β-LG electrophoretic stability in solution was also studied. Type of the dispersion medium led to the changes in the isoelectric point of protein. Sodium citrate stabilizes protein in comparison to ammonium sulfate. Additionally, the potential of capillary electrophoresis (CE) with UV detection using bare fused capillary to monitor β-LG oligomerization was discussed. Obtained CE data were further compared by the asymmetric flow field flow fractionation coupled with the multi-angle light scattering detector (AF4-MALS). It was shown that the β-LG is a monomer at pH 3.0, dimer at pH 7.0. At pH 5.0 (near the isoelectric point), oligomers with structures from dimeric to octameric are formed. However, the appearance of the oligomers equilibrium is dependent on the concentration of protein. The higher quantity of protein leads to the formation of the octamer. The far UV circular dichroism (CD) spectra carried out at pH 3.0, 5.0, and 7.0 confirmed that β-sheet conformation is dominant at pH 3.0, 5.0, while at pH 7.0, this conformation is approximately in the same quantity as α-helix and random structures.


To study the conditions of purifying natural tauriune using membrane technology,Ultra-flo and rolling membrane systems were used to remove impurities(solid,protein etc.) from taurine extacting solution.Polyacylonitrile membrane,whose molecular weight cutoff is 30 000,was most effective in Ultra-flo membrane system with the average flux as high as 88 L/(m 2·h).The average flux of rolling membrane,whose molecular weight cutoff is 1 000,was as high as 45 L/(m 2·h).The protein content in filter liquor was lower than 0.2 % after two class ultrafiltration and the high quality of filter liquor was benefit to the last processes.The taurine liquid after ion-exchange could be concentrated more than 35 times by reverse osmosis system with the average flux as high as 43 L/(m 2·h).


Background Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) of dementia are a common issue in dementia patients which can lead to poor medical and functional outcomes. Pharmacological interventions are its treatment of choice. However, whether to use pharmacological treatments in this population and which drug should be preferred remain controversial. We therefore aimed to compare and rank pharmacological interventions for NPS according to their efficacy and acceptability profiles by quantifying information from randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Methods We will include all RCTs reported as double-blind and comparing one active drug with another or with placebo that compare cholinesterase inhibitors (ChEIs), N-methyl-D-aspartic acid (NMDA) receptor modulators, antipsychotics, antidepressants, and mood stabilisers. Studies will be retrieved by searching electronic databases, including Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, PubMed, MEDLINE, Clinicaltrial.govs, EMBASE, and with no date or language restrictions. The primary outcomes were efficacy (change in overall symptoms) and acceptability (all-cause discontinuation). The network meta-analysis (NMA) will be conducted in R software within a Bayesian framework. The quality of evidence will be evaluated using the Cochrane risk of bias tool, and the GRADE approach. We will conduct subgroup analyses to assess the robustness of our findings. Results The results of this study will be published in a peer-reviewed journal. Conclusions This systematic review will synthesize the available evidence on the comparative efficacy of different pharmacological approaches in the management of overall NPS, agitation, psychosis, apathy and depressive symptoms in dementia patients. The results of the present NMA will influence evidence-based treatment decisions for clinicians.


For more than two decades the family business enterprises of the first generation
(generation of founders) are more and more dominating in the category of today's Small
and Medium-sized Enterprises in the Czech Republic. The necessary legal background
defining the legal relationships and rights of all participating persons was, however, limited
to general provisions in the Commercial Code that hasn't solved many of the problems
associated thereto. Only in 2012 the new Czech Civil Code, Act. No 89/2012 Coll., introduced
the institute of family enterprise as completely new term in the Czech Civil law. The present
paper aims to analyse the key rules of this new legal regulation, focusing on significant
aspects of the institute in the context of commercial law and family law, as well as to
highlight the potential weaknesses in the regulation itself.


Introduction: FISH is a powerful technique to detect specific genomic sequences within an individual cell. Differences in the genetic makeup of AC and SqCC of the lung have been documented. A robust genetic based test applicable to sections from FFPE for the classification of AC vs SqCC tissue could have clinical utility as this classification can determine treatment selection. The optimal translation of array based genetic alterations data (in the form of copy number alterations) into a select set of FISH probes is nontrivial. One must consider the type (gain or loss), the extent and fidelity of the alteration (length in base pairs of the alteration common across the data set being considered which will affect FISH probe signal strength). Also one must consider effects the sectioning process will have on the actual FISH measurements; thick sections – more complete nuclei (better genetic loci fidelity) but more nuclear overlap (more difficult recognition of individual nuclei), thin sections – less nuclei overlap between cells but less complete nuclei. We use an in silico simulation to model the effect sectioning will have on the robustness and efficacy of a FISH based classifier for the genetic based differentiation of AC from SqCC tissue. Methods: High resolution array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) tiling array data was used to identify recurrent copy number alterations that could be used to differentiate between 169 AC and 92 SqCC cases. An in silico simulation of the sectioning process on the detection of these alterations was programmed in MATLAB. This simulation modeled the physical distribution of the DNA sequence, chromosome by chromosome within individual modeled nuclei. For each of the 261 cases chromosomal loci gains were randomly inserted into the cell's DNA irrespective of chromosome and chromosomal loci deletions were assumed to occur in only one of that specific chromosome type. Gains and losses were assumed to linearly affect the size of chromosomes and cell nuclei. Cell nuclei sectioning was simulated 300 times for each case (10 different nuclear rotations for each of ten different chromosomal placement simulations within the nucleus for three different section thicknesses of 4um, 7um and 10 um). The number of spots that would be detected by FISH for each of these 300 simulations for each case for all 24,817 loci measured by the aCGH was saved for later classification accuracy analysis. Results: The accuracy of the in silico model was checked against expected out comes; 1) such as the average loss of FISH spots as a function of the loss of nuclear volume to sectioning for loci with 1, 2 or 3 expected copies and 2) the concurrent loss of adjacent loci, or the loss of all loci within a chromosome with the loss of that chromosome. These measures were validated across at least 10K simulations. From the simulations we computed graphs of the number of loci retained as a function of the maximum radius of the nuclear material left within the section for each cell (an observable feature under microscopy). Further we calculated what percentage of nuclei within the section would have a maximum radius larger than 50, 60, 70, 80 or 90% of the pre-section nuclear radius for each case. This was done the 3 section thickness. Finally we used the simulation data to see the effect of sectioning on case classification, the number of cells which must be measured per case for optimal classification and the selection of the optimal genomic loci to differentiate the two types of tissue.


The literature indicates that financial liberalization improves the efficiency of credit allocation by reducing credit rationing. This argument, based on the availability doctrine, states that financial liberalization increases the amount of investable funds; hence, reduces the number of loan applicants that are turned down by banks. Availability of funds, however, does not necessarily create access to borrowers who were previously rationed by banks. What are critical are the lending patterns and criteria of banks that determine to whom the loanable funds are allocated. This empirical study examines how financial liberalization changed the lending behavior of banks and what implications this change has had on the efficiency of credit allocation in Turkey. The findings show that financial reforms brought modernization and market oriented management techniques that improved banks' ability to screen their customers. However, the credit rationing attitudes of banks were not eliminated. The benefits of financial liberalization were partly offset because of the unstable macro-economic environment and the increased cost of funds to the banking sector. Liberaliza¬tion of interest rates in an inflationary environment increased the level of uncertainty and market risk that adversely affected banks' lending behavior. Instead of financing private investment, bank credits were channeled towards low risk financial instruments, such as Government bonds and Treasury bills, short term working capital for domestic trade and consumer credits.


A new triterpene compound ( 1), along with arjunolic acid, was isolated from an ethanol extract of the whole plant of Leandra chaetodon. Based on spectroscopic analysis, the structure of 1 was determined as 2alpha,6alpha- dihydroxybetulinic acid. Arjunolic acid showed inhibitory activity against Cryptococcus neoformans. (IC50 = 20 micrograms/mL).


BACKGROUND & AIMS
The hepatopulmonary syndrome (HPS) is defined as the triad of liver disease, arterial deoxygenation, and widespread pulmonary vasodilatation. Hypoxic hepatitis, also known as ischemic hepatitis, is the leading cause of acute liver impairment in hospitals. It is unknown whether HPS occurs in hypoxic hepatitis. We assessed the prevalence and clinical consequences of HPS in patients with hypoxic hepatitis.

