AbstractMild mental retardation children was a child who had the intellectual ability below average. These deficiencies caused mild mental retardation children obtains cognitive obstacle was the obtained ability to recognize of part the body. The ability to recognize of part the body mild mental retardation children in SDLB Siwi Mulia Madiun was low. They were less to show the part of the body and mention of names include the eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, tongue, hands, and foot. With contextual learning expected given the ability to recognize part of body mild mental retardation children better than ever.In general, the purpose of research was to prove the influence of contextual learning to recognize of part the body ability children with mild mental retardation in SDLB Siwi Mulia Madiun. This research used "pre-experiment" research with the design "one group pretest posttest". Methods of data collection using the test methods and techniques of data analysis using nonparametric statistical analysis to test the formula sign (sign test).Results of pre-test score average child was 43,51 and then given the treatment during twelve times. Furthermore, children were given post-test with an average score was 76,81. The average value of pre-test and post-test showed that there was a change for the value of children become better and the level of ability of a children to recognize the part of the body increased. Based these values, the formula was then analyzed using the sign test (sign test) ZH with Ztabel 5% two-sided test of 1.96. ZH values were obtain in a matter ZH = 2.26 > 1.96 Ztabel 5%. It was proved that the HO was rejected and Ha accepted so it can be concluded that there was significant influence of contextual learning on the ability to recognize part of body children with mild mental retardation first grade at SDLB Siwi Mulia Madiun.Keywords: contextual learning, recognize part of the body


We analyse downstream access and capacity choice in the market for wireless telecommunications, where spectrum rights are owned by vertically integrated duopolists and may be traded. In the market for wireless telecommunications, radio spectrum is an essential input. Prior to network construction, the incumbents may offer contracts for capacity to an entrant, granting service-based access on the network they will construct. Alternatively, when spectrum trading is allowed, they may sell part of their license, allowing the entrant to build its own network and enter as an infrastructure player. We find that in this Cournot setting, access is generally provided, as incumbents compete to appropriate the profits of serving a differentiated market through the entrant. Although selling spectrum rights instead of network capacity leads to a loss of economies of scale in infrastructure construction, infrastructure-based entry may dominate as a result of a strategic effect. By delegating capacity choice to the entrant, the access providing incumbent can commit to compete more aggressively, causing its rival incumbent to reduce capacity. A lower aggregate capacity will increase prices and thereby profits.


A 5-year-old male castrated ferret was presented to the Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine for evaluation of progressive hair loss and a large, rapidly growing ventral neck mass. The patient had been diagnosed previously with an insulinoma, which was managed medically. Fine-needle aspirates of the neck mass were performed. The cytologic results were most consistent with epithelial neoplasia, likely a carcinoma; thyroid origin was considered likely based on tumor location and cell morphology. The tumor grew rapidly, and the owners elected euthanasia 1 week after examination. At necropsy, a circumscribed, ovoid mass disrupted the right cervical musculature next to the right lobe of the thyroid gland. Histopathologic evaluation revealed an infiltrative mass consisting of cuboidal cells arranged in solid sheets and irregular follicles enclosing colloid. The cells were large, with prominent nucleoli, and had a high mitotic rate. The histopathologic diagnosis was consistent with thyroid follicular adenocarcinoma. Immunochemical findings confirmed thyroglobulin production by neoplastic cells, but to a lesser extent than in normal ferret thyroid tissue. To our knowledge, this is the first case of thyroid follicular adenocarcinoma to be reported in a ferret, with only 1 other case of thyroid carcinoma, a C-cell carcinoma, described previously.


Extracted from text ... agriculture
The canopy sprinkler system, which promotes a new method
of irrigation, was recently demonstrated by the Irrigation
Unlimited team together with canopy irrigation specialist
Lourens van der Merwe at a farm in Brits.
Irrigation Unlimited Andre Lombard and Frik Solms devised
innovative and fun proceedings for the canopy sprinkler system
launch, which was attended by various members of the agricultural
community, SABI members and the media.
Prior to the trip to Brits, Irrigation Unlimited hosted the group at
a Springbok rugby team practice session at St Stithians School in
Johannesburg.
As to be expected, this was a joyous experience ..


The use of glucocorticoids in the treatment of inflammatory disorders can result in myocardial injury. This study was carried out to investigate the protective effects of ethanolic leaf extract of Gongronema latifolium (GL) in dexamethasone (DEX)-induced myocardial injury. Wistar rats were assigned to 4 groups (n = 6) namely, control, GL, DEX, and DEX+GL groups. DEX (35 μg/kg body weight) was administered subcutaneously to induce myocardial injury, while GL leaf extract (200 mg/kg body weight) was administered orally. Both agents were administered to their respective groups for 14 days. DEX (p < .05) decreased nitric oxide and increased angiotensin-converting enzyme activity compared with the control. Serum superoxide dismutase activity and bilirubin level were decreased (p < .05), while malondialdehyde level was increased (p < .05) in the DEX group. Serum liver enzymes, inflammatory biomarkers (C-reactive protein and interleukin-6), and cardiac injury biomarkers (creatinine kinase, cardiac troponin-T, and lactate dehydrogenase) were significantly (p < .05) increased in the DEX group relative to the control. Administration of GL leaf extract attenuated these changes significantly. The study therefore suggests that GL is beneficial in the treatment of myocardial injury via the downregulation of high serum concentration of cardiac biomarkers, oxidative stress markers, and inflammatory biomarkers released as a result of the insult caused by glucocorticoid administration. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: In this study, we demonstrated that prolonged use of dexamethasone resulted in myocardial cell injury via increased production of reactive oxygen species, inflammatory biomarkers, and inhibition of nitric oxide, a potent vasodilator. The leaves extract of Gongronema latifolium elicits the anti-inflammatory and cardioprotective potential as an efficient inhibitor of free radicals with good antioxidant properties. The study provides scientific evidence of the therapeutic ability of the extract of G. latifolium in the treatment of DEX-induced myocardial injury and could be a drug candidate for the treatment of myocardial injury and inflammation in humans.


The demand of mirabow wood is increas ing nowdays , where as the existence species in the nature i s getting reduced . Therefore, it's preservation efforts are urgent to be done. Seed size was correlated with it's vigor, where heavy seeds relatively have a better vigor, compare to the light one. The research was aimed to determine the effect of seed size to percentage of germination, average days to germinate, germination value and germination power of mirabow seeds . Th e research was conducted in greenhouse of A griculture F aculty Lampung University on November 2013 to January 2014. Th e r esearch was arranged in Complete R andom D esign (CRD), with 3 treatments and 4 replications. Seed are classified based on the weight of seed is heavy weight, medium weight, and light weight . E ach unit of experiments was used 100 mirabow seed s . The observed variables were consisted of germination percentage, average day to germination, germination value, and germination power.  Data analysis methods used were homogeneity of variance, variance analysis, and least significant of difference test at 5% significant level. The results showed that seed size of mirabow has a positive effect to the germination. The heavy weight of s eed (> 3.49 g rams ) gave a better response for germination percentage 80.250% and germination value 1.595 %/day compared with the medium weight (2.36--43.49 grams) and light weight (< 2.36 g rams). Keywords: germination, mirabow, seed size


This article explores the compatibility of Ghana's e-waste policy (Act 917) in the country's socioeconomic context. Our article starts with two main questions based on our empirical engagements with the act which, contextually, mimics the extended producer responsibility. First, we question the pessimistic imaginaries about the e-waste industry that seeks its outright trade ban or promotes a single version of recycling. Second, we query if the underlying assumptions and basic mechanisms of extended producer responsibility can create the enabling environment to actualize sound e-waste management. Based on prevailing context, the imaginaries appear socially peripheral, isolated, and powerless, and we call for a broader, unbiased, in-depth, critical systems thinking for understanding the complexities and multidimensional nature of the waste electrical and electronic equipment industry. We suggest that it is by fostering the positive synergies across sectors and among policies that environmentally sound e-waste policy outcomes can be achievable.


In this paper, the indirectly-heated type microwave power sensors based on GaAs micromachining are optimized to obtain a reasonable microstructure dimension and achieve the compatibility of miniaturization with high performance. The thermal properties and the microwave properties of microwave power sensors are researched. The fabrication is divided into a front side and a back side processing of GaAs. The matching characteristics and the sensitivity characteristics of microwave power sensors are measured. With a tradeoff consideration between the miniaturization and the high performance, a reasonable microstructure dimension of the microwave power sensor is obtained. This optimized power sensor has very good RF-dc linearity, and the response time is about 6 ms.


The paper discusses the content, principles, scientific schools and modern trends in people management in an organization. At methodological tools for evaluating the strategic potential of the organization's people; the method for evaluating the strategic potential of the company's personnel is proposed based on an analysis of the use of the working hours fund. The results of the activities of staff in management positions, colleagues, subordinates and the employee's opinion are determining axes in the perception of the studied object, that is, people respond proactively to the management style according to the structure and planning of organizational praxis.


The aim of this proficiency study was to give laboratories the possibility to evaluate or demonstrate their competence for the analysis of antibiotics in bovine tissues, including the screening analysis. This study also provided an evaluation of the methods applied for screening and quantitative and confirmatory analysis of antibiotics in beef.


