This study evaluated the use of and access to different services involved in the care of patients with arterial hypertension in the Public Health System in the municipality of São Paulo, Brazil. This is an ecological study that addressed the magnitude, trend and relationships of outpatient procedures linked to the arterial hypertension care Data were retrieved from the SIA/SUS and the Estabsus from the Municipal Health Secretariat, and were processed with PostgreSQL relational database linking the different information by the indicators chosen and analyzed by territories. The statistical analysis were performed by the R program with the trend significance analysis of the historical series of indicators defined and the relationships between them. Essential changes in the care model were found in the period under study in São Paulo, with a declining general trend of primary medical visits and increased specialized cardiology procedures. Production was heterogeneous in the different regional coordination offices in the city. The study shows the potential use of SUS databases and it allows the identification of gaps in the access, coverage and use of high complexity services in health care for chronic conditions in the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS).


Background and Aim: Pancreatic trauma is rare compared to other solid organ injuries of the abdomen. These injuries are difficult to diagnose and pose a problem in treatment strategy. This retrospective study aims to report our tertiary center experience in the management of pancreatic trauma. Material and Methods: The present study is one and half year observational study of 30 patients who underwent pancreatic trauma management in the Department of Surgery, tertiary care institute of Gujarat. Demographic data and baseline characteristics were recorded, including age, sex, medical co-morbidities, mechanism of pancreatic trauma, length of the hospital stay, and associated extrapancreatic injuries. All patients underwent a CT scan for the diagnosis of pancreatic injury. Grading of pancreatic trauma was carried out according to the American Association for surgery for Trauma (AAST). Results: Road traffic accident (RTA) (n=20) was the leading cause of pancreatic trauma in the study population followed by fall from height (n=7) and assault (n=3). The majority of the study population had Grade III pancreatic injury (n=12) followed by Grade IV (n=8), Grade II (n=7), and Grade I (n=3) injuries. No patients had Grade V injury. Isolated pancreatic trauma was seen in 13 patients. Associated liver and spleen injury was seen in 15 patients. Renal trauma was seen in 2 patients. The extra-abdominal injury was seen to be associated with pancreatic injury in 7 patients. Conclusion: Pancreatic trauma can be managed conservatively irrespective of the grade of injury supported by radiological percutaneous drainage and pancreatic duct stenting in selective cases.


Energy charge controls intermediary metabolism and cellular regulation. Here we show that inhibition of energy conservation at the level of glucose uptake, glycolysis, citric acid cycle, and oxidative phosphorylation induces cell death, leading to fragmentation of DNA into an oligonucleosomal ladder and morphological changes typical for apoptosis. Bcl-2, the prototype of oncogenes that suppress cell death, efficiently inhibits apoptosis induced by metabolic inhibitors. Bcl-2 does not antagonize the inhibitory potential of mitochondrial inhibitors, and cannot prevent or delay the decrease of the cellular ATP level subsequent to metabolic inhibition. Thus, we propose that Bcl-2 blocks apoptosis at a point downstream of the collapse of the cellular-energy homeostasis.


In this study, a total of 14 vaginal samples (GPV1‐14) from giant pandas were analyzed. These vaginal samples were divided into two groups as per the region and age of giant pandas. All the vaginal samples were analyzed using metagenomic sequencing. As per the outcomes of metagenomic analysis, Proteobacteria (39.04%), Firmicutes (5.27%), Actinobacteria (2.94%), and Basidiomycota (2.77%) were found to be the dominant phyla in the microbiome of the vaginal samples. At the genus level, Pseudomonas (21.90%) was found to be the most dominant genus, followed by Streptococcus (3.47%), Psychrobacter (1.89%), and Proteus (1.38%). Metastats analysis of the microbial species in the vaginal samples of giant pandas from Wolong Nature Reserve, Dujiangyan and Ningbo Youngor Zoo, and Ya'an Bifengxia Nature Reserve was found to be significantly different (p < 0.05). Age groups, that is, AGE1 (5‐10 years old) and AGE2 (11‐16 years old), also demonstrated significantly different inter‐group microbial species (p < 0.05). For the first time, Chlamydia and Neisseria gonorrhoeae were detected in giant pandas' reproductive tract. GPV3 vaginal sample (2.63%) showed highest Chlamydia content followed by GPV14 (0.91%), and GPV7 (0.62%). GPV5 vaginal sample (7.17%) showed the highest Neisseria gonorrhoeae content, followed by GPV14 (7.02%), and GPV8 (6.50%). Furthermore, we employed eggNOG, CAZy, KEGG, and NCBI databases to investigate the functional significance of giant panda's vaginal microbial community. The outcomes indicated that giant panda's vaginal microbes were involved in biological processes. The data from this study will help in improving the reproductive health of giant pandas.


Determinants of Spending at two South African Marine National Parks
Despite the rapidly growing number of nature-loving visitors, there is nevertheless stiff competition between nature-based attractions, especially the national parks. However, although many studies of spending behaviour have been done in other tourism fields, using a variety of methods, research on determinants of spending at national parks is sparse. This study identifies determinants of spending at two popular marine parks in South Africa, the Tsitsikamma National Park and the Wilderness National Park. Especially relevant is that the study used multiple methods to identify the determinants and associated tourist preference variables.


Coeliac disease (CD) is an autoimmune enteropathy which occurs in genetically predisposed individuals on exposure to gluten. The recommended diagnostic approach includes serological screening by Anti-tissue Transglutaminase antibody (anti-tTG) followed by a small intestinal biopsy. As high anti-tTG antibody is expected to be significantly associated with MARSH III histopathological changes in the small intestine, it has now become the basis for a biopsy-free approach to diagnose CD. However, we report cases of giardiasis mimicking CD both clinically and serologically; differentiation demands small intestinal biopsy.


The status of arts education in primary schools is, according to the extant literature and popular commentary, infrequent and substandard. A small number of studies reflect on what actually occurs when arts education is taught in primary school classrooms. This thesis presents thick, rich, descriptive portraits of the nature of quality arts education occurring in Australian primary school classrooms. Two case sites were involved in this study – one primary school in Victoria, one in Queensland.
Working within the interpretivist paradigm, portraiture methodology was employed, supported by a case-study approach. Crystallization was used as a methodological referent to ensure the validity and reliability of data collection and representation. The nine domains of Bamford and Glinkowski's (2010) Effect and Impact Tracking Matrix (EITM) acted as a scaffold to inform instrument development, data collection, and subsequent data organisation of completed portraits of quality arts education in Australian primary school classrooms.
Arts education was found to be happening in the primary school classrooms involved in this study, within generalist as well as specialist classrooms. It was asserted that the nature of quality arts education needs to be defined broadly. Such a broad definition is presented.


A high‐temperature optical fiber thermometer made from single crystal sapphire has been developed for use from 600 to approximately 2000 °C. The device consists of a small blackbody cavity which is sputtered on the end of a thin (0.25–1.25‐mm diameter, 0.05–0.30‐m length) sapphire fiber, a connecting low‐temperature glass fiber, and a conventional optical detector. The radiance from the cavity is used to measure its temperature. The present instrument is calibrated at a single temperature and uses the fundamental radiation laws to extrapolate to other temperatures. It is accurate and has a high sensitivity and rapid temporal response. There appear to be a number of applications of the device both in science and industry.


Background: Allied health personnel are inviduals who is working in hospital and consulted by the patients who needs to learn about which department they should apply according to their complaints. Material and Methods: A questionaire was performed to allied health personel working our hospital based on voluntary. The questionnaires were distributed to the 35 people who agreed to participate in the study and were collected after answered. Obtained data was analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 15.0 software program. Results: 62.9% (n = 22) of the 35 participants were secretary and 37.1% (n = 13) were nurses. Most of the study participants (n = 31, 88.6%) said to know thoracic surgery specialists working in the hospital. When asking to participant about organs in region of thorax, of 94.3% (n:33) for lung, of 91.4% (n:32) for heart, of 100% (n:35) for kidney, of 94.3% (n:33) for spleen and of 88.6% (n:31) for gallbladder knew correctly region of organs in thorax. The percentage of Participants who knew the location of timus in the thorax was 20%(n:7). When assesment the answering to question on disease being treated by thoracic surgery, chest trauma, rib fractures and chest deformities were known highly accurate. the correct response rate to answering to question about esophagus, mediastinum, diaphragm and thymus gland diseases and regional hiperhiroz were low.68.6% (n = 24) of the participants knew that lung operations were performed by thoracic surgery and the ratio was 100% (n = 13) for nurses, and 50% (n = 11) for secretary group.When questioned about breast surgery, %82.9 (n:29) of all participants answered as general surgery, this ratio was %100 for nurses. The correct response rate to o questions was higher in nurses compared to secretaries. Conclusion: This study reveals that knowledge and awareness of non-physician health personnels about Thoracic Surgery is insufficient and especially secretarias triaging patients need to be educated on this subject.


Introduction: The advent of effective immunotherapy and targeted therapy, such as ipilimumab (anti-CTLA-4 monoclonal antibody) and vemurafenib (BRAF inhibitor), are changing the treatment paradigm for metastatic melanoma. One of the most readily recognized targets in metastatic melanoma is the oncogenic 'driver' mutations KIT, which is thought to be an important driver mutation in up to 3% of melanomas. Areas covered: We review the current state of development of KIT-targeted agents in melanoma with KIT mutations. The pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profiles of nilotinib are presented, as well its safety clinical activity data. Finally, we present the knowledge learned from the experience of nilotinib in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) to guide its development for melanoma. Expert opinion: Given its favorable safety and efficacy profile in CML and imatinib-resistant GISTs, nilotinib, a second-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor with greater potency than imatinib, emerges as a promising agent in the treatment of metastatic melanoma harboring the KIT mutation and warrants clinical investigation in this setting.


