Lithospheric necking and magmatic intrusion are thought to be the primary processes responsible for narrow continental rifts. There is much less agreement as to the cause of wide continental rifts. We attempt to shed light on this problem using three approaches. First, we derive approximate relations between the change in force needed for extension and parameters that should control a number of tectonic processes. Processes resulting in a decrease in tectonic force, and so localization of rifting, include: lithospheric necking, magmatic intrusion and loss of brittle layer cohesion. Processes leading to delocalization include viscous flow, local compensation of crustal thickness variations, and regional compensation of extension–related relief. Second, we review the work of others on linear stability analysis applicable to the earliest phase of lithospheric extension. This approach predicts that all conditions lead to wide rift formation and never predicts narrow rift development. Our scaling relations suggest that the pattern of strain for finite extension could be different than that predicted by linear stability theory. Lastly, to test this idea, we carried out a series of numerical experiments for finite–amplitude extension. We find that when strains are quite small the numerical model matches the prediction of linear stability analysis. However, when strains are large a narrow rift can develop. For reasonable model parameters, we get wide rifting only when local crustal buoyancy effects dominate localizing processes. Consistent with our simple scaling relations, this only occurs when the crust is much thicker than the brittle lithosphere. This agrees with observations that wide rifts only occur in regions of higher than normal heat flow with relatively thick crust.


In forensic examination injury is a noun to refer to injury caused by external forces and reactions of the body. There are many causes of injury (self-generated accidents) such as traffic accidents, work accidents, domestic accidents, self-inflicted accidents…. The form of damage is heavy, light, shallow, and deep depending on the characteristics, weight, direction and force of the impacted object. In accidents, traumatic brain injury is a serious injury that has many consequences for the victim such as mental disorder, post-traumatic depression syndrome, post-traumatic brain disease, epilepsy, dementia… More severely, brain stamping can be fatal. The study was conducted from 01/01/2015 to 30/09/2019 We collected 98 cases of victims who died with brain damage. According to our research, brain stamping at the affected place accounted for the highest percentage (76.5%), followed by fracture of skull fracture (38.8%), opposing brain stamping on the opposite side (18.4 %), cerebral suppression due to hernia (10.2%), cerebral suppression due to sudden increase and decrease in speed (4.1%), intermediate cerebral suppression (3.1%). Combined intracranial lesions accounted for the majority (56.3%).
Keywords
Accident, Road trafic accident, head injurie, skull fracture, contre – coup fractures, forensic exam.
References
[1] Wikipedia Wikipedia The free encyclophedia. Cerebral contusion, accessed October 1, 2015, web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_contusion[2] N.N. Chung, Brain stamping, hematoma in the brain, Graduation thesis of Doctor CKI, Hanoi Medical University, accessed 15/8/2014(in Vietnamese).[3] Hideo Itabashi, John Andrews, Uwamie Tomiyasu, Stephanie Erlich, Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, Forensic Neuropathology, Contusional brain injury and intracerebral haemorrhage, 2005.[4] Di Maio V,J, Di Maio D, Trauma to the skull and brain: crainiocerebral injuries, Forensic Pathology, Boca Raton, 2001.[5] National Accidental Injury Survey, Ministry of Health, 2010.[6] C.W. Runyan, Introduction: Back to the future – Revisitin Haddon's conceptualization of injury epidemiology and prevention, Epidemiology and Prevention 25(1) (2003) 60-64. https://doi.org/10.1093/epirev/mxg005.[7] Decision on the issuance of guidelines for building safe communities, prevention of accidents and injuries, Ministry of Health, 2006.[8] T.X. Ha, Morphology study of brain crushing injury caused by road traffic accident through forensic examination, Science Journal, Hanoi National University 33 (1) (2017) (in Vietnamese).[9] N.C. Cuong, Research on traumatic brain injury due to road traffic accident through forensic examination, Master's thesis, Hanoi Medical University, 2014 (in Vietnamese).[10] L.S. Hung, Research morphological characteristics of skull fracture caused by road traffic accident through forensic examination at Viet Duc Hospital, Scientific Journal of Hanoi National University, 33(1) ( 2017) 1-5 (in Vietnamese).[11] N.H. Long, D.G. Duc, Research on blood lcohol concentration and injury characteristics of road traffic deaths, Journal of Medical Research 74(3) (2011) (in Vietnamese).[12] B.R Sharma, Patterns of Fatal Head Injury in Road Traffic Accidents, Bahrain Medical Bulletin 25(1) (2003).[13] American Medical Forensic Specialists Inc Epidural hematoma, accessed October 1 (2015) http://www.baileylaw.com/docts/epidurahematoma.htm


Atopic dermatitis (AD) continues to be a stigmatizing disease that has a negative impact on the quality of life of patients and their families. Despite increasing knowledge about the disease, its prevalence has been increasing in the last few decades. There has been a significant growth in the number of questionnaires used in the evaluation of quality of life in AD. Consequently, the numbers of clinical trials addressing the topic have also increased. This review will sumarize the recent research on AD. The objective of this review is to discuss the contribution of the different instruments used to evaluate quality of life of AD patients, in order that the necessary multidisciplinary approach is instituted routinely in the different health services around the world.


In federated learning (FL), each client collaboratively trains the global model through the cloud server (CS) without sharing its original dataset in edge computing. However, CS can analyze and forge the uploaded parameters and infer the privacy of clients, which calls for the necessity of verifying the integrity and protecting the privacy for aggregation. Although there are some works to ensure the verifiability of aggregation results, there is still a lack of work on analyzing the relationship between verification and dropout rate for edge computing. In this work, we propose privacy-preserving and verifiable federated learning (PVFL) with low communication and computation overhead for verification. We theoretically demonstrate that PVFL has three properties: 1) the communication overhead for verification is independent of the dropouts and the dimension of the parameter vector; 2) the computation overhead for verification is independent of the dropouts; 3) the value of the loss function is negatively correlated with the number of dropouts. Experimental results demonstrate the correctness of our theoretical results and practical performance with a high dropout rate, thereby facilitating the design of privacy-preserving and verifiable FL algorithms for edge computing with a high dimension of parameter vectors and a high dropout rate.


This translation has been published in Stephen Hawking (ed.), "God Created the Integers", published in 2007 by Running Press. There may have been some changes to the final published version and this copy.
This is a translation from the Latin original, "De summis serierum reciprocarum" (1735). E41 in the Enestrom index. In this paper Euler finds an exact expression for the sum of the squares of the reciprocals of the positive integers, namely pi^2/6. He shows this by applying Newton's identities relating the roots and coefficients of polynomials to the power series of the sine function. Indeed, in other words this result is zeta(2)=pi^2/6, and Euler also works out zeta(4),zeta(6),...,zeta(12). His method will work out zeta(2n) for all n, but he does not give a general expression for zeta(2n); he gives a general expression involving the Bernoulli numbers in a latter paper.


The marine bivalve Lucinoma aequizonata has intracellular chemoautotrophic symbionts residing in the gill tissue. These bacteria are capable of nitrate respiration even under fully saturated oxygen conditions. Nitrate reductase in the symbionts of L. aequizonata appears to be constitutively expressed and without significant regulation by oxygen or nitrate. We discuss the stationary-phase growth state of the symbionts as an explanation for the lack of enzyme induction.


Background: The role of acellular dermis in immediate prosthetic breast reconstruction remains unclear, particularly within a radiated field. The authors evaluated and compare outcomes following reconstruction with and without acellular dermis, and analyzed patients exposed to radiation therapy. Methods: Retrospective review of 417 consecutive patients (592 breasts) treated from January of 2006 to October of 2008 at one institution was performed. Relevant patient characteristics and follow-up were recorded. Complications were categorized by type and end outcome, including nonoperative, operative, or explantation. Both groups had comparable follow-up (acellular dermis, 23.2 ± 8.9 months; no acellular dermis, 24.4 ± 12.7 months; p = 0.23). Appropriate statistical analyses, including multiple regression, were performed. Results: Acellular dermis patients (n = 199 breasts) had larger body mass indexes (p = 0.0001) and more nipple-sparing mastectomies (p = 0.04) than non–acellular dermis patients (n = 393 breasts). Breasts with acellular dermis had larger intraoperative fill volumes (p < 0.0001) and decreased postoperative expansions (p = 0.02), but no decrease in time to implant exchange. There were no significant differences in complication profiles between acellular dermis and non–acellular dermis breasts, after adjusting for other relevant patient variables on regression analysis. After stratifying patients by exposure to radiation, acellular dermis breasts had a decreased risk of all complications related to radiation as compared with non–acellular dermis breasts. Conclusions: This study suggests that acellular dermis does not adversely affect complication rates following prosthetic breast reconstruction. It may be advantageous, however, in select patients, particularly those undergoing postoperative radiation therapy. Therefore, the choice to use acellular dermis does not compromise outcomes but should be individualized to each patient. CLINICAL QUESTION/LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Risk, II.