The notion of financial literacy is not a new one. It is widely perceived as being important, hence something to be encouraged in those who are not financially literate, as exemplified by the existence of organisations dedicated to generating financial literacy in, for example, Australia, Canada, the U.K., and the U.S.A.
But what does the term financial literacy actually mean? What distinguishes a financially literate individual from one who is financially illiterate? This chapter investigates aspects of financial
literacy in particular contexts (embracing households and formal organisations – whether profitseeking enterprises or public sector bodies). As a prelude to defining what is meant by financial literacy, however, the basic idea of literacy itself (subsuming numeracy) is considered.
The fraught confusion over financial awareness and financial literacy, often viewed as being synonymous expressions, is addressed. This confusion arises (at least in part) from inadequate definitions of financial literacy (which clearly has implications for its operationalisation). These limitations are explored and a fuller definition of financial literacy is provided as a point of reference for accounting educators


Thermal emission is the phenomenon of heat dissipation in crystalline materials
undergoing deformation. Analysis of the thermal emission from materials subject to
strain in the form of mechanical tests is possible by measuring the specimen
temperature locally with high resolution temperature sensors.
The mechanism of heat dissipation depends intrinsically on a material's mechanical
properties and stress history. It is shown that analysis of the thermal emission
response to deformation can quantify these properties and provide evidence of
microstructural damage.
A number of different materials have been studied, including steels, aluminium and
nickel alloys, and a carbon/epoxy composite. Simple stress regimes were imposed on
the specimens, e.g. creep, fatigue and impact damage, and their thermal emission
characteristics were analysed during a following tensile test. It was found that the
thermoelastic response of the materials was in some cases sensitive to the level of pre-stressing
or damage. In addition information was often contained in the thermal
emission responses which was not present or unclear in the stress and strain data.
It is concluded that deformation mechanisms cannot be fully understood unless the
complete thermomechanical process is examined, involving the measurement of
temperature as well as the usual stress and strain. It is envisaged that thermal emission
could be developed into a tool for non-destructive damage assessment operating as a
complement for established techniques.


A series of mono-, di- and tri-valent iminosugars based on oligoethylene scaffolds and N-substituted deoxynojirymicin epitopes have been synthesized by "click chemistry" to study the effect of multivalency on glycosidase inhibition. Biological evaluation evidenced differences in the inhibition trends as a function of the enzyme nature. The results demonstrate that multivalency can be used in some case to modulate both the affinity and the selectivity of glycosidase inhibition.


Introduced in the UK in 1991, Investors in People (IiP) provides a benchmark for good training practice. It has become a central feature of the UK government's vocational education and training policy. This article aims to broaden the debate relating to IiP in two ways: first, by reviewing the existing evidence on recognition rates and its impact on training activity; and second, by exploring the new directions that IiP is taking in terms of its redesign and its overseas adoption. Finally, we consider the research agenda and the policy implications that arise from the review.


In the field of ceramic-based materials processing the last three decades has been marked by significant academic and industry interest in Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology due to its capability to produce ceramic parts with complex geometry and customizable materials properties. Conceptually, AM technology is a layer-by-layer fabrication of three dimensional physical parts directly from computer-aided design [1]. Solidification of the parts prepared from substances containing ceramic powder may be performed either by conventional heat treatment of a part as whole or by directed energy deposition. Both these strategies can be implemented using gyrotron-based millimeter-wave facilities allowing alternatively both the uniform heating of large-size parts in multi-mode cavities and local heating by focused wave-beams [2]. Hydroxyapatite- and yttria-stabilized zirconia-based ceramics are widely used in biomedical applications due to their high biocompatibility. The knowledge of their microwave absorption variation with temperature and porosity as the materials are densified, is necessary to optimize the scheme of microwave heating. 8 mm diameter disks for the measurements were prepared by uniaxial compacting from commercially available hydroxyapatite (HA) powder and yttria-stabilized zirconia (3YSZ) powder (Tosoh corp.). The measurements were performed at 24 GHz 3 kW gyrotron system. Samples for measurements were placed into the gyrotron system applicator and surrounded with porous alumina based thermal insulation. The design of the applicator and insulation allowed performing optical measurements of both the sample size and temperature distribution over the surface of the sample using a digital monochrome CCD camera. Measurements were made by the calorimetric method, when the microwave power absorbed in the sample is determined basing on the difference of the heating/cooling rates at the moments of intentional abrupt change of the microwave power at different sample temperatures. Absorption coefficient was determined as a division of the absorbed power to the incident microwave power. Special calibration experiments were made for determining microwave power density in the applicator and inside the thermal insulation. The method allows to measure absorption coefficients in situ during the sintering process. Absorption coefficients of HA were obtained in the range of 200 C - 1200 C, and for 3YSZ - in the range of 400 C - 1400 C both in situ during sintering and for as sintered samples. Dependencies of the absorption coefficients on the temperature and porosity are discussed.     References Vaezi, M., et al., Int. J. Adv. Manuf. Technol., 2013, 67, 1721–1759. Bykov, Yu., Eremeev, A., et al., IEEE Trans. Plasma Science, 2004, 32, 67–72.


Achieving parallel performance and scalability involves making compromises between parallel and sequential computation. If not contained, the overheads of parallelism can easily outweigh its benefits, sometimes by orders of magnitude. Today, we expect programmers to implement this compromise by optimizing their code manually. This process is labor intensive, requires deep expertise, and reduces code quality. Recent work on heartbeat scheduling shows a promising approach that manifests the potentially vast amounts of available, latent parallelism, at a regular rate, based on even beats in time. The idea is to amortize the overheads of parallelism over the useful work performed between the beats. Heartbeat scheduling is promising in theory, but the reality is complicated: it has no known practical implementation. In this paper, we propose a practical approach to heartbeat scheduling that involves equipping the assembly language with a small set of primitives. These primitives leverage existing kernel and hardware support for interrupts to allow parallelism to remain latent, until a heartbeat, when it can be manifested with low cost. Our Task Parallel Assembly Language (TPAL) is a compact, RISC-like assembly language. We specify TPAL through an abstract machine and implement the abstract machine as compiler transformations for C/C++ code and a specialized run-time system. We present an evaluation on both the Linux and the Nautilus kernels, considering a range of heartbeat interrupt mechanisms. The evaluation shows that TPAL can dramatically reduce the overheads of parallelism without compromising scalability.


Ultrastructural and cytochemical studies of peripheral blood samples from a monkey continuously infused with recombinant human interleukin 3 were performed. Recombinant human interleukin 3 stimulated a delayed granulocytosis primarily characterized by numerous mature basophils and fewer eosinophils and neutrophils. Basophilic leukocytes were identified by ultrastructural analysis. They were found to be typical granulocytes with polylobed nuclei containing condensed chromatin and numerous cytoplasmic granules. Basophil secretory granules were filled with homogeneous dense contents and were larger than eosinophil and neutrophil secretory granules. Evidence of increased basophil production was accompanied by interleukin 3-associated activation morphologies. These included increased numbers of cytoplasmic and granule-associated vesicles, as are routinely present in a non-IgE-mediated basophil release reaction, termed piecemeal degranulation, and focal perigranular matrix swelling and granule membrane fusion which accompanies anaphylactic degranulation of basophils in other species. Monkey basophils were shown to have a different ultrastructural morphology than that published for monkey mast cells, but exhibited general morphologic criteria for the identification of circulating mature basophils in a number of species. Like human and guinea pig basophils, monkey basophils did not display endogenous peroxidase or peroxidatic activity in a cytochemical assay which simultaneously identified peroxidase-positive granules in neutrophils and eosinophils as well as in synthetic structures in eosinophils. In summary, these studies have identified monkey basophils in an in vivo recombinant human interleukin 3-stimulated model. Interleukin-3 induction of basophilia clearly allowed differentiation of activated mature basophils from eosinophils and neutrophils and mast cells in this species using ultrastructural morphologic criteria.


Potential for increasing contamination of water supplies with such materials as dissolved inorganic solids suggests more precise water quanlity standards for poultry. Commercial strain S.C.W.L. hens were supplied water containing sodium sulfate (Na2SO4) or magnesium sulfate (MgSO4) (250, 1,000, 4,000, or 16,000 p.p.m.) on a total sulfate basis in Exp. 1 and on a total salt basis in Exp. 2. All data are expressed as percentages deviated from pre-treatment performance. Four thousand p.p.m. of total sulfate as Na2SO4 or MgSO4 significantly depressed feed consumption and hen-day production. Magnesium sulfate (4,000 p.p.m.) had a more depressing effect than Na2SO4 (4,000 p.p.m.) on hen-day production (-80.4 vs. -24.4%). At that level, Na2SO4 significantly increased water consumption and fecal moisture content, while MgSO4 significantly decreased water consumption. All hens on 1l,000 p.p.m. of either salt died during the experiment. No effect on egg quality was observed before the hens died. On a total salt basis (Exp. 2) 16,000 p.p.m. of either Na2SO4 or MgSO4 significantly depressed hen-day production, body weight, and feed comsumption, but increased water consumption. Hens receiving 16,000 p.p.m. Na2SO4 increased water consumption more than those receiving 16,000 p.p.m. MgSO4(146.7 and 24.6%). No significant differences between treatments were observed for mortality (Exp. 2). Mortality data suggest that lethal levels of Na2SO4 and MgSO4 are between 16,000 and 20,032 or 23,680 p.p.m. total salt, respectively.


Aim: In July 2009, a combined Renal Rheumatology Lupus Vasculitis (RRLV) clinic, the first of its kind for adult patients in Australia, was started at Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital. This is an audit of progression of renal disease to assess if patients attending this clinic had comparable results to published studies of similar cohorts with lupus Nephritis (LN) and vasculitis. Methods: We conducted a retrospective audit of all the patients who attended this clinic from July 2009 to October 2013. There were 33 patients followed up in the vasculitis group and 36 in the LN group. Patients with other connective tissue disorders were excluded from the analysis as the numbers were insignificant. Results: The mean estimated glomerular filtration rate of vasculitis and LN patients improved from 32.06 to 45.82 ml/min/1.73m2 and 62.42 to 65.53 ml/min/1.73m2 respectively. The mean urine protein/creatinine ratio of vasculitis and LN patients improved from 420 to 85 and 406 to 70 respectively. No patients died in either group. One vasculitis and two LN patients required maintenance dialysis. Three LN patients underwent renal transplantation. Conclusion: The results show excellent patient and renal survival and support the concept of a combined renal rheumatology clinic in managing renal disease from systemic connective tissue disorders.


