Abstract Spessartine-garnet quartzites (coticule) are now widely recognized as extremely useful marker horizons throughout the Appalachian-Caledonian Orogen. In many instances, they appear to be of early Ordovician age. They reflect a syn-sedimentary, volcanic exhalative origin and in many areas, e.g. the Leinster region in southeast Ireland, they are intimately associated with, inter alia, base metal mineralization and with tourmalinite. However, though the metamorphic coticule is common, the pre-metamorphic coticule precursor has proved difficult to recognize. Manganiferous ironstone rocks of coticule aspect are a distinctive feature in parts of the Manx Group exposed along the west coast of the Isle of Man. Though they lack any trace of the characteristic manganese garnet, perhaps reflecting a relatively low metamorphic grade, they do bear a strong morphological resemblance in outcrop to the typical coticule lithology of the Ribband Group in southeast Ireland. In both places, tourmaline-rich rocks occur nearby. On the Isle of Man, a major tourmalinite occurrence is linked to an important shear zone. In briefly reviewing the field occurrence, petrography and chemistry of the manganiferous ironstone beds, and by comparison with coticule elsewhere, the possibility that these ironstones are a coticule precursor or a coticule facies variant is introduced. That a lithology now termed coticule might be a significant component in the Manx Group ('Slates') was noted no less than 70 years ago. Any recognition of coticule rock would have an important bearing on the understanding of the stratigraphy, metamorphism and mineralization of the Manx Group.


A stochastic multi-armed bandit problem with side information on the similarity and dissimilarity across different arms is considered. The action space of the problem can be represented by a unit interval graph (UIG) where each node represents an arm and the presence (absence) of an edge between two nodes indicates similarity (dissimilarity) between their mean rewards. Two settings of complete and partial side information based on whether the UIG is fully revealed are studied and a general two-step learning structure consisting of an offline reduction of the action space and online aggregation of reward observations from similar arms is proposed to fully exploit the topological structure of the side information. In both cases, the computation efficiency and the order optimality of the proposed learning policies in terms of both the size of the action space and the time length are established.


Two cases of stage IV acinar carcinoma of the pancreas are presented. The two patients were treated with several lines of chemotherapies active against colon cancer. At last-line, both patients received panitumumab monotherapy. We describe the tumour response to the different therapies. Our findings demonstrate that panitumumab produces objective responses when used as third-line treatment in the therapy of patients with acinar cell carcinoma of the pancreas. Thus, we propose the consideration of the use of panitumumab in early lines of treatment.


Clinical and laboratory data on patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) in Beijing, China, remain extremely limited. In this study, we summarized the clinical characteristics of patients with COVID‐19 from a designated hospital in Beijing. In total, 55 patients with laboratory‐confirmed SARS‐CoV‐2 infection in Beijing 302 Hospital were enrolled in this study. Demographic data, symptoms, comorbidities, laboratory values, treatments, and clinical outcomes were all collected and retrospectively analyzed. A total of 15 (27.3%) patients had severe symptoms, the mean age was 44.0 years (interquartile range [IQR], 34.0‐56.0), and the median incubation period was 7.5 days (IQR, 5.0‐11.8). A total of 26 (47.3%) patients had exposure history in Wuhan of less than 2 weeks, whereas 20 (36.4%) patients were associated with familial clusters. Also, eighteen (32.7%) patients had underlying comorbidities including hypertension. The most common symptom of illness was fever (45; 81.8%); 51 (92.7%) patients had abnormal findings on chest computed tomography. Laboratory findings showed that neutrophil count, percentage of lymphocyte, percentage of eosinophil, eosinophil count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, albumin, and serum ferritin are potential risk factors for patients with a poor prognosis. A total of 26 patients (47.3%) were still hospitalized, whereas 29 (52.7%) patients had been discharged. Compared with patients in Wuhan, China, the symptoms of patients in Beijing are relatively mild. Older age, more comorbidities, and more abnormal prominent laboratory markers were associated with a severe condition. On the basis of antiviral drugs, it is observed that antibiotics treatment, appropriate dosage of corticosteroid, and gamma globulin therapy significantly improve patients' outcomes. Early identification and timely medical treatment are important to reduce the severity of patients with COVID‐19.


Capabilities Approach and Animal Bioethics • Michele Panzera Animals and our Emotions. How to Approach the Study of an Interspecific Community? • Sabrina Tonutti Advocacy and Animal Rights • Kim Stallwood The Emotional Lives of Animals: a Christian Perspective • Alma Massaro – Gianfranco Nicora Animalia: Ontology and Ethics in Weak Antispeciesism • Leonardo Caffo The Contemporary Debate on Experimentation • Susanna Penco – Rosagemma Ciliberti Non-human Animals and Genetic Engineering • Arianna Ferrari The Relationship between Humans and Other Animals in European Animal Welfare Legislation • Paola Sobbrio Human's Best Friends? • Matteo Andreozzi elations R LA T IO N S. B E Y O N D A N T H R O P O C EN T R IS M 1 • 2 01 3 R


BACKGROUND
Gastric carcinomas have been classified into the differentiated and undifferentiated type, on the basis of its tendency to gland formation. As a result of recent advances in mucin histochemistry, mucin phenotypes of gastric carcinomas have been investigated. However, no consensus on the evaluation of the grade of malignancy of early gastric carcinomas regarding mucin phenotype expression has developed. To address this issue, we evaluated the lymph node metastasis rate and proliferative activity of a submucosal invasive (sm) gastric carcinoma according to mucin phenotype expression.

METHODS
In resected surgical specimens from 108 patients with a single sm gastric carcinoma, the association between clinicopathological factors and lymph node metastasis was evaluated. In all cases, immunohistochemical staining with human gastric mucin, Muc-2, and CD10 and mucin histochemical staining by paradoxical concanavalin A staining were performed. The mucin phenotypes were classified into gastric-type (G-type), intestinal-type (I-type), mixed gastric and intestinal type (M-type), or a lack of mucin (LOM), using these as markers. To evaluate the cell proliferative activity of the gastric carcinoma, proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) staining was also performed.

RESULTS
The rate of lymph node metastasis was higher for G-type sm carcinomas. A multivariate analysis showed that the G-type and lymphatic invasion were independent factors of lymph node metastasis. However, the PCNA-labeling index (PCNA-LI) was low for G-type carcinomas irrespective of the presence or absence of lymph node metastasis. In I-type carcinomas, PCNA-LI was significantly higher in cases that were positive for lymph node metastasis than in negative cases.

CONCLUSION
G-type and lymphatic invasion are independent risk factors for lymph node metastasis of an sm gastric carcinoma, and proliferative activity may be a significant parameter for lymph node metastasis in cases with I-type carcinomas.


The European Green Deal is the European Union's latest expression of its ambition to become a world leader in addressing climate change. This study seeks to examine how Latvia – an EU member state – deals with the change brought about by a changing climate and the EU's response to it. Informed by a strategic narrative approach, this study demonstrates that Latvia – originally hesitant to address climate change – has rebranded and repositioned itself as an active promoter of carbon neutrality, meanwhile constructing an identity narrative of Latvia as a pragmatic and reliable EU partner by embracing an image of a North European country at the government level. The narrative seeks to appeal to a Nordic life-style and resonates with levels of social welfare that Latvia aspires to achieve. By exploring how EU member states construct identity narratives around the EU's institutional constraints, this study adds the dimension of narratives and perceptions to processes of Europeanisation.


Chip multithreaded computing is exposed to the dual challenges of increasing system complexity and error sensitivity. It is critical to develop effective solutions that achieve better error tolerance without inducing performance degradation. In this paper, we propose a new error-tolerant memory design based on a unique computing phenomenon referred to as the dynamic multithreading redundancy (DMR). The proposed technique exploits the interplay between the concurrent threads for runtime error control. We also present two DMR enhancements, immediate write-back and self-recovery, to address the error accumulation effect. A multithreaded register file was implemented to demonstrate the proposed DMR technique. Simulation results on the SPEC CPU2000 benchmarks demonstrate significant overhead reduction in performance and energy efficiency related to error recovery. In addition, the proposed technique features good scalability with respect to the instruction-level and thread-level parallelism for next-generation processor design, where the soft error problem is expected to get worse due to technology scaling and architecture-affecting trends.


Abstract Key, diagnoses, data on distribution and host plants are given for 13 species of Campylomma Reuter, 1878 (Heteroptera: Miridae: Phylinae) known from Russia, Caucasus, Central Asia and adjacent countries including two new ones: Campylomma linnavuorii sp. nov. (Tajikistan) and Campylomma attilioi sp. nov. (North Africa and Middle East). Illustrations of the male genitalia, photographs of the dorsal habitus and head are provided for all discussed species. The lectotype of Campylomma angustulum Reuter, 1904 is designated and the taxonomic concept of this species is reassessed. The following new records are reported for the first time: Campylomma lindbergi Hoberlandt, 1953 (Afghanistan), C. nigronasutum Reuter, 1878 (Turkey), C. simillimum Jakovlev, 1882 (Northern part of European Russia), and C. viticis Lindberg, 1948 (Iran).