The clinical and serological responses to therapy were evaluated for at least 1 year in 68 dogs with antibody titers positive for Ehrlichia canis. Treatments were of variable periods with primarily tetracycline hydorchloride and/or doxycycline. Sixteen dogs had initial titers of 1:20 and, at the end of the year, were asymptomatic, no longer receiving medication, and had negative serology. The average length of treatment with tetracycline HCl and/or doxycycline was 85 days (range, 14 to 360 days). Of 39 dogs with initial titers of 1:2,560 or greater, 1 died, 25 were asymptomatic, and 13 were lost to follow-up at the end of the study. The average length of treatment was 210 days (range, 21 to 630 days). Twenty-seven dogs were seropositive at > or = 1:2,560 when the sera was last tested. Thirteen dogs had initial titers of 1:80 to 1:1,280. Of these 13 dogs, 2 died, 2 were lost to follow-up, and 9 were asymptomatic and had titers ranging from negative to > or = 1:2,560 at the end of the study. The persistence of antibodies, prolonged subclinical phase, and delayed relapses despite long-term medication, suggest inadequate chemotherapeutic agents or may be natural features of latency of ehrlichiosis in dogs.


Purpose
The study aims to investigate the impact of financial inclusion (FI) on environmental quality and the mediating role of industrialization (IZ). In addition, these relationships among the counties with different levels of income and carbon emissions were also analyzed.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper used the International Monetary Fund database for indicators of FI. The environmental indicators were obtained from the World Bank database for a panel of worldwide countries from 2004 to 2019. Separate indices of environmental sustainability (ES) and environmental degradation (ED) were created by using principal component analysis . The generalized method of moments regression was applied to examine the relationship between variables.

Findings
The study found full mediation of IZ between FI and ES, whereas partial mediation between FI and environmental degradation. The results were found robust against alternative measures of carbon emissions. Furthermore, the study also bifurcated the sample according to the level of income and carbon emission. It was found that FI plays a positive role in the betterment of environmental quality for high-income countries, while a negative role in upper-middle-income, lower-middle-income and low-income countries. Besides, FI has a negative role in the ES of the countries having higher or lower carbon emission levels.

Originality/value
Empirically this study contributes by creating two different novel measures of ES and environmental degradation, in contrast to other studies that solely relied on carbon emission. Contrary to previous studies, this study suggests that FI is not solely responsible for environmental damages, and IZ is the key channel by which FI shifts its impact on ES. Moreover, for environmental degradation, there are some other channels involved that need to be investigated further. This study has also noted that the relationship between FI and ES is context-dependent. Theoretically, this paper contributes to the literature by using ecological modernization theory in the nexus of FI, IZ and environmental quality.


A novel watermarking scheme is proposed for up-sampling based multiple description coding frame in this paper. Secret information is embedded in the DWT image. Up-sampling algorithm is applied on transformed image to introduce some redundancy between different channels. Good performance of the new frame to against noise and to resist the compression attacks is shown in the experimental results.


Citrus intended for export to some overseas markets requires post-harvest treatment to eliminate the presence of insect pests that are of quarantine significance. Several importing countries allow fresh citrus from competing regions if it has undergone cold treatment. Cold treatment involves storage of fruits at low temperature for specified periods to ensure their freedom from insects. This paper addresses the effectiveness of cold treatment against Medfly (Ceratitis capitata Wiedemann) infestation in 'Tarocco' oranges. In large scale disinfestations tests a static trial with simulation of transport was simultaneously carried out using a set of three different full equipped van containers with bottom air delivery system under a 14 day 1.5°C cold treatment schedule. The containers were loaded with cartons of 'Tarocco' oranges from a grove located in a typical blood orange production area. Infested fruits, containing the most tolerant Medfly stage (third instar), were packaged and stuffed inside containers, randomly distributed on three different levels and among boxes containing non-infested fruits. At the end of cold treatment all infested fruits were removed and dissected to determine the number of survivors and dead larvae, then the temperature was set at 15°C to simulate shelf-life. After 1 week shelf-life, fruits were inspected for visible blemishes and decay. In order to evaluate the effect of cold treatment on the fruit quality, initially (just before loading into the container) and after cold treatment plus 1 week shelf-life, physicochemical and sensory parameters were determined. Experiments provided 100% larval mortality. Very low incidence of fruits with light chilling injury was found. Cold-treated 'Tarocco' oranges had good appearance, no substantial quality differences and did not exhibit excessive level of decay.


Computational fluid dynamics modeling at Reynolds numbers ranging from 10 to 100 was used to characterize the performance of a new type of micromixer employing a serpentine channel with a grooved surface. The new topology exploits the overlap between the typical Dean flows present in curved channels due to the centrifugal forces experienced by the fluids, and the helical flows induced by slanted groove-ridge patterns with respect to the direction of the flow. The resulting flows are complex, with multiple vortices and saddle points, leading to enhanced mixing across the section of the channel. The optimization of the mixers with respect to the inner radius of curvature (Rin) of the serpentine channel identifies the designs in which the mixing index quality is both high (M > 0.95) and independent of the Reynolds number across all the values investigated.


A new radiating element is presented, which can provide simultaneously a large bandwidth and high gain. It consists of four identical patches uniformly displayed within a rectangular aperture (2*2) and fed electromagnetically by a driven patch etched on a lower substrate. It is shown that a good coupling with the parasitic patches is obtained, causing a large bandwidth, and the resonance modes of each patch are excited in phase, giving a high gain.


This paper revisits the concept of crisis within the field of crisis management and puts forward a series of avenues for building a theory of crisis that is in closer relation with the mainstream of organization theory. We suggest that if crisis management still limits itself to the analysis of exceptional situations, it might never go beyond the sphere of exception management and will for a long time remain an isolated discipline with little room for innovation and progress. As an alternative we analyze crises as a process of incubation that starts long before the triggering event. This proposition implies revisiting other related notions that have seldom been discussed by authors: first the status and place of the triggering event that should be viewed both as a fault line and a hinge between a degenerative organizational past evolution and a future of change; second, the temporality of a crisis so as to extract it from the urgency it is traditionally associated with; third and contrary to authors who see in the crisis a collapse of meaning and of sensemaking, we analyze it as a surge of meaning that fosters organizational change and transformations.


Based on prospect theory's value function, we predict how reference points adapt to influence individuals' tax evasion choices during and after experiencing temporary tax changes. Results from a multi-round experiment indicate reactions to temporary changes depend jointly on the direction of the change and expectations. Specifically, individuals experiencing a tax increase evade more while the increase is in effect. More interestingly, knowing, versus not knowing, a tax decrease is temporary prevents an increase in evasion after the temporary change expires, and may lead individuals to reduce evasion during the change. In a supplemental condition, we induce uncertainty by repeatedly extending a tax decrease. We find when uncertainty is introduced, both benefits of knowing the temporal nature of the decrease are lost. Overall results are consistent with individuals failing to adapt to a loss state and adapting quickly to a gain state unless they are certain the gain state is temporary.


Factors affecting the bonding strength of Si3N4-metals joints were discussed through examining the causes for improvement in tensile strength of Si3N4-molybdenum joints by controlling the reaction layer thickness using Cu-5%Cr, Cu-1%Nb and Cu-3%V insert metals. Microstructures of reaction layers being thinner than the optimum thickness were almost homogeneous and the interfaces between Si3N, and the reaction layers were still smooth. Defects such as porous zone and crack occurred in the reaction layers thickening than the optimum thickness, while the asperity of the interface became larger. The insufficient reactivity of insert metals against Si3N4 substrate provided the planar fracture at the interface between Si3N4 and the reaction layer and followed to diminish the bonding strength. The fracture in the reaction layer was due to the defects in the reaction layer and as a result, the bonding strength was deteriorated again.


Sexual function and satisfaction of women with vaginismus

Objective: Vaginismus is one of the sexual dysfunctions that affects couples' sexual life. There is a common opinion that women with vaginismus have a satisfied sexual life even there is no vaginal entry. But contrary to this opinion, several studies reported that sexual function and satisfaction of women with vaginismus were impaired. In our study, our purpose was to evaluate sexual function and satisfaction in women with vaginismus and to compare the findings with that of healty women's.

Method: Forty women with vaginismus who referred to Sexual Dysfunction Therapy Outpatient Unit and fifty healthy voluntary women who had no sexual complaint participated in the study. Questionnaire regarding demographic characteristics, Symptom Check List (SCL-90 R), Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI), Golombok-Rust Inventory of Sexual Satisfaction (GRISS) were evaluated.

Results: It was found that women with vaginismus avoided sexual intercourse, were more emotional and needed approval more frequently. Also, vaginismus history was more frequent in their family and among close relatives. They found inadequate their and their partners' level of sexual knowledge. They had typical fears and they had problems in all other domains of sexual function as well as the vaginal entry. There were statistically significant differences in GRISS vaginismus, avoidance, satisfaction, frequency, lack of orgasm subscales and total GRISS score between vaginismus and control groups.

Conclusions: Unlike general opinion, women with vaginismus have problems in many domains of sexual function. We think that it would be inadequate if vaginismus is considered only a problem of vaginal entry, that all domains of sexual function, avoidance and enviromental factors should be evaluated together.


For special applications in spectroscopy, tunable single-frequency lasers are required to excite selectively relevant molecules. Amplified Yb:YAG disk lasers provide one opportunity for such lasers with a number of advantageous properties. Nevertheless, changing the wavelength from shot to shot at kHz repetition rates - desired e.g. for background subtraction or two-wavelength methods - remains challenging. We present results from two approaches, which in combination allow for fast wavelength switching of the oscillator and for extension of the tunability range of the laser system. For wavelength switching high voltage (some kV) is applied to a special birefringent filter (Lyot filter). Polarization rotation induced by the electric field yields losses at the wavelength emitted without voltage: the laser emits at a "new" wavelength with the highest gain. This new wavelength is determined by multiples of the free spectral range of the intra-cavity etalon used for single-frequency operation. The second stage of the laser system comprises an Yb:YAG regenerative amplifier. To ensure that parasitic lasing of this laser at the gain maximum is suppressed effectively, an additional birefringent filter is inserted into the amplifier. Adjusting this filter suppresses parasitic lasing and extends the tunability range of the system by a factor of more than 4.


The fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector is an important contributor to India's GDP and it is the fourth largest sector of the Indian economy. Globally, the FMCG sector has been successful in selling products to the lower and middle income groups, and the same is true in India. Over 70% of sales are made to middle class households today and over 50% is in rural India. India's rural fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) market is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 14.6 per cent and reach $220 billion by 2025, This is because of rural population using e-commerce and digital connectivity services due to high penetration of smart phones, credit and debit cards, and online banking. This demand is shaped by factors such as, noticeable shift in demographics with rising income middle class, rise in number of smaller towns entering consumption bandwagon, emergence of new channels like e-commerce, proliferation of the internet connectivity, demand driven by digital media."The sector is excited about a burgeoning rural population whose incomes are rising and which is willing to spend on goods designed to improve lifestyle. Also with a near saturation and cut throat competition in urban India, many producers of FMCGs are driven to chalk out bold new strategies for targeting the rural consumer in a bigway. FMCG Industry in India is witnessing a change – a change in the pattern in which it is growing –


The volume of preoperative screening investigations for outpatient anaesthesia ranges from few, selectively ordered investigations to extensive routine diagnostic procedures. It seem appropriate to reevaluate benefit and efficacy of routine preoperative assessment programs. The purpose of preoperative diagnostic is to assess the risk of anaesthesia and surgery for the patient. As shown by a number of studies, preoperative screening investigations seldom disclose new pathological findings of clinical relevance. Abnormal laboratory results in otherwise healthy patients rarely alter the anaesthetic management of the patient and are not related to perioperative complications. Extensive use of costly diagnostic procedures considerably increases health care budgets. A more selective approach to order preoperative investigations promises considerable savings. To achieve costeffective evaluation an efficient organisation of properative assessment must be established to avoid costly delay and on day-of-surgery-cancellations. There is no medicolegal obligation to perform routine diagnostic testing. The anaesthetist must be sufficiently informed in time to assess the perioperative risk of the patient and to alter anaesthetic management as necessary. According to the presented studies a clinical history and a through physical examination represent an effective method of screening for the presence of disease. Careful medical history evaluation and physical examination can avoid extensive investigations in apparently healthy individuals and the latter should only be ordered if indicated.


Human anatomy, an independent science form the Old Age, has historically evolved in correspondence with the politic, economic and social changes and the technical scientific development.  However, there are still unclear definitions on its special didactics, with different criteria on how to develop the teaching learning process, particularly referring to teaching methods and aids to use; although it is assumed in general the dead body use as a suitable teaching aid, there are different tendencies about it. The authors, through the analysis of several bibliographic sources, made a systematization on the use of teaching aids in the special didactics of Human Anatomy nowadays. It showed that the dead body or prepared anatomic pieces are still the appropriate teaching aid, but it is also important the use of other aids, proposing the consideration of didactic exigencies or regularities like the interaction with several aids that, resembling the anatomical reality, approach to it, process in which they should be guided to establish the connections and relations between organs, the homogeneity and difference according to their structure and systems they take part of, and also the interdependency form-function; for all of that it is important to study the theoretical content interacting with the anatomic observation; it allows to understand and significantly integrate the studied content.


Methods are described for the determination of carbofuran in its formulations, in water and grain samples by the diazotization coupling spectrophotometric technique, using substituted anilines such as 4-bromoaniline, 4-methylaniline and 4-aminobenzaldehyde as the coupling agents. The orange red colour formed with 4-bromoaniline shows maximum absorption at 478 nm, yellow colour obtained with 4-methylaniline have maximum absorption at 465 nm whereas a red colour derivative formed with 4-aminobenzaldehyde shows λmax at 472 nm. The methods could be successfully applied for the determination of carbofuran in its formulations, water and grain samples.


The objective of this research is to find out the effects of the instructional strategies and the schemata level on the Arabic comprehension. The research was conducted at the Departement of Arabic Education, the State institute of Islamic Studies Raden Intan Lampung. The sample size was 35, which were selected at random. The results of the research showed that the DRTA strategy gave better result than SQ3R. The students with the high level of schemata taught with DRTA gave better result than the group with SQ3R. The group having low schemata level taught with DRTA provided lower result than the group with SQ3R. There was an interaction effect between the instructional strategy and the schemata level on the comprehensive skill of Arabic reading. Based on the finding it is concluded that the instructional strategy and the schemata level gave effects on the students' reading comprehension. It is recommended the lecturers consider the schemata level with appropriate strategy.


The two major mechanisms of plant defense against pathogens are resistance (the host's ability to limit pathogen multiplication) and tolerance (the host's ability to reduce the effect of infection on its fitness regardless of the level of pathogen multiplication). There is abundant literature on virtually every aspect of plant resistance to pathogens. Although tolerance to plant pathogens is comparatively less understood, studies on this plant defense strategy have led to major insights into its evolution, mechanistic basis and genetic determinants. This review aims at summarizing current theories and experimental evidence on the evolutionary causes and consequences of plant tolerance to pathogens, as well as the existing knowledge on the genetic determinants and mechanisms of tolerance. Our review reveals that (i) in plant-pathogen systems, resistance and tolerance generally coexist, i.e., are not mutually exclusive; (ii) evidence of tolerance polymorphisms is abundant regardless of the pathogen considered; (iii) tolerance is an efficient strategy to reduce the damage on the infected host; and (iv) there is no evidence that tolerance results in increased pathogen multiplication. Taken together, the work discussed in this review indicates that tolerance may be as important as resistance in determining the dynamics of plant-pathogen interactions. Several aspects of plant tolerance to pathogens that still remain unclear and which should be explored in the future, are also outlined.


A 14-year-old boy presented with symptomatic high-grade dysplastic type spondylolisthesis, with a presence of spina bifida occulta, not diagnosed by plain radiographs, but confirmed on preoperative CT and MR. Circumferential fusion with partial reduction of L5/S1 was performed. Awareness of the coexistence of spondylolisthesis and spina bifida by an accurate preoperative planning is paramount to avoid iatrogenic damage to neural elements during surgery.


We present a novel statistical downscaling method that provides accurate and relatively transparent simulations of local-scale precipitation characteristics. The method combines large-scale upper-air circulation with surface precipitation fields, and is based on a nonhomogeneous stochastic weather typing approach. Here we applay the method to downscale precipitation at 37 rain gauges in the state of Illinois, USA. Regional climate conditions are categorized in terms of 2 different types of weather states: (1) 'precipitation patterns' developed by a hierarchical ascending clustering (HAC) method with an original metric applied directly to the observed rainfall characteristics in Illinois, and (2) 'circulation patterns' developed by a mixture model applied to large-scale NCEP reanalysis fields. We modeled the transition probabilities from one pattern to another by a nonhomogeneous Markov model that is influenced by large-scale atmospheric variables such as geopotential height, humidity and dew point temperature depression. Our results indicate that including the precipitation states in the statistical model allows us to simulate important precipitation features such as conditional distributions of local simulated rainfall intensities and wet/dry spell behavior more accurately than with a traditional approach based on upper-air circulation patterns alone.


The various crystal growing methods (Low Pressure Bridgman, High Pressure Bridgman, Horizontal Bridgman, Physical Vapor Transport, Travelling Heater Method-THM) and the subsequent bulk and surface treatments can greatly affect the performances of CdTe as well as CdZnTe based X-ray detectors. For this investigation THM was chosen as a low temperature growth process where the crystals have relatively low number of defects and less impurity incorporation from the crucible. Surface (i.e., electrode and electrode-bulk material interface) characteristics have been already investigated , , aiming at understanding the effects of annealing on the electrode deposition. Here bulk effects, including an analysis of the Te inclusion distribution, on CdTe wafers obtained starting from as-grown or subsequently annealed standard or large area ingots have been investigated by IR imaging, resistivity and electron mobility mappings as well as spectroscopic characterization. The results of these measurements are presented and correlated with the detector performances of hundreds of samples. The main observed effects of the annealing are a reduction of the large size (> 10 μm) Te inclusions and a peaking of the resistivity and electron mu-tau products, though in this last case around worse average values, over the entire wafers, that lead to a significant reduction of the spread in the electron transit times, and at the end to better spectroscopic performances.


Nonlinear optical microscopy is a powerful label-free imaging technology, providing biochemical and structural information in living cells and tissues. A possible drawback is photodamage induced by high-power ultrashort laser pulses. Here we present an experimental study on thousands of HeLa cells, to characterize the damage induced by focused femtosecond near-infrared laser pulses as a function of laser power, scanning speed and exposure time, in both wide-field and point-scanning illumination configurations. Our data-driven approach offers an interpretation of the underlying damage mechanisms and provides a predictive model that estimates its probability and extension and a safety limit for the working conditions in nonlinear optical microscopy. In particular, we demonstrate that cells can withstand high temperatures for a short amount of time, while they die if exposed for longer times to mild temperatures. It is thus better to illuminate the samples with high irradiances: thanks to the nonlinear imaging mechanism, much stronger signals will be generated, enabling fast imaging and thus avoiding sample photodamage.


BACKGROUND
There is growing attention over the last few years about non-attendance in hospitals and its clinical and economic consequences. There have been several studies documenting the various aspects of non-attendance in hospitals. Project Predicting Appoint Misses (PAM) was started with the intention of being able to predict the type of patients that would not come for appointments after making bookings.