In the present work, the effect of phenol on the supercritical extraction of the organic matter from Tarfaya's oil shale with toluene was evaluated. The experimental results showed clearly that phenol had a significant effect on the yield and the composition of the oils obtained. Moreover, it was shown that phenol was a very efficient modifier for oil shale, giving a good yield of recovery and a suitable maturation of the organic matter. The pitches prepared by mixing phenol and toluene contain more aromatics and have a high char yield at 950 °C compared to those obtained by extraction with supercritical toluene alone.


There have been many linear regression models proposed to analyze mixture experiments including the Scheffé model, the slack-variable model, and the Kronecker model. The use of the slack-variable model is somewhat controversial within the mixture experiment research community. However, in situations that the slack-variable ingredient is used to fill in the formulation and the remaining ingredients have constraints such that they can be chosen independently of one another, the slack-variable model is extremely popular by practitioners mainly due to the ease of interpretation. In this article, we advocate that for some mixture experiments the slack-variable model has appealing properties including numerical stability and better prediction accuracy when model-term selection is performed. We also explain how the effects of the slack-variable model components should be interpreted and how easy it is for practitioners to understand the components effects. We also investigate how to choose the slack-variable component, what transformation should be used to reduce collinearity, and under what circumstances the slack-variable model should be preferred. Both simulation and practical examples are provided to support the conclusions.


We investigate the connection between maximum likelihood (ML) estimation of output labels of a single input multiple output (SIMO) vector channel and clustering algorithms. We demonstrate that suppressing the system dynamics as captured by the state transition diagram of the vector Markov source, the approximations of the ML estimator of the noiseless channel outputs, leads to various forms of clustering algorithms and we propose modifications of the LBG algorithm for their solution. It is shown that more complex forms of LBG type algorithm result by using more refined approximations in the expression of the ML estimator of the noiseless channel output vectors. The development is based on the polyphase decomposition of the output sequences of the SIMO channel. Such a decomposition allows for an easy description of the system dynamics as transitions between phases. Subsequently this information, in addition to the embedded algebraic structure of the outputs inherited from the input, allows the development an efficient clustering algorithm that can be used for the estimation of the noiseless channel output labels and the construction of the state transition diagram of the underlying vector Markov source. After such labelling, standard Viterbi decoding can be used for data detection.


Based on the information communicated in press releases, and finally published towards the end of 2020 by Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca, we have built up a simple Bayesian model, in which the main quantity of interest plays the role of {\em vaccine efficacy} (`$ε$'). The resulting Bayesian Network is processed by a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), implemented in JAGS interfaced to R via rjags. As outcome, we get several probability density functions (pdf's) of $ε$, each conditioned on the data provided by the three pharma companies. The result is rather stable against large variations of the number of people participating in the trials and it is `somehow' in good agreement with the results provided by the companies, in the sense that their values correspond to the most probable value (`mode') of the pdf's resulting from MCMC, thus reassuring us about the validity of our simple model. However we maintain that the number to be reported as `vaccine efficacy' should be the mean of the distribution, rather than the mode, as it was already very clear to Laplace about 250 years ago (its `rule of succession' follows from the simplest problem of the kind). This is particularly important in the case in which the number of successes equals the numbers of trials, as it happens with the efficacy against `severe forms' of infection, claimed by Moderna to be 100%. The implication of the various uncertainties on the predicted number of vaccinated infectees is also shown, using both MCMC and approximated formulae.


Tests performed during long sampling periods with Nuclepore polycarbonate filters have shown that the collection efficiency for aerosols presents a strong time dependence. Significant amounts of electric charge measured on the filter during filtration, are believed to play an important role in its efficiency. Here we propose a model for trapping particles which includes electric dipolar effects. A mechanism for migration of particulate is also suggested.


This paper gives lower and upper bounds on the complexity of triangulating the region between polyhedra. Particular attention is given to the case of convex polyhedra and terrains.


Abstract Clinicians are increasingly being asked to heed and follow the guidance provided by "best practice advisories." Such advisories, often in the form of electronic reminders or alerts, are meant to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of evidence-based medical practice. However, we argue that best practice advisories can sometimes be infused with stakeholder bias, even if inadvertently. We specifically argue that best practice advisory biases can occur when an advisory is not oriented to benefit patients at least as much or more than other stakeholders. To address this issue, we put forth the perspective that ethical consideration of biases is especially important in best practice advisory design and revision processes.


For the authors' previous work see ibid., vol.10, p.487 (1977). Further measurements are reported on the decay of surface potential of negative corona charged polyethylene films and on the crossover effect reported earlier by Ieda and co-workers (1967). It is shown that when the duration of charging is short ( approximately 25 ms) the subsequent decay curves of surface potential are well-behaved and do not exhibit the crossover effect even though the initial surface fields are high. Experiments are also reported in which an air stream is directed along the surface of the films while corona charging. This also removes the crossover effect and is in agreement with results reported in which an air stream is directed along the surface of the films while corona charging. This also removes the crossover effect and is in agreement with results reported by Okumura (1976) for polystyrene-hexamethacrylate. It is concluded that excited molecules as well as photons produced in the corona discharge play an important role in inducing charge from surface states to enter the bulk of the polymer where they are much more mobile. This leads to rapid decay of surface potential at higher initial surface fields and the crossover effect is then observed.


A person's identity verification became very important in information society. This article presents some results of our research of biometric authentication by keystroke dynamics. The comparison of the stochastic approach and using fuzzy modeling is presented as well. Key-Words: Authentication, identification, biometric, keystroke dynamics, data security, fuzzy.


Introduction: It is known that the systemic manifestations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) cause decreased ability to perform exercise and training acts beneficially to treatment. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of a periodized resistance training with elastic tubing in functional capacity and quality of life of patients with COPD. Methods: We evaluated 19 patients with COPD that were randomized into 2 groups: resistance training with elastic tubing (GR1: n: 9; age: 64± 10,53; BMI: 25.65±6,057Kg/cm2; FEV1 / FVC: 52 03 ±10.45) and resistance training with weight machines (GR2: n: 10; age: 68 ±7,16; BMI: 27.95 ±4,910Kg/cm2; FEV1/ FVC: 61.37±12, 66). The training was performed 3 times weekly for 12 weeks, with initial intensity of 2x15RM progressive to 4x6RM. Functional capacity was evaluatedby the six-minute walking test (6MWT) and quality of life through the Chronic Respiratory Questionnaire (CRQ) at baseline and after 12 weeks of training. Results: In functional capacity only GR1 showed significant improvement after 12 weeks (p =0.004). (GR2(p=0,1037)).Howeverthere were no differencesbetweengroups (p=0,549). The quality of life was improved only in the dyspnea domain inGR2 (p = 0.018). Conclusion: The periodized resistance training did not show differences between the groups in functional capacity however whit particularities in the individual analysis. In addiction quality of life showed improvement in dyspnea domain only in training with weight machines.


Summary

1. Low flows in rivers are predicted to increase in extent and severity in many areas in the future, yet the consequent impacts of river drying on terrestrial communities via (i) changes to riparian microclimatic conditions and (ii) the identity and abundance of emerging aquatic insects available to riparian predators have not been quantified.

2. We investigated the influence of low river flow on a riparian fishing spider, Dolomedes aquaticus, in five New Zealand rivers containing permanently flowing and drying reaches and, in one river, along a longitudinal drying gradient.

3. The biomass of aquatic insects, potential prey for D. aquaticus, declined with low river flows while the abundance of potential terrestrial prey remained similar at all sites. In the replicate rivers, and along the longitudinal drying gradient, spider biomass was lower, and size classes were skewed towards more small and fewer large spiders, in drying sites. A desiccation experiment in the laboratory indicated high sensitivity of the spiders, with prey presence increasing spider survival.

4. Differences in the spatial distribution, biomass and population size structure of spiders were observed along the longitudinal drying gradient and disappeared within 16 days of the water returning to all sites.

5. In total, low river flow affected the biomass of D. aquaticus, as well as their size class structure and spatial distribution. This indicates that low river flows have the potential to affect adjacent terrestrial ecosystems.


This paper presents a simple rational expectations model of intertemporal asset pricing. It shows that state-independent heterogeneous risk aversion of investors is likely to generate declining aggregate relative risk aversion. This leads to predictability of asset returns and high and persistent volatility. Stock market crashes may be observed if relative risk aversion differs strongly across investors. Then aggregate relative risk aversion may sharply increase given a small impairment in fundamentals so that asset prices may strongly decline. Changes in aggregate relative risk aversion may also lead to resistance and support levels as used in technical analysis. For numerical illustration we propose an analytical asset price formula.


To characterize the functional status of lpr T cells and determine whether activation is required for DN cell expansion, we performed in vivo labeling experiments in MRL-+/+, MRL-lpr, and p59fyn-/- MRL-lpr (Fyn-/-) mice. Multicolor FACS analysis of T cells from 8-wk-old mice receiving bromodeoxyuridine (BrdUrd) for 9 days showed that higher proportions of CD4+ and CD8+ lymph node cells were dividing (BrdUrd(high)) in lpr (15%) than in +/+ mice (3%), and the proportion of cycling cells was even higher in the DN (71%) and CD4+ B220+ (54%) lpr subsets. BrdUrd chase experiments documented that activation and division in most DN cells was initiated subsequent to their precursor CD8+ stage. Lymphadenopathy and other disease manifestations were greatly reduced in Fyn-/- lpr mice concomitant to decreased DN cells (from 77 to 20%). BrdUrd chase experiments showed that the division rate, signified by conversion of DN cells from BrdUrd(high) to BrdUrd(low), was severely reduced in Fyn-/- compared with conventional lpr mice, whereas division of all other T cell subsets (CD4+, CD8+, and CD4+ B220+) was equal in both types of mice. We conclude that 1) DN lpr T cells, rather than being end stage, retain the capacity to be activated and repeatedly divide before reaching an anergic or replicative senescence stage; 2) the CD3 zeta-chain-associated Fyn kinase is important to DN T cell signal transduction; 3) DN cells, as functional intermediates of the CD8+ subset, are highly dependent on Fas participation for apoptosis; and 4) DN cells contribute to the early development of the serologic and histologic features of the MRL-lpr lupus disease.