METHODS
Forty-four patients with hypoxic hepatitis were screened prospectively for HPS using established criteria: (1) presence of hepatic disease, (2) increased alveolar-arterial difference for the partial pressure of oxygen greater than the age-related threshold, and (3) intrapulmonary vasodilatation detected via contrast-enhanced echocardiography. Sixty-two critically ill patients with different cardiopulmonary diseases but without hepatic disease were screened for prevalence of intrapulmonary vasodilatation as a control group.

RESULTS
Criteria of HPS were fulfilled in 18 patients with hypoxic hepatitis. HPS-positive patients had a significantly decreased partial pressure of arterial oxygen (P = .001) and partial pressure of arterial oxygen/fraction of inspired oxygen ratio (P = .034) at the time of diagnosis of HPS, a significant decreased area under the curve of the partial pressure of arterial oxygen/fraction of inspired oxygen ratio during the first 48 hours after diagnosis of hypoxic hepatitis (P = .009), and a significantly increased peak serum aspartate transaminase level (P = .028), compared with patients without HPS. Complete resolution of intrapulmonary vasodilatation was observed during follow-up evaluation. Contrast-enhanced echocardiography was negative for intrapulmonary vasodilatation in all 62 control patients.

CONCLUSIONS
Intrapulmonary vasodilatation indicating HPS frequently occurs in patients with hypoxic hepatitis. It is reversible after normalization of the hepatic dysfunction. Clinicians should consider intrapulmonary vasodilatation and HPS in patients with hypoxic hepatitis.


Abstract The cranial anatomy of ceratopsian ("horned") dinosaurs is well understood, but the postcranial skeleton has been largely ignored in previous studies of phylogeny, evolution, and function. In order to study morphological differences among ceratopsian postcranial elements and to compare evolutionary patterns, multivariate (Principal Components Analysis) and bivariate methods were used to analyze linear measurement data, and the shape methods Resistant-Fit Theta-Rho Analysis (RFTRA), Least-Squares Theta-Rho Analysis (LSTRA), and Euclidean Distance Matrix Analysis (EDMA) were applied to biological landmark data. Results of the analyses show that size is the primary change through ceratopsian skeleton evolution. Elements display positive allometry, and increasing structural support is evident, especially in the radius and fibula. Phylogenetic distribution of ceratopsian postcrania agrees with the skull material included in recent cladistic analyses. Psittacosaurus elements are in many ways derived relative to those of non-ceratopsid neoceratopsians, and evidence suggests that Psittacosaurus was bipedal, while non-ceratopsid neoceratopsians were not, except maybe for Udanoceratops. With increasing body size, neoceratopsian limbs bowed laterally. The variety of methods allows for unbiased interpretation of results, provides more information than any one method, and provides controls for each other. However, sample sizes are not ideal, and all results should be treated with caution at this time.


The haem-containing peroxidase enzymes catalyse the H2O2-dependent oxidation of a wide variety of substrates and have provided a focal point for our more general understanding of structure/function relationships in other, more complex haem enzymes. Mechanistically, the haem peroxidases are well characterised: they share a common catalytic cycle that involves formation of a high-oxidation-state (ferryl) intermediate. In contrast, our understanding of the structural features that control the diverse substrate specificity are less well defined. In this review, we discuss how recent spectroscopic and structural information for ascorbate peroxidase has provided new insight into the modus operandi of this enzyme and how this has helped to clarify certain aspects of the catalytic and, in particular, the substrate binding properties of the closely related cytochrome c peroxidase enzyme, which has been a benchmark for peroxidase catalysis over more than 20 years.


Design abstractions such as components, modules, subsystems or packages are often not made explicit in the implementation of legacy systems. Indeed, often the abstractions that are made explicit turn out to be inappropriate for future evolution agendas. This can make the maintenance, evolution and refactoring of these systems difficult. In this publication, we carry out a fine-grained evaluation of Reflexion Modelling as a technique for encapsulating user-targeted components. This process is a prelude to component recovery, reuse and refactoring. The evaluation takes the form of two in vivo case studies, where two professional software developers encapsulate components in a large, commercial software system. The studies demonstrate the validity of this approach and offer several best-use guidelines. Specifically, they argue that users benefit from having a strong mental model of the system in advance of Reflexion Modelling, even if that model is flawed, and that users should expend effort exploring the expected relationships present in Reflexion Models. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


BACKGROUND
Cardiac and systemic autonomic nervous function may be impaired in patients with COPD. Few reports, however, have described sympathetic nervous function of the left ventricle (LV) in COPD patients.

STUDY OBJECTIVE
To assess the LV sympathetic nervous function in patients with COPD using (123)I-metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) imaging of the heart.

DESIGN
Prospective comparison of (123)I-MIBG imaging results in COPD patients and normal subjects.

PARTICIPANTS
Twenty-eight patients with COPD without manifest right ventricular overload and 7 volunteers without cardiopulmonary disease (control subjects).

MEASUREMENTS
(123)I-MIBG imaging results and plasma norepinephrine concentration were compared between the COPD and control groups. In the COPD group, pulmonary function tests were performed and all subjects were interviewed about their symptoms.

RESULTS
(123)I-MIBG uptake, assessed as the cardiac to mediastinal activity ratio in the delayed image, was significantly lower in the COPD group than in the control group (p < 0.05). (123)I-MIBG turnover, expressed as the washout rate (WR) of (123)I-MIBG from 15 to 240 min, was significantly higher in the COPD group than in the control group (p < 0.01). In the COPD group, patients with dyspnea showed lower cardiac to mediastinal activity ratios and higher WRs compared with patients who had mild dyspnea. The WR correlated negatively with the vital capacity/predicted value ratio, correlated negatively with the maximal voluntary ventilation volume/predicted value ratio, and correlated positively with the residual volume/total lung capacity ratio in the COPD group. The plasma norepinephrine concentration in COPD patients was higher than that in the control subjects.

CONCLUSION
Patients with COPD have significant sympathetic nervous impairment of the LV myocardium as a result of generalized sympathetic overactivity.


. In this paper we prove an equivariant version of the McKay correspondence for the elliptic genus on open varieties with a torus action. As a consequence, we will prove the equivariant DMVV formula for the Hilbert scheme of points on C 2 .


This study is for the effect of Recreation Dance on the Body Composition and the Blood Lipids of middle-aged women with obesity having 25 over BMI. The Recreation Exercise Program for selected targets had been proceeded for 12 weeks, 3 times in a week and for 50 minutes a day with increasing the intensity by wearing Polar on exercising. In stages, the intensity was at 50~55% HRmax from the first to forth weeks, 55~60% HRmax from the fifth to eighth weeks and 60~65% HRmax from the ninth to the twelfth weeks. This study was performed for the purpose of providing basic data to develop adequate exercise program and prescription decreasing the rate of Women's Obesity and Coronary Artery Disease. The result of this study was as follows. First, there were significant differences(P<.001) on all the factors of Body Composition as Weight, Body fat, Muscle Mass. Second, there were significant differences(P<.001) on all the factors of Blood Lipids as Serum Total Cholesterol, Triglycerides and Blood Glucose. Therefore, the 12 weeks' Recreation Dance Exercise had positive effects on almost every factor of Body Composition and Blood Glucose of middle-aged women with obesity. Through this result, it is considered that the program is able to positively affect on Weight Loss and prevention of Coronary Artery Disease and furthermore the continuous study on this is needed.


DA4-4 (ATCC HB57) is a shear sensitive mouse-mouse hybridoma cell, producing an IgG1 monoclonal antibody against human IgM. It was grown successfully in a perfusion propagation system consisting of a 1.5 CelliGen stirred bioreactor and a hollow fiber cartridge. CelliGen system produced low shear force and cells could grow well at high agitation of 150 rpm. The culture was maintained for 40 days and cell number reached 20 x 10(6)/ml. Maximal monoclonal antibody concentration was 4.75 mg/ml. This system produced about 1.0 g of antibody every day at its peaks.


This article provides an overview of recent advances in the diagnosis and treatment of extrahepatic cholangiocarcinomas (EH-CCAs), focusing on the role of endoscopy, surgery, and transplantation. It reviews optimal evaluation and management of patients with EH-CCA, including a careful integration of clinical information, imaging studies, cytology and/or histology, as well as a coordinated multidisciplinary approach. It reviews additional therapy such as radio- or chemotherapy either in the neoadjuvant or adjuvant setting. Furthermore, it addresses palliative approaches as well as emerging targeted therapy and immunotherapy. EH-CCAs account for nearly 90% of biliary tract malignancies and present an ongoing challenge for hepatobiliary surgeons.