Our attention has been drawn to an article by Dr J. G. Bourne on 'Deaths with dental anaesthetics' in your issue, Anaesthesia (1970) 25,473481. On page 475 under the heading 'Deaths possibly due to upright, or semi-upright position', Case 9 is quoted in which details concerningthis tragedy were not completely reported. The anaesthetic was commenced at 16.15 hrs with the patient in the semi-recumbent position. After induction and the giving of suxamethonium, spontaneous respiration did not recur and the lungs were inflated continuously. Conservative dentistry was completed in 25-30 minutes and at this point, after removal of the pack, it was noticed that all reflexes were absent and, although the patient had a regular bounding pulse, she was not breathing. At this point the child was placed in the horizontal, supine position and lung inflation continued with 100% oxygen, the cuffed endotracheal tube having been left in place. At the end of 45 minutes the patient was still apnoeic so an injection of bemegride 3ml was given intravenously and after about eight minutes slight diaphragmatic movements were seen. Ten minutes later the intercostal muscles showed some response and there were movements of the tongue as well. However, there was no further improvement so vandid 0.5ml was injected intravenously. This produced a discernible tracheal 'tug' but there was no effective respiratory response, so lung inflation was continued. At 20.00 hrs an ambulance was sent for and at 20.15 hrs the patient's pulse became weak and she appeared to have cardiac arrest. Closed cardiac massage was immediately instituted with a return of palpable pulse. The patient was transferred in the ambulance to hospital with the anaesthetist performing direct lung inflation throughout the journey. On admission some thirty minutes later, the child was pulseless with widely dilated pupils and she was not breathing. Active restorative measures were instituted, including the administration of intravenous lignocaine and defibrillation. Resuscitation measures were carried out until 23.40 hrs when the child was certified as dead. At the subsequent inquest it was reported that this child's pseudocholinesterase had been estimated and was found to be 46, using the method of Biggs, Carey & Morrison. The normal range for this method is 90-150 units per ml. It was also mentioned that the child's elder sister, whose pseudocholinesterase level was 100 units, had had an anaesthetic for the same procedure with the same technique a few days earlier and naturally recovered without incident. Once these salient facts have been elicited, it is undoubted that this child died of a 'scoline apnoea', due to an abnormally low pseudocholinesterase. This case is so interesting that the whole family has been investigated and a further communication is in preparation, showing the dangers of using scoline in the dental surgery. I t seems to us a pity that inadequate reporting has cast some doubt on the cause of death in a case that was so carefully and thoroughly investigated. Scientific evaluation of techniques is not assisted by such methods.


By business modelling we refer to how different actors or people are using models and methods in order to understand and change business processes together with their information systems in companies and organisations. From earlier research it is a well-known fact that there are real communication gaps between top managers, business leaders and systems experts when developing organisations. In this context we can distinguish three levels of development work called: (1) strategy development, (2) process development and (3) systems development. The purpose of business modelling is to bridge the communication gap between actors and create a good co-ordination between the three development levels in organisations. A practical approach to accomplish this is to apply a "tool box" thinking for combining models and methods from different levels of development work. Development of multimedia products is a rather new form of change work in today's organisations. Multimedia development therefore interesting to study the role of digital media when developing future organisations. Business modelling constitute in this respect a foundation for multimedia development as it has always been working for other kinds of development work in organisations


It is of great importance to develop an algorithm that autodetects sudden commencement (SC) because it could be an indicator of the onset of the geomagnetic storm. A geomagnetic storm is considered as one of the global processes in the ionosphere-thermosphere-magnetosphere system. Automatic detection of SCs is based on multiresolution analysis of a maximal overlap discrete wavelet transform using a Haar wavelet filter. The proposed algorithm is tested on 1-min-resolution data sets collected from magnetic observatories belonging to the International Real-Time Magnetic Observatory Network. Maximum standard deviation of algorithm detection times is observed to be 1 min of the corresponding arrival times published by the National Geophysical Data Center.


We developed a small-size superconducting bulk magnet system using a 13 K refrigerator. The industrial applications of bulk magnets demand the miniaturization of the magnet apparatus as well as the enhancement of the magnetic field. Downsizing of the apparatus can be achieved by restricting the magnetizing method to pulsed-field magnetization (PFM). PFM of a high-performance bulk, on the other hand, presents a difficult problem, i.e., large heat generation after the application of pulsed fields suppresses a trapped field. Therefore, a Gifford-McMahon cycle helium refrigerator with low ultimate temperature and large cooling capacity was adopted with the expectation to increase the Jc and quickly remove the heat. In a previous magnetizing test using a GdBa2Cu3O7-x bulk material, a trapped field of 2.76 T was achieved. In this paper, we evaluate a trapped field when applying a magnetic field of constant amplitude with varying temperature, and we used a multi-pulse technique with a stepwise cooling (MPSC) method in which several pulsed fields were applied as a function of the amplitude and temperature to improve the trapped field. We successfully trapped a magnetic field of 3.02 T.


The identification and characterization of the main conformations from a protein population is a challenging, inherently high-dimensional problem. We introduce the Secondary sTructural Ensembles with machine LeArning (StELa) double clustering method, which clusters protein structures based on the underlying Ramachandran plot. Our approach takes advantage of the relationship between the phi and psi dihedral angles in a protein backbone and the secondary structure of the protein. The classification of states as vectors composed of the clusters' indices arising naturally from the Ramachandran plot, followed by the hierarchical clustering of the vectors, enables the identification of the minima from the corresponding free energy landscape (FEL) by lifting the high structure degeneracy found with existing approaches such as the RMSD-based clustering GROMOS. We compare the performance of StELa with not only GROMOS but also with CATS, the combinatorial averaged transient structure clustering method based on distributions of the phi and psi dihedral angle coordinates. Using ensembles of conformations from molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of either intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) of various lengths (tau protein fragments) or from local structures from a globular protein, we show that StELa is the only clustering method that identifies nearly all the minima from the corresponding FELs. In contrast, GROMOS yields a large number of clusters that cover the entire FEL and CATS, even with an additional clustering step, is unable to sample well the FEL for long IDPs and for fragments from globular proteins as it misses important minima. TOC Graphic


The purpose of this study is to identify the level of bullying among secondary and primary schools students in Malaysia based on School Bullying Index. This study also try to identify the type of bullying and its frequency, factor of bullying and characteristic of victims. 1395 secondary and primary school students in the state of Johor, Melaka, Negeri Sembilan dan Selangor have been chosen as the respondents. The sampling has been done using the cluster on cluster random sampling method. A set of School Bullying Index questionnaires was used in this study. Reliability value of the instruments was I± = 0.87. Descriptive statistic – frequency, percentages, mean and standard deviation is used to analyze the level and type of bullying and School Bullying Index. The inferencial statistic- t-test is used to analyze the difference of bullying behaviour and Bullying Index between school level, school location and gender. Pearson correlation are used to analyze the relation between the factor of bullying and school bullying index. Results showed, overall level of bullying among school students in four states are low. School bullying index is 38.81. There is no significance difference on bullying behaviour between secondary and primary school and male and female students. There is no significance difference on Bullying Index between secondary and primary school; urban and rural school; and male and female students. Pearson correlation analyze showed that there were significance relation between factor of bullying and bullying index (p=0.005, r=0.103). Based on research finding, suggestion was made to use School Bullying Index as a method to measure level of bullying among students and how successful your intervention programmes against bullying.


Hypertrophic growth of cardiac muscle is dependent on activation of the PKC-epsilon isoform. To define the effectors of PKC-epsilon involved in growth regulation, recombinant adenoviruses were used to overexpress either wild-type PKC-epsilon (PKC-epsilon/WT) or dominant negative PKC-epsilon (PKC-epsilon/DN) in neonatal rat cardiocytes. PKC-epsilon/DN inhibited acute activation of PKC-epsilon produced in response to phorbol ester and reduced ERK1/2 activity as measured by the phosphorylation of p42 and p44 isoforms. The inhibitory effects were specific to PKC-epsilon because PKC-epsilon/DN did not prevent translocation of either PKC-alpha or PKC-delta. Overexpression of PKC-epsilon/DN blunted the acute increase in ERK1/2 phorphorylation induced by the alpha(1)-adrenergic agonist phenylephrine (PE ). Inhibition of PKC-delta with rottlerin potentiated the effects of PE on ERK1/2 phosphorylation. PKC-epsilon/DN adenovirus also blocked cardiocyte growth as measured after 48 h of PE treatment, although the multiplicity of infection was lower than that required to block acute ERK1/2 activation. PE activated p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase as measured by its phosphorylation, but the response was not blocked by PKC inhibitors or by overexpression of PKC-epsilon/DN. Taken together, these studies show that the hypertrophic agonist PE regulates ERK1/2 activity in cardiocytes by a pathway dependent on PKC-epsilon and that PE-induced growth is mediated by PKC-epsilon.