The article focused on the Hebrew root לדב [divide] [ bdl ] in Priestly and post-Priestly material of the Pentateuch. In Genesis 1 God is the subject of the verb and often enough in the Holiness Code, but in many instances in Leviticus (e.g. 10:10 and 11:47) it is expected of priests to perform the same act. It was argued that in this regard priests were to imitate God. The article further argued that these texts helped us to describe Jewish identity in the Persian period as an identity of non-conformity, and they also helped us to describe the priests' own understanding of their role in maintaining this identity.


This paper gives some criterions for minimally thin sets at infinity with respect to the Schr?dinger operator in a cone. Our proofs are based on estimating Green-Sch potential with a positive measure by connecting with a kind of density of the modified measure. Meanwhile, the geometrical property of this minimally thin sets at infinity is also considered. By giving an example, we show that the reverse of this property is not true.


In big data analytics, there is currently a large number of data programming models and their respective frontends such as relational tables, graphs, tensors, and streams. This has lead to a plethora of runtimes that typically focus on the efficient execution of just a single frontend. This fragmentation manifests itself today by highly complex pipelines that bundle multiple runtimes to support the necessary models. Hence, joint optimization and execution of such pipelines across these frontend-bound runtimes is infeasible. We propose Arc as the first unified Intermediate Representation (IR) for data analytics that incorporates stream semantics based on a modern specification of streams, windows and stream aggregation, to combine batch and stream computation models. Arc extends Weld, an IR for batch computation and adds support for partitioned, out-of-order stream and window operators which are the most fundamental building blocks in contemporary data streaming.


When designing a spectral-band pyrometer for use at high time resolutions (sub-μs), there is ambiguity regarding the optimum characteristics for a spectral filter(s). In particular, while prior work has discussed uncertainties in spectral-band pyrometry, there has been little discussion of the effects of noise which is an important consideration in time-resolved, high speed experiments. Using a Monte-Carlo process to simulate the effects of noise, a model of collection from a black body has been developed to give insights into the optimum choices for centre wavelength and passband width. The model was validated and then used to explore the effects of centre wavelength and passband width on measurement uncertainty. This reveals a transition centre wavelength below which uncertainties in calculated temperature are high. To further investigate system performance, simultaneous variation of the centre wavelength and bandpass width of a filter is investigated. Using data reduction, the effects of temperature and noise levels are illustrated and an empirical approximation is determined. The results presented show that filter choice can significantly affect instrument performance and, while best practice requires detailed modelling to achieve optimal performance, the expression presented can be used to aid filter selection.


'Pandemics and epidemics' starts by looking at the conventional picture of the history of plague which divides it into three long pandemics, each of them made up of a series of separate but closely connected epidemics, in particular places, extending over centuries. The 'Plague of Justinian', the 'Black Death', and the epidemics in India and China in the late 1800s are useful case studies. How do plagues appear and disappear? The European defences against plague in the early modern period included quarantine precautions. Quarantine created protective thresholds which reduced the risk of plague retaining its hold across the whole European mainland.


In order to analyze the heat transfer phenomena in the plasma flames, a mathematical model describing heat and fluid flow in an electric arc has been developed and used to predict heat transfer from the arc to the steel bath in a DC Electric Arc Furnace. The arc model takes the separate contributions to the heat transfer from each involved mechanism into account, i.e. radiation, convection and energy transported by electrons. The finite volume method and a SIMPLE algorithm are used for solving the governing MHD equations, i.e., conservation equations of mass, momentum, and energy together with the equations describing a k-e model for turbulence. The model predicts heat transfer for different currents and arc lengths. Finally these calculation results can be used as a useful insight into plasma phenomena of the industrial-scale electric arc furnace. From these results, it can be concluded that higher arc current and longer arc length give high heat transfer.


As series editor Narciso G. Menocal points out in his preface to "Wright Studies Volume One: Taliesin 1911 1914," each volume, focusing on a different subject, is envisioned as a forum for different views and interpretations of Wright s work. In "Wright Studies Volume Two: " "Fallingwater and Pittsburgh," contributors Kathryn Smith, Neil Levine, and Richard Cleary concentrate on two themes: Smith focuses on Wright s interest in the imagery of water in architecture while Levine and Cleary look at Wright s relationship with Edgar Kaufmann, the department store magnate, and analyze the results aesthetic and otherwise of that relationship. All three deal with Fallingwater, built for Kaufmann in the 1930s, and other projects planned for Pittsburgh, which included a planetarium, a civic center, a parking garage, and an apartment house. Smith discusses how Wright refined his integration of bodies of water into his designs over the course of his career, the most successful of which is Fallingwater. Levine provides historical background on Fallingwater and analyzes the architectural elements of the design while emphasizing Fallingwater s temporal dimension. Cleary covers Wright s Pittsburgh projects and Edgar Kaufmann Sr. s role in them. "Wright Studies Volume Two "is richly illustrated, with seventy-three halftones and twenty-three line drawings."


Fault detection, which involves the estimation of the condition, health or degradation of an equipment or a process and a decision logic to determine whether an event that can be considered as a fault has occurred, is an integral component in prognostics and health management because it is an essential indicator when to perform fault diagnosis and isolation, and it also precedes any performance prediction methodology. The implementation of data-driven fault detection has generally been reliant on unit-specific models which can be less effective with insufficient training data or when used in applications with non-stationary working conditions. The aforementioned scenarios can be alleviated by leveraging on data from similar units experiencing comparable operating regimes.
This dissertation investigates the formulation, development and implementation of a cluster-based fault detection to a fleet of similar machines. A two-step approach is introduced: fleet clustering and local cluster fault detection. Fleet clustering verifies, discovers and identifies the group structure of the network of machines. Afterwhich, the health of each unit in the cluster is assessed using peer-to-peer comparison. The approach developed in this dissertation is validated with two case studies: a fleet of industrial welding robots from an automotive manufacturing facility and a group of wind turbines from several wind farms.


We propose a stress testing framework of credit risk, which analyzes macro-financial linkages, generates consistent forecasts of macro-financial variables, and projects NPL on the basis of such forecasts. Economic contractions are generally associated with increases in non-performing loans (NPL). However, despite the common assumption used in the empirical literature of homogenous impact across banks, the strength of this relationship is often bank-specific, and imposing homogeneity may lead to over or underestimating the resilience of the financial system to macroeconomic woes. Our approach accounts for banks' heterogeneous reaction to macro-financial shocks in a dynamic context and potential cross-sectional dependence across banks caused by common shocks. An application to Ecuador suggests that substantial heterogeneity is present and that this should be taken into account when trying to anticipate inflections in the quality of portfolio.


This paper deals main physical processes arising during phase change have been investigated. The heat exchange within a single phase, many engineering technologies involve multiphase systems. Hence the problems dealing with phase change is the movement of phase interface with the release with the absorption of latent heat at this interface. The problems are highly nonlinear and thermophysical properties are typically different on each side of the phase interface.  Therefore, analytical solutions are available only for a limited class of one-dimensional problems- pure materials or fluids in infinite or semi-infinite domains.  In the present paper we demonstrate phase change heat transfer in pure liquids and materials as well as multicomponent systems. The multiphase systems have ( i.e ., solid, liquid, or gas phase) including one or more components. Although the governing equations vary for each type of multiphase system ( i.e solid-liquid, liquid-gas, etc.,), the overall features of the physical and mathematical models are analogous. Theses continuum models are based on a mixture formulation or an interface tracking formulation. In the mixture approach, the control volume consists of a homogeneous mixture encompassing both (or all ) phases. Mixture of interface tracking formulations are demonstrated in this studies. Key words : Interface tracking, multi-phase flow, phase interface, interfacial energy balance, scalar transport, entropy, two fluid modeling.


Prompted by growing environmental and energy concerns, increasing research is dedicated to
the development of technologies capable of sustainably converting sunlight into commercially
viable forms of energy such as chemical fuels. Crucial to this energy conversion is the
availability of materials, photo-catalysts (PCs), capable of promoting redox chemistry
following absorption of light. Since the macroscopic efficiency of PCs is governed by the
atomistic details of the PCs interfaces with media and reactants, increasingly large efforts have
been dedicated to the characterization and understanding of these interfaces, also by mean of
first principle simulations.
In this context, we present a theoretical investigation of a rapidly growing class of onedimensional
nanomaterial, Imogolite nanotubes (Imo NTs), whose potential for photocatalysis
has so far been overlooked.
The first Chapter of the Thesis provides an overview of the current state of the art for research
in PCs, and the theoretical framework needed for atomic-scale understanding and informed
development of PCs. The computational underpinning of the research carried out for this
Thesis, namely Density Functional Theory (DFT) and its linear-scaling (LS) implementation
in the ONETEP program is presented and discussed in Chapter 2.
Ahead of presentation of the results of my original research, a small literature review on Imo
NTs is provided in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 illustrates the applicability of LS-DFT to Imo NTs
and, by mean of detailed benchmarking, sets best practice for simulations of these systems.
The potential of Imo NTs as (co-)PCs is explored in Chapter 5, where an extensive study of
the structure, wall-polarization, absolute band-alignment, band-separation, and optical
properties of several Imo NTs is presented and discussed. The simulations suggest possible
profitable use of Imo NTs for both photo-reduction and hole-scavenging purposes. The
occurrence of (near-)UV charge-transfer excitations is also observed, which may be effective
for electron-hole separation and enhanced photo-catalytic performances. Finally, the effects of the NTs' wall-polarization on the absolute alignment of electron and hole acceptor states of
interacting water (H2O) molecules are quantified and discussed.
Chapter 6 reports an extensive study of defects in Imo NTs. Electronic and optical
characterization of the defective Imo NTs suggests energetically favourable separation of
photo-generated electrons and holes via relaxation to different defect-sites, with the ensuing
possibility of defect-centred photo-redox activity in defective Imo NTs.
The Thesis ends with the investigation of termination effects in Imo NTs. Chapter 7 presents
results on the structural, electronic and optical characterization of representative finite Imo
NTs models capable of simultaneous description of the NT-ends and bulk-like NT-core. The
simulations reveal the presence of longitudinal band-bending and of NT core-end bandsseparations,
which in turn suggests advantageous relaxation mechanisms for photo-generated
e*-h pairs along the NT axis, to the potential benefit of Imo NTs photo-catalytic reactivity.