The focus of this article is on the conformity of quality of life indicators reformed by the institutions of the European Union with the concept of sustainable development. The reform was launched in 2009 under the title GDP and beyond – Measuring progress in a changing world. The issue is presented from the perspective of conclusions drawn on the basis of philosophical analysis of the problems we need to solve in order to design the indicators adopted to sustainable development concept, such as defining quality of life, needs, objective and subjective quality of life measurements, existence of universal quality of life indicators (on the example of gross domestic product). In order to describe the tools used to perform the analysis, the issue of theoretical status of sustainable development philosophy is approached.


Metal ions are important effectors of protein and cell functions. Here, polyelectrolyte multilayers (PEMs) made of chitosan (Chi) and alginate (Alg) were doped with different metal ions (Ca2+, Co2+, Cu2+, and Fe3+), which can form bonds with their functional groups. Ca2+ and Fe3+ ions can be deposited in PEM at higher quantities resulting in more positive ζ potentials and also higher water contact angles in the case of Fe3+. An interesting finding was that the exposure of PEM to metal ions decreases the elastic modulus of PEM. Fourier transformed infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy of multilayers provides evidence of interaction of metal ions with the carboxylic groups of Alg but not for hydroxyl and amino groups. The observed changes in wetting and surface potential are partly related to the increased adhesion and proliferation of multipotent C3H10T1/2 fibroblasts in contrast to plain nonadhesive [Chi/Alg] multilayers. Specifically, PEMs doped with Cu2+ and Fe3+ ions greatly promote cell attachment and adipogenic differentiation, which indicates that changes in not only surface properties but also the bioactivity of metal ions play an important role. In conclusion, metal ion-doped multilayer coatings made of alginate and chitosan can promote the differentiation of multipotent cells on implants without the use of other morphogens like growth factors.


The role remote sensing plays in studying the Earth as a system will be magnified in the coming millennium. Whether by itself or as part of an integrated, interdisciplinary approach, remote sensing will be a major component in the study of the environment and environmental change due to natural or anthropogenic means. In view of this, the Center for Water Resources and Environmental Research of the City College School of Engineering has designed research for undergraduate and graduate students that has remote sensing as its core. The authors believe that one of the best ways to educate students in remote sensing and its environmental applications is to actually get them involved in such research activities. In collaboration with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and Goddard Space Flight Center a two pronged research project is underway. On one hand, Electrical Engineering students are engaged in the Optical Remote Sensing (ORS) of the atmosphere. The basic principals of Optical Remote Sensing and ORS instrumentation is taught in a new course at City College, and GISS has provided the students with the opportunity to analyze and visualize NASA's remote sensing data and products. The combination of photonics research and the course in ORS at City College enable these students to conduct research utilizing state-of-the-art technology to instrument a multiwavelength LIDAR system for tracking of aerosols in the New York City Metropolitan area. On the Other hand, Civil Engineering students use remote sensing and GIS databases to study climate change and land use/land cover changes and their subsequent impacts on both the quantity and quality of New York City's water resources. The initial success of the project has led to project's expansion into a multi-disciplinary program of study in environmental resources and at the City University of New York (CUNY) in partnership with GISS which is funded through the NASA-PAIR program.


Face detection is an important first step towards solving plethora of other computer vision problems. A fast robust face detection algorithm under a skin color model with geometry constraints is proposed in this paper. An ellipse color model in the YCbCr color space is first used to detect the skin regions. A light compensation algorithm is utilized to the original image, followed by a box model to detect hair regions. The detected candidate skin and hair regions are then combined with geometry constraints to detect faces in the image. Experiments show that the proposed method is effective and efficient.


Thermodesorption behavior of water, n-butanol, and n-heptane from different carbon blacks was studied by thermogravimetry. It was shown that differences in interactions of these adsorbates with the carbon blacks studied can be monitored by this technique. The adsorbates' polarity is essential in controlling thermodesorption from low surface area carbon blacks while this factor seems to be less important in the case of high surface area samples. The relative thermodesorption plot was introduced and used to analyze thermogravimetric data. It was shown that this method provides information about surface heterogeneity similar to that obtained from the comparative adsorption plot. In addition, thermogravimetric results are related to nitrogen adsorption data. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.


We describe a longitudinal user study conducted in the context of a Spoken Dialogue System for a household robot, where we examined the influence of time displacement and situational risk on users' preferred responses. To this effect, we employed a corpus of spoken requests that asked a robot to fetch or move objects in a room. In the first stage of our study, participants selected among four response types to these requests under two risk conditions: low and high. After some time, the same participants rated several responses to the previous requests — these responses were instantiated from the four response types. Our results show that participants did not rate highly their own response types; moreover, they rated their own response types similarly to different ones. This suggests that, at least in this context, people's preferences at a particular point in time may not reflect their general attitudes, and that various reasonable response types may be equally acceptable. Our study also reveals that situational risk influences the acceptability of some response types.


Children are the most precious and sensitive nutrition sub-group of a nation. It is accepted that there is high death rate in children because of severe forms of malnutrition. The Scheduled Tribes (STs) or Adivasi and Scheduled Castes (SCs) were always economically and socially deprived group of the Indian society. The Empowered Action Group (EAG) states are the most vulnerable states in India. Moreover, no one study focuses on this socially deprived a group of society in the EAG-states. This paper seeks to examine the inequality in child nutrition among SCs/STs and non-SCs/STs of poor and non-poor households and its determinant in EAG-states of India using the third round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3). The analysis has used the cross-sectional data of NFHS-3 conducted during 2005-06 by using bi-variate and multivariate technique. Bi-variate has been used for obtaining the prevalence of stunting, wasting, and underweight in SCs/STs and non-SCs/STs between poor and non-poor children. Elsewhere, multivariate analysis has been used to find out the associated factors of child malnutrition. Findings from the analysis show that nearly two out of three under-five children were stunted and underweight whereas one out of three were wasted in poor households. Every second SCs/STs children were stunted (51%) in non-poor households. However, less than half of non-SCs/STs children were stunted (43%) and underweight (36%) in non-poor households. Mother's education, duration of breastfeeding, birth order and interaction between caste and wealth index were the significant (p<0.05) contributing factors for stunting, wasting and underweight. The SCs/STs of poor and non-poor households and non-SCs/STs of poor families children were more malnourished than non-SCs/STs of non-poor households. Findings suggest that for reducing the economic inequalities and caste effect there should be separate policy and making services more accessible to SCs/STs and poor non-SCs/STs to improve childhood nutrition in EAG-states.


The Lagrangian and Eulerian structure and dynamics of a strong wind event in the Tokar Gap region are described using a Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model hindcast for 2008. Winds in the Tokar Gap reach 25 m s−1 and remain coherent as a jet far out over the Red Sea, whereas equally strong wind jets occurring in neighboring gaps are attenuated abruptly by jump-like hydraulic transitions that occur just offshore of the Sudan coast. The transition is made possible by the supercritical nature of the jets, which are fed by air that spills down from passes at relatively high elevation. By contrast, the spilling flow in the ravine-like Tokar Gap does not become substantially supercritical and therefore does not undergo a jump, and also carries more total horizontal momentum. The Tokar Wind Jet carries some air parcels across the Red Sea and into Saudi Arabia, whereas air parcel trajectories in the neighboring jets ascend as they cross through the jumps, then veer sharply to the southeast and do not cross the Red Sea. The mountain parameter Nh/U is estimated to lie in the range of 1.0–4.0 for the general region, a result roughly consistent with a gap jet having a long extension, and supercritical flows spilling down from higher elevation passes. The strong event is marked by the formation of a feature with a vertical cellular structure in the upstream entrance region of the Tokar Gap, a feature absent from the more moderate events that occur throughout the summer. The cell contains descending air parcels that are fed into the Tokar Gap and one of the neighboring gaps. An analysis of the Bernoulli function along air parcel trajectories reveals an approximate balance between the loss of potential energy and gain of internal energy and pressure, with surprisingly little contribution from kinetic energy, along the path of the descending flow. The winds in all gaps attain the critical wind speed nominally required to loft dust into the atmosphere, though only the Tokar Gap has a broad, silty delta region capable of supplying particulate matter for dust storms.