5090 Breast cancer is a major cause of mortality among women worldwide. An understanding of molecular mechanisms regulating breast cancer formation and progression is important for developing new diagnostic tools to identify marker genes in breast cancer early. Our lab has generated a genetically engineered mouse model for breast cancer with a mutant of SV40 T antigen (T121) mediated inactivation of the pRb tumor suppressor family of proteins. We have shown in a WAP-T121 mammary tumor model that T121 is able to induce mammary adenocarcinomas. Most apoptosis in mammary epithelial (ME) cells has been shown to be p53 dependent and p53 heterozygosity results in a shorter tumor latency. The specific transgene for the mouse model of interest here is called MFT121 and has T121 downstream of the MMTV promoter with a floxed eGFP reporter gene upstream of T121. We are crossing these mice to WAP-Cre mice to generate mammary specific expression of T121 under the MMTV promoter. As MMTV is expressed in both virgin and lactating mammary glands unlike WAP (only expressed in lactating glands) this model will allow us to study mammary tumorigenesis in virgin females. We are developing a 3-D mammary epithelial culture using these mice to study T121 onset in these ME cells. We are using the 3D epithelial culture system to investigate mechanisms of T121 mammary tumorigenesis in parallel with genetic studies described above. The presence of a floxed eGFP will give a visual assay for T121 turn on upon Cre viral infection, by deleting GFP expression in the ME cells. To establish that the 3D system recapitulates effects seen in vivo, we are investigating T121 expression, cell proliferation and apoptosis. Confocal microscopy is being utilized to evaluate acinar structure and cellular properties. T121 expression is being detected by immunostaining, proliferation is being detected by immunofluorescence staining of Ki-67 while apoptosis is being detected by ethidium bromide fluorescence. We are determining if apoptosis is p53-dependent by performing parallel experiments with ME from MFT121p53-/- animals. In the future, to evaluate genetic pathways and cooperating lesions in T121 oncogenesis, we will combine T121 expression with dominant expression or suppression of additional genes. MFT121 cells will be infected with retroviruses that express potential cooperating oncogenes or repress transgenes using short hairpin RNAs for RNA interference. We anticipate that the 3D culture system will recapitulate T121-dependent effects on proliferation and apoptosis of ME, providing a powerful model for screening potential cooperating lesions. Such lesions should result in increased proliferation, decreased apoptosis, increased genomic instability or disruption of acinar structures. The increased accessibility of an in vitro system will also allow more careful examination of T121-induced phenotypes, possibly providing additional clues about the mechanism of tumorigenesis.


While emerging standards promote the interoperability of Web services, Web services adaptability to user and application context is a requirement yet to be investigated. Web services today encapsulate application and business logic and are candidates for supporting pervasive environments, where adaptability will have added value in all of these domains. In this paper we introduce the context oriented architecture; an architecture for building context aware applications using Web services as building components. The context oriented architecture uses semantic description to automate monitoring and responding to service context. We extend the specifications and implementation of the semantic Web service ontology language (OWL-S) to represent the context profile of a Web service


Optimal path planning is an important feature of autonomous mobile robot guidance and control during outdoor missions. Offline path planning of any manoeuvres in cluttered environments depends on pre-mission knowledge about topographical features of the landscape between the robot's start position and goal position. A topographical landscape consists of regions with different traversal costs, and it is not necessarily binary in nature. For certain extraterrestrial or cross-country missions, where a lack of vehicular resources has to be handled, there is a strong need to calculate an optimal path according to a given optimization criterion. The paper presents a genetic approach to the problem. Evolutionary computation is used to carry out path optimization.


Proxy signatures allow a signer to delegate signing ability to a proxy signer. Many schemes have been proposed for proxy signatures under typical security requirements. The authors propose a proxy signature model with extended security requirements. Based on Shamir's online/offline signature scheme, a proxy signature scheme is proposed for the model. In addition to the typical requirements, the proposed scheme satisfies other very important security requirements. It is shown that the scheme can provide signature indistinguishability, restrict the proxy signing power, provide signature unlinkability, resolve internal disputes, and is more efficient.


The struggling private healthcare sector has become "complacent" and has failed to convince enough people that it offers value for money, a senior BUPA executive has said.

Alex Perry, general manager of the private health insurance scheme BUPA UK, said that 2014 had been "another year of decline" for the sector and that it now required fundamental reform to deliver future growth. He said that a bright future was possible but that the sector must overcome "historic divisions," seek regulatory change, and make a better case for itself to bring more people into the market.

"We need to cut through the accusations and myths that surround private healthcare; we need to positively promote the impact that we all can and do have on the nation's health," he said. Perry spoke at a summit on UK private healthcare held in London on 23 June at the …


Data on 9956 patients concerning the diagnosis (ICD-9) and treatment of depressive syndromes were collected in psychiatric office practice. About 50% of the patients were over 50 years of age. Among all depressive disorders, neurotic and endogenous depression were found to have the highest prevalence. Amitriptyline and Doxepin were preferred in psychopharmacological treatment. Supportive Psychotherapy was practised extensively while highly structured psychoanalytical or behavioural forms of psychotherapy were relatively rare. The discussion emphasizes a methodological and epidemiological research perspective.


BACKGROUND/AIMS
The present study was designed to provide a systematic analysis of prognosis of patients who underwent hepatic resection for intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC).

METHODOLOGY
Subjects were 36 consecutive ICC patients who had undergone hepatic resection between 1994 and 2005. The analyzed factors included various clinicopathological and surgical parameters, counts of microvessel stained for CD34 and expression of proliferative cell nuclear antigen.

RESULTS
The 1, 2, 3-year disease-free survival rates after surgery were 33, 18, and 0% and the 1, 3 and 5-year overall survival rates were 45, 29, and 8%. High CEA levels (> or = 10 ng/mL), excessive intraoperative blood loss (> or = 1000 mL) and presence of neighboring peritoneal dissemination were significantly associated with shorter disease-free survival (p < 0.05). High CEA levels, periductal invasion type, excessive intraoperative blood loss and non-fibrotic liver were significant factors associated with shorter overall survival (p < 0.05). Multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression model identified high CEA values, periductal invasive type, excessive intraoperative blood loss and non-fibrotic liver as significant and independent determinants of poor prognosis.

CONCLUSIONS
Hepatic resection with minimal blood loss followed by close follow-up is a suitable strategy for management of ICC patients with poor prognostic factors.


Context. The article discusses the issues of increasing the accuracy of automatic control of a moving object using a mathematical model of a meter and a device observing measurement errors in the on-board controller of the control system. The object of the research is the processes of automatic control of a moving object with a mathematical model of a meter and a device observing measurement errors in the on-board controller of the control system. The subject of the research is a method and algorithms for increasing the accuracy of automatic control of a moving object with a mathematical model of a meter and a device observing measurement errors in the on-board controller of the control system. Objective. The aim of research is an improving the accuracy of automatic control of a moving object. Method. This aim is achieved through the use in the on-board controller of the control system of the mathematical meter model and the observing device built on its basis, the estimation of the useful component and the systematic error, depending on the motion parameters of the controlled object, using only the useful component for control, without systematic error. Results. A method and algorithms for increasing the control accuracy of a moving object through the use in the on-board controller of a mathematical meter model and an observer of systematic measurement errors, built on its basis, have been developed. The efficiency and effectiveness of the developed method and algorithms were confirmed by mathematical modeling in the MATLAB environment of the control processes of a moving object in a closed circuit with a control system. Conclusions. The results of mathematical modeling confirmed the operability and efficiency of the proposed method and algorithms and allow them to be used for practical purposes in the development of mathematical support for high – precision automatic control systems.


We propose a human-centred process for knowledge discovery from unstructured text that makes use of formal concept analysis and emergent self-organizing maps. The knowledge discovery process is conceptualized and interpreted as successive iterations through the concept–knowledge (C–K) theory design square. To illustrate its effectiveness, we report on a real-life case study of using the process at the Amsterdam–Amstelland police in the Netherlands aimed at distilling concepts to identify domestic violence from the unstructured text in actual police reports. The case study allows us to show how the process was not only able to uncover the nature of a phenomenon such as domestic violence, but also enabled analysts to identify many types of anomaly in the practice of policing. We will illustrate how the insights obtained from this exercise resulted in major improvements in the management of domestic violence cases. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Resistance to leaching and re-usability are characteristic of the novel heterogeneous Lewis acid catalyst that was prepared by anchoring tin(IV) chloride on silica grafted with tetraalkylammonium or pyridinium chloride groups. The catalyst displays high activity and selectivity in the synthesis of 3-methyl-3-buten-1-ol by the Prins condensation of isobutene with formaldehyde [Eq. (1)].


Abstract Objective The lack of a standard technique may be a relevant issue in teaching endoscopic endonasal surgery (EES) to novice surgeons. The objective of this article is to compare different endoscope positioning and microsurgical dissection techniques in EES training. Methods A comparative trial was designed to evaluate three techniques: group A, one surgeon performing binarial two-hands dissection using an endoscope holder (rigid endoscopy); group B, two surgeons performing a combined binarial two- and three-handed dissection with one surgeon guiding the endoscope (dynamic endoscopy); and group C, two surgeons performing a binarial two-hands dissection with one surgeon dedicated to endoscope positioning and the other dedicated to a two-handed dissection. Trainees were randomly assigned to these groups and oriented to complete surgical tasks in a validated training model for EES. A global rating scale, and a specific-task checklist for EES were used to assess surgical skills. Results The mean scores of the global rating scale and the specific-task checklist were higher (p = 0.001 and 0.002, respectively) for group C, reflecting the positive impact of dynamic endoscopy and bimanual dissection on training performance. Conclusions We found that dynamic endoscopic and bimanual-binarial microdissection techniques had a significant positive impact on EES training.


This paper is aimed to verify whether the knowledge and beliefs of female medical freshmen about HIV infection, their personal risk perception, and their sexual behaviour differs from their female peers, in view of the possibility of female medical student-based peer education. A purposive, theoretical quota sampling method was used to recruit the target population. A self-administered anonymous questionnaire was delivered to both female medical and non medical freshmen during March 2004 (n = 266: 124 medical students and 142 non medical students) in Catania (Sicily). The data were analysed for the whole sample and for the two groups of students individually. The Chi-square test was used to compare data from the two groups of students. Results showed that knowledge and risk perception about HIV infection were higher for medical students when compared with non medical students. Moreover, a lower rate of sexually active medical students and a higher rate of condom use was found among them. Since female medical students seem more sensitive to risk perception and aware of healthier lifestyles, they could be useful in peer sexual education and appropriate prevention programmes against HIV infection.