Methods were developed for the determination of HMG CoA (3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl CoA) reductase activity in subcellular fractions of intestinal mucosa and liver of Wistar strain rats. In the liver, reductase activity was located exclusively in the microsomal fraction. In the intestinal mucosa, activity was found in both mitochondrial and microsomal fractions of crypt cells but not of villi. The microsomal HMG CoA reductases of liver and intestinal mucosa had similar kinetic characteristics and pH optima. However, the activity of the hepatic enzyme differed with age and sex of the experimental animals while that of the intestinal crypt cells did not. Cholestyramine treatment enhanced the activity of the microsomal HMG CoA reductase in both liver and intestinal mucosa. Reductase activity of the intestinal crypt cells was elevated in both jejunum and ileum. The greatest stimulation, both relatively and absolutely, was observed in the distal half of the jejunum.


Two new mycoheterotrophic orchids, Gastrodia nipponicoides and G. okinawensis , are described and illustrated from Okinawa Island, Ryukyu Islands, Japan. The outline floral shape of Gastrodia nipponicoides indicates a close affinity to G. nipponica , but it is easily distinguished from G. nipponica by several characteristics such as a shorter perianth tube, lack of rostellum and fewer ridges on its lip. Gastrodia okinawensis is similar to G. takeshimensis but is distinguished by having chasmogamous flowers, paler perianth tube and longer column.


Herein, we report a case of a man with pruritic bullous pemphigoid (BP) and very high levels of total IgE (5000 kU/L) who was refractory to standard aggressive immunosuppressive regimens (systemic steroids, daily cyclophosphamide) for BP but responded rapidly to systemic anti-IgE (omalizumab). Our patient is a 28 year-old white male. On admission 70% of his body surface area was involved with large bullae overlying urticarial plaques, involving his upper and lower extremities, chest, and abdomen. The circulating level of sCD200 was 48.45 pg/mL in serum and 243 pg/mL in blister fluid. During the second month of follow-up, the patient's sCD200 level decreased to 26.7 pg/mL. After the second round of omalizumab (300 mg), frequency of exacerbations decreased and after the 13th round it had completely disappeared.


Although cursory examination reveals that one must refer to 'British civil services', a lacuna has persisted in the literature since Gladden's (1967) seminal work. Invariably, the tendency is to accord the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) footnote status. This article seeks to remedy this deficiency. It offers a resum of the political context of Northern Ireland before concentrating upon NICS itself—its characteristics and changing nature in terms of public administration and the management of public policy since 1970.


Basic mechanisms underlying the tolerance and reaction of the central nervous system to ionizing radiation have not been fully elucidated in the literature. The authors employed the [14C]-2-deoxy-D-glucose autoradiography method to investigate the effect of whole-brain x-irradiation on local cerebral glucose utilization in the rat brain. The animals were exposed to conventional fractionation (200 +/- 4 cGy/day, 5 days/week for a total dose of 4000 cGy), and the effects of this regimen were assessed at 2 weeks and 3 months postirradiation. In rats evaluated 2 weeks after treatment, statistically significant decreases in cerebral metabolic activity were found in 13 of the 27 regions studied, compared to control animals. In rats studied 3 months after treatment, additional metabolic suppression and statistically significant decreases in cerebral metabolic activity were found in 11 of the 27 regions, compared to rats studied 2 weeks after treatment. A weighted-average rate for the brain as a whole was approximately 15% and approximately 25% below that of control animals 2 weeks and 3 months after exposure, respectively. Although the difference in species is significant enough so that direct extrapolation to humans may not be appropriate, the data reported here may have potential clinical implications for the evaluation of the risk-benefit ratio for radiotherapy. This model can be used reproducibly for further investigations, including evaluation of therapies that may reduce irradiation-induced brain injury.


Background Treatment of Paget's Disease of Bone (PDB) has been revolutionized by the use of zolendronic acid (ZA). Patients usually have a dramatic response to treatment with normalization serum alkaline phosphataise (ALP) levels and a longer period of clinical remission, compared with other class agents. Data from long-term use are scarse. Objectives Evaluate the effectiveness and safety of ZA in PDB patients, as well as remission, re-treatment rates and side effects in our outpatient population since 2005. Methods A retrospective study of PDB patients treated with 5 mg ZA intravenous infusion at our day-care center. Follow up time, demographic and clinical characteristics, previous therapeutic agents, rate of response, number and reasons of re-treatment(s) and rates of adverse events were collected. A descriptive statistic analysis was made. Results 48 patients, 60% female, mean age of 75 years, with a median time since the diagnosis of 12.3 years. The disease was poliostotic in 73% of the patients and pelvis (65%), skull (29%) and spine (27%) were the most common pagetic localizations. Deafness was present in 12.5% and 65% had hip involvement. 44% patients had been treated with another biphosphonate agent previously. Response rates were 97.9% at 1 year, 87.2% after 2 years and 95.1% after 3 years. The mean ALP levels before ZA infusion was 290 UI/L and after 112 UI/L. Sixteen patients needed a re-treatment in the period of follow up, minimum of 1 year after the ZA infusion and maximum of 8 years after. 56.3% due to raised of ALP levels and 43.8% due pain/ hip involvement. Four patients needed a third infusion due to hip involvement, and 2 of them a forth infusion due to the same reason. All of the patients re-treated due to hip involvement had severe hip involvement at time of diagnosis. In our population, 2 patients achieved 10 years remission, 5 patients 9 years remission and 10 patients 8 years remission with a single ZA infusion. Recording adverse effects were: 14.6% Flu like symptoms (7 patients), 2% assintomatic hypocalcemia (1 patient) and no reports of osteonecrosis or fractures. All of these effects were reported after the first ZA infusion. Conclusions In our population, we find high long-term sustained remission rate. Only sixteen patients needed re-treatment. Patients maintained sustained remission up to 10 years of a single ZA infusion. Incidence of adverse events was similar to the reported in the literature. References Reid IR, Miller P, Lyles K et al. Comparison of a Single Infusion of Zolendronic Acid with Risendronate for Paget's Disease. N Eng J Med. 2005 Set:353(9):898–908 Reid IR, Brown JP, Levitt N et al. Re-treatment of relapse Paget's disease of bone with zolendronic acid: results from an open-label study. Natur BoneKEy Report 2. 2013 Nov: 442: 1–3 Reid IR, Lyles K, Brown JP et al. A Single Infusion of Zolendronic Acid Produces Sustained Remissions in Paget Disease: Data from 6.5 years, JBMR. 2011 Sep 26 (9):2261–70 Devogelaer JP, Geusen P, Daci E et al. Remission over 3 years in patients with Paget disease of bone treated with a single intravenous infusion of 5 mg zolendronic acid. Calcif Tissue Int. 2014 Mar:94(3):311–8 Disclosure of Interest None declared


Public sphere is a social space, open to active individual access and free discussion, rescued from state intervention, where communicative action free from violence and individual benefits is undertaken; and rational-critical discourse is built. Political advertisement is the type advertising which aims at directing voters or the government to a particular action, having them adopt a certain view or approach. The concept of political advertising emerged with the practice of using commercial advertising techniques to promote a party, candidate or an idea. Justice and Development Party (JDP), has been ruling Turkey since 2002. The leader of the party is Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It is a conservative party and has carried out some practices that could be regarded as negative. Anti-secular attitudes are also among these practices. Thus, analysing the political advertisements of JDP has proved to be interesting. Public sphere studies are mostly conducted through news stories and columns in media. In that sense, it is significant to analyse political advertisements in terms of public sphere. In this study, the political advertisements of the ruling Justice and Development Party (JDP) in the process of Turkish General Parliamentary Election, 2011 have been analysed. The political advertisements in question have been analysed via Sabah newspaper. The reason for choosing Sabah is that it supports JDP as an example of partisan press. The samples have been taken from 2 weeks before the elections. Accordingly, as a full-page advertisement is published every day, 14 political advertisement analyses have been conducted in total. Political advertisements have been analysed using qualitative text analysis. As the study follows the path of public place-political advertising relationship, it finds meaning in itself.


Uncertainty quantification is an important and challenging problem in deep learning. Previous methods rely on dropout layers which are not present in modern deep architectures or batch normalization which is sensitive to batch sizes. In this work, we address the problem of uncertainty quantification in deep residual networks by using a regularization technique called stochastic depth. We show that training residual networks using stochastic depth can be interpreted as a variational approximation to the intractable posterior over the weights in Bayesian neural networks. We demonstrate that by sampling from a distribution of residual networks with varying depth and shared weights, meaningful uncertainty estimates can be obtained. Moreover, compared to the original formulation of residual networks, our method produces well-calibrated softmax probabilities with only minor changes to the network's structure. We evaluate our approach on popular computer vision datasets and measure the quality of uncertainty estimates. We also test the robustness to domain shift and show that our method is able to express higher predictive uncertainty on out-of-distribution samples. Finally, we demonstrate how the proposed approach could be used to obtain uncertainty estimates in facial verification applications.