Department of Lymphoma, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute, Beijing, China Introduction: Although most patients diagnosed with extranodal nasal‐ type natural killer/T‐cell lymphoma (NKTCL) have localized disease, the survival outcomes of radiotherapy alone or conventional doxorubicin‐based chemotherapy were considered unsatisfactory. This study is retrospectively to investigate the effects and potential survival benefits of L‐asparaginase‐based chemotherapy and locoregional radiotherapy as first‐line treatments in early‐staged NKTCL patients. Methods: From April 2001 to July 2016, a total of 196 pts diagnosed as stage I/II NKTCL were treated in Peking University Cancer Hospital. All patients were confirmed by immunohistochemistry staining according to WHO Classification criteria. Median age was 43 years (range 12 to 81) with 74.0% males (n = 145). 84 (42.9%) cases presented with B symptoms, and 17 (8.72%) cases with IPI score ≥ 2.Among of them, 58 (29.6%) received chemotherapy alone, and 138 (70.4%) received chemotherapy combined with concurrent or sequential locoregional radiotherapy (dosage from 50 to 56Gy) as first‐line treatment. Chemo‐ regimens included CHOP‐like, CHOP‐L (CHOP + L‐asparaginase), COEP‐L (etoposide instead of doxorubicin), LOP (vincristine, prednisolone, L‐asparaginase) or GDP‐L (gemcitabine, cisplatin, dexamethasone +L‐asparaginase). Results: After a median follow‐up period of 109 months (range, 4‐ 187 months), clinical outcomes of 173 evaluable patients were analyzed. For patients received chemotherapy alone, the complete response (CR) rates of CHOP‐like, CHOP‐L and COEP‐L regimen were 21.1%, 66.7%, 60%, respectively; the overall response rates (ORR) were 47.4%, 86.7%, 60%, respectively. For patients received radiochemotherapy, the CR rates of CHOP‐like + RT, CHOP‐L + RT and COEP‐ L + RT were 61.9%, 91.1%, 86.9%, respectively; the ORR were 66.7%, 93.3%, 96.7%, respectively.The one‐year progression‐free survival (PFS) was only 54.7% in CHOP‐like group, while the median PFS in CHOP‐L and COEP‐L groups had not reached. The PFS were significantly superior in CHOP‐L and COEP‐L groups as compared to CHOP‐like group (p < 0.001). But the PFS showed no apparent difference between CHOP‐L and COEP‐L groups (p = 0.644). For patients received chemotherapy alone, the one‐year PFS was only 57.1%. However, with the addition of locoregional radiotherapy, the one‐year PFS improved to 88.8% (p = 0.002). Conclusions: The data from Peking University Cancer Hospital showed L‐asparaginase and locoregional radiotherapy are two essential treatment choices in early‐stage NKTCL patients. CHOP‐L or COEP‐L plus radiotherapy are both promising first‐line treatment strategies in this subset of NKTCL.


In this article, we present our hypotheses regarding the divergence in the development of common-property regimes between Eastern and Western Europe. The latter area developed formalized arrangements for the collective exploitation of natural resources particularly early, and it was chosen not only by farmers, but also in the cities – by craftsmen – to deal with the economic and social problems during the late medieval and early modern times. In the East the development of such institutions for collective action started – we believe – much later, due to a number of factors. Whereas in the West population growth and urbanization occurred together with a speedy commercialization of the economy, putting pressure on natural resources and hence leading to an increasing demand by peasants to formalize the collective use of their land, the peasants east of the Elbe River lacked the agency to demand such change in the governance regime of their land. They were limited in their behaviour by the strictures of the second serfdom, which was accompanied by lesser urbanization and commercialization. In this article, we offer some explanatory frameworks to understand and study this long-term development – or lack thereof – of institutions for collective action across the European continent.


Tiapride was prescribed for 10 elderly patients with severe behavioural disorders : agitation, disturbed conduct, and agressiveness at the limits of dementia. The dosage was 300 mg orally per day in three divided doses, and treatment was maintained for 30 days. Excellent results were obtained in 8 cases, and 17 of these patients were able to resume normal activities outside the hospital. There was no effect in the other 2 patients. The product was very well-tolerated and in particular there were no sedative manifestations affecting sleep or altertness.


B7 Introduction and Purpose: Oral cancers represent 2.3% of US cancers and account for a sixth of the worldwide cancer burden. Oral cancer is directly linked to tobacco exposure and has a poor prognosis. 5- and 10-year survival rates are 59% and 48%, respectively, and have not changed dramatically over the past three decades. 20%-40% of patients will develop a locoregional recurrence or a second primary tumor. Since current treatments are relatively ineffective for long-term survival, it appears germane to develop and evaluate novel strategies for prevention of secondary tumors and inhibition of primary tumor development.. An animal model that mimics the major characteristics of human oral cancer is the hamster cheek pouch (HCP); a model has been used to evaluate chemoprevention by natural and synthetic food products. In the current study, we examined the ability of topically applied LBR to inhibit the progression of established premalignant lesions into malignant oral cancer. This method of administration mimics a delivery system that is amenable to humans for prevention of primary tumors or recurrence.
 >Methods: Lyophilized black raspberries (LBR) were suspended to a 10% concentration in a 1:1 mixture of saliva substitute and 2% methylcellulose. Premalignant lesions were established by application of 0.2% 7,12-dimethylbenz(a)anthracene (DMBA) in DMSO to both HCPs for 6 weeks at which time premalignant lesions were present. One cheek pouch of each hamster was treated topically with 0.1 ml of LBR suspension, 3x per week, for six weeks; the contralateral pouch of the same animal was treated with 0.1 ml of the vehicle. Animals were sacrificed and examined at 12 weeks to determine the effect of berries on tumor incidence and multiplicity. To evaluate the effect of LBR on early premalignant oral lesions, treated and control cheek pouches containing carcinogen-induced lesions were harvested at 0, 2, 4, 7, 10, and 14 days after berry administration. mRNA was isolated from HCP and relative expression of cancer-relevant genes was determined using real-time PCR.
 >Results: Treatment of hamsters with the carcinogen or berries did not affect weight gain or food consumption. LBR administration inhibited tumor formation by 37% and 42% in separate animal experiments using the same lot of berries. After 7 days of LBR treatment of HCP, Bax, Ccnb2, Cdk2na(p13-ARF), Cdk2na(p16), and p53 showed increasing expression, whereas Cdk2 and Bcl2, showed decreasing expression; the expression of c-myc and Vegf remained constant.
 >Conclusions: These experiments provide evidence of prevention of oral cancer by a natural food product under conditions that mimic those present in former tobacco users and an assessment of the ability to modulate gene expression and inhibit oral cancer development when given in a delivery mode that is suitable for administration to the human oral mucosa.
 >Acknowledgements. Grant support: Prevent Cancer Foundation and OSU Comprehensive Cancer Center, MCC Program.
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To explore the efficacy of using a far infrared thermal camera with a haptic display to assist blind people in identifying humans, we performed experiments with a prototype device on five low-vision (functionally blind) subjects. Infrared allows for easy detection of human shape due to typically high contrast in temperatures from a person against their surrounding environment. Infrared cameras can be made small and inexpensive with uncooled microbolometer technology. Our study showed a great willingness by the blind subjects to use such a device after a short training session and both successful and unsuccessful operation. Future work will further develop the technology and undertake more expansive testing


Library and information science (LIS) education in Pakistan requires students to undergo in-depth supervised practicum placement as part of the course requirements. The purpose of this study was to explore the supervision styles of LIS practicum supervisors, and to examine how these supervision styles are perceived by the practicum students. Forty-three semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with practising librarians ( n = 21) who supervise practicums in their respective libraries, and LIS students ( n = 22) who had completed their practicums. Data were collected across 13 higher education LIS institutions in Pakistan. Constructivist Grounded theory was used as a method of data collection and analysis. Findings revealed four distinct styles of practicum supervision: (1) directed, (2) developmental, (3) independent, and (4) reflective. While LIS practicum supervisors practise a combination of these supervision styles, one style was found dominant among others. Also discovered was a mismatch of supervision style preferences between supervisors and students, which can negatively impact the promotion of learning and consequent development of professionally competent graduate librarians. Findings of this study warrant the need for more research to explore impacts of supervision on professional practice.


Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the most frequent malignant and aggressive primary brain tumor, is characterized by genetically unstable heterogeneous cells, diffused growth pattern, microvascular proliferation, and resistance to chemotherapy. Extensive investigations are being carried out to identify the molecular origin of resistance to chemo- and radio-therapy in GBM and find novel targets for therapy to improve overall survival rate. Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) has been shown to be a safe drug with limited short and long-term side effects, and fumaric acid esters (FAEs), including DMF, present both anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory activity in different cell types and tissues. DMF has also anti-tumoral and neuroprotective effects and so it could be repurposed in the treatment of this invasive tumor in the future. Here, we have reviewed DMF pharmacokinetics and different mechanisms by which DMF could have therapeutic effects on GBM.


Provision of adequate housing for mankind has been an age old problem for many governments. Many households cannot afford the huge capital commitment to build a house and therefore are left with no alternative than to adopt the piecemeal/ incremental construction. A challenge of piecemeal construction is that, structures are often exposed to varying weather conditions especially in instances where no roofing material has been put in place. It is thus expected that, much importance is placed on walling materials that can stand the test of time. This research assesses and identifies the most suitable walling materials for housing in piecemeal construction. The study analyses the suitability of four walling materials namely sandcrete blocks, bricks, hydraform and landcrete for incremental housing in Ghana.Primary data was gathered using questionnaires and interviews whiles existing literature on the topic provided the needed secondary data for the study. The sample includes 50 workers each from the informal and formal sectors and individual developers and companies. The research also examined 3 unroofed structures constructed with different walling materials that have been exposed to the same climatic conditions for between 14 to 16 years in Kumasi, Ghana. The results show that; (a) Most Ghanaians finance their housing projects themselves partly due to the difficulty in accessing alternative sources of finance. (b) Sandcrete blocks although comparatively expensive are the most widely used material for piecemeal construction in Ghana.(c) Most respondents had no knowledge of Hydraform as an alternate construction material to sandcrete blocks.Construction in piecemeal has come to stay and it is important for developers to ensure that walling materials for construction can withstand weather conditions and ensure value for money.


OBJECTIVE
This study researched cardiorespiratory effects and cost-effectiveness of early extubation in patients following coronary artery bypass grafting.