METHODS
Historic hospital appointment data merged with "distance from hospital" variable was used to run Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machine and Recursive Partitioning to decide the contributing variables to missed appointments.

RESULTS
Variables that are "class", "time", "demographics" related have an effect on the target variable, however, prediction models may not perform effectively due to very subtle influence on the target variable. Previously assumed major contributors like "age", "distance" did not have a major effect on the target variable.

CONCLUSIONS
With the given data it will be very difficult to make any moderate/strong prediction of the Appointment misses. That being said with the help of the cut off we are able to capture all of the "appointment misses" in addition to also capturing the actualized appointments.


ABSTRACT Kish, S.A. and Donoghue, J.F., 2013. Coastal response to storms and sea-level rise: Santa Rosa Island, northwest Florida, U.S.A.. In: Brock, J.C.; Barras, J.A., and Williams, S.J. (eds.), Understanding and Predicting Change in the Coastal Ecosystems of the Northern Gulf of Mexico, Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 63, pp. 131–140, Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. The western panhandle coast of northwest Florida is wave dominated and microtidal. Major storms are infrequent but have a significant effect on coastal morphology. Santa Rosa Island, a 75-kilometer long barrier, is the major coastal feature of the region. The island is narrow, with an average width of 500 meters. During most of the historical period, prominent foredunes, ranging as high as 7 meters, have helped keep the island's sediment budget in near equilibrium. This investigation compiled and georeferenced nearly two dozen historical shoreline positions from surveys and aerial photos, dating from the 1850s to the present. Time intervals between shoreline positions ranged from 30 years to multiple datasets per year. The U.S. Geological Survey's Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) was used to analyze the shoreline data. Analysis of the dataset reveals that storms have heavily influenced shoreline position. Shoreline retreat during the period from 1851—present has averaged less than 1 meter per year. Periods of more rapid retreat have been associated with the occurrence of major storms. A six-decade period of relative quiescence during the mid-20th century resulted in modest advance of the island's coastline. A cluster of three major storms during the period 1995–2005 had a major impact on the morphology and stability of the island. Much of the foredune complex was lost and rates of coastal retreat increased significantly. The historical shoreline data therefore underscore the dominant influence of storm frequency and intensity in determining coastal change.


Explanation(attention)-guided learning is a method that enhances a model's predictive power by incorporating human understanding during the training phase. While attention-guided learning has shown promising results, it often involves time-consuming and computationally expensive model retraining. To address this issue, we introduce the attention-prompted prediction technique, which enables direct prediction guided by the attention prompt without the need for model retraining. However, this approach presents several challenges, including: 1) How to incorporate the visual attention prompt into the model's decision-making process and leverage it for future predictions even in the absence of a prompt? and 2) How to handle the incomplete information from the visual attention prompt? To tackle these challenges, we propose a novel framework called Visual Attention-Prompted Prediction and Learning, which seamlessly integrates visual attention prompts into the model's decision-making process and adapts to images both with and without attention prompts for prediction. To address the incomplete information of the visual attention prompt, we introduce a perturbation-based attention map modification method. Additionally, we propose an optimization-based mask aggregation method with a new weight learning function for adaptive perturbed annotation aggregation in the attention map modification process. Our overall framework is designed to learn in an attention-prompt guided multi-task manner to enhance future predictions even for samples without attention prompts and trained in an alternating manner for better convergence. Extensive experiments conducted on two datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed framework in enhancing predictions for samples, both with and without provided prompts.


Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Faculty of Communication, Arts and Sciences, Canadian University Dubai, Dubai, P. O. Box 117781, United Arab Emirates and Department of Civil Engineering, School of Engineering, American University in Dubai, Dubai, P. O. Box 28282 United Arab Emirates and Department of Irrigation, College of Agriculture, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, 8415683111, Iran Department of Civil Engineering, Khomenishahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Khomenishahr, Iran Department of Architecture and Art, University of Kashan, Kashan, Iran Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran Department of Civil Engineering, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran Department of Architectural Engineering, Shahinshahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shahinshahr, Iran Department of Civil Engineering, Aghigh University, Shahinshahr, Isfahan, Iran Department of Geography, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran


Traditional deep neural nets (NNs) have shown the state-of-the-art performance in the task of classification in various applications. However, NNs have not considered any types of uncertainty associated with the class probabilities to minimize risk due to misclassification under uncertainty in real life. Unlike Bayesian neural nets indirectly infering uncertainty through weight uncertainties, evidential neural networks (ENNs) have been recently proposed to support explicit modeling of the uncertainty of class probabilities. It treats predictions of an NN as subjective opinions and learns the function by collecting the evidence leading to these opinions by a deterministic NN from data. However, an ENN is trained as a black box without explicitly considering different types of inherent data uncertainty, such as vacuity (uncertainty due to a lack of evidence) or dissonance (uncertainty due to conflicting evidence). This paper presents a new approach, called a {\em regularized ENN}, that learns an ENN based on regularizations related to different characteristics of inherent data uncertainty. Via the experiments with both synthetic and real-world datasets, we demonstrate that the proposed regularized ENN can better learn of an ENN modeling different types of uncertainty in the class probabilities for classification tasks.


This thesis investigates the use of wearable sensors to recognize human activity. The activity of the user is one example of context information -- others include the user's location or the state of his environment -- which can help computer applications to adapt to the user depending on the situation. In this thesis we use wearable sensors -- mainly accelerometers -- to record, model and recognize human activities. Using wearable sensors allows continuous recording of activities across different locations and independent from external infrastructure. There are many possible applications for activity recognition with wearable sensors, for instance in the areas of healthcare, elderly care, personal fitness, entertainment, or performing arts. In this thesis we focus on two particular research challenges in activity recognition, namely the need for less supervision, and the recognition of high-level activities. We make several contributions towards addressing these challenges. Our first contribution is an analysis of features for activity recognition. Using a data set of activities such as walking, standing, sitting, or hopping, we analyze the performance of commonly used features and window lengths over which the features are computed. Our results indicate that different features perform well for different activities, and that in order to achieve best recognition performance, features and window lengths should be chosen specific for each activity. In order to reduce the need for labeled training data, we propose an unsupervised algorithm which can discover structure in unlabeled recordings of activities. The approach identifies correlated subsets in feature space, and represents these subsets with low-dimensional models. We show that the discovered subsets often correspond to distinct activities, and that the resulting models can be used for recognition of activities in unknown data. In a separate study, we show that the approach can be effectively deployed in a semi-supervised learning framework. More specifically, we combine the approach with a discriminant classifier, and show that this scheme allows high recognition rates even when using only a small amount of labeled training data. Recognition of higher-level activities such as shopping, doing housework, or commuting is challenging, as these activities are composed of changing sub-activities and vary strongly across individuals. We present one study in which we recorded 10h of three different high-level activities, investigating to which extent methods for low-level activities can be scaled to the recognition of high-level activities. Our results indicate that for settings as ours, traditional supervised approaches in combination with data from wearable accelerometers can achieve recognition rates of more than 90%. While unsupervised techniques are desirable for short-term activities, they become crucial for long-term activities, for which annotation is often impractical or impossible. To this end we propose an unsupervised approach based on topic models that allows to discover high-level structure in human activity data. The discovered activity patterns correlate with daily routines such as commuting, office work, or lunch routine, and they can be used to recognize such routines in unknown data.


ABSTRACT This paper presents some initial findings of a double-sided study on collective research in inclusive education. The aim is to discuss how thinking on inclusive education can be produced and evolved in a community of inquiry consisting of practitioners and researchers. The paper presents both a research process and an explorative theoretical endeavour to rethink how we might conduct research in education and more specifically inclusive education. The theoretical point of departure is Hannah Arendt's concept of 'thinking without a banister' which, succinctly put, means to be able to think without a fixed methodology. We connect Arendt's idea of 'thinking without a banister' with Johann Friedrich Herbart's concept of pedagogical tact, which deals with the strong connection between theory and practice in educational processes. The paper ends with a reflection on the possible influence on inclusive education of the framework presented, and how it might lead to a more inclusive starting point for thinking about and researching the field of inclusive education.


Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a heritable and highly debilitating condition. It is commonly associated with subcortical volumetric abnormalities, the most replicated of these being reduced hippocampal volume. Using the most recent published data from ENIGMA consortium's genome-wide association study (GWAS) of regional brain volume, we sought to test whether there is shared genetic architecture between 8 subcortical brain volumes and MDD. Using LD score regression utilising summary statistics from ENIGMA and the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, we demonstrated that hippocampal volume was positively genetically correlated with MDD (rG=0.46, P=0.02), although this did not survive multiple comparison testing. None of other six brain regions studied were genetically correlated and amygdala volume heritability was too low for analysis. We also generated polygenic risk scores (PRS) to assess potential pleiotropy between regional brain volumes and MDD in three cohorts (Generation Scotland; Scottish Family Health Study (n=19,762), UK Biobank (n=24,048) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (n=5,766). We used logistic regression to examine volumetric PRS and MDD and performed a meta-analysis across the three cohorts. No regional volumetric PRS demonstrated significant association with MDD or recurrent MDD. In this study we provide some evidence that hippocampal volume and MDD may share genetic architecture, albeit this did not survive multiple testing correction and was in the opposite direction to most reported phenotypic correlations. We therefore found no evidence to support a shared genetic architecture for MDD and regional subcortical volumes.