Lung transplantation is an option for appropriately selected patients with end-stage emphysema caused by α 1 -antitrypsin deficiency. The functional results have been excellent after single or bilateral lung transplantation, and the medium-term survival results have been good. However, the role of α 1 -antitrypsin replacement therapy after lung transplantation remains uncertain, and further investigation is needed.


The serum levels of osteocalcin (bone gla protein) in two groups of Senegalese children, healthy controls and severely malnourished (kwashiorkor) children during nutritional rehabilitation, were measured. The serum osteocalcin of all kwashiorkor children was dramatically decreased on admission to hospital, but increased fourfold during rehabilitation. Serum osteocalcin was low in the control group. In both groups these low levels seemed to be independent of those of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamine D3 which were in the normal range. The results suggest that serum osteocalcin levels might be related to protein-energy status.


The research to propose methods of determination of the load factor, at which it is advisable to switch off one of two parallel working power feeding transformers in order to reduce the losses of active energy in transformers, has been carried out.


We propose a routing and load-balancing approach with the primary goal of being robust to sudden topological changes and significant traffic matrix variations. The proposed method load-balances traffic over several routes in an adaptive way based on its local view of the load in the network. The focus is on robustness and simplicity, rather than optimality, and so it does not rely on a given traffic matrix, nor it is tuned to a specific topology. Instead, we aim to achieve a satisfactory routing under a wide range of traffic and topology scenarios based on each node's independent operation. The scheme avoids the instability risks of previous load-responsive routing schemes, it does not load the control plane with congestion-related signaling, and it can be implemented on top of existing routing protocols. In this paper, we present the proposed scheme, discuss how it aims to meet the objectives of robustness and load-responsiveness, and evaluate its performance under diverse traffic loads and topological changes with flow-level simulations.


Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death arising from gynecological malignancies. Overexpression of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) or its ligands is associated with poor prognosis. The presence of EGFR activators in patient ascites fluid may lead to constitutive activation of the EGFR and thereby contribute to metastasis and/or resistance to therapy. Acquired chemoresistance following initial chemotherapeutic treatment prevents clinical effectiveness and occurs in a large majority of patients. Thus, our studies evaluated the cellular consequences to prolonged EGF exposure/EGFR activation and how this could contribute to metastasis or chemoresistance. We found that extended exposure to EGF (10 nM, ~40 days) resulted in a change in cell phenotype that was retained even when the EGF ligand was removed for at least 7 days (removal). There was a persistent increase in N-cadherin and vimentin levels in EGF treated and removal cells. This increase in mesenchymal markers in EGF treated cells is associated with a significant increase in multicellular aggregate (MCA) compaction. Furthermore, EGF treated MCAs displayed a significant increase in cell spreading when allowed to adhere to collagen. MCA compaction and enhanced spreading were largely due to elevated N-cadherin levels as we found that knock down of N-cadherin resulted in less compact MCAs and reduced spreading on collagen. MCAs have been shown to be chemoresistant and the compact MCA structure due to prolonged EGF treatment conferred resistance to cisplatin treatment. Our results indicate that prolonged EGFR activation causes a persistent change in mesenchymal marker expression, which regulates MCA compaction and sensitivity to chemotherapeutics. This finding suggests that activators of the EGFR in the tumor environment may drive changes in ovarian cancer cells that contribute to the low patient survival rates. Citation Format: Sabrina L. Samudio-Ruiz, Laurie G. Hudson. Continuous exposure to epidermal growth factor in ovarian cancer cells causes a persistent increase in N-cadherin expression which then results in multicellular aggregate compaction. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Advances in Ovarian Cancer Research: From Concept to Clinic; Sep 18-21, 2013; Miami, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Clin Cancer Res 2013;19(19 Suppl):Abstract nr B57.


Frisch-ring CdZnTe detectors have demonstrated both good energy resolution, <1% FWHM at 662 keV, and good efficiency in detecting gamma rays, highlighting the strong potential of CdZnTe materials for such applications. We are designing a hand-held gamma-ray spectrometer based on Frisch-ring detectors at Brookhaven National Laboratory. It employs an 8 times 8 CdZnTe detector array to achieve a high volume of 19.2 cm3, so greatly improving detection efficiency. By using the front-end application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) developed at BNL, this spectrometer has a small profile and high energy-resolution. It includes a signal processing circuit, digitization and storage circuits, a high-voltage module, and a universal serial bus (USB) interface. In this paper, we detail the system's structure and report the results of our tests with it.


Mental health in Malaysia has not received the kind of attention it deserves. This is true for most developing countries and results from various reasons including a lack of knowledge or misunderstanding about what mental health really is, adherence to the traditional cultural belief systems and practices, and priorities of the government. Malaysia has come a long way since independence in regards to the mental health program development and service delivery. This paper explores the concepts of mental health within the different Malaysian ethnic/religious groups, traces a brief history of the development of mental health services within the country, covers the highlights of the Mental Health Act (2001) and assesses the overall progress in the area based on the 1974 recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO) for developing countries. A brief section covers recommendations based on the current state of affairs in the country.


This study is devoted to the problem of self-management development in conditions of their vocational training in the university. The high level of qualification of graduates of domestic universities depends on the created organizational-pedagogical conditions of optimization of educational and independent work of students. The group of technologies, called self-management, has a great potential for the development of management skills of educational and independent work in the daily life of students. Recently, the researches on the application of self-management technology in various sectors of activity are actively conducted. The technology of self-management in the educational institution is based on already known researches, in particular on general concepts of self-management, both foreign and domestic. At the same time, self-management in the educational organization has specific features. The research purpose is consisted in the scientific-theoretical substantiation of the role of self-management in the daily live of students; in the definition of the concept of self-management of students; in the description of its structure and content based on analysis of psychological-pedagogical literature. The scientific novelty of this work consists in the determination of self-management in the daily life of students in the conditions of vocational training in the higher educational institution as the integrated system o for managing themselves and their activities, including assessment of efficiency, technology, strategy and philosophy. The process of mastering self-management, managerial skills, managerial competence is the integral component of the general culture of the personality at the specialist of any specialty.


Recent developments for characterising absolute rate data for fundamental reactions of ground-state alkali-metal atoms by direct spectroscopic monitoring in the time-domain are presented against the historical background of diffusion flames. Time-resolved atomic resonance absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy, together with the use of atomic resonance fluorescence techniques in fast-flow systems have led to an extensive body of fundamental rate data that may be compared, in some instances, with measurements derived from molecular beams and some which are of particular relevance to flame chemistry and to the chemistry of alkali-metal atoms in the mesos-phere. Emphasis is given to the kinetic study of the groups of the recombination processes between (i) Li, Na, K, Cs + O2+ M, (ii) Na, K, Rb, Cs + OH + M and (iii), K, Rb, Cs + I + M with detailed consideration of the role of ionic surfaces and the dynamics on those surfaces. Whilst limited consideration is directed towards the study of oxidation reactions of ground state alkaline-earth-metal atoms in diffusion flames and in molecular beams, the kinetic study of electronically excited alkaline-earth-metal atoms which are optically metastable to varying degrees and where collisional removal may compete significantly with radiative loss is dealt with in detail. The general nature of kinetic data for electronically excited alkaline-earth-metal atoms in 3PJ and 1D2 states derived from direct monitoring on low-pressure flames, discharge-flow systems, optical modulation methods and time-resolved emission following pulsed dye-laser excitation is presented. Detailed consideration is principally directed towards the study of diatomic oxidation products in specific vibronic states resulting from collisions between the electronically excited alkaline-earth-metal atoms and simple oxidants using the quantitative combination of time-resolved molecular and atomic emission, on the one hand, and both chemiluminescence and laser-induced fluorescence from molecular beams on the other. The kinetic study of product vibronic states, including the measurements of branching ratios, resulting from direct reaction and energy transfer is described. This quantitative, complementary combination of the time-domain and of the single-collision condition to investigate the details of such product states is emphasised as a major modern development in the study of atomic collisions in specific electronic states.


Changes in mucosal microvascular networks, called intraepithelial papillary capillary loops (IPCL), are an important key factor for diagnosing early-stage oral cancer in vivo. Nevertheless, there are a lack of tools to quantify these changes objectively. This is the first study to quantify the IPCL changes in vivo to differentiate benign or malignant oral lesions by the optical coherence tomography (OCT) technique. K14-EGFP-miR-211-GFP transgenic mice were inducted by 4-Nitroquinoline-1-oxide to produce oral carcinogenesis in different stages, including normal, premalignancy and cancer. The results showed significant differentiation between benign or malignant lesions by OCT quantitative parameters, including epithelial thickness, IPCL density, radius and tortuosity.


We report on the photoinduced superhydrophilicity of the surface of amorphous TiO2. Amorphous TiO2 thin films were prepared on self-assembled monolayers by the peroxotitanate-complex deposition (PCD) and liquid-phase deposition (LPD) methods. The surface morphology and topography were characterized in detail. The contact angles were 34 degrees and 66 degrees for the as-deposited thin films through the PCD and LPD methods, respectively, which slowly increased to about 70 degrees and 73 degrees after being stored in air. After irradiation by UV light, the contact angle vanished and the surface exhibited superhydrophilicity. The superhydrophilicity and hydrophobicity could be switched by alternatively exposing the surface to UV light and drying in an atmosphere filled with organic gases. Although the oxidation of the contamination on the surface has effects on the increase in hydrophilicity, the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results suggested that the superhydrophilicity was also related to the transformation of the Ti-OH groups to groups that have dangling bonds. This paper indicates that an amorphous TiO2 thin film does not need to be heated to obtain superhydrophilicity; such a self-cleaning surface can be achieved at room temperature by our newly developed environmentally friendly method.