METHODS
We retrospectively examined the character of 86 (38 preoperative, 12 intraoperative, 36 postoperative) variables in 78 patients after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) at our hospital. The patients were classified into three groups according to the time of extubation: Group A (less than 8 hours), Group B (8 to 24 hours) and Group C (24 hours or more).

RESULTS
There were 43 patients in Group A (55%), 27 patients in Group B (35%), and 8 patients in Group C (10%). Univariate preoperative analysis revealed several differences between Groups A and B: 15 variables were found to reach statistical significance. Stepwise logistic regression analysis implicated decreased forced expiratory volume rate in the first second (FEV1.0%), postoperative cardiac index (CI) after admission to the intensive care unit (ICU) and usage of postoperative temporary pace-makers as predictors of late extubation. Also, there was a statistical significance in usage of diuretics within the first day (15.8+/-11.6 vs 28.8+/-22.6 mg; p = 0.044) and in the ICU days (3.6+/-0.8 vs 4.2+/-1.0; p = 0.004) between early and late extubation groups.

CONCLUSIONS
Early extubation within 8 hours into the ICU stay was accomplished in 55% of the patients in this study. We speculate that the benefits of early extubation contain improvement of cardiac function, reduction in respiratory infection and complications, and cost saving as the result of diminished ICU admission. Also, we have shown that decreased FEV1.0%, decreased CI and the usage of a postoperative temporary pacemaker were independent predictors of prolonged intubation in our study.


Transient high speed gas flow up a gravel stemming column was investigated. The results provide an upper bound to the extent of gas pressure propagation in the first several seconds following an underground nuclear test. Application of these results to the LASL BANDICOOT event demonstrate that gas flow through the gravel column cannot explain that vent.


what difference has the internet made to conspiracy theories? In the wake of recent episodes in the United States—from birtherism to the "big lie," from QAnon to the COVID-19 "infodemic," and from the "great replacement" to the "great reset"—the default assumption is that the internet has created an unprecedented spread of conspiracy theories. It seems commonsense that the internet in general and social media in particular have increased the volume and virality of conspiracy theories, leading to fears that polarized conspiracism threatens to undermine trust in impartial media, objective science, and even democracy itself. But is that actually the case? If some commentators have raised the alarm that the internet has changed everything in the realm of conspiracism, others have adopted the contrarian position that the internet has changed nothing. Neither claim is ultimately convincing. What is clear is the necessity of asking different kinds of research questions to understand how the internet has shaped the form and function, the production and consumption, and the causes and consequences of conspiracy narratives.1


Background:Vancomycin is a frequently used antibiotic for the treatment of methicillin-resistant gram-positive bacteria. Newer guidelines suggest dosing vancomycin to achieve a trough concentration between 15 and 20 mg/L. Achieving this higher concentration requires greater doses of the antibiotic. Even when using a nomogram, these higher doses often result in excessively elevated trough levels and increase the risk for vancomycin-associated acute kidney injury. We undertook this quality improvement project to better understand the reasons contributing to a toxic vancomycin trough level. Methods:Over a 9-month period, we examined all vancomycin trough concentrations greater than 25 mg/L to determine their cause. Results:Fifty-four elevated levels were identified in 38 patients. In 47 instances, adequate data were available for analysis. We could classify the etiology of the excessive levels into 4 groups: (1) incorrect timing of the blood collection, (2) improper dosing, (3) changing renal function and (4) abnormal pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics. Conclusions:Educational programs could correct the first 3 problems. However, only more frequent therapeutic drug monitoring or use of another, less toxic, antibiotic would remedy the last one.


This thesis adopts the perspectives of media and cultural studies to interrogate 'cultural identity' and 'cultural hybridity' through an analysis of the influence of South Korean popular culture on contemporary Thai media production and audience reception. It posits that the deeply hybridized nature of Thai media, especially television drama, can be taken as a starting point to interrogate questions of Thai cultural identity in relation to authenticity, diversity and hybridity. Although Thai media have long been influenced by different cultures, typically from Western and East Asian countries, the official television remakes of foreign materials started as late as 2012 after the influx of South Korean pop culture, or the so-called 'Korean Wave', into the country. Hence to explore the features and definitions of Thai culture and to reveal the appropriation of foreign culture, as well as negotiation and reception in Thai contexts, three first remakes of South Korean television dramas in Thai versions, namely The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince, Autumn in my Heart and Full House, are studied through three approaches: textual analysis, interviews with Thai remake directors and focus groups with Thai audiences. The findings from this analysis reveal that none of above-mentioned remakes fully follows the form and content of the original versions. Each has been revised, yet with a differing degree of cultural adaptation based on the directors' own experiences and understandings of their national culture. In terms of audience reception, although Thai audiences in this study also hold a variety of differing views on Thai culture, they share similar opinions regarding Thai remakes of Korean dramas. To them, television is more of a local than a global medium. No matter how much they appreciate Korean television drama, if it is transformed into a Thai version and is called a Thai product, Thai audiences will expect to see what they believe to be Thai culture rather than other cultures. Thai remakes with a greater degree of localisation prove preferable to remakes that offer less adaptation. Disagreement regarding Thai cultural interpretation from Thai producers and audiences provides evidence that the definition of Thai culture is subjective, variable, and sometimes inseparable from other cultures. Furthermore, it suggests that a definition of 'true' or 'authentic' Thai culture is difficult to achieve. Despite this, however, Thai culture, by law, is something Thai people feel obligated to preserve. Therefore in order to search for a consensus on the definition of Thai culture or what to preserve, instead of describing Thai culture with tangible criteria and characteristics, this thesis alternatively suggests it is necessary to take into account the dimensions of subjectivity, flexibility and hybridity in viewing Thai culture.


ABSTRACT A family of inositol hexakisphosphate kinases (IP6Ks) catalyzes the production of inositol pyrophosphate IP7 (5-diphosphoinositolpentakisphosphate) which is known to modulate various biological events such as cell growth. While targeting IP6K1 in various cancer cells has been well reported to control cancer cell motility and invasiveness, the role of host IP6K1 in tumor progression remains unknown. By using a syngeneic MC38 murine mouse colon carcinoma model, here we examined how host IP6K1 in the tumor microenvironment influences tumor growth. In IP6K1 knockout (KO) mice, the growth of MC38 tumor cells was markedly accelerated and host survival was significantly shortened compared with wild-type (WT). Our flow cytometric analysis revealed that tumors grown in IP6K1 KO mice had lower immune suppressive myeloid cells and M1 polarized macrophages. Notably, infiltration of both antigen-presenting dendritic cells and CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes into the tumor tissues was remarkably abrogated in IP6K1 KO condition. These studies suggest that enhanced tumor growth in IP6K1 KO mice resulted from reduced anti-tumor immunity due to disturbed immune cell actions in the tumor microenvironment. In conclusion, we demonstrate that host IP6K1 acts as a tumor suppressor, most likely by fine-tuning diverse tumor-immune cell interactions, which might have implications for improving the host response against cancer progression.


Mic oradiography and backscattered electron (BSE) imaging are techniques used to investigate the morphologic , histometric, and mineral content changes at the bone/biomaterials interface. Investigators have shown that the superimposition of multiple tissue layers can cause errors with both the morphologic observations and the histometric measurements of bone. The objective of this study was to document errors in the bone mineral content measurements associated with overlapping tissues. Using a digital image analysis system , microradiographic and BSE images from canine cortical and cancellous bone were captured and analyzed. The results of this study showed that microradiography had more projection effect errors associated with the morphology and histometry. The BSE technique provided substantially better resolution of the bone morphology and showed significantly more (p$0.05) bone surface perimeter than the microradiographic technique. Contrary to the literature, the BSE images did not show less bone area than the microradiographic images of the identical regions. This discrepancy was explained by projection effect errors and over penetration artifacts of the X-ray beam. Unique to this study was the documentation that microradiography has inherent projection effect errors associated with mineral content measurements. The SSE images had significantly more (p$0 .05) graylevels present than the microradiographic images. Due to the limited tissue overlap, the BSE images provide excellent morphologic resolution, accurate bone histometry and the ability to accurately measure the mineral content of cortical and cancellous bone at a microscopic level.


Incisional hernia affects all age groups and involve both male and females. It can be defined as hernia which protrudes through surgical wound which was healed incompletely. Management of incisional hernia requires operative intervention most of the times it may laparoscopic repair with synthetic non-absorbable mesh or open anatomical repair.In partnership with Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College AVBR Hospital (Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences) Sawangi (Meghe), Wardha, Maharashtra, this work was performed in the Department of General Surgery at Datta Meghe Medical College and Shalinitai Meghe Hospital and Research Centre ,Hingna , Nagpur. Over a period of 1 year 59 cases of diagnosed incisional hernia were included.33 males and 26 females were included. The mean age was years. Most common cause of Incisional Hernia (IH)  post-operative wound infection(49.15%). In maximum cases history suggestive of emergency surgery(86.44%).Type of incision suggests maximum cases in midline incision (55.93%) followed by Pffanensteils incision (28.81%).Open mesh hernioplasty was the common procedure (57.62%) ,Lap mesh hernioplasty done in (25.42%)cases and (16.94%) cases were treated by suture repair. There was no evidence of recurrence in laparoscopic repair as open mesh hernioplasty has a recurrence rate of 03.57% and suture repair cases showed 33.33% recurrence.Incisional Hernia and its occurrence can be taken care of by implementing all standard aseptic precautions thereby avoiding chances of infection at the time of primary surgery wherein thorough peritoneal wash, proper techniques of wound closure and use of appropriate antibiotics is recommended. Management of IH with Laparoscopic mesh repair has its own advantage in terms of less hospital stay, negligible rate of recurrence though it is not cost effective at present scenario.