When thinking about animations, an intuitive reaction could be to dismiss them as mere children's pastime, but that is by no means the whole picture. Animated films featuring highly specialized knowledge from, say, the domains of science, technology and engineering are to be found all over the current media landscape. There is a tendency that they are predominantly used in one specific communicative constellation, i.e., when domain-specific knowledge is communicated from an expert or authority to a lay person. That, too, is the case when it comes to the animated film "MultiTrust" (to be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmoXYJAS8LY ). This animation stems from the research project "Multicriteria assessment and communication of effects of organic food systems" (http://multitrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Description-of-MultiTrust-from-Status-report-2011-to-Organic-RDD.pdf), which was conducted under the auspices of ICROFS (i.e., the International Centre for Research in Organic Food Systems, for more information please visit: http://www.icrofs.org/index.html). The color animation film was produced in 2013 by the award-wining Danish production company and animation studio Tumblehead Aps (for more information please visit: http://www.tumblehead.com/).

A primary intention of this multifaceted research project was to "make it easier for consumers […] to observe and evaluate the different contributions that organic food systems offer", with a special emphasis "to promote communication, participation and learning" about organic foods. One tangible result of this endeavor was the animated film aiming at presenting a novel way of communicating about multicriteria buyer decision-making with regards to organic food purchases. Whereas the film as such does not present a tool ready to be employed in the service of consumer communication, it does present a prototype for how we might design future communications about organic food products in a novel way.


We report a novel three-segmented fiber-collimator using self-assembled fluorinated polymer lens and a beam expanding coreless silica fiber of 200-/spl mu/m diameter spliced to single-mode optical fiber. Both numerical and experimental analyses are presented for design, fabrication, and optical characterization of the device. We have obtained a working distance over 6 mm and a stable spot size over 50 /spl mu/m in a wide wavelength range of 1.51-1.59 /spl mu/m.


The energy distribution of protons and pairs of fragment protons produced in 15 keV He+-H2 collisions has been investigated experimentally. The results are compared with earlier measurements involving H+ projectiles and show some surprising differences. A possible explanation is proposed which assumes that two-electron excited states can play an important role in both processes, especially in the double-ionization process where they are formed in the first step of a two-step collision mechanism.


The interpolation of spatial data can be of tremendous value in various applications, such as forecasting weather from only a few measurements of meteorological or remote sensing data. Existing methods for spatial interpolation, such as variants of kriging and spatial autoregressive models, tend to suffer from at least one of the following limitations: (a) the assumption of stationarity, (b) the assumption of isotropy, and (c) the trade-off between modelling local or global spatial interaction. Addressing these issues in this work, we propose the use of Markov reward processes (MRPs) as a spatial interpolation method, and we introduce three variants thereof: (i) a basic static discount MRP (SD-MRP), (ii) an accurate but mostly theoretical optimised MRP (O-MRP), and (iii) a transferable weight prediction MRP (WP-MRP). All variants of MRP interpolation operate locally, while also implicitly accounting for global spatial relationships in the entire system through recursion. Additionally, O-MRP and WP-MRP no longer assume stationarity and are robust to anisotropy. We evaluated our proposed methods by comparing the mean absolute errors of their interpolated grid cells to those of 7 common baselines, selected from models based on spatial autocorrelation, (spatial) regression, and deep learning. We performed detailed evaluations on two publicly available datasets (local GDP values, and COVID-19 patient trajectory data). The results from these experiments clearly show the competitive advantage of MRP interpolation, which achieved significantly lower errors than the existing methods in 23 out of 40 experimental conditions, or 35 out of 40 when including O-MRP.


A laborer, Angel Segovia, fell nearly 40 feet to his death on the morning of May 20 when a third-story balcony roof he was working on collapsed suddenly. Two other workers at the luxury condominium jobsite in Brooklyn, New York, were injured, one of them critically. "I saw three guys laying there, one of them in bad shape, and they were covered in wet cement," Ted Thomas, who lives across from the site, told the New York Times. "All three of them were on the [basement] garage roof, and the cement was dripping down." Investigators found that the roof was being constructed without the support required, contrary to plans that had been filed with New York City's Department of Buildings. The collapse occurred as concrete was being poured on the roof, which could not handle the load. Inspectors issued citations to the building owner, Marine Partners, the general contractor, Big Apple Development and Construction, and the balcony subcontractor Pro Weld Fabricators for not following the blueprints. Other citations were issued for having expired construction permits. Another report indicates the workers were given neither safety harnesses nor support rails, although at least one is required when working above 10 feet. Big Apple has a history of safety violations. Only a week before, the Fire Department cited a worker at the Brooklyn site for reckless endangerment due to improper use of an open flame. At a nearby Staten Island site in 2002, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued its most serious category of fine to Big Apple for failing to protect an area during excavation work. OSHA records show that the company has not even responded to the $7,000 fine, much less paid it. Prosecutors have opened a homicide investigation into Segovia's death, which was caused by blows to the head and torso and by injuries to internal organs, according to the city's medical examiner. Segovia, age 37, came to the United States four years ago looking for work to help support his wife and their three children in Ecuador, and to pay for a house he was building for them there. After a year in New York, where he lived with five cousins in a crowded apartment in Queens, he found the job with Big Apple, working six or seven days a week for some $90 a day with no benefits. Out of his $400 weekly paycheck, he sent $200 home to his family. He was unable to go back and visit, however, due to his immigration status, nor was his wife able to get a visa to come to the United States. One of the injured workers, Jose Fernandez, 20, also came from Ecuador. He was hospitalized overnight and released. The other injured worker, Gung Bak, 42, was from South Korea. He remains hospitalized in "guarded" condition. The death and injuries underscore the widespread exploitation of immigrant workers, many of them undocumented, on construction projects large and small throughout the New York metropolitan area and around the country. Working long hours for low pay with no benefits, Segovia is hardly the first to have been killed due to blatant safety violations. A 2001 scaffolding collapse in Manhattan killed five immigrant workers. The contractor on that site recently pled guilty to manslaughter after admitting to having designed the scaffold without regard to safety. In 1999, Eduardo Daniel, age 21, a day laborer who had arrived from Mexico, was killed when a building collapsed in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Two years later, the landlord was ordered to pay $1 million in


Sensor node deployment is very crucial for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Sensors' coverage plays an integral role in all types of applications that utilize WSNs. In addition to maximizing the life of the network and consuming less energy, the better positioning of the sensors makes the sensors more effective and efficient. A meta-heuristic algorithm will be used to determine where wireless sensors should be placed to maximize the coverage of the area where they are deployed. As a part of our solution, we will utilize the Immune Plasma Algorithm (IPA), which transfers plasma or the antibody-rich part of the blood from one patient to another through a process of bypassing the immune system. This optimization algorithm will be used to determine the optimal solution to the maximum coverage problem. The results of the simulation will be compared with solutions found by one research using Artificial Bee Colony (ABC), an algorithm that models the foraging behavior of bees.


A new particle σ* with JP = 1/2− was predicted by unquenched quark models with its mass around the well established σ* (1385) with JP = 3/2+. Here we re-examine some old data of the K− p → Λπ−π+ reaction. Firstly we re-fit the data for kaon beam momenta in the range of 1.0–1.8 GeV. Secondly we study the reaction at the energies around Λ* (1520) peak. Both studies show evidence for the existence of σ* with JP = 1/2− around 1380 MeV. Higher statistic data on relevant reactions are needed to clarify the situation.


The units about electricity in 5th and 6th science curriculum for elementary school was analyzed and the elementary students` understanding of related concepts was investigated. This study was to make connection between the research about alternative concepts and writing textbooks. It was found that students` response had following characteristics. They had strong belief that the + and - ends of battery should be connected. However this belief was not complete because students did not understand that the other circuit elements had to be connected properly. When the circuit involve more than one bulbs or batteries, they counted the number of batteries or bulbs only and paid little attention to the connection of them. In explaining circuits and the brightness of the bulbs in the circuits. students tried to explains the circuit using scientific terms but failed to used them properly. Although the concept of resistance was not dealt explicitly, student had reasonable qualitative understanding about resistance. According to response of students, several suggestions might be made for the curriculum. The structure and the circuit elements and the proper connection needs to be taught. Also more emphasis is necessary to pay attention to the connection in addition to the numbers of bulbs or batteries. Finally, it needs to be investigated carefully if it is better to introduce some qualitative model to explain the amount of current through bulb depending on the connection and the number of bulbs. It might also be better to introduce some terms, such as current and resistance with the model.