This paper relates to two-dimensional laser two-focus (L2F) anemometry measurements, conducted in a transonic research high-pressure compressor. Curved glass, which conforms to the shroud contour, was used. The resulting optical distortions of the control volume were corrected using an original and inexpensive optical assembly. Synchronized measurements were performed on two surfaces of the IGV-rotor interrow region. Particular care was taken in evaluating the capabilities of our L2F technique to accurately describe a flow field with strong gradient. The results presented show that the flow field is dominated by the moving oblique shock and its interaction with the IGV wake.


The European Directive on municipal discharges prescribes that discharges of sewage to the sea should at least be treated biologically. The author claims that this treatment is an argument for reducing the requirement for initial dilution for sea outfall diffusers. By reducing the costs for the diffusers more emphasise can be laid on solving the bathing water problems rising from storm overflows.


ABSTRACT Like many countries in the global South, the rise and widespread accessibility of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in India have profoundly changed the lives of young people and impacted the dynamics of their gendered relationships. Millions of young people in India now have access to new opportunities and novel ways of communicating and interacting that a previous generation of Indians did not. From the perspective of gender justice and gender equality, these changes have led to many positive developments between women and men. However, they have also led to the reproduction of patriarchal social norms within ICTs and, in some cases, to a further reinforcement of gendered inequalities. This article explores these dual and contradictory shifts caused by the widespread access to ICTs among young middle-class people in India, and considers how while ICTs in India are providing new and important opportunities for young people to interact freely across genders in more egalitarian ways, they can also lead to greater online misogyny.


. The article is devoted to defining the causes of innovative business failure in supporting stable economic growth of its own enterprises. Historical trends and world experience of big business innovative development have been revealed. Factors that impede effective sustainable business growth due to innovation have been defined. It is shown that the current strategies of large foreign companies' takeover are not consistent with the objectives of their growth. Practical recommendations for the survival of small-scale and average business in terms of current economic system of Ukraine have been formulated.


Professional librarians benefit from a close examination of the meaning and purpose underlying their work. One of the most helpful and expedient ways of doing so is to employ non-LIS theories to aid in questioning processes and in critically examining personal work and institutional practices. Discourse analysis, and its related theory, critical discourse analysis, may be suitable for such a purpose. Utilized effectively, they can reveal the underlying power dynamics behind the library as an institution, including the role of librarians within an organization, and the sometimes-fraught interactions between librarians and patrons. The application of theories and methodologies to practice may ultimately improve the library experience for patrons.


A comprehensive helicopter flight dynamics code is developed based on the UH-60 helicopter and named Texas A\&M University Rotorcraft Analysis Code (TRAC). This is a complete software package, which could perform trim analysis to autonomous flight simulation and the capability to model any helicopter configuration. Different components of the helicopter such as the main rotor, tail rotor, fuselage, vertical tail, and horizontal tail are modeled individually as different modules in the code and integrated to develop a complete UH-60 model. Since the code is developed on a module basis, it can be easily modified to adopt another component or configure a different helicopter. TRAC can predict the dynamic responses of both the articulated rotor blades and the helicopter fuselage and yields the required pilot control inputs to achieve trim condition for different flight regimes such as hover, forward flight, coordinated turn, climb/descent, etc. These trim results are validated with the test data obtained from the UH-60 flight tests conducted by the US Army. Beyond trim analysis, TRAC can also generate linearized models at various flight conditions based on a first-order Taylor series expansion. The extracted linear models show realistic helicopter dynamic behavior and were used to simulate a fully autonomous flight that involves a UH-60 helicopter approaching a ship and landing on the deck by implementing a Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) optimal controller.


This paper addresses the diagenesis of carbonate conglomerates in that it assesses the potential of conglomerates in refining the paragenetic history in complex structural areas, such as the Albanian foreland fold‐and‐thrust belt. Of major interest are stylolites (burial and tectonic) which are restricted to conglomerate fragments or which crosscut the conglomerate matrix. Based on the inferred age of stylolite development in relation to burial, uplift and tectonic history, and the Lower to Middle Miocene age of the conglomerates, the succession of diagenetic events was subdivided into several stages. The Poçem polymict transgressive carbonate conglomerate (Kremenara anticline, central Albania) was deposited in a shallow marine environment. These conglomerates are covered by intertidal rhodolithic packstones–grainstones. The stable‐isotope signature of these packstones–grainstones (δ18OV‐PDB = −1·0 to +0·7‰; δ13C = +1·0 to +1·4‰) plots is within the range of marine Early and Middle Miocene values. Shortly after deposition of the conglomerates, micritization, geopetal infill and acicular calcite cementation took place. A first calcite vein generation is interpreted as having formed from a Messinian brine during shallow burial. Burial stylolites developed during further burial in the Pliocene. These stylolites serve as an important diagenetic time marker. The post‐burial stylolite meteoric calcite vein cement probably precipitated during the following telogenetic stage. Karstification and calcite concretion precipitiation pre‐date overturning of the western limb of the anticline. Reopening of subvertical fractures and tectonic stylolites in the western limb of the Kremenara anticline, followed by oil migration, represents one of the latest diagenetic events. These fractures and stylolites provide major pathways for hydrocarbon production.


We provide constructions of bent functions using triples of permutations. This approach is due to Mesnager. In general, involutions have been mostly considered in such a machinery; we provide some other suitable triples of permutations, using monomials, binomials, trinomials, and quadrinomials.


Purpose. The purpose of this article is to make a case for the inclusion of people with disabilities in disability research and in important decisions relating to the utilisation of the research results. Methods. This is a review article, involving extensive review of both international and local published materials, commissioned research, government policy and related official documents, as well as the use of anecdotal evidence based on the author's own previous research work, experience, knowledge and observations. Central argument. For disability research to influence positive changes in their lives, people with disabilities ought to play a central role at all stages of the research process, and in decisions made regarding the dissemination and use of the research results. Conclusions. If properly utilised, research can have positive influence in the lives of people with disabilities. However, this can only be achieved if people with disabilities participate in determining the scope, depth and the conduct of disability research, and the utilisation of the research results. In this way, people with disabilities, in collaboration with their non-disabled counterparts, are likely to ensure that research results have a bearing on the policies and programmes designed for them.


Living and working for a month at the Sanskriti Foundation in Delhi, the artist's life was watched and observed by a group of resident monkeys. This paper is based on notes begun during that studio residency and represents the critical reflections emerging alongside the hands-on sculptural practice. It is illustrated with close-up photographs of the artist's sculpture that asks how encounters with fabled animals in densely populated 21st century urban areas can alter our understanding of the gaze as an inter-species gaze. The sculpture and paper begin to ask broader questions, including how can sculpture provide a different, and perhaps more tacit and empathetic, encounter with the other to enable a physical, mental or spiritual experience of cultural entanglement between the various onlookers? In how far is modelling the other's gaze a form of embodiment and mimicry? Do the fast-changing camera angles and soundtracks of natural history programmes hinder an empathic inter-species encounter? Or, does the slow animation of the artist's sculpted surface heighten a sense of being alongside equally curious, cunning and adaptable others such as crows, foxes and monkeys?


CASE
Ischiofemoral impingement syndrome (IFIS), an unusual presentation of hip pain, is frequently missed in clinical practice. We report a case of a 27-year-old man with complaints of gradual onset nonprogressive right gluteal pain with hip movement restriction for the past 5 years that was not relieved with conservative measures. Right hip magnetic resonance imaging revealed a vascular abnormality of the right quadratus femoris muscle suggestive of IFIS. This abnormal muscle was surgically excised, and its histologic evaluation was remarkable for an arteriovenous malformation.

CONCLUSION
The patient's longstanding symptomatic IFIS was ultimately attributed to a rare arteriovenous malformation of the quadratus femoris that resolved with surgical excision.


Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text Abstract Background: The hospital-acquired influenza (HAI) were usually contributed to severe outcomes among the inpatients. Here, we performed a meta-analysis to summarize and quantify the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of HAI. Methods: We performed a literature search thorough PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Embase, Scopus and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wanfang databases for observational studies. Random/fix-effects models were used to obtain pooled proportion, odds ratio (OR), and weighted mean difference (WMD). Results: A total of 14 studies involving 1483 HAI and 71849 non-hospital-acquired influenza infections (NHAI) cases were included.The proportion of the HAI among the influenza cases was 11.38% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 5.19%–19.55%) and it was increased after 2012 (6.15% vs 12.72%). The HAI cases were significantly older (WMD = 9.51, 95% CI: 0.04–18.98) and the patients with chronic medical diseases were at increased risk of HAI (OR = 1.85, 95% CI: 1.57–2.19). Among them, metabolic disorders (OR = 8.10, 95% CI: 2.46–26.64) ranked the highest danger, followed by malignancy (OR = 3.18, 95% CI: 2.12–4.76), any chronic diseases (OR = 2.81, 95% CI: 1.08–9.31), immunosuppression (OR = 2.13, 95% CI: 1.25–3.64), renal diseases (OR = 1.72, 95% CI:1.40–2.10), heart diseases (OR = 1.52, 95% CI: 1.03–1.44), and diabetes (OR = 1.22, 95% CI: 1.03–1.44). The HAI cases were more likely to experience longer hospital stay (WMD = 10.23, 95% CI: 4.60–15.85) and longer intensive care unit (ICU) stay (WMD = 2.99, 95% CI: 1.50–4.48). In the outcomes within 30 days, those population was still more likely to receive hospitalization (OR = 6.55, 95% CI: 5.19–8.27), death in hospital (OR = 1.99, 95% CI: 1.65–2.40) but less likely to discharged (OR = 0.20, 95% CI: 0.16–0.24). Conclusion: The proportion of the HAI among the influenza cases was relatively high. Reinforcement of the surveillance systems and vaccination of the high-risk patients and their contacts are necessary for the HAI control.