The purpose of this paper is to advance our understanding of the roles that service employees' responses to high job demands play in service innovation, by examining the effects that service employees' motivational orientation in self-regulation (regulatory focus) and their emotional labour strategy have on their creativity.,By integrating regulatory focus theory and emotion regulation theory, the authors developed a theoretical model to propose the links between promotion and prevention regulatory foci, different emotional labour strategies and frontline employee creativity. The research hypotheses were tested using hierarchical linear model based on data collected from 304 frontline employees and 72 supervisors in 51 restaurants.,The results showed that promotion focus was positively related to frontline employee creativity while prevention focus was negatively related to it. In addition, both emotional labour strategies (deep acting and surface acting) mediated the effect of promotion focus on frontline employee creativity. Surface acting mediated the effect of prevention focus on frontline employee creativity.,This is the first research conducted to explain, from a self-regulatory perspective, the influence that is exerted on service employees' service innovation by their responses to high job demands. The findings identify the effects that service employees' promotion focus or prevention focus in self-regulation have on their creativity, and the data unravel the role of emotional labour strategy as the mediating mechanism that explains the influence of regulatory focus on service employee creativity. On the basis of the findings, managerial directions are offered with regard to managing service employees' regulatory focus and emotional labour, with a view to enhancing the creativity and innovation within a service organisation.


Galaxy clusters are known to harbor magnetic field, however, the extent of the influence of the intra-cluster magnetic field on the cluster member galaxies remains an unresolved question. Intra-cluster magnetic field can be observed as density contact discontinuity formed by cool and dense plasma running into hot ambient plasma, and this exist in the central region of a merging galaxy cluster Abell 3376. Here we report on unambiguous evidence of an interaction between the relativistic electrons and intra-cluster magnetic fields from MeerKAT observations of a radio galaxy MRC0600-399, having bent jets. Contrary to typical bent jets, the jet shows a 90 degrees bend at the contact discontinuity and the collimated jet further extends over 100 kpc from the bend point. The spectral index flattens downstream of the bend point, indicating cosmic-ray re-acceleration. High-resolution numerical simulations reveal that the ordered magnetic field along the discontinuity, at which the intra-cluster magnetic field can be compressed and amplified, plays a significant role to the change in the direction of the jet propagation. The overall morphology of the bent jet bears remarkable similarities with the simulations, which greatly strengthens our understanding of the interaction between relativistic electrons and intra-cluster magnetic field.


This paper presents a CPW-fed antenna for WLAN application. This Antenna satisfies the licensed frequency band (2.4 to 2.480GHz) having return loss lower than −10 dB. This antenna is designed on a substrate with dielectric constant εr = 4.4. With a size 27.8mm×27mm×1.6mm the antenna operates for WLAN application. The effects of shape, length, size, and location of feeding point, substrate and their thickness have been evaluated. And obtained 2D radiation patterns with elevation, VSWR, Return loss, gain and antenna efficiency. The simulation results of this antenna are analyzed by using Method of Moment (MoM) from IE3D software.


Human gait refers to a daily motion that represents not only mobility, but it can also be used to identify the walker by either human observers or computers. Recent studies reveal that gait even conveys information about the walker's emotion. Individuals in different emotion states may show different gait patterns. The mapping between various emotions and gait patterns provides a new source for automated emotion recognition. Compared to traditional emotion detection biometrics, such as facial expression, speech and physiological parameters, gait is remotely observable, more difficult to imitate, and requires less cooperation from the subject. These advantages make gait a promising source for emotion detection. This article reviews current research on gait-based emotion detection, particularly on how gait parameters can be affected by different emotion states and how the emotion states can be recognized through distinct gait patterns. We focus on the detailed methods and techniques applied in the whole process of emotion recognition: data collection, preprocessing, and classification. At last, we discuss possible future developments of efficient and effective gait-based emotion recognition using the state of the art techniques on intelligent computation and big data.


Randomized smoothing, which was recently proved to be a certified defensive technique, has received considerable attention due to its scalability to large datasets and neural networks. However, several important questions still remain unanswered in the existing frameworks, such as (i) whether Gaussian mechanism is an optimal choice for certifying `2-normed robustness, and (ii) whether randomized smoothing can certify `∞-normed robustness (on high-dimensional datasets like ImageNet). To answer these questions, we introduce a unified and selfcontained framework to study randomized smoothing-based certified defenses, where we mainly focus on the two most popular norms in adversarial machine learning, i.e., `2 and `∞ norm. We answer the above two questions by first demonstrating that Gaussian mechanism and Exponential mechanism are the (near) optimal options to certify the `2 and `∞-normed robustness. We further show that the largest `∞ radius certified by randomized smoothing is upper bounded by O(1/ √ d), where d is the dimensionality of the data. This theoretical finding suggests that certifying `∞-normed robustness by randomized smoothing may not be scalable to high-dimensional data. The veracity of our framework and analysis is verified by extensive evaluations on CIFAR10 and ImageNet.


Abstract I motivate and develop a novel account of the epistemic assessability of suspension as a development of my knowledge-first, virtue-epistemological research program. First, I extend an argument of Ernest Sosa's for the claim that evidentialism cannot adequately account for the epistemic assessability of suspension. This includes a kind of knowledge-first evidentialism of the sort advocated by Timothy Williamson. I agree with Sosa that the reasons why evidentialism fails motivate a virtue-epistemological approach, but argue that my knowledge-first account is preferable to his view. According to my account, rational belief is belief that manifests proper practical respect for what it takes to know. Beliefs are the only primary bearers of epistemic evaluation since they are the only candidates for knowledge. However, suspension can manifest a derivative kind of practical respect for what it takes to know. Thus, we can explain why the same sort of assessment is applicable to both belief and suspension (epistemic rationality), and why belief has a privileged claim to these properties. Lastly, I'll look at Sosa's and Williamson's treatments of Pyrrhonian skepticism, which treats a certain kind of suspension as the epistemically superior practice, and argue that my account provides a better anti-skeptical response than either of their approaches.


The microbiological and physico-chemical analyses of water samples obtained from the Orogodo River, Agbor, at point of industrial effluent discharge (Location 2) and at 100 m before (Location 1) and 100 m after (Location 3), were carried out using standard methods to determine the impact of the discharge on the water quality. While the temperature, conductivity, biological oxygen demand, and coliform counts increased from Stations 1 to 3 and pH, hardness, alkalinity and dissolved oxygen decreased from Stations 1 to 3, the solids (total, suspended and dissolved) and nitrates increased from Station 1 to 2 and decreased thereafter to Station 3 while heterotrophic bacterial counts increased from Station 1 to 2 and 3 and sulphate, which was equal for Stations 1 and 2, decreased in Station 3. Most of the parameters were above set limits by regulatory bodies. Thus, the industrial effluents contained much solids and oxygen-demanding materials with deleterious effects on the water quality, to the extent that it may not be potable without treatment. There is the paramount need to treat these industrial effluents prior to discharge into the River Orogodo.

 Key words: Water, analyses, effluent, treatment, discharge, potable.


The authors propose a novel method to program a robot, the assembly-plan-from-observation (APO) method. The APO method aims to build a system that has the capability of observing a human performing an assembly task, understanding the task based on the observation, and generating the robot program to achieve the same task. Assembly relations which serve as the basic representation of each assembly task are defined. It was verified that such assembly relations can be recovered from the observation of human assembly tasks, and that from such assembly relations, it is possible to generate robot motion commands to repeat the same assembly task. An APO system based on the assembly relations was demonstrated.<<ETX>>


Background: The effects of pyruvate on metabolic acidosis and oxidative metabolism had been studied. The ability to attenuate acidosis and improve oxidative system contribution are critical to the performance of team sport athletes during perform multiple high-intensity exercise over a limited period of time. This study aimed to investigate the impact of pyruvate supplementation on energy metabolism and metabolic acidosis during high-intensity interval exercise (HIIE), as well as to evaluate its role on repeated sprint exercise (RSE) performance.Methods: 14 well-trained male college soccer athletes (age: 20 ± 2 years, body fat: 13.11 ± 3.50 %) were studied in a randomized, double-blind, cross-over study. The participants ingested either 0.1g/kg/d of pyruvate or a placebo for 1-week. Metabolic acidosis was induced by HIIE after the supplement period, and RSE ability in the acidosis state was assessed. Venous blood pH, bicarbonate (HCO3-) and base excess (BE) were measured at baseline, pre-HIIE, post-HIIE, pre-RSE and post-RSE. Finger-stick blood lactate were collected at baseline, immediately after each bout of HIIE and 3, 5, 7, 10 min after HIIE. The energy systems contribution during HIIE were estimated. Results: Blood pH, HCO3- and BE were significantly lower than baseline after HIIE (p < 0.01) in both pyruvate group (PYR) and placebo group (PLA). Compared to PLA, the blood pH, HCO3- and BE were significantly improved in PYR at pre-HIIE (p < 0.01), post-HIIE (p < 0.01) and pre-RSE (p < 0.01). Furthermore, blood BE remained higher in PYR than PLA till end of RSE (p < 0.05). The contribution of oxidative system in the fourth bout of HIIE was higher in PYR than PLA (p < 0.05). In PLA, the ratio of total anaerobic energy contribution during HIIE was higher than that of aerobic (oxidative) (p < 0.01), but not in PYR (p > 0.05). Relative peak power (RPP) of first, fifth sprint, relative average power (RAP) of fifth sprint, the average of RPP and RAP during RSE were significantly improved in PYR compared with PLA (p < 0.05). While no significant changes in the PD% of each bout (p > 0.05) or average PD% (p > 0.05) were observed between the two groups. Conclusion: Pyruvate supplementation for 1-week enhances oxidative system energy contribution and buffers metabolic acidosis during HIIE, and improves RSE performance in acidosis.