The manuscript by Cancelas et al. [1] requires clarification with respect to the secondary testing of samples for antibodies reactive with amustaline-treated RBCs. Because no positive samples were detected in primary screening at the study sites, no secondary testing was performed at a central reference laboratory (American Red Cross, Pomona, CA). In addition, the Acknowledgements section of the paper should read as follows:


The factors studied included 1) the effects of temperature after collection of the blood sample, 2) the time interval between collection and separation of serum, 3) the effect of storage at room temperature and in refrigeration for differing periods of time, and 4) influence of different degrees of haemolysis on the inorganic phosphorus level. Inorganic phosphorus was also determined in plasma and whole blood, and the values were compared with those found Iii the serum. The inorganic phosphorus values were elevated significanty when the serum was separated after the blood had remained at room temperature for more than 3 hours; there was no significant difference when the serum was separated after the blood had been refrigerated for up to 24 hours. The phosphorus values were not altered when the serum was kept up to 7 days in the refrigerator, deep freezer, or at room temperature with one drop of formalin for each 3 ml of serum. Slight or moderate haemolysis did not, influence the serum inorganic phosphorus values, when the serum was separated within 24 hours after the collection of the blood. When serum with slight or moderate haemolysis was examined there was no difference because of storage for 7 days, of storage in the refrigerator or storage at room temperature with formalin. Serum with severe haemolysis had significantly higher phosphorus values following all three types of storage. Inorganic phosphorus estimation in the serum gave significantly higher values than those from plasma or whole blood, with a regression coefficient of Y (phosphorus of plasma) ═ -0.44 + 0.907 X (phosphorus of serum) and Y (phosphorus of serum) ═ 1.38 + 1.07 X (phosphorus of whole blood).


Stress is an important fact of everyday life that can have a major effect on emotional and physical well-being. Stress is best defined as the adaptation response by the body to a stressor (ie, the perceived stimulus). Psychoneuroimmunology is the study of the ways in which psychosocial interactions cause neuroendocrine responses and, at times, physical changes. An increasing body of evidence suggests a causative role for acute and chronic stress in many medical disorders and psychiatric states. Methods of measuring and assessing stress factors need to also evaluate patients' coping and adaptive mechanisms.


Many people in the UK do not claim benefits to which they seem to be entitled. Amongst those of working-age, take-up rates for Family Credit an in-work benefit available to those with children and working at least 16 hours a week were the lowest of the main three means-tested benefits.

In 1999, the UK Government replaced Family Credit with Working Families' Tax Credit, which was more generous, and delivered in a different way from FC. As a prelude to further work (now published as an update to this in the final report), we have analysed the decision to take up FC, and how take-up changed during the initial 6 month phase-in period of WFTC.

Although there are differences in how well each records receipt of FC, we find reassuring similarities in comparable econometric models of take-up estimated on three different micro-data-sets. Entitlement, earnings, non-labour income, and education attainment are the most important determinants of FC take-up.

We investigated FC take-up in greater detail using only the Family Resources Survey. Social renters are more likely to claim FC than owner occupiers or those in the private rental market, and we find that housing benefit recipients seem to under-value the potential fall in HB when considering whether to claim FC. We find that the Family Credit childcare disregard had little impact on the likelihood of take-up.

Take-up of WFTC, conditional on entitlement, fell immediately after its introduction, compared to FC, but the majority of the effect is explained by the relatively low take-up rates of those families who were not previously entitled to FC. This is unsurprising, as we would not expect this group to have claimed WFTC on the first day of its existence. Work currently in progress is examining how take-up of WFTC, and the factors associated with take-up, changed between April 2000 and March 2003.


A variety of photomodulated thermoreflectance (PMTR) data have been obtained for two germanium wafer samples (one crystalline and the other ion-implanted and unannealed), and three silicon wafer samples (one crystalline, unimplanted; the other implanted and flash-annealed; and the third an amorphous thin layer). Physically different mechanisms contributing to the PMTR signals have been formulated theoretically for these materials. For the crystalline and implanted-annealed samples it was found that the PMTR signal has two main components, one due to temperature modulation (thermal wave); the other due to the free-carrier density modulation (the Drude effect). For the ion-implanted-unannealed and amorphous materials two components were found to be dominant: one due to the thermal wave; the other due to the band-filling of localized gap states. The two component mechanisms were validated in a quantitative manner by curve-fitting experimental PMTR frequency-response data, while taking into account the photocurrent (PC) responses of the samples. As a result, unambiguous deconvolution of the electron-hole plasma or trapped-carrier contribution and the thermal-wave component to the PMTR signal were obtained throughout the frequency range 1 kHz–1.6 MHz.


The photoinduced entropy of InGaN/GaN p-i-n nanowires was investigated using temperature-dependent (6–290 K) photoluminescence. We also analyzed the photocarrier dynamics in the InGaN active regions using time-resolved photoluminescence. An increasing trend in the amount of generated photoinduced entropy of the system above 250 K was observed, while we observed an oscillatory trend in the generated entropy of the system below 250 K that stabilizes between 200 and 250 K. Strong exciton localization in indium-rich clusters, carrier trapping by surface defect states, and thermodynamic entropy effects were examined and related to the photocarrier dynamics. We conjecture that the amount of generated photoinduced entropy of the system increases as more non-radiative channels become activated and more shallowly localized carriers settle into deeply localized states; thereby, additional degrees of uncertainty related to the energy of states involved in thermionic transitions are attained.


Failure times of semiconductor lasers are usually lengthy under normal aging conditions. Determination of failure times typically involves extrapolation using a sublinear or linear model. It becomes increasingly difficult to experimentally determine activation energy and current exponent since data based on lower temperatures and lower stress currents are required. In this paper, the temperature and current dependences of 1310-nm buried heterostructure (BH) InP lasers were studied. We show that the activation energy of 1310-nm BH lasers based on life test data at 70/spl deg/C-100/spl deg/C is higher than the value of 0.4 eV suggested by Telcordia. The activation energies estimated by sublinear and linear models were 0.87 and 0.55 eV, respectively. We also show that the current exponents are 1.4 and 1.0, respectively, for sublinear and linear models. We discuss the implications of the reliability results in field reliability predictions.


The aim of adjuvant hormone therapy for breast cancer is to reach, in daily practice, an efficacy similar to that obtained in clinical trials. In spite of the demonstrated efficacy of hormone therapy, compliance represents a major challenge and a multidimensional problem. A better understanding of the reasons underlying non-compliance would help identify the patients at higher risk and would permit the implementation of strategies to improve compliance to adjuvant hormone therapy. With this in mind, we undertook a review of the recent literature on the topic (Pub Med 2003-2009).


Water purification and filtration is a global issue and many researchers are engaged to resolve this problem by adopting the scientific approach, graphene sand composite was prepared through bio- synthesized technique. River sand was used in this context to remove the impurities already present in the sand 0.1M nitric acid treated the sand and the product was powder black in colour, referred as GSC, graphene sand composite. SEM, XRD and FTIR characterization was used to analyze the results. SEM images showed nano sized layers or sheets of graphene extending outwards.The XRD peak represents the multi lagered graphene structure which is formed by the treatment of the composite with acid and application of the high temperature during experiment UV-visible spectroscopy results successfully reveals the filtration difference between mud water and filtered water.


The aim of this research is compare between nine drought indices and evaluate their performance with respect to predict and monitoring drought over Middle Euphrates region during period from 1988 to 2017.These indices are RDI, Normal SPI, Gamma SPI, Log SPI, CZI, MCZI, RAI, PN, and DI.Season and annual time scale were used to calculate all indices at Dewaniya, Hilla, Karbala, Najaf, and Semawa stations. The Pearson correlation coefficient between nine drought indices were analyzed. Annual and seasonal results illustrated that the maximum value of correlation between RDI and the other indices was noted with Gamma SPI and Log SPI at all stations. In annual time scale, the correlation coefficient reached to (0.99) at all stations except Hilla station, where it reached to (0.98), while in seasonal time scale the correlation coefficient reached to (0.98) at all stations. The RDI, Gamma SPI and Log SPI indices have similarity of classes and frequencies for drought. They also have similarity of frequencies for wet but there are minimum differences between wet classes compared to other indices. The RDI, Gamma SPI and Log SPI are good indices to predict and monitoring drought in study area in comparison to other indices which mentioned above.


In the megacity of Karachi, which has a population of more than 24 million, more than 9.2 million people (approximately 40 per cent) live in squatter settlements. Communities here are characterised by low socioeconomic settings, crowded living conditions, inadequate water and sanitation facilities, and poor health-related behaviours. Such conditions create an environment favourable to the spread of communicable diseases like tuberculosis (TB), hepatitis and dengue.

Since 1985, the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan has run the Urban Health Program (UHP), a community-campus partnership operating in these disadvantaged squatter settlements. Recent explosive increases in the spread of dengue, hepatitis and TB, however, necessitated special attention and activities on a scale and pace that was greater than could be accommodated as part of UHP's core work. Thus, having an already well-established collaborative model with social accountability measures in place, a dedicated mass awareness program was initiated over the course of one year, from mid 2015: the AGAHI project.

This article describes AGAHI's innovative, low-cost, collaborative activities conducted in partnership with two squatter communities, Sultanabad and Rehri Goth, to build health awareness, improved care-seeking and compliance to treatment. Activities ranged from school sessions, role plays and awareness walks to laneway meetings, training of health care workers, door-to-door campaigns and collaboration with local religious leaders, public sector groups and NGOs.

Building on the collaborative work of the UHP, in just 12 months AGAHI was able to conduct 80 health awareness sessions with 4000 participants. Moreover, high-risk and vulnerable populations were identified and referred for further treatment. A comparative cross-sectional survey afterwards revealed a significant increase in knowledge among Sultanabad residents as compared to the neighbouring settlement of Hijrat Colony. As a result, this article suggests that the need for and efficacy of targeted health awareness campaigns against the major infectious diseases of poverty cannot be overemphasised. By adopting community-based participatory models, couched in a framework of social accountability, activities that are low cost, innovative and scientifically robust hold real potential for improving health awareness in vulnerable megacities like Karachi.