This research discusses about what and how the educational system during the reign of the Sultan Syarif Kasim II in Siak. The finding of this research shows that after Hindia-Belanda regime opened the lower school such as Hollandsch Inlandsch School, Inlandsch School and Sekolah Desa, then the Sultanate also established some Islamic-based school such as Madrasah Taufikiyah, male school. In fact, his wife also opened some islamic-based school for girls that focused on girl specific skills and Madrasah Anisa. The opening of these schools was a sign showed by the Kingdom that they were not going along with colonialism and also it was percieved as a way to increase the popularity and influence of Siak Kingdom that had gradually decreased. At the end this action was being taken for the sustainability of the Malay Kingdom as the dissemination of Islam and education.


High-resolution spectroscopic observations were obtained for two eclipsing active close binary systems, GK Hydrae and TY Pyxidis. For GK Hya excess emission was observed in the Balmer lines and Mg i b lines while TY Pyx showed excess emission in the Balmer lines and Ca ii H&K lines. The emission from GK Hya arises from a global phenomenon associated solely with the secondary component. The lack of significant He i D3 excess absorption and an analysis of the flux ratio in the Balmer lines suggest that the emission originates in prominencelike material seen off the limb of the star. A marginal broad excess absorption band centered around the Balmer emission peaks may be caused by this material absorbing the stellar continuum against the disk with high (350 km s−1) line-of-sight turbulent velocities. The inference that plage-like regions and associated star-spots are not substantial on this star is in agreement with the lack of spot modulation in the photometric light curve. For TY Pyx the majority of the Hβ excess and a larger proportion of the Ca ii core emission could be attributed to a global phenomenon on the primary. Analysis suggests that very large volumes are responsible for the emission, however, there is no observational evidence for the existence of discrete extended structures around TY Pyx.


The Meihe Basin is one of the important Paleogene coal-bearing fault basins of northeastern China in the Dunhua-Mishan Fault Zone. The Lower Coal-bearing Member and the Upper Coal-bearing Member are the primary layers studied. Through field observation, core description and observation under microscope, fan delta facies and lake facies are observed as the main sedimentary facies of the coal-bearing layers, and subfacies of fan delta plain, fan delta front, shallow lake and swamp have also been recognized. Coal seams primarily accumulated in the subfacies of swamp and fan delta plain. The study on sequence stratigraphy is based on outcrop section, well-log analysis, core observation and geochemical analysis. From the Lower Coal-bearing Member to the Upper Coal-bearing Member, three third-order sequences have been recognized; the Lower Coal-bearing Member developed in Sequence I and the Upper Coal-bearing Member developed in Sequence III, both sequences have developed the lowstand systems tract (LST), the transgressive systems tract (TST) and the highstand systems tract (HST). Single-factor analysis and the multifactor comprehensive mapping method have been used to rebuild the lithofacies palaeogeography of each system tract in Sequence I and Sequence III. Through analysis of contour maps of total stratum thickness, sandstone thickness and sand content, as well as contour maps of thicknesses and numbers of layers of coal seams, the results indicate that the sedimentary environments and coal seam distributions are variable in different system tracts. Coal types accumulating in the swamp facies are primarily developed in the transgressive systems tract (TST) and the highstand systems tract (HST) of Sequence I with a wide range of continuous and large thicknesses and may be mined commercially. Both the balanced accommodation growth rate with peat accumulation rate and little or no influence from sediment supply and channel migration promote to form the stable coal accumulating environments.


In the 3rd Annual ACM Symposium on Parallel Algorithms and Architectures, pp. 216-228 (JuIy 1991), we presented several new results in the theory of homogeneous multiprocessor scheduling. A directed acyclic graph (DAG) of tasks was to be scheduled. Tasks were assumed to be parallelizable-as more processors are applied to a task, the time taken to compute it decreases, yielding some speedup. Because of communication, synchronization and task scheduling overheads, this speedup increases less than linearly with the number of processors applied. The optimal scheduling problem is to determine the number of processors assigned to each task, and to the task sequencing, to minimise the finishing time. Using optimal control theory, in the special case where the speedup function of each task is p/sup /spl alpha// (where p is the amount of processing power applied to the task), a closed form solution for task graphs formed from parallel and series connections was derived. This paper considerably extends these techniques for arbitrary DAGs and applies them to matrix arithmetic compilation. The optimality conditions impose nonlinear constraints on the flow of processing power from predecessors to successors, and on the finishing times of siblings. This paper presents a fast algorithm for determining and solving these nonlinear equations. The algorithm utilizes the structure of the finishing time equations to efficiently run a conjugate gradient minimization leading to the optimal solution. The algorithm has been tested on a variety of DAGs. The results presented show that it is superior to alternative heuristic approaches.<<ETX>>


There exist strong evidence supporting the co-evolution of central supermassive black holes and their host galaxies. It is however still unclear what the exact role of nuclear activity, in the form of accretion onto these supermassive black holes, in this co-evolution is. We use a rich multi-wavelength dataset available for the North Ecliptic Pole field, most notably surveyed by the AKARI satellite infrared telescope to study the host galaxy properties of AGN. In particular we are interested in investigating star-formation in the host galaxies of radio-AGN and the putative radio feedback mechanism, potentially responsible for the eventual quenching of star-formation. Using both broadband SED modeling and optical spectroscopy, we simultaneously study the nu- clear and host galaxy components of our sources, as a function of their radio luminosity, bolo- metric luminosity, and radio-loudness. Here we present preliminary results concerning the AGN content of the radio sources in this field, while offering tentative evidence that jets are inefficient star-formation quenchers, except in their most powerful state.


Abstract : A cost-benefit analysis to determine the ideal military compensation necessary to attract, motivate, and retain an appropriate number and quality of military personnel to provide the Nation with a viable Armed Force. The factors of effectiveness, Efficiency, economy, equity, and psychosocial were the five bases of analysis and synthesis.


The aim of the prospective study reported here was to examine the effects of social and economic transformation on dietary patterns and nutritional status in China. The study began in 1989 and continued with follow-ups in 1991, 1993, 1997, 2000, and 2004. A total of 5000 subjects aged 18-45 years from 4280 households in nine provinces were included. Weighed records and three consecutive 24-h recalls were used. Over the study period, average consumption of all animal foods except milk increased, while cereal intake decreased. The proportion of animal protein and fat as a percentage of energy also increased. However, vitamin A and calcium intake did not increase and remained low. Child height and weight increased while undernutrition decreased and overweight increased. The results indicate that rapid changes in dietary pattern are associated with economic reforms in China.


SUMMARY This article deals with what the autor regards as a fatal epistemological error in the constructivist doctrine: its theory maintains the Aristotelian-empiricist epistemological paradigm. However, good constructivist pedagogy could be rescued from the deficient theory that parented it if we made a clear distinction between real and theoretical objects; and knowledge is recognised as a process of intellectual production working with real objects that have been described, apprehended, or incorporated by a theoretical object.