The effect of upper respiratory tract diseases on phonation has been reviewed, but little is known about the influence of lower respiratory tract diseases. In particular, the effect of asthma as a reversible obstructive small-airway disease on phonatory variables is not yet clear. We conducted a cross-sectional controlled study to evaluate the quality of phonation in a group of 34 adults with untreated mild to severe persistent asthma who were seen at the Ghaem Hospital in Mashhad, Iran. Patients with sinusitis, gastroesophageal reflux disease, or primary laryngeal disease were ineligible for study participation. For comparison purposes, we identified a group of nonasthmatic, age- and sex-matched healthy controls. We evaluated eight voice parameters: basal voice frequency at the glottic level (F0), jitter, shimmer, breathiness, harshness, hoarseness, normalized noise energy (NNE), and S/Z ratio. These parameters were measured by a voice meter with Dr. Speech statistical software. We found that values for F0, jitter, and shimmer were very similar in the two groups, but there were statistically significant differences in values for harshness, hoarseness, NNE, S/Z ratio (all p 0.01), and breathiness (p = 0.015). Our findings suggest that lower airway diseases such as asthma can impair phonation, and we recommend future studies with larger populations to further explore this issue.


A detonating explosive interacting with a deformable structure is a highly transient and non-linear event. In field blast trials of military vehicles, a standard procedure is often followed in order to reduce the uncertainties and increase the quality of the test. If the explosive is buried in the ground, the state of the soil must meet specific demands. In the present work, laboratory experiments have been performed to characterize the behaviour of a soil material. Soil may be considered a three-phase medium, consisting of solid grains, water and air. Variations between the amounts of these phases affect the mechanical properties of the soil. The experimental outcome has formed input data to represent the soil behaviour included in a three-phase elastic-plastic cap model. This unified constitutive model for soil has been used for numerical simulations representing field blast trials, where the explosive load is interacting with a deformable structure. The blast trials included explosive buried at different depths in wet or dry sand. A dependence of the soil initial conditions can be shown, both in the past field trials along with the numerical simulations. Even though some deviations exist, the simulations showed in general acceptable agreement with the experimental results.


Abstract Metal oxide and phosphate nanoparticles (NPs) are ubiquitous in emerging applications, ranging from energy storage to catalysis. Cobalt-containing NPs are particularly important, where their widespread use raises questions about the relationship between composition, structure, and potential for environmental impacts. To address this gap, we investigated the effects of lithiated metal oxide and phosphate NPs on rainbow trout gill epithelial cells, a model for environmental exposure. Lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) NPs significantly reduced cell viability at10 µg/mL, while a 10-fold higher concentration of lithiated cobalt hydroxyphosphate (LCP) NPs was required to significantly reduce viability. Exposure to Li+ and Co2+ alone, at concentrations relevant to ion released from the NPs, did not reduce cell viability and minimally impacted reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels. Both LCO- and LCP-NPs were found within membrane-bound organelles. However, only LCP-NPs underwent rapid and complete dissolution in artificial lysosomal fluid. Unlike LCP-NPs, LCO-NPs significantly increased intracellular ROS, could be found within abnormal multilamellar bodies, and induced formation of intracellular vacuoles. Increased p53 gene expression, measured in individual cells, was observed at sub-toxic concentrations of both LCO- and LCP-NPs, implicating both in inductions of cellular damage and stress at concentrations approaching predicted environmental levels. Our results implicate the intact NP, not the dissolved ions, in the observed adverse effects and show that LCO-NPs significantly impact cell viability accompanied by increase in intracellular ROS and formation of organelles indicative of cell stress, while LCP-NPs have minimal adverse effects, possibly due to their rapid dissolution in acidic organelles.


It is gratifying to see the appearance of this outstanding text, a companion to the very popular and effective Controversy in Internal Medicine . As Shannon notes in the foreword to this very readable and incisive volume: "One mark of an educated man is his ability to differ without becoming angry, sarcastic, or discourteous. Such a man recognizes that in contingent matters there will also be a place for legitimate difference of opinion." The editors emphasize at the outset that the clinical anecdote—"in my experience"—has little current stature in the hierarchy of evidence. Therefore, they have urged contributors to present as much hard data as possible to substantiate their points of view. Thirty different topics of current controversy have been selected and differing points of view presented. Some of the subjects discussed by authors with opposing points of view include (1) bowel preparation for resection of the colon, (2) the rationale


The use of multiple radar configurations can overcome some of the geometrical limitations that exist when obtaining radar images of a target using inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) techniques. It is shown here how a particular bistatic configuration can produce three view angles and three ISAR images simultaneously. A new ISAR signal model is proposed and the applicability of employing existing monostatic ISAR techniques to bistatic configurations is analytically demonstrated. An analysis of the distortion introduced by the bistatic geometry to the ISAR image point spread function (PSF) is then carried out and the limits of the applicability of ISAR techniques (without the introduction of additional signal processing) are found and discussed. Simulations and proof of concept experimental data are also provided that support the theory.


ABTS (2,2'-azinobis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline)-6-sulfonic acid) oxidation to form its radical cation in the presence of H2O2 is frequently used as a test for determining the peroxidase activity of enzyme mimics. Detailed studies using salen-type Mn(III) complexes show that photochemical processes involving H2O2, ABTS, and the complex itself can lead to erroneous results. The capability of the complexes to act as •OH scavengers can be also relevant when the mechanism of their biological activity is considered.


Inverse semigroups provide a natural way to encode combinatorial data from geometric settings. Examples of this occur in both geometry and topology, where the data comes in the form of partial bijections that preserve the topology, and operator algebras, where the partial bijections encode *-subsemigroups of partial isometries of Hilbert space. In this thesis we explore the connections between these two pictures within the backdrop of coarse geometry. The first collection of results is concerned primarily with inverse semigroups and their C*-algebras. We give a construction of a six term sequence of C*-algebras connecting the semigroup C*-algebra to that of a naturally associated group C*-algebra. This result is a generalisation of the ideas of Pimsner and Voiculescu, who were concerned with computing K-theory groups associated to actions of groups. We outline how to connect this picture, via groupoids, to that of a partial translation algebra of Brodzki, Niblo andWright, and further consider applications of these sequences to computations of certain K-groups associated with group and semigroup C*-algebras. Secondly, we give an account of the coarse Baum-Connes conjecture associated to a uniformly discrete bounded geometry metric space and rephrase the conjecture in terms of groupoids and their C*-algebras that can naturally be associated to a metric space. We then consider the well known counterexamples to this conjecture, giving a unifying framework for their study in terms of groupoids and a new conjecture for metric spaces that we call the boundary coarse Baum-Connes conjecture. Generalising a result of Willett and Yu we prove this conjecture for certain classes of expanders including those of large girth by constructing a partial action of a discrete group on such spaces.


Twenty-three infants with simple transposition of the great arteries and intact ventricular septum were operated on from October 1983 to October 1986. The age at operation in 22 infants ranged from 2 to 21 days and in one was 35 days (mean 9.82 +/- 6.86 days). The infants were evaluated with cardiac catheterization at 1 to 27 days of age. Twenty-two infants had balloon atrial septostomy, and 22 received prostaglandin E1 infusion. The left ventricular diastolic wall thickness, assessed by M-mode echocardiograms, varied between 2.8 and 4 mm. There were two hospital deaths in this group of 23 infants (mortality 8.6%), and there were no late deaths. All surviving patients are doing well clinically. One patient had asymptomatic nonsustained ventricular tachycardia necessitating phenytoin. Postoperative echocardiographic assessment performed on 15 patients at 0.93 +/- 0.61 years of age and cardiac catheterization and angiographic studies on seven patients at 1.07 +/- 0.13 years after operation revealed excellent ventricular performance, good semilunar valve function, and mild gradient at the right ventricular outflow with a mean right ventricular pressure of 37.4 +/- 4.1 torr.


Defects are any departures from the ideal well-ordered structure. Defects in clays can be classified in three categories: those affecting the layers themselves (cis- or transvacancies, rotation of tetrahedra, localization of the isomorphous substitutions, etc.); those specific to the interlamellar space (position of the cations and, for example, of the water molecules); and stacking faults (including a change in the nature of stacked layers). X-ray studies of clays usually involve the analysis of powder diagrams generally perturbed by a partial orientation of the particles in the powder. The paper will present a general approach to the determination of defects in clays with an indirect method of analysis. The intensities and shapes of the diffraction bands are calculated for model structures and are fitted to the experimental pattern. In such an approach the powder orientation, the shape and sizes of the coherent domains, the various backgrounds and perturbations due to the apparatus are taken into account.


Five experiments are reported in which a perceptual interaction between simultaneous brief events was investigated. Subjects judged whether a briefly presented stimulus was flickering or not. Performance was much more error prone when a similar unattended stimulus was presented at a relatively remote position in the visual field, thus confirming previous findings. Interference was obtained for stimuli presented both peripherally and centrally in the visual field. The effect was not confined to large stimuli, but the larger the interfering stimulus the greater the effect it had. Events in the auditory modality interfered with judgements made in the visual modality. Possible mechanisms for the interaction are discussed.


Abstract A significant body of work on simulating the remote appearance of Earth-like exoplanets has been done over the last decade. The research is driven by the prospect of characterizing habitable planets beyond the Solar System in the near future. In this work, I present a method to produce the disk-integrated signature of planets that are described in their three-dimensional complexity, i.e. with both horizontal and vertical variations in the optical properties of their envelopes. The approach is based on Pre-conditioned Backward Monte Carlo integration of the vector Radiative Transport Equation and yields the full Stokes vector for outgoing reflected radiation. The method is demonstrated through selected examples inspired by published work at wavelengths from the visible to the near infrared and terrestrial prescriptions of both cloud and surface albedo maps. I explore the performance of the method in terms of computational time and accuracy. A clear strength of this approach is that its computational cost does not appear to be significantly affected by non-uniformities in the planet optical properties. Earth's simulated appearance is strongly dependent on wavelength; both brightness and polarization undergo diurnal variations arising from changes in the planet cover, but polarization yields a better insight into variations with phase angle. There is partial cancellation of the polarized signal from the northern and southern hemispheres so that the outgoing polarization vector lies preferentially either in the plane parallel or perpendicular to the planet scattering plane, also for non-uniform cloud and albedo properties and various levels of absorption within the atmosphere. The evaluation of circular polarization is challenging; a number of one-photon experiments of 109 or more is needed to resolve hemispherically integrated degrees of circular polarization of a few times 10−5. Last, I introduce brightness curves of Earth obtained with one of the Messenger cameras at three wavelengths (0.48, 0.56 and 0.63 μm) during a flyby in 2005. The light curves show distinct structure associated with the varying aspect of the Earth's visible disk (phases of 98–107°) as the planet undergoes a full 24 h rotation; the structure is reasonably well reproduced with model simulations.