Skin consists of three structurally and functionally distinct compartments containing resident and nonresident cells. These cells cooperative with humoral pathway of immune system in defence of healthy skin. Resident and nonresident cells are able to initiate inflammatory or immune processes of skin, although interstitial reactions (activation by bacteria, immunoglobulin or complement) also take place in such processes. In normal conditions nonresident cells can migrate through vascular endothel, however, PMN granulocytes and B lymphocytes cannot. Resident and nonresident cells of skin are capable of exerting a wide range of immunomodulatory effects, among them keratinocytes are of distinguished significance producing arachidon metabolites and IL-1 as well. Activated skin cells might induce chemotactic migration of distinct white blood cells normally absent or only a few cells being present in healthy skin. Cell migration into the interstitial space of skin is mediated by adhesion molecules expressed on cell surface of migrating cells, vascular endothel cells and on keratinocytes. Composition and density of adhesion molecules vary by type of stimuli, therefore various cytokines might induce distinct reactions mediated by certain population of cells. In addition, initiation and progress of immune- or inflammatory reactions are determined by the involved cell-populations as well. Normal regulation provides appropriate control and termination of the reaction, however, uncontrolled regulation results in development of pathological state.


The employees are considered the most significant asset of the organization and most of the employees thoughts are concentrated on their career growth and so the organization may identify and understand the needs and views of the employees regarding their career in order to retain them in the organization. Career development is described as the interactive progression of internal career identity formation and the growth of external career significance the aim of the study was to determine the influence of career development on demographic variables of the employees. The research process utilizes documentary, exploratory and descriptive research design.


Background: Ventriculoperitoneal shunts become infected predominantly during surgery. Optimal antibiotic prophylaxis during cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) shunt surgery has not been fully determined. Objective: To quantitate the concentrations of vancomycin and gentamicin in the serum and CSF during 100 ventriculoperitoneal shunt surgeries at the time of shunt manipulation. Design: Descriptive, prospective, observational study with a 27- to 76-month postoperative follow-up period range. Setting: University hospital. Patients: Eighty-three hydrocephalic patients ranging from premature to adult ages. Interventions: Intraoperatively, children received intravenous vancomycin 15 mg/kg/dose and gentamicin 2.5 mg/kg/dose; adults received vancomycin 1 g/dose and gentamicin 1.5 mg/kg/dose. Antibiotics were continued for 24 hours postoperatively, with dosage and schedule adjusted for age. Antibiotic serum and CSF concentrations were sampled one hour after infusion, and measured via fluorescence polarization immunoassay. Meticulous surgical infection control measures were followed. Main Outcome Measures: Correlation of intraoperative serum and CSF antibiotic concentrations with postoperative infection rate. Results: Intraoperative vancomycin serum concentrations ranged from 10.8 to 53.8 μg/mL (28.0 ± 9.5 μg/mL, mean ± SD). Intraoperative gentamicin serum concentrations ranged from 3.9 to 9.4 μg/mL (4.8 ± 2.0 μg/mL). In all surgeries, intraoperative CSF vancomycin and gentamicin concentrations were low (vancomycin <5 μg/mL, gentamicin <2 μg/mL). The infection rate among surgeries was 2.0%, and the infection rate among patients was 2.4%. Two shunt infections occurred, one with Candida albicans and one with Citrobacter freundii. Conclusions: Serum concentrations of vancomycin and gentamicin were above the minimum inhibitory concentrations for likely pathogens in 84% and 74% of surgeries, respectively. Intraoperative bacteriostatic and bactericidal CSF antibiotic concentrations may not be necessary to achieve a low postoperative shunt infection rate. Larger confirmatory studies are needed.


CN15-02 Melanoma occurs mainly in fair-skinned individuals who burn rather than tan after ultraviolet (UV) exposure. This phenotype correlates with dysfunction in the melanocortin-1 receptor (Mc1r), the receptor on melanocytes for melanocyte stimulating hormone. When the activity of this Gs-protein coupled receptor is sub-optimal, there is muted cytoplasmic cAMP signaling and the melanocyte produces pheomelanin, a sulfated lighter pigment with poor UV-blocking ability, rather than eumelanin, the brown-black melanin polymer highly protective against UV injury. Our goal is to develop novel UV-protective strategies by pharmacologically rescuing eumelanin production in fair-skinned individuals who, because of Mc1r loss-of-function polymorphisms, cannot melanize effectively. Using a transgenic murine model of "humanized skin" of variant pigment composition, we show that UV damage in the skin (including carcinogenesis) is much greater in pheomelanotic animals than in eumelanotic animals. Furthermore, we find that topical application of forskolin, a direct activator of adenylyl cyclase, by-passes defective Mc1r signaling in pheomelanotic mice and rescues robust eumelanin production in the skin. Importantly, this pigment accumulation is highly protective against both acute and chronic UV injury. Pharmacologic eumelanization is well-tolerated by the animals over several months, and does not induce damage response signals in the skin in contrast to natural tanning responses after UV exposure. Forskolin-induced eumelanin persists as long as the drug is applied daily to the surface of the skin (now tested for four months) and is reversible upon discontinuation of topical treatments. Melanin deposition after forskolin application mimics the natural nuclear capping pattern found in UV-exposed skin of darker pigment phenotype, and induces thickening of the epidermis much like natural UV-induced tanning responses. Manipulating natural melanin pigments by small molecules (sunless tanning) holds great potential for being an important novel UV-protective strategy with particular benefit to those populations most at risk of melanoma and other skin cancers.


Rehabilitation devices require a very precise actuating system. In this paper, a flexible joint actuator is proposed as an actuating system of an intelligent active orthosis. To generate joint torque as desired, a spring is installed between a motor and human joint and the motor is controlled to have a proper spring deflection for torque control. When the desired torque is zero, the motor should follow human joint motion which requires that the friction and inertia of the motor are compensated. The human joint and body part represent the load to the flexible joint actuator. They interact with environment and their parameters are not fixed. The controller for the flexible joint actuator must operate under these conditions.


We consider the problem of optimal routing of arriving packets into N servers having no waiting room. Packets that are routed to a busy server are lost. We consider two problems where the objective is to maximize the expected throughput (or equivalently, minimize the loss rate). We assume that the controller has no information on the state of the server. We establish the optimality of the so called "balanced" policies, for exponential service times and general stationary arrival processes, which include, in particular, the interrupted Poisson process, Markov modulated Poisson Process and Markov arrival process. Based on this solution, we solve the dual problem of optimal assignment of a single server to several single server queues to which packets arrive according to Poisson processes. This general model is then applied to solve an optimal scheduling problem for robots of Web search engines.


This proposal addresses the implementation and testing of new components of forensic analytics and biometrics and how this research might be integrated into the CSI Summer Academy program that takes place each summer at the University of Central Oklahoma. The experiment designed for this proposal uses two groups of students from the university performing similar activities on computers monitored by a keystroke logger and mouse tracker to collect data. In the experiment, one group of participants is the valid user group and the other group is the hacker group. This proposal seeks to answer two main research questions using data from this experiment: What is the accuracy rate of the keystroke biometrics for detecting unauthorized users? and What is the accuracy rate of the mouse biometrics for detecting unauthorized users? The design of this proposed study is quasi-experiment, the method is quantitative, and the time scope is cross-sectional. The data from the proposed experiment will be analyzed using the multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to determine whether there is any statistical evidence either supporting or rejecting the research hypothesis that behavioral biometrics can accurately identify intruders. Researchers hypothesize that there are significant differences in the ways that authentic users and hackers use the mouse and keyboard. Insights on how to stop hackers can be helpful for preventing cybercrimes. As forensic analytics and biometrics are integrated into the CSI Summer Academy, students will be introduced to an innovative, ever-expanding field of forensics that will provide them with increased technology skills and educators will be provided with new, updated teaching resources. The real-world implications of this work in the future include decreased cybercrime, a safer internet experience, increased crime prevention techniques, and even possibly lives being saved.


In this paper, we consider the channel routing problem involving two-terminal nets on rectilinear grids. An efficient algorithm is described which necessarily finds a routing in a given grid whenever it exists. The algorithm is not a heuristic but an exact one, and works for a rather large class of grids, called convex grids, including the grids of rectangular, T-, L-, or X-shape boundaries. Both the running time and required space are linear in the number of vertices of a grid.


The post-injury inflammatory response is a key mediator in long-term recovery from traumatic brain injury (TBI). Moreover, the immune response to TBI, mediated by microglia and macrophages, is influenced by existing brain pathology and by secondary immune challenges. For example, recent evidence shows that the presence of beta-amyloid and phosphorylated tau protein, two hallmark features of AD that increase during normal aging, substantially alter the macrophage response to TBI. Additional data demonstrate that post-injury microglia are "primed" and become hyper-reactive following a subsequent acute immune challenge thereby worsening recovery. These alterations may increase the incidence of neuropsychiatric complications after TBI and may also increase the frequency of neurodegenerative pathology. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to summarize experimental studies examining the relationship between TBI and development of AD-like pathology with an emphasis on the acute and chronic microglial and macrophage response following injury. Furthermore, studies will be highlighted that examine the degree to which beta-amyloid and tau accumulation as well as pre- and post-injury immune stressors influence outcome after TBI. Collectively, the studies described in this review suggest that the brain's immune response to injury is a key mediator in recovery, and if compromised by previous, coincident, or subsequent immune stressors, post-injury pathology and behavioral recovery will be altered.


This paper presents a novel statistical characterization for accurate timing and a new probabilistic-based analysis for estimating the leakage power in partially depleted silicon-on-insulator (PD-SOI) circuits in 100-nm BSIMSOI3.2 technology. This paper shows that the accuracy of modeling the leakage current in PD-SOI complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) circuits is improved by considering the interactions between the subthreshold leakage and the gate tunneling leakage, the stacking effect, the history effect, and the fan-out effect, along with a new input-independent method for estimating the leakage power based on a probabilistic approach. The proposed timing and leakage power estimate algorithms are implemented in MATLAB, HSPICE, and C. The proposed methodology is applied to ISCAS85 benchmarks, and the results show that the error is within 5%, compared with random simulation results.