Prior to vitellogenesis (previtellogenesis), androgens appear to play pivotal roles in stimulating oocyte growth. In this study, suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) with subsequent array development was used to open a possible revealing window in understanding the functional aspects of oocyte development. we constructed a targeted cod cDnA array containing 200 differentially-expressed genes using SSH after in vitro exposure of previtellogenic gonad tis- sue from Atlantic cod to a mixture of androgens. The targeted CodArray was hybridized using total rnA from cod previtel - logenic oocyte cultures exposed to 11-ketotestosterone (11-KT) and testosterone (T) (0, 10 and 100 µM) for 5 and 10 days. Array analyses showed 0.5-3.5 -fold significantly altered transcript levels for a wide range of genes. Interestingly, T pro- duced increased levels of zonadhesin and zona pellucida protein-2, whereas the levels of these genes were generally decreased after exposure to 11-KT. 11-KT produced apparent increases of cyclin-B, and suggests a control in the timing of the early embryonic cell cycle. Real-time PCR analysis confirmed the changes in expression for selected genes. In addition, quantitative histological analyses were used to investigate modulations of previtellogenic oocyte growth phases after androgen exposure. our data show that both 11-KT and T are capable of inducing previtellogenic oocyte growth and devel - opment in vitro, with 11-KT being the strongest modulator. Taken together, the present study suggests some novel roles of androgens on the growth and development of previtellogenic oocytes, indicating possible androgen control of early follicu - lar and oocyte growth in the cod ovary.


Inertial measurement units (IMUs) are becoming more popular for field-based human movement analysis. However, their ability to track kinetic (i.e., 3-dimensional ground reaction force, F) and kinematic parameters used to evaluate sprint performance has not been assessed. Thus, the purpose of this thesis was three-fold. First was to assess the criterion validity of IMU estimates of the magnitude and direction of F during accelerative running tasks by comparison to a force plate. The second was to determine the concurrent validity of a novel IMU-based sprint velocity estimation algorithm. The third was to determine the concurrent validity of IMU estimates of kinetic determinates of sprint acceleration performance. For the first study, IMU estimates of continuous, step-average, and peak F while subjects performed linear sprint start and change of direction tasks were compared to the same measured by a force plate. For the second and third studies, a recently validated position-time method was used as the reference to which IMU estimates of continuous, average interval, and peak velocity as well as other performance variables (e.g., power, ratio of force, etc.) were compared. The results of these studies suggest the potential use of IMUs to assess sprint performance in the field.


We appreciate the letter of Goossens et al. regarding our review of adenovirus-36 (Adv36) and obesity (1). This exchange of letters illustrates two major dilemmas in science. The first is the consequences of investigators not communicating properly and the second is the problem of discordant research results. I must apologize to Goossens et al. as twice I have written that their paper on Adv36 and obesity (2) might have faulty conclusions based on problems with their assay. My previous letter (3) to Obesity and my comments in the review paper in IJPO (1) were written about the same time based on assumptions that were due to inadequate communication. Several years ago the Dutch/Belgian group requested that I send them our Adv36 assay protocol, antibody and positive controls. When they found a very low prevalence of Adv36, they asked if I could run 25 samples in my lab as a quality control. Unfortunately, they did not share patient information and when I found that 9 of 25 of their samples were positive, I concluded their assay had problems. Despite my request when I did a signed review of their paper in Obesity (2), the information that their quality control sample was not random still was not transmitted to me, which led me to my assumptions about their assay. The other dilemma is the thought processes that occur with discordant results. Our initial paper on Adv36 in humans showed a high prevalence of Adv36 antibodies (30%) and strong correlation with obesity (P < 0.001) (4). Their initial paper showed a low prevalence of antibodies (6%) and no correlation with obesity (2). Our respective interpretations of the subsequent literature reflect our initial experience. How do we determine the true role of Adv36 and obesity? Unequivocally, experimental infection with Adv36 causes obesity in animals (5). At least four research teams have confirmed this. As humans cannot be deliberately infected, it is impossible to prove Adv36 causes obesity in humans, and we can only show correlation. Eight different investigators in six different countries have found prevalences of Adv36 infection ranging from 22 to 65% in obese subjects ((6) and personal communications). Goossens et al. (2) found a prevalence of about 6% in Belgium and Holland. Two other small studies from investigators in Belgium and Denmark for which my group ran the Adv36 assays also showed a prevalence of 6–8% (published only in abstract form). Clearly, something is different in these three countries from the rest of the world. To address the differences of opinion noted in the letter by Goossens et al. note that Trovato et al. (7) showed that 65% of obese subjects were Adv36 positive vs. 33% of non-obese. Goossens et al. state that Adv36 positivity in men did not correlate with obesity in the Trovato paper. Trovato et al. (7) had a small number of men and the P value for Adv36 infection and BMI in men was 0.06. The correlation of Adv36 with obesity in women was P < 0.0001, and 56% of men were positive for Adv36 vs. 36% of women (7). Goosens et al. interpret the Na et al. paper (8) as not showing a correlation of Adv36 and obesity in children although 29% of obese children had Adv36 antibodies vs. 14% of non-obese. I interpret both of these papers as showing a correlation of Adv36 with obesity. In summary, Goossens et al. and I have differences of opinion about the role of Adv36 in obesity based on our initial research findings. This points out the need for more research to identify why we have differences and to resolve them. Are there other factors in the small area of Belgium, Holland and Denmark that prevent Adv36 obesity? That would be an extremely important question to answer as it may point to solutions for Adv36 induced obesity. The implications of a potentially treatable/preventable cause of a sizeable percentage of obesity in much of the world are enormous and this area deserves much more research to answer the questions raised by Goossens et al. and by us.


Our previous studies have provided solid evidence for the presence of an intrinsic angiotensin‐generating system in the rat epididymis, which plays an important role in the regulation of the anion and thus fluid secretion by the epididymal epithelium. In the present study, the effect of androgen on the expression of AT1receptor and its subsequent regulation of anion secretion by the epididymis were investigated using Western blotting, semi‐quantitative reverse transcription‐polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) and in vitro electrophysiological approaches. Results from Western blotting analysis showed that the expression of AT1receptor protein was almost abolished by castration whereas its expression was completely restored to the control level when the castrated rats were hormonally replaced with testosterone. Efferent duct ligation, however, appeared not to affect the expression of AT1receptor protein by the epididymis. Results from RT‐PCR showed that mRNA expression of AT1receptor was consistent with that observed in protein expression. Results from short‐circuit current (ISC) showed that castration almost abolished the angiotensin II‐induced ISC. However, efferent duct ligation did not affect the angiotensin II‐induced ISC, which was completely blocked in the presence of losartan, a specific antagonist of the AT1receptor. These data indicate that the expression of epididymal AT1receptor is predominantly influenced by testicular androgens but not by testicular factors. This androgen‐dependent expression of AT1receptor could have a role in the control of AT1receptor‐mediated anion secretion and thus fluid secretion by the rat epididymis.


The grape growing by everything that it means, in Romania - the high number of the big viticultural unities and their geographical repartition for the whole country, the landscape diversity created into the viticultural unit, the wine cellars and so on – is relevant for the touristic activity. To the most favourable period of the viticultural tourism in Romania, activity that takes place in the same time with the agricultural one corresponds to the maturation phase of the grapes, regardless of the fact that the grapes are for food or wine, between the end of july and the end of October. Regarding this type of tourism, certain preferences for food grapes, for sorts for wine, tasting of wines, including unruffled and frothy DOC, usually at the level of viticultural center or field, would impede the aleatory choice of the touristic destination and of the period, that is why it is imperative for the tourist to be informed.


We demonstrate and analyze the epitaxial film formation of a molecular material that cannot be evaporated in vacuum due to thermal decomposition. A solution of the material is sprayed onto single crystalline van der Waals surfaces using a pulse valve under controlled vapor pressure of the solvent. Monolayer epitaxial films are obtained and we propose that the growth is mediated by liquid ultrathin films formed on the surface. Molecular arrangement and electronic structure of C60(CH3)5H films are studied by reflection high energy electron diffraction and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy, respectively. The present technique will be useful to study the electronic structure of recently synthesized molecular materials.


This letter presents a novel optimal control method for privacy protection of mobility data. Protection is based on data obfuscation, consisting in sending to the geolocated service a finely tuned fake location. The objective is twofold, keeping privacy values at an acceptable level and guaranteeing a reasonable utility loss, with a lightweight algorithm able to run on mobile devices. The proposed method consists of an offline modeling stage, based on privacy worst-case anticipation, and a fast algorithm executed online. In the offline stage, the algorithm computes the average amount of allowed utility loss necessary to maintain the privacy value of the following $h$ steps above a given lower bound. For this purpose, the worst possible scenario over the future steps is computed and compared with the privacy function of the solution obtained by an MPC method. The online stage uses the information computed offline to solve an optimization problem whose decision variable is the location to transmit and whose objective is to maintain the privacy value above a minimal level, by avoiding large utility losses. The method is validated on an instance of a database of real records and compared with a state-of-the-art competitor.


This qualitative study explored food-related beliefs and attitudes of adults consuming a locally sourced diet. The primary author conducted three audiotaped, 120-minute-long focus groups using the theory of planned behavior as a theoretical framework. Questions were designed to elicit salient behavioral, normative, and control beliefs that modulate an individual's intention to eat a locally sourced diet. The belief that local food is more nutritious and healthful than conventionally grown food is a major motivator for eating a local diet. In addition, the influence of family and significant others is important. Finally, cost and accessibility are perceived barriers to eating locally. Subthemes include inherent trust of local farmers and a moral conscience to eat locally. Future research may include a quantitative evaluation of the findings from these focus groups and analysis of local eating behaviors to determine the nutritional quality of this diet.