Abstract The prevalence of stunting (low height-for-age) is a key indicator of long-term chronic undernutrition which reflects an anthropometric failure to reach linear growth potentials due to prolonged food deprivation and/or disease or illness during the early stage of life. The present study assesses the prevalence and socio-economic and demographic correlates of stunting among adolescents of the North-east India. This cross-sectional study was undertaken among 1,818 (830 boys; 988 girls) adolescents (aged 10-18 years) belonging to ethnically heterogeneous populations of Karbi Anglong district of Assam, using stratified random sampling method. Anthropometric measurements of height and weight were recorded using standard procedures. Socio-economic and demographic variables were obtained using pre-structured schedule. The age-sex specific L, M and S reference values were used to calculate height-for-age Z-score (HAZ). According to WHO, HAZ found to be <−2SD was classified as stunting. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, chi-square analyses, binary and step-wise multiple logistic regression analysis in SPSS (version, 17.0). The prevalence of stunting was observed to be significantly higher among boys (48.4%) than girls (37.8%) (p<0.01). Age-sex specific prevalence was found to be higher among boys than girls aged 14-18 years and contrary were observed among girls aged 10-14 years (p>0.05). The binary logistic regression analysis showed that several socio-economic and demographic variables were significantly associated with stunting (p<0.05). The step-wise multiple logistic regression analysis showed that sex (boys), age groups (13-15 years and 16-18 years), father's occupation (cultivator) and Rupees ≤5000 household income was significantly associated with stunting (p<0.05). Appropriate nutritional intervention programmes and dissemination of knowledge at population level related to undernutrition are necessary to ameliorate their nutritional status.


Increased receiver temperatures of solar tower power
plants are proposed to decrease the plants levelized electricity
costs (LEC) due to the utilization of supercritical steam power
plants and thus higher overall plant efficiency. Related to
elevated receiver temperatures preliminary concept studies
show a distinct LEC reduction potential of the internal direct
absorption receiver (IDAR), if it is compared to liquid in tube
(LIT) or beam down (BD) receiver types. The IDAR is
characterized by a downwards oriented aperture of a cylindrical
cavity, whose internal lateral area is illuminated from the
concentrator field and cooled by a liquid molten salt film. The
objective is the further efficiency enhancement, as well as the
identification and assessment of the technical critical aspects.
For this a detailed fluid mechanic and thermodynamic receiver
model of the novel receiver concept is developed to be able to
analyze the IDAR's operating performance at full size receiver
geometries. The model is used to analyze the open parameters
concerning the feasibility, functionality and performance of the
concept. Hence, different system management strategies are
examined and assessed, which lead to the proposal of a cost
optimized lead-concept. This concept involves a rotating
receiver system with inclined absorber walls. The spatial
arrangements of the absorber walls minimize thermal losses of
the receiver and enhance film stability. The centrifugal forces
acting on the liquid salt film are essential to realize the required
system criteria, which are related to the maximal molten salt
temperature, film stability and droplet ejection. Compared to
the state of the art at a 200 MWel power level the IDAR
concept can lead to a LEC reduction of up to 8 %. The cost
assumptions made for the assessment are quantified with
sensitivity analysis.


The exact solution of the two-dimensional (2-D) Poisson's equation has been analytically derived for fully-depleted (FD) SOI MOSFETs with Halos or pockets. The approach uses a three-zone Green's function solution technique. Explicit equations for the 2-D electrical potential as well as for both front- and back-side threshold voltages have been derived. The accuracy of the equations has been verified by a 2-D numerical device simulator. From the presented results, it can be concluded that the analytically derived model for the electric potential and threshold voltages are in good agreement with 2-D numerical simulation data.


To date, only two counties in the United States have filed for bankruptcy protection: Orange County, California (1994) and Greene County, Alabama (1996). This case study pertains only to Greene County. Although economic decline due to a loss of gaming revenues was involved, financial mismanagement was the primary causal factor for Greene County's fiscal stress. This research chronicles an impoverished rural Alabama county whose legislative and administrative decisions resulted in its fiscal stress and municipal bankruptcy. The Greene County bankruptcy case was closed in 1999 and the County continues to operate under a fiscal recovery plan. However, the County has yet to comply with the miscellaneous provisions of the bankruptcy plan that could improve the financial management of the County.


Golgi cisternal maturation has been visualized by fluorescence imaging of individual cisternae in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, but those experiments did not track passage of a secretory cargo. The expectation is that a secretory cargo will be continuously present within maturing cisternae as resident Golgi proteins arrive and depart. We tested this idea using a regulatable fluorescent secretory cargo that forms ER-localized aggregates, which dissociate into tetramers upon addition of a ligand. The solubilized tetramers rapidly exit the ER and then transit through early and late Golgi compartments before being secreted. Early Golgi cisternae form near the ER and become loaded with the secretory cargo. As predicted, cisternae contain the secretory cargo throughout the maturation process. An unexpected finding is that a burst of intra-Golgi recycling delivers additional secretory cargo molecules to cisternae during the early-to-late Golgi transition. This recycling requires the AP-1 adaptor, suggesting that AP-1 can recycle secretory cargo proteins as well as resident Golgi proteins.


The three-particle distribution function g(3) of the homogeneous hard-sphere fluid is studied by means of the test-particle method of Percus. We consider an inhomogeneous situation in which the position of two particles is fixed and the inhomogeneous density profile that arises is related to g(3). The profile is calculated via Monte Carlo (MC) simulation and density functional theory (DFT). The results of the simulation are compared with standard MC results for the homogeneous fluid in order to check the numerics. The results of DFT are compared with MC data, showing a significant improvement over the well-known superposition approximation of Kirkwood.


In this paper, through reverse engineering Twitter spammers' tastes (their preferred targets to spam), we aim at providing guidelines for building more effective social honeypots, and generating new insights to defend against social spammers. Specifically, we first perform a measurement study by deploying "benchmark" social honeypots on Twitter with diverse and fine-grained social behavior patterns to trap spammers. After five months' data collection, we make a deep analysis on how Twitter spammers find their targets. Based on the analysis, we evaluate our new guidelines for building effective social honeypots by implementing "advanced" honeypots. Particularly, within the same time period, using those advanced honeypots can trap spammers around 26 times faster than using "traditional" honeypots. In the second part of our study, we investigate new active collection approaches to complement the fundamentally passive procedure of using honeypots to slowly attract spammers. Our goal is that, given limited resources/time, instead of blindly crawling all possible (or randomly sampling) Twitter accounts at the first place (for later spammer analysis), we need a lightweight strategy to prioritize the active crawling/sampling of more likely spam accounts from the huge Twittersphere. Applying what we have learned about the tastes of spammers, we design two new, active and guided sampling approaches for collecting most likely spammer accounts during the crawling. According to our evaluation, our strategies could efficiently crawl/sample over 17,000 spam accounts within a short time with a considerably high "Hit Ratio", i.e., collecting 6 correct spam accounts in every 10 sampled accounts.


We assess the impact of recent large-scale anti-malaria efforts on child development in Zambia. Unlike the interventions examined in prior work on the human capital effects of malaria, the Zambian efforts led only to temporary reduction in exposure to the disease: in the most highly affected areas, parasite prevalence declined markedly in the two years after the beginning of the program scale-up, but resurged soon thereafter in highly endemic areas. Comparing cohorts born before and after the campaign launch, we find that children with initially low but resurgent malaria exposure perform more poorly on cognitive tests, and no better on anthropometric and executive functioning, than children from the same areas with high exposure in the first two years, and varying exposure after age 2. These findings are not explained by mortality or fertility selection, changes in parental investment, or crowd-out of other health services and behaviors. Instead, we hypothesize (and provide suggestive evidence) that the adverse results are driven by children's failure to form partial immunity to the disease in the first two years of life, making them more vulnerable to more severe illness when faced with resurgent disease. Our results suggest important tradeoffs between environment-driven early life developmental improvements and early life immunity development in models of human capital formation. They also suggest that sustained programmatic investment throughout childhood is critical to avoid potentially large adverse consequences of exposing non-immune populations to resurgent infectious diseases.


Read Codes, includes a variable identifying the specific condition causing immunosuppression (HIV, lymphoma, leukaemia, myeloma or other unspecified cellular immune deficiencies, stem cell transplant, transplant, orther)


Molecular biological systems can be seen as extremely complex mobile systems. The development of methods for modeling the structure and the motion of such systems is essential to better understand their physiochemical properties and biological functions. In recent years, many computer scientists in robotics and artificial intelligence have made significant contributions to modeling biological systems. Research expertise in planning, search, learning, evolutionary computation, constraint programming, and data mining is being used to make great progress on molecular motion, structure prediction, and design.