The purpose of this paper is to identify the determinants of bank profitability in 13 post-Soviet countries. Within this scope, annual data between 1996 and 2016 is analyzed by using fixed effects panel regression and the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM). It is concluded that loan amount, non-interest income and economic growth are significant indicators of profitability. Moreover, the 2008 global mortgage crisis has a negative influence on bank profitability in post-Soviet countries. According to the estimation results, there is a positive relationship between non-interest income and economic growth with profitability. This result shows that when non-interest income of the banks increases, such as credit card fees and commission, it affects the financial performance of the banks, positively, and contributes to bank profitability. Another result of this study is that economic growth positively influences bank profitability. This result allows us to conclude that higher GDP comes with higher bank profitability for post-Soviet countries. Lastly, there is a negative relationship between loan-to-GDP ratio and profitability of the banks in post-Soviet countries. This means that when the ratio of total loans to GDP increases, it affects financial performance of the banks in a negative way. While considering this result, it is recommended that banks in post-Soviet countries should focus on ways to increase their non-interest income. Additionally, it is also significant for these banks to be careful and risk averse when lending to their customers.


ABSTRACT Audiometric records of 449 male manual steelworkers were reviewed to see whether the hearing of men with high initial threshold levels deteriorated more rapidly than that of those men with more normal thresholds when exposed to similar noise levels. Subjects were between 15 and 54 years old at the time of initial examination, and had a repeat audiogram 6-8 years later. They were classified into three occupational noise exposure groups: below 90 dB(A), 90-99 dB(A), and 100 dB(A) or over, without knowledge of their audiometric threshold levels, age, or aural history. Measurements at 0·5, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 kHz for the right ear were considered, first as the mean for all six frequencies, then for 0·5, 1 and 2 kHz only, and finally for 6 kHz only. After standardisation for age, it was found that those in the high initial threshold groups deteriorated no faster than the remainder of the series. At the 90-99 dB(A) noise exposure level, χ2 tests showed that the differences between the groups, in terms of mean measured hearing loss, were not significant at the 0·05 probability level. The age-standardised mean threshold shifts for the 0·5-6 kHz range of frequencies over the seven-year review period were 7·5, 8·7 and 7·1 dB at a noise exposure level of 100 dB(A) or more, for workers with an initial threshold level of <12 dB, 12-26 dB and > 26 dB respectively; for those exposed to noise of 90-99 dB(A) the corresponding mean shifts were 7·8, 6·8 and 7·3 dB respectively; while for those exposed to noise of less than 90 dB(A) the mean shifts were 6·2, 5·0 and 5·2 dB respectively.


In wireless sensor networks have imposed significant challenges for the medium access control (MAC) protocol design to provide reliable communication with good data rates and low energy consumption using Sleep wake cycle nodes. Most of the MAC protocols proposed for wireless sensor networks assume static sensor nodes but nodes know their locations, and they sleep-wake cycle, waking up periodically but not synchronously, which usually causes up gradation  in network performance in scenarios involving mobile sensors. when a node has a packet to forward to the sink, there is a trade-off between how long this node waits for a suitable neighbor to wake up and the progress the packet makes towards the sink once it is forwarded to this neighbor In this paper, we introduce a mobility aware and energy efficient medium access protocol with sleep and wake up cycle (shortly abbreviated as MMAC-SW) for mobile wireless sensor   networks. Our MMAC-SW is based on a hybrid scheme of TDMA and CSMA that informs sensor nodes when to wakeup or when to go to sleep to save energy. Through computer simulations, we evaluate the performance of the MMAC-SW and compare it against the MMAC protocol. Simulation results will show that MMAC-SW outperforms MMAC in terms of energy consumption, packet delivery ratio and average packet delay.


At the onset of exercise, both cardiac output and ventilation increase abruptly. We investigated the hypothesis that a rapid change in cardiac output, as effected by an immediate increase in heart rate at the start of exercise and a decrease in heart rate at the termination of exercise, affects the responses of oxygen uptake. Five patients in whom programmable pacemakers had been previously inserted for complete heart block were studied. Responses in ventilation and gas exchange were recorded breath by breath during studies in which each subject performed 16 transitions between rest and moderate exercise on a cycle ergometer. In a randomized fashion, in half of the transitions, heart rate was accelerated from a low rate to a high rate as exercise began; in the other half, heart rate was held constant at the low rate as exercise began. Oxygen uptake increased by 30 percent in the first 20 seconds of exercise, when heart rate was constrained, while it increased by 70 percent when heart rate was abruptly accelerated. Similarly, smaller changes were observed at the cessation of exercise when the heart rate was constrained, as compared to an abrupt decrease in heart rate. Despite this difference in the responses of oxygen uptake, at the transitions in exercise, the ventilatory responses were indistinguishable. We have demonstrated that ventilation-independent changes in oxygen uptake can be induced at the onset and cessation of exercise. These alterations in oxygen uptake are predictable from differences in blood flow which occur as a consequence of the differences in time course of the heart rate.


A Dissertation Submitted to School of Business (SOB) in Fulfillment of the
Requirement for the Award of Musters Degree in Business Corporate Management
(MBA-Corporate) of Mzumbe University


The thalamus appears to be involved in the flexible routing of information among cortical areas, yet the computational implications of such routing are only beginning to be explored. Here we create a connectionist model of how selectively gated cortico-thalamo-cortical relays could underpin both symbolic and sub-symbolic computations. We first show how gateable relays can be used to create a Dynamically Partitionable Auto-Associative Network (DPAAN) (Hayworth, 2012) consisting of a set of cross-connected cortical memory buffers. All buffers and relays in a DPAAN are trained simultaneously to have a common set of stable attractor states that become the symbol vocabulary of the DPAAN. We show via simulations that such a DPAAN can support operations necessary for syntactic rule-based computation, namely buffer-to-buffer copying and equality detection. We then provide each DPAAN module with a multilayer input network trained to map sensory inputs to the DPAAN's symbol vocabulary, and demonstrate how gateable thalamic relays can provide recall and clamping operations to train this input network by Contrastive Hebbian Learning (CHL) (Xie and Seung, 2003). We suggest that many such DPAAN modules may exist at the highest levels of the brain's sensory hierarchies and show how a joint snapshot of the contents of multiple DPAAN modules can be stored as a declarative memory in a simple model of the hippocampus. We speculate that such an architecture might first have been 'discovered' by evolution as a means to bootstrap learning of more meaningful cortical representations feeding the striatum, eventually leading to a system that could support symbolic computation. Our model serves as a bridging hypothesis for linking controllable thalamo-cortical information routing with computations that could underlie aspects of both learning and symbolic reasoning in the brain.


Article History:Received:11 February 2021; Accepted: 27 March 2021; Published online: 5 April 2021 Abstract : Excellent performance of the digital detector can generate medical images at a lower dose. However, if a certain level of dose exposure of the sensor detector can generate an image to recognize it. In this study, the exposure conditions of the forearm, femur, and ankle joint tests currently used in clinical trials were tested with lower doses. The resolution pattern was analyzed using the Image J program, and the results were obtained by analyzing the Interactive 3D Surface Plot. In addition, by measuring the surface dose and absorbed dose, the digital detector finds the minimum conditions to make an image, and also checks the effect of dose reduction. The image of the obtained resolution pattern was analyzed by Plot profile using Image J program. It was confirmed that the gray value width decreased at the same pixel distance as the exposure conditions decreased. Even if the exposure conditions were lowered from step 1 to step 4, which is the standard condition of the forearm test, the resolution showed no difference at 1.4 Lp/mm. In the Interactive 3D Surface Plot, as the range of the gray scale lowered the exposure condition, the shape of the surface contours gradually became blurred and the contrast of black and white shades decreased. The resolution from step 1 to step 3, which is the standard condition of the femur bone test, was 1.2 Lp/mm, indicating no difference. Even if the exposure conditions were lowered from step 1 to step 4, which is the standard condition for ankle examination, the resolution showed no difference at 1.4 Lp/mm. It is thought that it is necessary to accumulate a lot of data by further subdividing the stage of exposure conditions according to the thickness in more areas.


Proceedings: AACR 104th Annual Meeting 2013; Apr 6-10, 2013; Washington, DC

EML4-ALK fusion gene has been recently identified in a small subset of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who respond positively to ALK inhibitors. The characteristics of EML4-ALK fusion gene in Chinese patients with NSCLC are poorly understood. Here, we report on the prevalence of EML4-ALK, EGFR status and KRAS mutations in 208 Chinese patients with NSCLC. EGFR mutations were found in 24.5% (51/208) of patients. In concordance with previous reports, these mutations were identified at high frequencies in females (47.5% vs 15.0% in males; P > 0.05); never-smokers (42.3% vs 13.9% in smokers; P < 0.05), and adenocarcinoma patients (44.2% vs 8.0% in non-adenocarcinoma patients; P < 0.05). There were only 2.88% (6/208) patients with KRAS mutations in our study group. We identified 7 patients who harbored the EML4-ALK fusion gene (3.37%, 7/208), including 4 cases with variant 3 (57.1%), 2 with variant 1, and 1 with variant 2. All positive cases corresponded to female patients (11.5%, 7/61). Six of the positive cases were non-smokers (7.69%, 6/78). The incidence of EML4-ALK translocation in female, non-smoking adenocarcinoma patients was as high as 15.2% (5/33). No EGFR/KRAS mutations were detected among the EML4-ALK positive patients. Pathological analysis showed no difference between solid signet-ring cell pattern (4/7) and mucinous cribriform pattern (3/7) in ALK-positive patients. Immunostaining showed intratumor heterogeneity of ALK rearrangement in primary carcinomas and 50% (3/6) of metastatic tumors with ALK-negative staining. Meta-analysis demonstrated that EML4-ALK translocation occurred in 4.84% (125/2580) of unselected patients with NSCLC, and was also predominant in non-smoking patients with adenocarcinoma. Taken together, EML4-ALK translocations were infrequent in the entire NSCLC patient population, but were frequent in the NSCLC subgroup of female, non-smoker, adenocarcinoma patients. There was intratumor heterogeneity of ALK rearrangement in primary carcinomas and at metastatic sites.