Background and objective Pectin-degrading enzymes applied in the food industries are preferred to be obtained from fungal origin because fungi are potent producers of pectic enzymes and the optimal pH of fungal enzymes is very close to the pH of many fruit juices, ranging from pH 3.0 to 5. Pectinolytic enzymes, have several industrial applications in different industries such as food industries to concentrate fruit juices. They increased the yield of fruit juice from the pulp and removal of haze from juices to get a clear product. Research to find microorganisms to produce high-quality polygalacturonase (PGase) and technical constraint include supply of cheap and pure raw materials needed to produce inexpensive enzymes. Utilization of agroindustrial residues offers potential benefits for solid-state fermentation, which is attractive for the implementation of sustainable bioprocesses. Materials and methods Fungal strain screening for PGase production was studied in 250 ml Erlenmeyer flasks containing 5 g of tested substrate moistened to 50% (v/w, ml/g) with distilled water. One milliliter of spore suspension (106 spores) from each fungus was used as inoculum. The cultures were incubated at 30°C for 4 days. At the end of the incubation period, 100 ml of distilled water was added to each flask, blended by shaking at 150 rpm for 30 min, and harvested by filtration. The filtrates were saved as sources of crude enzyme. The selected fungal strain and substrate were incubated for 120 h at 30°C and culture was taken at 24 h intervals to detect the optimum incubation period. Sugar beet pulp was moistened to different moisture levels, that is, 1 : 1, 1 : 2, 1 : 3, and 1 : 4 (v/w) under the optimum incubation period to determine the more suitable moisture content for enzyme production. Sodium phosphate buffer at 0.1 M was used for adjusting the initial pH of fermentation medium to different values from 3.5 to 7.5 to study the effect of pH on enzyme secretion. The fungus was incubated under different temperatures, that s, 20, 25, 30, 35, and 40°C to study the temperature effect on enzyme production. Inorganic nitrogen sources (at level 0.92 mg N/g solid substrate) were applied in the fermentation medium to study their effect on enzyme yield. Results and conclusion Aspergillus awamori NRC-F18 showed promising PGase' production activity than other fungi screened. The study showed that the fungus gave promising results when the moisture content was adjusted to 70% (v/w), initial pH value 5.0, and incubation temperature at 35°C for 72 h. The enzyme activity was increased when urea was the sole nitrogen source at a level of 0.92 mg/g solid substrate supplemented to fermentation medium. Under the above conditions, 396.4 U/g original substrate was obtained. A study on the obtained PGase revealed that it has an optimum pH that ranged from 4.5 to 5.5, as well as it gave the highest activity when incubated at 50°C. Eighty percent ammonium sulfate (w/v) was applied to precipitate enzyme protein, as 24% of total protein involved 61% of total PGase activity obtained with a specific activity of 36.94 U/mg protein against 12.8 U/mg protein in the crude culture supernatant. After fermentation the mixture from unutilized raw material and fungal biomass after enzyme elution was 76% (w/w) from the original substrate dry weight involving 14.2% protein related to 9.2% before beet pulp fermentation which could be utilized as feedstuff component in rations for ruminant feed.


This study identifies five factors that influence the creation of brand equity through successful customer relationships: trust, customer satisfaction, relationship commitment, brand loyalty and brand awareness. An empirical test of the relationships among these factors suggests that hospitals can be successful in creating image and positive brand equity if they can manage their customer relationships well. The subjects were 318 customers of hospitals in Tehran area. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with Lisrel software was used for the data analysis. Results from the research hypothesis testing suggest the following information. First, the study found that trust, customer satisfaction and relationship commitment all had a positive influence on brand loyalty and brand awareness. And brand equity, trust, customer satisfaction and relationship commitment also had a significant positive influence on hospital image. All of hypothesis is supported.


In time Petri nets (TPNs) firing a transition takes no time but the firing instant lies in a time domain. The firing time domain of a transition enabled in a marking depends on that marking transition and on the way that marking is reached. This type of dependency complicates the representation of the reachability and the analysis of TPNs. The authors present a methodology to transform the reachability set of a TPN into a set which could be used for both functional and performance analysis.<<ETX>>


The programmed proclivity of spreadsheets and 802.11b has actinic get fitting of access to components, and dog rent inclinations messenger that the choice of back-up will anon develop. In reality, few digital informaticians could differ with the engineering of courseware [10]. We appearance no best that the a plentiful arrangement touted all-over calculation for the recreation of expansive area organizes through Bhabha et al. [18] is recursively enumerable, yet that the indistinguishable is total for on-line calculations.


The periods for spawn running, pinhead and fruit body formation, number of flushes, yield and biological efficiency of the three Tanzanian wild edible mushrooms, Coprinus cinereus, Pleurotus flabellatus and Volvariella volvocea, grown on composted sisal decortications residue were studied. Results revealed that the organic ingredients in sisal decortications residue composted well within 21 days of composting, resulting in the formation of suitable compost, to support the growth of mycelia of the three edible mushrooms. The time for the first appearance of mushrooms was shortest for C. cinereus (10-11 days), followed by V. volvaceae (12-14 days), while that for P. flabellatus was 16-18 days. All three mushrooms produced at least five flushes; flush 1 gave the highest yield while flush 5 the lowest yield. The biological efficiency (B.E.) for C. cinereus, P. flabellatus and V. volvaceae was 68, 64 and 28%, respectively. Significant differences (P<0.05) in mushroom size, yield and % B.E. of the three mushrooms species were recorded. The results also showed that the B.E. (74%) of P. flabellatus grown on non-composted sisal decortications residue was significantly higher (P<0.05) than that grown on composted sisal decortications residue. The implications of this study are that sisal decortications residue could be used to cultivate very protein rich mushrooms for food while at the same time promoting environmental sustainability.


In the Australian debate over the permissability of embryo experimentation, four lobby groups are equally divided into supporting and opposing parties, although for differing reasons. The scientific and the infertile women's lobbies support experimentation while the pro-life and feminist lobbies oppose it, and the recommendations of committees of enquiry as to a proper legal position tend to reflect representation of these groups in their memberships. Community opinion is often invoked as a way out of this stalemate, but little is yet known of levels of community support for the opposing views. The present survey elicited the views of middle-class Australians (345 respondents) on the acceptability of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and embryo experimentation, and on the humanity of the embryo. It was found that while there was almost consensus support for IVF (90 per cent approval in principle), little more than half the respondents approved of embryo experimentation on the just-fertilized one-cell embryo, and this fell to only a third for the fourteen day embryo. This was despite the fact that more respondents regarded the embryo of a few days old as 'object/tissue' than as 'human/a baby'. Disapproval of embryo experimentation was more strongly associated with female sex, younger age, and fertility than with male sex, older age and infertility. Implications for the ethics of research policy are discussed.


Baturagung hill is a folded hill range consisting mainly of Tertiary volcanic rocks which have been undergoing severe faulting, jointing and weathering. Lies on the altitude between 200 and 700 meter from see level, the area is characterized by sloping to steep relief with 30% to >40% of slope, and shallow soils with scattered outcrops. Such geomorphological setting has made the area subject to intense soil erosion and masswasthing. Mining activates has also been accounted for the explanation of the current heightened land degradation in the area. The present paper, accordingly, is intended to identify the land degradation by considering mass movement, bare land, and mining activity parameters. The present paper founds that the Baturagung hill can be divided into three zones, namely: (1) the zone of no to low degradation (hill slope and inter-hill valley); (2) the zone of high degradation rate (within the area having 30 to 40% of slope); and (3) the zone of severe degradation (within the area having slope of more than 45%).


The purpose of this study was to investigate possible alterations induced by sepsis and endotoxicosis in the late phase of Ca2+-dependent signaling in rat liver. Hepatocytes isolated from septic or chronically endotoxin (ET)-treated rats were labeled with [32P]H3PO4 and stimulated with various agents. Proteins were resolved by one-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and autoradiographed. Vasopressin (VP)- and phenylephrine (PE)-induced responses were attenuated in both septic and ET-treated rats for cytosolic and membrane proteins compared with their respective controls. Glucagon and 12-O-myristate phorbol-13-acetate (TPA) affected only the phosphorylation of membrane proteins. Glucagon-induced changes in the phosphorylation of membrane proteins were affected by both sepsis and endotoxicosis, whereas TPA-stimulated phosphorylation was lowered only in endotoxicosis. Response to the Ca2+ ionophore A23187 was depressed in septic rats for cytosolic proteins. The phosphorylation of two cytosolic proteins, i.e., 93 and 61 kDa (previously identified as glycogen phosphorylase and pyruvate kinase, respectively), in response to VP, PE, and A23187 was severely impaired by endotoxicosis and sepsis. TPA did not affect the phosphorylation state of these two proteins. The results show that sepsis and endotoxicosis produce perturbations of the phosphorylation step in Ca2+ transmembrane signaling. Such changes can explain alterations of glycogenolysis and gluconeogenesis associated with sepsis and endotoxicosis.


In this paper two phase air water flow parameters in trickle bed reactors were measured using impedance void meter and film thickness probes to characterize the two phase flow behaviour and structure both at bed level and at pore level. The data on the gas phase void fraction, liquid hold up and pulse velocity were obtained for various flow rates of gas and liquid. The signals for the impedance meter and the film thickness probe provided the wave nature of liquid film and its impact on the void fraction and liquid holdup in the bed. Analysis of the data in terms of FFT and PDF provided signature of flow regimes and characteristics of pulses in pulse flowregime.