The new syntactic construction for defining processing loops of collections and series of values in the form of expressions is proposed as part of the development of new programming languages and the improvement of existing languages. Its essence is to use index enumerators as arguments to operators and collection processing functions. Such enumerator-arguments allow you to express operators and functions for processing a slice/entire collection. Translational semantics of enumerator-arguments for indexed and referenced collections is given. A number of examples of using enumerator-arguments for comparison with higher-order functions and list comprehension operators are shown. It is concluded that enumerator-arguments surpass second-order functions in conciseness and readability of the source code, and are not inferior to list comprehensions operators. Further research is aimed at constructing enumerator-arguments of binary trees nodes using a parameter that is expressed as a number. Its binary digits are link ranks and uniquely position a node in the tree.


Knowledge of forthcoming seasonal weather conditions may help end-users make complex farm decisions, such as purchasing livestock feed or pasture fertiliser. We assessed differences between seasonal pasture growth rates collected at two sites over a two year period with 30-90 day growth rate forecasts in southeastern Australia. We contrasted forecasts generated using either climate data from historical records, subsets of historical records that aligned with the current phase of the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), or from the global circulation model POAMA. Growth rate predictions in late winter/early spring (Aug-Sep) were least reliable overall, mainly because the long-term variation in forecast growth rates was low due to consistent cool, wet climes typical of north-western Tasmania. In contrast, our nonparametric statistical analyses indicated that early summer (Dec) forecasts from all methods and for all durations were most reliable, but this result was driven by larger long-term variation in this season. Across both sites and all months, the 30-90 d POAMA forecasts and the 60-90 d forecasts from the Historical and SOI methods were the most and least reliable, respectively. However, the better performing method varied considerably across months, indicating that multiple seasonal climate forecasts produced using different means should be used to forecast growth rates, depending on time of year of the forecast. At present, seasonal climate forecasts need to improve considerably to be of value in complex farm-decision making. As GCM forecasts advance in future, we expect that seasonal growth rates forecast using dynamical climate models will provide the lowest uncertainty, and may become more useful to growers and policy-makers than statistical methods developed using historical data.


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Switched Reluctance Motors (SRMs) show great advantages of structural simplicity and high reliability in aerial starter/generator applications. This paper introduces the implementation of a high speed switched reluctance starter/generator system. First, the paper proposes a modeling method for switched reluctance starter/generator system, including switched reluctance machine and power circuit. The simulation model is constructed based on magnetic finite element analysis and electromechanical dynamic equations, which considers magnetic saturation and electromechanical coupling. Then, the control parameters of the system are optimized according to maximum efficiency of the machine, and a novel control strategy is proposed to achieve generating operation of the system over a wide speed range. Finally, both simulation and experimental results are shown to validate the performance of the system.


Abstract : The Consortium for Oceanographic Activities for Students and Teachers (COAST), funded by the Office of Naval Research as part of the National Oceanographic Partnership Program is a working collaborative designed to effectively deliver oceanographic and coastal processes education to K-12 teachers. Each of the three, COAST partners offers expertise in different areas and through focused efforts at specific educational levels using the broadest spectrum of methodologies and materials for ocean science education, as well as a nationwide telecommunications infrastructure. The COAST partners include: Operation Pathfinder, represented by The University of Southern Mississippi, the National Sea Grant College Program, 29 State Sea Grant College Programs, and the National Marine Educators Association, is a national inservice program for elementary and middle school teachers of predominantly minority students and the development of curricular materials; the Ocean Voyagers Program, represented by St. Norbert College, is a middle school teacher preservice training system featuring integrated curriculum development, World Wide Web page construction and maintenance, and teachers-to-sea experiences; and STARBOARD (Stimulating Teachers About Resources for Broad Oceanographic Research Delivery), represented by Mississippi State University, is a high school level effort combining training with teacher-student research partnerships to leverage computational science tools for ocean science research.


In this paper, we present a collision detection algorithm for use in hapto-visual virtual environments containing highly- detailed, rigid, and dynamic models that are manipulated with probe-like haptic devices. Our approach is primarily motivated by the observation that highly detailed virtual models are typically represented by dense point clouds (specifically those that result from high-resolution laser-scans of real-life objects). By not viewing models as the sum of their constituent points, but rather dealing with the vertices individually, we present a novel collision detection algorithm that bounds each individual vertex with an axes-aligned bounding box that is arranged in a modified octree during a preprocessing phase. Collision detection at run-time is then performed via an involved query of the octree searching for the haptic probe's coordinates inside one of the aforementioned bounding boxes. Our algorithm runs in logarithmic time 0(log n) where n is the number of vertices that makes up the model(s). Our approach accommodates environments where objects undergo rotation and translation but on the condition that models remain rigid


When considering what makes us human, the development of the neocortex, the seat of our higher cognitive abilities, is of central importance. Throughout this complex developmental process, neocortical stem and progenitor cells (NSPCs) exert a priming role in determining neocortical tissue fate, through a series of cellular and molecular events. In this Perspective article, we address five questions of relevance for potentially human-specific aspects of NSPCs, (i) Are there human-specific NSPC subtypes? (ii) What is the functional significance of the known temporal differences in NSPC dynamics between human and other great apes? (iii) Are there functional interactions between the human-specific genes preferentially expressed in NSPCs? (iv) Do humans amplify certain metabolic pathways for NSPC proliferation? and finally (v) Have differences evolved during human evolution, notably between modern humans and Neandertals, that affect the performance of key genes operating in NSPCs? We discuss potential implications inherent to these questions, and suggest experimental approaches on how to answer them, hoping to provide incentives to further understand key issues of human cortical development.


The Serre or Green and Naghdi equations are fully-nonlinear and weakly dispersive and have a built-in as- sumption of irrotationality. However, like the standard Boussinesq equations, also Serre's equations are only valid for long waves in shallow waters. To allow applications in a greater range of h 0 /l, where h 0 and l represent, respectively, depth and wavelength characteristics, a new set of extended Serre equations, with additional terms of dispersive origin, is developed and tested in this work by comparisons with available experimental data. The equations are solved using an ef- ficient finite-difference method, which consistency and stability are analyzed by comparison with a closed-form solitary wave solution of the Serre equations. All cases of waves propagating in intermediate water depths illustrate the good per- formance of the extended Serre equations with additional terms of dispersive origin. It is shown that the computed results are in conformity with the analytical ones and test data. An equivalent form of the Boussinesq type equations, also with improved linear dispersion characteristics, is solved using a numerical procedure similar to that used to solve the extended Serre equations.


SWEET11 is a nodule-specific sucrose transporter of Medicago truncatula. Optimization of nitrogen fixation by rhizobia in legumes is a key area of research for sustainable agriculture. Symbiotic nitrogen fixation (SNF) occurs in specialized organs called nodules and depends on a steady supply of carbon to both plant and bacterial cells. Here we report the functional characterization of a nodule-specific Suc transporter, MtSWEET11 from Medicago truncatula. MtSWEET11 belongs to a clade of plant SWEET proteins that are capable of transporting Suc and play critical roles in pathogen susceptibility. When expressed in mammalian cells, MtSWEET11 transported sucrose (Suc) but not glucose (Glc). The MtSWEET11 gene was found to be expressed in infected root hair cells, and in the meristem, invasion zone, and vasculature of nodules. Expression of an MtSWEET11-GFP fusion protein in nodules resulted in green fluorescence associated with the plasma membrane of uninfected cells and infection thread and symbiosome membranes of infected cells. Two independent Tnt1-insertion sweet11 mutants were uncompromised in SNF. Therefore, although MtSWEET11 appears to be involved in Suc distribution within nodules, it is not crucial for SNF, probably because other Suc transporters can fulfill its role(s).


The COVID-19 pandemic has changed daily life; with more than 303 million infections contracted globally and over 43.4 Million people infected in India, the pandemic's toll continues to rise. At the end of 2020, the good news was on the horizon that COVID-19 vaccines had been developed. Growing attention has been paid recently all over the countries to control the COVID-19 pandemic. College students are one of the populations for vaccination as they are the pillars of the future. More understanding is needed in the aspects of willingness to take vaccination and factors influencing their vaccination intention, thereby contributing to developing and implementing effective strategies to promote COVID-19 vaccine uptake among this population. Background: All counties were facing an unprecedented public health challenge of the global pandemic The only way to block the spread of the disease is through vaccine administration, like how other vaccine-preventable diseases like smallpox, Poliomyelitis, and measles were controlled or even eradicated. Research also has proven evidence for the safety and scientific validity of COVID 19 vaccines based on trials that presented a promising effective way to control the transmission of the dreadful disease. Although older people are at more significant infection fatality risks for COVID-19, the Younger generation is more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection, and the transmission rate is higher comparatively than the older population, especially those engaged in activities with a higher risk for exposure. College students can be affected by campus outbreaks and the spread of COVID when they return home or go out for social activities. Therefore, students could be an ideal population to investigate their view on COVID-19 since they are well educated and open-minded and supposed to be the active spreader of the current pandemic Methods: An online or web literature review or articles review of 31 articles related to Covid-19 and Vaccination was conducted through Pub Med/Google Scholar and BMJ and NIH databases published during the years from January 2018 to April 2022. Results: The coronavirus pandemic has left a distinctive marking worldwide, and the changes are continuing in all aspects of human life, work, education, and recreational activities. Along with the other preventive strategies, Vaccination uptake is one of the essential preventive strategies to protect people from COVID-19 Infection. This literature review studied attitude and perception related to vaccination uptake, hesitancy, and influential factors related to COVID-19 vaccine administration and the theories related to Vaccination. Most college students intend to accept vaccinations despite differences in attitudes toward vaccination uptake globally. Psychologists believed that motives drove belief in conspiracy theories to understand one's environment, safe environment and maintain a positive self-image and social group. The first two were what people needed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The responsibility lies in government institutions where they should implement strategies to eliminate the concerns about the COVID-19 Vaccines. Conclusion: The article search found that in all the selected literature reviews, a significant proportion of college students have a positive attitude towards vaccine administration to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Correct knowledge of COVID-19, trust, good conceptions and social behaviour were important factors or determinants in students' willingness to vaccinate. The information on social media significantly impacted vaccine acceptance among college students. Government should strengthen creditability and convey trusted communication with the influence of social media, and improvement in vaccination services are critical in provoking college students to be vaccinated at the earliest Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, Attitude and perception towards Vaccination hesitancy, influencing factors, theories associated with COVID-19 vaccine, college students.