Citation Format: Jun Chen, Hongyu Liu, Ying Li, Yongwen Li, Tong Yang, Sen Wei, Jing Wang, Qinghua Zhou. Clinical significance of EML4-ALK fusion gene and association with EGFR and KRAS gene mutations in 208 Chinese patients with non-small cell lung cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 5591. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-5591


In the scientific literature, studies on the feasibility of using selenium nanoparticles in the development of pharmaceuticals are widely presented. The positive effects of selenium in the treatment of cancer, hepatitis C, thyroid disease, cardiovascular disease, asthma, and other diseases have been studied. This scientific paper presents the results of studies on the effect of selenium nanoparticles on the development of a cancerous tumor. The experiment was carried out on five groups of white laboratory mice, with group 1 (positive control) being healthy individuals; group 2 (negative control) - individuals infected with EPNT-5 cancer cells; group 3 (experiment) - infected individuals that received an injection of selenium nanoparticles; group 4 (experiment) - infected individuals that received an injection of selenium nanoparticles and immunoglobulin imG; group 5 (experiment) - infected individuals who received an injection of immunoglobulin imG. During the experiment, the development of the disease and the behavior of laboratory animals were monitored. After 4 weeks, blood was taken for a general and biochemical test, and the masses of the internal organs of laboratory mice were also examined.


Semiconductor device manufacturing is one of the cleanest manufacturing operations that can be found in the world today. It has to be that way; a particle on a wafer today can kill an entire device, which raises the costs, and therefore reduces the profits, of the manufacturing company in two ways: it must produce extra wafers to make up for the lost die, and it has less product to sell. In today's state-of-the-art fab, everything is filtered to the lowest pore size available. This practice is fairly easy for gases because a gas molecule is very small compared to the pore size of the filter. Filtering liquids, especially photochemicals such as photoresists and BARCs, can be much harder because the molecules that form the polymers used to manufacture the photochemicals are approaching the filter pore size. As a result, filters may plug up, filtration rates may drop, pressure drops across the filter may increase, or a filter may degrade. These conditions can then cause polymer shearing, microbubble formation, gel particle formation, and BARC chemical changes to occur before the BARC reaches the wafer. To investigate these possible interactions, an Entegris(R) IntelliGen(R) pump was installed on a TEL Mk8TM track to see if the filtration process would have an effect on the BARC chemistry and coating defects. Various BARC chemicals such as DUV112 and DUV42P were pumped through various filter media having a variety of pore sizes at different filtration rates to investigate the interaction between the dispense process and the filtration process. The IntelliGen2 pump has the capability to filter the BARC independent of the dispense process. By using a designed experiment to look at various parameters such as dispense rate, filtration rate, and dispense volume, the effects of the complete pump system can be learned, and appropriate conditions can be applied to yield the cleanest BARC coating process. Results indicate that filtration rate and filter pore size play a dramatic role in the defect density on a coated wafer with the actual dispense properties such as dispense wafer speed and dispense time playing a lesser role.


Background As known, glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis is the most common form of osteoporosis. The most pressing issue remains the prevention of osteoporosis in patients with prolonged therapy by glucocorticosteroid. The role of Zoledronic acid (ZOL) for glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis in patients with inflammatory joints disease remains debatable. Objectives we aimed to evaluate the effects of Zoledronic acid for glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis in patients with inflammatory joints disease. Methods 20 patients (mean age – 57,20±4,46 years) with inflammatory joints disease were enrolled. All patients were women and received glucocorticoid during more than 5 years (mean duration of treatment – 3,20±0,46 years). Women had osteoporosis documented by either a lumbar spine T-score ≤–2.5 or lumbar spine T-score ≤–1.5 with 2 mild or 1 moderate prevalent vertebral fracture. 10 (50%) patients received the standard treatment and Zoledronic acid 5 mg infusion once a year (study group), while 20 (50%) (control group) – received only the standard treatment for 3 years. Visual Analog Scale (VAS), bone mineral density (BMD) were performed in all patients at baseline and at the end of the study. Results VAS and BMD did not differ significantly between the groups. After 3 years of treatment with Zoledronic acid the incidence of symptoms, including arthralgia were significantly lower in the study in comparison of control groups (P = 0.05). The increase in BMD was greater in the study group than in the control group (P = 0.01). During 3 years among patients in the control group 30% have compression fractures in compare with study group (P = 0.05). Conclusions Zoledronic acid is effective and safe for patients with glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis in patients with inflammatory joints disease. Its administration may provide benefits for the reduction of hospitalizations and mortality in its population. Disclosure of Interest None Declared


In this paper, we continue the efforts of the Computational Theory of Intelligence (CTI) by extending concepts to include computational processes in terms of Genetic Algorithms (GA's) and Turing Machines (TM's). Active, Passive, and Hybrid Computational Intelligence processes are also introduced and discussed. We consider the ramifications of the assumptions of CTI with regard to the qualities of reproduction and virility. Applications to Biology, Computer Science and Cyber Security are also discussed.


The aim of this study was to determine the purpose of the implementation of the Health BPJS policy on Puskemas services (type of care) in Medan. Statistical a nalys e s in this study were published: validity and reliability test, classic assumption test, factor analysis, SEM analysis, model suitability test, hypothesis test using software SmartPLS ver 3.2.1. R-Square value of 0.642 calculated the model is strong enough, means that the variable implementation of the health policy BPJS (X) which is able to be approved by the service variable Puskesmas (Y) of 64.20%. The results on the path coefficient appear as variables implementing BPJS health policies (X) have a positive relationship with the service variable Puskesmas (Y) with a coefficient value of 0.802 and show a significant influence on Puskesmas service (Y) with a significant p-value of 0,000. The p-value is smaller than the alpha value (5%). Associated with variables that implement health BPJS (X) policies affect positively and significant to the Puskesmas (Y) service variable.


Rationale Current ACCP guidelines (Chest 2007) recommend usage of segment count and perfusion scintigraphy method for calculating post-operative FEV1 (poFEV1) in patients undergoing lob/pneumonectomy, respectively. In this trial, functional respiratory imaging (FRI) is evaluated for calculating poFEV1. Methods 23 pts (14 analyzed/9 dropouts) were included. All patients underwent spirometry, perfusion scanning, and HRCT scans at RV and TLC. Post-surgery tests were acquired after recovery and before starting adjuvant therapy. FRI analysis provided regional expansion (EXP) and resistance (iRaw, before and after virtual resection). poFEV1 was predicted using ACCP formulas and (for FRI): Results Conclusions In contrast with ACCP, FRI predicted and measured poFEV1 are not significantly different. RMSE of FRI method is 43% smaller than ACCP, and is lower than the minimally important changes in FEV1 (323 ml, Respiratory Medicine 2013). Also, the slope of the linear fit from the FRI prediction is very close to 1, indicating that the model is very well predicting reality. FRI seems to be a better tool to predict poFEV1 as compared to ACCP. This study was funded by IWT.


ABSTRACT The huge reserves of heavy oil in Alberta are found in a variety of complex reservoirs. Recovery, excluding mining, will require application of some form of in situ recovery method, primarily in the better reservoirs. The proper selection of an in situ method, applicable to the various reservoir types, requires a basic understanding of reservoir description and the engineering aspect of the reservoirs. In Part 1 of this paper, reservoir description in the Cold Lake heavy-oil deposits is discussed under three headings: 1) Rock Properties, 2) Fluid Saturation, 3) Reservoir Geometry. Based on these parameters, five selected reservoir types are discussed and compared. Part 2 considers the application of the reservoir description in evaluating in situ methods. The significance of the reservoir parameters is discussed in general terms and related to the four most important in situ recovery mechanisms: steam stimulation, steam drive, combustion and solvent. The reservoir description is then used as the basis of comparison of the recovery mechanisms for each of the five Cold Lake reservoir types described in Part 1.


We report preliminary experiments on the ternary-liquid mixture, methyl ethyl ketone (MEK)+water (W)+secondary butyl alcohol (sBA)--a promising system for the realization of the quadruple critical point (QCP). The unusual tunnel-shaped phase diagram shown by this system is characterized and visualized by us in the form of a prismatic phase diagram. Light-scattering experiments reveal that (MEK+W+sBA) shows near three-dimensional-Ising type of critical behavior near the lower critical solution temperatures, with the susceptibility exponent (gamma) in the range of 1.217< or =gamma< or =1.246. The correlation length amplitudes (xio) and the critical exponent (nu) of the correlation length (xi) are in the ranges of 3.536< or =xio < or =4.611 A and 0.619< or =nu< or =0.633, respectively. An analysis in terms of the effective susceptibility exponent (gammaeff) shows that the critical behavior is of the Ising type for MEK concentrations in the ranges of 0.1000< or =X< or =0.1250 and X> or =0.3000. But, for the intermediate range of 0.1750< or =X<0.3000, the system shows a tendency towards mean-field type of critical behavior. The advantages of the system (MEK+W+sBA) over the system (3-methylpyridine+water+heavy water+potassium Iodide) for the realization of a QCP are outlined.