P.M. Harman, The scientific letters and papers of James Clerk Maxwell. Volume 1. 1846-1862. Cambridge University Press, 1990. Pp. xxvii + 748, £125.00. ISBN 0-521-25625-9 James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) was arguably the most important British physicist in the latter half of the last century; a period in which there was some stiff competition from, for example, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and G.G. Stokes. With Darwin and Faraday he is among the men of science of the 19th century most widely admired by modern scientists. The reasons for this are not hard to find. His work had a lasting impact on physics and he pursued the subject both experimentally and mathematically in ways very similar to the methods of modern science: especially in the mathematical representation of physical quantities. Maxwell has been the subject of much scholarly study in recent years, but no scholarly biography of him has appeared or, so far as I am aware, is in progress. Furthermore, his immediate followers, the Maxwellians, have also been studied extensively. The lack of biography and concentration on followers might be taken to be a little curious except for the fact that a surprisingly small quantity of manuscript material has survived, for someone of his eminence. One of the reasons for this is obvious. His house, Glenlair, was destroyed by fire and it seems likely that much of his archive was consumed in the flames. However, the manuscript writings of any individual fall into two groups, those that are kept by the writer and those that are sent as letters to friends and colleagues. Here the fate of Maxwell's manuscripts becomes more problematic. Of course those letters he wrote to his father and wife would most likely have been destroyed in the fire. But many of his letters to, for example, Stokes and Thomson, which should be in their archives, have simply disappeared, leaving no trace. Furthermore, much of his incoming correspondence has not survived, presumably because it too was destroyed in the fire.


Students of cerebral function have, in general, paid too little attention to carbon dioxide. Procedures which alter the tension of carbon dioxide in the brain have a pronounced effect on cerebral function 1 and on the electrical activity of the cortex. 2 As shown by some of these experiments, extreme shifts in the carbon dioxide tension of the brain are disadvantageous. Therefore, a mechanism which would provide for the homeostasis of carbon dioxide would be advantageous. Such a mechanism appears to reside in the response of cerebral blood vessels to changes in alveolar or arterial carbon dioxide. An increase of carbon dioxide tension in the cerebral blood vessels causes dilatation of the cerebral arterioles, and a decrease causes constriction. In contrast, a maximal increase of oxygen tension produces only feeble constriction, and an extreme decrease in oxygen tension causes only moderate dilatation. These facts have been abundantly proved both for


OBJECTIVE
We assessed the effectiveness of regenerative injection therapy (RIT) to relieve pain and restore function in patients with knee osteoarthritis.

DESIGN
Crossover study where participants were randomly assigned to receive exercise therapy for 32 weeks in combination with RIT on weeks 0, 4, 8, and 12 or RIT on weeks 20, 24, 28, and 32.

PATIENTS
Thirty-six patients with chronic knee osteoarthritis.

INTERVENTIONS
RIT, which is made up of injections of 1 cc of 15% dextrose 0.6% lidocaine in the collateral ligaments and a 5 cc injection of 20% dextrose 0.5% lidocaine inside the knee joint.

OUTCOME MEASURES
The primary outcome was the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index of severity of osteoarthrosis symptoms (WOMAC) score (range: 0-96).

RESULTS
Following 16 weeks of follow-up, the participants assigned to RIT presented a significant reduction of their osteoarthritis symptoms (mean ± standard deviation: -21.8 ± 12.5, P < 0.001). WOMAC scores in this group did not change further during the last 16 weeks of follow-up, when the participants received exercise therapy only (-1.2 ± 10.7, P = 0.65). WOMAC scores in the first 16 weeks did not change significantly among the participants receiving exercise therapy only during this period (-6.1±13.9, P=0.11). There was a significant decrease in this groups' WOMAC scores during the last 16 weeks when the participants received RIT (-9.3±11.4, P=0.006). After 36 weeks, WOMAC scores improved in both groups by 47.3% and 36.2%. The improvement attributable to RIT alone corresponds to a 11.9-point (or 29.5%) decrease in WOMAC scores.

CONCLUSIONS
The use of RIT is associated with a marked reduction in symptoms, which was sustained for over 24 weeks.


Since 2011, a change has occurred in the Swedish cultural policy through the implementation of what has come to be known as culture collaborative model (kultursamverkansmodellen). In short, this means that a greater emphasis on cultural policies is imposed on the regional level which not previously had any active role in cultural policy.Kultursamverkansmodellen is for many reasons a good example of what in Political Science is referred to as interactive governance. A form of control method which is characterized by policy networks, multi-level governance, and a large amount of included participantsThe change in decision-making kultursamverkansmodellen is characterized by risk giving rise to a range of democratic problems. Elected officials and stakeholders might for example be losing power and control over decisions. The purpose of this study is to answer the question: Is kultursamverkansmodellen is democratic anchored? To answer that question I use the book Interactive Governance (2012) and the four models for democratic basis that it presents.The survey shows that kultursamverkansmodellen is anchored on elected politicians, participating teams and organizations, and the democratic rules and norms. However not in the regional population. But the anchor of elected politicians is considered so strong that the democratic problem can be resolved.The conclusion is thus that the Culture collaborative model is democratically anchored. However, there are other boundary problems that might be worth paying additional attention to in further studies.


Investigators have previously reported good retention, antifertility efficacy, and good retrievability with no adverse tissue reactions in rabbit oviducts occluded with silicone rubber for 55 days. The present study attempts to determine the long-term effects of this silicone polymer system installed into the oviducts of 12 New Zealand White rabbits for 7 months. 9 rabbits had both oviducts occluded while 3 had only one oviduct treated. All animals were visualized by X-rays and were mated an average of six times over the experimental period. Oviduct tissue was examined with light and scanning electron microscopy. There was no evidence of inflammation, distortion, or tissue irritation. Good retention and antifertility efficacy were exhibited.


We present a method for measuring beat-to-beat heart rate from ballistocardiograms acquired with force sensors. First, a model for the heartbeat shape is adaptively inferred from the signal using hierarchical clustering. Then, beat-to-beat intervals are detected by finding positions where the heartbeat shape best fits the signal. The method was validated with overnight recordings from 46 subjects in varying setups (sleep clinic, home, single bed, double bed, two sensor types). The mean beat-to-beat interval error was 13 ms and on an average 54% of the beat-to-beat intervals were detected. The method is part of a home-use e-health system for an unobtrusive sleep measurement.


The Korean government concentrates on supplying public transit facilities for the mobility handicapped. In other hands, increasing needs of transfer information when the mobility handicapped use transit facilities are substantial but not satisfactory as a whole. This study focuses on evaluating the applicability of developed K-path algorithm to provide user-customized route information that could make an active using of public transit while considering the mobility handicapped preferences. Developed algorithm reflects on requirements considering transfer attributes of the mobility handicapped. Trip attributes of the handicapped are addressed distinguished from handicapped types such as transfer walking time, transfer ratio, facility preferences and etc. This study examines the verification and application of the proposed algorithm that searches the least time K-paths by testing on actual subway networks in Seoul metropolitan areas. It is shown that the K-path algorithm is good enough to provide paths that meet the needs of the mobility handicapped and to be adoptable for the future expansion.


Objectives There is a positive association between sulfatide and atherosclerosis in an animal model for human familial hypercholesterolaemia. There are also association between sulfatide and vascular neointimal thickening in human. We investigated the relationship between sulfatide and carotid intima–media thickness (IMT) in heterozygous familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) subjects. Methods 35 genetically-verified heterozygous patients with FH and 34 healthy controls were recruited into our study. We measured serum sulfatide levels, the carotid IMT, and conventional cardiovascular risk factors including obesity parameters, blood pressure, fasting blood glucose, and lipid profiles. Results Subjects with heterozygous FH had significantly elevated serum sulfatide, elevated total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and increased carotid IMT compared with control subjects. In patients with FH, univariate analysis showed that serum sulfatide was highly correlated with carotid IMT. Multiple linear regression analysis indicated that serum sulfatide was the only independent predictor of carotid IMT in patients with FH. Conclusions Patients with heterozygous FH had significantly higher carotid IMT and the level of serum sulfatide was independently associated with atherosclerotic progression. (R: 0.639, R2: 0.408, p<0.001).


Abstract Background People with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and substance use disorder (PWH/SUD) are at higher risk of nonadherence to antiretroviral therapy. Bictegravir/emtricitabine/tenofovir alafenamide (B/F/TAF) exhibits high rates of efficacy with a favorable adverse event profile. The BASE study (NCT03998176) is a phase 4, single-arm study evaluating the effectiveness and safety of B/F/TAF among PWH/SUD. Methods Viremic (HIV RNA >1000 copies/mL) PWH/SUD initiated B/F/TAF once daily for 48 weeks (W). The primary endpoint was proportion of participants with HIV RNA <50 copies/mL at W24. Secondary endpoints were proportion of participants with HIV-1 RNA <50 copies/mL at W48, safety, B/F/TAF adherence (dried blood spot [DBS] concentrations of emtricitabine triphosphate and tenofovir diphosphate [TFV-DP]), substance use (NIDA-ASSIST), and quality of life (SF-12). Results Forty-three participants were enrolled; 95% reported methamphetamine use. Median age was 38 (range, 21–62) years; 21% were female, 81% White, 14% Black, and 16% Hispanic. Thirty-two (74%) and 21 (49%) participants had HIV RNA <50 copies/mL (intention-to-treat) at W24 and W48, respectively. Seven participants (16%) experienced confirmed virologic failure through W48; 1 developed emergent drug resistance (M184V). Fifteen participants (35%) experienced grade ≥3 adverse events. Five participants (12%) reported suicidal ideation; none resulted in discontinuation. Median DBS concentrations were representative of 5–6 doses/week (TFV-DP, 1603 fmol/punches). NIDA-ASSIST scores declined from baseline to W48 with methamphetamine use decreasing most (−7.9 points; −29%), and SF-12 physical/mental scores increased 1.2 and 7.6 points, respectively. Conclusions B/F/TAF among a high-risk population of PWH/SUD resulted in an initial 72% viral suppression rate at W24 before dropping to 49% at W48 as retention declined. One participant developed emergent drug resistance (M184V).