https://jnursingpr.com/article/vol2-iss2/3- COVID-19 and Vaccination.pdf


Children's spaces are widening — culturally and socially. Socially, children's spaces are more often multilocal. Culturally, they are enlarged through mobility in the globalized and virtual spaces in the media-saturated world. Children's times are also less confined by strict borderlines. The more flexible and individualized use of time in the world of work impacts on children's lives in families, day care, and school. The chapters of this volume each present particular temporal and spatial aspects of social change in childhood. The book is directed toward considering the impact of such change on children's welfare. As former boundaries between generations begin to blur and neo-liberal forces enter all realms of people's lives, it can no longer be taken for granted — as it was in former periods of modernity — that continued efforts to realize the childhood project will automatically guarantee the "best interest of the child." With respect to children's welfare in time and space, Flexible Childhood? discusses tensions between demands from the market economy, dynamics of rationalization and technology, and visions of a "good" childhood. Together with the above companion volume — Childhood, Generational Order and the Welfare State, also by the University Press of Southern Denmark — this book is the final result of COST Action A19, Children's Welfare, which has been supported by the European COST Framework.Show more Show less


The relationship between the distribution of sea surface temperature(SST) and dinoflagellate(Cochlodinium polykrikoides) bloom areas were studied. The SST data were derived from the infrared channels of AVHRR(Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) sensor on NOAA(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) 12 and 14 satellites during 1995-1998. The initial water temperature at C. polykrikoides bloom was about 21℃ at the coastal areas of the South Sea and along the shore of the East Sea of Korea during the summer season of 1995. The northern limit of red tides was coincident with that of 21℃ isothermal line in the East Sea. The red tides that initially bloomed at the coast of Pohang on September 21, 1995 moved to the coast of Uljin on September 26, 1995. The skipped appearance of the red tides in the areas between Pohang and Uljin was due to the East Korean Warm Current, which was moving offshore from Pohang to approach to Uljin. The cold water which was formed by tidal front in the western coast of the South Sea and by upwelling water from deep layer in the southeastern coast of the Korean peninsula played a role in blocking the spreading of red tides during summer season in 1997 and 1998. In conclusion, the distribution of red tides appeared to be dependent on the initial water temperature at red tides bloom. The SST at the red tides varied from 21℃ to 25℃ ; 21℃, 23℃, 24℃ and 24-25℃ in 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998, respectively.


Continuously reinforced concrete pavements (CRCP) traditionally have been allowed to crack naturally. This type of passive crack control has resulted in nonuniform crack spacing, which has led to premature distress development. Although the accuracy of the mean crack spacing prediction has greatly improved, punchout and spalling distresses on CRCP have been found to occur primarily at locations of small crack spacing, divided cracks, cluster cracks, and Y-cracks. The findings of previous research results on active crack control for CRCP in Texas are presented, along with the results from recent full-scale test sections constructed at the University of Illinois. The active crack control process used two systems: automated tape insertion and early entry saw cut. Active crack control was found to eliminate crack meandering, Y-cracks, divided cracks, and cluster cracking. The active crack control sections also propagated 90% of the cracks in the first month after construction, whereas the passive crack sections took 18 months to reach a similar number of cracks. Both active and passive cracks propagated only in the winter months. Crack opening measurements showed that active crack control resulted in slightly smaller movements relative to the natural crack sections. By using active crack control on CRCP, more uniform, straighter, and early-age transverse cracks result, which will increase the expected service life of CRCP.


Recognizing texts from camera images is a known hard problem because of the difficulties in text segmentation from the varied and complicated backgrounds. In this paper, we propose an algorithm that employs two novel filters and a basic component-based text detection framework. The framework uses the Niblack algorithm to threshold images and groups components into regions with commonly used geometry features. The intensity filter considers the overlap between the intensity histogram of a component and that of its adjoining area. For non-text regions, we have found that this overlap is large, and so we can prune out components with large values of this measure. The shape filter, on the other hand, deletes regions whose constituent components come from a same object, as most words consist of different characters. The proposed method is evaluated with the text locating database with 249 images used in the ICDAR2003 robust reading competition. The result shows that the algorithm is robust to both indoor images and outdoor images, even for the images of complex background, which usually is a hard factor to overcome for traditional component-based algorithms. In terms of performance statistics, we tested the algorithm on the ICDAR 2003 challenge experiment, and the algorithm achieves 66% precision rate (p), 46% recall rate (r), and 54% the combined rate ( f ), which is the best reported in the literature on this dataset.


Document analysis has been an underused approach to qualitative research. This approach can be valuable for various reasons. When used to analyze pre-existing texts, this method allows researchers to conduct studies they might otherwise not be able to complete. Some researchers may not have the resources or time needed to do field research. Although videoconferencing technology and other types of software can be used to reduce some of the obstacles qualitative researchers sometimes encounter, these tools are associated with various problems. Participants might be unskillful in using technology or may not be able to afford it. Conducting a document analysis can also reduce some of the ethical concerns associated with other qualitative methods. Since document analysis is a valuable research method, one would expect to find a wide variety of literature on this topic. Unfortunately, the literature on documentary research is scant. This paper is designed to close the gap in the literature on conducting a qualitative document analysis by focusing on the advantages and limitations of using documents as a source of data and providing strategies for selecting documents. It also offers reasons for using reflexive thematic analysis and includes a hypothetical example of how a researcher might conduct a document analysis.


theorization in favour of pragmatism. The constitutional bargain struck in 1848 that gave birth to the modern Swiss Confederation offers another Jon Elster, 'Arguing and bargaining in two constituent assemblies', University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, 2, 1999, p. 345. Alfred Kölz, Le origini della costituzione svizzera, Armando Dado Editore, Locarno, 1999. Constitution-making, constitutional conventions and conflict resolution 369


Bone resorption is a natural phenomenon and can occur due to old age, loss of teeth, prolonged denture wear or as a result of systemic conditions. For the replacement of teeth by fabrication of prosthesis or the use of implants, a minimum amount of bone density is required. Bone grafting is a method by which bone-deficient areas are built up, with the use of different materials, such as autografts, allografts, alloplasts and xenografts. Over recent times, the use of frozen bone matrix formulations and synthetic ceramics has been used in greater frequency. This article discusses the use of human bone material (Allografts), synthetic materials (Alloplasts) and blood components as successful grafting materials. Their use has shown an effective amount of bone formation and proliferation in the defective sites and proves to be a beneficial choice in bringing back lost bone.


In this research, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) spectroscopy was used for sensing copper ion by combining the SPR with nanocrystalline cellulose modified by hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide and graphene oxide composite (CTA-NCC/GO) thin film. The binding of Cu2+ on CTA-NCC/GO thin film was monitored by using SPR spectroscopy. By using the obtained SPR curve, detection range, binding affinity, sensitivity, full width at half maximum (FWHM), data accuracy (DA), and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) have been calculated. The results showed that the sensor detection range was 0.01 until 0.5 ppm, and that it reached a saturation value. Moreover, the resonance angle shift followed the Langmuir isotherm model with a binding affinity constant of 4.075 × 103 M-1. A high sensitivity of 3.271° ppm-1 also was obtained for low Cu2+ concentration ranged from 0.01 to 0.1 ppm. For the FWHM, the lowest value calculated was at 0.08 and 0.1 ppm, which is 3.35°. The DA of the SPR signal consecutively highest at 0.08 and 0.1 ppm. Besides that, the SNR of the SPR signal increases with the Cu2+ concentrations. The CTA-NCC/GO thin film morphological properties were also studied by using atomic force microscopy. The rms roughness values, which were obtained before and after in contact with Cu2+, were 3.51 nm and 2.46 nm, respectively.


In this paper, based on the "personnel training "and "introduction of talents" model, for the N system where reserve of talents starts at the same time in different regions under the same storage conditions with probability P0 during the designed storage period [0, T0], the spare parts number M for N identical systems are derived. On the base of the same principle, a new method is proposed to reserve the spare parts at the same intervals. Examples are given to compare the two methods and illuminate the availability. This electronic document is a "live" template.


Background and objective: A substantial number of medical students dislike   the clinical training of medical profession. The study in the risk factors in this area is limited. Our study aims to find the factors associated with the dislike  in  the clinical training   among the clinical year medical student (MS).  Methods: This is a retrospective case-control study at Srinagarind hospital, faculty of Medicine. Khon Kaen University. The case were medical students who reported they dislike the medical profession training (DMPT) and the controls were the ones who still satisfied. The first step was performing the survey, by a systematic sampling, to identify the cases and controls.  All cases were included while the controls, twice as big of the cases, selected by systematic sampling technique from  the list from the first survey.  Data obtained by the self-administered questionnaire. Result: The response rate of the first survey were 77.48 %( 203/262) and the prevalence of DMPT  were 12.32% (25/203). Data of the 25 cases and the 50 controls were obtained in the second step. With multiple logistic regression analysis we found the associated between  the DMPT and these factors :   no free time ,  the student himself who decided  to be the medical profession , the willingness to give their time for patients and the recognition of the burden in study of medical profession with the  adjusted odds ratio (95% confident interval) were 40.39 (1.03,1586.41), 0.03 (0.001,0.82), 0.06 (0.01,0.56)  and  0.09 (0.01 ,0.72)],  respectively. Conclusion: There were 12.3 % of the MS dissatisfied the training of medical profession. The risk factor was the feeling no time. The protective factors were: the willingness to sacrifice their own time for the benefit of patient, self- determination for entering the medical profession.