Baguio's creation defies simple classification given the singular nature of its historical generation. Its unique political and cultural role has set it apart from other colonial towns in the Philippines. The year 1901 was a year of destruction and savagery as American troops waged a relentless offensive against Filipino revolutionaries. For the new colonial government, 1901 was also a year of creation and new conquest. As the Philippine-American War raged, the new colonists started to build the mountain road to Baguio. This paper aims to present how the Americans, at the height of a war, exerted its colonial power and secured resources for the creation of a mountain resort intended for insular officials and military troops. This paper shall also present how the creation of Baguio fit into a much larger colonial scheme. From the vantage of the military, it could have served as an American heartland in case of a lowland rebellion. Moreover, its bracing climate and its salubrious environment was ideal for troops renewing their strength and thus reduced the expense of transporting them to the U.S. More significantly, however, Baguio's proximity to the Benguet gold district proved extremely fortuitous, further enhancing its merits as a hill station. By building the Benguet (Kennon) road to Baguio, the Americans also brought themselves closer to the famed Igorot gold mines that the Spanish colonists so coveted. Baguio's location, however, also attracted its own ruin. In December 1941, the rest and recreation resort of the U.S. military camp at Camp John Hay in Baguio became the first target of the Japanese Imperial Army in the Philippines. This bombing raid, only five hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, signaled the beginning of World War II in the Pacific. Four years later, the presence of Japanese Headquarters in Baguio made the city an obvious target for the US Air Corps. Between January and March 1945, successive raids battered the city.


New York, New York Left ventricular shape and function were studied in 12 normal subjects, 18 patients with pressure overloading secondary to isolated aortic stenosis and 20 patients with volume overloading due to aortic regurgitation. End-diastolic volumes were mildly increased in aortic stenosis but greatly increased in aortic regurgitation. Average ejection fractions were normal in aortic stenosis but depressed in aortic regurgitation. Ventricular shape (eccentricity), normal (elongated) in nearly all patients with aortic stenosis, showed in diastole various degrees of abnormal roundness in patients with aortic regurgitation. As ventricular function declined in aortic regurgitation, the ventricles also became more round in systole. After valve surgery, clinical results were generally better in patients with aortic stenosis than in patients with aortic regurgitation. Among the latter, changes in eccentricity and ejection fraction were the best predictors of surgical outcome. It is postulated that chronic volume loading, as exemplified by aortic regurgitation, may induce basic alterations in architecture and fiber alignment of the left ventricular wall. Such changes may exert significant influence on the clinical course of these patients.


Hells (Lsh) is a lymphoid-specific presumptive helicase with highest expression in lymphoid precursor cells. Other members of the helicase family participate in maintenance of genome stability, DNA repair, and transcriptional control. Here we report the structure and chromosomal location of the Hells gene. The open reading frame of the murine Hells gene spans at least 26.6 kb of chromosomal DNA and is composed of 18 exons. The genomic structure of the seven helicase domains closely resembles that of mammalian Rad54, a gene whose product appears to be involved in recombination and double-strand break repair. The human homologue, the HELLS gene, has a mRNA expression pattern that is similar to murine Hells expression. Low-stringency hybridization in a Southern analysis reveals homologous Hells genes in a variety of species including Saccharomyces cerevisiae. FISH analysis maps the murine Hells gene to region C3-D1 on chromosome 19. The human homologue maps to a region of synteny on chromosome 10q23-q24, a breakpoint region frequently involved in human leukemia.


A Fe-Fe₃O₄/rGO nanocomposite with heterostructure has been successfully synthesized by a highyield, low-cost, and easily operated room-temperature reduction method. The novel Fe-Fe₃O₄/rGO composite exhibits an excellent activity for the degradation of Orange II under visible light by the Photo-Fenton process, which is 92.06% after 180 minutes. Moreover, magnetic analysis indicated that the prepared Fe-Fe₃O₄/rGO composite possesses ferromagnetic properties, which enable it to be magnetically separated for recycling purposes.


Abstract The GC-MS analyses of the essential oils of inflorescence of Phlomis pungens Willd. (Lamiaceae), collected from Galalti, Altiagach and Nakhchivan of Azerbaijan, led to the identification of 2 monoterpenes, 44 sesquiterpenes, 1 diterpene and 4 aliphatic acids constituents accounting for over 93.9, 94.1 and 95.2% of the total oils. In the same way the GC-MS analyses of the essential oils of leaves collected from three localities led to the identification of 2 monoterpenes, 37 sesquiterpenes, 1 diterpene and 4 aliphatic acid constituents, too which responsible for over 90.3, 92.4 and 94.8% of the total oils. Non surprisingly, the main constituents of inflorescence and leaves oil were sesquiterpenes (mainly non-oxygenated) and aliphatic acids which these findings are consistent with previous studies on Phlomis genus. Quantitative and qualitative differences were found among essential oils of inflorescence and leaves of the plants collected from different localities of Azerbaijan.


The abilities to perceive, learn, and use generalities, similarities, classes, i.e., semantic memory (SM), is central to cognition. Machine learning (ML), neural network, and AI research has been primarily driven by tasks requiring such abilities. However, another central facet of cognition, single-trial formation of permanent memories of experiences, i.e., episodic memory (EM), has had relatively little focus. Only recently has EM-like functionality been added to Deep Learning (DL) models, e.g., Neural Turing Machine, Memory Networks. However, in these cases: a) EM is implemented as a separate module, which entails substantial data movement (and so, time and power) between the DL net itself and EM; and b) individual items are stored localistically within the EM, precluding realizing the exponential representational efficiency of distributed over localist coding. We describe Sparsey, an unsupervised, hierarchical, spatial/spatiotemporal associative memory model differing fundamentally from mainstream ML models, most crucially, in its use of sparse distributed representations (SDRs), or, cell assemblies, which admits an extremely efficient, single-trial learning algorithm that maps input similarity into code space similarity (measured as intersection). SDRs of individual inputs are stored in superposition and because similarity is preserved, the patterns of intersections over the assigned codes reflect the similarity, i.e., statistical, structure, of all orders, not simply pairwise, over the inputs. Thus, SM, i.e., a generative model, is built as a computationally free side effect of the act of storing episodic memory traces of individual inputs, either spatial patterns or sequences. We report initial results on MNIST and on the Weizmann video event recognition benchmarks. While we have not yet attained SOTA class accuracy, learning takes only minutes on a single CPU.


Fast multidimensional convolution can be performed naively in quadratic time and can often be performed more efficiently via the Fourier transform; however, when the dimensionality is large, these algorithms become more challenging. A method is proposed for performing exact hypercube convolution in sub-quadratic time. The method outperforms FFTPACK, called via numpy, and FFTW, called via pyfftw) for hypercube convolution. Embeddings in hypercubes can be paired with sub-quadratic hypercube convolution method to construct sub-quadratic algorithms for variants of vector convolution.


In this paper a dynamic programming algorithm for simultaneous speech segmentation and phoneme recognition is presented. Given a sequence of samples of an unknown speech pattern and a library of phonemes, this algorithm finds the best phonological match and, with a backtracking step, identifies the phoneme boundaries. This approach is different from a traditional two step process whereby first the phoneme boundaries are determined locally and then speech recognition is performed. Its advantage over the two step process is that incorrect phoneme boundaries due to slurring or sudden changes in the speech are reduced. Unlike other dynamic programming algorithms, it does not lend itself to systolic wavefront processing, hence an alternate parallel algorithm is presented.


The paper is intended as a contribution to historical materialism. The authors are not interested in any historical-philosophical, still less in exegetical, problems. They believe that this intellectual tradition is relevant for understanding the social (civilizational, cultural) transformations ongoing contemporarily and for coping with practical problems to which these transformations give rise. Among the most important changes there are those labeled as "globalization" and the rise and development of "knowledge society" and "information civilization." If one adopts this stance, one should admit that the problems of space and culture (which have been much overlooked in the Marxist tradition) deserve special attention. Discussing the ways these problems could be tackled in historical materialism, the authors use the ideas of Leszek Nowak (non-Marxian historical materialism) and Immanuel Wallerstein (world-system theory).


Abstract

How to effectually price a rent-to-own option embedded a barrier level? This question is an important issue in financial market. For the purpose, we use the boundary integral method of PDE to derive a closed-form approximate solution of the rent-to-own option embedded a barrier level, where the tenant has the right to buy a specified rental house during the duration of contract. This study finds several characteristics through a sequence of numerical analyses and provides an available method for pricing rent-to-own options taking housing contracts with a barrier level as an example. This paper is original research in pricing a rent-to-own option using a boundary integral method and provides a reference to financial market about the valuation of a rent-to-own option embedded a barrier level well.

JEL classification numbers: C02, G13.
Keywords: Rent-to-own option, Boundary integral method, Green's function.


Abstract The mature seeds of durian (Durio zibethinus L.) are recalcitrant, with the cotyledons storing both starch (amylose, 78% dry weight) and some protein (7%), but having few triglyceride reserves (<1%). Reserve accumulation occurs during the latter third of the 110-d seed developmental period prior to fruit shed. The storage proteins of durian seeds consist of two immunologically related unglycosylated albumins, light and heavy zibethinin (20.2, 21.4 kDa), that account for 37–46% of the total protein during development. Light zibethinin is a single polypeptide, most likely having internal sulphydryl linkages, whereas heavy zibethenin is composed of two sulphydryl-linked subunits. The zibethinins are deposited in swellings of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) which then either expand or coalesce to form protein storage vacuoles. This mode of protein body formation in durian varies from both the ER–Golgi complex–vesicle–vacuole pathway characteristic of many dicotyledonous seeds and the direct ER to protein storage vacuole pathway involved in deposition of certain prolamins in cereal endosperm cells. Protein storage vacuoles in durian seed storage parenchyma never become fully filled, but contain only diffuse peripheral clumps of zibethinin protein. There is a 15% loss in starch, a precipitous loss of total protein, and a concomitant loss of the zibethinin storage proteins during the 5 d prior to fruit shed, suggesting that both reserve mobilization and germination has begun.


The authors have observed experimentally that during electron cyclotron heating the electron longitudinal temperature drops as the perpendicular temperature increases. An RF source of 2.45 GHz and 1.0 kW was used. When an additional RF source (lower hybrid wave) of 30 MHz and 0.35 kW was introduced, it heated the plasma via the lower hybrid resonance at r=5.0 cm without, however, destroying the anisotropy in the temperature. The experiment was carried out in a linear mirror machine with a low-density ( approximately 1010 cm-3) weakly-ionized (<1.0%) plasma.