Competitive adsorption studies indicated that reovirus type 3 and coliphage T1 did not share common adsorption sites on kaolinite and montmorillonite. Compounds in the minimal essential medium (e.g., fetal bovine serum, amino acids) in which the reovirus was maintained blocked adsorption of coliphage T1 to kaolinite and partially to montmorillonite in synthetic estuarine water, but they had no effect on coliphage adsorption to montmorillonite in distilled water or on the adsorption of the reovirus to either clay. The blockage of positively charged sites on kaolinite or montmorillonite by treatment of the clays with sodium metaphosphate or with the supernatants from montmorillonite or kaolinite, respectively, had no effect on adsorption of the reovirus. These data indicate that there was a specificity in adsorption sites for mixed populations of reovirus type 3 and coliphage T1 and emphasize the importance of using more than one type of virus, especially in combination, to predict virus behavior (e.g., adsorption, loss of infectivity) in soils and sediments containing clay minerals.


Ru(II) polypyridine species have been assembled about dirhodium(II, II) tetracarboxylate cores. The complexes prepared have general formulas [{(terpy)Ru(La)}n{Rh2(CH3COO)4-n(CH3CN)2}]2n+ (a-type compounds: terpy = 2,2':6',2' '-terpyridine; La = 4'-(p-carboxyphenyl)-2,2':6',2' '-terpyridine; n = 1, 1a; n = 2, cis-2a and trans-2a-cis and trans refer to the arrangement of the Ru(II) species around the dirhodium core; n = 3, 3a), [{(Lb)Ru(La)}n{Rh2(CH3COO)4-n(CH3CN)2}]2n+ (b-type compounds: Lb = 6-phenyl-2,4-di(2-pyridyl)-s-triazine; n = 1, 1b; n = 2, an inseparable mixture of cis-2b and trans-2b; n = 3, 3b; n = 4, 4b), and [{(terpy)Ru(Lc)}{Rh2(CH3COO)3(CH3CN)2}]2+ (1c; Lc = 6-(p-carboxyphenyl)-2,4-di(2-pyridyl)-s-triazine). As model species, also the mononuclear [(terpy)Ru(La)]2+ (5a), [(La)Ru(Lb)]2+ (5b), and [(terpy)Ru(Lc)]2+ (5c) have been prepared. All of the complexes have been characterized by several techniques, including NMR and mass spectra, and the stability of the various species is discussed. The absorption spectra of all of the compounds are dominated by the Ru(II) polypyridine moieties, showing intense ligand-centered (LC) bands in the UV region and intense metal-to-ligand charge-transfer (MLCT) bands in the visible. The compounds exhibit several metal-centered oxidation and ligand-centered reduction processes, which have been assigned to specific subunits. Both absorption and redox data indicate a supramolecular nature of the assembled systems. Efficient energy transfer from the MLCT triplet state of the Ru-based components to the lowest-energy excited state of the dirhodium core takes place for the a-type compounds at 298 K in acetonitrile solution, whereas such a process is inefficient for the b-type and c-type species, which exhibit the typical MLCT emission. At 77 K in butyronitrile matrix, Ru-to-Rh2 energy transfer is partly efficient for both the a-type and the b-type compounds and is inefficient for 1c. The reasons for such behavior are discussed by taking into account arguments concerning the driving force and reorganization energy of the complexes.


The amounts of interleukin 3 (IL-3), interleukin 4 (IL-4), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha), and tumor necrosis factor beta (TNF-beta) were evaluated by immunoenzymatic assays in the supernatant of short-term cultures of whole mononuclear cells and purified CD4+ T-lymphocytes, obtained from the peripheral blood (PB) of 35 HIV-1(+) asymptomatic individuals (stages I-II of the Walter Reed Classification), 20 HIV-1(+) symptomatic patients (WR V-VI), and 40 HIV-1(-) blood donors. TNF-alpha and TNF-beta production was similar in HIV-1(+) asymptomatic individuals, HIV-1(+) symptomatic patients, and HIV-1(-) controls. On the other hand, IL-3 and IL-4 production by either whole mononuclear cells or isolated CD4+ T-cells was decreased approximately 2-fold (p < 0.01) in HIV-1(+) asymptomatic subjects with respect to HIV-1(-) blood donors and was very low or almost absent in HIV-1(+) symptomatic individuals. The reduced IL-3 and IL-4 production in HIV-1-infected subjects correlated not only with the stage of the disease, but also with signs of active viral replication in PB cells, monitored by gag p24 antigen in plasma and viral isolation from PB mononuclear cells. This selective and progressive impairment in IL-3 and IL-4 production by CD4+ T-lymphocytes of HIV-1-infected subjects may contribute to explain the hematopoietic abnormalities and the derangement of the inflammatory/immune system characteristic of AIDS.


The significance of environmental diplomacy is becoming more elaborate by the day since environmental issues ranging from climate change, hazardous chemicals to biodiversity loss are affecting almost every aspect of policy making in the world. Environmental protection and sustainability remain paramount due to the complex and highly important reality of current environmental challenges that threaten human survival. Although efforts to counter and manage environmental problems anchor on international collaboration through international environmental governance involving many actors for example the emergence of United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and other agencies, there seem to emerge other complex challenges in regard to environmental protection and sustainability most noticeably climate change. This study seeks to address the impact of climate change on agriculture in Kenya with a special focus on agriculture as the leading sector in the Kenyan economy in terms of its contribution to real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 1970 to the year 2010. The performance of the agricultural sector is determined by crop production which depends on a number of factors; most importantly country's endowment of soils and climate resources. Owing to the significant role agriculture plays in Kenya, economic development is largely dependent on the performance of agriculture. Indeed Kenya recorded the highest GDP of 7.8 per cent and 5.8 per cent in the national economy and agriculture respectively in the period between 1970 and 1974. The study indicates that agriculture contributes significantly to economic growth in Kenya by providing raw materials for industries, contributing to employment and providing food security. Sustainable agriculture is therefore critical in ensuring economic profitability, environmental stewardship and improved quality of life of the people of Kenya. The study establishes that like other environmental challenges, climate change is trasboundary in nature and requires concerted efforts from states, international organizations and non-states actors. Based on the theory of international cooperation, the study notes that environmental problems that lead to climate change require collective action of both state and non-state actors due to the anarchic nature of international system. The study further establishes that cooperation is motivated by a balance of absolute and relative gains and the extent of durability of such a cooperative arrangement. The study identifies possible ways of managing climate change in Kenya with regard to preserving ecosystems and biodiversity on one hand and adaptation on the other so as to enhance sustainable agriculture, hence economic development. This stems from the notion of international environmental governance through international negotiations that would cascade to the domestic level. Data for the study will be collected using content analysis, scientific analysis and interview methodologies.


A detailed study has been made of the atmospheric pressure chemical vapour deposition
(CVD) of tungsten carbide coatings onto powder metallurgy (PM) BT42 grade high speed
steel (HSS) indexable cutting tool inserts. The pyrolysis of tungsten hexacarbonyl (W(CO)6)
deposition route was utilised in conjunction with a laboratory-scale hot-wall CVD reactor.
After numerous coating runs, deposition conditions were established under which
rudimentary tungsten carbide coatings could be deposited at 350°C. The characteristics of
these coatings were determined using an established characterisation procedure. This
involved the following techniques: X-ray diffraction, ball cratering, Auger electron
spectroscopy (AES), optical microscopy, fractography/scanning electron microscopy (SEM),
profilometry, scratch adhesion testing and micro-indentation hardness testing. [Continues.]