In this issue of EMR we explore in depth the first topic of our Technology Manager's Notebook, "Managing Technical Professionals." I truly believe that people and relationships are the essence of any organization and that the ability to inspire and motivate employees is a rare and highly prized skill in the echelons of managers. For it is not the manager who delivers products and services to the market, but rather the collective employees of the firm. Technical professionals are a particular, if not peculiar, type of employee who is often motivated differently than others. Specifically, technical professionals expect their leadership to have sufficient technical capability to understand and appreciate the complex nature of their work. As a result technical professionals who have advanced to leadership roles based upon their technical expertise may lack the soft skills necessary to guide and motivate their colleagues. What are these critical soft skills? What tools are available to deliver a proper performance evaluation for technical professionals? In this context, what reward structures work or do not work?


This paper examines the relative value relevance in equity valuation of two sets of accounting information of listed Chinese companies which issued the so-called B shares to foreign investors on the Chinese stock exchanges. These firms are required to prepare two sets of financial statements: one based on China's accounting regulations (domestic GAAPs) and the other based on International Accounting Standards (IASs). The study adopted the Ohlson (1995) model and used the Davidson-MacKinnon J-test to assess which one of these two competing sets of accounting information is more closely associated with the share prices. The results showed that earnings and book value reported based on IASs have greater information content than those based on domestic GAAPs. The results of yearly regression analysis generally suggested that the explanatory power of these earnings and book values for share prices increased over time.


In recent years, the research field on smart environments, which are spaces with multiple embedded and networked sensors and actuators, has been expanding (Cook & Das, 2004). The smart environments observe the spaces using distributed sensors, extract useful information from the obtained data and provide various services to users. Such an environment is also referred to as smart space, intelligent environment, etc., and many researchers have developed smart environments for providing informative services to the users (e.g. support during meeting (Johanson et al., 2002), health care (Nishida et al., 2000), support of the elderly (Mynatt et al., 2004), information display using a pan-tilt projector (Mori et al., 2004)). On the other hand, smart environments are also used for support of mobile robots that work in complicated human living environments. In this type of smart environments, mobile robots inside the space get necessary information from multiple distributed sensors and various functions such as localization, path planning and humanrobot interaction are performed with the support of the system (Mizoguchi et al., 1999), (Sgorbissa & Zaccaria, 2004), (Koide et al., 2004). Aiming to provide both informative and physical services to the users, we have also been developing a smart environment, called Intelligent Space (iSpace), since 1996 (Lee & Hashimoto, 2002). Fig. 1 shows the concept of iSpace. In iSpace, not only sensor devices but also sensor nodes are distributed in the space because it is necessary to reduce the network load in the large-scale network and it can be realized by processing the raw data in each sensor node before collecting information. We call the sensor node devices distributed in the space DINDs (Distributed Intelligent Network Device). A DIND consists of three basic components: sensors, processors and communication devices. The processors deal with the sensed data and extract useful information about objects (type of object, three dimensional position, etc.), users (identification, posture, activity, etc.) and the environment (geometrical shape, temperature, emergency, etc.). The network of DINDs can realize the observation and understanding of the events in the whole space. Based on the extracted and fused information, actuators such as displays or projectors embedded in the space provide informative services to users. In iSpace, mobile robots are also used as actuators to provide physical services to the users and for them we use the name mobile agents. The mobile agent can utilize the intelligence of iSpace. By using distributed sensors and computers, the 6


Dynamic Yoga is a unique combination of dynamic breathing and strong, flowing movement which creates a high-heat, high-energy workout. The choreographed sequence of postures that flow into one another build strength, unwind tight joints, and loosen muscles. It is a complete mind and body workout that develops concentration and reduces stress. Dynamic Yoga, based on the techniques of Astanga Vinyasa Yoga, is the fast, powerful form of yoga which has taken the yoga world by storm. It has attracted a lot of interest due to the claims that it can provide as effective a cardiovascular workout as a conventional exercise-to-music class. Thus it is attracting people from the fitness and 'body culture' world who are seeking new ways to keeping super fit. It is fast becoming the new Iyengar in yoga fashion terms.


Taking advantage of the data gathering capability of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) as well as the data storage and processing ability of mobile cloud computing (MCC), WSN–MCC integration is attracting significant attention from both academia and industry. This paper focuses on processing of the sensory data in WSN–MCC integration, by identifying the critical issues concerning WSN– MCC integration and proposing a novel sensory data processing framework, which aims at transmitting desirable sensory data to the mobile users in a fast, reliable, and secure manner. The proposed framework could prolong the WSN lifetime, decrease the storage requirements of the sensors and the WSN gateway, and reduce the traffic load and bandwidth requirement of sensory data transmissions. In addition, the framework is capable of monitoring and predicting the future trend of the sensory data traffic, as well as improving its security. The framework further decreases the storage and processing overhead of the cloud, while enabling mobile users to securely obtain their desired sensory data faster. Analytical and experimental results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.


We combine the constraints from the recent Lyα forest analysis of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the SDSS galaxy bias analysis with previous constraints from SDSS galaxy clustering, the latest supernovae, and 1st year WMAP cosmic microwave background anisotropies. We find significant improvements on all of the cosmological parameters compared to previous constraints, which highlights the importance of combining Lyα forest constraints with other probes. combining WMAP and the Lyα forest we find for the primordial slope ns = 0:98±0:02. We see no evidence of running, dn/=d lnk 0:003±0:010, a factor of 3 improvement over previous constraints. We also find no evidence of tensors, r < 0:36 (95% c.l.). Inflationary models predict the absence of running and many among them satisfy these constraints, particularly negative curvature models such as those based on spontaneous symmetry breaking. A positive correlation between tensors and primordial slope disfavors chaotic inflation-type models with steep slopes: while the V αo 2 model is within the 2-sigma contour, V αo4 is outside the 3- sigma contour. For the amplitude we find σ8 = 0:90 ± 0:03 from the Lyα forest and WMAP alone. We find no evidence of neutrino mass: for the case of 3 massive neutrino families with an inflationary prior, Σmv < 0:42 eV and the mass of lightest neutrino is m1 < 0:13 eV at 95% c.l. For the 3 massless +1 massive neutrino case we find mv < 0:79 eV for the massive neutrino, excluding at 95% c.l. all neutrino mass solutions compatible with the LSND results. We explore dark energy constraints in models with a fairly general time dependence of dark energy equation of state, finding Ωλ =0:72± 0:02, w(z = 0:3) = 0:98+0.10 -0.12,the latter changing to w(z = 0:3) = -0.92+0.09-0.10 if tensors are allowed. We find no evidence for variation of the equation of state with redshift, w(z = 1) = -1.03+0.21-0.28. These results rely on the current understanding of the Lyα forest and other probes, which need to be explored further both observationally and theoretically, but extensive tests reveal no evidence of inconsistency among different data sets used here.


This paper proposes an architecture for supporting the organization and fruition of information created by the collaborative effort of Web users. Large repositories of video streams are nowadays available on the Web; such repositories are usually accessed through interfaces that support only a subset of the search types that are typical on the Web. This work proposes a different approach for organizing and accessing such repositories, that often include not only video streams but also a lot of meaningful information such as the user interests and their network of friends. This work offers an extended view on all the features of the approach, including the description of a set of authoring interfaces that enable different categories of users to collaboratively build an interactive shared environment. The result of the authoring effort is displayed to the Web user as a 3D multimodal world where specific search types, such as associative seeking and information re-finding, are enhanced. A prototypical application, accessing the data from the YouTube video repository, is presented.


In the solution of estuary pollution problems, the mathematical model is a partial differential equation, which is often replaced by a set of ordinary differential equations with time as the independent variable. The solution to these equations is taken as the solution of the partial differential equations at points dx apart. A significant problem is to determine the closeness of the solution of the ordinary differential equation to the solution of the partial differential equation, the spacing dx, and the number of sections. The closeness of the solution can be judged by examining the magnitude and phase of the frequency response of the partial differential equations and the set of ordinary differential equations. Selecting a given phase error allows one to obtain a relation giving the allowed spacing dx. Selecting an attenuation error sets the number of sections. Thus, from the knowledge of the frequency response of the system the rules developed give the number of sections and spacing to meet specified errors in the approximation. (Key words: Computers, digital; estuaries; frequency analysis; pollution; quality of water)


In the presence of strong disorder and weak interactions, closed quantum systems can enter a many-body localized phase where the system does not conduct, does not equilibrate even for arbitrarily long times, and robustly violates quantum statistical mechanics. The starting point for such a many-body localized phase is usually taken to be an Anderson insulator where, in the limit of vanishing interactions, all degrees of freedom of the system are localized. Here, we instead consider a model where in the non-interacting limit, some degrees of freedom are localized while others remain delocalized. Such a system can be viewed as a model for a many-body localized system brought into contact with a small bath of a comparable number of degrees of freedom. We numerically and analytically study the effect of interactions on this system and find that generically, the entire system delocalizes. However, we find certain parameter regimes where results are consistent with localization of the entire system, an effect recently termed many-body proximity effect.


Abstract Anoplophora glabripennis (Motschulsky) (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) is a recently introduced non-native invasive species in North America that has the potential to destroy several tree species in urban and forest habitats. Adult survival, reproduction, and egg hatch of A. glabripennis from two populations (Ravenswood, Chicago, IL, and Bayside, Queens, NY) were evaluated at seven constant temperatures (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, and 35°C), and adult survival was evaluated at −1°C. Nonlinear regressions were used to estimate the temperature optimum and thresholds for each life history parameter. The estimated optimum temperature for median longevity was 18°C, and upper and lower thresholds were 39 and −3°C for females and 38 and −2°C for males. The estimated upper and lower thresholds for fecundity were 35 and 11°C for the New York population and 34 and 14°C for the Illinois population. The estimated optimum temperature for maximum fecundity was 23 and 24°C for the New York and Illinois populations, respectively. Both longevity and fecundity declined as temperature increased or decreased from the optimum. Oviposition was arrested at temperatures ≤10 and ≥35°C, and either eggs did not mature or were reabsorbed by females that did not oviposit at the higher temperatures. Days to first oviposition approached infinity near 10°C and declined exponentially to a minimum of 16 d at 30°C. The lower threshold for egg hatch was estimated as 10°C and the upper threshold at 32°C, and eggs would be predicted to hatch the fastest at 29°C. Maximum percentage hatch was estimated to occur at 23°C, and the estimated upper and lower thresholds were 34 and 12°C, respectively. These results indicate that summer temperatures throughout most of the lower 48 United States should support beetle survival and reproduction, although oviposition may be suspended and adult survivorship would decline when summer temperatures are sustained for full a day or more at or above 30°C, and there are no cooler locations where the beetles can retreat. In addition, although beetles may survive into the fall, they may lay fewer eggs at lower temperatures, and those eggs may not hatch until spring. These responses of A. glabripennis to temperature can be used for predicting the potential geographical range of this species and in developing phenological models to predict the timing of egg hatch and adult mortality, which are important for management programs.


Indiane-commerce market is expected to reach $100-billion mark by the end of 2020, triggered by increasing internet usage, discounting and investment by online retailers. Promotion the 4th 'P' of marketing is playing a major role. Promotion refers to the entire set of activities, which communicate the product, brand or service to the user. The idea is to make people aware, attract and induce to buy the product in preference over others. Flash sales, sometimes also called as deal of the day are a part of sales promotion which provides its customer with a special deal or discounts on selective products for a limited time .It is helping companies to lure its customers to visit their web sites again and again. The study focuses on the role of online sales promotion done through flash sales in attracting customers and generating sales for web sites. The study is based on the previous researches, newspaper articles, magazines and journals. This Study indicates that flash sales have helped companies to attract masses but they were not able to capitalize on the traffic generated.


Migration between rural peripheral areas and urban central areas is analyzed using the city of Nairobi Kenya as an example. The study is based on official Kenyan data for 1969-1979. The role of Nairobi as a focal point for both centripetal and centrifugal migration is discussed and the volume intensity and direction of migration streams are examined. An attempt is also made to evaluate this migration in terms of modernization and dependency theories. (ANNOTATION)


A plethora of research exists upon psychological models, interventions and approaches. An increasing evidence base examining patient variables also continues to evolve. Therapist factors, however, have received less attention. Considering aspects of the therapist has previously been seen by some as navel-gazing, thereby suggesting that it may add little value to clinical practice. Irrespective of this, the therapist undeniably plays a critical part in engendering change and helping patients achieve positive outcomes. Discounting the influence of the therapist therefore neglects an important variable in clinical practice. A closer consideration of factors affecting therapists and therapists' impact upon clinical practice may therefore clarify the significance of therapist variables.

Chapter one
The first chapter offers a critical appraisal of the research literature examining therapist factors associated with the therapeutic alliance. The research denotes that therapist activities and characteristics are both positively and negatively related to alliance. Methodological limitations of studies are examined.

Chapter two
The second chapter presents an empirical study exploring clinicians' experiences of post-qualification training in Intensive Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy, using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Three super-ordinate themes emerged from the analysis: training as transforming the self, professional effects of training and group supervision as facilitating feedback. Implications for clinical training are discussed.

Chapter three
The third chapter explores the lead author's reflections which emerged during the research process. These led to insights of a personal and professional nature.


The aim of Machine Unlearning (MU) is to provide theoretical guarantees on the removal of the contribution of a given data point from a training procedure. Federated Unlearning (FU) consists in extending MU to unlearn a given client's contribution from a federated training routine. Current FU approaches are generally not scalable, and do not come with sound theoretical quantification of the effectiveness of unlearning. In this work we present Informed Federated Unlearning (IFU), a novel efficient and quantifiable FU approach. Upon unlearning request from a given client, IFU identifies the optimal FL iteration from which FL has to be reinitialized, with unlearning guarantees obtained through a randomized perturbation mechanism. The theory of IFU is also extended to account for sequential unlearning requests. Experimental results on different tasks and dataset show that IFU leads to more efficient unlearning procedures as compared to basic re-training and state-of-the-art FU approaches.


This study had two intentions. First, it aimed to explore the context of Filipino women's self-worth by concentrating on how they view themselves as a woman. Second, this study was conducted to justify the idea of the "woman of worth" through a postmodern feminist perspective. Essentially, this study supported Covington's Self-worth Theory (2001). Its premise states that the worthiness of an individual is scaled in relation to the achievements he/she gets. This achievement however, does not only pertain to academic status, but also to the fulfilment one gets whenever she contributes for the purpose of success. It was significant that among the respondents, being able to contribute is the ultimate basis of their worth. Apart from their awareness on their own characteristics and on the roles that they play, affirmation from others also  enables them to feel empowered as a woman.


Design space exploration is long-standing motivating ideas in computer-aided design. It realises this vision through a model of design states for making and moving amongst states and an organisation of states into a structure called a design space. Using a design space structuring mechanism based on a subsumption relation, this paper sketches a theory called Geometric Typed Feature Structures (GTFS) to preserve the formal properties of the design space movement algorithms for geometry. It also provides the theory for incorporation of user-guided exploration in the design space. Consequently, the clear division between knowledge level and symbol level, such that functional decomposition formal symbol level and design model symbol level, disappears. We can therefore use the same subsumption relation to structure the design space exploration interactively. Such interactive mapping between knowledge level and symbol level provides the fine-grained opportunities for user intervention in formal design space movement algorithms. In this paper, we summarize this approach with an example of GTFS subsumption process.


The author reports on the inaugural lecture of Prof. Weber, Professor of European Corporate Taxation at the University of Amsterdam. Prof. Weber first provides a preliminary survey of the subject and then considers the tax sovereignty of the Member States as a starting principle before dealing with three inherent consequences of this principle, i.e. different taxation systems and disparities, the freedom to limit tax jurisdiction and the fact that the Member States are independent.


Age-related macular degeneration is the main cause of vision loss in aged people. A significant risk factor of disease is considered dysfunction of retinal pigment epithelium, which is accompanied by accumulation of lipids in Bruch membrane as drusen or linear deposits. As a result, there are disturbance of substances and oxygen transport from blood to retina cells of eye as well as elimination of toxic catabolites to choroid capillaries. The lack of a systematic analysis of pathogenetic mechanisms of drusen's formation in age-related macular degeneration controls possibility of developing methods for treating and preventing development of early stage of age-related macular degeneration. There are the data of risk factors and pathogenesis of age-related macular degeneration in the article. It pays attention to the significance of oxidative stress in pigment epithelium of macula and triggering factors of inflammation development in eye retina. In context of differences in lipid composition and topographic location of cones and rods photoreceptor cells the localization of drusen, basal laminar and linear deposits in Bruch membrane is discussed. The possible mechanisms of drusen biogenesis associated with functioning of cholesterol carriers and lipid autophagy in retinal pigment epithelial cells as well as the role of macrophages in transport of local cholesterol depot to systemic circulation are presented. Analysis of literature allowed to identify several promising areas of development of targeted therapy for lipid metabolism disorders in retina. They include the reactivation of lipid carriers in RPE cells, ligand-receptor mechanisms that provide a reduction pH in lysosomes and maintaining functional activity of macrophages.


Using a suitable Laguerre basis set that ensures a tridiagonal matrix representation of the reference Hamiltonian, we were able to evaluate in closed form the matrix representation of the associated Hamiltonian for two exactly solvable 2D potentials. This enabled us to treat analytically the full Hamiltonian and compute the associated bound states spectrum as the eigenvalues of the associated analytical matrix representing their Hamiltonians. Finally we compared our results satisfactorily with those obtained using the Gauss quadrature numerical integration approach. PACS numbers: 03.65.Ge, 34.20.Cf, 03.65.Nk, 34.20.Gj


Abstract Högbomite from Reedy Creek, South Australia, is of a composition outside the previously reported range. It contains less Ti and Mg and more Al and total Fe, with a total Fe/(total Fe + Mg) value between 0.69 and 0.72. The högbomite occurs in unusual cordieritesillimanite aggregates containing minor magnetite, ilmenite, hematite, corundum, and hercynite.


Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF), a mononuclear phagocyte (MO)-derived peptide, is increasingly being recognized for its pleomorphic immunologic effects. A number of investigations have demonstrated that lipopolysaccharide (LPS) can induce TNF synthesis, yet mechanisms that regulate TNF expression at the cellular and molecular levels have not been fully elucidated. In this study, we present data demonstrating pentoxifylline, a methylxanthine, is efficacious in suppressing LPS-induced MO-derived TNF at the level of both TNF mRNA accumulation and TNF supernatant bioactivity. Pentoxifylline, at a dose of 1 x 10(-5)M, suppressed the production of both biologically active TNF and TNF mRNA expression by more than 50%. Furthermore, additional methylxanthines and dibutyryl cAMP have similar effects on TNF expression. These data support the mechanism for this suppressive effect is via the generation of intracellular cAMP.