A Treat-to-Target approach (T2T) is broadly considered to lead to better clinical outcomes and recommended in patients with RA. However, very few studies have analyzed the effect of T2T on radiographic progression, and any such studies have provided inconsistent results.To investigate whether meticulously following a treat-to-target (T2T)-strategy in daily clinical practice leads to lower radiographic progression in RA.Patients from the multicenter RA-BIODAM cohort with ≥2 consecutive visits with radiographs available were included. In RA-BIODAM patients were enrolled as they were initiating a new csDMARD/bDMARD treatment were followed-up with the intention to benchmark and intensify treatment. The primary outcome of this analysis was the change in Sharp-van der Heijde score (SvdH, 0-448), assessed every 6 months, using average scores from 2 readers (scores with known chronological order). Following a DAS44-T2T remission strategy, which was defined at each 3-month visit, was the main variable of interest. Patients were categorized based on the proportion of visits in which T2T was followed according to our definition: very low (≤40% of the visits, low (>40%, <62.5%), high (≥62.5%, ≤75%) and very high (>75%). Radiographic progression at 2 years was visualized across groups by cumulative probability plots. Per 3-month interval T2T could be followed zero, one or two times (in a total of 2 visits). Associations between the number of visits with T2T in an interval and radiographic progression, both in the same and in the subsequent 6-month interval, were analysed by generalised estimating equations, adjusted for age, gender, disease duration and country.In total, 511 patients were included (mean (SD) age: 56 (13) years; 76% female). After 2 years, patients showed on average 2.2 (4.1) units progression (median:1 unit). Mean (SD) 2-year progression was not significantly different across categories of T2T: very low: 2.1 (2.7)-units; low: 2.8 (6.0); high: 2.4 (4.5), very high: 1.6 (2.2) (Figure 1). Meticulously following-up T2T in a 3-month interval neither reduced progression in the same 6-month interval (parameter estimates (for yes vs no): +0.15 units (95%CI: -0.04 to 0.33) for 2 vs 0 visits; and +0.08 units (-0.06;0.22) for 1 vs 0 visits) nor did it reduce progression in the subsequent 6-month interval (Table 1).Table 1.Effect of following DAS44-remission-T2T strategy on 6-month radiographic progression over 2 yearsChange in radiographic damage(regression coefficient (95% CI))N=506T2T during 3 months on radiographic progression in the same 6-month period 2 visits vs 0 followed0.15 (-0.04; 0.33) 1 visit vs 0 followed0.08 (-0.06; 0.22)T2T during 3 months on radiographic progression in the subsequent 6-month period 2 visits vs 0 followed-0.09 (-0.28; 0.10) 1 visit vs 0 followed-0.10 (-0.24; 0.05)Figure 1.Cumulative probability plot with 2-year radiographic progression according to the proportion of 3-monthly visits with T2T followedIn this daily practice cohort, more meticulously following T2T principles did not result in more reduction of radiographic progression than a somewhat more liberal attitude toward T2T. One possible interpretation of these results is that the intention to apply T2T already suffices and that a more stringent approach does not further improve outcome.BIODAM was financially supported by an unrestricted grant from AbbVieSofia Ramiro Speakers bureau: Eli Lilly, MSD, Novartis, UCB, Consultant of: AbbVie, Eli Lilly, MSD, Novartis, Pfizer, UCB, Sanofi, Grant/research support from: AbbVie, Galapagos, Novartis, Pfizer, UCB, Robert B.M. Landewé Speakers bureau: AbbVie, BMS, Gilead, Galapagos, GSK,Janssen, Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer, UCB, Consultant of: AbbVie, BMS, Gilead, Galapagos, GSK,Janssen, Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer, UCBDr Landewé owns Rheumatology Consultancy BV, Désirée van der Heijde Consultant of: AbbVie, Bayer, BMS, Cyxone, Eisai, Galapagos, Gilead, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, Janssen, Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer, UCB Pharma. Director of Imaging Rheumatology bv., Alexandre Sepriano Speakers bureau: Novartis, Consultant of: UCB, Oliver FitzGerald Speakers bureau: Biogen, Novartis, AbbVie, BMS, Pfizer, Grant/research support from: BMS, Novartis, UCB, Pfizer, Lilly, Janssen, Mikkel Østergaard Speakers bureau: Abbvie, BMS, Celgene, Eli-Lilly, Galapagos, Gilead, Janssen, Merck, Novartis, Orion, Pfizer, Roche and UCB, Consultant of: Abbvie, BMS, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Celgene, Eli-Lilly, Hospira, Janssen, Merck, Novartis, Novo, Orion, Pfizer, Regeneron, Roche, Sandoz, Sanofi and UCB, Grant/research support from: Abbvie, Amgen, BMS, Merck, Celgene and Novartis, Joanne Homik: None declared, Ori Elkayam Speakers bureau: Pfizer, Lilly, Novartis, Abbvie, BI, Janssen, Consultant of: Pfizer, Lilly, Novartis, Abbvie, BI, Janssen, Grant/research support from: Pfizer, Abbvie, Janssen, Carter Thorne Consultant of: Abbvie, Organon, Pfizer, Sandoz, Maggie Larché Speakers bureau: AbbVie, Actelion, Amgen, BMS, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Fresenius-Kabi, Gilead, Janssen, Mallinckrodt, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Sandoz, Sanofi, Sobi, UCB, Grant/research support from: Abbvie, BMS, Gianfranco Ferraccioli Speakers bureau: SOBI, Consultant of: Abbivie, Marina Backhaus: None declared, Gilles Boire Speakers bureau: Abbvie Canada, BMS Canada, Lilly Canada, Janssen Canada, Merck Canada, Pfizer Canada, Viatris, Consultant of: Abbvie Canada, Amgen Canada, BMS Canada, Celgene, GileadSciences, Janssen Canada, Lilly Canada, Merck Canada, Mylan Canada, Novartis Canada, Pfizer Canada, Roche Canada, Samsung Bioepis, Sanofi Canada, Teva, Grant/research support from: Lilly Canada, BMS Canada, Pfizer, Sandoz Canada, UCB Canada, Merck Canada, Novartis Canada, Roche Canada, Bernard Combe Speakers bureau: Abbvie, BMS,Celltrion,Galapgos-Gilead, Janssen, Lilly, MERCK, Pfizer,Roche-Chugai, Consultant of: Abbvie, Celltrion,Galapgos-Gilead, Janssen, Lilly, MERCK, Roche-Chugai, Grant/research support from: Pfizer, Roche-chugai, Thierry Schaeverbeke: None declared, Alain Saraux Speakers bureau: Abbvie, Lilly, Nordic, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche-Chugai, Sanofi, UCB, Consultant of: Abbvie, Lilly, Nordic, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche-Chugai, UCB, Grant/research support from: Novartis, Fresenius, Lilly, Maxime Dougados Consultant of: Pfizer, AbbVie, UCB, Merck, Lilly, Novartis, BMS, Galapagos, Biogen, Roche, Grant/research support from: Pfizer, AbbVie, UCB, Merck, Lilly, Novartis, BMS, Galapagos, Biogen, Roche, Maurizio Rossini Speakers bureau: Amgen, Abbvie, BMS, Eli-Lilly, Galapagos,MSD, Novartis, Pfizer, Sandoz, Theramex, UCB, Marcello Govoni Speakers bureau: Abbvie, Pfizer, Galapagos, BMS, Eli-Lilly, Paid instructor for: Pfizer, Consultant of: Abbvie, BMS, Novartis, Astrazeneca, Pfizer, Luigi Sinigaglia: None declared, Alain Cantagrel Speakers bureau: Abbvie, Amgen, Biogen, BMS, Janssen, Lilly France, Médac, MSD France, Nordic-Pharma, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi Aventis, UCB, Consultant of: BMS, Janssen, Lilly France, MSD France, Sandoz, Grant/research support from: MSD France, Novartis, Pfizer, Cornelia Allaart: None declared, Cheryl Barnabe Speakers bureau: Sanofi Genzyme, Pfizer, Fresenius Kabi, Janssen, Consultant of: Gilead, Celltrion Healthcare, Clifton Bingham Consultant of: AbbVie, BMS, Eli Lilly, Janssen, Moderna, Pfizer, Sanofi, Grant/research support from: BMS, Dirkjan van Schaardenburg: None declared, Hilde Berner Hammer Speakers bureau: AbbVie, Novartis, Lilly, Rana Dadashova: None declared, Edna Hutchings: None declared, Joel Paschke: None declared, Walter P Maksymowych Speakers bureau: Abbvie, Janssen, Novartis, Pfizer, UCB, Consultant of: Abbvie, Boehringer Ingelheim, Celgene, Eli-Lilly, Galapagos, Novartis, Pfizer, UCB, Grant/research support from: Abbvie, Novartis, Pfizer


In real life, accurately annotating large-scale datasets is sometimes difficult. Datasets used for training deep learning models are likely to contain label noise. To make use of the dataset containing label noise, two typical methods have been proposed. One is to employ the semi-supervised method by exploiting labeled confident examples and unlabeled unconfident examples . The other one is to model label noise and design statistically consistent classifiers. A natural question remains unsolved: which one should be used for a specific real-world application? In this paper, we answer the question from the perspective of causal data generative process . Specifically, the performance of the semi-supervised based method depends heavily on the data generative process while the method modeling label-noise is not influenced by the generation process. For example, for a given dataset, if it has a causal generative structure that the features cause the label, the semi-supervised based method would not be helpful. When the causal structure is unknown, we provide an intuitive method to discover the causal structure for a given dataset containing label noise.