In network processor (NP) application of Gigabit Ethernet (GE), the second layer design has to deal with ARP protocol; we present an approach in this paper to meet the high speed performance requirement to ARP lookup. Unlike longest prefix matching lookup algorithm widely used in IP routing lookup and flow classification, ARP lookup utilizes fixed length matching lookup algorithm, which is commonly implemented by hashing in software or directly by CAM in hardware without the need of much optimization. The algorithm proposed in this paper belongs to closed double hashing algorithm. In ARP lookup system, to solve the indeterminacy of lookup time, a two-stage queue is used to ensure the sequence of IP flows with the same destination address maintains during ARP lookup process. The performance of the system is guaranteed by experimental results under worst-case condition, which is capable of meeting the requirement of ARP lookup in GE environment. Our results show that the algorithm saves much storage and timing cost while achieving wire-speed lookup required by GE.


The article provides a critical assessment of how the Economic and Monetary Union was designed, implemented and reformed in the European Union and discusses the risks of a slow-motion reform process. It is argued that the fact that the euro area economy has recovered in the last few years has become a source of complacency and delays. In particular, powerful forces continue to downplay the importance of systemic reconstruction and the risk of disintegration remains high despite the relative tranquillity of markets in the 2014–2018 period. Finally, the article evaluates competing paradigms about the eurozone crisis and the pros and cons of fiscal capacity building.


Immune checkpoint inhibitors have shown remarkable efficacy as new-generation drugs in anti-tumor therapy. However, the nonspecific activation of the immune system leads to a number of adverse side effects, so-called immune-related adverse events (irAEs), including the occurrence of diarrhea and colitis in about one third of treated patients.Endoscopically and histologically, there is significant overlap of immune-mediated colitis with classic IBD, making differentiation difficult.Therapeutically, high-dose glucocorticoids are used in grade 3 (severe) to grade 4 (life-threatening) colitis, in addition to discontinuation of ICI therapy. Steroid-refractory cases (up to 42%) benefit from the TNF inhibitor infliximab. Vedolizumab, analogous to inflammatory bowel disease, represents second-line therapy for infliximab-refractory cases. Little data exist to date on the efficacy of tofacitinib in refractory cases.We describe the case and therapeutic management of severe and persistent immune-mediated colitis after successful immunochemotherapy with pembrolizumab in an 80-year-old man with metastatic non-small cell carcinoma of the lung and pre-existing colitis unclassified and other comorbidities.


Nuclei, with their internal proton-neutron transformations, electron and neutrino emission, are the ultimate motor of the universe both at the atomic and cosmological scale. The flux of neutrino governs the motion of the Earth around the Sun, the electronic orbital, the physical-chemical properties of substances, while the proton-neutron transformations are responsible for the nuclear bond and nuclear stability. The mechanical and chemical world is well known and understood while the structure of the nucleus and the nature of the nuclear bond are still a mystery due to the lack of experimental techniques at the subatomic scale. The recent consciousness of nuclei global role at the macroscale forces additional investigations. In our travel, we use, as a guide, the available mass defect data, propose a new approach to reconcile unexplained binding energies of lighter nuclides and give additional rules to build stepwise all known isotopes. While the rules appear to be sound, the picture that comes out is however only a first rough tentative of radiography of the internal structure of the nuclei of existing atoms.


First principles calculations of magnetic and, to a lesser extent, electronic properties of the novel LaFeAsO-based superconductors show substantial apparent controversy, as opposed to most weakly or strongly correlated materials. Not only do different reports disagree about quantitative values, there is also a schism in terms of interpreting the basic physics of the magnetic interactions in this system. In this paper, we present a systematic analysis using four different first principles methods and show that while there is an unusual sensitivity to computational details, well-converged full-potential all-electron results are fully consistent among themselves. What makes results so sensitive and the system so different from simple local magnetic moments interacting via basic superexchange mechanisms is the itinerant character of the calculated magnetic ground state, where very soft magnetic moments and long-range interactions are characterized by a particular structure in the reciprocal (as opposed to real) space. Therefore, unravelling the magnetic interactions in their full richness remains a challenging, but utterly important task.


We examined the prevalence of self-reported chronic conditions and out-of-pocket spending using the 2005 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) and made comparisons to previously published MEPS data. Our study found that the prevalence of self-reported chronic conditions is increasing among not only the old-old but also people in midlife and earlier old age. The greatest growth occurred in the number of people affected by multiple chronic diseases, a group with sizable out-of-pocket spending. Policymakers should be aware that cost sharing at the point of care can disproportionately burden people with chronic conditions and discourage adherence to drugs that prevent disease progression.


Van Allen Probes have detected nonlinear electrostatic spikes around injection fronts in the outer radiation belt. These spikes include electron holes (EH), double layers, and more complicated solitary waves. We show that EHs can efficiently scatter electrons due to their substantial transverse electric fields. Although the electron scattering driven by EHs is diffusive, it cannot be evaluated via the standard quasi‐linear theory. We derive analytical formulas describing local electron scattering by a single EH and verify them via test particle simulations. We show that the most efficiently scattered are gyroresonant electrons (crossing EH on a time scale comparable to the local electron gyroperiod). We compute bounce‐averaged diffusion coefficients and demonstrate their dependence on the EH spatial distribution (latitudinal extent and spatial filling factor) and individual EH parameters (amplitude of electrostatic potential, velocity, and spatial scales). We show that EHs can drive pitch angle scattering of ≲ 5 keV electrons at rates 10−2−10−4 s−1 and, hence, can contribute to electron losses and conjugated diffuse aurora brightenings. The momentum and pitch angle scattering rates can be comparable, so that EHs can also provide efficient electron heating. The scattering rates driven by EHs at L shells L ∼ 5–8 are comparable to those due to chorus waves and may exceed those due to electron cyclotron harmonics.


A writer and critic takes a look at trends and fashions in popular Soviet fiction and makes some sharp comments on its quality and depth. Znamya (The Banner), 1961, No. 3; abridged.


Postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) is defined as puerperal blood loss exceeding 500 ml. PPH occurs in 5% of deliveries. In Saudi Arabia during 1978-80 obstetric hemorrhage was the major cause of a maternal mortality rate (MMR) of 52/100,000 live births. 25% of deaths are attributable to obstetric hemorrhage caused by PPH, placenta previa, placental abruption, and ectopic pregnancy. In Egypt during 1970-78 PPH caused 52% of a total of 10,362 pregnancy related deaths; while during 1979-82 PPH accounted for 38.2% of 5355 such deaths. In Menoufia Governorate, Egypt, MMR reached 190/100,000 with 35.3% caused by hemorrhage over 1/2 of which were caused by PPH. In a major hospital during 1984-88 with a MMR rate of 103.4/100,000 hemorrhage accounted for 40% of 27 deaths and 27% of these were caused by PPH. The contributory factors of PPH include the low socioeconomic status of Egyptian women (illiteracy rate of 50.8% in 1988); the high prevalence of iron deficiency anemia among pregnant women (22.1% according to a survey during 1978-80 and even reaching 56.9% of hospital admissions); prenatal checkup of only 1 in 2 cases (5% of rural and 27% of urban births); only 23% of deliveries occurred in hospitals and 60% of all deliveries were assisted by traditional birth attendants; and high parity (women aged 45-49 averaged 6.4 births). A 1988 survey indicated that 12% of married women were pregnant, and 62.2% were not using contraceptives. The mismanagement of PPH cases often caused high morbidity and mortality. Health services were sometimes underutilized (antenatal visits decreased during 1982-87); primary health care training of doctors was inadequate; rural referrals of PPH cases was deficient; emergency facilities and equipment were lacking, and more ample blood supplies for transfusions were needed. The health information and registration system also requires improvement for more accurate morbidity and mortality data registration.


Static shear loading tests on single full-height walls, hanging walls and window-back walls using dry-mud panels were conducted. And then, push-over analysis of combinations of the walls was performed, it was found that summation of shear forces of the single walls is higher than the shear force of combined analysis model except for the range of relatively large deformation. Consequently, to evaluate shear strength of traditional wooden building with dry-mud panel, summation of shear forces of the single walls was found to be adequate. Static shear loading tests on single full-height walls, hanging walls and window-back walls using dry-mud panels were conducted. And then, push-over analysis of combinations of the walls was performed, it was found that summation of shear forces of the single walls is higher than the shear force of combined analysis model except for the range of relatively large deformation. Consequently, to evaluate shear strength of traditional wooden building with dry-mud panel, summation of shear forces of the single walls was found to be adequate.


The author's previously published results (ibid., vol.8, p.1816-23, 1990) which dealt with the bit-error probability of a lightwave communication system whose noise contribution was exclusively attributed to spontaneous emission noise of optical amplifiers are extended. The earlier theory was based on an NRZ (nonreturn-to-zero) modulation format with zero signal power assigned to logical zeros. The extension is based on the same mathematical technique but includes Gaussian noise originating after the signal has been converted to an electrical current. This noise could be thermal noise, shot noise, or a combination of both. It is no longer assumed that the pulse representing a logical one fills its time slot completely. Now, the optical pulses can be much shorter than the bit period (solitons), the power level of logical zeros need not vanish, and the thermal noise of the postdetection electronic circuit is taken into account. >